Dreamwielder

by Garrett Calcaterra

  “You’re not too old, Grampy,” Makarria assured him, smiling as the wind whipped her walnut hair across her face.

  “If you say so,” he replied, unconvinced. “How are you feeling? Is your tummy ache better from yesterday?”

  “Yeah, mostly better, but Mother thinks I was pretending so I wouldn’t have to do my chores.”

  “Nonsense,” Parmo said with a wave of his free hand. “You may be absentminded at times, but you’re no liar—that I’m certain of. Your mother is just worried. She’s had a lot on her mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “Nothing that need concern you for the time being. You just mind your parents and try to pay better attention to your chores. No more daydreaming.”

  “I know,” Makarria said. “It’s just that chores are so boring. Except for helping you pull in the traps, of course.”

  “Of course,” Parmo agreed with a smile. “Ready the pole-hook and prepare to drop sail, First Mate.”

  They were nearing the first of their buoys, some thirty fathoms out from the leeward side of Spearpoint Rock. The red-painted coconut bobbed up and down on the rolling waves, functioning both as the marker for their traps and the hooking point for dragging the traps up from the water. Parmo steered them toward it and signaled for Makarria to drop the sail. As they slowed and drifted alongside the buoy, he threw the rudder to the side and they came to a near stop no more than a fathom out from the buoy.

  “Pull her up,” Parmo said. “Let’s see what we’ve caught.”

  Makarria reached out with the pole-hook and looped it around the line receding beneath the buoy. When she tugged, though, the skiff moved more than the buoy line. “It’s snagged on something,” Makarria said, leaning out over the portside of the skiff to get a better hook on it.

  “Careful now,” Parmo warned.

  “I’ve got it,” Makarria said, but as she reached farther out she got the sudden sensation she was wetting herself, and in a panic she lost her balance. She dropped the pole-hook with a scream and toppled face first overboard. The water was shockingly cold, knocking all the air from her lungs and sending her into a panic to reach the surface. She had not sunk far, though, and she surfaced almost immediately, embarrassing herself by how loudly she gasped for air.

  “Quit flopping around like a fish and grab my hand,” her grandpa yelled. She took his hand, and he yanked her up over the side rail to plop on the deck. “Are you alright?” he asked, calm but breathing more heavily than she was.

  “I think so,” Makarria replied, but she wasn’t certain. She was wet and cold, for sure, but it was something else. She felt like she was uncontrollably peeing in her britches but not exactly.

  “What have you done, cut yourself?” Parmo asked.

  Makarria followed his glance downward and saw that bloody water was indeed running down her legs where her short breeches ended above the knees. She ran her hands over her thighs; she didn’t feel any cuts or pain, but when she looked at her hands they were covered in diluted blood.

  “I, I don’t think so,” Makarria said, confused. “I don’t feel any cuts. I…”

  “Oh,” Parmo said, with sudden understanding.

  “What?”

  “It’s your first moonblood, Makarria.”

  “What!” Makarria jumped to her feet, covered herself, then spun around, only to find she had nowhere to go.

  “Relax, it’s fine,” her grandpa said. “Just sit down. I’ll take you home.”

  “I’m sorry, Grampy,” Makarria said, too embarrassed to look at him.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s perfectly normal.”

  “But what about the traps?” she asked, now worried she’d ruined his chores.

  “They’ll still be here when I come back,” he assured her. “But I’ll never hear the end of it from your mother if I don’t get you home and into her care straight away.”​

  “I’m fine, really,” Makarria insisted. “I don’t need to go to bed yet.”

  Her mother was having none of it, and she tucked the sleeping furs tighter around Makarria. “It’s not your moonblood that concerns me, it’s that spill you took into the water. It’s too late in the year to be swimming.”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose, Mother.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Prisca said, “and that’s hardly the point, now is it?”

  “No.”

  “Quit fussing like a little girl then. You’re a woman now.”

