Berg’s calm voice made him feel even angrier. “Your life goes to shit and you lose all your friends one by one and you can’t do anything because you can barely fucking dress yourself.”
He could feel a whine in the back of his throat, which made him feel pathetic as well, and his pulse was squeezing fast, thudding in his wrists and neck. His blood pressure was probably skyrocketing.
“We are doing something right now, Maud,” Berg said. “We are leaving the property in order to frighten adolescents.”
“Yeah,” Maud muttered. He swallowed. Composed himself. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
He tugged the black cap a little lower on his forehead as they left. The hallway was dim and empty. He could hear faint media sounds from half the doors he passed, insomniacs holed up for the night with their screen-delivered opium. That was him most nights. But not tonight. Tonight, he was doing something.
Berg slowed its walk to match his hobble, so they got to the elevator at the same time. Maud jabbed the button with a shaky finger.
“It is only four degrees Celsius outside,” Berg said. “I am so glad you are wearing a hat, Maud.” Its emoji display was grinning with blocky white teeth.
“You need to be a lot more intimidating when we get over there,” Maud said. “Can you do a siren noise, maybe? That’d do the trick.”
“I can do a siren noise,” Berg confirmed.
Downstairs was empty too. Maud paused to look around the dining hall, lingering at the table by the window where he and Milo had always sat for supper or for hand-and-foot canasta. Then he made for the exit with Berg in tow. There was nobody around to ask what they were doing so late, and the doors buzzed open at their approach.
Maud knew he was free to leave whenever he wanted—his son had been real insistent on that point, how he was a resident and not a prisoner—but right now he couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d stepped outside. He pulled the collar of his coat up against the cold, and they walked out into the parking lot, past the electric stalls and around the corner of the building.
Maud froze when he saw the yellow curb where Milo had tripped and fallen three weeks ago, a trip and fall that should have been a bruise and a laugh but instead cracked his dumb old skull open and sent him to the hospital to die with plastic tubes all over him like a hungry squid. There was no stain on the cement. No evidence it ever happened at all, even though Benny and Rhoda and what’s-his-face on the veranda had all seen it and chattered about it for a week straight.
“It has been twenty-three days,” Berg said.
“What?” Maud snapped.
“It has been twenty-three days since you left your room,” Berg said. “Fresh air is delightful, Maud.”
Maud shook his head and soldiered on, hobbling across the empty street. Berg glided along beside him. They passed from the pooled bluish light of LED street lamps into the shadow of the old house. Maud could hear the sounds of casual conversation, a muffled laugh, as he stepped onto the overgrown lawn. The dandelions were up to his calves.
This was it. He took out his flashlight, cleared his throat, and stomped through the open gate. “Hey!” he barked. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Four teens spun around, eyes startled wide, and he figured he’d nailed it, gotten the inflection right and everything. He strobed his flashlight from one face to the next, noting with disappointment that one of the vandals was wearing a Bulls hat, then directed it to the ground where their backpacks were open and the contents spread out. He didn’t see the pipes and beer cans he’d been expecting.
“Hey,” said the nearest girl. “Hi. We’re growing sink-moss.”
Maud blinked. “What?”
She pointed to the back of the house, and he followed her finger with his flashlight. Clinging to the old wood of the veranda and the walls were long swathes of moss, so deep green it was nearly black. He frowned and shone the light on the ground again, where there was a lantern set up and the metal canisters he’d taken for spray paint a few nights ago were hooked to some kind of tube and pump.
“You know, the kind that eats CO2,” she said. “Hopefully. This is our first trial with a cellulose-bonding variety.” She peered behind him. “Hey, it’s the bot from the seniors’ place. Berg? Hi, Berg.”
Maud’s mouth fished open and shut. He turned in time to see the carebot wave one manipulator.
“Good evening, Tasha,” Berg said. “Is your project going well?”
“You know each other?” Maud demanded.
“Do you live at Wildrose too?” the girl asked. “It’s really nice, right? I love shuffleboard. They have such a great table.”
“I hate shuffleboard,” Maud said, more to mask his confusion than due to any strong opinion on the game.
“Oh.” The girl shrugged. “Yeah, so we met Berg when we came over to do a demonstration and explain about the Greenhouse Project. Maybe you missed it? Basically we got a grant to try out this new batch of urban sink-moss on a couple places around town. But it can’t handle sunlight until it bonds with the wood, which is why we’re spraying at night. It was all in the presentation. I could link you the video.”
Maud had definitely missed the presentation, the same way he’d missed all the dinners and Friday films and orthoyoga and poker nights and therapy sessions. Twenty-three days since he’d left his room. He’d been hoping to find kids smashing the windows and spray-painting the walls so he could be righteously angry at someone, but here they were doing something Milo the gardener would have loved.
“You knew they weren’t vandalizing the place,” he croaked to Berg, feeling his face heating up. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Fresh air is delightful, Maud,” Berg said. “And I was worried you were becoming despondent. It has been twenty-one days since Milo Kepler’s accident. I’m sorry.”
Maud switched his flashlight off and rubbed his face with his sleeve. “Twenty-one days,” he mumbled. “Still feels like fucking yesterday.”
