by Lee Winter
“I was sixteen,” she finally said, shutting her eyes. “I was reacting badly to my situation with my mother. I hated everything about my life. I hated how Mom’s migraines made her too ill to function. And I hated her knowing my every thought. I mean, I couldn’t have a single private thought. Not even one—if you know what I mean.”
“Ah.” There was a pause. “That would be awkward.”
“It was. She knew before I did when I liked this girl in our church group. It was…not good. I would shout at Mom and demand my privacy, demand she stop reading me, as though it was that easy. She felt guilty all the time. It wasn’t her fault, of course. But I made her feel like shit when I got so angry. So we worked on it. We found that if we practiced some meditation techniques, I could sometimes block the occasional stray thought. At first it was just one or two thoughts. Then I was able to do it for five minutes. Then ten. It needed us both working in tandem to be successful, though.”
Lena stopped, hating herself for the memory that followed. For what she was about to admit. Opening her eyes, she saw only sympathy and encouragement in Nyah’s gaze.
“Go on.”
“Mom couldn’t focus a lot of the time. She was in agony so it’s not like she was in any fit state to concentrate.” She remembered that depressing, drowning feeling that this would never end. That she would never be free. Her jaw worked.
“So what happened?” Nyah asked softly.
“I was a teenage girl going through her bratty, pissed phase, where I was all hormones and angst, and I didn’t take her ‘not todays’ well. I demanded she do more. I told her…I-I told her she wasn’t trying hard enough. She had to push through. No matter how much it hurt. I told her to do it for me.”
Lena squeezed her eyes shut. “She loved me. So she did. She did this for me. She tried so hard. We practiced for hours, even when she was in agony. She’d get these nosebleeds from the exertion—it was a sign she was exhausted beyond all her reserves. And still—even then, even with her crying, I still begged her. I asked if she really wanted to stop when we were so close.”
Lena’s felt the shame wash through her. “God. She was in such an awful state. And I was a selfish little shit and I just wanted her out of my thoughts, so I guilted her into doing more than she ever should have. It became this fucked-up Catch 22. The more she suffered, the guiltier I felt, which made me more angry. And then Mom would feel my anger and feel bad she’d caused it, and work even harder. I was convinced she’d give up if I didn’t push her. I thought we were so near the end. Then we could rest. She could rest.”
Lena couldn’t bear to look at Nyah’s face. She had no doubt it would contain disgust at what she’d done to her own mother. She gave a cynical bark of laughter. “But then one day we did it. Complete blockage for a day. I was so happy. I didn’t…I didn’t notice what it cost her. I begged her to do it again the very next day, so I could make sure it wasn’t a fluke. Then again and again. Finally, after a few weeks I could block her effortlessly. I was able to practice on my own, strengthening it. I do it now without even thinking, but back then it needed a lot of work. Still, I was so excited. I thought we were both free.”
“So you solved it,” Nyah said cautiously.
“Yes. We did. You know what my first thought was? ‘I don’t need my mother any more. I’m finally free of her.’” She forced back a sob trying to escape. Something inside Lena tore as she remembered the rest. “I didn’t mean it. Not like that. For years I wondered if she heard that awful stray thought.”
“I’m sure she knew what you meant.”
“Maybe.”
“But your mother also found the peace she sought? A cure to her curse?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
The tension and wonder in Nyah’s voice, her desperate need to know, made Lena drop her gaze. “A bullet to her brain. No one’s thoughts ever bothered her again. She got her greatest wish. She looked so happy when they found her.”
Nyah’s pained gasp made Lena clench her eyes shut again. “So you see? I killed her,” she mumbled. “She’d be alive today if I hadn’t forced her to help me. I was so fucking selfish. I’m…not someone you’d want to know. But that’s what happened. All of it. So…now you know.”
Silence filled the air for a few minutes before Lena dared open her eyes. Nyah was looking at her with an unreadable look.