  Makarria rolled her eyes. “What sort of woman gets tucked into bed by her mother when she’s not even tired?”

  “That’s enough. I’ll send in your grandfather. He wants to talk to you before you go to sleep.”

  “No!” Makarria said, louder than she intended to.

  “Quit being silly,” her mother chided. “He’s a grown man, and he was married to a woman once, you know? I wasn’t hatched from an egg. I did have a mother. And your grandfather was there when I had my first moonblood. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s part of being a woman. Besides, that’s not what he wants to talk to you about, I’m sure.”

  Makarria only nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  Her mother kissed her on the forehead and left. A few moments later, Parmo stepped through the curtains and sat at the foot of her sleeping pad.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Fine.”

  Parmo nodded. “It’s early still, and I thought you might like some company. Maybe a story or two? Unless you’re too tired. Or too old for stories now.”

  Makarria couldn’t help but grin. “I would like a story very much, but I want a real story this time, Grampy. No more of your nursery tales about mermen and talking whales.”

  “But those are real stories,” he complained.

  “I want to hear a story about something that really happened.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. Tell me about the Kingdom of Valaróz. Mother said you used to live there.”

  Parmo closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. “Indeed, many, many years ago.”

  “What was it like?”

  “Well,” Parmo began, “I’m sure it’s much different now, but in my time Sol Valaróz was the greatest city in the Five Kingdoms. Some might disagree, but to me it was the finest place a boy could grow up. Castle Valaróz was nearly a city unto itself, made entirely of white marble mined in the high mountains to the north. When the sun rose over the Sol Sea, the entire city glimmered like a jewel. And the food, let me tell you. The waters are warmer there than they are here, and the fishermen would bring in all sorts of delicacies. Flying fish, swordfish, and clams, and squid, and octopus, and shrimp. The street vendors would chop them up, skewer them, and cook them seasoned with ground peppers and scallions grown in the terraced fields to the west.

  “The fields were as much a marvel of human ingenuity as the castle and older, too. Legend holds that the terraces were already there when Sargoth Lightbringer crossed the Spine into the new world. Mile after mile of stone retaining walls, and the irrigation canals, so complex yet simple at the same time, relying only on gravity to feed themselves from the River Valaróz ten leagues upstream. Sol Valaróz was the first city Sargoth Lightbringer conquered, with the help of the mighty stormbringer Vala, of course. Valaróz became the first of the Five Kingdoms, Vala the first queen. From there, Sargoth Lightbringer and the other sorcerers moved east toward what is now Pyrthinia, but Vala stayed, and of all the Old World sorcerers, she had the most respect for the people and culture she came to rule. It’s evident in the architecture of the buildings, in the food, the festival days, and even the clothes people wear. Apart from some of the tribal villages in Norg to the far north, none of the other Five Kingdoms retained so much of the culture from the indigenous peoples as Valaróz….”

  Parmo glanced down and saw that Makarria’s eyes were already wavering closed. “It seems you were more tired than you thought,” he said softly. “Or perhaps my history
lesson was too boring.”

  Makarria muttered something unintelligible, too far gone to fight off her slumber. Parmo sat there for a moment longer, letting himself remember the blue waters of the Sol Sea where he’d learned to sail as a boy. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to think of it. With a sigh, he stood to leave, but the air caught in his throat, and he felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. A breeze inexplicably ruffled his hair and tunic and the curtains around him. Has someone opened the front door? He sat back down, thinking for a moment he must be ill, but then Makarria muttered something in her sleep again, and Parmo yanked her sleeping furs away to see that her sleeping gown was shimmering, halfway transformed into a blue dress.

  “Makarria,” he wheezed, shaking her by the shoulders.

  Makarria’s eyes batted open and the dress disappeared, once again a sleeping gown.

  “Grampy?” Makarria asked, confused.

  “No more dresses tonight,” Parmo whispered. “No more dreams. Push them away.”

  “No more dreams,” Makarria repeated, already half-asleep again. “No more dreams.”

