Adalla and I clutch each other, wordless, breathless, for a long, long time. I realize my arms are against the welts on her back, so I loosen my grip.
“No,” Adalla says. “Don’t let go.”
I hug her tighter, and she does likewise. And I get it. At the end of this embrace, our worlds will be changed. That quake was big, much too big. Lives were lost, most certainly. Matris would be blamed. She’d need to calm things down, get us back to normal as fast as she could. She’d need to shift her focus. A distraction. A perfect distraction. And there was nothing more distracting than the pomp and circumstance that went behind an heir declaring her suitors. I didn’t have years. I barely have months.
As soon as excavation is over, and the rest of the Contour class is woken up from stasis, I’ll have to name a wife, or at least a husband. I would have to set the course for the future of the people, a strong one that would make them forget how awful this beast would be to us for the next decade.
From now on, I will have to be the perfect daughter. Not the daughter who steals off to sneak kisses with beastworkers. This moment—this is the only moment we’ll ever get.
Suddenly, I see a glint in Adalla’s eyes, her lips parted, chest rising and falling against mine. It takes me a moment to realize the light is coming from the opening behind us. Someone’s wedged their arm inside and has got a grip on Adalla.
“Don’t worry. Help’s coming,” I hear a voice say. And the body who belongs to that voice is tugging and tugging, and Adalla is getting farther and farther away. It’s like I’m stuck in a nightmare, and I can’t get her back. Our only moment stolen away from us.
Our fingers touch, and then her knife is sitting in my hand. Her eyes implore me. We can’t be caught together, not like this. Not now. For her sake, and for Matris’s.
I watch her as she’s drawn out of the fissure. My lips ache so hard for hers, an ache that makes itself known through every tender part of my body, but then she mouths, Go, to me, and I’m cutting deeper and deeper into the flesh of the beast, hoping to find another way out.
I find myself in a thin passageway, knife gripped to my side for protection now. I walk a tightrope of firm tendon, surrounded by gorges of fatty tissue deep enough to swallow a woman whole. If another tremor happens, I’ll fall and die for sure. The walls flex and bend, like there are hands pushing through from the other side, trying to escape. An eerie hiss has become the background noise to my panicked thoughts.
It’s too late to turn back. No way would I find the entry wound I’d made into this cavity, so I keep pressing forward, hoping for the best. Finally, I spot a colony of crib worms, mouths plastered to the flesh of the cavity wall. I tickle a small one until it unlatches and cradle it in my arms. Its mouth finds my biceps, and it latches on to me. It takes only moments for its soothing toxins to calm my mind, to ease my heartache.
Funny how easy it is to turn back to such childish things. But when childhood makes more sense than adulthood, who can blame me? A little blood stains my pants, and all of a sudden, walls are erected where lines were once drawn. I’m given choices as wide as this passageway. All I can do is mourn for a relationship lost, for a friendship Matris will press for me to forget.
But I will never forget.
I slow down when I hear voices from the other side of the wall. Spirits, I can’t help but think at first, maybe Ol’ Baxi Batzi herself, come to seek revenge. Adalla says that she walks between walls, from home to home, calling out the names of people who are on her list to torment next, but if you keep a small bit of polished copper next to your bed, she’ll get distracted by her reflection and forget all about smothering you in your sleep. Old beastworker superstitions, is what I think. But maybe I better make sure she’s not calling my name. Just in case.
I tickle a few large crib worms away from their grips and arrange them on the wall in a line, so they form a ledge. I step over the fatty gulf, onto my makeshift shelf, then press my ear against the flesh, listening. Not Ol’ Baxi Batzi, for sure. Just some people arguing. And it’s heated. Sounds like they’re arguing about the beast. They know something’s wrong, and it’s not spirits. Curiosity gets the best of me, so I take Adalla’s knife and carefully make a small slit, just enough for me to peek through. I nearly gag as the smell of burned flesh wafts back at me. Sure enough, there are beastworkers there, huddled around an enormous dome in the center of a room the color of pus. They’re taking readings with devices, then yelling and arguing some more.
