by L-J Baker
Rye dragged herself up the seven flights of stairs. She fumbled her key and limped inside. Holly’s room was open and empty. Rye collapsed on the sofa.
“Rye? Rye, wake up. Please don’t be dead.” Rye peeled open her eyes to see Holly leaning over her. “Fey,” Holly said. “You had me worried. You look like shit. Who beat you up?”
“I fell over.” Rye winced as she sat up.
“Fell from the fourth floor, more like. Do you want me to fetch an apothecary?”
“No.” Rye eased her legs over the side of the sofa. Her ribs screamed in protest. “I’ll be all right.”
Holly scowled. “If you die, I’ll be an orphan. Is that what you want?”
“I’m not going to die. And I don’t want any apothecary seeing my wings.”
“But you look really crappy.”
“It’ll pass.”
Holly looked unhappy as she strode out of the living room.
Rye leaned back and closed her eyes. She couldn’t remember the accident. She’d panicked again. At least she had hurt herself, this time, and no one else.
Rye!
She’d been fleeing from breaking up with Flora. She hadn’t planned that. It had just boiled up from nowhere. That naiad bitch. The brand new broom. Flora had looked so shocked and disbelieving. But it was better this way. Rye would have more time at home with Holly. These last few months, she’d been too busy with her own pleasure. She’d forgotten Holly.
I have to see more of you.
It was never going anywhere. The sex had been great, but their relationship only existed within the walls of Flora’s apartment. None of Flora’s friends or family would regard Rye as a suitable partner for her.
I’ve never looked at us like that.
Well, it was probably time that Flora did see them for what they really were. Rye could never meet Flora on equal terms. She had spent as many years as she was ever going to as a piece of property. She wasn’t going there again.
“Here, let me stick this on you.” Holly held a roll of sticking plaster and a pair of scissors. “That cut looks obscene.”
Holly’s ministrations were well meant but not gentle. Rye didn’t mind. A little extra pain made no difference.
Holly made tea. She put honey in Rye’s.
“Hot and sweet is what they said in First Aid class,” Holly said. “And some other stuff I can’t remember. I only got a C. Still, a pass should be good enough to keep you alive.”
“Thanks.”
“I think you should sit there and not do too much. Are you sure you’re okay? You look weird.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Holly shrugged and retreated to her bedroom. Unusually, she left her door open and kept her music volume well below the pain threshold.
Rye finished her tea and eased herself down on her back. She felt empty enough to echo.
Rye jolted awake. The phone rang.
“Hello?” Holly said. “This is Holly Woods. Oh, Ms. Elmwood. Yes. I’m Rye’s sister. Rye isn’t in right now. May I take a message? Sure. Yes. I’ll tell her. Thank you.”
Holly poked her head around the door. “You’re awake. That was Ms. Elmwood wanting to make sure you hadn’t forgotten her. I said you weren’t here. She’d like you to call her some time this evening.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Rye had wanted it to be Flora, but Flora wasn’t going to call. Not after what Rye had said.
“Can you come to the table?” Holly said. “Or should I bring you a tray?”
“What?”
“I made dinner. It’s just some soup. I don’t think it’s very good. It turned out greener than I expected, but we should be able to gag it down. There’s nothing poisonous in it.”
“You made dinner?” Rye asked.
“You needn’t sound so shocked. If you did leave me an orphan, I could feed myself. I’m not completely useless, you know.”
“I’ve never thought you were useless, Holls.”
The soup tasted pretty good. Rye said so. Holly shrugged it off, but seemed pleased with the compliment. She wasn’t a bad kid. Certainly not irretrievable, like some around this neighbourhood. Rye just needed to put in a little more effort. That was the right decision.
“How are you getting on with those scholarship forms?” Rye asked.
“Stupid essays. Still, I figure I can write one and just change it a bit for each form. I’m going to ask my art teacher and my lit teacher to have a look at it before I send it in.”
“Good idea.”
