Aerovoyant

by P L Tavormina

Alphonse distracted himself by humming. Dredging up old memories. Anything to keep moving.

  When he was five, his mother wanted him to go with her on a trip to the eastern continent, Deasoir. He’d been once before, and there was something . . . a ritual with snakes? Something to do with one of the Deasoirian religions. He’d begged to stay home, and she’d gone alone.

  He tried to recall school lessons. Economics. Politics. Geology.

  The same forces that built Nasoir’s oil reserves made for poor soils up and down the coast. Only the capital city of Vastol, on the Turas River delta, had any decent fertile land. The landlocked agricultural belt ahead of him was essential to the continent. It fed Nasoirians and provided lumber for their homes.

  Alphonse unbuttoned his shirt and shuffled along on his makeshift crutch. At mid-day he sank against an oak, groaning and hot. Dozing, he dreamed of his grandfather, in prison years earlier when Alphonse was only six.

  * * *

  Alphonse, you’re too young to have come here. So impetuous—it will be your undoing. The guards must take you home.

  No! You’re sick. I want to be with you. He’d left school without permission and found his way to the detention center alone.

  The scent of machining oil from the bars pervaded the air, and a coughing fit shook Stavo’s frame. It’s no place for a child. Your mother needs you.

  Alphonse cried, a frightened childish noise. She should get you out.

  She will. Go home, be with Ivette. You are a very smart little boy and a very strong little boy, and we have years ahead. But I need rest. Go. You must take care of yourself too, Alphonse. Go.

  * * *

  Alphonse roused, and the memory spurred him on. He came to a stream and splashed water on his face, took his shirt off and dunked it, draping it around his neck.

  Eventually, oak and sycamore dotted the hills again. He didn’t remember stopping, but he must have, for then it was morning and he was flat on his back.

  Thick greenish pus smelling like sewage dribbled from his wound.

  I smell like miere. He was weaker too. Taking only the water skin and crutch, he stumbled onward. As first sun lit the distant foothills below, he saw what might be squat buildings, maybe a road.

  Around midmorning Alphonse heard an aut backfiring, the most welcome sound imaginable. His cheeks grew wet, and he staggered on. Some time that afternoon he reached the edge of town. He slapped against a door and blacked out.

  * * *

  Alphonse’s leg was numb, and the bedsheets smelled of antiseptic, crisp and sharp. A breeze blew in from windows on the far wall.

  Alphonse closed his eyes and released a long sigh before sinking into his pillow, into the mattress. He rubbed his face and ran his hands through his hair. I’m alive. I’m shaved and tended.

  A woman’s voice woke him sometime later. “Let’s see how you’re doing, mountain man.”

  He pushed to sit, more alert than before “How long have I been here?”

  “Three days.” The matronly nurse pulled the sheet down.

  His leg was no longer swollen. Instead, it seemed wasted, with a fat dressing from his hip to his knee. She removed the dressing and he took a sharp breath. His thigh was roughly half the size it should be. A port had been inserted at the site of the gash.

  “What did you do?”

  Another nurse bounced in holding a tray with tubing and syringes. She had freckles and curly red hair. “Ready for your treatment?”

  “What treatment? What’s going on?”

  The redhead laughed. “We’re on your side, honey.” She placed the tray on the table next to him. “I’m Cordelia. You might not remember that.”

  He pushed further back in the bed, up against the head rail.

  “It’s time for your injections.”

  “I don’t remember you. What are you doing to me?”

  The nurses exchanged a patient look. Cordelia said, “That’s the amnesion, honey. Doctor removed most of the muscle, and trust me, you don’t want to remember that. But today’s a big day. You only need the regeneron. We re-growing that tissue as fast as we can. Doctor cleared the amnesion and anestheton. You can have them if you like. I think you should.”

  These were city drugs. They’d taken his thigh muscle? His alarm grew. “I don’t want amnesion, Cordelia. I want to remember. This.” He wanted to bolt straight out the door. “Cordelia,” he repeated, more loudly, determined to keep her name.

