Fire Country

by David Estes

  The question pops into my mind like most of my random thoughts do. Quickly and vividly. Circ’s bloody face wet with tears. His body, still stronger’n most, weakened by injury and blood loss. His voice, urgent and stronger’n expected as he gives me his charm. My charm now. My fingers play on the pointer charm dangling from my bracelet. The question comes out. “What if my Call is dead?” I murmur, almost to myself. The question is rude, uncouth, and inappropriate in a lot of ways. There’s a good chance I’ll go to Scorch just for asking it.

  “Excuse me?” Teacher says.

  Lara is tapping her foot with excitement next to me.

  “What if my Call is dead?” I say again, louder this time.

  Teacher’s eyes narrow. “I’m not sure what you’re playing at, Youngling, but what you ask is impossible. You haven’t received a Call yet, so he can’t be dead.”

  I chose him and he chose me. It’s what I want to say, but I know how it’ll sound. Like I’m just some lovestruck Youngling. The other girls’ll laugh and Teacher’ll come down hard on me. Not today. “Thank you, Teacher,” I say.

  Lara giggles.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Call. Those two words pierce my skull the moment I open my eyes and am blinded by a bright sliver of sunlight. No going back.

  I peer out the window, surprised to see the deep red, cloudless sky, and brilliant orange sun emerging from the horizon. It’s been raining for two days straight, which is normal for this time of year, but for some reason it’s decided to stop for such an important moment in my life.

  There’s a shout from outside, but I roll over, pull my tugskin blanket over my ears. It’s the last morning I’ll wake up alone. At least until I hafta share my Call with my first Call-Sister. Or perhaps I’ll be the first Call-Sister for someone else, which means I’ll hafta share my Call right away. That wouldn’t be so bad, not with a guy who’s not Circ. Less pressure on me that way.

  The door explodes open and I hear heavy boots stomp across the floor. Father. No one else can walk so angrily. “Siena, pretending to sleep won’t work. You’re going to tell me what you know about Lara immediately.”

  Lara? Since when does my father even know who Lara is? He’s never said a word ’bout her ’fore. Oh sun goddess! I think. He’s found out ’bout the things she’s been saying to me. About there being another way. ’Bout missing the Call. ’Bout the Wilds.

  I roll over, feign ignorance. “Who’s Lara?” I ask. He grabs me by the arm, his fingers pressing hard into my skin. “Oww! Father, it’s my Call today. Please.”

  That works and he let’s go, backs up a step. “Don’t play dumb with me, Youngling,” he barks.

  “I’m not a Youngling anymore!” I shout, hoping that matching his anger’ll get rid of him.

