Текст книги "Fire Country"

Автор книги: David Estes

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

I run in that direction.

~~~

I don’t know what comes over me, but I run like the wind. It’s gusting at my back and then it’s gone, like I’ve outdistanced it, leaving me sprinting past surprised villagers in a calm bubble.

It’s him. I know it. Circ and t’other men on the mission have returned. Rushing to see Circ’ll not go down well with my father, but I hafta. I hafta see his smiling and dimpled face, hafta hear his laugh, hafta smell the dust on his skin.

Reaching the tower at almost the same time as the watchman reaches the bottom rung, I ignore his shout as I fly past him, out into the desert. If we’re under attack, I’m rushing straight to death. There were no bells, I remind myself. No attack.

I peer across the winter wasteland, feeling the wind catch up to me as I slow my pace, swirling around my feet, swishing my dress back and forth. I see them.

The Hunters coming back from their mission. A small group. Pitifully small considering they might be facing Killers. Five men. Four walking—no, trudging, heavy-footed and on the verge of collapse. And one being carried horizontally across another’s shoulders. Something bad happened to these Hunters.

I rush forward, squinting to make out the faces. When I get close enough to see details, I realize: none of the four walking are Circ.

An exhausted groan slips from my throat. Not him. Please, sun goddess, please, I pray. It’s been sunny all day, not a cloud in the sky, but at that moment, just after my silent plea, the world goes dim. I look up, feeling fear and dread in my heart, as a mountain of dark clouds blot out the sun as completely as if it were dusk.

The smell of death lingers on the air, tangy and metallic.

I reach the Hunters, who’re too tired to be surprised at the sudden presence of a Youngling in their midst. They’re older’n Circ, but not by much, perhaps only on their first Call, or maybe second.

They all have injuries: cuts and scrapes and claw marks. Killer wounds.

“I know him,” I say, panting, my elbows on my knees. “Please. Is he okay?”

Across the Hunter’s shoulders, Circ groans.

He’s alive.

Another Hunter helps pull Circ down, lays him in the durt. I hear wheels rattling across the uneven terrain behind me. Help’s on the way. I kneel down, lean over him, touch his dust and bloodstained face. “I’m here, Circ,” I say softly.

His eyes ease open, and when he sees me he manages a smile. “Sie,” he says, his voice barely audible over the sound of the wind whipping through our clothes.

“Yes, it’s me,” I say, taking in his injuries. His hair is matted with blood, aged and reddish-brown. His brown tugskin shirt is soaked through with blood, concentrated at a point where there’s a gnarled and torn hole. I can’t see the extent of the damage ’cause there’s too much blood. If he can’t walk, it must be bad. I’ve seen Circ leap up after nasty injuries, fight through it. He’s not the type to be carried ’round like a dead man.

Tears blur my vision. Circ. Oh, Circ.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I say. “Everything’s gonna be okay.” I think I’m saying it more for myself.

“The Killers found us,” he murmurs. “We barely…” His voice falters and his eyelids flutter.

“Shhh,” I say, fighting back a sob. “We’ll get you help. MedMa’ll help.” A stream is running down my face, dripping on his clothes, mixing with his blood.

Circ sees me, his eyes clear once more. His face twists in agony. The tears start tumbling down his face now, too. I think it’s ’cause he’s scared to die, but then I see it in the swirls of his deep brown eyes and realize: he’s crying for me. Even in this condition, he’s focused on my pain, my anguish, my fear that he’s gonna die. He’s crying for me when he’s the one dying.

Shouts behind us. Wheels rattling over stones. A whole village of people—my people—who don’t mean a searin’ thing without him.

