by K. A. Holt
“Mayrikafsa!” Fist yells. He points at Kwihuu. “Kwihuu, hee ta!” He is telling me it’s time to leave . . . now.
My breath is tight, strangled. The chaos upon us has slowed before my eyes, the slashing of knives and flashes of light moving in deliberate arcs before me. Even the screams seem to have slowed. I can pick out the Cheese from the men. The men are angry, hurting. The Cheese are dominant, prideful. My chest grows tighter and tighter. Is it the breathing sickness back again? Someone grabs my arm and pulls me to Kwihuu.
I am on her back, grabbing the reins without thinking, nudging her into the sky. The zip-pew of light arrows follows us, Kwihuu’s blood trailing into the dusty wind behind us. Natka and Suu are up ahead. I cannot see if he still has the baby. I glance down below and see a boy pointing a handbow at me and staring. Our eyes lock for one moment and he drops the handbow, his mouth falling open.
It is Boone. Alive. In one piece. He looks skinny, but well.
I hiccup a relieved sob, not finding enough air, wanting to shout something to him, to apologize for everything that is happening, but I’m not conjuring any breath. Kwihuu moves faster, climbing high in the sky, away from light arrows and hunks of metal, away from the blood and pain and screaming, away from Boone, my friend from what feels like so long ago. I am gasping still, seeing stars through tears.
Another Kwihuutsuu pulls alongside us. It is Fist. He puts his hand out to my arm and squeezes. “Look ahead,” he says. “Only ahead. Feel proud. Oo’ta kon famalil naa paht toofa’a.” It’s not so tragic if you don’t look down.
I say it to myself over and over as I try to calm my breathing.
It’s not so tragic if you don’t look down.
It’s not so tragic if you don’t look down.
It’s not so tragic if you don’t look down.
22
WE MAKE CAMP FOR THE night and I feel that my whole body is numb. I have injuries I do not remember sustaining. I think this is the same for all of us.
Jo is pulled from her Kwihuutsuu and laid out on a blanket. She groans and mutters from the pain of her injury, but Fist applies a poultice and gives her sleeping scrub and it seems as though she will be okay. It is not a mortal wound if we can keep infection at bay.
The baby, a small thing, yet old enough to sit and hold up her bald head, cries and cries. I know the people from Origin Township have set out to recover her, even if they don’t know where to look. Babies are prizes to be protected and nurtured. Old Man Dan will not let this happen without a fight.
Fist holds the baby, shushing her and rocking her in slow movements. He drips water from his claw-nails into the baby’s mouth, and the baby greedily laps it up.
“Mayrikafsa,” Fist says in a near whisper. “Come here.” I do as he says, even though my mind reels at what has happened during this day.
When I reach them, Fist takes some sleeping scrub and mixes it with the water to form a paste. He puts this paste on my clawless finger and motions for me to put my finger into the baby’s mouth. I do as he says, rubbing the child’s gums, feeling little buds of sharp teeth poking through.
Within moments, the baby is asleep. Fist lays her on a blanket next to Jo and turns to me.
“Natka say you try to . . . stop him.”
I nod. “I did not think he should take the baby,” I say, still feeling numb. “That baby does not belong to the Cheese.”
“It belongs with us,” Natka says, coming up to us. “As do you. It was born of this moon, as were you. Mara wills it.”
“Do I belong?” I run my hand over my face. When I pull it away, it is covered in smeared paint. “Have I ever really belonged?”
Fist puts his hand on my shoulder. “You my daughter, Mayrikafsa. You are Kihuut.”
“But why?” I ask. “You already have a child. Why do you need another? Why do you want me taking part in these awful things?” I look at the paint, the dried blood on my hands. “Why do the Cheese take human girls? Is it because of Kailia? You know I cannot replace Klara’s sister any more than I can be a true Kihuut.”
Fist gazes to the stars and then back at my face. “Not enough kakee,” he says simply. “No kakoni. No daughters. Kailia was the last.” He turns to Natka, speaking in Cheese so quickly I cannot follow. Natka nods and looks hard into my eyes. “The Kihuut cannot die out,” Natka says. “We must protect sacred land. So we take those born of this moon. Those who can feel A’akowitoa in bones. We must choose strong kakoni. Like you. Kalashava. Kamino.”