  “You are until tonight,” he retorts. “Lara’s missing, and I want to know exactly what you know about it.”

  ~~~

  I’m still in shock over the whole thing. Lara’s missing? What? It’s crazy. All this time I thought she was full of hot air, all talk, overcompensating for a future she couldn’t control. But now she’s on the verge of doing exactly what she said she’d do for many full moons: miss the Call. And she’s not the only one missing. There’re a bunch of other Pre-Bearers gone, too.

  I didn’t tell my father a searin’ thing. Well, actually, I did, but none of it had a lick of truth. I told him she’s been trying to make friends with me, always bothering me, telling me wooloo things. Well, day ’fore last, she told me she was fixing to run off to ice country just ’fore her Call. Father, I swear I thought it was a bunch of tugblaze or I woulda told you. Please believe me, Father, please!

  He bought the whole thing, which is why I’m smiling now. He wasn’t too happy that I hadn’t told him earlier, but he didn’t give me too much trouble over it ’cause I was so cut up about the whole thing. I don’t really know what happened to her, but she seemed to think the Wilds would kidnap her, and maybe that’s exactly what happened. Just like with Skye.

  So I’m smiling and humming along to myself as I walk back from my last session of Call Class. I mightn’t be able to get out of it, but I’m glad Lara did. When I reach our hut, my smile vanishes.

  There’s one scorch of a commotion outside of our place. A huddle of Greynotes speak in hushed tones. MedMa has his arm on my father’s shoulder and is shaking his head and speaking softly. I ignore them all, push past, make my way to the door.

  My father sees me. “Siena, don’t,” he says, but I ignore him, fling open the door.

  Evidence of the Fire is everywhere. It’s in the wet towels in the wash basin, in the lingering scent of MedMa’s healing herbs, in the abject silence that seems to surround the room. And ’specially on my mother’s face, which is sheened with sweat, red and white and yellow, sharpened with pain. Her expression is contorted even now, as she tries to smile at me and sit up in bed. “Siena,” she murmurs, her loudest voice but a whisper.

  “No, Mother. No.” Tears well up. I won’t go to her. Can’t. If I do it’ll make it real. The Fire. Come into our home to take the last person I have.

  “Shhh,” she whispers. “Come to me.”

  “No…no.” Tears in streaks on my cheeks. Numbness all over. Where are you, sun goddess?

  “It’s going to be fine,” my mother says, a stronger woman’n I’ll ever be.

  I keep my distance even though I know the Fire ain’t catching. “Nothing’s fine,” I say.

  A shadow splashes me from behind. I don’t turn ’round. “Leave us, Roan,” my mother commands. For once in his life, my father obeys my mother, closes the door softly.

  “I can’t do this,” I say, talking ’bout my mother and the Call in one breath.

  “You can,” she says, extending an arm. An invitation.

  Although I don’t wanna, I move closer. Closer. Sit on the edge of the bed. Hold her hand, which doesn’t hold back. There’s already no strength left in it. “So fast,” I say, watching a tear drip off my chin and onto her arm.

  “I’ve felt it coming for a while now,” she says. “But yes, this Fire is faster than most. Mercifully fast.”

  “But I’m not ready.” Once more I’m talking ’bout her and the Call. Funny how those two things seem so inexplicably linked now, when ’fore they were nothing alike.

  She laughs but it comes out as a cough. I calm her with a hand on her forehead. The heat is pouring out of her skin like there really is fire in there. There is, I remember. The Fire to end all fires.

  I leave her side for a moment, ring out a wet towel in the wash basin, return to her. Dab her face with the towel, wiping away the tears that’ve begun to spring up. “I’ve never done right by you, Siena,” she says, sadness in her eyes.

  “No, Mother, don’t say that. You’ve done right by me. Life is just hard sometimes. Father is hard.”

  “No excuse,” she says. “I’m going to make it right before I go. I have to make it right.”

  “You don’t hafta do anything,” I say. “Just rest, Mother. Just rest.”

  ~~~

  Jade. Skye. Circ. Lara, earlier today. And now my mother, soon to follow, maybe as soon as three or four days ’cause of how fast-acting her Fire is. It feels like everyone that matters to me is gone. Taken for reasons I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

  It’s time. Like my sister did not so long ago, I put on my white dress. There’s no one to help me ’cause Sari hates me and mother’s too tired to stand. She watches though, her eyes keen with interest. “You look beautiful,” she says when I finish.

  “Skye was more beautiful,” I remember.

  “In my eyes, you two will always be the prettiest girls in all of fire country,” she says.

  I cast my eyes downward. “Will you be able to come to the Call?” I ask, already knowing her answer.

  “Siena, I’m too weak. Far too weak. But I’ll be there in here.” She points to her heart. “And here,” she adds, pointing to my hair. I frown in confusion. �
�In your hair, silly. I want to fix your hair just right.”

  Tears bubble up but I blink them away. I sit on the ground, not caring if my dress gets durty. It’s the only way my mother’ll be able to reach me.

  She hasn’t braided my hair in years, but as soon as her fingers slide along my scalp the memories come flooding back. My sister and me sitting side by side as my mother worked on our hair, poking at each other and giggling. Her expert fingers feel the same now, where I can’t see them, almost as if there’s nothing wrong with her at all. As if nothing’s changed.

  The only noticeable difference is the speed at which she works, but I don’t know if her slowness is ’cause of the Fire or ’cause she, like me, don’t want this moment to end.

  But we both know it hasta.

  It hasta.

