Children of a Different Sky

by Jane Yolen

  “Burn to nothingness,” Yarrow repeated the auto-destruct command, staring at the missive as both card and envelope disappeared in a bright flash. Her bracelets jolted sharply but she didn’t notice the pain. Leslie? Leslie was the Resistance Council lead in the building? Chunky little Leslie with her bright grin? Then again, Leslie was active, with a muscular core that meant she instead of Maria was the one doing their family’s share of the heavy work around the apartment complex.

  Yarrow reached into the armoire that held her big emergency backpack. Inside the pack was the bag filled with her magical implements and other things she might want should she need to flee in a hurry. She had hoped never to need it, knew it was futile should the Censors decide to bring her in when she was at work, but still kept it ready just in case. After all, the Resistance Council hadn’t called upon her to do anything more than her daily job since the Censors had imprisoned Jenny. They had decided that the work she did making protective charms for the war effort against the Shadows was a higher priority for her small talents than working more openly for the Resistance like Jenny did. Yarrow had turned in enough of her personal magical supplies to quell any suspicions that the Censors might have that she was anything other than a submissive, docile witch who would do what they ordered. Even if her girlfriend was Jenny, face of the Resistance to both Censors and Shadows. That agreement Jenny had made was supposed to keep Yarrow safe.

  But what if the Censors had decided to default on their agreement? War news had not been good. Unfortunately Leslie’s note rang too true. Yarrow had not knowingly done anything to aid the Shadows—now she was glad she hadn’t woven that golden glow this afternoon. Innocent as that action might have seemed at the time, it still could have been construed as a signal to the Shadows.

  Anything could be a signal to the Shadows, she reminded herself. And she was wasting time brooding. She turned back to her pack, and pulled the gold-colored leather bag that held her magic supplies out of it. She eased the bag’s ties and began her inventory. Her small charms—still potent. The potion vials were full in their stiff leather case, none of the seals broken. Yarrow slipped two ring charms onto her fingers, uncertain why except that they called to her. One ring held a small vial of consecrated salt. Her athame tingled as she brushed her fingers against its black hilt and the moonstone sigil set within it. She placed it to one side, planning to hang it from her belt once she changed clothing.

  Lastly, she pulled out the small velveteen jewelry bag and shook out its contents. The silver wire-wrapped amethyst on a silver chain slid into her hand, her bracelets stinging as the amethyst began to glow. Her power token, the original and real one. She had turned a carefully synthesized fake into the Censors—an action that if discovered would land her in a Relocation Camp.

  Maybe that was another reason they were taking her in now.

  But why warn me like this? Why not just grab me on the street? Better publicity? If they knew that token was a fake, they wouldn’t play with me like this. They would know I was strong enough to hide myself even with the bracelets.

  They didn’t know she had her true token. The Censors wanted her afraid and weak, the better to break her will and strengthen their power.

  I won’t let that happen. Yarrow shuddered and closed her hand into a fist around the amethyst, embracing the pain from the bracelets instead of rejecting it. Then she hung the amethyst around her neck, ignoring the persistent complaining prickle from her bracelets. She drew a deep, shuddering breath as the amethyst settled between her breasts, already feeling stronger.

  I will be docile no longer, she vowed. Until she heard otherwise, she now had to assume that Jenny’s agreement with the Censors was null and void. I am free to be myself!

  Yarrow quickly changed into jeans. She strapped the sheathed athame on her heavy leather belt, then filled the backpack with the rest of the things she needed to flee.

  That done, Yarrow straightened up and looked around the studio. This tiny studio had been home for six months, third place in less than two years. She paused to finger the three porcelain horses she had managed to bring along until now, all gifts from Jenny. This time she would have to leave them.

  Tap-tap. Tap-tap-TAP-tap rattled on the door as she finished tying the laces on her hiking boots.

  Friend or foe? she queried the amethyst, reaching up with her left hand to clutch it through the wool sweater.

  It pulsed warm in her hand. Friend.

  Yarrow dropped her hand and peered through the spyhole. Leslie stood in front of the door, looking around nervously. Yarrow let her in.

  “I’m ready,” Yarrow said.