The beastworker with the full, flush face is the leader, I gather. She’s barking orders at the others, pointing at a purplish scar running along the dome. Then there’s a flash beneath the surface of the dome, a dark shadow swimming past, big as twenty women and then some. The shadow is long, sleek, and oblong, its movement graceful yet intimidating. The purple scar bulges, leaks some, and a faint tremor echoes through the room. My mind is still churning slowly from the crib worm, but I know what that is. It couldn’t be anything else. I’d seen that shape in the Texts many a time, only on a scale a million times bigger. It’s a baby beast. And this is the womb.
My heart sinks to my stomach. Our beast is pregnant. I’m not even sure what that means, but it can’t possibly be a good thing. That baby beast is sucking up resources for sure. Resources we need to live. How many years would it cut off the viability of this beast? Two? Five? Maybe this beast isn’t viable at all. Maybe that’s why we’re having these quakes.
“We can try a higher setting,” the leader is saying. “A longer duration.”
“We need more time to study it,” says another worker. “To scout out weaknesses. To find an entry point.”
“We have no time,” the leader says. “We promised Matris it would be dead and disposed of by now. We haven’t even cracked the surface. Full power. We need to give it everything we’ve got.”
“We can’t afford any more quakes.”
“Then up the sedatives again.”
“But the beast’s heart will strain further—”
“Up the sedatives!” the leader screams. The other worker nods, then takes off into another room. A few minutes later, she returns. All around me, I feel the flesh of the beast loosen. Tension recedes.
“It’s done,” she says. “We’re ready to try again.”
Three other workers move a pole toward the dome, right where the purple scar oozes. They shove the tip of the stick in, press some dials, and the rod comes to life, flickering with blue arcs of electricity. The womb convulses, fluids inside swishing side to side. The white-pus surface clenches, solidifies into a black web of fibrous tissue. It looks impenetrable.
There’s a small quake, barely a rumble.
“More power!” the leader shouts.
Arcs jump all over the place, fizzling out as they hit the crusted shell.
“More!”
“That’s all we have, ma’am. It’s just not working.”
The leader grabs the stick herself, shoves it farther in the scar with all her might, but nothing else happens. Finally, she gives up and throws the stick to the ground. “For will-mothers’ sakes, if the power capacity isn’t doubled by tomorrow, then I’ll have all your backs burned by the Ancestor’s lace!”
I cringe at the severity of the threat, a punishment deemed cruel and unusual a hundred years ago. The leader leaves, and the others duck into the adjoining room. For a long while, it is quiet. Slowly, the black web of the womb softens, returning to pus-colored flesh. The purple scar is larger now, and the leak has worsened, the womb’s contents slowly dribbling to the floor.
I don’t know if it’s my curiosity or loss of inhibitions from my crib worm high, but I widen the slit just until it’s big enough for me to slip through. My feet hit the floor quietly, and I sneak over and look up at this thing plaguing our new home. It is massive. I run my hand along the lumps at the base of the womb. The dark shadow passes by me once, twice. I ignore it. Try not to look directly at it. Try not to notice the translucent spots in the wo
mb, where I catch glimpses of its skin, its tentacled mouth. Its big, bulging, wanting eyes. I knock on a translucent spot with my fist, and it clouds over with pus.
But it’s still watching me. It purrs at me, a low tremble that I feel more than hear. It’s clear what it’s saying, though. It’s pleading for its life.
Of course, I’m most certainly projecting. Giving human traits to a soulless beast that’s only good for drifting through space, big open maw filtering out bits of stardust from young nebulas. It’s certainly not following me out of curiosity now. A section of pus pulses translucent three times, and I step back. Then the entire womb goes crystal clear, revealing the beast’s whole body. Its face stares right at me.
It’s beautiful. And ghastly. Ghastly beautiful. Blue, pink, and teal lights run all along its skin, with curtains of thin tendrils running underneath. Its eyes blink at me, slowly.