Not enough Kihuut babies. I think back upon the village and realize I’ve not seen any children younger than six or seven summers. And the children that are there are very few, and none of them girls.
“Also, we teach a lesson,” Natka says. “You humans come to our moon, take our lands; take what’s not yours. Now you see how you like it.”
“The Origin crashed here by accident,” I say, feeling heat rise into my face, the numbness of the day finally wearing off. “We didn’t steal land on purpose. We had no choice. We are stuck on this gum rock, dying off as well. Babies are sacred to us, too.”
Natka shakes his head. “But you come to steal land from Hosani peoples.” He points to the Red Crescent. “And instead you just kill them off. Ro-ri-ta hyoo-mans. How you get to Hosani if you kill the people from there?” Fist slaps his hand, hard, and hisses at him.
“My people weren’t going to steal anything,” I say. “The Star Farmers Act gave them lands found in the Outer Rim. The Old Earth government granted the lands.”
Natka growls and slashes his fake hand through the air. “You cannot give land that is not yours!”
“You cannot take babies,” I say. “I cannot abide stealing people.” I go to Kwihuu, my head pounding, my heart pumping, and begin tying the bags closed on her saddle. I whip my blanket up off the dirt, shake it out, and tie it to her. “I do not want to be part of it.”
“Where do you go, then, looa’a kakee?” Natka asks, his right fist clenching at his side. “You gum pitar hyoo-man?”
“I go home,” I say, tightening Kwihuu’s reins.
“To the village, then,” Fist says with a long sigh. He touches his hip and winces. He is sweating and seems resigned to let me have my tantrum.
“I think she not mean village,” Natka says, stepping so close to me that I can feel the heat coming off his body. “I think she mean to run away, back to hyoo-mans.”
Fist looks up, startled.
Is this what I mean? That I am to take Kwihuu and go back to the township? To return home, a captive no more? To eat sweet cakes and feel Aunt Billie pat my head as she soothes my woes? I am so confused and angry.
“What is for you there, Mayrikafsa?” Fist asks. His voice is low and humming like Mara’s soft breeze. “Work in fields. Heat. Dust.” He gently pushes Natka aside and puts both hands on my sweating shoulders. “Your father tell me to protect his kakoni. So this I did. I saw you bravery. I help you grow strong. Help Kihuut grow strong. This moon, Mayrikafsa, it is mother to us both.”
Fist hugs me tight, then releases me, wincing again and quickly touching his hip where I see a small amount of blood seeping through his peltan. He stares at me hard. “You Kihuut now, Mayrikafsa.” He puts one hand on the back of my neck, over the third eye, and pulls my forehead to rest upon his own. “You Kihuutkafsa. Warrior. As will be Kalashava, your sister.” He puts more pressure on the back of my neck, forcing my eyes to meet his. “You kaykalaa. You family.” Fist releases my neck and sweeps his hand to the side. “You kaykalaa not just to me, Klarakova, Natka, but to village, to Oonatka, Oonan, A’akow. Mara. You may be krasnoakafsa one day.”
My chest tightens more than it has all day. I do not know what to say, but worse, I cannot speak. My throat closes in on itself, the stars fill my vision. I gasp for air. The breathing sickness has been threatening to take hold all day. Why now? Why after so long? I f
all to my knees, clutching at my throat and chest. I start counting, trying to slow my gasps, but it’s not helping.
“It looks like she is soon to be family to Ebibi,” Natka says, brows furrowed. His hand goes to his chest, his eyes close and then open. He kneels next to me, scrabbling in a bag for something. He offers me a canteen, but I cannot stop gasping long enough to drink. I know it will not help anyway. I need the drops. I need Temple to hold my hands and count for me.
“B-breathing a-attack,” I sputter. “Naa mara.” I point to my chest. No wind.
Fist throws me over his shoulder and jumps on Kwihuu.
I gasp and cough and my lungs feel like dust and fire. The stars in my vision are so bright. I am not long for consciousness.
