Weave a Circle Round

by Kari Maaren

  “Because I was doing what I remembered me doing because I remembered me doing it,” said Josiah gloomily.

  Another strand. There couldn’t have been more than two left. Freddy flexed her wrists, then jerked them apart. The rope snapped.

  Josiah nodded. “Don’t draw attention to it.”

  “I’m not an idiot.” Carefully, she passed the keys to him.

  “You could try to change the past,” she said as he palmed the keys and began to saw at his ropes with one of them.

  “I told you before,” said Josiah, “we don’t change the past; we act the way we act in the present. I could tell myself I was doing something different this time around, but maybe I’d just be misremembering the first time. Everything happens the way it happens.”

  “But then we don’t have any choice,” said Freddy.

  “Which is why I’m not telling you how it goes,” said Josiah. “And we do have choice. It’s just that I know how some of our choices are going to turn out. Now shut up a bit, do; you’re making my head go around.”

  He sawed in silence. The brothers looked over every once in a while, but they must have had faith in the strength of their knots. They never noticed the keys.

  After a bit, Josiah’s bonds parted.

  Freddy said, “The others?”

  “The others have been taken care of,” said Josiah. “This next bit may be tricky, though. It’s seven to six, and we don’t have many advantages.”

  She didn’t understand how the others had been taken care of, but she set that aside for the moment. “We could wait until they go to sleep.”

  “I’m not sure they will,” said Josiah. “You were right the first time; they’ve taken us out here to kill us. These brothers have never been big on honour, though they’re not above using it as an excuse. They’re just having a break before the fun part begins.”

  She was terrified after all. She’d thought she was calm and collected, but that must have been the shock again. I could die here, she thought, five thousand years before I’m even born. It hadn’t seemed real a moment ago. Now it did. Josiah had talked about their trip through time as if it had lasted a while, but maybe he was wrong about how time travel worked. Maybe the past could be changed. If I just sit back and let things happen because they’re going to happen anyway, will anything happen at all? What if they’re not going to happen anyway? Things can’t be that certain …

  Josiah must have seen her expression change, even by the dim firelight. “Don’t do that,” he said, and handed her back the keys. “You’re better off in denial. I expect now’s as good a moment as any.”

  As it turned out, Ji had been thinking along the same lines. The two of them stood simultaneously. Ji tossed Josiah the missing knife. It appeared that one of the things Josiah had picked up in his thousands of years of living was a bit of sleight of hand.

  Ling and the two old men were rising, too. Freddy was the last to scramble to her feet. One of the old men was holding the long rope to which they had all been bound. Josiah had the knife; Freddy, remembering a TV show about self-defence she had seen once, made a fist around her key ring and let the keys poke out between her fingers. Otherwise, they were unarmed against seven men with knives and spears.

  The brothers reacted immediately. They hadn’t been watching closely, but they had been watching. Now they were standing ranged before the fire, spears at the ready. One of the older ones spoke. “What do you think you can do here?” Josiah translated. “Two old men, two boys, a woman, and a little girl.”

  Oh, look, thought Freddy, some of the terror is anger after all. She was not a little girl.

  She expected one of the old men to reply. Unexpectedly, it was Ling who spoke. “Let us go,” Josiah translated, “and save yourselves some honour.”

  The brother who had spoken before laughed. “The mother of a murderer speaks of honour?”

  “Qiao was fighting for his life,” said Ling. “Four of you ambushed him. He barely got away. You know this.”

  “We know nothing,” said the brother. “We know Qiao killed our brother and ran away with the fox woman. We know you consort with spirits and demons. No one will cry for your family when we bury you in the woods.”

  “And we will,” said another of the brothers. “You’re few and weak and unarmed. Go ahead and run; it won’t take us long to find you.”

  “Perhaps,” said Ling, “but we consort with spirits and demons, remember?”

  “Do we?” whispered Freddy.

  Josiah gestured to the right, into the darkness of the forest. “It’s irritating, but she can never resist a good entrance cue.”