“Sie,” Circ says, his voice sounding stronger’n before. “Sie, I need you to know something.” I’m holding my breath, furiously blinking back tears. He fumbles at his wrist, almost frantic, like he’s fighting against time. His time.

He locates his bracelet, his charms. Snaps the leather, pulls one off. I can’t hold my breath any longer so I let it out in a gasp. “Circ, what are you—”

“Shhh,” he says, his voice sounding almost normal. Like usual, he’s comforting me. Am I the one dying? Did I fall from my cell in Confinement when I was trying to follow the workers? Did I dream everything? Am I dreaming now, in a confused state?

Reality comes rushing back when MedMa’s wagon rattles to a stop next to Circ. No, I’m not dreaming. Circ is dying, right ’fore my very eyes. Using his last few breaths to comfort me.

“Circ, I—”

“Take this,” he says, stuffing the charm into my hand, closing my fingers over it. MedMa and his apprentice rush ’round the cart. “Please know that someday we’ll be together.”

He grabs my wrist, squeezes it. MedMa lifts him into the wagon, starts rolling him away. “No!” I cry. “No, Circ, no. Don’t leave me. Don’t…” I collapse in the dust, mental and physical exhaustion setting in.

I lie still for a moment or two. When I sit up I feel empty, like the butcher’s gutted me. No heart. No will. No nothing. My fist is clenched and I feel the bite of cold metal in my skin.

When I peel back my fingers I see it. Circ’s charm, a pointer. His gift for his first Call. He’s given it to me.

Chapter Twenty

Eventually I come to my senses. Chase after MedMa’s wagon, catch up just as it reaches the Place of Healing. Circ is unconscious but still alive.

He can’t die. He said it himself:

Someday we’ll be together.

I hafta wait outside. MedMa has work to do. He makes it sound so ordinary. Work. Like building a tent or chopping down a tree or shoveling blaze. Work, like saving Circ’s life.

The sun comes out again. I search the sky but the dark clouds from earlier are gone, vanished. Not moved on. Just gone. I pray it’s not a sign for Circ. For us.

I sit in the durt, prop against the Healing hut. Spin Circ’s pointer charm through my fingers, watching it catch the light. Under the Law, he’s not permitted to give it to me, but he did. If he survives I don’t know what it’ll mean. He’s too young to be a Call, and anyway, you can’t choose. The Greynotes decide. I unfasten my bracelet and slide his charm onto the band, next to mine. The tree and the pointer. Together at last.

For what it’s worth, I think healing thoughts for Circ.

He won’t die. He won’t. Can’t. I’m two full moons from my Call, the most important moment of my life, so he hasta be there, right? He’s young, strong, invincible. Good at everything. Even surviving. He’ll survive, ’cause he never loses.

Everything catches up with me at that moment. The constant name-calling at Learning. The endless fights with my father. Confinement. The boneyard on the edge of ice country. Raja, framed for murder. My broken wrist. Saving Circ from the Killers only to find him on a knife’s blade. My body shakes and shudders, my hands trembling as I tuck them ’round my head. Every tear I have left pours from my eyes like a spring rain—the flood of the last few full moons of my shattered and broken life.

Without him, it’s over.

MedMa opens the door.

I look up, unable to see, but seeing more clearly’n I’ve ever seen ’fore.

Circ’s dead.

“I’m sorry. I did everything I could,” MedMa says. I hate him. Hate his apologies. Hate the Killers. Hate ’spiracies and life sentences and duty and the Law. Hate my father.

As I stand up, my face is full of heat. From the hot, bubbling tears that well up from tear ducts that shoulda been empty long ago. From the anger coursing through every blood-carrying vein in my body. From the sun that’s beating—beating, smashing, pummeling—down upon me. There’s no mercy in the sun goddess’s gaze. Not today. I hate her, too.

I run.

