Come In and Cover Me

by Gin Phillips

  Ren no longer watched the sky. She watched Lynay’s face, and she saw the same expression she’d seen as Lynay watched Silas sleep, as she reached for him. The same sadness, the same affection and longing. It hadn’t been about Silas, Ren realized. The girl was seeing someone other than Silas: She was seeing a man who had slept beside her, breathing warm and even, someone whose face she used to touch and had not been able to touch for a long time. Not a threat—a remembrance.

  Then Lynay covered her face with her hands, and, after a short while, wet tracks ran down her wrists. Ren felt her own eyes fill. The girl stirred strong emotions in her. She felt the pain rising off the girl’s skin like a fever. She wanted to run from her.

  Through the shadow of the juniper, Non appeared, hair pulled back severely with a long thin piece of white bone that flashed bright. It was the first time Ren had seen her since their meeting in the canyon, but the strength in her shoulders and her legs, the easy way she moved—Ren could not mistake her even though the feather skirt was covered in shadow.

  Non was looking down, already reaching toward Lynay as she walked, and her face was hidden. Ren kept still. Lynay gave no sign that she heard or saw the other woman until Non touched her shoulder. Ren had not noticed it before, but Non had beautiful hands. They were elegant and well shaped, and they moved from Lynay’s shoulder to her forehead. She brushed the back of her hand against Lynay’s skin as if checking her temperature. Then Lynay’s arms lifted, and Non helped the girl to her feet, lifting her easily. Lynay, still weeping, wrapped her arms around the older woman’s neck. There was no sound at all now, other than night birds and insects and gurgling water.

  Ren watched the two women moving toward the trees, determined to keep her eyes on them so she would catch the moment that they vanished. The girl was boneless, her feet stumbling, her head propped against the parrot woman’s shoulder. The parrot woman herself was straight and steady, and kept one arm tight around Lynay’s bare waist. They did not disappear—they passed through the shadows, under branches and around thin trunks, fading from sight as naturally as any two people wandering through the woods.

  Ren couldn’t help but follow their path for several feet, examining the dry, undisturbed dirt where Lynay had sat, where her tears had fallen, where two sets of feet had stepped. All was smooth and blank.

  Silas’s voice was too close when he spoke. She jumped.

  “She was here, wasn’t she?” he said.

  She turned quickly. She wondered how long he had been next to her.

  “No,” she said, automatically. “Yes.”

  He turned, walking back to camp, and she followed. He pressed his hand against the base of his skull as he walked, and she wondered if he’d had headaches since his fall.

  “So what do you think she wants?” he asked, over his shoulder.

  “Wants?” she repeated.

  “Well, isn’t that what spirits do? Pass along messages to the living?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ren.

  “There must be a message,” said Silas.

  The fire was low, the embers brilliant red-orange. It put off a pleasant heat as they settled in on their blankets.

  “I can’t tell when you’re joking sometimes,” she said.

  “Yes, you can. You can tell.”

  “Then I don’t think you’re joking.”

  “I’m not.”

  “She didn’t want to stay here in this place,” she said, and even as she said it, she wondered why she was speaking. He did not want to hear what her ghost told her.

  But he was apparently willing to regard this as a game of hypotheticals. He rolled his neck from side to side before he answered.

  “Why do you assume she was running away from something?” he asked. “As you’ve said, there was no sign of sickness or drought here. What if she didn’t want to escape at all? What if she was running to something? A better water supply, more fertile soil? Maybe she left with a new husband or went out looking for a new husband.”

  “She would follow the parrot woman,” Ren said. “If Non wanted to go, Lynay would follow.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “They were family. Maybe not technically. But they belonged to each other.” She thought of elegant hands on a warm forehead. She thought of Non supporting Lynay’s full weight.

  Silas leaned closer to the fire.

  “What do you want, Aurenthia? What do you want to go back to Valle de las Sombras and tell your museum? What are you looking for?”

  “My artist.”

  “Her bowls? What she’s left behind? Or a living, breathing person? Because we can’t find that. We can’t construct a whole person. It’s hard to know anyone,” he said. “Even if they’re still breathing.”

  “I know you.”

  “You’re getting there,” he said.

  “You know me.”

  His exhale whistled through his teeth. “Why didn’t you tell me about your brother, Ren?”

  The change of topic made her freeze. He had been angry with her for days, even angrier with her today over her interpretation of the remains, and for the past few minutes it had been as if none of the harsh words and cold silences had happened. She had relaxed into his voice and the nearby warmth of his body again, enjoyed the back-and-forth of the conversation. His question hit her with a physical force.

  “It’s not easy for me to talk about Scott,” she said, finally. “It’s not something I do.”

  “You’ve never wanted to talk about him?”

  “No,” she said. “Not really.”

  He scooted closer to her, but for once his closeness did not feel reassuring. She felt hemmed in. “Tell me something about him,” he said, conversationally.

  “Like what?”

  “Anything. A story.”

  “What kind of story?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Tell me about a time he got in trouble with your parents.”

