Annah and the Children of Evohe

by Clay Gilbert

  Annah nodded. “That makes sense. Still, I had to tell you. Holder, if you had seen something like this; if you had seen something important, would you tell me? Even if it frightened you?”

  “Yes, I would,” Holder said. “Rest for a while, beloved. The others’ll be awake soon.”

  I love her, Holder thought. And right now, I hate myself.

  * * * It was a great party, thought Goodman, smiling to himself as he sat in the cockpit of his ship. Music, dancing, andGod, my head hurts. That was some kind of fruit punch. Accent on the word ‘punch.’ I wasn’t always such a lightweight. He laughed.

  Holder and Annah had both looked so happy. Hell, everyone had been. Even him. He’d played this old folk song Holder had wanted him to learn for the party, and the two of them had looked fantastic dancing together, even if Annah’d been a little shy. It was cute. It’d reminded him how cold it’d been, being married to Homesec all these years. He guessed that thought had been why he’d started drinking.

  Nah, he told himself, I started drinking because I like drinking. He’d kept drinking because of the memories. What a crazy place this Evohe was. And these people, after all the drinking; after the music had been going for a whilethere’d been singing; the most beautiful singing he’d heard in his life. Sure, some of it wasn’t pitch-perfect, but there was a magic to it he wouldn’t have been able to describe if he’d been asked to.

  Late in the night, he thought he remembered Holder and Annah singing something together-that old song about Casey Jones, by the Grateful Deaddriving that train, high on cocaine, could you believe that shit? He laughed to himself again.

  Those two always looked so in love, though. It was glorious, and so damn depressing at the same time. He’d had some more to drink, and then something had happened that stupid people might describe as an orgy, only that wasn’t at all what it was.

  That wasn’t how it had felt, anyway. People had started pairing off-well, some of the couples had started easing away into the shadows, and others who hadn’t been paired off when the gathering began found each other, and there was a second music to the night: the sound of life’s first music: the breathing, soft whispers, and cries of people loving and pleasuring one another in the night. There’d been nothing dirty about it, thought Goodman, nothing immoral. Hell, if that had been immoral, every law and statute he’d ever read needed to be ripped up. It was the sound of belonging; the feeling of a communion between flesh and spirit that he really hadn’t realized he believed in, until then.

  That’s how I wound up with this Evoetian girl in my ship, I guess. He smiled to himself. She was still lying asleep, stretched out on her side on a blanket in the cargo hold. Goodman thought she looked a little older than Annah. There’d been two of them who came up to him at the gathering when all the pairing-off had started.

  They were both shorter than Annah, which Goodman had come to realize was the norm for females, here. This girlGoodman looked at her, lying there asleep, and wondered for a moment if he were just trying to imitate Holder’s life; to find some of the same happiness—she had long brown hair and dark violet eyes, the color of burgundy wine-from what he’d seen, that wasn’t the rarity on Evohe that Annah’s blue eyes were, but it was less common than brown-hell, common or not, they were gorgeous.

  Her eyes, and the expression of openness in her face-those had been the reasons he’d sent her friend away. “My name is Irie,” she’d told him when he asked, pronouncing it ‘earee-ay”-and Goodman knew he’d never forget that, whether he saw her again after today or not. “Why are you alone?”

  Why are you alone? That question, and her violet eyes, had been why he took Irie with him back to the ship. He didn’t have an answer for her question. Irie didn’t know much Standard speech, it turned out—Goodman imagined many of the younger ones here didn’t. It’d been all right, though, last night. He didn’t remember everything she’d done to him, or let him do to her, but he did remember that he had felt, just for a few hours, as though he were beyond all the problems he’d piled on himself for years. He felt, for once, like someone was caring for him, rather than the other way around.

  He heard a sound in the hold. “Irie?” he asked. She sat up; smiled at him. She didn’t look the same to him, somehow. He poured some tea he’d made when he woke up, only a little earlier. “You okay?” he asked. She looked like she didn’t entirely know where she was. I should have realized she was drunk, too. Stupid.