“I need to get my art teacher to write some stuff. You know, saying how brilliant I am and how much they should shower cash on me.”
Rye smiled and mopped up soup with a hunk of bread.
“I have to get my principal to endorse most of them, too.” Holly grunted unhappily. “And some of them ask for any other supporting endorsements. I was thinking of asking Flora. What do you think?”
Rye froze with her mouth full of soggy bread.
“Everyone who is anyone knows Flora,” Holly said. “I’m sure these scholarship people will believe her if she says I swing from the top branches. That would really help, don’t you think?”
Rye swallowed with difficulty. “Um. I dunno.”
“I know that if I were some relic at the Funding Council, I’d put more importance on what Flora said than some stupid, limping essay that some kid wrote.”
Holly leaped to her feet, whipped the empty bowls into the sink, and raced into her bedroom. Rye sat staring at the chipped table top. Shit. Her timing could not be any worse, could it? How was she going to explain to Holly that Flora might not be very approachable right now?
Holly bounced back in carrying a sheaf of papers, a pad, and pencil. “There’s some stuff that you have to fill in for me.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Legal guardian’s approval and all that snail slime. Oh, and I need my citizen ident number. What is it?”
The gash in Rye’s face hurt when she frowned. “You need that?”
“Yeah.” Holly pulled out a form and unfolded it. “There. See? Section B. Amongst all that obscenely personal stuff I have to fill in. It’s a wonder they don’t ask my shoe size and how often I go to the toilet.”
Rye went cold as she read. Mother’s name. Father’s name. Date of birth. Place of birth. Citizen identification number.
“What’s Flora’s phone number?” Holly asked.
“Um. Look, I don’t think calling her now is a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t remember the number. Okay? Now, leave it alone.”
“Wow. Who bit your tit? No need to get knotted! Go back to being half dead.”
Holly swept back into her bedroom and shut the door.
Rye ran her fingers across her scalp and swore. She retrieved a beer from the cooler and sank onto the sofa. This was not how today was supposed to have ended.
After her beer, she called Ms. Elmwood and confirmed everything for Third Night. Rye stared at the phone. She could call Flora and apologise.
Rye crawled into her bedding. Flora appeared behind her lids when she closed her eyes.
Don’t shout at me!
Flora had looked so distraught. And Rye had just banged on.
I’d pay ten times as much if it meant a few extra hours a week with you.
That was it, wasn’t it? Flora thought she could buy Rye. That brand new broom. Rye should never have accepted those other presents.
“Crap.”
Rye grunted with discomfort as she wriggled to find a position which didn’t hurt. She had to concentrate on Holly. The drug thing. And now this citizen ident number. Could she ask her not to apply for a scholarship? Rye had supported Holly through school, so she should be able to manage for the duration of an apprenticeship.
Rye groped beneath the sofa and found a slim book. She opened Contemporary Artists to page forty-two. Flora stood against a wall on which one of her weavings hung. She was smiling.
Chapter Thirteen
Don’t just leave that there.” Rye snatched up Holly’s used breakfast bowl and dumped it in the sink with a crash. “It won’t break your arm to be tidy. And you needn’t leave that on the table, either.”
Holly scooped up her jacket. “What is wrong with you?”
“I’m trying to earn some money so that we can keep eating,” Rye said. “I need this kitchen clean for cooking in. If you’re not at the school gates by three thirty, I’m not waiting for you.”
“I’ll be there.”
“I have to be at Ms. Elmwood’s by four. Do you hear me, Holly?”
Holly emerged from her bedroom carrying her schoolbag. “Half the forest heard. You’ve been in the crappiest mood since Fifth Day. Terminal grumpiness. No, much worse. The shitties.”
“Language! If you talk like that at Ms. Elmwood’s, I’ll –”
“Unknot!” Holly shouted. “And that black dress is hanging on the back of my bedroom door. Okay? When you fell, you must’ve broken your teeny tiny little good humour bone. Fey, it’s not often it’s a pleasure to leave for school.”