“May I touch your upper back, arms, and shoulders?” Berg asked.
Maud snorted. “What?”
“To facilitate a hug,” Berg explained. “The physical contact will help you release endorphins.”
Maud figured he already looked like a total idiot, hobbling around playing cop in the middle of the night and interrupting environmental initiatives, so he gave the carebot a grudging nod. Its arms flexed around him and tightened like a weird, soft socket wrench. Maud bit back a big sob.
The kids looked awkwardly at each other. One of them started fiddling with the canisters.
“Thanks,” Maud said, when the carebot let go. He gave it a tentative pat on the arm. “You’re all right, Berg.” He turned to the kids. “I’m sorry. For interrupting. It was stupid of me. Your generation tries to do something good, my generation tries to shit on it. Or else just me, I guess.”
The girl scratched at her head. “No big,” she said. “And, you know, the whole concept of generations is kind of nebulous? And is mostly used to create in-groups and out-groups?” She held out a metal nozzle. “I know it’s sort of late. But you can help Denny with nutrient delivery, if you want. Point and spray.”
Maud took the nozzle, and the boy with the Bulls hat gave him a slightly suspicious look before he shrugged and motioned him over to the veranda. Maud glanced back at Berg. “Think I’ll stay for a bit,” he said. “As penance for being an old asshole. I know you’ve got to get back to the residence.”
Berg’s smiling emoji bobbed in a nod.
“See you next checkup, I guess,” Maud said.
“See you next checkup, Maud,” Berg said, and padded off.
Maud went to the veranda, where Denny was already spraying away. “So,” he said. “Those Bulls.”
“Oh, man.” The kid shook his head. �
�They’re terrible.”
Maud pointed the spray. “Goddamn terrible,” he agreed.
Author’s Notes to My Younger Self: I’m sure the list of things I wish I could tell my younger self will be growing and changing as I age, but for right now I wish I could tell him to shoulder less blame and guilt for things outside his control, and to shoulder more responsibility for the things within his control. And to drink less.
Dress of Ash
Y.M. Pang
There is an Etossarn tale about a girl who became a servant in her own house.
After her mother passed away, her father remarried. Her stepmother, a woman of high status but little wealth, banished the girl to the servants’ quarters, where she cooked meals, scrubbed floors, and lit kindling. The girl’s face became covered in soot, and she wore a dress of ash.
The story came from a book of translated Northerner legends Father had given me. Mother scoffed at it. “Why read boneskin tales? Our own legends are the ones that matter.”
She had a point. What use were Northerner stories to a Swordbearer of Keja?
Yet during that late summer sunset, as Kaya’s form disappeared into the trees, all I could think about was that girl in the dress of ash. Unlike her, no prince came for Kaya.
Kaya, my dearest sister. Whatever else, I loved you. I loved you.
I lost my father in a duel between a wooden sword and a sheath.
On a breezy spring day, I emerged from the training room of our residence at the capital to see him striding across the courtyard, a bag of tied cloth slung across his back. My mother, aunt, and cousin were not home. It was only me and the servants in the compound.
Even at eight years old, I understood.
I placed myself between Father and the front gates. “Where do you think you’re going?”
His face registered a brief surprise, then reverted to his usual carefree smile. “To the market, little flower. I was thinking of buying your mother a . . . fan.”
A lie. He’d sooner buy her a poisoned chalice.
“With that?” I eyed his bag.
He knelt so we’d be at eye level. “You got me, little flower. I’ll be going a little farther than the market. But I’ll be back soon.”
“You’re leaving us. You’re running away.” It hurt, saying those words, because they meant Mother was right about him. I’d heard their voices at night—Mother calling him useless, an unworthy Swordbearer.
“There is something I must do. I’d stay if I could.”
I pointed my wooden practice sword at him. “Then fight me. If you win, I’ll let you go.”
He chuckled. “Don’t be ridiculous, little flower.”
“I’m not your little flower! I’m the heir to the Marin clan and a Swordbearer of the Kejalin Empire. Defeat me, or you shall not pass through those gates.”
Sighing, Father stood and shrugged off the cloth bag. He untied his sword from his hip and drew it—then threw it aside, holding the empty sheath.
The top of my head barely reached his waist. But I’d learned five of the Seven Forms faster than anyone Master Ouwi could remember. I’d never seen Father set foot in the training room, and Mother’s comments didn’t make me think highly of his swordsmanship.
“Shall we begin, Yulina?”
“Your duty is here, Father. I will not let you go.”
I thrust my wooden sword at his knee. I half-expected him to step around me and leap over the compound walls. I would be in the trouble then, for I had not yet mastered lightness, a fundamental Swordbearer ability.
But he didn’t. He deflected my blow. And the next. With at least one foot on the ground the whole time, following the rules of a sword duel.
I barely blocked his first counter-attack. His next strike sent me staggering back toward a budding bush.
I swung my sword again. How could a man of such middling reputation deflect all my blows? How could I become First Sword, if I couldn’t defeat this . . . weak . . . foe?
