by Mindy Klasky
Irene introduced me now to the young man who had brought me inside, Luis. He was fifteen or so, with dark brown skin and hair that stuck out in all directions. “You probably saw him the last time we were here, but kids change so fast. And this is Becca,” she said, patting the leg of the child next to her. The little girl smiled at me and then ducked her head behind her book.
The others joined us at that point. Irene greeted them with thanks for coming to their rescue. “I’m afraid it’s the end of the bus. We hit a boulder in the road and bent the frame. I’m not even sure how Luis wrestled the bus this far off the road, but it’s not going to move again.”
“I’m sure he had great driving teachers,” I said, flashing the boy a smile to hide my despair that a child had to drive that behemoth in hopes of getting them somewhere to get help.
The power still worked. Lin figured out that they hadn’t had any dinner—it was after eight o’clock—and bustled around the kitchen turning some of our dehydrated food supplies into a meal. “We’ve been eating once a day,” Luis explained. “To stretch things.”
Amanda helped Lin. She was still moving slow, but she waved away my offer to take her place. “You sit with Irene.”
I did. I sat and held her hand and didn’t say anything though there were hundreds of things I wanted to tell her, and hundreds more I wanted to ask.
Naheem gave each of the children a quick exam—eyes, ears, throat, temperature. Blood draws to check for the virus and other more invasive tests could wait for morning. Then he turned his attention to Irene, using the same simple tools. I could tell from his face that he didn’t like what he heard through the stethoscope, and her blood pressure numbers were extremely high for someone who hadn’t moved much all day. He asked her to squeeze his arm, and even I could see that her right hand barely pressed against him. When she sat up, she used her left to push herself around.
“You haven’t been taking good enough care of yourself,” Naheem scolded in the universal tone doctors use to chastise patients for not taking their meds or getting enough exercise.
“At my age, there’s only so much that can be done,” she replied. “I’d still be falling apart even if I were in your fancy hospital up there in civilization. Me and the bus have a lot in common; we’re tough, but even we have limits.”
He laughed. Lin and Amanda brought us bowls of rice and veggies, and we sat around, chatting about nothing in particular. Becca, no longer shy, bounced around among us, telling stories and asking impossible questions. But soon she was starting to droop. Luis picked her up. “Time for bed, Boo. All these fine folks will be here in the morning when you get up.”
She protested loudly for maybe five minutes, but he was firm. He settled her into a bunk a row back. We could hear him telling her about the wolf cub who saved the other animals from a fire—a story Irene used to tell me—as we sat quietly once again.
Eventually Amanda broke the silence. “I think the best thing to do is pack the three of you into our truck tomorrow and head back north. I hate leaving the bus here, but our vehicle isn’t big enough to tow it.”
“It’s had its day,” Irene said. “If we leave it here, maybe someone else can make a home in it. And you can grab some of our panels and batteries.”
I tried to keep back tears. If Irene could be calm in the face of this loss, I owed it to her to be stoic. But a few dripped down my face.
She patted my hand. “I’ve done my mourning, but you need to catch up. This was your place, too.”
Naheem said, “I’ll run a quick blood test in the morning, just to make sure you’re not carrying anything we can’t handle. Though I don’t expect to find anything.”
Irene nodded. “Becca’s mother died of Dorcas virus, but the child never got that sick. And Luis and I seem to be immune, for some damn reason. The others…” Her voice trailed off.
Lin went outside to do guard duty as Luis came back in. “You should get some sleep, too, Abuelita,” he said to Irene.
“I’ll do it soon,” she said. “But I need to talk to Keryn first. Why don’t you start setting up beds for everyone?”
“Come help us get things out of the truck,” Amanda said. They all went out, leaving me with Irene.
“You need to know. We found Luis about eight years ago, wandering around in the desert near Tucson. He’d been alone awhile, but he’d managed to make himself a shelter and even get water out of cactus. If he knows what happened to the rest of his people, he’s never told me. But,” she stopped to take a deep breath, “but he has no birth certificate, or anything like that.”
I nodded.
“He’s so bright. Like you as a kid. Always figuring something out. No telling what he’ll do if he gets half a chance.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said. “Any kid who can drive this thing and take care of a baby will find a place in Berkeley. And we’ll get him into school.”
“Don’t tell Amanda about the papers. She has responsibilities. It might cause conflict for her.”
I nodded again.
“Becca was born on the bus. We did affidavits documenting that. They’re with the other important papers. Luis knows.” She paused again to breathe. A few tears dropped down her face. “Those two are all that’s left now. I don’t know which was worse, losing the children or losing people I’d been with for forty years.”
I patted her hand and tried not to cry myself.
“Anyway, Becca needs a home. I can’t… And Luis is too young.”
“I’ll take care of her,” I said. “There are other kids in our co-op. And you taught me about taking care of kids just as you’ve taught Luis. I’m rusty, but I can figure it out.”
“I knew I could rely on you. You have always been a rock.”
“And we’ll get you better soon, so you can hang around and be abuelita to them both.”
She let a corner of her mouth turn up. “I’d like that.”