  I try to pull our time together out, stretch it, lengthen it, using the only thing I got. A request. “Tell me more ’bout Brev,” I say.

  My mother doesn’t say nothing for a long moment, and I know I surprised her, ’cause her fingers stop working. “What do you want to know?” she asks.

  “Everything,” I say and she laughs.

  “Now that’ll take more time’n we have,” she says.

  “Is that a promise?”

  She laughs again and I’m glad. Glad ’cause the Fire ain’t taken her laugh away. Not yet. “I’ll tell you this,” she says, and I lean back against her bed, closing my eyes, trying to picture her at my age. Try as I might, I can’t do it. “We were inseparable. We went everywhere and did everything together.”

  Like me and Circ, I think. “What happened?” I ask.

  “The Call,” she says and I open my eyes to my future, sitting out in the center of the village, eyes like fire, staring, just staring. I close them again. “We couldn’t be together after that. Sun goddess knows we wanted to, but it wasn’t right—not by the Law anyway. Your father…he was a good man for a good long while.”

  But I don’t wanna talk ’bout my father—after all, I was there when he started changing—so I ask another question. “Where’s Brev now?”

  I can’t see it, but I can feel my mother’s smile, in her fingers, which seem to quicken, working over my strands of hair a beat or two faster. “Somewhere,” she says, but that ain’t no answer.

  “Where’s somewhere?”

  “He couldn’t stand it. Neither of us could. I didn’t have any choice really, but to stay with your father. Skye was on the way already. I was making a family out of nothing. Brev left.”

  Left? “But there’s nowhere to go,” I say, feeling around with my words, trying to work it out. Ice country? The Icers’d never take a Heater on. The Wildes? Far as I know, they’re all women and they were only started a few years back. That leaves…

  “He started the Marked and I never saw him again,” my mother says and I blink, stunned for a moment.

  She finishes with my hair, and I absently feel ’round with my hands. Even without gazing into the reflections of the watering hole I know she’s done a beautiful job. Several short braids curl delicately ’round my head like a crown, woven so tightly they’re like rope. A longer braid falls down the center of my back. Even without the memory that graces my mind at that moment, I’d know it’s the same hairstyle she created for my sister just ’fore the Wilds took her.

  But I can’t think about any of that. ’Cause her true love created the Marked.

  There’s a knock at the door. The Call. Will I answer?

  “Go,” my mother says. “You can tell me all about it tomorrow.”