His sheath caught me on the back of the hand, so hard I loosened my grip on the sword. His next blow sent my practice sword flying. He tapped his sheath against my shoulder, near my neck.
My defeat, no matter how one looked at it.
His eyes held sadness as he picked up his discarded sword and bag. “That was impressive, Yulina. You will make an excellent Swordbearer someday.” He stepped past me, toward the gates.
Wait! I wanted to yell. I wanted to turn around, grab his robes, beg him to stay. But I’d set out the rules. He’d stay if I defeated him, and go if I did not.
A creak as the compound gates opened. A slam as they closed.
I knelt in the grass, biting my lip. Refusing to cry. I was Marin Yulina, daughter of Marin Reina, Swordbearer of the Kejalin Empire. Even in defeat, I couldn’t forget that.
Mother embraced me that evening, when I told her what had happened. I couldn’t remember her embracing me so tightly, before or since. I cried then, my tears soaking the lavender of her robes into purple. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t stop him.”
“You did well, my daughter. Give you two years, and you could’ve beaten him.”
“But I didn’t have two years. I needed to beat him today.”
“And what difference would that make? His mind was set on leaving. He would’ve simply left on a day you weren’t there. You cannot force your love upon someone. You cannot make them stay.”
“If only you were there.”
Mother laughed. She brushed away my tears with a callused thumb. “I don’t need him,” she said. “You’re all I need, Yulina. Never forget that.”
I leaned back. No more tears. “I won’t, Mother. I’ll make you proud. I promise.”
Mother remarried when I was ten. She might need nothing but me, but our finances needed more than that. Father had departed with most of the gold and silver in the compound. Our alliance with the Takosa clan, Father’s family, fell apart. We still needed to maintain the compound, pay off the debts incurred by my great-uncle, and pay for my lessons with Master Ouwi.
On their wedding day, Mother’s new husband gifted her a blue fan decorated with swallows. She gifted him a barrel of the finest hishu wine. I had no idea where she had procured the hishu. It was only made in the palace, and our clan did not exactly have status there anymore.
My stepfather was a commoner. A merchant with voluminous amounts of money, ambitions, a dead wife, and an eight-year-old daughter.
Her name was Kaya. I’d always wanted a little sister. I loved her immediately.
“No, like this.”
I stood behind Kaya, adjusting her grip on the practice sword. Then I stepped back.
She took an experimental swing.
“Not yet.” I smiled. I’d done the same thing during my first lesson with Master Ouwi. “For now, just hold it. Feel the shape of the hilt. Understand what it means to bear this weight.”
Her arms had already begun to tremble. The practice swords were made with the same weight and balance as real swords. “For how long?” she asked.
Master Ouwi had made me stand there for two hours, but I saw no reason to force Kaya do the same. I contemplated for a second—and at that moment the door slid open and Mother walked in.
Her lips thinned. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Teaching Kaya. I know I’m not qualified for proper instruction, but—”
“What do you think you’re doing, teaching a girl of commoner blood to hold a sword?”
I heard a clatter. Kaya, dropping the sword as if it burned her.
“She is my sister now. She is part of the Marin clan. Would you have her embarrass us?”
I could see fire dancing in Mother’s eyes. “Commoners do not hold the sword, Yulina. Do you want her to lose her head?”<
br />
“But Hokina Sohei—”
“Commoners do not hold the sword unless the Emperor says so! As I am still your mother and the head of your clan, you will listen to me.”
I clenched my teeth to hold back the retort. After a long moment, I hung my head. “Yes, Mother.”
“Good.” She glanced at my sister. “Kaya, the south storage room is getting dusty. Go clean it.”
On the second evening of the Five Moons Festival, I returned home from a gathering at the Inyara compound. Mother had taken me, my aunt and cousin, and even my stepfather. But not Kaya.
I found my sister kneeling in the courtyard, ripping leaves from a fallen zelkova branch. The moon hung thick and fat in the sky. In its light, my sister’s grey robes looked almost regal, almost like the Emperor’s silver-threaded ceremonial garments.
I ran toward Kaya. “Hey, you’re still awake?”
She looked up. The corner of her lips drooped when she saw Mother and Stepfather behind me.
“Yulina!” Mother called. “Inside. It’s time to sleep.”
“We’ll be just a few minutes,” I said.
Mother hesitated, then went into the south building with her husband. I was left alone with Kaya. I suddenly didn’t know what to say.
She continued ripping off leaves. When the branch was bare, she looked up and said, “So, was it fun?”
The poetry competitions were fun to watch, but that probably wasn’t what she needed to hear right now. I grabbed Kaya’s hand as she reached for a stalk of stubborn weed.
“Hey,” I said, “I’ll speak with Mother. I’ll see if you can go to the gathering on the Fourth Day.”
Kaya shook her head. “Don’t. It’s . . . not your mother who told me not to go.”
I blinked.
“It’s my father. He said I’ll be a burden, and the last thing he needs is Swordbearers seeing him dragging around a commoner child.” The silver moon gazed out from Kaya’s dark eyes. “He says he doesn’t need me. He needs another child, a child with your mother. A child who can cement his place in a Swordbearer family and be an heir to the Marin name.”
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