  “Yes. Okay,” she said. “Thank you.” Those violet eyes. Goodman didn’t know why she was thanking him. The tea, maybe. “You—hurt?” They hadn’t had sex, though he seemed to remember they’d done just about everything else. He hoped he hadn’t been rough with her. It wasn’t usually his way, but it’d been a long time. Stop it. Look at her. She’s fine.

  “No,” Irie said. She got up, and came to sit beside him. She touched his face, the way he’d seen Annah do to Holder so many times. Her fingers felt oddly warm on his face, and there was a tingling where she touched him that had nothing to do with sex, and more to do with energy—he remembered it had felt the same when Annah shook his hand. Is that all this is? Do I just want what Holder has? This girl’s not Annah. And I’m not Holder. I’m not even sure I’d want to be. “Not hurt,” Irie said. “And not alone.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Goodman said. He sighed, and put his arm around her. He gestured toward her teacup. “Good?” “Yes,” she said. “Good. Thank you.”

  Goodman thought of the lethal little blue marble in its hiding place in the hold, and hoped Irie would find someone better to be ‘not alone’ with. “Finish your tea,” he said to her, hoping she would understand even a little. “And then I’ll take you home.”

  * * *

  “I almost wish we didn’t have to leave here,” Holder said. “I know, dearest,” Annah said. “But we cannot stay, you know that. There will be others who will need this place. Perhaps-”

  “Yeah. I know. Have you heard any more about Kyrin and Ardan?”

  Annah smiled. “No, I have not. But I do not think their plans have changed. I do expect they will be Promised soon.”

  Holder helped Annah pack away some of the things they had had with them during their time in the Temple. “My parents have said you would be welcome at their hearth in the Grove,” Annah said, “since we are Promised now.”

  “That’s nice of them. Beloved, I’m not sure us living with your parents for the next year is a good idea.” Holder found that he sometimes called Annah ‘beloved’ at times when he suspected what he had to say might make her angry.

  “I am not either, dearest.” The tone of Annah’s voice was matter-of-fact, but the expression in her eyes was sad. “To tell you the truth, I do not even know if I want to live at their hearth until our Choosing, Holder.”

  Holder stopped packing clothes away in his satchel and looked at her. “What?” “They are my parents, and I love them. But I barely remember living with them. They were gone for quite some time, you know.”

  “Yeah. I know.” He couldn’t think of anything more comforting to say.

  “I lived by myself a short time, then I lived with-with her. My guardian. And then after she was gone, I was alone again. And then there was you. I think it would seem-too strange, Holder. And a part of me is shamed that I feel that way.”

  Holder went to Annah and put his arms around her. She pressed her head against his chest. “I want to go home with you,’ she said, “back to our camp. I am tired of being something for others to look at, whether in the Grove, or here, behind walls of glass and stone. I only want to be yours, and for you to be mine. Right now, that is enough for me. It is actually more than I have ever had.”

  “Annah, that’s not so. You’ve had the Old Ones, and you’ve had some friends in the Grove. And your parents never stopped loving you.”

  “I know that. But they were not there. Not in the way I needed them to be. I have grown up alone. And now, if the Elders will not let us be together before we are t
o be formally Chosen, I would live alone again. But I do not want to.”

  “We’ll go to your parents and get them to talk to the Elder Council,” Holder said. Maybe we can live together, even before the Choosing. I think they’ll understand.”

  “I hope you are right,” Annah said. “It is not the way of things. Not the way they understand.”

  “Remember what you told me that time? About the whisper of the river?”

  She smiled. “Yes. ‘Everything changes’.”

  “Maybe we can be the river, for them.”

  * * * Goodman sat in the cockpit of the ship, scanning the signal band of the ‘com. Nothing but silence. Holder and Annah had gone to the Grove to speak to the Old Ones—or the Elders—or whatever the right name was. He thought of Irie for a moment. Maybe I shouldn’t have sent her away. Wait; on the ‘com-what was that?