Rye glared at Holly’s retreating back.
Holly pulled the front door open. “You need to get laid.”
“What!” Rye shouted. “What did you say?”
Holly slammed the door.
Rye stormed out of the kitchen and along the hall. She grabbed the door handle, but stopped herself. Having a shouting match with Holly for all the neighbours to hear was probably not her best move.
Rye sighed and leaned against the door. She had too much to do today to fall apart now. First stop, Blackie’s brother’s place to hire the carpet. Second, the library for books on dealing with teenagers and drugs. Then she needed to go to the market, the butcher, and the specialty shops.
Rye felt nervous taking five hundred pieces from her stash. That was a large portion of her savings. Nor did she feel entirely comfortable with having called in sick today, though all her workmates knew she’d been stiff and sore from her accident. It went against the grain to miss a day’s work, and so a day’s wages, even though she was going to earn more doing the dinner than she did in a month at the building site.
She felt strange flying around in a small rented delivery carpet during the day when she should be at work.
In the library, there were so many elderly folk that it looked like the anteroom at a funeral parlour. In the section ominously called Social Dysfunctions, she discovered a whole shelf full of advice books and information on drugs, alcohol, sex, truancy, gambling, and suicide. She idly flipped through one of the sex books for parents. This would’ve been handy a couple of years ago. It might have saved her and Holly considerable embarrassment.
Rye carried half a dozen books out to the flying carpet and flew off to the market.
“Hey, Rye, what you doing here this morning?”
Rye looked up from examining tussock roots in a box to see Chive, the long-nosed imp, walking around his stall to her. He wiped two of his hands on the grubby apron that covered most of his shiny brown carapace.
“Ain’t Fifth Day already, is it?” Chive said.
“I’m doing some special shopping,” Rye said. “Are these fresh?”
Chive spread his four hands. “When does Honest Chive ever sell anything that ain’t fresh? How many you after today?”
“That tray should do.”
Chive’s long, looping antennae quivered. “The whole tray?”
“Yeah.” Rye checked her list. “And these dandelion heads. Hmm. They don’t smell as fresh as they could.”
“You’re a sticky customer. Okay, they’re left over from yesterday. Just for you, I’ll knock twenty percent off the price.”
“No thanks. I need fresh.” Rye broke off a piece of cress to taste. “Not much zing.”
Chive’s antennae drooped. “Stickier than a stick insect. Too many customers like you and my larvae will starve. Half price for the dandelion heads and the cress.”
Rye shook her head. “The price isn’t the issue. I really do need them as fresh as I can get. How is your rimu bark?”
“Peeled from the top of the tree this morning. I swear on my mother’s carapace. Try a piece.”
Rye nibbled some. “Yeah. That’s nice. Good texture. Plenty of taste. Give me one of those big bags full of it.”
Chive’s antennae jerked erect. “What’s the occasion? You throwing a pupating party?”
“I’m cooking a dinner. For eight posh people. I have to get everything right.” She looked across to another stall. “Looks like I can get cress there.”
Chive wrote the price on the bag of bark. “Gravel’s? You don’t want to go there. He’s the sort who buys the cheap stuff off the bottom pallets at the wholesaler.”
“Wholesaler?”
“Farmers, orchardists, and market gardeners take their stuff there. Blokes like me and shops all buy there. Auction or by ballot lots. Look, I’m cutting my own throat, but you ought to go there if’n you’re going to do this again. On Bog Street. Past the insect market. I’m sure you could get away with amounts like this. But you have to be early. Business gets done in the first hour after dawn.”
“Oh. Right. Thanks. I’ll bear it in mind.”
Rye loaded her purchases in the back of the rented carpet. She made a note about the address and hours of the wholesaler beside the costs she recorded on her list. If she could buy produce fresher and cheaper, that would make future cooking ventures even more profitable. She flew off toward the Westside.