Natka and Suu are alongside us as Kwihuu streaks through the night sky. I reach out to the Red Crescent looming so close. Would this have been my home? Where is my home?
Fist is yelling in Cheese, Natka is yelling back. My head lolls on my neck as Kwihuu shrieks into the sky. Yes, Kwihuu, sweet dactyl. This is how I feel, too. Only, I cannot make a sound.
I open my eyes to blackness, then close them again because there is no such thing as true blackness on this moon. Not with the Red Crescent glowing through the nights and the suns scorching the days. My chest is still tight, my breath wheezing. I am alive. But . . . I open my eyes again and it is still black.
Now there are voices. Fist. Natka. Arguing.
“Mitan. Hee ta!”
“Naa. Bibiloka, ke ro-ri-ta kakono!”
Why are they yelling about roots and . . . what? I see an orange glow swirling in the distance like a star that has lost its way. I blink a few times and pull my hands off my chest so that I can push myself up to a sitting position. My hands touch the ground, and I yank them up. I am sitting on an animal. An immense beast.
“Fist!” I wheeze. “A’alanatka.” The lost star bounces to me and as it gets closer I see that it lights up Fist’s face.
I put my hands down again, feeling the soft fur under them, shocked at the coolness of this fur, of the total blackness surrounding me. I sit up as Fist kneels, holding a flameless flare up to my face. Natka kneels next to him and they talk about me in Cheese. I understand something about my coloring and Ebibi and how I am not dead.
“What is . . . this beast?” I wheeze. My chest is loosening some and I take a great gulp of air.
“Beast?” Fist asks, putting a hand to my forehead.
I reach out and grab his hand that is holding the flameless flare and point it at the ground. Then I realize my mistake. It is not fur. It is some kind of fine, soft scrub covering all of the ground. It even climbs the wall behind me. I have never seen anything like it. I wave my other hand over the soft scrub and Fist laughs.
“Ebishava,” he says. “Plant of darkness.” He takes his hand from my forehead and adjusts something that is tied tightly against my throat. “Is working,” he says. “Ebibi soka’a show mercy.” He touches his chest and closes his eyes.
“Ebibi’s ghosts?” I say, my breath coming ever stronger. My head still beats along with my pulse, but my lungs have expanded. I feel as though I can breathe in all of the darkness. It is as if I am at the cooling flats again.
Through the sounds of trickling water, I hear Natka rummaging in a sack and then a blinding light sails up into the darkness. A true flare. And in the bright white glow that lasts only moments I can barely comprehend what surrounds me.
We are in an immense cave with countless tunnels leading to gods only know where. There are cooling crystals taller than four men standing on one another’s shoulders, pools of water, sheer cliffs, clusters of more cooling crystals and other crystals that are white, green, gray. There are small plants, too, scattered throughout the fine, dense scrub that blankets the ground. These plants are heavy with brown fruit.
“Hashava!” I say. Natka and Fist smile.
The flare falls to the ground, its light dying out, but not before I see that littered under all the giant crystals and among the smaller clusters are even more cooling crystals. They lie everywhere, as if this cave is the belly of a beast that dines on—
The light is out. It is blackness again. I jump up, my heart buzzing. I have never been in such dark. Not even in the hiding pit. I feel it crawling all over me. I scratch at my eyes, gulp the air.
A hand reaches out to steady me. “We are in the caves of Ebibi,” Natka says gently. And though I can’t see him, I am sure he is doing that thing the Cheese do when they speak of Ebibi—touching his chest, closing his eyes.
“Life is plenty here,” he continues. “If you welcome the dark.”
This makes no sense to me, but I continue with my questions. “How did you stop the breathing attack? It usually takes special drops that only Aunt Billie has; that she found in short supply in the Origin wreckage and has been trying to replicate but with no—” A clawed finger rests against my lips.
“Bibiloka,” Fist says, taking his finger from my lips and tapping the object twined around my neck. “What you say . . . coo-link cree-steel. But blessed by Ebibi.”
My hand goes to my neck and I feel the crystal that is nestled in the soft divot between my collarbones. How did I never think of this? How did Aunt Billie never think of this? I always breathe so well at the cooling flats. It is such a simple answer that has eluded us.