  “Goodman. Goodman, if you’re out there, it’s the Maestro. Come in, if you’re there.”

  “I’m here, Maestro. What is it?” “Bad news. The war’s not going well. If you’re out on the Edge still, I’d stay there. The Commander signed an order today.”

  “Okay?” Goodman said. “It’s an order mustering a full ten percent of the ablebodied population of the Earth over the age of thirteen into service for the war effort. The selection’s being done by name until they reach the ten percent mark.”

  “Oh my God.” “No shit. I don’t have to tell you, Goodman, you’re on the first third of the alphabet. You and Holder both. Chances of you getting called up for this thing are pretty good. If I were you, if you didn’t plan on suiting up, I’d be getting ready to run. That ship you got should get you pretty far. “

  “Holy shit, Maestro. A tenth of the global population. Really?” “Homesec is calling it ‘Bulletin something-or-other.’ Press gave it a better name, though. ‘The Decimation Proclamation.’

  “Could they get any more obvious?” Goodman laughed.

  “And that’s not all the good news,” the Maestro said.

  “Tell me,” said Goodman. “Caminos was here the other day. He was in town for a meeting with the Commander. Can you imagine that? He stopped in to see me. He’s looking for his ‘marble.’ And he’s looking for Piscene.’ Just thought you might want to know.”

  Shit, Goodman thought. I’ve got to do something, fast. And I’m running out of options. “Annah, we had hoped this day was further off,” Llew was telling her, as the hearth-fire burned between them in its cradle of stones. She had come alone. Severing the ties of hearth and home was a family matter, and although Holder was her family, he was not yet their family.

  He would not have understood their words, had he been here. They spoke, this moment, not in Standard, the speech of those in the wider Sea of Stars, beyond this world, but in the native speech of their homeworld. This was a moment for song—the pleading song of a child anxious to make her own way; the aching song of parents who know she is right; who know it is time, but who still do not quite know how to let her go.

  “But you approved of our Promising,” she reminded them. “You said you had been wrong about him.” Annah looked first to Llew and then to Danae.

  “And so we were,” Danae said. “And we do not disapprove, any longer, of your union with him. We have seen that you love each other, and we are aware of your shared destiny as Shapers, and the possible importance of your children.” “And,” she added, seeing Annah opening her mouth to speak, “we are aware that you do not want him for a destiny. You want him because you love him. But you are eighteen cycles old. You are not yet of the Age of Choosing. If we go against custom in this, and if, one night, you and he cannot control yourselves-you know the laws, Annah.” Danae sighed.

  Annah struck the stone cradle of the hearth-fire with her fist. “So this is about the law. About the Age of Choosing. You act as though you care more about what happens to my blossom than to me.”

  She was instantly sorry she had said it. Danae looked as though Annah had struck her across the face. “Is that really what you think of me, daughter?” she asked. “Is it what you think of us, myAnnah?”

  Annah began to cry. “No, no, it’s not,” she managed through her tears. She put her arms around her mother. Annah was nearly as tall as Danae already, even though she did not yet have her full height. “I love you both,” Annah said, between hitching uneven breaths. “But you were away so long.”

  “That is all the more reason why we would like for you to stay until the beginning of your nineteenth cycle. You will have seen eighteen pass in a few short spans, and then you will not have so long left to wait.”

  “It will feel like forever,”Annah said. “We have said that he could come here,” Llew said again, “and that the two of you could live together here until it is time for your Rite of Choosing. We offer that to you, again.”

  Perhaps Holder will reconsider, Annah thought. Would it be so bad? “I will speak to Holder again. And then I will tell you what we have decided.” “That is fair, daughter,” Danae said. “You have not finished your Becoming, but you are by no means a bloomling. You have made us proud; doubtless you will continue to do so.”

  * * *

  “Guess she’s not back, huh?” Goodman asked. Holder had been sitting on the steps outside the Temple of Promise, just looking off into space; Goodman’s footsteps approaching had sounded distant, even though they were right next to him now.