~~~

I don’t know where I go, or how far, or who I see. There’re voices, so many voices, but none of them are alive. Not to me.

Not even I’m alive. I can’t be, not if Circ’s not.

My legs are already exhausted but I don’t notice the way they ache and throb. Just keep running. Through the village at first, I think, and then not. Out into the desert somewhere. Away. Just away.

And then I’m there.

Our place. The Mouth.

Our dunes.

Empty, so empty, without Circ’s laughter, his jokes, his knees touching mine, his warmth against me. It doesn’t even feel like a real place anymore.

My legs falter and I fall, feeling a twinge of pain in my injured arm as I land on it. The pain helps. I crawl my way to our nook, scrabble in the sand, scooping out shovelfuls till I’ve made a hole, big enough for only one. Curl up inside it, close my eyes, pretend the sand that’s closing in around me is him, holding me, protecting me.

Someday we’ll be together.

How could he lie to me like that? Someday’ll never come. Never. Even if he’d lived it wouldn’t have come. The Law wouldn’t allow it. My father wouldn’t allow it.

With the wind blowing grains of sand over me and the sky darkening to dusk, I cry myself to sleep, held only by a pocket of sand and memories of Circ.

~~~

Blackness greets me when I wake. The merciless sun goddess is asleep and the moon goddess and her lieges are taking a day off.

For a moment I don’t know where I am and I thrash about, as if I’m being attacked. But then I feel it. The sand, soft and warm against my fingertips, tucked ’round me. In a muddled stream of images, everything comes rushing back. Circ’s anguished expression as he pushed the charm into my hand. MedMa shaking his head. My run into the desert.

My mother’ll be worried ’bout me, but I don’t care. It’s as much her fault as my father’s that this happened. She encouraged me to think ’bout what I want, make my own decisions. Well I did and look where it got me. Look where it got Circ. I killed him. ’Cause I made him sneak out that night, all to grizz off my father, get him to send me back to Confinement so I could play investigator.

A Cotee howls in the distance, perhaps ’cause he’s picked up my scent, or maybe for no reason at all. Regardless, it gives me the chills. I roll out, stand up, wipe the salt and sand from my face, and walk numbly back toward the lights of the village. There are still a lot of them, so it’s not that late.

With each step the anger builds.

By the time I reach our hut, my body is coiled and ready to strike. I’ll fight anyone or anything right now. With my scrawny body, I’ll probably lose, but I’ll fight. I open the door.

My mother leaps up from where she’s sitting, rushes to me, but I stop her with a hand and a look. “Siena,” she says, “I’m so sor—”

“Don’t,” I say through my teeth.

Sari shepherds my Call-Brother and Call-Sister out the door into the night. She knows that whatever’s ’bout to go down is not for childrens’ eyes.

My father rises behind her, less quickly, at his own measured pace. There’s compassion in his eyes, in his tone. False compassion. “Yes, Siena. We’re both very sorry. It’s a true tragedy for the village.”

“For the village?” I say, my voice rising. “This is your fault. Yours alone.”

“It’s no one’s fault, Youngling. Life is fragile, especially for us. We lost another three to the Fire today. All we have is duty, the Law.”

I take a step forward. “Don’t,” my mother warns.

“Why not, Mother? Isn’t this what you wanted me to do? To stand up for myself? To be my own woman? To be everything that you’re not?”

“Oh-ho! So you’ve been having secret mother/daughter talks, have you?” my father scoffs. “Women—all talk and no action. It’s no wonder you only have a single purpose.”

Breeding breeding breeding BREEDING! The unspoken words rampage through my mind, stirring me to life, roaring inside of me. I’m ’bout to let all my anger, all my pent up frustration out when—

My mother whirls on him. She’s no longer the timid woman I grew up with. There’s a spark in her as she steps into my father’s circle, gets into his personal space. “You know nothing!” she says.

My father seems as shocked as I am. He actually leans away from her, as if scared of her rage, of what she might do to him. But his recovery is swift. Rocking on his heel, he launches himself forward and pushes my mother with both hands. She looks like one of my old dolls as she flies across the hut. So small. So weak. So full of nothing but bits of scrubgrass and tug hair. She reminds me of myself.

Her body doesn’t stop moving until it slams into the wall, back first, a sickening crack of spine and shoulder blades against wood. Eyes widening in pain and surprise, she slides down the wall, slumping in a pile on the floor, nothing more’n a doll, tossed aside, leaching every last bit of my anger out of me.

My heart is in my throat, for despite my anger toward my mother, I love her. She’s the only one who’s stuck up for me against my father. “Sun goddess, Father. What’ve you done?”

He just frowns at me, his mouth contorted in rage. “This is the end of it. Now we get on with our lives,” he says ’fore storming out of the hut, slamming the door behind him.

I go to my mother, kneel by her, cradle her head in my arms. She can barely hold herself up, so I do it for her. She cries, and I do, too, more tears for a day that seems built on them. We don’t talk about it, but I know we’re both crying for Circ, and for my lost sisters, Skye and Jade, and for each other. We don’t stop for a long time.

No one returns home that night.

Chapter Twenty-One

