Firebirds Rising

by Sharyn November

  “What do they eat?” he asks.

  “Just regular food. Like everybody else. We can give it some of our rabbit. Look, it has all its baby teeth.”

  Now Haze is saying, “My God, my God, my God,” again, then, “I suppose they crashed.”

  He says Mother is right to keep us away from the rest of the world. He says, again, he has to admit we’re, all of us, very nice children.

  He jumps from one idea to another. He says, except for Tom we’re all half-breeds. He says, “It’s a good way to endure here. He says, “Maybe they think we won’t kill any creatures that are half our own.” Then he says, “When has that ever stopped us? Killing our own is what we do best.”

  Haze says I was hatched up there. He says he can’t imagine what kind of creature my father is.

  I get to feed the baby. (Those sharp little teeth are better at chewing rabbit than mine.) I get to have his first smile. And I get to sleep with him. Haze wraps us both in his down jacket. He keeps the fire going all night. I don’t think he sleeps much. I don’t sleep well either, but that’s because the baby is wiggly. It doesn’t seem to know it’s night. Or maybe it’s been sleeping so much in the egg so that now it wants to do things.

  One of those funny things Mother told me turns out to be true. There’s blood. So not only do I have to figure out how to keep the messes of the baby from getting all over, but I have to figure out what to do about my mess. I take pieces from our rabbit skins. I pretend it’s all for the baby, but some is for me. I wonder if those breast things are any bigger than they were. I hope not. But I guess Mother is right about that, too. They will get bigger. This baby, though, is one of the ones that doesn’t need them.

  I lag behind though Haze carries the baby and we’ve already eaten most of our food so nobody has much to carry. I’m cold even in Haze’s jacket. My stomach feels funny. I sit down on a rock to rest and think.

  But somebody is coming from behind. A tall creature with long thin legs that bend the way fox legs do. At first I think it’s wearing a beautiful feathered hat, red and gold, but as it gets closer I see it’s a topknot and that what I think is a black and red suit is feathers all over. When it sees me, the topknot lifts higher, widens. It’s iridescent. There’s blue and green in it, too. The creature spreads its arms. There’s a row of red along its sides. I never saw anything so beautiful.

  Someone has been in the nest. Our soft warmth has been intruded upon. Entered by they of those that can’t smell. They think we won’t know. As if we don’t smell everything that happens.

  Worst of all, my own little loved one, on the edge of hatching, stolen. A precious being in the making.

  Strange and stranger land of much pain and so little softness in it. So few spots in which to hesitate and love.

  I go to speak of my love for my own kind and even for their kind if need be speaking of it. Say it with nodding of head sky to ground, sky to ground, as if their yes and not sideways, east and west.

  I lean forward so as to speed. Also lean so as to catch the scent. I smell not only my little one but also my biggest one, and she’s ready to lay. Our first layer among the half-ones. A precious dear. I can’t wait to speak of the future of us all. So much depends on her willingness, though why not? Offspring this way is so much easier than the way of mammals.

  My tender feelings come with the good smell of myself on her. I breathe of myself all along the trail. Strange and dangerous as thisplace is, I’m happy. Strange as even my own is, I’m happy.

  But what of these harsh creatures? Even without moving from our wreckage, we’ve seen what they do—seen from their own technology. We know who they are. We’ve heard both war and music. Dance. At least they dance.

  Now a whole new way to egg which only our knowledge makes possible. Not as pleasurable but necessary. But here’s my daughter, though she, my dear one, is more of them than of me.

  Our kind is not unknown here, though they never had a chance to develop. Had they come to full flower, we’d have landed among friends instead of among these odd intelligent mammals. It’s too bad we didn’t come earlier to help those like us achieve their full potential. We could have egged with them and raised them to our level.

  Strange that this world took such a different turn. Hardly logical that eggless ratlike things would grow so large. Though even our own mammals get into everything, and some are smart enough to have made themselves into the little companions of our kitchens and the darlings of the nurseries.