  “No,” Holder said. “Look,” Goodman said. “I have to tell you something I learned this morning. It’s not good. I don’t expect it to change what you’re gonna do, but you need to know.”

  * * *

  “Dearest, I am here. Wake up.” Annah’s voice; her hand on his shoulder; soft fingers. Touch of a healer. Touch of a Shaper. But how will this be healed? Holder wondered.

  “Dearest,” Annah said, “I have spoken with my parents, and I have something to talk with you about. But, I wanted to ask you first: why is Goodman leaving?”

  Holder sat up, feeling as if his bones were made of molten lead; heavy, and scalding him with every inch of motion.

  “Dearest, what’s wrong?”

  “Come with me, Annah. Come out to Goodman’s ship.” “All right.” She felt afraid; afraid the way she dimly recalled having felt when her parents had gone to their rest. But she took his hand, and went with him.

  * * * As he and Annah walked away from Goodman’s ship, what felt to Holder like an eternity later, she neither spoke to him nor looked at him.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, finally, when he realized he had no idea. “ We are going nowhere, Holder. I am going back to my parents’hearth-fire in the Grove. You may do as you like. It is of no concern to me.” Annah’s tone was cold and calm, almost resigned. It scared the hell out of Holder.

  “Annah.” She kept walking. “I am glad to know you remember my name, since you have forgotten so much else about me. I wonder how long you will remember it, when I am gone.”

  She was still walking. He was managing to keep up, barely. She moved fast when she meant to. “Gone?” Holder asked. “Annah, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “What did I say?” That calm, matter-of-fact tone again. “I am leaving, Holder. You do not want me here. You do not trust me.” With the last two words, her voice broke, and Holder heard her crying. She stopped walking long enough for him to catch up with her, and then she sat down, although it looked more like collapsing, on the ground, her face in her hands.

  Holder stroked her hair, as he had always done to comfort her, but she slapped his hand away.

  “Do not touch me.”

  “Annah, why are you so angry?” he asked. She turned and looked at him for the first time in close to an hour. “I am not angry. Well, yes, I suppose I am. But mostly I am sad, and I am ashamed of myself. And of you.”

  “Why?” The question sounded like a plea.

  “Because, somehow, I was not worth your trust. Why did you lie to me, Holder? Why would you do that?” A black, cold feelin
g descended into Holder’s stomach. “You mean, about the thing, the weapon, in Goodman’s ship? I didn’t lie to you—I just didn’t tell you. I didn’t lie.”

  “You did,” Annah said. “Just the other night, I asked you, if you saw something important, would you tell me, even if it scared you. You said you would. And you had already seen it. And you did not tell me.

  God please don’t let her cry again, Holder thought. I can’t take it. “I was going to tell you. I swear I was. But it was our Promising night.”

  “That is what hurts, perhaps, most of all.”

  “Please, Annah. Don’t go. Please don’t leave.” He’d never said that to anyone. Before, it’d always been Okay, well, you don’t want me, don’t want to be here, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. Even as bad as he’d hurt when Shannon left, there was no way in hell he’d have begged her to stay. “Please. I love you. I’m sorry.”

  “I love you, too, Holder. Did I say I had stopped?”

  This was some new kind of hell, Holder thought. “Then why are you going?” “I need to be away from you. I cannot Promise myself to someone I do not trust, and who so clearly does not trust me.”

  This is hell, thought Holder. Let me go back to space and get torn apart by a gravity ghost, but not this. Not her, hurting like this, because of me. “Annah, I love you. I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have told you. Just please forgive me.”

  “That is another reason I must go away; to find if I can forgive you. No one has ever lied to me before. My people, they have failings. But we do not lie. Even Jonan, as sick and as twisted as he was, never lied to me. I am sure he believed that he loved me. He simply did not know what love is. I hope that I can forgive you. I do not know what I will do, if I cannot. But it will not be now.”

  Holder felt as though he were trapped behind a wall of night, solid, invisible, and impermeable. He knew that nothing else he said would change things, for now. “Annah,” he called after her.