by Lori Devoti
When she looked up, her eyes were clear and direct. “I heard what she wanted to do to Bern. How you wouldn’t let her.”
I shifted my eyes then and pretended to study a group of college kids dressed in cutoff sweatpants and skin-tight tanks. “It isn’t Bern’s responsibility to protect the tribe; it’s mine.”
Lao nodded. “Thea mentioned that too . . . ” Then she wandered to the other side of the booth to help two soccer moms who were ooing over a small collection of hand-carved fetishes Sare had sent along.
My fingers tightened on the radishes, snapping their green tops off into the bin.
Thea had talked about me to Lao, or at least in front of Lao and, I guessed, questioned my choice.
My time with the hearth-keepers and my desire to put my role to the side for a while was quickly forgotten.
I was beginning to doubt my decision to leave Thea behind and beginning to wonder what I would find when I returned to camp.
At nine, Bern and I left. Mel’s shop didn’t open until eleven, but I wanted time to talk to her alone—before the son showed up for work, assuming he was working today and he and Mel hadn’t taken their relationship to a level I didn’t want to think about.
Based on the fact she’d gone with him to Michigan, I was fairly certain that was a lost hope.
Peter was attractive; there was no denying that. When I’d first met him, I’d actually encouraged Mel to hook up with him, but that was before I knew he was a son. Now I hoped she’d wised up.
But I doubted it. Mel was too stubborn for that, and as I said, I already had evidence to the contrary.
Bern rode shotgun again, a silent shotgun.
When we pulled into Mel’s lot, I gestured for her to grab the basket filled with produce I’d taken from the booth—a kind of peace offering.
With Bern walking behind me, I paced toward the building.
I was nervous. It was a strange thing to realize and admit even to myself. I hadn’t seen Mel in a while, and our time together then had been volatile, but for a long, long time Mel—and her family, but mainly Mel—had been one of the most important people in my life. Even more important than my own mother. A lot more important than my mother.
We’d made some ground in repairing our relationship last fall, but I knew if she had bonded with the sons, what I was going to ask of her would split her loyalties. And there was every possibility she would choose the sons over the Amazons.
I wasn’t looking forward to it.
Mel’s shop and home was in a hundred-year-old school set on about an acre on the Near West Side of Madison. She’d bought the place from the city ten years earlier. There were two buildings on the property—the old school itself, where Mel and her family—her mother, grandmother, and Harmony, her teen daughter—lived and worked, and the old gym/cafeteria. That’s where I along with a couple dozen other Amazons had stayed last fall.
We entered the main school from the side, through the basement. The shop’s door was in the front, but it would be locked. The basement was where Mel’s grandmother, an ex–high priestess, ran her fortune-telling and other new age arts business. It was also where Mel’s mother, a warrior, kept her gym.
I was hoping to see either of them first, as a warm-up of sorts before facing Mel.
I opened the door and walked into a room filled with the last thing I’d expected to see—babies. There were at least a dozen of them, tucked inside round-bottomed plastic seats. The kind of combination seat/carrier the baby I’d lost had been in.
I froze; it was like walking into a nightmare.
Behind me Bern muttered, “Babies.”
My body relaxed, released the air I’d been holding in my lungs. She saw them too. For a second I’d really thought . . . well, Bubbe, Mel’s grandmother, was a powerful priestess. I wasn’t completely sure she couldn’t have known I was coming and plotted the perfect greeting. Be planning to make me sort through the lot of them to try to discern the baby I sought as some kind of worthiness trial.
As if on cue, the old priestess walked into the room. She had a baby propped up on one shoulder and was rubbing some kind of root over her sleeve. When she saw me, she stopped.
“You are here, dorogaya, Zery . . . ”
One of the babies on the floor began to fuss. With a shake of her head Bubbe walked over and shoved the root into his mouth. Loud sucking noises followed and the infant quieted immediately.