Rye patronised the butcher in Noonpine where she’d bought the meat for Flora’s dinner. It was uncomfortably expensive, but the meat and beetles were the highest quality. The butcher cut exactly the joint she wanted and packed it all in a fancy little cooler bag of moss for her at no extra charge. If she were to ever do this again, though, she would have to take the time to discover another, cheaper meat source. Perhaps there was some form of meat wholesaler in the forest, just like for produce.
Rye carried her bags past the boutiques toward her carpet. She knew the Lightning Tree Gallery was close. She walked past her carpet to look in the window. She didn’t see anyone inside. Had she really expected Flora to be here? And if she were, would Rye want to say anything to her? Tonight was going to be awkward enough, even though Rye would be in the kitchen and Flora out mingling with the other guests.
Almighty King and Queen of the Fey, it would have been nice just to see Flora again. Even if they didn’t speak. Rye missed her. Badly. When it had just been them, together, she had never felt more comfortable and happy. But that was a bubble of unreality. Flora was the sort of person whose work figured in poncy galleries like this one, and Rye was the grunt who couldn’t afford to step through the door.
Rye sighed and strode back to her hired carpet. She had too much to do today to waste time in regrets and fanciful daydreams.
A traffic accident on the flyway slowed her to a hover in several places. The carpet’s air blowers didn’t work, so Rye lowered the window and leaned her elbow on the ledge. She saw a billboard of a dryad woman advertising the latest play to open at the theatre. The thin face looked vaguely familiar. Rye scowled. Frond Lovage. Yeah, she was the twiggy woman in the magazine photo with Flora. Bigger, her face didn’t look any prettier. Flora clearly did not have an eye for conventional beauty. Perhaps that skinny dryad was good in bed. Flora had enjoyed sex with Rye. Did that stick-insect of a dryad toss Flora on a bed and go down on her?
Rye banged her fist down on the horn. “Get a move on!”
The sprite in front used his antennae to give her an obscene gesture.
Rye’s kitchen burst to the seams. Her cooler could not hold everything she really should keep chilled. Nor did she have enough containers and bench space to do all the preparative work she would like to have completed in advance.
At midday, Rye forced herself to take a break. She t
ook a sandwich and beer outside to sit on the landing. What great weather. The warm sunlight even made her view of Hollowberry look a little brighter and more pleasant than it really was. Down past the gnarled tree roots, a few parents sat on benches talking while their children played in the tiny grass area. Happy squeals and chirps carried up to where Rye sat. She smiled. It seemed only yesterday that she used to take Holly to play on climbing webs and in burrowing tunnels. She had always had the idea that she would return to those sort of places one day with her own kids. Kids who called “Mum!” to attract her attention to how high they had climbed or who wailed out to her when they fell and skinned a knee. Kids who would grow up free and happy, and who would not know that life could be any other way.
Rye sighed and drank a long swallow of beer. Not that she could even begin to think of starting a family before Holly grew up. And with Rye’s record, she wouldn’t bet any good money on her chances of finding someone to be her children’s other mother. Eleven years of celibacy followed by dropping swiftly and completely in love with the wrong woman did not bode well for a stable, partnered future.
Flora.
Rye lost her appetite. She hurled the uneaten half of her sandwich away and stomped back into her apartment.
Rye packed all the containers and food into the hired carpet. She fetched Holly’s borrowed black dress and carefully laid it where it would not get stained or leaked on. In the kitchen, she made a final check of the cooler and cupboards. She picked up the knife block with a sense of guilt and shame. She should not use these. By rights, she should have returned them to Flora. After all, it was hypocritical of her to keep and use gifts after she had slammed Flora for buying her things.
Rye agonised even longer over the pristine, unused chef’s white top. She changed into clean clothes and put on one of her normal shirts. Even so, she stood fingering the white top. Flora was probably correct in believing that wearing it would make the right impression. But what would Flora say if she saw Rye wearing it?