  “Good,” Leslie gulped. “We have to go. Now. They got Maria and the kids, too!”

  Chills gripped Yarrow’s gut. “But the kids aren’t witches!”

  “They’re tainted by witch contact,” Leslie shook her head and moaned. “Come on! Let’s go!”

  Yarrow bent to grab her backpack, something about the tone in Leslie’s voice setting her on edge. Plus it just didn’t sound right. Coolness radiated from the amethyst, confirming her reaction. Something not right.

  “I have to check something,” she said to Leslie, kneeling next to her backpack, using it to cover her movements as she unsheathed her athame.

  The not-right feeling grew.

  “Hurry up! What could be so important?” Leslie knelt next to Yarrow and the not-right sensation became stronger. But the amethyst said she was safe—no, it said she was a friend. Not that she was safe.

  Yarrow looked into Leslie’s eyes.

  “What happened with Maria and the kids?” she asked calmly, reaching up to grasp her amethyst with her left hand as she held the athame hidden.

  Friend but not safe came back to her.

  “Why are you wasting time?” Leslie grabbed and shook Yarrow. Yarrow dropped the amethyst and twisted Leslie’s right hand behind her back.

  “What happened with Maria and the kids?” she demanded, touching the point of the athame to the jugular vein in Leslie’s neck.

  “Why are you wasting our time with this?” Leslie’s voice quavered and for the first time Yarrow noticed that Leslie’s bracelets were gone. But there was no flow of power from Leslie like there should be from a witch with no bracelets. Why didn’t I notice that right away? I should have—unless—

  Rumors held that the Censors sometimes produced bracelets that created rather than restricted magic, calling upon the City’s shared magical protections to empower a non-witch. Those same rumors said there was no way to tell the difference until the bracelets were gone. Yarrow had never knowingly encountered someone wearing those reversed bracelets. Was Leslie to be the first?

  Leslie always pooh-poohed those stories, she remembered.

  “What happened to your bracelets?” Yarrow asked, even as the pain radiating from her own bracelets grew stronger. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

  Leslie wouldn’t meet Yarrow’s eyes. “We’ve got to go. Now!”

  Yarrow pressed harder on Leslie’s neck. The athame stirred in her hand and nicked Leslie’s vein. A bead of blood welled up, then disappeared, sucked up by the athame.

  “You betrayed Abdul and the others, didn’t you?” Yarrow asked. “You’re a spy for the Censors!”

  “I—I—I didn’t mean to!” Leslie stammered. Her eyes widened. “We’ve got to go! Fast!”

  “Why? So you can hand me over to the Censors?” Yarrow delicately drew the point down Leslie’s neck, steeling herself for the next move. If Leslie truly was a traitor to the Witches Council—Traitor’s blood will set you free, Jenny had told her.

  “Don’t. For the love of all that is sacred, don’t,” Leslie choked, finally now meeting Yarrow’s eyes. “If I bring you then they’ll let Maria and the kids go.”

  Don’t drink, Yarrow commanded her athame. She scraped some of the trickling blood from Leslie’s neck with the athame’s edge. She brushed the blood onto both bracelets, then opened the cap on the salt ring, sprinkl
ing the content over the bracelets.

  “Unbind,” she whispered.

  She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or elated when the bracelets fell off.

  Leslie crumpled up, burying her face in her hands. “I didn’t want to do it, Yarrow. But they threatened Maria and the kids if we didn’t spy on everyone here. Especially you.”

  “But you did.” The flood of regained power was almost intoxicating, begging her to use magic to coerce Leslie to explain, but Yarrow pushed it back.

  Leslie darted toward the door and Yarrow grabbed her arm again, yanking her back.

  “Ow!” Leslie struggled until Yarrow held the athame to her neck. “Yarrow, by all that is holy, please— for Maria, and the children, please.”

  “Why should I trust you?” Yarrow hissed.

  “You don’t understand,” Leslie protested. “I was just trying to save Maria and the kids.”

  The athame’s hilt didn’t change temperature. So a half-truth.

  “Where were you taking me?”

  Leslie sniffled. Yarrow pressed harder with the athame.

