Scorched Earth

by Tommy Wallach

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  For Terry, who helped me build a life raft,

  and

  for Bobby D., who simply deserves a dedication

  Prologue

  Six Weeks After the Black Wagon Massacre

  THE BELL IN THE CLOCK tower rang just once, even though it was a good ways past sunrise: the first signal, then. Genny Moses glanced out the kitchen window toward Sophia; the glass was foggy with condensation, and her eyes being what they were, she couldn’t see more than a few feet beyond the pane. It hardly mattered. She knew what was out there.

  “Foolishness,” she said to no one. “Plain old foolishness.”

  Genny Moses didn’t truck in rumors. She had no patience for superstition or mythmaking. Back when she’d lived in Amestown, she’d refused to involve herself in the so-called “spiritual life” of the community—not even to throw a garland of wildflowers around the old totem at Midsummer. The day Mayor Evans sold them all out to the Descendancy for a mill, she’d taken a nice long told-you-so walk right through the middle of town and hawked a big ol’ gob of spit right where the new church would be built. People thought she cared about the religion of it all, but in her mind, that was beside the point; one set of gods would do just as well as any other, thank you very much. What she took issue with was the fact that they’d voluntarily made themselves subjects. Genny didn’t like the thought of someone having power over her. Not a king, not a husband, and certainly not children. Yet here she was living in the old Dedios farmhouse, somehow responsible for the welfare of three helpless little strangers.

  A year ago she’d hardly known the Dedios family except by reputation. José was a member of the Sophian town guard, and Genny would occasionally see him at Arthur Edwards’s house, delivering some esoteric material for the old codger’s tinkerings. Both men were dead now, along with that sweet ginger boy who’d seen after the pumphouse. What was his name? Ralph? Rolph? Hardly mattered. Genny had outlived all three of them. That was what she did: outlive, outlast, outstay. Everyone called her the Widow Moses, as if keeping upright while everyone else keeled over was her defining characteristic.

  After José got himself killed trying to track down that minister and his family, the call went out from Sophia: four orphans seeking a guardian. Genny had spent the last five years or so looking after Arthur—fixing his meals, mending his shirts, marveling at his mysterious inventions—and knew that her days would quickly become aimless and dull without anyone to tend to. Less than a week later, she’d moved herself and all her worldly goods to the farmhouse outside Sophia.

  She’d assumed she’d at least get a little help in the kitchen from the daughter—that firecracker Paz—but the girl was already off on some ill-fated mission of revenge. So Genny found herself a full-fledged mother again, decades after her own daughter succumbed to the plague and passed it to Mr. Moses in the bargain (both of ’em laid out cozy in the cemetery, side by side, with a third plot waiting). It wasn’t a role she’d had much interest in reprising, not just because of all the work—the cooking and cleaning, the shouting and scolding—but because of all the feelings it churned up. Here she was with three fresh vessels eager to be filled with love, when all the world had ever done was take the things she loved and dash them to pieces.

  Foolishness. She’d hadn’t even been here a year. If the worst came to pass, if the war claimed them all, what would there be to mourn? The ceaseless cavalcade of chores? The all-over ache at the end of each day? The heedless way the boys ran from the table after a meal, their cheeks slathered in jam or gravy, no speck of gratitude to be found in a one of them? And why was just imagining their grubby little faces making her cry?

  “What’s wrong?” Carlos asked, appearing suddenly at her side. Goodness knew how long he’d been watching her.

  Genny coughed a couple of times so she’d have an excuse to surreptitiously wipe her eyes. “I’m just wondering how it is that a boy who never seems to shut his mouth can sneak up on a body so quiet.”

  “You were crying.”

  “I was not.”

  “And you’ve been staring at that loaf of bread forever.”

  “It’s rude to spy,” Genny said, sharply enough to end the interrogation. She pulled the knife from the block and began cutting the loaf of bread into the thin slices Terry preferred. The bell of the clock tower chimed again. “Where’s your brother?”

  “Getting dressed. The uniform looks stupid. And he can’t fit hardly anything into that pack.”

  “Send him in here. I’ll help.”

  Carlos scampered off, and Genny took the opportunity to compose herself. She’d let him see too much; Terry would see nothing. It wouldn’t do to look as if she were predicting tragedy. Things could still turn out all right, though they seldom did.

  He came in a moment later, and the sight of him nearly set her to blubbering all over again. The uniform was too big for him, bagging everywhere, making him look more like a vagrant than a soldier. All of fifteen years old, but Sophia would let him fight. They needed every man they could get, especially after what the Protectorate had pulled at the tooroon. Genny had never cared much for the Wesah—not enough shame for her taste—but that didn’t make it right to slaughter ’em like cattle. The Descendancy had to be stopped, and so the task fell to Sophia. There was no getting around it.

  Terry set his bag down at her feet. It was full to bursting; here and there the canvas was stretched over pointy bits destined to become holes.

  “What do you have in there?” Genny asked.

  “Nothin’ I don’t need.”

  “We’ll see about that.” She hoisted the bag up onto the kitchen table, groaning at the weight; the boy would’ve dropped dead of exhaustion in the first couple of days. “Nothing you don’t need, eh?” She turned the bag over and emptied the contents out onto the kitchen table.

