Little whispers reminded him of things he had left behind, or hidden, or taken pains to forget. A handful of words would string together, picking at his confidence, planting seeds of doubt in fields where they grew like weeds, winding their way up the stalks and choking the plants that had always grown there. Sneaking in while he was away and replacing conviction with something weaker, softer: a wobbly wheel, a barrel bridge, a missed step where he once walked without fear on solid footing.
Little whispers carrying brilliant pictures of things he had done, wasting his time with crap that couldn’t be undone. Little whispers taking tiny bites out of his resolve.
He shook his head. Stupid Scythe. He’d really slipped up on this one. If there was one thing his old enemy had drilled into him, it was resolve. He smiled in the dark. Yep, he’d learned a lot about that. If something bit at it, you just patched it up and moved forward.
Little whispers were nothing to him. He hadn’t achieved a higher purpose, he hadn’t become a better person, he hadn’t been corrupted by their subversion. He wasn’t just some dog that could be trained. He was who he had always been, and now that he’d been given his chance, he was going to do what he always did. He was going to take it.
Chapter 2
Half of what held him had loosened its ties and the rest was chafing.
“I’m not your father, little boy. So stop...” Scythe reached up to touch his head when his mind swerved to the side. He finally recognized what was causing the disorientation he had been feeling. His memories were being taken from him.
“Stop...that...” The rest of the words abandoned him the instant he saw what his stolen thoughts created.
The boy ran up to a figure that materialized into the woman who had raised him. “Mother,” Scythe whispered, and his concerns were washed away.
The woman called out Scythe’s name and bent down to scoop him up; they hugged and laughed and she kissed him all over his face. Scythe stood amazed while his younger self kissed her back, wriggled out of her grasp, and pulled her into the garden just as he had done…exactly as he had done…years ago. He followed them as they walked together and she told her young son the names of the flowers and plants and fish. He showed her how brave he was to walk on the rocks at the edge of the small fish pond and she scolded him lightly and then warmed him after he fell in. They sat in the grass and ate a makeshift lunch derived from treasures they had plucked from the well-tended rows of healthy plants. The sounds of their voices and laughter filled the garden and the music around them was enriched with an undercurrent of deep, warm notes.
Scythe sat beside them, a silent ghost. He was completely enraptured by the experience: he couldn’t take his eyes off his mother, who seemed to be every bit as real and alive as he was. His mother was as beautiful as he remembered, but with a strength and confidence that had been displaced in his adult mind by another image, one from later years. He was torn between a crushing sadness and the stark, unabashed adoration of his childhood. He had never even considered reliving his own memories; now he wondered why.
The child begged her to tell him again their favorite story, one about his father, and she smiled affectionately and began to speak. Scythe listened to the tale again, this time with older, more experienced ears.
“When I first met your father, I was scared to death. He was Kin, and my family, everyone where I lived, feared and hated them. When we were small, our parents always warned us about them and at night we’d lock up the house tight for fear they’d come for us. They were the monsters of my childhood, Scythe. They were man haters and torturers, evil folk. Of course, I had rarely seen one; they didn’t come out to the bordertowns much, and my hometown was even more poor and isolated than most of the others. Even so, we had heard stories of other towns attacked, of people slaughtered or carried away. Now, of course I know how ridiculous those old stories were, but as a child, well, you don’t really question what you’re told, do you? Especially not when you’re young. Anyway, you can see why I’d be so afraid to see one.
“Well, I was out looking for wood because the shipment of cleanburn from the city was past due, as always. I was adding a nice sized log to the pile I would carry home strapped to my back, when I looked up and there they were: two Kin!
“Now, I know you aren’t scared of them ‘cause you’ve known them all your life, but I sure was. I wanted to run, but the most terrible thing had happened. I couldn’t move, not one inch. I was frozen stiff, Scythe! But, I did hold onto that log, I can tell you...and it was a good thing, too, as you’ll see.”
The young Scythe nodded his head and grinned happily, both hands cupping his chin. His eyes, like those of his older self, were glued to the woman in front of him.
“So there I was, hunched over my pile watching them run by. They were off aways, and they were running fast so they probably wouldn’t have seen me at all if the wind hadn’t picked up right then and blown past me, carrying my scent to them. You know what good senses they have, just like you do, sugarplum. They stopped, just like that, and looked at me, spotting me right away even though I was not easily seen from that distance and bent over to boot. They spoke briefly to each other and the first man looked to leave, that was your father, but the second laughed and started to walk over to me. Your father, well, he seemed like he wanted to hightail it out of there. He even looked down the way he was headed, but then he looked back, past his friend and right at me. I don’t know what my face looked like, scared probably, but in any case, he didn’t leave. He followed his friend. If he hadn’t, if he had just kept going like he was supposed to, you would never have been born, my sweetheart.
Young Scythe said, “And this is when Daddy saves you.”