  A woman was melting out of the pitch-black woods. Freddy dimly registered that there was someone else behind her, but it was the woman herself who drew the eye. Though she was dressed in the same basic style as the others in the clearing, from what Freddy could see in the leaping light of the fire, her clothes were much finer. Freddy thought she could glimpse decorations and colours. The woman’s hair fell loose to her knees. She bowed daintily to the brothers, hands hidden in her sleeves.

  “Time to run.” Josiah seized Freddy’s hand and pulled her into the forest.

  The next bit involved a lot of running and tripping over things and bashing into trees and blundering around with other panicking people as the pain bounced back and forth through her aching head and the heart-rending screaming continued constantly behind them. Freddy dropped her keys. It was Josiah who stopped to pick them up. “Clearly, these things are useful. What’s this?” he said as he continued to drag her along.

  Freddy said, “What’s what?” Not that far away through the trees, someone was shrieking words that Freddy was chillingly certain were the prehistoric Chinese equivalent of, “Oh, please, God, no!” or possibly just, “Aaaaargh!”

  “On your key ring. Is this a little flashlight? Do you have a little flashlight on your key ring?” he demanded.

  “What? I don’t know. Maybe. Do I?” said Freddy, who was having trouble remembering her own name at the moment.

  “You do,” said Josiah. “Do you ever mention anything important ever?”

  A small light sprang to life. Someone cried out nearby, and Josiah called something to the others.

  “It’s all right. They think I’m supernatural anyway,” he said, “and they know Qi is. Let’s get them to some sort of shelter.”

  “Right,” said Freddy, “wherever that is.”

  He paused, barely visible in the glimmer from the flashlight. “That was a good idea with the keys earlier. We could’ve all used the knife, but maybe not in time.”

  He had never truly complimented her before. She found herself jerking out a nod, not very graciously. The moment passed, and they headed deeper into the forest.

  10

  It was not a comfortable night. They spent it huddled together against a cliff face that couldn’t really be called “shelter,” though they never did get too cold. There was a stream nearby, so at least they weren’t thirsty any more. The brothers eventually fell silent, but that seemed more ominous than the desperate screaming.

  Freddy fell asleep. It had been a long time since she had slept, though she had lost track of just how long. She probably had the world’s worst (or only) case of time-travel–induced jet lag. Sleeping on the ground with a bunch of prehistoric people she had only just met was not how she would normally have chosen to spend a night, but she didn’t seem to have much choice. Her last thought before sleep took her was to wonder why Josiah and Ji weren’t squished up with the rest of them, though she did suppose someone had to stand watch.

  * * *

  “Wake up,” said Josiah.

  Her head was pounding. She didn’t know where she was. Then … she did. The world rocked on its foundations for a moment before steadying.

  Freddy sat up and blinked out at the morning. Ling and the old men were only just rousing. There was a new person, too, a boy of fifteen or sixteen with his arms around Ling. Qiao, mayb
e? Josiah and Ji stood together in the growing light, looking identically bored. Ji wore his hair very long, but he was otherwise Josiah’s exact double, as Heimdallr had been.

  Freddy said, “Did you sleep?”

  “No,” said Josiah. “I never do. We’d better start moving if we want to get back to the village before people start fainting from hunger.”

  Ji was saying something to the others. Freddy pulled herself up. “You never sleep?”

  “Colossal waste of time,” said Josiah.

  Freddy shook her head, but things had been strange for a while now. The news wasn’t as surprising as it would have been yesterday or, well, several thousand years in the future. Besides, it wasn’t just that, was it? My eyes always water sympathetically when I look at him. I’m not sure he ever closes his eyes at all, even just to blink.

  Josiah said, “Also, I need to keep an eye on Qi, don’t I?”

  “I think you lost sight of her a bit last night,” said Freddy.

  He jerked his head up and down in an irritated nod. “They see her as a fox spirit here. She’s taken on the role enthusiastically. Fox spirits are sort of like fairies in your mythology, and not the nice type with wings made of flowers. She doesn’t always behave herself.”

