Blind Fall

by Amanda Milo

  Kota wuffs and I know we must be approaching Meesahrah. This is her special greeting for the odd Narwari. We’re walking along the inside rail of the fenceline in the main pasture, and we’ve gone quite a ways out. I think best when I’m walking and I walk a lot when I’m thinking. Breslin told me we’re plenty safe if I want to pace like this. He says there aren’t predators in the area, not anymore, and certainly nothing left that would be fool enough to take on a Narwari. So Kota and I pace in the safety of Breslin’s pack of alien meat-eating horses. They may not be demonstrative, cuddly animals but they like having us join them. If they didn’t, I think we’d be eaten already.

  To reset myself, I sing. Just softly at first, but I hear more and more Narwari hooves join us. They sound like they’re flocking to us. Just for the music, I’m sure, and not a ‘dinner and a show’ type deal, ha ha. Sometimes, they still manage to make me a tiny bit nervous, though they’ve been incredibly conscientious so far. It’s really only when I hear them cracking bones from whatever Breslin’s fed them that morning. I switch songs and finally, I feel light enough that when I hear Kota panting up at me, I can smile back at her.

  But the harness handle I’m gripping abruptly stops moving forward—and so do I. Kota’s come to a halt for some reason.

  “What is it?” I ask her, reaching my arm up in front of me. One of the most difficult concepts to teach Kota was something all guide dogs are trained to do: pay such close attention to their surroundings, they notice when something is hanging down and could wonk you upside the head—like the tree branch my hand just encountered. “Perfect alert, way to go, sal—”

  I almost said ‘salk.’ I smile sadly. Breslin’s influence. “Good girl! Good job.”

  I pick up the song I was singing at the refrain, adjust my grip on Kota’s harness, and—

  Something drops from the tree and latches onto my shoulder.

  Kota goes wild.

  All I can feel is its weight and its claws and as I instinctively try to block my face, it clutches onto me tighter, chittering.

  Surely this creature isn’t fool enough to take on a Narwari! Although, it didn’t take on a Narwari, did it? But Breslin said any predators are long gone, hunted to extinction by Narwari packs. What would be the odds that something came back? I don’t know, but my heart’s racing and I wish Breslin were here.

  Kota’s teeth snap and the creature squeals and it launches itself off of my shoulder and scrambles back into the tree.

  “Okay,” I pant, trying to take stock. I felt claws, but I don’t think it pierced through my clothing. I don’t feel like I’m bleeding anywhere. I don’t think it bit me without me noticing.

  Kota leans against me like, Whew! What was THAT? Her tail wags against my leg once.

  “Allll right,” I breathe. “That was kind of a lot more exciting than I expected this walk to be. Let’s head back and have a little chat with Breslin.” I duck for the low branch, and pick up the song I was working on with almost a desperate sort of cheerfulness. I’m not afraid of the unknown arboreal alien.

  Kota goes tense beside me again.

  A dried leaf crackles and I know the thing is right above me. Waiting.

  It drops on me.

  Kota lets out an indignant roar and lunges—

  I nearly collapse from the force with which the creature uses my shoulder as a springboard to return to the safety of the branches.

  We scurry away from the stand of trees, heading at a brisk, brisk pace—and for one of Kota’s breed, this is really saying something. Kota whines all the way back to the barn and in the manner that only a German shepherd can—a series of sharp, whistling mumbles as she—at great, loud length—discusses her feelings on the matter of this pasture interloper.

  “San San? What’s amiss?” Breslin calls, his deep voice carrying great, but it still takes several minutes before I make it the distance it takes so that he can hear me.

  One of us, but my money’s on Kota, is acting shaken enough that when I relay my description of our alien encounter, Breslin drops whatever he’s working on and asks us to lead him to the trees we were under.

  As we approach the copse of trees where the mystery animal dropped on us, Kota nearly makes words with her whines she gets so excited—clearly, she knows Breslin’s here to sort this out and she wants it done right. She feels we were under a grievous attack, and being the great guy he is, Breslin doesn’t hesitate to be brave and mighty. He shimmies right up the tree we stop at.