“Flotaka,” I whisper.
Fist laughs. “Naa flotaka. It is Wantosakaal magic. And Ebibi magic.”
Fist cracks another flameless flare and his face shines orange in the light. Natka makes the silly hand gestures that Ben-ton does when he’s doing his ro-ri-ta magic tricks.
This reminder of Ben-ton, another stolen human, opens the fresh wound in my memory. Natka. The baby. The awful raid. The poor homesteaders. Boone. It must show on my face because Natka’s hand stills and his mouth goes small and tight in the orange glow.
“You are my sister,” he says. “You wear the bibiloka because we save you.”
I nod. “But I am also Temple’s sister.”
“You are Kihuut, Mayrikafsa,” Natka says with force. “Kalashava is Kihuut. There is no more Tem-peel.”
I look up, and for the first time I notice that we are not in complete blackness. Not really. My eyes have adjusted enough to notice the millions upon millions of tiny glowing specks on the ground and the walls. I blink hard. He is right about Temple. I have known this for weeks, but have not wanted to admit it. Temple is no longer Temple. She hasn’t been for a long time. She is more Cheese than I will ever be. She loves it with them. She is free with them. Her spirit now whirls stronger than a devil spiral in the scrub. She is happy. She thrives.
And what about me? Do I thrive? Am I happy? Can I be both Rae and Mayrikafsa the mystery warrior? Do I have to give up one to be the other?
Human or Kihuut?
Physician’s helper or . . . krasnoakafsa? Chieftess? Would either ever be possible? I sometimes think I could be happy being a healer, despite the restrictions of a settler’s life. It would be interesting, familiar. I would reattach ears instead of take them.
But then . . . what about the Kihuut? What about the freedoms they offer? The respect. Could I ever leave Temple?
I stand on the edge of blackness and I do not know which way to turn.
Many hours go by as I walk the caves of Ebibi, marveling in the coolness and softness and dampness of all the things. Everything I touch seems to be alive, flourishing. I wonder what medicines hide in these plants. Aunt Billie could study this place for summers on end.
All this time, Papa’s lessons of the moon never taught us of the balance it holds in space, how it hangs, unmoving, one side facing the heat of the suns and the judgment of the Red Crescent, the other side pocked in caves, facing a nearly naked sky.
I run my hand over a soft, fabriclike plant that glows a very light green in the blackne
ss. Its veins illuminate themselves. It is magic how this plant has made its own way in the darkness, crawling blindly up the walls. I could do well to learn from this plant.
Natka and Fist have left me here with a bag of flameless flares and with Kwihuu happily munching the fine scrub at the entrance to the caves. They make their way back to the village while I try to make my way through my thoughts.
Is my heart with the Cheese? How can it be when they steal babies and ears with nothing but a shrug? Don’t I have a duty to the humans? But then, what of these stories of so much killing when the Origin crashed? I hear Papa’s words echoing in my mind—“a taste of our mighty strength”—and it makes me shiver.
The Cheese could not seriously consider a human girl-child as a possible leader one day. The idea is ridiculous. When Ben-ton mentioned it months ago, I believed him to be trying to curry favor for some reason, to use me to find acceptance from Klara and Fist. But maybe he knew. I wonder if Rory knew? Did she speak of these things with Fist?
I sit in the darkness, pondering Fist’s words about being born of this moon and how that makes us all the same. Maybe I am more Kihuut than I think. But no. I could never—will never—condone maiming and kidnapping.
Could I?
I will Ebibi to give me answers, but he only throws more questions at me.
What would Papa say to know I would even contemplate never coming home again? He would say I am selfish, I am weak as a woman is wont to be. But maybe Papa is with Ebibi. I shake my head. No. Papa is with his gods. The angry, punishing gods, not the sweet darkness of Ebibi. He would not like it here. He would not understand beauty in blackness.
And, gods, oh, gods, I miss Boone ever so much. Our secret horse racing and teasing, even our studying. I miss our clearing the fields while telling wild stories. I miss skinny Raj and Boone’s nervous mama. What would Boone say if I never came home? Would he ever forgive me?