It don’t seem right the way life goes on. Someone that matters to you more’n life itself dies, and yet you go on existing, as if nothing’s changed. You still have duties, responsibilities, routines. Things to do, like getting my arm unwrapped ’cause it’s healed now. All these things that used to seem so searin’ important, that you worried so much about, are meaningless. And yet—yet you go on doing them ’cause you must. Or people’ll talk, people’ll worry. They’ll say, “I’m worried about Siena, I don’t think she’s ever gotten over Circ’s death.” Don’t they understand? Don’t they get it? There’s no getting over the death of someone like that, someone who you lived for, laughed for, cared for. No. The most you can hope to do is carry on, get through a day, a full moon, a year, and eventually a lifetime without them. In your every act you hafta try to make them proud just in case they’re looking down from somewhere, watching you, a new star in the sky, shining brighter’n t’others.

Circ’s definitely a star. When I look at the night sky now I see him, bright and beautiful. I thought I’d memorized the heavens, but when I look up now I always see at least one new star. Someone else good has died. Either from our village or from somewhere else. But I know the brightest new star is Circ.

I went to his fire ceremony, watched as his body, covered by a black shroud, was lit atop a pyre and sent back to the land of the gods. I felt like I was being burned too.

Winter is getting on, is almost over, and I still cry some nights when I look at the stars, but with each passing day I’m feeling better, stronger, ready to do what I hafta in this life to make Circ proud. There’s a great weight on my shoulders ’cause I live for the both of us now.

When I think about the end of winter and the approach of spring, burrow mice squirm in my stomach. ’Cause this year spring means so much more’n the rains, the Growing, the return of the tug hurds to our area. It means I turn sixteen. It means the Call.

Burrow mice squirm.

Vultures peck.

Pricklers prickle.

All in my gut, squirming and pecking and prickling all at once.

So I try not to think ’bout it. I try to think about other things. I think ’bout how the wind seems to build every day, sometimes raging into horrendous winter windstorms so powerful all we can do is huddle in our huts and tents and wait for it to pass, hoping we don’t get blown away. But the wind, no matter how strong, can’t seem to pick up enough sand to create the first sandstorm of the waning season. Everyone’s talking ’bout it. How we’ve never had a winter without at least a half dozen major sandstorms. How the sun goddess is blessing us, giving us a break this year ’cause we desperately need it. I don’t know if I believe all that. It seems to me the wind is just saving itself for a time when we least expect it.

No one really talks to me anymore. In Learning I’m the same ol’ outcast, but it don’t really bother me. I don’t want to talk to them either. Hawk and his goons pretty much leave me alone now, although I do catch them staring and laughing sometimes. Lara talks to me sometimes, but not the way she used to, ’bout doing things differently and thinking ’bout things. Our chats are much more boring, ’bout the weather, ’bout Learning assignments, that kinda thing. I feel like, in time, we might actually be real friends.

At home things are weird. Sari avoids me like the plague, and I think she’s told Rafi and Fauna not to talk to me either, as if she thinks all my bad luck’ll rub off on her kids. I’ve never really liked her anyway. My father keeps up his drivel about duty and the Law, but I’ve learned not to get so angry about it. I just ignore him. I try not to look at him either, ’cause when I do, I see the bones of the dead lifers from Confinement. Any notions I had of being able to help them went out the window when Circ died. Sorry, Raja. I failed you ’fore I ever really got started helping.

The nice thing is that Mother and I talk more. We’ve found a common enemy in my father, and it’s brought us so much closer. We go for long walks, like the one we’re on now, talking about the past, the present, and the future. Mostly it’s talk about the goings on in the village, but every once in a while, I’ll hear something in her voice, a catch, that makes me think she wants to say something else. But she never does. Maybe I can draw it outta her, I think as we circle the village for the third time.

“Mother?” I say.

“Siena?” she says, matching my serious tone and making me laugh.

“Why…” I let the word hang, the anticipation of a question. Should I ask it?

It drops to the durt and I hang my head a little. ’Fraidy tug, I think.

“Why what, Siena?” she nudges.

“I, uh, just been thinking...”

“Dangerous, that,” she says with a wink.

“How come we never really stand up to Father?” I blurt out, right away wishing I’d held it back, never thought to say it.

She stops suddenly, her face going whiter than my Call dress, grabs my arm. I think she’s mad until she says, “We do, Siena. In our own way. Never think he owns you, you hear me?”

Shaken, I nod slowly. “But when he’s hurting me, when he’s snapping me, you always walk away.”

Mother closes her eyes and she looks sad, so sad, sadder’n she looked when Skye disappeared, sadder’n when Jade died so young. Too sad for what I just said.

“I—I can’t stop him,” she says. “Not now. I’m so sorry, Siena. I want to—all I want to do is protect you—but we have to wait. We just have to wait for the right time.”

The right time? But when is that? And what do we do when we get there? I wanna ask—so burnin’ badly, a million and one questions poking all through my mind like prickler stems—but I can’t ’cause she pulls me forward hard, as a bunch of Greynotes pass us by.