My mouth gapes. Its mouth gapes. A mouth that could swallow me whole and still be left wanting. Footsteps slosh through the womb water on the floor. The beast vanishes behind a thick wall of pus. I step as quietly as I can, rounding the womb, keeping on the far side and hoping no one else comes back in. I’d be caught for sure. I keep my back pressed up against the womb and hold as still as I can.
I hear the click, then smell the bite of electricity in the air. There’s a quaver in the womb, and giant arcs of light fill the room. The jolt travels through the womb, through me, ripping away my very thoughts. I want to scream out, to tell them to stop—that they’re hurting me—but my mouth is held tight against my will, teeth clenching so hard together I think they might shatter. I can smell my skin smoking. My cheek presses up against the womb. My vision skips in and out, but next to me, a small swath of the womb goes translucent, then thins completely until there’s a wet emptiness touching my skin. Neon tendrils wrap around my head, my torso, and next thing I know, I’m being pulled inside the womb. It closes up behind me and knits together an impenetrable black web, separating me from everything I know.
I’m surrounded by a liquid that’s maybe closer to air, tendrils all around me, swaddling me. The electricity burns through here, but not as bad. I can think now, which gives me enough time to panic. I struggle to free myself, but the tendrils hold tight, trying to drown me. Am I its hostage? Is it trying to negotiate its freedom? Or just plain revenge? A life for a life?
Nonsense. It’s just a beast—not much different from a crib worm, though on a much larger scale—a combination of flesh and bone and ichor meant to be someone’s home for a while.
“Help!” I yell out, my words a spray of thin bubbles.
The beast startles like it’s heard me. Like it’s surprised I said something. It purrs back at me. The womb water sizzles, and from somewhere between my ears and my brain, I hear my word repeated back to me in a voice that sounds more like a painfully slow cough. “Help!”
I hold my breath until my lungs are pounding in my chest. I’m going to drown. I’ll be mourned for sure. Nobody would dare speak ill of Matris, bereaved. And then Sisterkin would find some two-hundred-year-old loophole in the Texts that would let her take my place. The people would rejoice to have such a fine heir. Such a perfect heir. The heir that should have been all along if I hadn’t prematurely escaped the confines of the womb that once held me. Sisterkin’s suitors would bring stability to the throne, to our matriline, and we would go on and on for generations, culling all the best beasts, surviving, thriving, forever and ever.
Maybe me dying in here would be what’s best for my people.
I let loose my breath, let the cool liquid air leak into my lungs, and wait to suffocate. I cough violently, expelling that sticky wetness only to take on more. Gradually, though, my coughing eases. I wait for my vision to fade to black, but it doesn’t. Tendrils jostle me, moving until I’m eye to giant eye with the baby beast.
I can breathe whatever this stuff is. It stings going in and out with each breath, and I strain like I’m sipping malt through a too-thin straw, but I can breathe it well enough. And finally, the electric shocks subside, and we both untense—this baby beast that more than likely saved my life, and me.
My mouth hangs open in disbelief, but I quickly regret this as a tendril slips inside, fishes around, brushes against my teeth, then glides down my throat. I gag, coughing up a stomach full of kettleworm tea into the womb water, but the baby beast doesn’t look concerned. It whips the tendril back out, then dips the tendril into its own mouth, sucking it clean. Other thinner tendrils pull bits of kettleworm from the water, and it swallows those as well.
The tendril comes for my mouth again. This time, I clamp down hard. A thinner tendril edges for the corner of my eye. I struggle, kick. Finally, my foot lands square in the baby beast’s eye. It cries out, then pushes me away. It’s sulking, I think. Like I hurt its feelings. I realize that it’s just a child. An unborn child that learns through touching, tasting. And here I am, a grown woman kicking babies. An apology almost escapes my lips, but then I catch myself thinking those thoughts again. It’s a baby, yes, but still a beast.
But the baby beast claims vengeance anyway and pushes me toward the edge of the womb. The skin thins to nothing, then with a hard punch to the chest, I’m kicked out.