The others came back in and started making up bunks. Luis gave me a meaningful look. I got up. “We’re all tired. I’ll let you get some sleep.” I watched as he helped her to her feet and helped her toward the composting toilet in the very back.
Naheem handed me my bag. “She’s dying,” he said softly.
“But you can help her?” I whispered back. “If we can get her back to Berkeley?”
“I can make her comfortable. If she makes it through the night and we don’t have too much trouble on the way back, I can maybe buy her a little more time in the hospice. But I think she only hung on this long to make sure the children got to someone who could take care of them.”
I couldn’t say anything, but I nodded to let him know I heard.
“It’s a tough ending for a good life,” he said. “But she did so much for so many. I hope someone can say the same about us when we reach this point.” He patted my shoulder and went to set up his own bed.
I lay down and let my tears flow until I fell asleep.
Bearing Shadows
Dave Smeds
When the child quickened inside her, Aerise made a pilgrimage all the way to the cairn of the First Woman, high on the bluff west of the village, and left a serving of wine from the sacred cask as a token of esteem.
The pregnancy advanced smoothly. No swollen feet. Only a little clenching in her lower back. Aerise took it as an omen. Unlike her first two offspring, this child would enjoy a full life. Week by week, the ripening grasses obscured the small graves Aerise’s husband had dug on the far side of their garden. The dark sense of loss grew fainter in her memory.
Her mother was constantly at her side, patting her near-to-bursting belly, helping to chew deerhide to soften the new carrying sling Aerise had fashioned, and offering suggestions on the decoration of the child-braid Aerise would soon have the right to wear. Something with wild boar tooth, perhaps, to fend off the god of Death.
“Perhaps,” Aerise replied, knowing she would in fact use mussel shell, because she loved the river.
On the day
things changed, the two of them were on the verge of that river, sitting on a log. Out in the fields, a bored mule pulled a cart down a row. Villagers’ harvest knives flashed, cutting stems. Bunches of grapes vaulted through the air, to land on the ever-mounting load. Aerise’s husband Duran toiled in one of the crews, adding his clear voice to the vintners’ chant. Aerise and her mother, shaded by a huge old oak, fulfilled their part of the great communal enterprise by honing the edges of blades the pickers had dulled over the course of the morning.
All was in its place. Soon it would be her child’s place. Nine Vineyards had endured in its little valley for three centuries. The plague years had not emptied its fields. The invasion of the Horsemen had not swept it away. Aerise pictured a time three hundred years hence when her descendants would lovingly regard full vats of grapes ready for the crush, and would take their offerings to the shrines on the bluff to commemorate the lives of all the forebears who had cared for this land.
“You are not too hot?” her mother asked, startling her from her reverie.
Such a question. This deep into pregnancy, Aerise’s flesh all but simmered. But the oak’s leaves hung thickly overhead and a breeze was ruffling her hair, its cool breath promising fog in the night.
“I am fine.”
But her mother’s brow remained furrowed. “I will soak a cloth for your head,” she persisted.
“There is no need,” Aerise told her, but her mother was already up, unwinding her sash. The older woman slipped between the curtain of acacia fronds and disappeared over the lip of the riverbank. A few moments later Aerise heard water sloshing, followed by the splatter of drops on cobblestones as her mother wrung out the excess. Despite her protest, Aerise found herself anticipating the cool kiss of the cloth. She set aside the harvesting knife and whetstone, relaxed, and shut her eyes.
“Ahhh-oh!”
Aerise flinched. Her mother stood rigid a few steps away, the wet sash fallen onto the litter of acorns and oak twigs. She looked as aghast as if she had returned to find Aerise strung up and gutted.
“What is it?” Aerise tried to rise, but her balance eluded her. She reached out for assistance, but her mother whirled about and sped toward the workers in the field.
Plopping back down on the log, Aerise finally looked down. And discovered for herself that when the First Woman had granted her wish that her womb be filled, the great ancestress had not been showing favor.
That night, the great lodge of the village was so full the odor of humanity nearly overrode the reek of fermented grapes emanating from the vats along the walls. Everyone had crowded in: The wisemen and the women’s council. Laborers from Creekside and Twin Rock, newly come for the harvest. Her siblings. Her mother. Her husband.
She studied the onlookers. There was her friend Dala, who had come of age with her, been married the same month, both to younger sons of the former headman. Dala averted her gaze.
Others glared at her. She saw disbelief. She saw shock. In the dimness, what had been so difficult to accept was now impossible to ignore. Radiance poured from her abdomen, barely diminished by the presence of her maternity cloak, a brightness to rival the glow of the oil lamps on the walls. The light of her child, showing itself to be the get of a shadow man.
Irony, that the adults of the Cursed Folk could walk the land so invisibly, and yet their unborn announced themselves so plainly. It was the sorcery coming into their bodies that did it, so the bards maintained. When it manifested, the babes-in-womb were unable to contain the gleam of their own power.
The headman took his place in front of the sacred cask, and raised his hands to silence the murmuring. “Aerise, Daughter of Makk,” the elder rumbled, any pity he may have had erased by his need to be a leader, to declare what must be declared. “Your crime is apparent to all with eyes to see. You will bear the penalty. You will leave us forever. Your name will not be uttered again within this valley.”