  She thought of her mother and father and her and Scott wrestling on the kitchen floor, his face laughing up at her, her mother’s head on her father’s chest. She shook her head.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “Why are you trying to push me into this?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to push you.”

  “That’s what you’re doing.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll stop pushing.”

  She did not like his tone. It was as empty as his face. It hinted at the end of something. He looked at her, right in the eyes, long enough that she blinked and looked away. She wished she could take back the blink. It seemed like an admission.

  “If nothing changes between us, this isn’t going to work for me,” he said. “I don’t like that idea. I do love you. But if you keep making me work so hard to reach you, eventually you’ll bleed me dry.”

  She wondered if this was what it sounded like when a man broke up with you. That didn’t seem like the right term—“break up” was what you said in high school or college. But she wasn’t sure what other term was appropriate.

  “Are you breaking up with me?” she asked, and as stupid as the words sounded, she was glad she’d said them. She needed clarification.

  “No,” he said. “I’m predicting a possible outcome.”

  And then the conversation was over, which was what she had wanted in the first place. He didn’t push her anymore. She didn’t throw her arms around him and plead that she didn’t want to lose him, although she could imagine that scenario in a movie-screen sort of way. She could imagine explaining everything to him, telling the stories he needed to hear, but it didn’t seem as simple as just speaking, as opening her mouth and moving her jaw, letting her tongue touch the roof of her mouth in the patterns that she recognized as speech. She didn’t know how to say the m
emories. She didn’t even know how to think them.

  They put out the fire and joked as they settled into their tent. Silas was affectionate and relaxed, as if giving voice to his unhappiness had released the unhappiness itself. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had broken something permanently.

  She woke in the night and stared at the stars. She didn’t know what had woken her. Out of habit, she listed for the sound of Scott’s singing, just in case. But he had not returned. She rolled over and propped herself on her elbow. Silas was snoring, but it was the soft, companionable kind. It was almost musical—in, out, a slight whisper on the exhale.

  She felt hot and fuzzy-headed, and her mouth was dry.

  It was like time had shifted, but neither Lynay nor Non nor Scott was there. It was only Silas. His wrists and fingers relaxed on top of the blanket. He was not often physically relaxed—usually the lines of his arms and the set of his shoulders were tight with tension, and he rolled his head from side to side to loosen the muscles. There was the softness of his mouth, the vertical wrinkle between his eyes. The thickness and length of his eyelashes. She loved the parts of him and the whole of him, and she watched him with no sense of purpose or time or place. There was only the watching.

  She shut her eyes and lowered her head to his chest.

  This was the thing she realized. That it was a staggering, unfathomable thing to want no one other than the one she had. To mentally scan the whole endless world, considering all its potentially brilliant, beautiful, perfectly unexplored loves, and to know that even their imaginary possibility fell short of this man sleeping under the curve of her elbow and knee, breathing against the weight of her fingertips.

  She was terrified.

  “Reet. Snoke,” he said, falling into sleep.

  She pressed against him until she could feel his breath hit her face.

  “Snoke,” she agreed.

  He smacked his lips together. “Dar.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Nematode.”

  She inhaled the breath that he exhaled, and it warmed her throat.

  “Cartilage,” he insisted.

  He fell asleep with her head on his chest, her forehead against the roughness of his cheek. She lay on her side, and he lay on his back—she slid her palms under his shoulders. His left knee was raised, pointed at the ceiling, and she tucked both knees under his leg, anchoring it.

  Eventually they would peel away from each other, facing outward and sliding together again. Their spines pressed together tight as chopsticks. They shifted and rearranged and woke touching in the morning, sometimes only the ball of her foot brushing against the arch of his or his fingers resting on her hip bone.

  The stars were winking and flashing the next night. As they watched, Ren asked Silas to tell a story. He did not mention the irony of her wanting him to tell stories. He seemed to have one waiting on his tongue.

  “The First Woman made the sun and moon out of quartz,” he said, “but after they were set in the sky, she noticed all the sparkling bits left over. So she decided the dust could be made into extra lights for the night sky. But before she sent the new stars into the sky forever, she said, ‘These are what I will use to write the laws for all people for all time. Only what’s written in the stars can be remembered forever. Such things can’t be written on the water, because water is always shifting, and they can’t be written in the sand because the wind will blow them away. You can’t write the truth in the earth—it’s always changing its shape.’”

  AFTER SHE JOINED WITH Little Owl, there were four planting seasons with nothing but happiness for Lynay. When she thought of those years, she saw them as sudden movements—climbing in and out of their new home, chasing after the wobbling walking baby, Little Owl hooking a quick, strong arm around her waist. And dancing on the stone square, knees high, hips twisting, the large rabbit bowl on her head.

