Spiderwork

by LK Rigel

  Which they were happy to spend on textured stew and settlement gin at Ma’s saloon, and pay extra if Mal and Pala caught a rabbit to throw in the pot.

  Ma ran the saloon at Crop Settlement 20. Mal was the general laborer, bus girl, and hostess. Palama was the waitress, and her husband Palada was the cook. Pala, their sixteen-year-old son and Mal’s friend, kept the peace and hauled supplies in from the back.

  They took their time off on Mondays. The settlement priest didn’t like it, Ma being a citizen, but Ma had laughed in his face when he suggested she walk away from so much business.

  He didn’t mind taking the free meal Ma was required to give Samaeli priests on Sundays, though. He was at the bar now, eating and drinking, again wheedling her to remove the carved wooden Asherah the old priest had given her.

  “When will you take down that abomination?” He held his cup out for more gin as Mal came by with the bus tray. She put down the tray and took the cup behind the bar to pour him a refill.

  The god was displayed prominently in a nook shrine inset behind the bar. It wasn’t very good. Palada could have made a much better one. Ma kept it for the sheer joy of perturbing the Samaeli priest.

  When it was busy like this she was in her glory, dispensing water and settlement gin from behind the bar. In a nod to Samael – or to the Samaeli credits the settlers brought in – she did try on Sundays to look presentable. She’d washed her face and twisted her coarse gray hair into a tight bun at the nape of her neck.

  “I know which god is on my side.” She was old and ugly but tough as a rock. Her tiny black eyes gleamed as she baited the priest. “I know who’ll smite me if I abandon her. What did Samael ever do for me?”

  “That’s not how it works. We mere humans don’t get to judge the gods.”

  Ma shook her head and clucked at him. “I know what I know.” Her unmoving serenity surprised even Mal.

  She rested her hand on Mal’s shoulder, and for once her fingers didn’t dig into the flesh. Ma didn’t hit, but she did like to pinch and claw. It was best just to stay out of her range, even on Sundays. The priest let it go for the day, but when Mal gave him his gin he grumbled abomination into the cup.

  Ma gave Mal a good-natured shove. “Put some speed into it, girl.”

  Mal emptied the bus tray into the kitchen sink. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and went back to the saloon and another dirty table, new customers already sitting there and waiting for her to clean it. She might only be thirteen, but she still got tired, and she hadn’t had a break in hours.

  The door swung open with yet another customer. Mal glanced around the room for a table as the settler shuffled in behind her, but she knew there weren’t any available.

  “I’m sorry – oh!”

  It wasn’t a settler. It was a Ptery, and not four feet away. The old crone shuffled forward, and Mal instinctively took a step back. White gauze-like film covered her eye sockets, the orbs jerking from object to object. They fixed on Mal, so creepy she dropped the tray. The dishes clattered on the floor.

  As Mal picked up plates and bowls, the Ptery’s eyes widened and a broad grin spread over her face. She reached toward Mal’s hair. Her youthful hand didn’t match her withered face. Mal scrambled out of the way as Palama stepped between them.

  “You’ll find no business here, old woman.” Her voice was melodic and kind as always, but her tone was laced with urgency and even a touch of fear.

  The Ptery peered at Mal from around Palama’s thin frame. “Let me seek your soul, young one. I’ll wager it’s in there.”

  “Get out, witch!” Ma shrieked from the bar. “Charlatan! Get out!”

  But for Ma, the saloon had gone stone silent. No one wanted a Ptery in there, looking for souls. Palada came out from the kitchen and stood with Pala. Together they gave the Ptery their you-can-go-now look – the stare they fixed on settlers who drank too much settlement gin.

  The Ptery hesitated. Unlike most settlers, Pala and Palada were as well-nourished as aristocrats, taller than the usual worker, and Pala was already an inch taller than his da. Their muscles were evident under their dark brown skin. They wore their hair in thin braids decorated with objects Palada had carved from wood and stone. This alone was a mark of self-respect unheard of in settlers.

  Palada was the calmest, most peaceful human being Mal knew, but the Ptery couldn’t know that. She seemed to understand, though, that she wasn’t going to be able to intimidate him.

  “The priest is here, witch!” Ma said. “He’ll take you in, he will!”

  There used to be a sheriff at the settlement. Now the Samaeli priest had the sheriff’s duties. But Ma was bluffing. He never took anybody in.

  Ma wasn’t afraid of the Ptery. She was afraid of trouble with Garrick. A good number of the settlers worked illegally. Some sitting in the saloon at this moment hadn’t gone through the liminal gauntlet to get their souls. If the Ptery found them out, she could blackmail them and their supervisors too.

  Palama pulled a packet of textured protein from her apron and handed it to the Ptery. “You should go.” Her voice had gone back to its usual lovely, sing-song cadence. Sometimes Mal didn’t hear what Palama said because the music in her voice was better than any meaning in her words.

  The Ptery again looked at Palada and Pala – at least, her eyes jerked in their direction – and then at Mal. There was something strange in the gaze, as if the Ptery were boring into her. Invading her.

