by James Axler
Jak landed in a semicrouch, watching as the mutie bear charged past him. The thing was blind now, which wouldn’t cut down the potential damage it was capable of, but it did mean that Jak could sneak up on it and maybe halt it. Jak or...
He turned, sensing the other people who had joined them at the edge of the field. Charm was running across the turned soil, straight hands cutting the air like blades, her legs pumping so fast they seemed to be a blur. She had come to meet him for lunch, Jak guessed, spotted the altercation from the distance and run all the way to help. Behind her, other locals were hurrying to help, carrying pitchforks, spades and long-handled hammers, the kind they used to knock nails into the ground.
“Stay back!” Charm shouted to Jak, authority in her tone.
That surprised Jak a little. Then he watched as the white-robed woman leaped up and over the charging bear. Once she was over it, Charm came down with her feet together, legs straight, driving her body into the beast’s back like a nail being driven into the ground by one of those long-handled hammers. There was an audible crack and the bear continued to run, but it sagged at the back, its hind legs giving way even as it moved.
Charm flipped away, recovering her balance before leaping straight back into the fray unarmed. Jak was only now moving to help, two seconds passing in a snap. As he ran, he watched Charm leap at the sagging bear where it flailed at the ground. She had already broken its spine, Jak realized, and now she was simply working at it with rapid punches and kicks, keeping it at bay the way a mongoose sparred with a snake.
The movements were so fast it was hard to follow. Though the bear had been wounded, crippled even, it still had plenty of fight left in it. Mother Nature’s survival card in play once again, never easy to trump. The bladelike claws in the bear’s forepaws swept at Charm, and she stepped out of their path with an inch to spare.
Jak leaped into the battle with his remaining knife, driving it at the bear’s flank, jabbing here and there to distract the beast from attacking his friend. The bear snarled, aiming one of its flailing paws at him, its back legs twitching but no longer able to support it.
Charm arrowed a snap kick across the beast’s snout as it went for Jak a second time, a crack of bone on bone as the two met. “I told you stay back,” she called.
“Helped,” Jak replied, ducking low as the bear swatted for him again.
The bear’s extended claws swept up, scoring along Charm’s left leg as she kicked out. She cried out as droplets of her blood winked red in the air, spattering across the ground like spilled rubies. Then Charm’s foot struck the bear’s throat dead center, heel driving deep.
Jak held his breath, watching as the beads of blood turned into tiny rivers that ran down the woman’s bare leg. The bear trembled, and its writhing tongue emerged between its open jaws, flicking at the air as if to taste something. Charm remained in place, holding her leg straight; the foot plunged deeply into the beast’s throat. It took thirty seconds, maybe forty, before the bear’s body stopped trembling, then another thirty until the tongue’s movements became less frantic, transforming from the tail of a beached fish into a leaf on the faint breeze, then stillness. The beast was dead.
“Must have broken a fence,” one of the farmers was explaining as Jak came back to his senses from the place he had been where combat and survival had been everything.
There were other people in the field now, several of them massed around Paul and Sylvio as the two farmhands struggled to sit up. Paul was in a bad way, blood on his face and clothes. Sylvio looked better, just shaken and suffering where he had been struck.
“You okay?” a bearded farmhand asked, padding over to Jak and Charm.
Jak nodded.
Charm brushed at the blood running down her leg. “Yeah, it’s just a scratch.”
The farmhand took that as his cue, and turned to some of the others. “Let’s get this carcass out of here,” he called, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the mutie bear.
Jak looked at Charm, astonished. “Thank you,” he said.
“Yeah, you, too,” Charm replied, her breathing just a little labored. “Let’s go have lunch. Maybe take the afternoon off. There won’t be much to do here for a while, not until they get this beast out of the way.”
Jak nodded slowly.
Charm and Jak left the cleanup to the others and meandered slowly through the neighboring fields, discussing what had happened and Jak explaining—in his own abbreviated way—how the bear had first attacked. Charm admired the way Jak had stepped up, brave and protective of his colleagues, and she told him so. Jak, for what it was worth, expressed similar sentiments in his own inimitable way.
“Like way you fight,” he said with a roguish smile.
They made love for the first time in the shade of a tree, away from prying eyes. And that evening, Charm invited Jak home with her for a meal of smoked meat and vegetables, washed down with mead. They made love twice more before they slept, Charm holding Jak close.
Chapter Sixteen
Doc was eating honey slathered on fresh bread for breakfast with a broad smile on his face. Jak hadn’t come home the previous night, which was why he sat alone. He was missing his companion but was also optimistic about what the day might bring.
The first thing the day brought was an unexpected knock at the door.
“Jak?” Doc called as the unlocked door opened.
J.B. stood there, dressed in his battered jacket and fedora, his glasses catching the rays of the rising sun. “You don’t need Jak’s help, Doc,” J.B. said, misinterpreting why the old man had called his companion’s name, “it’s just me.”
“J.B....” Doc began, a little startled. “What brings you to these parts so early?”