  “Do you often climb the trees?” I ask.

  He huffs, “Tevek no, I haven’t climbed since I was a boy.”

  “How is it?”

  “High.”

  I snicker.

  “It’s a bit of a shame though, who’d have thought? Life experience has sucked the thrill out of this whole tree scaling experience.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I’ve learned falling hurts.”

  I half-gasp, half chortle. “Remember when you told me ‘That’s what everybody says at first?’”

  “Salk, when it comes to falling out of a kritted tree, believe me it’s the last thing you say too.”

  I smother a laugh. Kota bumps my leg, and I rub her ear. To Breslin, I call, “Do you see anything?”

  He inhales the sweet smelling air. “I see so much from up here. No creature, but crite this farm is nice.”

  The awed pride in his voice has me smiling.

  “Well,” he says, a little strain to his words as he starts to carefully move down the tree, “Let’s hope it’s something that isn’t too dangerous.”

  “Yeah,” I agree mildly. “Not too dangerous.”

  He chuffs a laugh. “Allow me to rephrase. Let’s hope it’s curious but not unkind.”

  ***

  The next morning, Breslin’s chopping up a downed tree for firewood. He tosses the chopped chunks to the side, and very slowly, very carefully, I collect the hunks and carry them one by one to the waiting flatbed wagon.

  I’m humming to myself as I dust off my hands and holler, “I have to take a pee break!” to Breslin.

  “My back is to you,” he responds, adding, “There’s wipe clothes on the wagon seat.”

  Ah, wipe clothes. I miss disposable toilet paper. Rags—soft ones, but still rags—are what’s used here to clean up after relieving oneself. It’s quite the process: used rags get soaked in a bucket of cleaning solution, churned with a stick, rinsed, wrung, hung to dry, and collected as the next batch of rear-end wipes.

  I really, really miss toilet paper.

  When the sounds of rhythmic chopping are pretty muted, I find a tree, for no other reason than it feels more secure to pee behind something than it does to drop down in the open, and grab my pants.

  This set has a row of buttons. I haven’t had to work buttons on my clothes since I was a child. It’s zippers and velcro for everything now—or it was. My humming switches to chanting as I fumble them all free. By the time I finally get to the part where I’m relieving myself, well? I’m feeling serious relief, and I sing it out.

  Kota goes tense just as I’m starting to stand back up. I scream when something grabs my hair.

  Breslin bellows, “Sanna?”

  Small clawed hands and feet grip along my shoulders and Kota sounds like she’s about to explode. I don’t have to speak dog to know what she’s freaking out about.

  It’s the thing! The thing is back!

  Boots pound across the pasture but Breslin’s too late; by the time he reaches us, it’s just me and a turbulently talkative Kota.

  “Tree visitor,” I say by way of explanation.

  He’s a little winded, but he pats my shoulders—not to reassure me, not just to reassure me, but to make sure I’m unhurt. “It found you again? Well I’ll be kritted. Wait, what were you doing?”

  “Doing?” Peeing? “Nothing! It just dropped on me.”

  Breslin’s fingers brush against mine, making my brain trip. And I think: I should be appl
ying hand sanitizer before we touch. And then I think People lick each other’s genitals: if Breslin wants to touch my hand before I wash it, we’ll live. My thoughts have veered so, so very far off that it takes me a second to process what he’s saying. “No, you were doing something and doing it well. What was it?”

  I start to stammer, “Oh, I was sing—” but I register his words. And doing it well. “I really don’t—”

  “You were singing?” he prompts—but then he does something so mind-blowing, I don’t know how he expects me to be able to answer. His hands grasp either side of my pants, which made it over my hips but I never got them refastened.

  One by one, Breslin quietly feeds the button rounds through the slits and instead of making me feel incapable of putting on my own pants, Breslin’s soft touch makes me feel cared for. And as he strokes his fingers along the sides of my hips, dragging his touch over me just a little, my insides basically combust. My internal temperature skyrockets to a balmy nine thousand degrees, melting my brain completely.