“Yes. Now I know.” She dipped her head. “I’m sorry for your loss, Lena.” Nyah’s fingers gripped hers, and Lena trembled.
“I’m sorry the answer is not something you’re looking for,” Lena said shakily. “I’m sorry it can’t help you. I can probably teach others how to block a scan, but not how to prevent a receiver like you from hearing people’s thoughts.”
Nyah regarded her, eyes gentle. “I suppose it’s just as well I’m at the ends of the earth then. It doesn’t matter that there’s no cure for my curse. Few people get close enough to bother me these days. And if they do, Iblis does the trick.”
Lena could detect the disappointment in her voice that she was trying to hide. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I wish something good could come out of this.”
“It’s okay.” Nyah slid a hesitant arm around Lena’s shoulders. It was a gesture so intimate that Lena had to fight not to pull away. “I’m fine. And you seem to have done well.”
“Oh, yep, I’m great,” Lena said sarcastically. “A woman good at only one thing. Manipulating overdues to make them want to return.”
“Lena, no one’s worth is so limited.”
“Mine is. I literally have no other skill. Hell, I even guilted my mother into doing exactly what I wanted. I was a prodigy in manipulation. Scary how brilliant I was at it. Look how well that turned out.” She gave a hollow laugh.
“You were a teenager, Lena, who had no outside help, and you were terrified. You had no one to talk to, and even your own mind didn’t feel a safe place to hide. So you found a solution and you clung to it desperately. But you were not the adult in this situation. Your mother was. You didn’t control her. She chose to do what she did, every step of the way. That is not your fault. And if she were here, she would tell you that too.”
Nyah tightened her arm around Lena, her fingers pressing into her biceps, seemingly willing her to believe her.
“Have you ever considered that you didn’t drive her to suicide,” Nyah continued, “but that she waited until you were strong enough to cope on your own before she did what she’d always planned? It’s no coincidence that you found a solution, found your own power and independence, and only then she ended her life.”
Lena stared at her, frozen in shock.
“And you’re far more than a tracker. More than the angry, terrified teenager who had no hope back then. I see a clever, analytical thinker in a world full of drones. Unique. You have such strength, and you don’t even know it. I upended your entire world view on guardians. I showed you things that would break a lesser person. I told you things that did break me. I expected you to run as far as you could after the first few stops of my hell tour. And then I was certain you’d walk away in disgust after hearing about how I failed Lucy. Instead…instead, you stayed by my side. You bore witness with me. It made a difference. It helped.”
A small smile touched Nyah’s lips. “And then you tried to make me feel better about everything I’ve gone through. The ‘Vengeance Manifesto’—it wasn’t entirely some silly joke to me. It was like being allowed to breathe again after years suffocating.” Her smile widened. “You also kissed me, Lena.”
Lena gave a low moan, still embarrassed that she’d made such a fool of herself, despite what had happened later.
“No,” Nyah said, seeing her expression. “Stop that. It took such courage. Even if I could get intoxicated, I doubt I’d have worked up the bravery to kiss you first. Anyway, my point is you came from nothing, had every obstacle, had your privacy torn from you every day. And despite this, you set your mind on the task of improving things. Yes,
you made mistakes. So did your mother. But you set yourself goal after goal. And, for good measure, you rose to the top—worldwide—of your chosen profession. Tell me again how that isn’t impressive?”
Lena felt her cheeks flame and was lost for words. No one had ever understood. No one had ever acknowledged her fight. Her hands trembled so hard that she clenched them tight.
“I see you, Lena,” Nyah said, and trailed a finger down her cheek to her jaw. “For who you are. When you go back home, and long after you forget all about the woman you shared something profound with during a storm at the end of the world, take this with you—I now know why I find you so intriguing.”
Lena lifted her head to meet her gaze.
“White crows, Lena, are not as rare as you think.”
