Juvianna beat at the memory, kicked it until she had pummeled it out of existence. Her breath was coming in short, quick, odd little gasps.
And there was something else; she couldn’t help but see it. One of the precursors to the hard black memory that she had just destroyed. Nothing forms in isolation; that was one of the first things she had learnt. It was a shell-like thing, spiraling out with curved segments within, creating many chambers. It looked like it was opening and breaking at the same time.
She knew what this was. She had pretended not to notice, and even convinced herself, but she had always, always known.
Juvianna had seen what people were like inside. She knew how ugly and twisted and thwarted things could become, even when they’d grown from something fine. If she could look inside herself, what would she find? Sharp broken things? Hidden things she hadn’t named, wouldn’t name?
It was softer than a shell as she held it. The spirals radiated outwards, til they touched almost everything.
She’d suspected it, deep down, but she didn’t know it would be like this. Not anything like this. It was beautiful.
It was Davvi’s love. For her.
* * *
Juvianna’s father had not had a minder. One winter day, he had been called to the mind of a young man called Trell. No one knew what happened. He and Trell had been alone in the cave, and people had waited and waited, before entering and finding them both on the floor. Trell was asleep. He woke up a while afterwards, a little clouded, and never as sharp and devious as he had been, but cheerful. Her father was dead.
When Juvianna stayed in her kneeling position, unresponsive, for many hours longer than was usual for a call, Luperrt grabbed her hands, and called her name. He snapped his fingers before her open eyes, and pleaded with her to come back. Later, he yelled at her, and later still he doused her with a bucket of water.
It was only after a full day, when Davvi woke from his long sleep, saw Juvianna, and took back her hand, that she came back.
“Hi Ju,” he said. She saw a sleepy bewilderment in his eyes, but it was still Davvi. She had left the shell-like thing there in his mind, even though it was connected to his crime.
She looked down at his fingers mixed with hers. “Hi.”
* * *
The mair was at his persuasive best at the next audience. “I lost my son,” he told the crowd, his voice low and controlled. “I lost my son because people carry the darkness inside them and we never know when it might be unleashed. It could be your son next time, or your daughter.” Juvianna stood to the side with her hands gripping the edge of her tunic as the mair explained about the sweep—Attitra Juvianna would be called to everybody, one by one. The size of the colony made this impossible—there was no way she could get to everybody—but she would start with the young men. They would all have a choice, banishment or release.
Later he told them, “It is those with the most darkness who will protest,” which stilled the whispering and had people looking suspiciously at each other. “Those protestors will be the first to be offered the choice.”
Juvianna caught Davvi’s eye across the square. She read dismay, surprise, and something sterner on his face. She looked at the amassed crowd, mind after mind after mind, and all of them afraid of her.
When people started to dissipate, Juvianna broke and ran, her feet slapping against the red mud path. She ran without intention, but ended up at her favorite place, the rocky ledge overhanging the Odaay.
A leaf had fallen from one of the maka-trees shading the outcrop. Maka-trees, named for meaning, named for purpose. They didn’t drop leaves often. She laid her hand on top, the leaf was much broader and bigger, against it her hand looked small. It knew its design. It knew when it was time to fall.
Juvianna stood, then threw her arms forward and dived, arcing through the air down, down to the river below. The green got darker and darker the deeper she went.
* * *
When Juvianna told the Council she was refusing to take part in the sweep, she saw something flicker in the mair’s eyes.
“Do you deny your maka?” he said, low and steady.
“I don’t think... I don’t think this is my maka,” she stammered. “This is not what I am meant to do.”
“Denying your maka is death,” he continued.
“Banishment or death,” Juvianna said, although in truth, this was seldom enforced, and people were encouraged to find a new maka, or find their way back to their old one.
The mair paused. “A maka as strong as yours, as vital to the colony, cannot be denied without the harshest of consequence.”
Then they took her to the small hut they used as a prison, and barred the door against her.
It was hours later, and she knew it was dark, even though the hut was windowless, that Davvi opened the door.
“Davvi, what are you doing here?” she said, alarmed and yet warmed somehow by seeing him.
“I had to see what trouble you were getting yourself into,” he said lightly, reaching to push the hair from her forehead.
“But Davvi, they can’t see you here, they’ll—”
“Hush. They won’t find me. I’m stealthy.” Incredibly, he almost made her laugh.
“I can’t do it Davvi. All those people, I can’t. It’s not right.”
“I know. Ju—let’s go. There’s another colony, if we go west, it’s got to be better than here. You can’t stay here Ju.” That had been her half-formed plan when she had met with the Council. Accept banishment, take a canoe, and set off down the Odaay, find the second colony that rumor and story mentioned. It sounded naïve and ridiculous when Davvi said it.
“Davvi, you can’t go. Sylvvi needs you, you have a life here.”
“I killed Staal.”
“No, Davvi. It is diaforra. You are blameless, you are free.”
“I don’t remember it, but I know I did it, Ju. And I am not blameless anymore either.” He gestured to the door.