The headman turned and showed his back to her. The other wise men, and then the council of women—ultimately, anyone of status within the community—did the same.
Aerise’s mother and sisters huddled toward the rear. Her mother sobbed, lifted her grooming knife, and cut off the braid that denoted Aerise. She flung it onto the wine-soaked planks at Aerise’s feet.
Finally, of all the adults, only her husband still faced her.
“How could you?” Duran murmured.
She knew when it had to have happened. That night in winter, when the person she thought was Duran, returning early from the sweat hut, slipped beneath the blankets without lighting the lamp. His body had been unusually warm, but this she took to be an effect of the steam.
“I was deceived,” she murmured. “I thought it was you.”
Duran’s eyelids squeezed down tight. He nodded, chin trembling, and choked back a sob. But then he, too, turned away.
This was the worst. If her spouse had refused to believe her innocence, she could have hated him a little. The pain of losing him might then have pierced her less deeply. But to have him believe her and reject her anyway? That was as bitter as acorn meal before it was leached.
No matter whether she had been raped or tricked, she was befouled. Now no person of Nine Vineyards would let her live among them.
A five-year-old boy—her own nephew, son of her eldest brother Nal—reached into one of the many buckets of stems and spoiled raisins that waited at the feet of the crowd and flung a handful at her. A second child did the same. Within moments, Aerise was being pelted.
She crouched, shielding her face. When she made no effort to move toward the door, some exchanged the raisins for clods of dirt. If she did not leave, eventually the barrage would consist of stones. At which point, the adults would join in the flinging.
Weeping, she fled the building.
She staggered as she crossed the threshold, but a sharp impact on her buttocks straightened her up. She sprinted down the wagon way, past the cottages and lodges, out into the lanes of the vineyards. The rain of debris tapered off as parents called back their offspring. A few cruel whelps dogged her all the way into the woods.
Tripping and stumbling over roots the moon’s weak light failed to reveal, she forged on until she could no longer hear the shouted threats. Only then, panting, her abdomen leaden and cramping, did she stop.
The trees loomed dark and close, hiding any sign that people lived nearby. This was the edge of her world, known to her only from forays to gather acorns or mushrooms. She had gone farther—to grind flour with the village women at the mill at Creekside, or to help her brothers and father sell wine at the fair at Traders Hollow—but never before had she been beyond the periphery of Nine Vineyards without at least one companion.
Her feet bled from the twigs she had landed on during her flight. Her throat ached from the crying, and from the dryness her panting had caused. But all her discomforts paled beside the shock of her exile.
She slapped her protruding belly. It made the babe kick, causing her to groan as her bladder received the impact, but she did it again. If the action forced her into labor, she welcomed it. Not that emptying her womb would change her fate. She was the cask that had produced vinegar, and would never be used for wine again.
She was not sure how long she raged, but by the time she was at last spent, fog had flowed in from the coast.
She had no shawl. Nor did she have a knife to cut fronds to build a shelter. She had nothing, in fact, but her cloak and the thin shift beneath it. She wormed into a thick patch of bracken she hoped would fend off a little of the mist. It was the only trace of comfort she found that night.
At last the sky lightened in the east. Aerise lay still, hoarding the warmth of the crushed bracken beneath her. For once, the baby was quiet. She had no desire to feel it squirm, knowing what it was.
She heard furtive footfalls along her trail and rolled up, reaching out in hope of finding a stout limb or a large stone to wield. Her hands were still empty when the intruder stepped into th
e strengthening light and she recognized her youngest sister.
Zana was carrying a bulging satchel. She set it down on the loam and rushed to Aerise’s side—
—And then stopped, not touching her. She eyed the glow of Aerise’s belly. Carefully she approached again and laid a hand tentatively against Aerise’s cheek.
Aerise kissed her sibling’s hand. “Show me what you brought.”
Zana produced four loaves of bread, two rounds of cheese, and both a skin and a hornflask of wine. Aerise’s stomach rumbled at the sight of the food, but in the long run she knew she would be happiest to have the vessels, because after the wine was consumed, they could be refilled with water.
Zana jiggled the satchel. “There is a knife and a tinder box and a comb. I am sorry it is so little.” They both knew there could be no more than one exchange. If Aerise lingered near the village, she would be hunted down.
“It could be worse. Winter could already be here.” Aerise tore off a piece of a loaf and began wolfing it down. She made no attempt at finesse; with the awakening of the child’s magic had come a fierce hunger.
Zana reached into the satchel and drew out one more item, a small, lidded urn. Butter. Aerise gratefully spread a thick smear on her bread, not attempting to ration it. It would only grow rancid if she hoarded it.
As Zana perceived just how much sustenance she required, new tears welled up to replace those she had already wiped away.
“Will it be enough to reach the enclave?” Zana asked.
“The enclave?”
“The Cursed Folk encampment. I am told it is all the way up near the headwaters this year.”
“I would not know,” Aerise said, stiffening.
Zana put her fingertips to her mouth, color filling her cheeks. “I did not mean—”