“Not yet, but, yes, your daddy protected me. So hold on and listen to the whole thing, Scythe. So the other man comes up to me and he has a nasty grin on his face and he looks me over like he’s planning his next meal and he says something, but he’s talking in Kin and of course I don’t understand any of it. It makes him mad when I don’t answer. His face changes, like he’s remembered that I’m some kind of dog, and he just swings that long arm and big hand and slaps me, right on the face! But, because he was so strong, his slap knocks me sideways.
“The next thing I know, I’m staring at the dirt and I’m feeling my head pound and the whole side of my face is stinging like crazy. And do you know what? I wasn’t frozen anymore! In fact, I was mad as I had ever been! I got all hot in the face and it was like oil was bubbling up inside me. I still had that log in my hand, and I gripped it hard. He just stood there, laughing his head off when your father came up. Your father said something sharp to him in Kin, reaching out to take him by the shoulder, but the man moved away and turned back to me. I heard your father shout something to him, but I was already scrambling up and swinging that log as hard as I could. Two things happened at once. The first is that the Kin turned to look at your father when he yelled and the second is that I whacked him a good one, right on the side of the head.”
“You showed him, didn’t you momma? You taught him not to hit you!” Scythe jumped up off the ground in his excitement.
“You know I did, son. You just can’t go around hitting folks for no reason. It’s just not right. We know that, and most Kin know that too, but there are always some folk who just don’t care about how much they hurt others, and this Kin was one of those folks.
“So, what do you know, my hit knocked him off his feet! There I was, with the log in my hand and a terrible anger runnin’ in my veins. Your father just stood there stunned; he looked at me like he never saw a Human before. I just held onto that log, ready for him if he came, but he didn’t. He isn’t that kind of man, your father. He is a good man, just like you’ll be, my son.”
“That’s right, mother! I’ll be a hero, just like my father is!”
“Well, I hadn’t forgotten about the other guy, you can be sure, because as quick as a whistle, he was over his shock and as fearsome mad as a Kin can get. He s
tarted growling!”
“Like this! Gggrrrrrrrr!” The boy made his hands into pretend claws and roared impressively, which made his mother laugh in delight. Then she pulled the little monster into her arms.
“Like that, but much worse. Even your father looked at him like he didn’t know he had been traveling with some kind of beast. Not a second later, he was on me. Just like that! You know how fast they are, Scythe, and they are even faster when they are upset. He plowed into me, knocking the log out of my hand with a hit that broke my wrist, snap! I don’t even remember falling; I just remember my head banging on the ground and the crushing weight of him. Then he opened his mouth and bit me right on the shoulder, deep! I couldn’t even protect myself with my arms because his whole body had pinned me, and of course the left hand wasn’t working anyway. I just screamed, more terrified than I had ever been in my life. I knew in that moment that I would die, because I was very far from the town and no one was around. I doubt that anyone I knew could have stopped them anyway, so strong were these two. Even if they could have, no one went up against the Kin; it was an automatic jail sentence, or worse.
“Then, when I thought it was all over, he was lifted off me by your father. The man was holding on to me so tight, I was being pulled up, too. He had to punch him hard on the face to knock him loose, because the man was not letting go. Can you imagine that, honey? Your father punching someone? But, he did!
“I fell to the ground, blood all over me and more pouring out. I could barely see. Everything was going blurry and my body didn’t want to obey me at all. But, I wasn’t scared anymore, because a deep calm started to spread through me, filling me from head to toe. Then a shadow fell over me. I looked up and saw your father’s face close to mine. He was checking on the wound, and Scythe, that is when I saw the most amazing thing! He was so worried! Here was this Kin, the creature we feared above all others, and he was panicked about my being hurt. He was talking fast, in perfectly correct Human, telling me it would be okay and that he would take care of it. He was shoving cloth he got from somewhere into my shoulder wound, which hurt like crazy and made me scream. I think I even blacked out for a few moments; that happened a couple of times, I think.
“When I opened my eyes, he was calling to me and…” She was lost for a moment in her own memory. Scythe watched her face change: a sudden glitter appeared in her eyes to go with the gentle grin that she seemed unaware of. Then she blinked and smiled fully at her son. “That’s when I fell in love with your father. His relief when I nodded at him broke into my heart; no man had ever cared about me like that. I looked right at him and saw him, all of him. It was the most marvelous thing that has ever happened to me. Even though he was Kin, he was kind and passionate and brave and true and fearful and strong and a thousand more things. I was his from that moment on, and he...he was my everything.”
Scythe felt the breath leave his chest in a rush. His mother...his mother had been powered. She had even told him herself, but he hadn’t understood what it meant. Maybe she didn’t even realize it herself, didn’t recognize it for what it was, or maybe she did and, like most bordertown people, was afraid or ashamed of it. Either way, Scythe felt the excitement of the discovery fill him. His mother was the reason he could do what he did; it was his mother’s gift, in him.
He could hardly believe it. The story had given him not one but two pieces to an unfinished puzzle he had long ago set aside. The second was the explanation of how a certain latent virus had ended up in his mother’s blood, and later in his own. It looked very likely that she had been infected by the Kin who had attacked her on that day. The description of the man’s actions rung true to Scythe, who knew firsthand how the burning, aggressive rage controlled the person infected with it. The Kin’s behavior was not normal, would not have been acceptable to the Kin, even with their distaste for Humans. The man was traveling with an official of the government, so it was not conceivable that he was just some brute; his actions could only be explained by an illness, either mental or physical. In this case, it was both.