I land on the floor, body splayed out, ear-deep in a puddle of womb water. If I breathe now, I know I’ll cough and draw attention if I managed not to do so already. So I turn my face into the water and expel slowly, readying my lungs to transition back to air. I lift my head. Listen. The room is quiet. I look back up at the womb, the baby beast staring at me through the window, like it wants to tell me something. I shake my head. It’s foolish of me to try to pretend it’s more than a beast . . . that it has feelings, and wants, and . . . fears.
I can’t deal with that. Not now. I can’t grow attached to something Matris aims to kill. I take one last mournful look at the beast, then put it out of my mind as I cross the room and hope upon the memory of all heart-fathers that I can slip out of here undetected.
“My dear Seske,” my mother says to me, much later that day. There may be a major crisis outside the walls of the throne room, but when Matris wishes to receive you as her audience, your finery must be flawless. I fidget with the frill of several layers of petticoats and itch at all the spots where my braids strain against my scalp.
“Yes, Matris?” I say. “May I ask why you have called me here today?” Did someone see Adalla and me together? Did someone see me in the hallway leading from the womb? Does she know I know about the baby beast?
“I’ve been waiting for this day, my dearest daughter. A day I can speak to you of the ways of love.”
My face falls into my hands. My ninth and final sex talk. Here it is. I was fidgeting before, but I’m squirming now. “My fathers and other mothers have talked to me plenty. I think I’m good.”
“Dear, they haven’t even scratched the surface. Sex is much more than the throbbing of your genitals and dopey chemicals surging through your brain.”
Okay, can I be swallowed up by the floor now? Big fissure, just open up below me. Any second now. Any second . . .
“Sex is about power. About position. About securing a future for our matriline. Sex is an intimate contract mooring together families. For every hole you fill, for every hole you let be filled, there is an exchange of trust, a building of bridges, a fortifying of lines. When you lay yourself upon the wedding bed, it is a foundation you are laying. A foundation laid upon loose rocks and pebbles, upon the sludge of bowel secretions, will crumble before it even sets.”
Daidi’s bells. She does know about Adalla. Someone must have seen us. Or maybe the amas’ gossip has traveled further than I thought. But it’s Matris I should be upset with. It’s because of her that Adalla is an issue. And beyond her, it’s this whole stupid system telling people whom they can love.
“Are you listening, Seske? Are you hearing my words?”
“Yes, Matris. Sex is a tool of manipulation,” I spit back at her. “Marriage, a co
mmodity. Checks and sums upon an accountancy ledger. And if I follow your lead, I’ll be able to fuck this family back into solvency.”
Her hand claps against my cheek, but I don’t flinch. I keep my nerves steady. Blink away the tears dancing in the corners of my eyes.
“Young woman, you will listen, and you will not see that filthy girl again. Your thumbs aren’t exempt from hanging.” She gathers herself together, prim and proper, as if her hot handprint isn’t flaring up on my face. “Now, as I was saying. I have given much thought to the suitors we will present to you at your coming out party. I think that you will be very pleased with the selections. Very fine matrilines. There are still so many details to work out, though. Have you given any thought to the colors you would like to present to? I was thinking cream and lime green . . . something uncouth to cause a little stir. Your mothers, fathers, and I all know how you like to cause a stir.”
I clench my teeth and nod along. “Cream and lime green, Matris. That sounds lovely.”
It’s all I can do to not fall to bits right now. She’s talking about this as if everything is normal. As if my heart isn’t in shreds. As if those beastworkers aren’t under her orders to kill the baby beast. As if hundreds hadn’t died in that last quake, just hours ago—beastworker lives that will barely be mourned. As if our matriline isn’t on the verge of being extinguished. As if our world—not just mine—isn’t crumbling all around us.
This way of life, something has to give, or it’s all going to break. Mother’s too caught up to see it, prattling on about the dresses I’ll wear, and the suitors she’s chosen, and the hoisting chair, apparently carved from solid pillars of bone, that will be the tallest ever built. She will spare no expense, she says. This celebration will be talked about for generations to come, she says. She keeps talking, talking, ignoring the obvious all around her. That we might not have generations. If I yell at her, yell loud enough and long enough for her to see what she’s doing to this beast, what she’s doing to our people, maybe she will finally understand.
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