“We’re neighbors,” J.B. reminded him, “so it wasn’t a great hike. I’ve been meaning to discuss something with you, figured I’d catch you now before we’re all expected back at work.”
Doc smiled, taking another bite of his breakfast. “Ah, yes, they do run a rather orderly ship here, do they not?” he agreed. “Would you like some breakfast? This honey is delicious.”
“I’ll pass,” J.B. said, holding up his hand. He took a chair opposite Doc, pulling it across the floor before sitting. “Perk of the job?” he asked as he sat.
“This? No, everyone is welcome. Have you not been granted your allotment yet?” Doc asked with a surprised raise of his eyebrows.
“Probably,” J.B. admitted vaguely. “I’ve let Mildred deal with all that, seeing as she’s the one who’s in the ville center all day.
“But I didn’t come here to talk about food. Well, kind of I did. You gather the honey, did I get that right?”
Doc sat a little straighter in his chair and puffed out his chest. “I am a beekeeper, yes,” he said proudly.
“Great,” J.B. said dismissively. “Do you know who tends the beehives that we saw when we were on the walk up to the ville gates a few days back?”
“Oh, yes—I do,” Doc said. “Which is to say, it is a strict rotational system. Each group of beekeepers, which usually features three men to a team, is expected to tend to all the hives in turn, with four or six separate teams—I do not remember which—running the circuits at any given time. As such, there is not a hive inside or outside Heaven Falls that I won’t have had my, if you’ll excuse the pun, sticky fingers in.” Doc finished the statement by spreading a dollop more honey on the crust of his bread before licking the excess from the spoon.
“Delicious,” he said to himself.
“It’s the outside I’m interested in,” J.B. explained. “I want to check on the redoubt and see how our mat-trans is doing, but I can’t get out there without giving a reason.”
Doc shrugged. “Can you say that you plan to check on the work at the mat-trans?”
J.B. shook his head. “I get
the feeling that might not be a popular thing to say after the whole bomb incident.”
“I can see that,” Doc agreed as he sealed the honey container. “But where do the hives fit in?”
“I want you to take me with your team,” J.B. said, “the next time you go outside.”
“That would take a lot of explaining on my part,” Doc said reasonably.
“Say I’m interested in how you go about your job,” J.B. suggested. “I might mebbe switch careers. I’m not much of a carpenter, not for building houses anyway. We being old pals, you’re just trying to help me out by showing me my options.”
“Is that true?” Doc asked. “About the carpentry?”
“Truthfully?” J.B. replied. “I don’t know that settling in just one place is really for me.”
“And that is why you want the mat-trans?” Doc asked.
“No, that’s something for all of us. We’ve never been anywhere before where we didn’t have a way figured to get out again, even if we got ourselves bastard sidetracked getting back to it. I’m just thinking of the group and keeping our options open.”
“Very noble, I am quite sure,” Doc said with a sliver of sarcasm. Then he got up and walked over to the kitchen area of the shack, where he placed the pot of honey on the shelf beside its unopened twin and slipped the dirty plate and spoon into the bowl of water he had already used that morning to shave with.
“So?” J.B. asked as Doc strode back into the main room.
“I shall ask,” Doc told him. “After all, what are friends for if not to ask favors of?”
“Thanks, Doc,” J.B. said, standing to leave. He was due down at the construction site in less than twenty minutes.
* * *
THE NURSERY WAS located in a single-story building on the main street. It was a simple wooden building that featured a line of windows along both sides, a few of which that had been painted with colorful animal designs using food dyes. Krysty had been working here for four days now, and with her fifth it was seeming like a home away from home.
“Good morning, Kryssie,” said Christine, one of her coworkers, as she entered the doorway to the low building. Christine had raven-black hair that was trimmed short to her neck in a pixie cut. It was ironic that Christine, whose name was so similar to her own, always got Krysty’s name wrong. So frequently, in fact, that already Krysty had stopped correcting her.
“Hey there,” Krysty replied. She had pulled her hair back from her face in a long ponytail, better to keep it out of the reach of sticky hands as she took care of the troop of under fives who attended the kindergarten while their parents worked the fields.
It had taken three days just to get used to the noise of the kids as they played, but they were good-hearted kids and well behaved most of the time, which made it easier. There were some real characters among the twenty-strong group, too, and a couple of the girls had taken a real shine to Krysty.
Six of the children were still babies, four of them under a year old. Another woman called Andrea supervised them, but mostly they just slept in the cribs that the nursery had set up in a separate, smaller room. Sometimes you could hear one of the babies rouse and begin crying, which would set all the babies off for a little while, but mostly they were quiet.
The main room itself was a big, empty space encased by four walls, with plenty of room to run around indoors as well as a fenced-in area of cleared land where the kids could just go off supercharged and use up all their energy in the way kids did. There were some toys kept inside the nursery room, teeter-totters built by the Trai carpenters during their off hours, dolls sewed or knitted by the women. It was all voluntary, Krysty was told, but people wanted to help out and the kindergarten wasn’t short of supporters.
“Everyone likes kids, don’t they?” Christine had said on Krysty’s very first day there.