  Her eyes danced, and she rubbed his forearm. “That’s fine. You’re going to be just fine. Just the anestheton and regeneron then.”

  She prepared the medicines while the heavier nurse swabbed down his thigh and the port. He looked back and forth between them—they tried to make idle talk with him, but he didn’t know these women. His thigh was gone?

  Cordelia laughed again. “Mountain man. We’re your friends. Imagine you’re back on that spire, not holding anything. We’re your harness.”

  Another wave of anxiety flooded him. “How do you know—”

  “You told us.”

  That didn’t help him feel better.

  “All right. Let’s start the anestheton.” Cordelia attached the tubing to the port in his thigh and smoothly injected the liquid. It was a cool pressure that spread outward and inward. He’d thought he had no feeling there, but the pressure was unmistakable. Then his leg was gone. Not numb, but gone.

  Cordelia detached the tubing and syringe and smiled again. “See? Not too bad. So. What about your name?”

  “Where am I?”

  She laughed. “All right. You’re in Collimais. Maybe you’ll remember this time.” She prodded his thigh with a pencil. “Feel anything?”

  He couldn’t. His leg was gone.

  “That’s good. Let’s grow that muscle.” She cocked her head. “Honey, this is your last chance for amnesion.”

  “It won’t hurt.”

  “Oh honey. It’ll hurt either way. The amnesion lets you forget how bad.”

  “But I’ve had anestheton.”

  “We’re growing a new muscle. Anestheton helps—but you still get pain. The amnesion lets you forget that part.”

  And this conversation. And anything he might say—his name, his background. Anything he’d said in those first days was already gone. “No.”

  “All right. On to regeneron.” Cordelia attached tubing to the port again. She took the second syringe and injected the contents.

  He didn’t feel anything. It wouldn’t be bad; he’d had anestheton. She disconnected the tubing from the port.

  A pinpoint of warmth took hold, spreading out and down, like drinking warm cocoa on a cold day. It didn’t hurt. After a minute, the sensation grew from warmth to heat. The heat quickly transformed into an itch. Slight, really. Not painful.

  The first nurse had returned. She and Cordelia stood on either side of the bed and each took one of his arms.

  “I can handle it.”

  The nurses exchanged a smile.

  The itch spread inward somehow and intensified. He wanted to scratch it away, it began to sear at the inside of his thigh, like a swarm of wasps, stinging him, pins and needles deep inside his leg, a thousand of them. He tried to sit, wanted to grab the port.

  “Hang on,” Cordelia said.

  He wanted to claw the skin away, scrape open his thigh, release the swarm, but the nurses had clamped his arms down. The pain grew, and he groaned.

  The nurses’ faces were stony, determined, and both had broken a sweat. “It’s going to burn, hon.”

  His femur shattered, like glass, a thousand toxins attacking bone, muscle, nerves, his leg fragmented, his skin dissolved, all his tissues were on fire, and he kicked downward with his good leg. His back arched. He tried to pull his arms free again, but the nurses were too strong.

  In a sing-song voice, Cor
delia said, “Almost over.”

  He wailed, kicked the sheets, and slammed his good foot against the bottom rail.

  Finally, the mad frenzy of wasps slowed, and gradually, the stinging ended. They were crawling again, trapped inside. He panted, sweaty-wet.

  The wasps were quiet. They were gone.

  He opened his eyes, still breathing hard.

  The first nurse propped him up by his shoulders and placed a new pillow underneath him. She took the damp one away. Cordelia dabbed a cloth at his hairline.

  “What the fierno was that?”

  “We’re growing a new muscle. See?”

  The depression in his thigh filled in as he watched.

  Miere.

  “The old one was rotten.”

  He stared at his leg. “Thank you, Cordelia.” After she left, he lay back into the fresh pillow and reached for the medical pad. He’d had a dose of antimicrobion, the surgery, some stitches, and these treatments.

  The accidents at the plants. Those people could be treated. Sometimes they were, but not often. What was the difference between their situation and his? It couldn’t be wealth, unless he’d said more about his family than he should have, which he hoped he hadn’t. The line workers deserved this level of care. Any sane person would agree. His mother had to agree.