Scythe watched the two of them sit and share a quiet smile for a moment before his mother went on. “Well, I still thought I was going to die...what with my wound bleeding like mad and the world spinning and everything getting darker and colder by the second...but I had this new thing now, a love for this man. I didn’t want him to worry, not for one more second. So I tried to calm him, speaking as clearly as I could manage: ‘It’s okay, don’t worry. I’m fine, darling.’ I reached up with my good hand and stroked his cheek, and pushed his hair back. It was so soft and beautiful, like yours, Scythe. Someday, some woman will fall in love with your long hair too.”
“Then I’ll marry her, Momma. And we’ll love each other like you and Daddy.”
An older, wiser Scythe noticed what his younger image had missed: the slight hesitation and gentle crease between her eyebrows before she continued, “That’s right. Well, after that, it gets a little hard to remember, because I kept passing out. Your father didn’t know what to do with me. I’d been bitten by a Kin and if he showed up with me in that condition at my town, it could have caused an incident, and that means problems between the Kin and the Humans; nobody wanted that, then or now. But, I was going to die if I didn’t get some help right away, so he carried me as close as he could get without being spotted and tried to pick out a place he could leave me where I would be found quickly.
“As soon as he lay me down, I woke up. He told me that I would have help from my own people soon. When I realized he was leaving me, I told him I didn’t want him to go. I asked him to stay with me, which of course he couldn’t have done. When he saw someone coming, he called to them and then ran.
“My people took care of me, but even though I mended all right, my heart was empty. Every face I looked into reminded me of what I had lost; not one person looked at me the way he did, not even my family.”
“Didn’t your mother and father love you?” The boy moved himself across the grass until he was beside her, his hand on her knee.
“Well, yes, but, things are different in the bordertowns, honey. People are...harder sometimes, and well...it's just...when you’re worried about feeding yourself and protecting your land, and when times are tough, which they always are there...you just grow up quick and harsh and that’s what you know so that’s how you are with your kids, too.
“Anyway, one night he came to me. I don’t know how he got through the village unseen. The attack had everyone up in arms and people were securing their homes more than ever; the city even sent some guards to patrol. Heh, they stayed for about a week and then disappeared, as usual. Just the city, pretending to care...Anyway, however he did it, I woke up one night and there he was at the window, just looking. I got right up and opened the window. I wasn’t nervous at all, because I had seen him fight for me. No, I wasn’t scared one bit, I was thrilled because I hadn’t thought I’d ever see him again. He came back to check on me many times. Later he told me that he couldn’t get me out of his mind. A short time later, I left my home to be with him. We had it rough, because his people didn’t like my being Human, but they accepted us. Otherwise, I don’t know where we would have gone, because Humans wouldn’t have had us. Then you came along and made us so happy.”
Scythe grinned up at her.
“I miss him still when he is gone a long time like this.”
His mother looked up at the clouds, and young Scythe climbed on her lap, turned her face to him, and looked into her eyes seriously, saying, “I’m still here for you, Mother.”
She laughed and said, “I know Scythe, and I’m so glad!”
She hugged him and the boy looked over her shoulder at his older self and said, silently entering Scythe’s mind, Thank you for this memory, Father. I love her, and the way she loved you so much!
Scythe said severely, “Don’t call me that. I’m not your father.”
When the boy just grinned, Scythe turned his attention to his mother and added thoughtfully
, “I guess I forgot about most of this. I’m...I’m glad for this memory too.”
With a resigned sigh, he looked around, focusing intently on the world around him for the first time. When he couldn’t find a flaw in it, although he knew it to be fake, he asked, “What is this? How are you doing this? You’re not Human, so...”
I want you to show me more, said the boy, stepping away from a vanishing mother. The garden around them faded to gray.
Scythe shook his head and said, “There are many things even I don’t want to remember, and I’m definitely not interested in sharing them with you.”
The child, his face flitting from disappointment to eagerness, insisted, “But I want to see it all, Father. If you were brave enough to bear it, so am I!”
“No…” but his memories were pulled from him anyway.
-----------
“The Kin do not look at it that way, Reese,” the professor said. “I’ve been trying to explain this to you and your classmates all semester. It is their obligation to follow the direction of the lead members of the family, but since they were raised that way, it is not something they object to.”
Harold Pilmer sighed, seeing that he wasn’t getting through to him yet again. “You know, how about this? For homework...everyone please write this down...for homework, find an example case that illustrates Kin familial practices with regard to a child’s duty to fulfill his parents' expectations. Primary sources only, please. This is an upper level course.” He ignored the groans and looked out over his students.
Most were feverishly writing down the assignment, with the exception of Reese who was, predictably, talking to his neighbor, and Karin, whose head was down on the desk. Next to her, Mary had finished writing out the assignment and was pulling Karin’s notebook over to do the same for her friend.
Halfblood Legacy Page 3