CHAPTER 13
In the space between breaths, in the space between hurts, in the sliver of frozen nothingness Lena encountered whenever she gazed into the night sky, she felt lost and small. It’s why she usually never spent much time looking up. Nyah, on the other hand, seemed languid and content as she stared up, mesmerized by the heavens. They were on the ledge outside the cave, leaning into each other, sharing body heat.
Lena wasn’t sure why she hadn’t left Socotra earlier in the day as she’d planned. But without discussing it, she’d stayed, and Nyah hadn’t said a word.
Pulling her knees under her chin, Lena gazed at the inky blanket with its white flickers of light. Vast and pointless. Why were they here again? Why did Nyah say she had something important to show her? They sat in silence for a long time, Lena pulling Nyah’s borrowed blanket closer around both their shoulders.
“What do you see up there?” Nyah asked.
Lena squinted. “Nothing.”
Nyah’s head tilted. “You must see something.”
Emptiness. Doubt. Reminders of how small I am. “No. Nothing. What do you see?”
“Your stars are so different to mine, but in my mind’s eye I see parts of the route plotted to PHGTX-459 from Aril. That’s where I hope my people live now.”
“Catchy name.”
Nyah chuckled. “I have no doubt it’s been renamed New Aril or something equally unimaginative by now.”
“Your people were unimaginative?” Lena picked up on the admission in surprise.
“Let’s just say as poets, artists, and writers my people made excellent scientists. It’s one area where Earth’s people evolved far beyond ours. Do you not stargaze at all?”
“No,” Lena said. “It’s hard in the city anyway. Too much ambient light and smog.”
“There are some clearer nights,” Nyah suggested. “Not even then?”
Lena shook her head. “I don’t like the reminder of how hopeless it all is.”
“Hopeless?”
“Life. Come on, you of all people must get what I mean. We’re insignificant specks, and how we feel, how we live, it doesn’t mean a thing. Whether I’m lonely or sad or can’t even stand the thought of making friends because it’s hard opening up to people...it’s all pointless when you look up. The stars mock us and our worthless dreams.”
Nyah’s laugh was rich and beautiful, and did all sorts of interesting things to Lena’s insides.
“Is that so? Well, see that star right there, hanging a bit below those two side by side? That’s my own personal pointer to Aril. I see it and remember my old world before the end. Knowing what lies beyond these stars reminds me that my people live on. The stars don’t mock us, Lena. Far from it. They give us what we need. Stars give us hope.”
“You really believe that?”
“Some days it’s harder than others. But here, on Socotra, with millions of stars all laid out like a map? It’s easier to be reminded.”
Lena tried her luck again, and peered up. “I still don’t see anything.”
“Then you’re not looking hard enough.”
“I don’t understand,” Lena said in frustration after a few minutes. “This. Or you.”
“No one does. Well, maybe you understand me a little. More than most, actually.”
Lena digested that, pride swelling at the admission. “It’s pretty funny when you think about,” she said. “Me, a semi-literate tracker, and you, a brilliant scientist from another world. We probably have less in common than any two people in the history of ever.”
“That’s true,” Nyah agreed lazily.
“Yet look at us. How do we even share the same plane of existence? Let alone sit together staring at the same stars?”
“At any other time, maybe we wouldn’t,” Nyah said thoughtfully. “But I believe that sometimes in life someone’s path intersects with the person they need most at any given moment. They walk together for a little while, sharing the road for as long or as short a time as they need each other.”
Lena stared into the abyss. “I really like that idea.”
“Mm. So do I.”
Lena hesitated for a moment. “I’m really bad at living in the middle of nowhere,” she said quietly. “I did it as a kid once for a few years. The stillness drove me nuts. I need to be in a city with full-on energy. I need the loudness to drown out my thoughts. Or at least to drown out the reminder that sometimes thoughts can be heard. I feel safer there, in the chaos.”
“And Socotra has a lot of quiet,” Nyah said.
“Yeah. It really does. More than anywhere I’ve ever been.”
“I loathe the city,” Nyah replied. “All those voices shouting in my brain.”