  Three books, each one a good three inches thick.

  “I borrowed those from Mrs. Okimoto,” Terry said. “She told me marching’s real boring.”

  “It is. You best make friends.”

  A small hatchet that used to belong to José.

  “What if my gun jams?”

  “Then you clear it.”

  Wrapped in a pair of thick denim trousers, a sack of polished stones.

  “Frankie musta snuck his collection in there. He thinks they’re lucky.”

  “Rocks ain’t lucky. Just heavy.”

  Something unfamiliar poked out from between a couple of pairs of woolen socks. Genny slid it out and inspected it: a small fluted block of iron, hinged at the center. “What the hell is this?”

  Terry picked it up and gave a sharp flick with his wrist; a blade emerged from the slab as if by magic. “Paz made it for me.”

  “If anybody gets so close you gotta use that, I don’t like your odds.”

  Terry flicked his wrist again; the blade disappeared. “It’s coming,” he said firmly.

  The clock tower chimed a third time.

  “That’s it then,” Terry said.

  “Just hold your horses.” Genny wrapped the sliced bread in wax paper and put the parcel and a jar of jam into Terry’s bag. The boy would likely wolf it all down at the end of his first day on the march, but at least it meant a little more meat on his bones. She cinched the bag shut and set the clasp.r />
  “Come here,” she said.

  “Why?”

  She tightened his belt a notch and tucked his shirt in—a little less clownish anyway.

  “Why are you crying?” Terry said.

  There was no use denying it now, with him so close he could probably see his reflection in the rivulets. “I’m just angry is all.”

  “Angry about what?”

  The helplessness of the young. The ease with which they were exploited. The number of good men cut down in the prime of life, or before, or after, always in the name of something or other.

  “I don’t know. I guess about all the things I can’t do nothing about.”

  Terry’s expression hardened, as it sometimes did when he was about to perform the role of “man of the house.”

  “You’re helping me, Ms. Moses. And I’m going out there to do something real important. So that means you’re doing something real important too.”

  Genny smiled wanly. “I’d still rather you stayed.”

  “I wish I could,” Terry said. Then he lifted the bag onto his back and headed for the door, where his brothers were already waiting. He hugged Frankie, who whispered something in his ear that made him laugh. Carlos went next, though he could hardly stop sobbing long enough to say an actual good-bye. Terry was still comforting him when Genny opened the front door and went out onto the porch alone. She looked across the fields, to the main road that wound uphill through Sophia, where every able-bodied man in Sophia proper and the hundred towns loyal to it was congregating. At the bottom of the hill, just across the bridge, a cart carried the gleaming body of Zeno’s airplane. Genny had seen it plenty of times by now, circling overhead like some thirsty vulture god. The not-so-secret secret weapon. The ultimate heresy in the eyes of the Descendancy’s persnickety god. The sight of it now filled her with pride. They would win this war. Terry would come back safe. The world would be a better place.

  The boy, a boy no longer, walked past her and down the steps. Carlos and Frankie came to flank Genny at the edge of the patio. The three of them locked hands.

  Terry turned around. “I’ll see you all soon,” he said.

  Genny nodded. “You do that.”

  They stood there for a good long while, watching Terry traverse the bright fields and enter Sophia, where he disappeared into the undifferentiated mass of men, became just one more soldier heading off to the Anchor, and his fate.

  “Lord, don’t let me outlive him, too,” she whispered. And what Lord was it that she thought she was praying to, that would deign to answer her prayers after all her apostasies and transgressions?

  She looked down at the boys she had left. Their eyes were red-rimmed and glistening. They needed cheering up even more than she did.

  “Come on,” she said, corralling them back into the house. She would show them what hope looked like, though she’d never had much of the stuff to spare. She would pluck off their fears like the burrs they’d amass on their sweaters while playing in the woods. That was her purpose now. That was the something she could do. “Which of you wants pancakes?”

  Neither of them answered, but that was all right. She didn’t need an answer. Everybody loved pancakes.

  Part I VICTIMS

  Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

  —Bertrand Russell

  1. Athène

  FOOTSTEPS THUDDING ON WET GRASS. Susurrus of rainfall and the rumble of its thunderous birthplace. The distant crash of the surf. Her heart, jolting wild as a wounded deer. So many distractions, muddling the senses, jumbling the thoughts.

  Should she have stayed? Kneeling beside Gemma in those first terrible moments, she’d felt paralyzed. She wanted to remain at her lover’s side; though Gemma’s spirit had already left her body, there were still prayers to be spoken, valedictions to be made. Yet the woman responsible for creating this tear in the very fabric of Athène’s reality was on the brink of escape, already obscured behind a thousand translucent curtains of rain. The opportunity for vengeance might never come again, and the fury was lightning inside Athène’s belly, crackling, demanding satisfaction.

  “Miina kawapamitin, moon amoor,” she said—Good-bye, my love—and took off running. Clive called out after her, but she ignored him. The hunt was on.

