Moon-Flash

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  One night Kyreol, lulled to sleep by the water eddying in moonlit circles away from the lift and dip of Terje’s oar, had a dream. It was so quick that she seemed to dream it between closing and opening her eyes. One moment she saw the night with its great herd of stars; the next she saw the Hunter, handing her father a stone, and then she saw the stars again, and Terje’s back. The stone in the dream had had three River-signs on it: River-Tree, Turtle-Crossing, Green Pool. Her father, taking the stone from the Hunter, had looked at the signs and nodded. She woke and sat silently for a few moments, listening to a night-bird cry.

  “Green Pool…”

  Terje half-turned. “What?”

  “Your sign is Three Rocks. Why would I dream about Green Pool?”

  Terje was silent for three dips of the oar. “It’s your mother’s family,” he said gruffly. “What did you dream?”

  Kyreol sat up, rocking the boat. “It’s all right, then,” she said in relief.

  “What is?”

  “They all came together—the Hunter, my father, my sign, my mother’s sign—all in the same dream. The Hunter gave my father some kind of message. So he understands, a little.”

  Terje grunted. His shoulders were a strong, pale line against the stars, moving steadily, effortlessly. “Go to sleep,” he said haltingly, in the new language they were learning. “Dream. Dream tomorrow.”

  Kyreol closed her eyes.

  7

  SHE WOKE UP at dawn, when Terje stopped the boat. The river was flat grey, and so slow the boat barely drifted when he raised the oars. He held them suspended like wings while he stared at the banks. She lifted her head. The land was harsh, treeless; nothing moved around them but thin mists, uncoiling and wisping away from the great stone faces that were watching them.

  Kyreol felt a finger of cold run up and down her spine. She moved forward, pushing herself against Terje’s back for comfort.

  “What are they?” she whispered.

  The faces were scattered all over the banks. They were black, elongated, with big, distant eyes under frowning brows, and full, straight mouths. They looked taller than houses. Stone giants, who had been buried to their necks in the earth, and then forgotten.

  She felt Terje draw a soft breath. “They don’t want us here,” he said, trying to figure out what story they were telling. He was right, Kyreol felt; they made her want to leave quickly.

  “But what are they guarding? There’s nothing here.” She was still whispering, as though the stone ears could hear. “Terje, they don’t look angry. Not like the mask-faces. They look…” What did they look? Cold, lonely, fierce, stuck in dead earth beside the still river… Sad?

  “Ask the stone.”

  But the stone didn’t answer; maybe it was still asleep. “Joran,” Kyreol said, correcting herself. “Joran is asleep.” Stones didn’t speak, not even this one. But stone faces seemed to speak, in a language far simpler than words. She wanted Terje to row again, quickly, but before she could say that, she heard her mouth say, “I want to go look at them.”

  Terje turned around. His mouth was open; he closed it, a mute stubborness spreading over his face. “I don’t.”

  “But, Terje—”

  “Kyreol, you can hear what the faces are saying. There must be a reason why they’re telling us to stay away. I don’t want to find out what.” She drew breath; he gestured, almost losing the oars. “First we almost kill ourselves going down Fourteen Falls. Then we get captured by mask-people. Then we have to learn another language from someone who talks into a stone, when one language is enough for any world—Kyreol, what are you looking for? What is it you want to know? How much farther do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She drew away from him. “I want to do what I want to do. You’re just afraid of missing your betrothal.”

  “Kyreol, that doesn’t have anything to do with it!”

  “They’re just old stones; they can’t hurt us.”

  “They’re not just stones. They’re part of somebody’s ritual. Would you want strangers wandering around in the betrothal caves?”

  She pointed, east and west. “Look. Do you see anyone?”

  He angled the oars into the boat with a clatter. “But why?” he demanded, bewildered and angry. “Why?”

  She was silent. Water lapped against the sides of the boat. Three black birds flew over the greyness. She realized then how far she was taking them both, not only from home, but from a way of looking at the world. To Terje, the world beyond Fourteen Falls was difficult and interesting, but he would shed the knowledge of it as a bird sheds water when he went back home. There was something in him that did not want to be changed.