“I’d hate it too if I were you.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, digesting their unspoken understanding. Lena elbowed Nyah gently in the ribs and smiled. “Besides, we’d kill each other in a month if we ever tried to make a go of this.”
“A month is probably generous,” Nyah deadpanned. Then she turned and met Lena’s gaze earnestly. “No matter what, I want you to know that it means something that you’re here, right now. You matter. This wasn’t nothing to me.”
“I… Yeah?” Delight flooded her.
“We may be incongruous together, and this whole thing probably makes no sense at all. But, even so, it made a difference. At least to me.”
The power of the statement was humbling. Lena closed her eyes so she could say what she had to without seeing those intense brown irises on her.
“Before I met you, I never let down my guard with anyone,” she admitted. “When I was with someone, I never let them touch me. I just touched them. It always felt like they wanted something I couldn’t give, like they were taking it from me whether I wanted them to or not. It’s too close to what happened with…with how I grew up. With you, I never felt like that. I felt safe. I know us being together makes zero sense, I know there’s no ‘us’, but I’m really glad we met. Even if I don’t understand why any of this happened.”
Nyah’s fingers tangled with Lena’s and squeezed them.
Lena sighed, opening her eyes. “I’ve also been thinking. When I get home, maybe I should try more with people. I haven’t been making any effort. It’s too complicated. Relationships, friendships, they’re just…so freaking hard for me.”
“And you’re not ready to trust.”
“No. Well, I haven’t been. But I think maybe it’s time I crawled out of my comfort zone. Took a chance or two.”
“I know the feeling.”
Lena looked at Nyah in surprise.
“I find myself feeling…well, guilty is too strong a word,” Nyah said, “but you reminded me I am capable of much more than just hiding out, feeling bitter about what drove me here. I’m not sure if I have a duty to use my abilities and be some force for greatness or not. The idea is still intolerable to me, yet now I face the uncomfortable thought that stewing in a cave might not be the right decision either.”
“Nyah,” Lena said quietly, “there is a middle ground.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not important to live a great life, but it is important to live.”
There was a long pause, an
d Nyah seemed to stop breathing. Finally she exhaled shakily.
“Now you see?” Nyah said softly. “That’s why you’re here, right now. Saying just the right thing.” She gave Lena a fond look. “But I know you don’t yet believe that anything you do in this world is important.”
Lena blinked, startled.
“So don’t overthink any of this,” Nyah added with a smile. “In fact, don’t think about it at all. Come on, let’s make the most of these stars. There’s enough hope in them for everyone. Even for Lena Martin.”
Lena stared into the inkiness, in the space between nothingness where time sat still, and this time she searched.
CHAPTER 14
Nyah’s gaze swept the small clearing at Homhil. A road led off to one side, and a cluster of rangy trees with scaly bark and bright red flowers were all she could see on the other. She settled herself onto a large boulder and waited. Why Lena thought to ask her to meet here was a mystery. But the curious tracker had made an art form out of surprising her.
It had been the most unexpected few days of her life. From the moment the woman had rolled up over the edge of her cliff and come to a panting stop at her feet, Nyah had been intrigued.
She’d clocked her as a tracker almost immediately, of course. She’d also noticed the cocky human didn’t have any thoughts about having been almost pulverized under Nyah’s rock shower. Or any thoughts about anything at all. A common who could block her? That definitely required a second look.
Although Nyah would never tell her, Lena’s mental block was far from perfect. She leaked emotions more often than she knew, usually the intense ones anyone would struggle to keep inside. She had heard her pain outside the cave in the middle of the storm when she’d broken down the first time. And she had felt her unmasked joy when she came undone in Nyah’s arms.
She smiled and let the warmth of that memory fill her. She’d never expected to have another woman in her bed again after Isabella had left her. But something about Lena had been irresistible. She knew the exact moment something had shifted inside her. Nyah had clutched her bleeding side, striding into the cave, and one look at the concern and fear on Lena’s face told her she truly cared what happened to her. There was no faking that reaction.