  “The North Square!” Leslie finally screamed.

  The North Square, where witches were publicly humiliated and tortured to force their submission to the Censors for the Shadow War. Jenny had explicitly bargained to avoid that fate for Yarrow, and she’d done her best to be properly submissive so she wouldn’t be taken to the Square.

  This means Jenny’s agreement is broken. I can’t stay in the City. She fingered her other ring. It should be able to guide her to a safe place for tonight.

  But first she had to deal with Leslie. Yarrow swallowed hard, then drew on her now freed magic.

  “Hold,” she breathed. Leslie gulped for air and strained to rise as Yarrow got up but could do no more than flex against invisible restraints. Yarrow picked up her discarded bracelets, studying them. She fished out a couple of twist-ties from the bottom of the backpack, then wove the twist-ties between the two bracelets. Next, she ran her fingers along them, whispering the charm she had used to make bindings against the Shadows for the War’s sake. The ties swelled into a solid chain linking the bracelets.

  Yarrow fastened Leslie’s wrists behind her back. Then she used an extra blouse and another binding charm to create a second restraint on Leslie’s ankles.

  “Forget I was ever here,” she commanded the studio and Leslie, activating the last charm Jenny had left her. Then she tiptoed down the hallway to the stairs. Instead of going out the front, Yarrow continued to the basement. She raised a shade to hide herself, and let herself out the back door, hesitating before climbing up the outside stairwell, remembering what Jenny had told her as she thought about where to go now.

  If the Censors betray us, run for the border. I will know you’ve gone, and that will set me free, too. At that point they’ll be no better than the Shadows. Run, and wait for me.

  Yarrow wrapped her hand around the amethyst again.

  I am free, Jenny.

  The stone warmed in her hand. Run free. Run free and testify to what we endure now. I will do what I can.

  I will, she promised. Then she headed down the alleyway.

  She had to find a place for tonight. Then tomorrow, early, before her absence was discovered, she’d slip down to the river to join other wanderers. Drift with them to the frontier, hiding her magic until she had the chance to cross the border—and hope that the curse of the Shadows and Censors had not spread further, had not eliminated the belief in hope. In magic that created rather than destroyed. In joy rather than fear.

  She hoped her plan would work.

  It had to work, for all their sakes.

  Eyes forward, head down, focus on the task of the day—same task as every day from here on in: Stop the visitors, put ’em down, send ’em back.

  Randee Dawn

  Cannot Find My Way Home

  Randee Dawn

  “Grab him, Garcia!”

  The creature whizzes by so fast it’s like he has lightning feet, and knowing these punks he just might.

  Instinctively Emissary Sergeant Tony Garcia lashes out with one hand, but the strap of his XL-PEP hurls the weapon over his shoulder and throws him off-balance, so his fingers just graze the runner’s arm.

  Go with it, he thinks and leans into the twist, thrusting his body forward so he can bash the creature from the other side. It’s like running into a brick wall, but the runner tumbles into the torn-up fallow field and Garcia shifts the Peppie back into position.

  “Fan nóiméad –” the creature raises its hand.

  Garcia squeezes the trigger, the concussive pulse rocking him back. He recovers and prepares to mash his muddy boot into the creature’s chest, but there’s no need. The thing—looks male, but who the hell knows for sure—rolls on its side and vomits reddish-purple fluid into the wrecked grass, then starts shaking. All of its clothing, if that’s what you can call it, starts to disintegrate. The EMP pulse doesn’t hurt it, but it nullifies whatever sick crap these things carry over when they cross. Garcia guesses it’s like a human taking a two-by-four to the back of the head.

  Clap. Clap. Emissary Lieutenant Matt Wainwright, Garcia’s patrol buddy, stands to one side and lowers his hands. “Will you do ‘Swan Lake’ next time?”

  Wainwright’s a prick, but he’s in charge and this is Garcia’s first day in the field since the incident, so he doesn’t rise to the challenge. Eyes forward, head down, focus on the task of the day—same task as every day from here on in: Stop the visitors, put ’em down, send ’em back when possible. When not possible, there’s always the plasma setting on the PEP. After that, the pits.