  “I said you should go now.” All Palama’s gentleness was gone. She took the Ptery by the arm and moved her toward the door. The invasive feeling stopped. A few of the settlers were out of their seats, ready to do their own convincing.

  The Ptery’s eyes jerked one more time at Palada. She snatched the protein from Palama’s hand and backed out of the saloon. People gradually relaxed and fell back into their previous conversations.

  Mal finished picking up the dishes and headed to the kitchen. A settler at the bar turned around and raised his glass of settlement gin.

  “To King Garrick!”

  The others lifted their glasses to the picture of the king a settler had brought in when the first Sunday bonus came. Ma had put it on the wall to encourage gin sales – and it worked.

  “King Garrick!” The settlers drank deep and ordered more.

  “To the long life of our natural born king and prince!” The settler offered a second toast –considered grandstanding.

  “Garrick.” A somewhat less enthusiastic reply.

  “What does that actually mean, natural born?” Mal asked. She’d heard the term so often, she never thought about the reality of it. Not until recently. Not until it might apply to her.

  Ma laughed. “You’re about to find out for yourself and make me rich.”

  Mal blushed. Then she got mad at herself for blushing and blushed even more. She was tired and embarrassed and hungry, and the Ptery had made her feel odd, shaky. She put down the tray. She was taking a break.

  She went outside, careful to keep to the covered walk along the saloon wall. The day had cooled, and the late afternoon sun sent shadows from the wall’s raptor cages in elongated shapes across the common square. The Ptery shuffled along out in the open, headed for the gate.

  Ma’s words echoed in Mal’s mind. You’re about to find out for yourself and make me rich.

  She meant the bleeding. All girls bled at puberty. One time, for a day. Two times, tops. They went to Garrick, had their eggs harvested and stored at the hospital, and life went on. But when Mal had bled two months ago, Ma didn’t take her to Garrick. Why bother? Ma had said. Garrick will never give you a license for children.

  Ma didn’t explain why Mal wouldn’t be allowed to have children when she grew up, but it must be something to do with her father. Ma never talked about him, and as far as Mal could tell, no one in the settlement knew anything about him. He left them right after Mal came out of the hospital. She was sure there was something horribly wrong with her, and Ma hadn’t figur
ed out how to tell her.

  Last month the bleeding came a second time, and Ma had looked at her differently and pinched her less often. She didn’t complain so much when Mal and Pala went outside the wall to look for rabbits and berries. She told Mal to be careful and to keep the sun out of her eyes.

  A few days ago it had come again, and Ma turned into a crazy person. She laughed all the time for no reason. Smiled at Mal and asked her how she was feeling.

  Mal was a bleeder.

  Ma sent word to Red City. In a few weeks they would come to collect Mal. In the last few days, she’d been bombarded by marvelous stories from the settlers about life in Red City. In Red City, there was always plenty of food to eat. The nights were never too cold and the days never too hot. The air was always clean – it was too far from Garrick for the winds to carry the smell of refinery waste. There were no raptors.

  “Mallory, are you all right?” Palama had followed her outside. Palama was more of a mother to her than Ma ever was. “Don’t let that old crone bother you.”

  “The Ptery? That was weird. But it’s not her.”

  “I think maybe you’re worried about going to Red City.”

  “A little bit.” It felt good to laugh, to blow off some of the tension she felt about the whole thing. “It just seems strange, the idea of growing children inside my body. I don’t see how I can do it.”

  “It’s nothing you have to actually do, once it gets started.”

  Palama knew everything. Mal had never thought about it before, but the Palas were too fine for the settlement. They should be citizens, except they almost seemed too fine for that. What a strange thought! It must be the bleeding.

  “I’m going to tell you something, Mallory. Something no one else can know. Pala is my natural-born son.”

  Palama never lied, but it didn’t make sense. “Then why don’t you live in Red City?” If half the stories were true, anybody would want to live there – especially when the alternative was Settlement 20. Mal knew that much.

  Palama stopped and looked at the sky like she was searching for the answer.

  “I could never leave my love.”

  My love. A subtle click sounded in Mal’s mind. Not mere words. A mystery and a promise. I could never leave my love. Her stomach went queasy with a kind of eagerness. Would she ever feel that way about someone?

  “Look out!” Palama yelled. She started running after the Ptery across the common. “Get down!”

  A peregrine with a twenty-foot wingspan glided over the wall just as Palama pushed the Ptery to the ground. As Mal watched, horrified, the raptor clamped a claw down on Palama’s head and snapped her neck.

  “Help!” Mal screamed. The raptor flew off with Palama’s limp body dangling from its grasp. Were the cage guards off work today too? “Someone help!”

  A second raptor grabbed the Ptery, who wasn’t as lucky as Palama. The old woman’s screams filled the sky long after the bird disappeared over the wall.

  -oOo-

  Bleeder (Apocalypto 3)

  More by L.K. Rigel

  Do you like adult fairy tales? Give Me – A Tale of Wyrd and Fae is now available.