by E A Comiskey
Mine? My eyes widened as I took it all in. Didn't she know I was a thief? Why would she give me all this?
She took my shoulders in her hands, and I met her dark eyes. "Jax's friend," she said. It was a new word to me in her language, and one I had no experience with in my home, but I knew exactly what she meant. She was my ally. My partner. My companion.
I sat on the bed all night, determined to memorize as many words as I could, but my mind wandered to Hala's green eyes. Those eyes drew a sweet ache of joy up from a corner of my soul I'd never known existed. I thought of Puah's gentle hand on mine, of the way William placed his small child in my arms with no fear of me, of Risa's kind smile.
I could kill them all. I could take over this city and be as wealthy as a king. I don't even think they would try to stop me.
Hala's eyes had searched the darkness for enemies. They were generous, not weak.
Hala's eyes.
I couldn't kill them. I could never repay their kindness with my father's hatred. I would forget him, and his lessons, and his touch, and all that I'd observed him do. I would be like these people. I would be kind and trusting. I would learn what it was to live a life that was not ruled by fear.
Outside my window, the heavy veil of black shifted to a shimmering, pink-tinged silver, and my thoughts drifted into dreams of being cradled in warm, powerful arms that carried me toward the light of morning.
Four
I drifted through the days on a wave of new knowledge and wonderment.
To speak and be understood! Imagine!
My new friends all understood bits and pieces of the hand-language, but Risa signed more fluently than I did. Puah, of course, understood the very thoughts of my heart. I stayed close to them and, through them, spoke with a tailor who made a cloak for me in the style I was used to. I also spoke to a man who explained that the moving boxes were called “transports.” They ran on energy captured from the sun, as did the lights and most of the electrical appliances. Puah took me to a building that still smelled of fresh-sawn wood and paint. Thousands of books lined shelves on every wall.
“This is our city’s new library,” the man there told me. “We limited the books our people read in the past, but came to learn such limitations were folly. People thrive by understanding the stories of those who came before them.”
“Where do they all come from?” I asked.
“There are Storykeepers,” Risa told me. “Protectors of the books. They make copies and send them out into the world with riders. Donovan and Shifrah ride for them at times. We’ve asked the riders to bring extra for us and, over time, we were able to create this library.”
With the man’s help, I found a selection of simple books. I’d already learned many words from the language books. Each night after dinner, Hala sat with me and helped me work through the books until I could read as fast as him.
Once, I came upon a thick volume and opened it to find a picture of Donovan. I brought it to the table and showed him.
“Donovan’s mother wrote this story,” he told me. “You would have loved her. She was an exceptional woman.”
I ran my hand over the pages, drinking in the beautiful illustrations and glossing over the words.
“What’s this one?” I asked, pointing.
He took the book from my hands and closed it. “Let’s read something else.”
Only then did I look into his eyes and see the tears that glistened there.
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
He tugged on the ends of my hair. “Don’t be sorry, kid. You didn’t do anything wrong. That story is just not one I’m up to reading these days. How about this one?”
He slid a thin volume from a nearby shelf.
“Little House in the Big Wood,” I signed.
“You’re getting better at this every day. Soon you won’t need me at all.”
I smiled at his praise, but struggled to imagine a time when I wouldn’t need him. Every good thing about this beautiful new world I’d been delivered into centered on him. If he were gone, it seemed everything else would simply evaporate like so much mist.
The weather cooled and the colorful leaves dropped from the trees.
“Winter will be here soon,” they all said.
I laughed. Whatever was coming to this place, it was not winter. Just a little cool weather.
I sat in the rocking chair on the porch one evening with my feet on the rail and a book on my knees. A movement on the path caught my eye. I looked up and saw familiar faces.
The assassins stood at the bottom of the steps. Blood drinkers, Puah had told me. Saviors, I thought.
They were more beautiful than I remembered. Shifrah, tall and slender, with her ebony skin and twisted locks that reached her waist. Donovan, with skin as fair as mine and eyes that twinkled merrily.
I leaped from my chair. My hands moved, giving expression to my thoughts. “Donovan! Shifrah! You came back!”
He raised one eyebrow at me, his crooked smile widening.
I’d forgotten they didn’t know the sign-language. Frustration washed over me. I’d gotten so used to being able to communicate. What had seemed natural before now felt helpless and weak.
Donovan climbed the steps, moving a little too fast to pass for human. He reached into his pack and produced a pair of black gloves with silver wires threaded through the weave. A band of silver with tiny wires circled the wrist of each one.
I frowned at them, uncertain.
He took my hand and laid them in my palm.
Hesitantly, not understanding why he wanted me to do this, I slid my hands into them. They felt stiff and new, but they were soft and pliable.
“What are they for?” I asked absently.
“They give your words sound,” he replied through his wide smile.
I looked between him and his woman, incredulous. Trembling, I asked, “You can hear my words?”