  Though on that last one, Garcia only knows secondhand. The pits are new to him. New to everyone.

  “Got my stripes for grace and style,” he growls and crouches alongside the prostrate thing on the ground. Not porcelain; those ones tend not to run. They just lob spells and Lord help you if you’re in those crosshairs. Garcia’s seen more than one unlucky soldier that ended up half out of his skull, strapped down in the field mobile hospital unit.

  Nah, this one’s a shifter with skin that changes shades depending on mood. Right now it’s going from the color of its own puke to a dark green and back to pale brown. Shifters are less trouble, generally speaking. Worst they do is make it downpour on you or send a swarm of bees your way. Attacks in tune with nature, like. Garcia takes a small sniff; the creature should smell like upchuck and sweat and terror—but nope. What Garcia gets in his nostrils right now is fresh-mown grass on a sunny day….

  “You gonna ask him on a date or get him on his feet?”

  Wainwright again. Garcia shakes his head; for a minute there, he was back home in Tennessee. Almost heard the dog barking. Craziest thing. “Shit,” he says, standing. “These things mess with your head.”

  “You’d know,” says Wainwright, tossing him a blanket. “Wrap it up and get its hands tight.”

  Garcia restrains a desire to flip him the bird and glances back down. The shaking’s stopped but now the creature is buck naked. When the EMP from the weapon hits them it knocks all the special out at once, and that means every stitch of the fey creatures’ clothing—whether it’s fine silk linen or stitched-together bark—dissolves into nothing. Like it isn’t even real. Maybe the creatures aren’t even real. Maybe the Peacekeepers have been fighting ghosts all this time.

  He toes the creature—a young one, practically a kid. Except probably older than Garcia by a couple hundred years. They look like us, the instructors coached. They sound like us. But they are not people. Do not name them. Use the number system.

  One bright green eye flies open, then the second. The kid’s mouth curls back but he doesn’t bare teeth. “Up,” says Garcia, waving, and slowly the creature comes to its feet. Yep, male. Can be hard to tell with these ones—all dressed up most of ‘em can go either way, but without a stitch on this is clearly a dude. He stands, arms crossed and bare-assed to the French countryside, not even attempting to
cover himself like any respectable human would.

  “D78,” says Wainwright, stepping in and giving the kid his designation. “That’s you.”

  The kid doesn’t blink.

  “I know you understand me,” he continues, and pokes the kid once in the shoulder for emphasis. “Just want you to know that if you do anything other than follow orders, these little tools have another setting.”

  Garcia hefts his XL. Some call them PEPs—Pulsed Energy Projectiles—some Peppies. It’s all the same to him; you shoot the runners with the pulse to slow ‘em up and protect yourself from spells, then if they don’t cooperate you switch to plasma. They’ll burn, same as humans. And while they do heal pretty freaking fast, no creature has been shown to grow back a seared-off limb.

  “Get him dressed,” says Wainwright. “Don’t feel like seeing fairy dick waving in the breeze, if you know what I mean.”

  “Feeling inadequate?” asks Garcia, reaching into his pack and withdrawing a blanket and rope. He hands both to the kid, gesturing that he should cover himself with the blanket and use the rope as a belt. He notices that the creature—the kid—has no navel. Another freakishness. Maybe it was there once, and healed up. He’ll never know.

  “Right,” says Wainwright. “We’re on the move. Get the hands tied.”

  Garcia shrugs. “Can if you want, but he’s not doing anything but walking ‘til that pulse wears off.”

  “Your choice,” he says. “Back to base. Hup hup.”

  They turn and head south, away from the coastline. Behind them, the place where the air had been shimmering falls still again.

  ~*~

  Finding D78 means they’ll head back to camp, and it comes as a relief to Garcia after a long morning with Wainwright’s eyes crawling on him like giant insects. Shipping two officers out together is no accident; Garcia knows he’s on indefinite probation since the incident. But now that they have a creature in custody the mission has changed. When possible, they used to send ‘em home, now they drag ‘em back to camp. Once this one is processed they can grab hot lunch from the mess instead of having to hoover down another MRE or cardboard protein bar in the field.