  Parmo—still short of breath and lightheaded—watched her drift back to sleep, then pulled the sleeping furs back over her and straightened his hair. He’d have to tell Prisca and Galen. They wouldn’t be happy, but there was nothing for it. He cursed himself for a fool. There was no more pretending anymore. Not for any of them. Makarria’s power was here to stay, moonblood or not.

  5

  A Final Breath

  When Makarria came in for lunch after finishing her morning chores, Parmo was still asleep. Makarria joined her parents at the small dining table beside the iron cooking stove in the center of their home and eyed his empty stool.

  “Why’s Grampy so tired today?”

  Her parents exchanged a glance but said nothing. Prisca filled Makarria’s wooden bowl with crab and leek soup from the pot boiling on the stove and handed it to her wordlessly. Galen kept his eyes focused on his own soup. They had been acting like this all morning, as if Makarria had done something wrong, and they were angry with her. As far as Makarria knew, though, she hadn’t done anything wrong. Although tired and lethargic, she had gotten up in time to milk the goats before sunup, she’d pulled weeds in the garden and harvested the leeks for their soup, she’d fed the chickens and checked for eggs, and she’d done it all without a complaint or daydreaming.

  “I think I’ll go wake Grampy,” Makarria suggested, wanting nothing more than his warm presence there with her right now.

  “Let him be,” Prisca said. “He was up late last night. We all were but you.”

  “But his soup will get cold.”

  “Makarria, I said let him be.”

  Galen frowned. “It is nearly noon. The old man should be up by now, having stayed up all night or not.”

  Makarria had no idea why her grandfather or the rest of them should have been up all night, but her eyes lit up at the prospect of waking him nonetheless. “Can I, Mother?”

  “Fine,” Prisca relented. “You can ask him but don’t badger him into getting up if he’s still tired.”

  Makarria dashed up from the table and threw aside the curtains separating Parmo’s sleeping area from the rest of the room. “Grampy,” she said, shaking his shoulders. But he did not stir, and his face was covered with sweat. His breaths came in rapid, shallow rasps. “Grampy?” she said again, and this time a thin moan escaped his lips. “Mother,” Makarria started to say, but Prisca had heard the worry in Makarria’s voice from across the room and was already at her side.

  “Father,” Prisca said sharply. She flung the sleeping furs off of him and saw that his nightclothes were soaked with sweat. “Go draw up a hot draught with worm root and anise like I taught you,” she told Makarria. “Quickly, go! Galen, fetch water and a washrag.”

  Galen had been coming to see what the fuss was about but now turned and rushed outside to fetch the water and rag while Makarria ran to the stove to pile on more wood and stoke the flames. Galen returned a moment later with a pail of water and filled the kettle atop the stove before hurrying into Parmo’s sleeping area with the remaining water and the washrag.

  Once the flames were going strong in the stove and the water in the kettle heating, Makarria hopped onto one of the dining stools to reach the drying rack hanging from the roof. There were dozens of the little muslin sacks on the rack with a wide assortment of herbs, roots, dried berries, and fruits within them. All of them were similar-looking, but Makarria knew how to identify each one by smell; in a quick few moments she was back on the ground, crumbling with her fingers one pinch each of worm root and anise root into her grandfather’s large bronze stein. The water in the kettle was not yet boiling though, and Makarria saw that her father had nearly filled it to the top. She dumped half of it out into the pot of crab and leek soup so that the water in the kettle would heat faster; the soup would be thin and tasteless now, but that was the least of her concerns. She could see that her parents had stripped Parmo of his nightshirt and were wiping him down with the damp washcloth. Galen lifted Parmo’s head and torso so that Prisca could wipe his back, but it sent the old man into a fit of coughing.

  “The draught, Makarria!” her mother yelled.