Juvianna looked out. A tall man—Taav, one of the Council lackeys—sprawled motionless in the dirt. Of course, she’d had a guard.
“Davvi, what did you do?” She’d wiped him clean of one crime and he’d gone and committed another. More violence. For her. Because it all came from the same place, and she’d let it be. “Bring him in here.”
Davvi dragged Taav’s still form inside the hut and Juvianna closed the door. She put her hand on Taav’s forehead. He was unconscious, which meant he could not fight her. She barged into his mind, quickly locating and snipping his last memory, of Davvi’s face. Now he would sleep.
“How long?” was the first thing she said to Davvi when the world came back to her.
“Not too long, Ju, half an hour maybe.”
She looked at him. “What about Sylvvi?”
“She’s okay now, Ju, thanks to you. I wish I could be there for her, but I’m not letting you go alone.” She knew that was true.
“All right.” She thought rapidly. “Let’s go to your hut, it’s less obvious. We can find provisions.” They could get to Davvi’s hut by skirting around the main part of town. Fewer people would see them, not that one person wasn’t as bad as twenty the way the gossip trails ran. It was still dark, that was good.
They entered the hut via Davvi’s back window, and he searched for something sturdy that she could wear.
“You’ll look good in this, Ju,” he said, turning with a smile. And then stopped and looked at her. He knew her way too well.
“Davvi,” she said, taking his hand.
He wrenched his hand from her grasp. “No.” His voice was fierce and cracked. “That’s mine.”
“It’s okay Davvi,” Juvianna said, her voice falling. He would never let her go alone. He would kill for her, he would die for her, he would go down with her. She leaned in and kissed him, and slipped into the green of his eyes.
She found his love for her, it was shining and almost iridescent, opening and breaking, both together. Cradling it, she felt it
become softer and softer, until it slipped away like mist and was gone, leaving her hands empty. She brought them to her face as if there was some remnant still clinging to them.
“Davvi,” she said.
* * *
Juvianna could see the faintest swirl of red at the edge of the sky after she’d stuffed all the food she had into her sack. Morning. She hadn’t known if she would be able to come back to the world, but she had woken with her cheek pressing against the sleeping Davvi’s face, the whole night gone.
She clutched her hands together, willing herself to be able to enter her own mind, to pluck out her gift, to stomp on the emotions that were filling her eyes with water. It didn’t work.
They caught her by the river, attempting to untie a canoe. Handling her somewhat tentatively they brought her back to the small hut. Juvianna didn’t protest. Mid-morning, the mair came.
“Death, or the fulfillment of your maka,” he said, as if they had never been interrupted. “It is the only choice you have, Attitra. And maybe you would like to tell me what caused the injuries our Taav has sustained.”
“It was me,” she said quickly. “I called him in, and I hit him.”
“With what, exactly, did you hit him?” the mair asked, his eyes scanning the empty hut.
Juvianna made her hand into a fist and held it forward.
“Such a small fist, Juvianna.” He knew. Of course he knew.
She slumped her head forward. “Please, not death,” she whispered.
“What was that, Attitra?” His eyes gleamed. He leaned towards her.
“Please, banish me, I can’t do what you want, let me go.” She clutched his hand in entreaty.
Most everyone else was afraid of her.
He was not afraid of her.
He should be.
* * *
She left him sleeping. They would find her, or not. It depended on how much the rest of the Council felt like looking. She had rooted out all memory of Davvi from the mair’s mind and had shredded all plans for his sweep, just in case. She had felt the grief he carried for his son, she was sorry for that, but she left it there. She had not been gentle. Juvianna didn’t know what he would be like when he woke up, if he woke up. She had propelled herself out of his mind at the end, kicking her way free. Coming back to herself much sooner than she had expected. That may have done some damage as well.
No one bothered her on her way to the river. Juvianna was used to that. She felt an ache to see Davvi, but their love was diaforra. It was no one. It was a non-thing. A sudden shadow over her face made her look up. Clouds were rolling in. She felt a chill that was nothing to do with the drop in temperature.
Summer was over.
Copyright © 2016 Samantha Murray
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Samantha Murray is a writer, actor, mathematician, and mother. Not particularly in that order. Her fiction has been seen in publications such as Lightspeed‘s ‘Women Destroy Science Fiction!’, Flash Fiction Online, Writers of the Future Vol. 31, and Escape Pod. You can find her at www.mailbysea.wordpress.com. Samantha lives in Western Australia in a household of unruly boys.
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COVER ART
“Tortoise Caravan,” by Marek Hlavaty
Marek Hlavaty is passionate illustrator who has been working as a freelance 2D artist since 2002, including illustrations, in-game and animation backgrounds, covers, and visualizations. Most of his artwork is in the game-developing and publishing industries. He believes that good painting should pull your mind into another world. View more of his work online at DeviantArt or on his website at www.prasart.com.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1076
Published by Firkin Press,
a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization
Compilation Copyright © 2016 Firkin Press
This file is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 U.S. license. You may copy the file so long as you retain the attribution to the authors, but you may not sell it and you may not alter it or partition it or transcribe it.
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