“Yes!” They both answered.
I fell back into my chair and sobbed. I don’t think I’d cried so hard since I was an infant. Something inside me had broken. It was more than my heart could contain.
Shifrah knelt at my feet, her cool hand gentle on my knee. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “You’ve given me too much.”
She took my chin in her hand and forced me to look into her eyes, red in color, but the same pleasing shape as her sister’s and father’s. “Every good thing comes from That Which Is. We are honored to have been asked to help you.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why me? I’m no one special. I…” I stopped. “I’ve done terrible things.”
Donovan leaned against the rail behind Shifrah. “You speak to us of doing terrible things? You, more than any other in this place, know what my wife and I are capable of.”
“I speak to you!” I laughed. “It is magic. Of all the people on earth, why have I been chosen to receive so much kindness?”
“Because That Which Is is Good, and Kind, and Merciful, and you have a great destiny to fulfill,” Donovan replied.
“What destiny?”
He shrugged. “That’s for you to figure out.”
I wiped my tears away with my arm. “Where did you get these gloves? And the books? How did you know I would need them?” It seemed absurd, but I’d never asked before. “Why does Risa speak sign-language? How did she know to have the books ready for me? How did you even know where to find me? Why did you choose me to be spared? Of all the people in my village, I was neither the strongest nor the wisest.”
Shifrah sat back on her heels. “That’s a lot of questions.”
“I have so many questions. There aren’t enough hours in the day to ask them.”
“It will be easier to ask, now that others can hear you,” she said.
I laughed out loud. “I can speak!”
They laughed with me.
“Let’s go surprise your friends,” Donovan said.
My friends.
Tears burned my eyes again,
but they carried something unexpected. All my life I had struggled only to survive. Suddenly, I realized I had something to live for.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” Shifrah replied, standing and gesturing for me to go ahead of them.
I entered the house and, struggling to contain my somewhat hysterical laughter, I used my hands to say, “Hala, Risa, we have visitors.”
They emerged from the kitchen together, twin expressions of confusion and surprise on their faces. “Our friends have come. They brought me a gift.”
Confusion and surprise shifted to open-mouthed shock.
Hala recovered first. He threw back his head and laughed. “Where on earth did you two find such a wonderful thing?”
“The Storykeepers had heard of an engineer on the coast who has a deaf wife. She made them for Jax. Word spread. She’s made others for those who speak sign language, and the riders carry them where they need to go,” Donovan explained.
“They’re a wonder!” Risa said.
"We haven't been to Puah's house yet. We thought maybe you'd want to come with us," Shifrah said.
I nodded. A laugh burst out of me. "Yes!" I said aloud. "I want to go with you. I want to see everyone. I want to talk to them and have them hear me. Do I have a nice voice?"
Hala took my hand in his, examining the glove top and bottom. "It's a perfectly beautiful voice," he said. My cheeks burned. If I had been happy at the discovery that I could speak with signs, there was no word for the joy of being the focus of Hala’s attention.
~*~
William opened the door. The toddler on his hip had purple jelly smeared across his face and a smashed sandwich in his hand.
“Donovan! Shifrah! We didn’t expect you back so soon. Come in.”
We all traipsed into the house, grinning like a bunch of fools.
Puah looked up from the couch where she sat cross-legged, nursing the baby and reading. “You all look like you’ve been up to mischief.” Her voice faded toward the end of the sentence. Her eyes grew wide. “No! Really?”
William rolled his eyes. “I’m always the last to know. What’s going on?”
“Donovan and Shifrah brought me a gift,” I said.
His jaw dropped open.
Puah laughed, making the baby fuss and draw away for a moment. “How does it work?”
“The magic of science, my friend,” Donovan said.
“The sky’s the limit for this kid now,” Hala said. “What have you been aching to say?”
The question slammed into me with the force of an arctic wind. There were so many things I wanted to say. It all created a buzz in my mind that prevented any single thought to be heard above the others. I blinked at him, feeling stupid and overwhelmed.
He put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Sometimes silence is good, too.”
I shook my head. “No. I will not be silent. There is something I have to say.” I looked around the room. My friends watched me with smiling eyes, relaxed, interested, trusting.
“I don’t know why I’m here.”
My gaze locked on Shifrah’s. “I don’t know why you sent me away to hide in the cave.”
I looked to Donovan. “I don’t know why you killed those who ruled over me.”
To Hala and Risa I said, “I don’t know why you took me in and shared your home and your lives with me.”
To Puah, “I don’t know why you healed me, or trusted me around your family.”
“I don’t know why I’m worthy of your endless kindness. And now this…” The room blurred behind a veil of tears. “Thank you. I hope I can be worthy.”
Donovan slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “None of us are worthy, Jax. We are all broken. Each of us has darkness in our hearts, but we strive to be more than our brokenness. You…” He looked around the room. “There’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about. Would you sit outside with me for a few minutes?”