~~~

No matter how many problems I got, there’s always Veeva. Her crazy life keeps me entertained and busy. That’s where I am now—in her tent. The winds have been particularly unkind to their tent—which is sagging in the middle, bent and broken, ready to collapse at any second—probably ’cause Grunt did such a poor job constructing it in the first place. Veeva always tells me he’s good with his hands, but I don’t think she’s talking about tent-building.

“Take him, Woman,” Grunt grunts, handing a squirming nine-full-moon-old Polk to Veeva.

“Oh no, hot stuff, you ain’t gettin’ out of bundlin’ ’im. Not this time. And if you call me Woman again, I won’t lie with you fer a quarter full moon.” Veeva’s got one arm holding the baby, t’other on her hip, and a third hand figuratively clutching Grunt’s manparts.

I’m trying not to crack up.

“Okay, okay,” Grunt says, throwing up his tug-sausage fingers. “No need to make them threats of yers, Vee. I’m doin’ the best I can. I gotta fix this burnin’ tent before it kills us all!”

“I can bundle him,” I suggest, trying to be helpful.

Veeva warns me off with a shake of her head. She’s got something else up her sleeve. “Mmm, well if you can bundle this beautiful baby of yers and fix this here dyin’ tent, I got a special surprise fer you.” In an act that I find somewhat disgusting, and a whole lot intriguing, she sticks out her chest and shakes her enormous bosoms, which, I might add, are practically falling out of her loose top. Grunt’s eyes get bigger’n the moon and Polk grabs at her bouncing breasts like they might be a fun toy to play with. I’m relatively inexperienced in such things—other’n what Veeva’s told me—but perhaps to Grunt, Veeva’s overly ample chest is a fun toy to play with. The way his eyes’re bugging out of his head certainly seems to indicate it.

“I’ll do it, Woman!” he shouts, his big ol’ belly flopping as he raises his fist above his head. He catches himself. “Sorry, I mean, Veeva.”

“Mmm, mmm, mmm, I know you will, my stallion,” she says licking her lips and holding out the stinky Polk.

Yeah, these are the type of interactions I witness on a daily basis at Veeva’s place. Things that would never—EVER—happen in our hut, which I’m somewhat thankful for.

While Grunt gets to putting a fresh bundle on the baby, Veeva fans herself with a hand. “Useless, bugger,” she whispers to me. “I gotta threaten ’im like this to get ’im to do any burnin’ thing around ’ere. If he wasn’t so good in bed, I’d throw ’im out on his arse. The baggard.”

I laugh, both at Veeva’s insults and ’cause Grunt’s got Polk upside down by the foot and is trying to wipe his little butt with an old blanket. Veeva shakes her head. “He’s hopeless,” she says. Then, her eyes lighting up, she turns to me. You got your Call comin’ up soon, don’t you?”

I shrug. “Yeah. S’pose so.”

She claps. “Who do you got yer eye on?”

“My eye?” I haven’t really thought ’bout it, mostly ’cause I’m trying to avoid thinking ’bout the Call at all. “No one,” I say lamely.