  What did she know of her prey? The girl’s name was Paz Dedios. She hailed from Sophia but no longer considered herself a member of any particular nation. That meant she knew no loyalty, no higher calling than self-interest, which made her the most depraved sort of creature, a sister to the jackal and the vulture. The Wesah viewed banishment as the ultimate punishment, yet Paz had chosen to banish herself—and not just once! First she’d abandoned her family in Sophia, and now she’d murdered Gemma, betraying those precious few who’d come to trust her. And why? Could it really just have been petty jealousy over that Clive boy? What man’s love had ever been worth the life of a good woman?

  These questions mattered, but only insofar as they informed the central riddle: Where would she run to now, this twice-exiled enigma, this beast without a country?

  The pasture was large, full of horses still blissfully unaware that they would never see their masters again. Athène couldn’t yet think about that other tragedy, the massacre that had taken place down on the beach. It was too large to comprehend, like the depth of the ocean or the number of the stars. Easier to focus on one death—one immediately avengeable death—than to try to make sense of carnage on such a scale.

  She stopped. The silvery footprints she’d been following through the grass had disappeared. Perhaps they’d been disturbed by the horses’ desultory grazing, or effaced by the torrential rain. Athène closed her eyes and extended her awareness, imagining it spreading out around her like a cloud. Something eddied at the feathered edge, a wayward stitch in the nap of the night. This anomaly seemed to grow louder and clearer as she focused on it, as if she were shaking the dust from some long-buried artifact.

  She realized her foolishness just in time, opening her eyes to find a majestic palomino galloping straight at her, Paz clinging to its neck like a barnacle. Their eyes met. Athène was surprised to find no trace of satisfaction in her enemy’s gaze—only rank fear. She sidestepped the horse and lashed out with her nails bared, scoring Paz’s bare calf.

  “Baytaa!” she shouted, chastising herself. If she’d grabbed the girl’s ankle instead, she might have pulled her off. The horse was already twenty feet away. Athène took the bow from her back and drew an arrow. Her arms shook with cold; the rain blurred her vision. As she pulled the bowstring taut, she whispered a supplication to Fox, master of the hunt.

  The bolt flew true as a hound racing to its master’s side; there was a distant shriek. Athène watched for Paz’s body to slip off the horse’s back, but the girl stayed upright even as her horse jumped the fence surrounding the pasture. A moment later, she was gone from sight. Athène cast about for a horse she might use to give chase, but none was close. It was over.

  “No!” she screamed, falling to her knees, sobbing along with the sobbing sky. The possibility of revenge had momentarily anesthetized her grief; now feeling returned to the wound. Gemma, her lover, her love, her little dancer—never to dance again. Never to sing or cry or laugh or smile or curse or fight or kiss. And the very same night, Athène’s people cut down by the thousands, whole naasyoon annihilated in an instant, and the Wesah nation scattered to the four winds.

  Gemma and Grandmother had seen all of this in their journeys with the dreamtea. There was no avoiding fate. It had been foolish to try.

  Athène could see no reason to go on living. She drew her glass knife and brought the point to her chest. One quick thrust and she and Gemma would be together again. She tensed her muscles and sucked in a breath, praying her ancestors would forgive her this final crime.

  Something touched her shoulder.

  An impossible hope, momentarily buoyed by the vision that greeted her when she turned around: Gemma,
miraculously reanimated by the spirits that had always favored her, returning younger and softer somehow, as if every minute in the land of the dead had returned a year of life to her. Athène blinked the tears from her eyes. Something was wrong. The spirits had erred. They’d made a false copy, a travesty of nature. Or else…

  “Flora.” The name was still foreign on her tongue, though Gemma had spoken it often enough.

  The girl didn’t respond. Her eyes were lifeless and unfocused.

  “She got away,” Athène said, answering the unasked question. “I am sorry.” Flora’s expression didn’t change. Did she require more of an apology than that? “She had a horse. I could not follow.” Still nothing: just that blank face like a sheer stone wall. “Say something!” Athène shouted.

  “Flora? Flora?”

  Men’s voices, carrying across the field like bats flitting through lightless caverns. Clive and the soldier Burns, calling out for their lost lamb. Athène had no desire to speak to either one of them ever again. Both had trusted Paz, which meant both were responsible for Gemma’s death.

  “I am leaving,” she whispered to Flora. “I must be with my mother, my people. And you must be with yours.”

  Athène turned and began walking briskly across the dark grass, away from the voices. It was a moment before she realized Flora was keeping pace alongside her.

  “What are you doing?”

  Flora’s answer was the same as ever—no words, only the unforgiving ice of those blue eyes, looking straight through her.

  “They are calling for you.” Nothing. “They are your family.” Nothing. “So you are not wanting to go with them?”

  A momentary twinge as she remembered not to say chee to signal the question; Gemma had taught her that.

  Flora shook her head, so slightly it almost seemed a trick of the moonlight.

  “Why not?”

  The girl refused to answer, but Athène understood well enough; Flora was only doing what little sisters had done since time immemorial—following in the footsteps of their elder siblings. It was sweet, in its way, but also out of the question. There were weeks of hard travel ahead, and waiting at the end, a tribe of wrathful warriors who’d never had more reason to hate outsiders.