  The next day Cordelia came in, set the tray on the table, crossed her arms, and smiled as though she had a secret.

  He pushed to sit. “What?”

  “You’re walking today. Put that muscle to work.” She tilted her head. “It doesn’t seem right without knowing your name.”

  Relief washed through him. “I’m . . . look, Cordelia, I’m nobody.”

  “Oh, come on now. Everybody’s somebody.”

  True, and he might’ve been a councilman. But he wasn’t, and he needed time away from all that to regroup. Time away from his mother and the past. “I mean it, I’m no one Cordelia, but my name’s Alphonse. Alphonse di Anton, from Masotin.”

  She perked up at his words, hair bouncing as she nodded. The smell of citrus floated from her. She filled in a line on the chart. “All right, Mr. di Anton. Let’s try a few steps.”

  She put an arm around him and lifted his leg over the side of the bed. He pulled himself off the rest of the way and fell onto her with a heavy grunt. She lowered her arm to his waist. “Take it slow. Try a step.”

  He held to her shoulders and lurched his right leg out. It felt like a log of clay. His foot landed with a thud. Dismayed, he stared at it.

  “That’s good, try the other leg.”

  He gripped her shoulder harder and lumbered the left leg forward, but his right knee buckled and she caught him.

  It was as though he’d never known how to walk.

  “Let’s take another.”

  In a stuttering mess, falling and lurching, Alphonse worked around the bed. Cordelia called it a good first try.

  The next day he took more steps with her help. Then he managed a few on his own, and a week into recovery he tottered up and down the hallway by himself, grinning the entire way. Back in the room, Cordelia was bathing his neighbor. “Doctor says your new muscle’s all there, Mr. di Anton. There’s just payment.”

  Payment. “I don’t know how to cover this.”

  “Maybe your family?” She wrote something on his neighbor’s chart.

  Even out here they’d know his mother’s name, his grandfather’s work. “I don’t think so.”

  Cordelia tapped a finger on her elbow. “Some patients wash linens, clean bedpans, that sort of thing. They work the bill down.”

  Bedpans? Doubtful. “Could I work in town?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen that too.” She gave him another encouraging smile. “Think about what you might be good at. I’m sure we’ll find something.”

  Chapter Nine

  Myrta pulled on a thick pair of socks, some old work trousers and a cableknit sweater from her aunt, Ardelle, who’d sent it to the stead after last fall’s Caravan. The sweater still smelled faintly of the lavender it had been wrapped with.

  Downstairs, the rest of the family was eating. Myrta joined them, and Terrence glanced up from his eggs. “That’s no look for market. Get on a dress.”

  He had a point. Other women would be in dresses, although none of the children wore them. Besides, the sweater reminded her of Ardelle, and she didn’t get many chances to wear it. “Papa, please. It’s cold. I’ll bring a dress and change after suns-up, I promise.” She pled with her eyes, and after a moment his expression shifted from stern to endearing, as though he saw the cusp she stood upon, between childhood and womanhood. He nodded curtly and went back to his eggs.

  * * *

  The stalls went up on the market grounds, dozens of them, next to a permanent paddock and an open-air theater.

  Jack took the team to the paddock while Terrence and Nathan helped Celeste and Myrta set up the cheese booth. Narrow tables front and back covered with brown cloth and a pair of low stools between. Nathan stowed crates of cheese on the back table.

  Myrta greeted her neighbor. “Happy market, Mr. de Clar.”

  The man, a copperwood fiber weaver, was setting skeins out on a richly-dyed table runner. He greeted her, and Myrta offered a piece of cheese to his dog, who was all heavy and warm. The dog snuffled for more. Laughing, she knelt and scratched around his ears.

  At least a hundred people would be here today. Myrta glanced around, wondering if she might meet some nice young man, perhaps from one of the towns. So far, only steaders had arrived.

  The dog licked her hand again, and laughing, she rubbed his head harder. That set his hips wagging, and his breath hit her face, all dog-smelly.