  She looked away from his eyes. She scratched her head uncertainly, groping for words. The faces watched, silent, disturbing. “When I see—when I see things like this—or the mask-faces, the cave paintings, it’s like seeing into people’s dreams. Dreams say things without words. They talk about the world. I just want to know why—what people saw to make them build faces like those.” She paused, felt him waiting. “Terje,” she said helplessly. “I didn’t know the world would be this big, beyond Fourteen Falls. I thought it would be simpler. I don’t know how much more of it there is. But it keeps going on, and I keep wanting to see where it goes.”

  She raised her eyes finally to his face. He sat very quietly; she was aware, suddenly, of a quietness that always seemed to be with him, even when he was shouting down the rapids toward the rainbows, or sitting in the dream-cave with a spear in front of him. He was like the Riverworld, peaceful and unafraid. Except when she disturbed him. He made her feel noisy, impulsive, always wanting things without reason, like a child. Look at this, Terje—look at that, Terje. And suddenly she was looking at Terje and seeing for the first time not the child he had been but what he had become.

  She couldn’t speak any more. Somehow they had become two different people. She was sitting in a boat in the middle of a world with a stranger. She felt blood rise into her face and was glad he couldn’t see it. He needed to go home; he needed to become betrothed, take his place as a man in the Riverworld.

  “All right,” she whispered. She would do that for him: take him home, because he wouldn’t leave her.

  “All right, what?” His voice sounded strange. His eyes seemed as opaque as the water.

  “Terje. Let me just look at the faces. And then we’ll go home.”

  “All right.” But he couldn’t seem to move. She wondered if he even knew what she had said.

  “Terje—”

  “Kyreol—”

  They both stopped. Then they were both smiling, and his face was familiar again. He lifted the oars as though he had forgotten what he had been arguing about and rowed toward the silent bank.

  The faces loomed over them as they moored the boat. They seemed gigantic, eerie, full of secrets locked within the stone. They rose like trees in a treeless field, like questions out of the ground. She stood in front of one, gazed up at it. It was too big for her to see its full expression. Its mouth turned downward; harsh furrows ran down its cheeks. It seemed to hold not anger, but a terrible silence inside itself. She circled it slowly.

  The back of the head was flat and carved with signs. Kyreol traced them with her finger. “The story,” she whispered. “A man…three little men…”

  “Children?”

  “Children. Three children? Three animals…the children turned into animals?”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Terje, everything in the world doesn’t have to—Oh—” Her voice faltered. “Now the children are inside the animals. Terje, I think they got eaten. The man is crying. Look at the big tears falling down. Now he has a spear, and he’s following the animals… Now…” she touched a circle with a tiny lightning bolt entering it. “Now…” Her fingers traced the rim of the circle, then the bolt of fire. “Moon-Flash,” she said surprisedly, and the back of the face sprang open. A skeleton rattled slowly to its knees,
then broke to pieces at their feet.

  They were back in the boat so quickly that Kyreol couldn’t remember getting her feet wet. She sat gripping the sides of the boat, her eyes enormous, while Terje spun circles in the shallows. She closed her eyes tightly. They were trapped, they would never get out. The boat lurched forward, skimmed across the water.

  “I told you,” she heard Terje say from a distance. “I told you.”

  Her voice squeaked, “Just go.” After a while, she let go of the sides of the boat. She wanted to huddle at the bottom of it, hide until the faces were far behind. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, both to Terje and the bones she had disturbed. “I’m sorry.” She opened her eyes finally and saw trees.

  Terje’s rowing slowed. He upended the oars finally, sat panting. His face was a peculiar color, and she remembered he had rowed most of the night. He didn’t say anything. She wondered if he would ever forgive her.

  “Terje,” she said tentatively. He looked at her, not seeing her.

  “It’s not right,” he whispered. He looked drunk, his face patchy-white and wild-eyed with some idea. She reached for the oars, wondering uneasily if the bones had become a nightmare in his mind.