  There was a question Freddy had been wanting to ask since last night, but she kept … not asking it. She thought she might have been a bit afraid of the answer.

  Josiah had noticed. “The brothers aren’t dead. If she killed them, she couldn’t torment them any more. She’ll have scared them silly, though. It’s best not to think about how.”

  “She’s dangerous,” said Freddy before she could stop herself. She tried to think of Qi and Cuerva Lachance as the same person, but it wasn’t easy. Were they really living next door to that?

  “Of course she’s dangerous,” said Josiah. “She doesn’t follow rules. How could she not be dangerous?”

  “But I help sometimes, too,” said Qi from overhead. “Hello, curly-haired one.”

  She dropped out of the tree in which she had been sitting and bowed to everyone, her cherry-red tunic and long black hair fluttering in a breeze Freddy couldn’t feel. The old men shrank away, clinging together; even Qiao edged behind a tree. Ling simply bowed back.

  “You almost forgot about us, didn’t you?” said Josiah.

  “Of course.” Qi did Cuerva Lachance’s birdlike head tilt. “There was a deer. With antlers! But Qiao kept following me around and squeaking. Are you here for long this time?”

  “I’d rather not say,” said Josiah with a cagey glance at Freddy.

  “That does sound like you,” said Qi. “If you’ll excuse me a moment, I need to go be yelled at by Ji. I really enjoy it when there are two of you.”

  She wandered over to Ji, who did, in fact, begin to berate her for something or other. Freddy wasn’t sure she would ever understand either of them, even if she ended up time travelling with Josiah for the next hundred years.

  * * *

  It took them most of the rest of the day to get back to Ling’s village. After that, there were adjustments to be made.

  Ling and her family were farmers. The women and children amongst the villagers worked in the rice fields, while the men hunted or fished in the great river nearby. There were other villages in the area—the brothers came from one—but Freddy got the sense the villagers saw real strangers only very rarely. They were as curious about her as the Vikings had been, though they were also wary of her. She thought it was because she had come with Josiah. They didn’t like the way Ji and Josiah looked so alike. Qi hadn’t left the forest with them, but Freddy wondered if she had something to do with the wariness as well.

  Ling, like Bragi, seemed to have reframed her life around the presence of Ji and Qi. Josiah and Freddy didn’t bother her at all. Freddy found herself liking Ling, who just seemed very firm and sensible about everything. When she saw the villagers whispering about Freddy, she said a few short, sharp words that shut everyone up immediately. Then she nodded, pulled Freddy into the hut that was apparently her own, and handed her several pieces of clothing. Freddy expected that what she said at this point was disparaging and directed towards Freddy’s jeans.

  Josiah looked in. “Is everything all right?”

  “I think she wants me to wear these,” said Freddy, holding the tunic and skirt out towards him. They would almost fit her. Ling was only a few inches taller than she was.

  “Do it,” said Josiah. “You’ll have to start helping in the fields tomorrow, and you’ll be much more comfortable in those.”

  She stared at him. “Helping in the fields? How long will we—”

  “A while,” said Josiah, and disappeared again.

  “A while” was a useful term, Freddy found herself thinking. It could mean anything at all. She felt suddenly, immensely, helplessly far from home.

  * * *

  In this case, “a while” meant twenty-six days.

  It had got to the point where she had almost forgotten about the time travel. She hadn’t really, of course; she had just pushed it to the back of her mind to keep the homesickness company. She let herself be homesick for only a few minutes at a time. It did hit her unexpectedly every once in a while, but she could control it if she had to. Sometimes she missed Mel. That was the predictable bit of the homesickness. There were less predictable bits. She found herself missing school and her basement and even Roland. That last one worried her, as the thought of Roland set her clutching her key once or twice, and she didn’t know why, whereas even when she forced herself to think about her mum, she couldn’t seem to work up any real feeling. She didn’t know if she was mad at Roland any more. She thought she was, since she couldn’t seem to connect the idea of Roland with any emotion but anger, but the anger was five thousand years in the future. It didn’t fit here. She was sure there was something seriously wrong with her.

