Damen (Dragons of Kratak Book 2)

by Ruth Anne Scott

  “Do all the women spin and weave the way you do?” Frieda asked.

  “Not all,” Sasha replied, “but everybody does something. Some paint pictures, some sketch, some do dramatic storytelling to entertain people. Some sing and dance. I can’t think of one person I’ve met who doesn’t do something.”

  Frieda shook her head. “I had no idea. I haven’t seen any of them doing anything more than sitting around talking.”

  “You haven’t seen children, either,” Sasha pointed out. “You’ll see what you want to see when you’re ready to see it. You won’t see it before you’re ready. You can be certain of that.”

  “So am I ready to see it now?” Frieda asked. “If I’m ready to see this room, why can’t I see the others doing things?”

  Sasha inclined her head toward the door. “Follow me.”

  She walked back out of the house with Frieda on her heels. She walked back through the meadow, past the village and around the hill to a grassy glade, drenched in sunlight.

  Another hill rose behind the first, and along the base of the hill, gangs of men toiled digging a ditch from the village to a gully behind the second hill. Some worked with bare chests, and they sang as they worked. Their picks rang against stone, and their spades thudded into the solid ground. Boys ran back and forth between the ditch and the village with buckets and trundling wheelbarrows. The whole glade rang with music and rising voices.

  Frieda caught her breath at the sight. “What’s going on here?”

  “They’re building a bunch of new houses,” Sasha told her. “They’re expanding the village.”

  “I thought your population was dwindling,” Frieda countered. “Why are they building more houses?”

  “These are going to be something like community gathering halls,” Sasha told her. “The people will gather there to share their music and their dance and to have stories and performances.”

  “Didn’t they have all that before?” Frieda asked.

  “They had it on a much more casual basis,” Sasha explained. “They used to have it in family homes, and sometimes in the meadow when a lot of people wanted to attend. Now they’ll have special places where people can gather to share their skills and their arts.”

  Frieda couldn’t take her eyes off the work site. “This is amazing.”

  “Not really,” Sasha replied. “Projects like this are going on all the time. Everybody has to contribute somehow, and they find ways to do it. If somebody comes up with a good idea that will enrich everyone else’s lives, the whole faction pitches in. No one is ever idle.”

  Frieda blinked and lowered her eyes to the ground. “No one except me.”

  Sasha took a step closer to her. “You’re different.”

  “You’re right about that,” Frieda returned. “I don’t belong here.”

  “You belong where you want to belong,” Sasha told her. “If you want to belong here, you will. If you have meaningful work to do somewhere else, you’ll go there. The only real question is, what is the meaningful work you have to do?”

  Frieda turned away in shame. “I can’t watch this anymore.”

  Sasha stayed at her side, back to the meadow to the edge of the forest. “Do you want to come back to my house? We can talk some more.”

  Frieda shook her head. “I better go home.”

  Sasha peered into her eyes. “You don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be. Don’t isolate yourself because you think you have to. It’s okay if you do nothing for a while, just until you get your bearings.”

  Frieda’s shoulders slumped. “No, I better go. I need to be alone right now.”

  Sasha stopped walking. “All right. You know where to find me if you need me.”

  Frieda nodded and walked away toward her own house. She couldn’t bear all this togetherness a moment longer. At least when she lived on land she could talk to people and share their lives that way. She didn’t feel the loneliness of life on land until she got underwater, where loneliness didn’t exist.

  Chapter 6

  Frieda dragged her feet back to her house. The flowers in the window didn’t glow as brightly as she remembered. A shadow hung over the place. She didn’t really want to be alone, but she didn’t deserve the open hospitality of the Aqinas. She ought to keep her wretched loneliness away from them so she wouldn’t tarnish their happiness.

  Even Sasha enjoyed the wholesome enrichment of her work. She didn’t have to live in the village to be part of an extended family. She didn’t suffer from her foreignness. She’d accepted her own need for privacy the Aqinas didn’t need, and the Aqinas accepted it, too. She’d found her place in the Aqinas world.

  Frieda could never have that. She would always have one foot on land and one foot here in the water. No matter where she decided to go, she would always suffer for the other place. If she stayed, she would dream of visiting her sisters and her cousin. If she left, she would dream for the rest of her life about Deek and what might have been. She would never find a home as comfortable as this anywhere else.

  She staggered into her house and threw herself into her chair in black despair. The memory of the men working on the trench tormented her. Every one of them, right down to young boys, enjoyed that work in every sinew of their bodies. The water didn’t have to keep them in good health when they had that work to challenge themselves.

  And that work made them happy. It brought them together to contribute to their people and make their home beautiful. Why couldn’t she have that? What meaningful work could she do, here or anywhere else?

  She cast her mind back over her life. What a wreck it lay behind her, leading right up to this moment. What had she done with the years? She’d spent six years at a mediocre university on the West Coast for a degree in Social Media. That degree wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on in Angondra. She should have learned to spin and weave like Sasha.