She moved to another seat, this one empty, and placed the child she held inside. Standing, she said, “My days of watching babies, they should be over, but Dana, she has convinced my daughter to run a program for new mothers in the old gym. And me, I’m left with these . . . ” She gestured to the seats and sighed. Her gaze on me, she asked, “How about you, solnyshko? Have you a wish for a baby?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer. I wanted a baby, a particular baby, but not for myself. I hoped Mel’s grandmother wasn’t looking into my future . . . near or otherwise.
“You know me, Bubbe. My only wish is to keep the tribe strong. I do that by being a dedicated queen.”
She puckered her lips. “If only that were such a clear path.” Her blue eyes were sad, reminding me what she had done to protect the tribe. She’d stolen Mel’s son and made her think he had been born stillborn. All to keep his birth and Mel’s desire to keep him from driving a wedge between her granddaughter and the tribe.
It hadn’t worked. Mel had left anyway and Bubbe had borne the secret for years. She’d revealed the truth to Mel last fall, but I didn’t know what had happened after that or if Mel had forgiven her.
I studied the older Amazon, trying to read her body language, but she was, as always, inscrutable. I’d given up and was turning to introduce Bern when another female rushed into the room. This one was young, flushed in the face and stinking of old milk: Dana, a hearth-keeper who had come to live with Mel when she learned she was pregnant with a son. I hadn’t seen her since then.
“Zery!” She rushed toward me, her face glowing.
Before I could dodge her enthusiastic greeting, Bern had stepped forward and shoved the basket full of produce between us.
“Oh.” Dana stopped short. She glanced at Bern, her eyes filled with curiosity but zero intimidation. Dana was one of those rare beings who found good in everyone so saw little to fear from anyone.
It was strangely reassuring to see that hadn’t changed.
“Have you seen him?” She stopped next to one of the carriers and scooped a bundle from inside. The baby was red and ugly, with eyes that were screwed shut against the light. “I named him Pisto,” she murmured.
Named after my lieutenant who had been killed by the son . . . my lieutenant who was also Dana’s sister.
Thinking of Pisto, I reached out a hand.
“Don’t touch him.” Mel’s voice rang out from across the basement.
I curled my fingers into my palm. My friend hadn’t changed much, not that in nine months I expected her to. She was dressed much like I’d seen her last, with a few minor tweaks—wearing shorts instead of jeans and a sleeveless instead of long-sleeved tee. On her head was her favorite Badgers cap and in her hand was a staff.
That was different—not only that she held a staff but that she held it with such ease. I’d always known she had the talent in her, but she’d denied it for so long . . .
“Looks like Harmony isn’t the only one who’s been working with your mother,” I remarked.
She paced forward, the staff in front of her. “Why are you here, Zery?”
“We are friends, remember?” I motioned at Bern to set the basket on the ground. She complied, then stood with her hands shoved into her pockets and her body looking deceptively relaxed.
Mel, however, wasn’t fooled. She shot a glance at the warrior, then laughed. “Which am I supposed to be swayed by? The gifts or the intimidation?”
“Neither. I just want to talk to Peter. Is that wrong?”
She tossed the staff from one hand to the o
ther, then leaned it against the wall. “No, not at all. Let me ask you a question. What do you love, Zery? Really truly love?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I hadn’t expected the question, wasn’t sure I had an answer. Then I realized I did. “The Amazons.” The tribe was my life.
“Really? The Amazons? Or the tribe? Do you want to help and protect each individual or some myth that exists only in your mind?”
I held up a hand to stop her. “We’ve had this argument before. You don’t like the tribe, don’t want to rejoin, fine. I accept that. I’m not here to bring you back.”
She took a step toward me. Her hands were at her sides, empty. For any other artisan it would be an innocent stance, but Mel wasn’t any other artisan. Her father had been a son, and as I’d learned during our last time together, she had not only artisan but warrior and priestess talents too.