  “I’ll row.”

  “No.”

  “Terje—I’m sorry—”

  “It’s not right.” He grabbed the oars suddenly and steered toward the trees. “You stay. I’ll go.”

  Her voice wavered. “Are you going home?”

  “No,” he said impatiently. “I’m going to put the bones back.”

  Her own bones felt heavy as stones. She wanted to melt like a puddle into the bottom of the boat. “Oh, please,” she breathed. “Oh, please don’t. Terje, please—”

  “It’s not right to leave them there.”

  “Oh, please.” The boat bumped against the bank.

  “Wait here.”

  “Terje.”

  He glared at her suddenly, scared and furious. “You don’t disturb things in other people’s places. Especially not the dead. How can we just leave him there?” He tossed her fur onto the bank. “He’ll get rained on—Kyreol, if you don’t get out of the boat, I’ll take you with me.”

  She stumbled out, her feet sinking into muddy water. She stood watching as he rowed away, without a glance at her, until he disappeared around the trees. And then her legs shook so much, she had to sit.

  It was an endless wait. The leaves sighed. Fish jumped in front of her. The sun came out, drawing the grey out of the water. But Terje didn’t come. He had been taken by ghosts, he had died of terror, something had eaten him… She sat still as a statue, scarcely daring to breath. Her thoughts grew quieter, finally, as the sun warmed her. She thought of the man who had lost his children and then his life. Maybe the stone face protecting him was the most peaceful place he had ever known. Certainly the world itself wasn’t very peaceful. And then she thought of the Moon-Flash. And then of Terje.

  He came back finally, his face still looking peculiar, but more peaceful. He smiled a little when he saw her, and she went to meet him. She wanted to put her arms around him; but he had been among the dead by choice, and she felt suddenly too shy to touch him. He sat down on the bank. She sat beside him, and he moved closer, put his arm around her, wanting something living to touch.

  She shifted after a while, drawing breath. “Terje.”

  “What?”

  “The Moon-Flash. It means—it means something else here.” She paused, remembering. “I touched it, and the stone opened and the bones came out. It means death.”

  “Kyreol, it was hard getting the bones back in. They kept sliding out.” He looked at her, the color struggling back into his face. “That’s a sad way to die. No one dies like that in the Riverworld.”

  She said reluctantly, “I promised to go back with you now.”

  “You did? When?”

  “When we were arguing. You—” Her eyes faltered away from his eyes. “Don’t you remember? You need to go home.”

  He was silent, frowning puzzledly, not at her, but at something in himself. “I was never so scared in my life,” he confessed. “My hair should be white, like an old man’s. But I don’t think—I don’t want to go home now. Not yet.”

  “But—”

  “There’s nothing all that different from the Riverworld. People live and die and dream dreams. It’s still all one world.” He was silent again, then he looked straight at her, holding her eyes before she could turn away. “What will you do?” he asked calmly. “Go back to Turtle-Crossing and listen to Korre talk about fishing?”

  Her shoulders wriggled under his hold. “Well,” she said irritably, “you won’t go home by yourself. And you have to go home.”

  “Why? I think I like being scared.”

  “Because—”

  “Because why?”

  “Because—”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” she said, exasperated, “I used to be taller than you. And now you’re taller than me. And I don’t know what you’re laughing about—if we were still children, it would be all right.”

  He stopped laughing. With the sun in his eyes, it was hard for her to tell what he was thinking. He stood up suddenly, pushed the boat back into the water and got in.

  “Where are you going?” she called.

  “Fishing.” He read her thoughts, then, and tossed her the crystal before she asked for it.

  “Terje—”

  “Nothing has changed,” he said calmly. “You just think it has.”

  She sat back down on the bank, bewildered. I’ve changed, she thought, and tried to hear the new blood flowing through her heart. But all she could hear were singing birds.

  She opened the stone finally. “Joran,” she said, and he answered. She made a weave of the two languages, too impatient to wait for him to translate. “This morning, we saw the faces beside the river.”