  She was the giver in the dance of the bowls. It was her most important dance. In this public way, she would choose the woman for each bowl. Now at times a woman might come to Lynay asking for a particular piece, devastated that a family bowl had been broken, and Lynay might decide to do this for the woman. In that case, the bowl’s ownership would be well known from the first time she took a ball of clay in her hands. But usually each bowl would be an unexpected gift and a blessing, and the women in the village would line the plaza, singing and swaying like willows, and she would lift a bowl in both her hands, upside down, over her head. The dome of the bowl mirrored the dome of the sky overhead, and the bowl contained a world just as the sky contained a world. Lynay had created each small world of animals and water and air and sky and spirits.

  She lifted her eyes to the world she had created, pausing. The singing grew louder, and the women began to move as one, a wall of trees bending to the right, then the left. Lynay lifted one foot and took a single step, as confident as the First Woman, who always knew the right path. This first step was always a trick. The maker never walked directly to the chosen woman. As in life, it was always a convoluted migration before reaching the chosen destination.

  So Lynay would stop and start, turning, swaying and circling from the waist, legs lifting high and slow and steady with each step. The stones under her feet still held some heat from the day, and her heels were warm. Turning, halting, jerking to the west and then to the north, always with a firm grip on the bowl, she danced until finally she reached the woman she had intended. Lynay lifted the bowl, and the woman held out her own hands, and the world of the bowl was transferred to its new owner. The women screamed, high and happy, still swaying. The chosen woman joined Lynay in the circle, setting her own rhythm as Lynay reached under a cloth and drew out the next bowl. Then it was quiet again, with the soft whispering singing and movement of the trees, and Lynay lifted the bowl to the sky.

  The rabbit bowl had been her final bowl on the spring after she had accepted Little Owl. She had joined the rabbit perfectly to the bowl—everyone had said so. The praise had made her realize that her other works had not been sufficient. She had made many other bowls since she had matured as the village’s maker. She had not tried rabbits, but she had crafted many designs of water and sun—not as they looked to the eye but as they felt on the skin—and the women whirled around her, with her jars and bowls on their heads.

  Another bowl from another year: a never-ending circle, flowing. This was the bowl she made after the coming of her little girl, who caused her to bleed more than she should have, who left her weak for many days, wrapped in skins, shivering. But Lynay was strong, and she did not stay weak for long. She painted a bowl later, a bowl with a waxing and waning ribbon of blood that ran out into the universe without end.

  She still loved the parrots, and she saw them constantly under her brushes. But there were everywhere patterns. Bird notes were sharp points like beaks. The small dashes in a mist of rain floated in the air. The wind came in long curves. She caught the golden squares of a turtle’s shell and the layers of feathers on a heron. Sometimes she would stare at small things and then see them grow on the clay—the very center of a flower, the endless straight lines on a blade of grass, the loops in a single piece of bark. Everywhere patterns.

  The ache in her knee was growing worse. Sometimes walking down steep slopes bothered it, and she had learned not to straighten her leg completely. But for the most part she could ignore the complaints of her knee once she was outside of her rooms, moving and warm. She also had three teeth pulled, and her head went black from the hurt of it. But that pain was short-lived.

  It is possible those years were not so happy. Perhaps she never got used to the weight of his body on hers. Perhaps he did not smile often or refused to warm her cold feet in the creases of his knees. Perhaps he lost interest in her once he had won her. Perhaps the baby was sickly and never grew as fat as it should have.

  Or perhaps she and her man and her
baby were contented. Food and water were plentiful. She held two more babies inside her, but they were taken from her early, before she ever felt them pat her stomach in welcome. But the baby girl grew taller and walked and attempted to run. She always grabbed at the turquoise pendant around Lynay’s neck, and five times had broken its cord with her grip.

  They had not yet decided which name to use for her.

  The fourth year after her joining, there was death, all at once. First a boy, the fourth child that had budded inside her, born early and never even uttering a cry. Then the baby girl lost her breath. She died during the night, also without a sound. They buried their daughter with her one small bowl. There were weeks that passed, each day growing hotter. Then her Little Owl caught a fever so that his face beaded with sweat—which she had never seen on him—and his body trembled. No barks or buds would soothe him. And he was gone. She covered him with flowers and his bowl, and the dirt fell over him. As winter approached, his brother caught a sickness of the stomach and passed blood instead of food. Blood poured from him and drenched his blanket and his sandals, so his shaky footsteps left prints of blood. The dirt was put on him. Even one of the birds died—Early Waking tottered from her perch, could not hold on to the dead branch where she normally performed her acrobatics. The bird could not even close her beak around a branch. Non noticed this early one morning, and by the evening the bird was dead.

  All this happened within two seasons, in between the planting and the coming of the cold. There were whispers that everyone was growing weak because there was not enough meat, because the land was drying up. There were whispers that more babies were dying without taking breaths, that more mothers were dying from too much blood gone, that children were weaker and not growing as tall. Lynay did not care about the whispers. She had no space in her head for whispers.

  Non was still there beside her, of course. She had lived with Lynay and Little Owl. It seemed as if she had always been there. But then after the deaths it was only Non and Lynay left in their rooms. And there was silence between them for some time, but not a long time. Non was never without a plan.