She was, I realized, a prime example of why mixing with the sons was dangerous. There was no predicting how strong a baby from a son and an Amazon would be. Which reminded me of someone else. Mel’s daughter had a son for a father too.
“How’s Harmony?” I asked
Mel tensed, every inch of her except her fingers; they wiggled.
I hadn’t said it to tweak her, but I quickly recognized that I had.
“Is Harmony why you’re here?” Her body was so taut now I could almost feel the magic strumming off her.
A few feet away Bubbe murmured something I couldn’t hear. The tension flowing through Mel lessened but only slightly.
“It’s just a question, Mel.” The words came out soft and sad. Since Mel had left the tribe, there had been a gap between us, but now it seemed to have widened to a chasm. Standing there next to women I’d loved, who had supported me through some of the worst times in my life, I felt very alone.
Mel closed her eyes and balled her hands into fists. When she opened her lids, I could see some of my sadness reflected back at me in her gaze.
“We know. We know why you’re here.” Then she opened her mouth and expelled a gale-force wind. For the second time in days I flew backward—this time smashing into a wall.
Chapter 8
Bern thumped into the wall beside me.
My second collision with something solid and ungiving in a week did my back no good. I grunted and closed my eyes.
If Mel was using her energy to hold me to the wall, at least she wasn’t doing something else—like drawing a knife to cut out my heart. Which didn’t mean someone else couldn’t do that part, but I didn’t think either of the females in the room would, at least not without a bit more provocation on my part. Plus with Mel’s wind blowing as strongly as it was, they couldn’t get close enough to me to even try.
So I didn’t struggle; I waited.
After only seconds the wind ceased and I landed hard on my feet. Bern did too, but she didn’t stop. She hurtled herself across the room toward my loving best friend.
This time Bubbe stepped in. She made a motion with her arm, like she was throwing a bowling ball into the warrior’s path. Bern tripped and fell face forward onto her hands and knees. Bubbe, mumbling, made another motion with her hands, this time creating an arch.
Bern leapt to her feet, but I knew no aid would come from her now. It took her a second to realize it, though. Over and over she pummeled her body against the invisible barrier the priestess had created around her.
Bubbe sighed in my direction. “You wish her to damage herself so?”
I turned to the trapped warrior. “Bern. Leave.”
She had staggered backward and was preparing to charge Bubbe’s invisible wall again. When I spoke, she stopped and stared at me, looking, I knew, for some sign I wanted her to do something other than what I had said.
I shook my head. “Go outside.”
Exhaling a breath big enough to make her chest and shoulders visibly move, she folded her arms over her body and waited.
Bubbe waved her hands and she was free.
“The babies too. Sunshine would be good for them.” The priestess gestured to the carriers.
“No, leave them. That is why Zery is here after all.” Mel walked over and took Dana’s child from her arms. “Isn’t that right, Zery? You’re here looking for a baby.”
“How . . . ?” My eyes narrowed. “You’re working with the sons . . . ” Thea had reminded me that Mel had left the tribe, and I’d known she had been traveling with Peter. But I hadn’t thought she would have so completely slipped to the other side that she would know even before I arrived why I was here.
“Dana told you his name, right?” She bounced the infant and tapped a finger on his nose. “Pisto. Do you think your lieutenant would approve?” She looked at me then, her eyes filled with mockery.
We both knew the answer. Pisto had wanted no part of her sister’s son. Naming him for her would have only angered my volatile lieutenant, but I knew Dana had chosen the name with only the best intentions.
“Mel,” Bubbe barked, apparently thinking the same thing I had and not wanting it to be said in front of Dana.
Her eyes misty, the young hearth-keeper waved her hand. “Don’t worry. I know Pisto wouldn’t have approved of me giving him her name, but I loved her and want to remember her. And I want him to know about her, too.”
Looking horrified, Mel darted a glance at me.