  Other things she missed were more understandable: showers, shampoo, processed meat, books, TV, popcorn, someone besides Josiah to talk to. But she had adapted to life with Ling’s family more easily than she would have thought. Working in the fields was hard but not boring, and it got easier as her muscles adjusted to it and the pain in her head faded. The villagers were harvesting rice right now. It was a bit like weeding, and she had always liked weeding, to Mel’s disgust. It was also nice not to have to think or worry about anything much.

  She had even learned a bit of the language. She hadn’t done it on purpose; she had just always been good at picking up languages. She couldn’t talk to anybody here, aside from being able to point at things and say “water” or “fire” or “good,” but she thought Ling approved of the fact that she could do even that much. Ling approved of a number of things Freddy did, even though Freddy was pretty sure they were all basically baby skills. One day, Freddy tore a hole in her skirt by catching it on a bush. Ling took one look at the material flapping around Freddy’s knees and pulled a skin bag out of an alcove. She opened it and showed its contents to Freddy, who found herself gazing down at neat rows of bone needles and little skeins of gut and thread. A sewing kit, she thought.

  Ling selected one of the needles and handed it to Freddy, then looked at her expectantly.

  It wasn’t as if she had never sewn anything before. Mel was hard on her clothes, and Freddy had had to teach herself to deal with the various rips and tears. It had been trial and error at first, but eventually, she’d figured out how to mend clothing in such a way that it wouldn’t immediately come apart again. But she wasn’t good at sewing. She always hoped the rips were on the seams; otherwise, she would end up with an ugly, zigzagging mess of thread that would begin to unravel within a few weeks. She ran a finger over Ling’s needle, hesitated, and reached for a skein of undyed thread.

  Ling watched her work for a moment, then laid a hand over hers gently, stopping the sewing. She took the needle from Freddy and carefully pulled out the thread. Freddy was chagrined to see how easily it came loose. She was not any good at sew
ing. It was better for Ling to do it herself.

  Ling didn’t do it herself. She put the needle back in Freddy’s hand and slid her own hand into place over Freddy’s fingers. Slowly, patiently, the woman guided the direction of the needle. When Freddy’s fingers began to cramp up in a death grip, Ling slapped gently at her hand until it relaxed. The needle’s motion … It’s a pattern, thought Freddy, surprised. It isn’t even a hard one. The pattern repeated, over and over, and then the tear was nothing but a crooked line of slightly lighter thread against the undyed cloth.

  Ling smiled and nodded approvingly. A brief warm glow blossomed in Freddy’s chest. She wasn’t sure why. She didn’t remember feeling anything like that before.

  The other people of the village kept their distance, except for Qiao, who seemed to like her. Ling was different. Freddy didn’t think she was afraid of anything. I can’t be Three, Freddy thought more than once. Not if it’s all about the courage. Bragi was brave, too. It couldn’t have been all about the courage. There had to be something besides just bravery or the vague designation of “creativity” binding the Threes together, but Freddy didn’t yet have enough information to puzzle out what it was.

  Somehow, Ling had single-handedly stopped the villagers from going after the brothers for revenge. She was just a widow with three kids, one of them barely old enough to walk, but people listened to her. Josiah said she had needed all her persuasive powers, as the brothers had violated every conceivable law of protocol and hospitality and had, at any rate, started the whole business by picking the fight with Qiao. As it turned out, however, the brothers had stopped being a problem. The entire family had vanished. Ji had been inclined to blame Qi until one of the villagers, gone to check, reported that it looked as if the brothers had simply packed up and fled. Nothing of value had been left in their village.

  “It’s still her fault,” Josiah said.

  Freddy thought he was right. She was also a little suspicious of the thought. Qi was dangerous, but Freddy wasn’t convinced she should take Josiah’s view of Cuerva Lachance and her various incarnations at face value. She expected that “biased” was just about the mildest word that could be used to describe Josiah’s approach to Cuerva Lachance.