  “We need a puppy, Mama.” She grabbed him around the shoulders and he gave a loud woof.

  “Myrta, the dog can wait.” Celeste was unpacking a crate on the front table.

  “If we wait too long, I won’t be home anymore.” But she stood and helped. She said to the fiber artist, “Are your sons here today?”

  “No.”

  The way he said it, hard without meeting her eyes, surprised her.

  “They’re lookin’ for work in the cities.”

  Myrta felt her smile freeze, and after a moment forced a nod. Terrence sometimes said steading meant freedom but that the numbers didn’t always work out.

  * * *

  They sold throughout the morning, and after lunch Celeste left to see the other stalls. Myrta was sorting through the cash box, setting reblas to one side and coinage to the other, when Jack walked up. “The cotton steaders came. Your match is here.”

  “Emmett’s not my match.” Still, maybe that was why Terrence wanted her in a dress.

  Jack hadn’t been matched. Not yet. He wasn’t taken with girls, so the prospect of children, or rather the lack of good prospects, complicated the whole thing. He seemed happy to stay single indefinitely, and Myrta understood completely. Matching with Emmett? He was nice enough looking, she supposed, but older even than Nathan. Still, if Terrence was willing to send her off with Emmett then he didn’t need her on the farm at all. She could do what the weaver’s sons had done and look for work somewhere else, even in a city. She frowned, wondering if she ought to suggest it to Terrence.

  Jack was laying out fat slices of cheese. “Oh, stop with the face, no one’s talking matches right now. It’s all irrigation.”

  There’d been no rain in weeks.

  “Reuben said Mr. di Vaun’s coming, so I thought I’d stick close.”

  Myrta blinked and sat too quickly, almost missing the stool. “He’s coming here?”

  “Yep. I think Reuben is helping him sell. They probably give him a kickback.”

  The words barely registered. That man’s dimples, his hand on her wrist and his voice. He’d be here?

  Jack leafed through
the bills in the box, put some under the divider and closed it again. “It’s not just irrigation, either. Renico sells an aut that plows fields. Nathan wants them to come out, price it all.”

  Nathan wanted that man on their farm? If he came, he’d be smiling at her in his warm-eyed way, watching her like he’d done before. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  A child ran up, grabbed one of the slices, and pushed it into his mouth. A woman hurried after, offering to pay, but Jack handed a second piece. “Free samples.”

  Myrta’s head buzzed. ‘Renico’s doctors are the best on the continent . . . ’ She put her hands flat on the table and tried to think past that man’s voice. He was selling a machine that pulled water, that was all.

  A cheery voice called, “Myrta! Yoo-hoo! Rudy, there’s your little friend. Now don’t be shy. He’s a nice boy. Go on, Rudy. Go say hi.” Georgie came up to their stall and said to the other woman, “Hello again, Janette. Myrta this is Janette. Don’t you love her dress? What a pretty color.” She shifted the baby on her hip.

  Myrta nodded at Janette, but her thoughts stayed on Mr. di Vaun. His attention on her had been so focused.

  “Janette’s from Beamais. She came all the way to our little market. All the way from Beamais. Isn’t that nice? How are you, Myrta dear? Better from your dizzy spell, I hope. That looked so unpleasant. Have you had any more? Oh Jack, hello! I didn’t see you, and you’re sitting right there.”

  Myrta told herself to settle, even as she pictured that man on their stead, walking around their home, maybe finding her in the cheese house, maybe speaking to her. ‘We have room for you,’ like it was perfectly normal to up and leave with a stranger.

  Georgie continued, “I miss dressmaking. So many patterns. Reuben always brings fabrics after Caravan. Of course, I have no time with two little ones, and then Reuben wants a third so who knows when I’ll be free to sew anything.” She gave a slice of cheese to baby Rosa. “Oh! Janette. Tell her what you said. Remember? What you told me. Myrta, did you hear? About that young man in Beamais? And the lake? It was awful.”

  Janette picked up her son and held him close. “One of our neighbors—their boy’s missing.”