I tilted my head to the side. Mel had always been a little brash. It wasn’t a trait she’d had to worry about too much when just living with her tough-skinned family, but Dana was different. She was one of the few Amazons I would honestly term sensitive—a trait that had enraged Pisto more than once.
Dana held out her arms, and a shamefaced Mel slipped baby Pisto into them. Looking humbled, Mel jerked her head toward her mother’s workout room. “We can talk in there.”
I followed her, my head high.
She waited for me by the door. Once we were both inside, she closed it behind us. It was a good-sized room filled with workout benches and weights. There was a plastic half barrel filled with medicine balls and a couple of staffs too.
The staffs were the only weapons in sight, but I knew if Mel planned to attack me it would be with magic anyway—if she intended to hurt me, at least. Her talents might be growing as a warrior, but I could still beat her . . . I hoped.
I glanced at my friend wondering how strong she had become, what being the daughter of a son meant exactly. How dangerous, if she was siding with the sons, was she?
She leaned her hip against a weight machine and studied me. “How? How can we be this far apart?”
“You tell me.”
We stood watching each other for a beat of twelve, neither understanding what the other was thinking.
Finally she pushed away from the machine and began to pace. “Peter told me what happened. I didn’t believe him at first . . . ” She stopped. “Or maybe it’s that I didn’t want to. I’ve always known you loved the tribe more than anything, but I trusted . . . ” She placed her hands on a stack of weights and stared down at them. Then without warning, she looked up. “Do you really think this baby is a threat? That there is no choice but to kill him?”
“Kill? Him?” What was she talking about? I frowned. “Someone’s been lying to you. I’m here to save the baby, to take her from the sons. They stole her from her mother. We don’t know why.” I waited for dawning to hit her, for the anger to come.
She laughed. “And you believe that?”
“The high council—”
“Fuck the high council.” She slammed her hands onto the weights. “They don’t even exist.”
I stiffened. It had been a while since anyone had talked to me like that, in fact, no one except Mel, her family, and my mother ever had. I measured my words. “Of course they exist.”
“Just because they have existed doesn’t mean they do now.”
“We . . . our new priestess just spoke to them. It’s how we learned of the baby.” Someone had been lying to my friend, the sons I gues
sed, to get her on their side for some reason.
“She may have spoken with someone, someone who was on the high council . . . but they aren’t now because the high council has split. The members aren’t meeting.”
Split? She was speaking gibberish.
I spoke slowly. “The council has not split. The high council is the Amazons. It always has been.”
She leaned forward; magic snapped around her. Even as talentless as I was in that area, I could feel it, like electricity. The hairs on my arms, legs, even inside my nose, stood, but I didn’t back away.
“You can’t believe the council is the Amazons. You are not that stupid,” she muttered.
I ground my jaws together. “You’ve gotten brave in the last few months.”
She laughed. “No, I just realized what’s important, and what’s really worth fighting for. And the council isn’t it.”
“The Amazons—”
“Aren’t the council. The council was created to serve the tribe, not the other way around. Somewhere, somehow that got messed up. You can’t follow them blindly. You need to think, Zery—for yourself.”
I pulled back. “But we are the council; we give them our power when they accept the role.”
“Do you give them your brain, your soul, your heart? Where does it stop? Have you thought about what killing that baby would mean? It isn’t about one child—horrific as even that act would be. It’s about all of our children. Dana’s baby—he’s the son of a son, and not just any son . . . the one who was strong enough to murder three Amazons and stake out one of their queens.”
Me. I was that queen.
I opened my mouth to tell her again she was wrong—that I wasn’t looking for the baby to kill her . . . that it was a her, not the he Mel seemed to think.
But she looked past me and kept talking. “My son. What about him? He’s second generation. They’re already watching Harmony; don’t think I don’t know that. If they find my son before I do, who will be ordered to kill him? You? Would you?” Her eyes were on me now and I discovered I couldn’t meet them.
Something was curling around inside my heart, squeezing, making me want to run. Something she was saying rang true.