  “The faces?”

  “The black stone faces with the dead inside them—”

  “Kyreol,” he shouted, and she drew back, wondering how such a delicate thing could hold so huge a shout. “How do you know about the dead?”

  “It was an accident,” she said in a small voice. “I touched a Moon-Flash, and the bones fell out. Terje put them back. What did you say?”

  “Never mind. Go on.”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask about. The Moon-

  Flash. In the Riverworld, it is a sign for the living. Here, it is a sign for the dead Which is it, really? The Moon-Flash?”

  She heard the stone sigh. “If you go far enough,” Joran said, “you’ll find out. I can’t tell you.”

  “But you know.”

  “I can’t tell you, Kyreol. Child, how have you gotten so far down the river and survived? Do you have any idea who those graves belong to?”

  “No.”

  “One of the fiercest river-tribes in the world. If they had caught you on their sacred ground, they would have killed you.”

  “Oh,” she said without sound.

  “Where are you now?”

  “There was no one there. Among the dead.”

  “You were very lucky. Where are you?”

  “Downriver, beside some trees. Terje is catching breakfast.”

  “Well, breakfast can wait. You get back in the boat and get out of there. You’re probably out of danger now, but go anyway.” She sighed. “And where is that blasted Orcrow? He’ll be lucky if he finds a job recycling garbage after this.”

  “Stone,” she interrupted. “Where in this world is there a safe place?”

  “Home. Where you came from.”

  “Please—”

  “Outside of stray animals, storms and the river itself, you’ll be safe. For a while. Shall I send someone?”

  “Soon, I think,” she whispered. “But not yet.”

  She called Terje. He had caught a fish, but they didn’t stop to cook it. Since he had been up most of the night, she rowed, and he slept until midday when they found a secluded c
learing where they could build a fire. Then he rowed, while she cast out the lines, caught more fish for their supper. The river grew deep and swift, carrying them farther and farther from the place of the dead, until, by evening, it seemed to have swept them into yet another world of bare, rolling hills, small groves of twisted trees and birds that flamed like scraps of the sunset among the branches.

  They stopped finally in the shadow of a hill. The river’s voice, rattling through rock shallows, was a soothing sound. The world seemed peaceful again, uninhabited by dreams. They lay close to the fire after they had eaten, watching the little boat-moon sail among the star-fish.

  “I’m getting tired of eating fish,” Terje murmured, just before he drifted to sleep. Kyreol, closing her eyes, saw the dark, grieving faces rise once again out of a dank mist and shivered. She reached out, stirred the fire. Light touched her face like a hand, and she floated again downriver for a while, laughing, fishing, eating fruit yellow as sunlight. Then the faces again…the Moon-Flash…

  She opened her eyes. Terje lay with his face toward the stars, one arm crooked around his head. The fire sparked, warming her again. She lifted her dark fingers, caught fire in them, then let them fall again, close to Terje’s hand. Such a small distance between them…between touching and not touching, waking and sleeping. She raised her head a little, watched the light flow across his face, and something filled her like another set of bones within her bones, covered her like a second skin, made her unfamiliar to herself, until she felt that she breathed the dark, smoky air into a different body.

  “Terje,” she whispered, wondering what was happening to her. His head turned slightly; he opened his eyes. Or else she fell asleep, then, and dreamed that he watched her, as quietly and intently, until she fell asleep.

  8

  THE NEXT MORNING, before she even opened her eyes, Kyreol tried to count the days until Moon-Flash. But she had lost track of the patterns of the moon, and the days on the river had flowed together like water. Even her body, startled by the long journey, had forgotten to respond to the moon-changes. She opened her eyes. A red sun rose slowly; birds began calling to it. The wind came out of the nameless desert, touched her face lightly. Where are we? she wondered. We’re in the middle of nowhere. No one came to name this place. Terje stirred as the light touched his eyes. She watched him blink, coming back from the journey of his dreams. He turned his head after a moment, saw her awake and smiled.