  So completely that when Breslin rumbles, “Sing for me,” I nearly choke on my tongue trying. I pull through, but he’s managed to unintentionally work me into such a fluttery state, I’m a stanza in before I stumble to silence—though I don’t pull out of his hands.

  Because something is touching my shoulder.

  I jump when a length of fluff slithers over me and wraps around my neck. Please be a tail, please be a tail—a super cute tail, nothing scary.

  Kota isn’t even breathing she’s gone so still. Apparently Breslin’s presence makes her feel like she doesn’t need to defend my safety; kind of nice really. A sign she super trusts him.

  Evidently I do too, because I place my hands over his as I feel four small fingers with four long claws touch down.

  Kota stiffens but doesn’t bark.

  The thing eases all four feet onto me, giving me all of its weight and I don’t move. But I do flinch when a crunch happens right next to my ear. “Ah!”

  “S’alriiight,” Breslin soothes.

  Kota wuffs in warning.

  The animal crunches again and I feel little dry crumbs sprinkle my clothing and some goes right down the neck of my shirt. Ick. I hope it’s munching on an alien version of a walnut or something and not like the shell of a bug.

  “This is a yushabee,” Breslin murmurs. “I’ve only seen the captive bred ones in the city. They were rounded up here until we thought they were gone.”

  “Oh yeah? I don’t think this yushabee got the memo. It feels very, very present and right here and not in captivity in the city.”

  “What’s a memo?”

  Breslin’s question is so serious but still delivered in that calming tone that I shudder as I try not to laugh—I’m afraid of upsetting this yushabee.

  The urge to laugh dies an instant death the moment Breslin’s fingers smooth up my side, over my ribs, headed for the yushabee but my body does not know this or it doesn’t care. My body is offering up all sorts of suggestions for what Breslin should do next and where else he should roam his hand when he whispers, “You have to sing very, very skillfully to draw them out.”

  I digest this. “What does it look like?”

  There’s a sound like Breslin pops his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “It’s got more fur than you and Kota combined. Very plush.”

  “Cuddly?”

  “What?”

  “Like it makes someone want to hug it?”

  There’s a brief beat of silence. “It’s possible.” His tone says a whole lot more, like, only if you wanted to get bitten.

  Scary.

  “It has large ears, sort of shaped like your Kota but… more rounded at the outer edges.”

  “Sounds like a bat,” I offer.

  “I’ll take your word for it. It’s got a long tail, the fur is even longer there. The way it’s sitting, it’s back is arched so it looks like a giant ball of fluff with ears. And eyes.”

  “It has big eyes?”

  “Huge.”

  What an odd mental picture. “Cute ones?”

  There’s a longer pause than before. “If you like that sort of… I suppose. In a way…” he trails off and I smile at his earnestness as he examines the animal. “It’s mouth is almost nonexistent—which is ironic—barely a bump on its face with tiny lips under a button nose.”

  “Why is a small mouth ironic?”

  “You should see the… nevermind. It’s feet—”

  I’m on alert. “What should—or shouldn’t—I see? What is it?”

  “Its teeth,” Breslin says reluctantly.

  “They’re huge too?” I say weakly.

  The animal crunches on whatever it’s eating again and it’s a disturbingly loud sound. I think I even hear the slice of teeth. I mean, I’m pretty sure.

  “You don’t want to know,” Breslin says finally. “In the city, they use them to teach children vocal control. When the yushabee hears a note that falls out of pitch, they bite.”

  The grip of the yushabee’s toes instantly takes on a sinister feel and my shoulder starts to sink under the animal’s slight weight.

  But Breslin’s hand catches my upper arm. He laughs quietly, but heartily. It makes my insides shiver like a happy tuning fork. “You’re in no danger. They give these to children: the bite can’t be too serious.”

  “Too serious!” I exclaim even as Breslin’s musing, “Although, come to think of it, a lot of opera stars wear masquerade masks. I always assumed it was for mystery. Huh.”

  Not even daring to breathe, I squeak, “Are you joshing again?”