I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. My tears soaked into the soft fabric of the fantastic gloves. Nodding, I followed the blood drinker into the night.
Donovan sat on the porch steps, and I perched next to him, my stomach in knots. Was it time for me to leave this place? Had I done something wrong? Had he figured out that I was no better than the others? No more worth saving?
The little half grin that was always touching his lips grew wider. “Don’t look so nervous, Jax. I won’t eat you. I promise.”
“I trust you,” I said, and I meant it.
He shook his head. “You know, you think you’ve done bad things but…” His burning eyes shifted to stare at the starry sky. “We are all broken,” he said again. He met my gaze once more. “You saw what I am capable of. I should tell you, I’ve rarely experienced pleasure like I experienced when I slaughtered your people.”
“They were terrible people. You brought justice that night. Except for me. For me you brought mercy.”
“I was sent.” He sat with his elbows on his thighs, studying his hands, clasped together between his knees.
I waited for more.
He sat up straight and faced me. “Do you know the story of my childhood? The story of the war that raged when I was a boy? How I became what I am?”
I shook my head.
“It’s a long one. Others have written it down. Maybe someday you can read about it, if history interests you. For now, know that life on this planet was not always as it is now. There were so many people we worried that we’d run out of land. In those days, a creature of the Realms came to my mother. He told her he was an angel. He said his true home was at the Right Hand of That Which Is.”
“Was he truthful?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve asked myself a thousand times. Regardless, it was a life-changing moment. In those days humans were humans and others were others, distinct species, living apart from one another. He told her there were those who sought to change things, to bring the worlds together.”
“He must have been right,” I observed.
Donovan nodded. He pressed his fingertips together in front of his mouth for a moment, but lowered them before going on, making it possible for me to see his words.
“Yes. Everything changed. There was a war. My mother played her part, but in the end, not in the way he’d asked of her. For centuries after it was over, I didn’t see the angel again. Not until he came to me last summer and told me a story about an extraordinary girl from the north, a girl destined for greatness, trapped in a life she hated.”
“That’s why you came?” I asked.
“That’s why. He told me to prepare a place for you where Hala could watch over you and Puah could act as a guide. He told me you could not hear, and that we would need to teach you to communicate with your hands. He told me your heart was pure and we had nothing to fear from you, though you were powerful and had acted ruthlessly in the past.”
At the mention of my past, my face burned. “My heart holds cruelty,” I said, trying to deflect the full statement away from myself. The rest of his words worked their way into my mind. I asked, “What destiny was he talking about?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe you did.”
“I can’t even imagine,” I said. “I’m nothing special.”
“Really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I…” I was lying, and he knew it. I had always been different, but it was something I kept buried as deep as I could. I changed tack. “Do you think he was telling the truth about me?”
He drew in a long, slow breath. “I don’t know if he tells the truth, ever. Or if he is capable of an untruth. I don’t know if he is who he says he is or what wild notion motivates him. He is so ancient and so far removed from our existence I can’t even comprehend it.”
“But you did what he asked of you.”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“Honestly? I did it because it was a great pleasure for Shifrah and me, but not onl
y because of that. I think I did it for the same reason my mother did. It was too wonderful an adventure to pass by. It was a glimpse into a plan bigger and more beautiful than our daily existence. I wanted to know who the girl was who had caught the notice of the angels.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “When the angel Raziel came to my mother it was because war was brewing. He said nothing of war in relation to you, but the earth stirs. There is unrest between the Fae and those who live near them. The creatures of the Realms have all but slipped away, making things strange for those like me.”
We sat side by side in the cool night breeze. This deadly saint had done more for me in a few brief encounters than my own father had in my whole life. I felt no pressure from him to reply, so I took my time to ponder his words in my heart. I did not feel powerful or special. I felt small, made smaller by the notion that the world was so very big.
“I will not fight,” I said at last. “If there is war I will not fight. I have laid down my weapons, and I will not pick them up again. I will be good, as Puah and Risa and the others are good.”
He nodded. “I understand, but beware of saying, 'never.' If there is war, who can say what would happen? Don't put people on pedestals, Jax. We all hold cruelty in our hearts.”
"If war comes, how will I know who is on the side of right?”
His smile turned sad. "In war, there is only darkness. No one is on the side of Light."
We rejoined our friends and shared their joy. We discussed plans for the upcoming Feast of Thanksgiving, but I stored Donovan’s words away in my heart to think about later.
Five
The morning of the feast dawned overcast and cool. I left my room and found Risa in the kitchen amid piles of vegetables, three enormous birds, dressed and waiting for the ovens, and a veritable mountain of warm bread. The fragrance wrenched growls from my empty stomach.
"Good morning," I said with my hands.
She turned at the sound of my "voice."
I had a voice!
I couldn't stop smiling.
"Thank That Which Is! Reinforcements. Grab a knife. I'm desperate."