  I have wished my first daughter could be beautiful—more like me. Still I love her. I can be in love by smell alone. So much love I found it hard to bring her down to her mother. And when she smiled, like ours always do—the first conciliation, the first appeasement—I found myself in every way, her doting father.

  It was Quat called us. The intruding mammals didn’t see him in the dim nesting light. One of them was half us—Quat could smell that—and two were of their kind. One a full grown male not known to us. Quat said that male knows too much. Everything is vulnerable.

  I’ve watched the offspring dance. Life will be hard for them, but at least they have the joy of dance. Now, to my own young one, I’ll display. I’ll strut. Though with these creatures it seems it’s more the female’s role to lure with colors and tall shoes. Still, I will display.

  It calls, “Quill, Quill.” It sounds like quacks but I’m used to that from some of the little ones—I can tell it’s my name. It has a loud echoing voice. I don’t know how far Tom and Haze have gotten, but for sure they’ll hear. For sure they’ll come, though I wonder if I want them to.

  At first it doesn’t come close. It stands, silent, below me on the trail so as to let me get used to it. I look. That’s what it wants me to do. Its scales only show at its neck and clawed hands and feet. It turns sideways and shows off its topknot, up and out and then down, then up and out again. None of the little ones have anything at all like that topknot, though I realize now that some have the beginnings of one.

  It comes closer. It makes more quacking sounds. Again, not too different from the way lots of the little ones talk. It says, “I’m your father.”

  I shout, “Yes!” He’s so beautiful I can’t help it. I’ve been wondering and wondering all this time. I can’t conceive of a better father than this one.

  “May I sit beside you for talking?”

  I move to make room. He sits on my rock and we both look back toward the glacier.

  He touches my hand with his and it feels terrible. His claws prick and his skin is scaly. That’s all right, except when he turns it the wrong way it scratches. Some of the little ones are like this, too. I hide that I don’t like it like I do with them.

  He says he loves me. I can see that in the way he looks at me. He calls me consort, but I don’t know what that means. He says I’m old enough now. I don’t know what that means either. But maybe I do. It’s about the crazy things Mother told me. Which are coming true.

  Then he asks about the baby. “He hatched. Did he? I saw where it happened. Or was that a…killing?”

  “No, we wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let them. He hatched. He’s fine.”

  I hope so. I think Haze will keep him safe. But Haze seemed pretty worried. He never stopped saying My God, and he couldn’t sleep. Maybe I should have made him let me carry the baby.

  “Did the baby smile at you first?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Are you caught in his smile?”

  “Yes, but I liked him even before he smiled.”

  “Excellent!”

  Then he grabs my wrist, hard. It hurts.

  “Come. You’ll like it. Keep warm in the nursery. My friends will make you happy.”

  I try to twist away, but he’s too strong, and twisting makes his hand scratch all the more. I think how glad I am that I hardly have any scales at all except a little on my back and the backs of my hands.

  “I saw how you were. You like little ones. Come and make more.”

  “No!�
��

  “We’re from a far place. We crashed. We thought the glacier, so white and blue, was a dump of discarded nursery feathers. We slammed and slid and died. We can’t go home. We made our conveyance into a nest. Had we even one female of our own kind, it would have changed everything. But here was your mother. Willing. Like you are.”

  But I’m yelling, “No. No!” and I’m yelling for Haze.

  “You’ve no place on this world but with us. They’ll never accept you. They hate the different. They never heard of one like you.”

  “Is that true?”

  “The whole world is them.”

  “It’s not. It can’t be. How can that be?”

  “My dear, dear one, it is! You’re the first of your kind. Your mother has kept you hidden from the world so as to save you for us and save you for yourself.”

  He’s loosened his grip and I manage to twist away and start running—up the trail toward Tom and Haze, but he catches me with no trouble. His legs are so long.

  But Tom and Haze have turned back. They see me struggling. I yell for them to help.