  “Not this time.”

  I whisper-yelp, “Breslin get it off of me, get it off!”

  He makes this sound, this punch of sound peculiar to him and I think it originates in his throat but it definitely puffs out of his nose and it is an amused noise. “All right, let me see if it will come to me—”

  The yushabee springs off my shoulder.

  “Do you have it?” I ask, feeling a little panicked at the thought of a face-eating creature lunging for Breslin.

  “It went back up into the tree. Crite, they can really jump. I want to hear you sing again.”

  “You let it GO? And what?! You want me to lure it back? No!”

  His hands take hold of my shoulders, and just like that, my horror evaporates. He’s got serious skills with these little touches. He also has serious skills with sweet words. “I want to hear you sing, because I want to hear you sing. We can do it inside if you’d feel better.”

  My brain’s sexual switch is tripped hard. I’m imagining just what we could do inside and how it would make me feel better.

  Lots and lots and lots better.

  “Sanna?”

  “Hmm?”

  One big hand abandons the tender hold he had on my shoulder, making it want to cry. But then my whole back whooshes hot as he fits his hand at the magnetizing spot just barely above my butt. Whenever he touches me here, I swear my brain shuts right off and my entire concentration is focused on the heat, the size, and the feel of his hand. However, my brain proves it does not shut off entirely, because it starts supplying suggestions of what else his hand could be doing.

  “Do you want to do it inside with me?”

  Ohhh do I ever. “Yes.” I nod emphatically. “This is a brilliant idea. We should do this inside. Together.”

  Breslin uses only my above-butt pressure point to get me turned and guide me into falling into step next to him. My hip rubs against his thigh as we walk and the heat of his body sears me from my shoulder to my calf and I’m imagining all the things I want to do inside with him, yes, yes, yes. A lot. We could do it on the bed. Against the wall. Against the door. On the floor. In the rain. On a train—

  “—he’s not going to wait. What do you say?”

  I blink a few times and try to clear the positions out of my head. “I’m sorry. I was… daydreaming.”

  “Of what?”

  “What?” No, don’t as
k me that! “Who’s not going to wait?”

  Breslin hooks his whole arm around my back and I suck in a happy breath but he only tugs me so that my shoulder bumps into him—an affectionate little squeeze—and then he takes his limb back.

  Goosebumps have broken out all over my body and I’m so lightheaded I could drop right here.

  If I do, he might carry me.

  OKAY!

  “Darrow wants his Narwari’s hooves trimmed and he needs them done before harvest starts. It’s a good thing he’s got a solid reason, otherwise, I’d be convinced he’s just fishing.”

  Darrow is a really nice guy. He uses the word ‘moonringed’ when referring to me—he uses it a lot—and it’s sweet. It’s always paired with the nicest compliments. “For what?”

  “To see you again.”

  I stop walking. “Why?”

  Breslin’s arm does the slide-and-grip-squeeze again and I just about melt. I’m convinced that if he gives me a couple more good squeezes like this I’ll come.

  “Because he’s attracted to you,” Breslin answers, putting pressure to his spot on my back to start me walking again and I can’t tell if it’s just wishful thinking, or if he actually sounds a little nettled about this.

  “Darrow? Are you sure? How can you tell?”

  “Sanna,” Breslin says, and squeezes me again—

  Just like that! Harder! Harder! Don’t stop!

  Kota bumps my leg and I shake my head to clear it.

  “His dijjü had filled up and were showing dark the last time we were there.”

  “Dijjü… that’s those things… on your head?”

  “That’s right. His body is priming visual receptors for a potential lifemate. He can’t hide his interest in you.”

  The words leave my mouth before I can clamp down on them. “Do yours swell… dark?”

  Breslin’s hand leaves my back, taking his warmth, his hardness, and his mind-blowing touch away as we reach the wagon and he moves off to retrieve his axe. “Of late? All the time.”

  CHAPTER 19

  SANNA

  Did he mean that his dijjü swell in general? Or are his dijjü swelling for me as his—his potential lifemate?