  “Coming,” Makarria said, checking the kettle. The water level was so low now she couldn’t see if it was boiling or not. Without thinking, she stuck her finger inside to test the water and withdrew it with a sudden yelp, nearly knocking the kettle from the stove in the process. “Merda!” she silently swore, echoing her grandfather’s favorite curse and sticking the pulsating finger into her mouth. Think before you act, you daft girl. She grabbed up the kettle handle with her other hand and filled the stein with steaming hot water. The pungent smell of anise filled her nostrils. She grabbed a dried honey-bead from one of the muslin sacks and tossed it in the stein where it instantly melted.

  “Makarria!” Prisca yelled again.

  “Here,” Makarria said, rushing to her parents’ side and handing off the stein to her mother.

  Galen still held Parmo up in a sitting position from behind and now grabbed the old man’s jaw with one hand to lean his head back and hold it steady. Prisca moved the stein to Parmo’s lips and tilted it, forcing him to drink. Parmo sputtered at first on the hot liquid but then began swallowing as Prisca continued to pour it into his gullet. Most of the draught spilled down his chin and onto his bare chest but enough went down, and when Prisca pulled the empty stein away and wiped Parmo clean with the washcloth, his breathing seemed to slow and become more regular.

  “Is he going to be alright?” Makarria asked, wedging herself forward between her parents to see if Parmo was opening his eyes.

  “Get back!” Prisca yelled.

  “I want to help.”

  “You’ve done enough, Makarria. He’s sick because of you.”

  Makarria was dumbstruck and she staggered back. Her fault? What had she done?

  “Just go,” her mother said, regretting what she had said but still terse. “Outside and let us tend to him.”

  “It’s alright. Go on, Makarria,” her father said, and Makarria turned and fled outside.

  The sun had burned through the cloud cover low in the sky to the west, and the blustering winds of midday had subsided into a gentle breeze. Makarria was laying on one of the large rocks that comprised the little jetty she and her grandfather had built to shelter their skiff from the relentless ocean surf. She was just lying there and letting the waves wash over her outstretched hand to soothe her burned finger. From the corner of her eye she saw her father walk down from the house, but she ignored him, even when he sat on a rock beside her.

  “Makarria,” he said, but he didn’t know where to start. He had convinced Prisca the night before to not yet tell Makarria about her ability. There was still a chance she might grow out of it, and he was certain Parmo had overstated the danger of the Emperor. They were hundreds of miles away from Col Sargoth and Makarria was just
a girl after all. What danger did she pose to the mightiest man in the Five Kingdoms, even if she could turn tunics to gowns? Isolated as they were here on the peninsula, she wasn’t a danger to anyone but her own family. Galen couldn’t bring himself to tell her that though. She was still his little girl, and he wanted her to enjoy the innocence of her childhood while she could.

  “Your mother didn’t mean to yell at you,” he finally said. “It’s not your fault that Grampy is sick.”

  “Is he alright?” Makarria asked.

  “I don’t know, Makarria. He hasn’t woken up yet. Your grandfather is getting very old, you know? There’s a chance, he…”

  “No, he’s not going to die,” Makarria insisted. “He’s not too old.”

  “I hope you’re right. I really do. Do you want to come and see him?”

  Makarria nodded wordlessly and got up to follow her father up to the house. Inside, they found Prisca at Parmo’s bedside. Parmo lay bundled beneath his sleeping furs, his breaths shallow but smooth and steady at least. The sleeping area smelled of dried sweat and anise.

  “Prisca,” Galen said. “Why don’t we go get some rest now.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Prisca said, but Makarria could see that her mother was weary. Galen was too. Between tending to Grampy and whatever had kept them up all night, they were visibly exhausted.

  “It’s alright,” Makarria assured them. “I’ll stay with him. I’ll get you if he wakes up, or starts coughing, or…”

  “Come,” Galen said, grabbing Prisca’s arm to help her to her feet. Prisca seemed about to protest, but she finally stood, kissed her fingertips and touched them to Makarria’s forehead, then let Galen lead her to bed.