  Haze has something he never showed us. I’ve heard of that, it’s like Mother’s rifle but smaller. Pop, pop, and my father falls. Just like that. Into a fancy bundle of shiny black and red and iridescent. His hand still grips me. Haze has to pry open his fingers.

  Tom sits me down and gives me a drink from the canteen. Haze is looking over my father’s body. Examining everything, the clawed hands and feet, the topknot. I see him looking at the sex, which is mostly covered with down. Then Haze actually sits down and starts to draw him. I’m not sure how I feel about this. It’s true, he’s beautiful, but Haze isn’t drawing a portrait like he did of us. It’s more diagrams, my father’s different parts all laid out, a hand, then a foot, the topknot, the beak.

  But I want to get away from here. I want to get home tonight. I need to talk to Mother—mostly about myself. I didn’t listen when she talked about blood. It sounded too ridiculous. And how come my father knew that right away? Or maybe it was these lumps on my chest that made him say I’m ready for egging.

  But I’m shaky and I do need to rest. I don’t say, “Let’s go.” Not even to Tom.

  We’re so late we have to camp again. And practically right away, as soon as we leave my father’s body. Haze says we should camp off the trail and hide. We find a place in among rocks.

  I’m still all trembly. I just found a father and lost him right away. Some of the little ones squeak when they’re sad and don’t have tears, ever, but I’m one of the ones that cries. I cry, but I don’t think the others know. I sleep with the baby. I need to. I need something warm and cuddly to hug.

  The baby isn’t as wiggly as he was when he was so happy to be out of the egg. I guess he stayed awake all day, looking around at everything, and now he’s tired. Haze props himself against a rock and puts the gun in his belt, ready to shoot somebody. He looks as if he’s going to stay awake to guard us, but he starts to snore right away.

  I cry for a while. The baby clings to me as though he wants to comfort me. After I stop I look up at the starry sky. It’s so beautiful it makes me cry all over again. No matter what it looks like from down here, it’s full of faraway suns, some even bigger than our own. We know all that because Mother taught us. “Who knows,” Mother said, “what other kinds of life swirl around those suns?” She said, “Who knows, there might be a world where the dinosaurs didn’t die out.” I think now she was preparing us for strangers like my father. I wish I’d listened instead of looking out the window and wanting to be off in the woods.

  Just when I finally start to fall asleep, Tom wakes me. He says Haze will tell about what we found. That’s why he made the drawings. Tom says at first nobody will believe him…that there could exist creatures like us, so Haze will take us down to the real people. We’ll get examined by policemen. Tom doesn’t want that to happen. He likes us and he’s always taken care of us—more than Mother has. He says he’s not sure if Mother isn’t crazy. Now that we’re here, he knows why she has to live out here, but in the beginning she was angry at everybody and everything.

  He talks as if my father was right. We won’t be let anywhere near our nice home. There’ll be nothing but buildings, and we’ll never be able to come back. We might even be put in a zoo. The best thing to do is to get rid of Haze and then our life will stay the same.

  “But how?”

  “Easy. We’ll just use that gun he has.”

  “I don’t want to. I like him.”

  “Liking has nothing to do with it. It’s your whole future. Mother’s future, too.”

  “Let’s wait and see what happens when we get back. We can always do it later if we have to.”

  “It might be too late then.”

  “I don’t see why. Mother doesn’t want him around either. She’ll be on your side. She’ll get out her hunting rifle and kill him herself.”

  So Tom says, “All right. We won’t do it yet.”

  Next morning we come down, all of us together, straight to Mother’s. Even Haze walks right in with us.

  Mother comes out from her stone house looking shocked. I start crying right away. I never used to cry much, but now I seem to cry at everything. I don’t even know why. I wonder if that’s because I’m a grown-up now. I hope that’s not the reason.

  I run to Mother and hug her tight. We’re breast against breast. I say, “I have to talk,” and she says, “I should think so! What are you thinking? Can’t you see? Couldn’t you tell?”