  I squeeze her hand ’fore I go, saying And you can tell me ’bout Brev and the Marked.

  ~~~

  My feet are heavier’n tug. The march to my Call is full of blazing torchlight marking the way, casting dancing and wriggling shadows along the pathway.

  Sari refused to escort me which is fine by me. My father can’t ’cause he’s overseeing the proceedings and is already there. That means I have no family willing or able to walk with me. It’s so different’n my sister’s Call, where me and my mother walked with her the whole way—or at least until the point where the Wilds found a way to grab her.

  So that leaves Veeva. Sun goddess, bless Veeva. I don’t know what I’d do without her.

  She’s gripping my hand and talking a mile a moment ’bout how proud she is of me and how whoever ends up with me is a lucky baggard. I smile and thank her, but inside I’m quaking like I’m staring down the throat of a hungry Killer. And all that keeps thrumming through my head is:

  I’m not ready, I’m not ready, not ready, not ready.

  In my heart I know the truth: I’ll never really be ready. Maybe once upon a time I coulda been ready, back when things were simpler, when Circ was alive, when my father wasn’t Head Greynote, when my mother wasn’t dying…

  But not now. Now things are so messed up I wanna shake off Veeva’s hand, break through the line of Greynotes that are supervising the Call, and run, run, run until my feet fail me and I can’t run any more. I could run to Confinement, break the prisoners out, tell everyone what’s really happening up there. That’s what I’d do if I was brave-Siena, the girl who tried to save Circ. But she died along with him, leaving just me.

  We reach the Call so much faster’n I expected we would. My stomach drops ’bout to my feet, like I jumped off something high.

  Not ready.

  At least half the village is gathered in the center of town, where the bonfire’s been churned up to a roaring inferno. Extra seats’ve been rolled in—shaved tree trunks and boulders mostly—to accommodate all the Greynotes. My father’s atop the largest boulder, presiding over the whole thing. His eyes meet mine and a rare smile plays on his lips. This is all he’s ever wanted. A daughter of his to make him proud. To Bear. Fulfill a duty, replenish the tribe and all of that blaze. I look away from him.

  The rest of the spectators are either family and friends of those participating in the Call, or nosy onlookers who just wanna know all the latest Call news so they’re not behind tomorrow when the gossip starts. At the moment, I hate them all.

  The eligible men are seated in a cluster on one side of the fire. They’re shirtless, as if they wanna be ready to carry their Calls back to their tents as soon as it’s over. Grunt’s there and Veeva waves to him, making a lewd gesture that draws a grin from her Call. Sorry Veevs, but please, please, please, don’t let me get him.

  The rest of the Calls, like me, are entering the area from all different directions with their escorts. Some of them wear wide smiles, like they’ve waited their whole lives for this moment. Maybe they have. Others look as scared as I feel, their faces blank and their eyebrows darting ’round like they might be grabbed and carried off by a man at any moment. Some of the shiltier girls are tossing their hair and wearing dresses so small and tight they leave nothing to imagination. Most of the guys are staring at them, their tongues practically hanging out of their mouths. In a way, I sorta admire those girls’ confidence. Least they know who they are and what they want.

  Me, I’m a confused mess, all jitters and nerves.

  Veeva guides me to a wide, white blanket where several girls are already sitting. She gives me a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek, but I’m so numb I hardly feel it. “Try to enjoy it,” she reminds. I blush ’cause I know exactly what she’s talking ’bout. And then she’s gone and I’m alone.

  Lara is off somewhere, maybe being whipped into submission by the Wild Ones, but I know she’ll be laughing, too. Laughing that she’s not a part of this, like she planned the whole time. I desperately wish she was by my side now.

  The remaining girls take their position on the blanket, whispering and giggling. I say nothing, just wait.

  It starts. My father stands on his boulder, arms out to keep his balance. “Friends,” he says, starting slowly. “It’s with a mixture of sadness and gladness that I begin the first Call as Head Greynote. We all wish Shiva could be here, but alas, the Fire has claimed another honorable victim.
” He pauses, letting everyone take in his words. “He will be missed.”

  To the villagers, his words probably sound heartfelt. They’re probably tearing up, saying silent prayers to the sun goddess. But I know better. Behind his words and tone is the truth. He wanted Shiva to die—couldn’t wait for it—so he could take over. For over a year he’s been carrying on his own plans and secret trade agreements with the Icies, framing innocent men like Raja to do the grunt work.

  I curl my fists at my sides. Right now, anger is good. It chases away the fear.

  My father continues. “The Call is an important and magnificent event for us, the Heaters, the people of fire country. It is near and dear to my heart. It is a chance to say to all that threaten us, we will not be defeated! We will carry on, replenish our flock! We are not afraid!” A cheer rises up, but it’s deep and heavy—a man’s cheer. When I look ’round most of the women are silent.

  “It is also when our Youngling girls become women, take on the mantle they’ve been charged with wearing. They will Bear our next generation, raise them to be future Hunters, Greynotes, and Bearers. One of these Youngling may even Bear your next Head Greynote!” A hardy chuckle from the crowd. My father is working the audience like he’s been doing it his whole life. I feel a stone in my stomach, growing bigger with each word.

  “Now, without further delay, we begin the spring Call!” Everyone cheers now, either ’cause it’s expected or ’cause they’re actually excited. I close my eyes.

  Someone else takes over from my father, an annoying voice, whiny and high-pitched. My father’s right hand man. Luger. “Kaya,” he reads and I open my eyes. A girl stands. She’s wearing a pretty, flowing white dress that makes her look like how I think a star would look if it fell to the earth—all shimmery and pure. I can see her legs shaking beneath the dress. The village waits.