Krysty had shrugged. It was a raw point between her and Ryan. Ryan had had a child, Dean, with another woman, and the one-eyed man had ended up with his heart gouged out when father and son had been separated. Krysty meanwhile had not conceived a child for Ryan—their lifestyle had been too unsettled, too dangerous for that.
“So what do you want me to do today?” Krysty asked as she walked with Christine into the nursery. It was quiet right now, but all that would change in a few minutes once the parents started arriving with their kids.
Christine laughed. “You make it sound so structured,” she said, reaching for the cool jug of sweetened water that was stored in a pantry cupboard out of the light. “Drink?”
“Yes, please,” Krysty agreed, taking up an empty mug.
Christine outlined their day as she poured the drinks. “Keep an eye on the little monsters and have fun,” she said. “But if you can take a look at the windows, that would be great. The paint’s looking a bit patchy in places. Do you know anything about plants?”
“A lot actually,” Krysty told her. “My mother taught me the properties of many herbs and flowers.”
“Can you paint?”
“On windows? I can try,” Krysty said.
“Good. Maybe we can get some of the kids to help out on the lower windows.”
Krysty laughed at the thought. “It’s going to get messy.”
“We’ll use a stencil,” Christine told her.
* * *
A THIRD ASSISTANT called Davina arrived at the nursery shortly thereafter, along with the first trickle of children. Krysty recognized them all now and knew most of them by name—although she had gotten Harry and Nate mixed up so many times now, despite the fact that one of them was blond and chubby while the other had brown hair and dusky skin—that she figured she would always get them muddled.
Krysty spent some of her morning cutting out flower stencils for the children to paint with while she sat out in the sun watching them run around the secure yard. Many of the kids had taken to Krysty on the first day, and two of the girls—called Kelsey and Hailey—had spent much of the first three days trying to copy Krysty’s hairstyle while she pretended not to notice.
At some point in the morning, as the sun disappeared behind a bank of white clouds drifting lazily across the sky, Hailey came waddling over on her stubby legs and stood in front of Krysty as she sketched out another flower stencil.
“Whatcha doin’?” Hailey asked.
Krysty looked up and smiled. “Drawing flowers. Do you like flowers, Hailey?”
“Yes,” Hailey decided, making the statement as if it was the most important fact she had ever been asked to recite. “Do you want to play Places?”
“Places?” Krysty repeated. “I don’t think I know that game.”
“We’ll show you,” Hailey said, boldly grabbing the fingers of Krysty’s right hand and tugging.
Krysty got up from her stool, reaching up and carefully placing the stencil, blade and drawing nib out of the way on the low roof of the building, safe where children’s hands could not reach. Then she followed Hailey across the scrubby yard to where two other girls, including blond-haired Kelsey, were already deep in the ritual of some elaborate game of pretend.
“Auntie Kryssie is playin’, too,” Hailey announced, and the other girls cheered.
All around, other child attendees were busy with their own games, chasing one another or scrabbling in the grass, prodding at bugs or whatever.
“Someone will have to show me how to play,” Krysty said.
As if that were a cue, the girls stood side by side in a line while Hailey stood in front of them. “I’m the Regina,” Hailey explained, “and you are my Mel-missas.”
“Melissas,” Krysty corrected with an indulgent smile.
“You have to stand, too,” Kelsey whispered to Krysty, pointing to the spot next to her.
Krysty did so, clasping her hands behind her back and standing very erect. “Wha
t are your orders, Regina?” she asked.
“Today we’re going to have a big dance,” Hailey told everyone with mock seriousness. “So you have to find someone else to dance with and...that’s it. All love.”
“All love,” the girls repeated automatically, and Krysty joined in, too.
The game wasn’t “Places,” Krysty realized. It was “Palaces.” These girls were learning to be the next Regina should their leader ever step down.
* * *
MORNING TURNED TO afternoon, and a spell of persistent rain meant that the children were forced to play inside. The inside of the nursery became warmer with all those bodies running around, but there were no great fallings-out and the kids seemed to carry on without too much screaming or complaining.
Krysty took a little time to sort out her stencils and figure where best to place the flowers that would surround the happy-looking animals that peered from the windows. The children were excited to hear that they would be painting after lunch, but Christine reminded them all that lunch came first, and no one was to skip it because they wouldn’t get to start painting early just because they had.
Like the other sites of work in Heaven Falls, the nursery was supplied with fresh food that was delivered each day. Just after the rain started, three women arrived laden with baskets of freshly baked bread, pots of honey and some salad, along with cool water for the kids to drink. There were also a few cured meats for the adults, although feeding those to the children was generally discouraged because they were frequently quite rich. “Experience taught us that you get toilet troubles in the afternoon if you feed the kids too much meat,” Davina had told Krysty on the first day.
Lunch was taken together on three low tables where the children were expected to sit quietly while the food was served. Then one adult each would sit at the head of the table and a few words of thanks were said to the Regina for the generous bounty. Most of the kids knew the words by rote, and Krysty felt a little embarrassed as she tried to keep up. The last words of the litany were All love.