  She pulls away and slaps me. So hard she almost knocks me over. She’s never done that before. I’ve never seen her so angry. I’m afraid to ask her anything, but there’s nobody else to ask the kind of things I need to know. I don’t think she’ll ever want to talk to me—especially not about what I want to talk about. I wonder if it’s in our anatomy book and I didn’t notice it before because I didn’t want to.

  She snatches the baby from Haze—so hard the baby starts to squeak and won’t stop. Talk about high notes! That’s the first he’s squeaked in all the time he’s been with us. I snatch him right back and he stops squeaking right away, which is a relief to all of us. I stop crying, too. That’s the end of me crying. I won’t do it anymore, especially not in front of Mother.

  Mother tries to snatch him back but I won’t let her. She says, “You have no idea. None of you do. Look what you’ve done! All our lives I’ve worried this would happen—someone like this man would come. It’s over and done for. Do you think we can live the way we do after this? It’s over!”

  I don’t know who we ought to get rid of, Mother or Haze or maybe both.

  Haze says, “It doesn’t have to be over. It can be just begun. I can take Quill and the baby down and bring them right back.”

  Mother says she doesn’t want us made into a sideshow. She says they’ll wipe out the whole enterprise. She says what she’s always said before, that she knows how the world is, which is why she’s living up here. “My innocent Quill,” she says. (She never has called me hers before. I don’t know what to think, and just after she slapped me.) “My little Quill, corrupted.”

  Little! Can’t she see anything? Not even my breasts?

  Tom says, “It doesn’t have to be over. It can be like it always is. Wait! Mother! Everything will be like you want it to be. I can fix it.” He gives Mother a look. Says, “Wait!” again.

  I go stand in front of Haze just in case it happens right now. But I don’t want Haze to get suspicious. I don’t think I want Haze suspicious. I’m not sure of anything anymore. I’m not even sure if I might not want to go down and see the zoo.

  Haze says, “You’ll be found out sometime no matter what I do. Strange that you’ve lasted all this time as it is.”

  I don’t see why Tom gets to be the only one who knows about down there. I might go with Haze, like he said, just me and the baby. Down to Haze’s home forest. Who would have to know about us? Maybe it would be like our cave. Nobody but us would
ever go there.

  I should tell Haze to go home to his home right away, and he should keep watch over his little gun.

  But I don’t have a chance to tell him anything. He knows. We…Tom and I and Haze and the baby…We say we’re going down to spend the night in the cave and that we’ll eat supper there, but Haze goes right on past, without a word, not even to me. We’re all worn out, but he just goes, even without supper, and he’s going fast. Tom follows without a single word to me, and I follow Tom. I keep well back because of the baby, though the baby doesn’t sound any different from the birds. The birds are settling down for the night so there’s lots of chirping. The baby’s settling down, too, with little night songs.

  Haze has his lights, both of them, and Tom and I don’t have anything, so we’re a lot slower.

  Pretty soon I decide I just have to rest. I think Haze will have to rest, too. I hope he finds a place where Tom can’t get at him.

  The baby and I move off the trail and cuddle up.

  When I wake and look out, I’m way up on the side of a mountain and I can look down on a whole other valley with a big town there. I’m so happy. I start chirping to myself along with the baby. I’m getting somewhere really interesting. I’m going to know things Tom knows.

  The baby and I pick elderberries and mountain currants for breakfast. I’m not in a hurry anymore. There’s the town and I have plenty of time to get there. I don’t care if I ever catch up to Haze or Tom.

  But Tom waits beside the trail and jumps out at me. And right away tells me I have to go home. “You mustn’t let people see you and especially not let anybody see the baby. He’ll scare them to death.”

  “How can a baby scare anybody?”

  “He, and even you, but he especially…you don’t belong on this world.”

  How can he say such a thing? “Of course I do.”

  “You don’t understand anything.”

  “I wasn’t going to show myself right away. I thought to take a look around and maybe go to the zoo and see the animals. And then come home.”