She puts an arm ’round me. “Still hung up on Circ?”

She says his name so casually, as if he was just an old boyfriend, that it doesn’t even sting as much as usual. “I don’t know,” I lie.

“You know, he couldn’ta been yer Call anyway,” she says.

“I know,” I say. “But a girl can dream, can’t she?”

“Of course!” she says, excited now, her eyes lighting up. “Ooh, before my Call I dreamed of Bearing a million babies with Zerg. You know who I mean?”

I laugh. “Didn’t every Bearer in your Call wanna get Zerg?”

She nods. “Yeah, but none so bad as me. That searin’ shilt Mariday got ’im. Lucky bugger. And I got stuck with ’im,” she says, motioning to Grunt, who’s managed to get the bundle wrapped half ’round Polk’s leg and half ’round his arm. Grunt’s just staring at the baby, all confused-like, as if bundling a baby is the most confusing puzzle in all of fire country.

“Fix it!” Veeva orders, startling Grunt out of his daze. “Or you’ll sleep on t’other side of the tent ternight.”

At that threat, Grunt pulls at the bundle, desperately trying to untangle it from Polk’s wriggling limbs. I’m laughing so hard I hafta hold my stomach. Veeva gives an exasperated sigh and goes to him, puts her arms ’round his shoulders, massaging them slightly. Grunt is sweating like he’s been working in the blaze pits. “It’s okay, my gorgeous hunk of muscle,” she coos. “I’ll take care of it. Fix the tent and I won’t punish you.”

~~~

Tonight I watch the stars. Now that Circ’s gone, my father doesn’t seem to mind if I go out at night. I don’t even hafta sneak out. I just get up, walk out the door. Sometimes I can feel him watching me, other times he doesn’t seem to notice. But either way, he never tries to stop me.

I always go to the same place. The Hunters Lodge. The first time I went the guard was hesitant to let me in, particularly after the way we tricked our way in the last time. But after I explained why I wanted to go in and promised not to break or steal anything, the guard let me. Now I’m a regular.

“Not too many clouds tonight, Sie,” the guard says when I arrive. “Should be a perfect stargazing night.”

“Thanks, Potts,” I say, entering through the door he holds for me. I know all the guards’ names now.

I don’t take the long way anymore, the way Circ took me when he brought me here. I have no desire to walk down the dark, empty Lodge halls. Outside I feel much closer to him. So I go right up the middle, under the wooden struts and girders and pylons that keep the Lodge from getting blasted over by the strong winter winds. Into the open air space in the middle. Here I feel protected, safe, loved. I’m never alone here, not really. It’s my special place. A place I’ll never bring anyone.

I lie directly in the middle, look up at the sparkling sky. I spot Circ immediately, as I always do, brighter’n t’others. “Hi,” I say.

I know he wants to reply, but can’t. From up there, he has no voice. But something tells me he’s not just a pretty thing to look at. He still has power in him. Power to change things for me, to impact my life. He’ll always impact my life.

My discussion with Veeva pops into my head. The Call. Not that far off. Scary close now. If I could choose any of the eligible guys in the village, who would I choose? I know the answer. None of them. None of them are Circ.

But, for the sake of humoring Veeva, I try to think ’bout it seriously. ’Cause I’m going to get one of them whether I like it or not. Grunt pops into my head first and I laugh. Being Veeva’s Call-Sister would be incredible, but the thought of lying with Grunt even once makes me wanna throw a handful of rocks in the air and run under them. I’d take thirty rocks to the face over having to touch him any day.

’Cause I’m so anti-social these days, I don’t really know anyone. I barely even really know the Younglings I go to Learning with, much less anyone eighteen or older. There’re a couple of brothers who seem friendly enough, Graum and Baum. They’re Hunters, too, like Circ is—was. Pretty smoky, too. Not Circ smoky, but nice to look at. Either of them would be okay I guess. But there are many more worse options—options I don’t wanna think ’bout right now. Not ever.

Circ stares at me. I’m sorry, Circ, I say. I don’t wanna, but I don’t know what else to do. If there’s any other way, please tell me.

He winks, as if to say, I understand.

I cry.