  She’d lived her whole life in urban neighborhoods. She’d put so much time and energy into making sure she never got dirt under her fingernails. She’d never even planted flowers in a garden. She wasn’t good for anything here. Deek would probably change his mind about her when he found out.

  Then again, he must already know. The water would have shown him exactly what she was and what she’d done, and he still wanted to take her home. So Jen taught Sasha to spin, but she welcomed Frieda with open arms. Maybe the Aqinas wouldn’t care so much that she didn’t know how to tie her own shoes. If Sasha could learn in six months, Frieda could learn, too.

  She shot out of her chair with a sudden burst of energy and paced around the house. She cast a critical eye over the flowers in her window. She couldn’t identify them, and she had no idea how to care for them, but maybe she could do something to brighten them up. If she was going to live here, she might as well take pride in it and turn her hand to making it as good as it could be.

  She poked her finger into the soil around them. Then she kicked herself. Of course they wouldn’t be dry. They lived underwater. She touched the leaves. She had no idea which plants belonged in the window box and which might be weeds. She would have to ask.....well, she would probably have to ask Trin or Jen. Sasha hadn’t been here long enough to know the plants.

  Why would the water create a window box with weeds in it, anyway? If this world was all some idealized fantasy to put her at ease, the place should be weed free. Unless, of course, the window box was there expressly to give her something to do, something to focus on besides her miserable life. That would make more sense.

  She studied the window box again. After all, it was her window box, in her house. She could decide for herself which plants she wanted there and which to get rid of. Her spirits lifted still more. This meaningful work thing wasn’t so bad once you got into it.

  She hunted around the house and found a broom constructed of some dried plant material. She shoved the question of how it dried under the ocean out of her mind and set to work sweeping out the h
ouse. For some reason, there really was quite a lot of dirt on the floor. Some fantasy this turned out to be. Who ever heard of a fantasy world where you had to do housework?

  She put the broom away and gazed out through the front door. The sunlight rippled over the meadow, and the great sea creatures cast their shadows over the radiant grass. She gave a little sigh. She wouldn’t admit to herself it was a sigh of contentment, because so many questions still remained unanswered, then she caught sight of a group of men emerge from behind the trees.

  Most of them were stripped to the waist and spackled with mud. They carried spades in their hands and picks over their shoulders, and they still sang deep, masculine work songs. They laughed and jostled each other on their way across the meadow toward the wall in the distance. Why was Frieda seeing them now, when she just finished sweeping her house?

  Just then, one of them caught sight of her and stopped in mid-stride. Frieda recognized Deek. She hadn’t seen him at the work site, but he must have been there working with the others. He looked across the meadow at her, and his companions walked on without him. At last, he turned and came toward her.

  Her reserve melted. She’d done some constructive work, and the satisfaction clung to her still. She smiled at him when he approached. “Did you have a good time?”

  He smiled back. “Yes, I did. What about you?”

  She waved to the house. “Do you know anything about these plants?”

  “What about them?” he asked.

  “Are any of them weeds?” she asked.

  He frowned. “What does that word mean?”

  “A weed is a plant that’s growing where you don’t want it,” she explained. “It robs the plants you do want of water and nutrients, and you take it out to give your own plants more space.”

  He inspected the box. “That doesn’t happen here. Plants grow where they grow. They don’t grow where they aren’t supposed to grow, and you don’t take them out in favor of others. You just let them grow.”

  Frieda pursed her lips. So much for that. “Never mind. Would you like to come in?”

  He cast a sidelong glance at her. “I thought you wanted to be alone.”

  She waved her hand. “I did.”

  He shrugged. “All right.” But he didn’t step toward the house. He stepped away from it.

  In front of her eyes, a rippling mirage passed over him. He turned his face upwards into it, and it shimmered down his body to his feet and dissipated into the ground. Where he once stood bare-chested and dirty, he now stood perfectly clean, in a fresh white shirt. Not even a smudge of mud remained on his shoes. His black hair hung neat and clean and orderly down his back. Even the dirt under his fingernails disappeared.

  Frieda scanned him up and down. Then she nodded. At least he wouldn’t track mud on her clean floor. She stood aside, and he stepped into the room. His presence instantly brightened the room. She pulled out her chair for him to sit down, and she sat on the bed across from him.

  He looked around the room. “It’s nice here.”

  Frieda smiled. “I like it, but it needs work.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What work? It’s fine the way it is.”

  “It looks unlived-in,” she replied. “It looks like no one has lived in it for a long time, and it needs someone to care about it and make it lived-in.”

  He laughed. “Of course it looks like no one has lived in it. No one ever has.”

  “That’s exactly my point,” she told him.

  “So what are you going to do?” he asked.

  “That’s why I asked you about the plants,” she replied. “I wondered if they need extra care, or maybe they need weeding.”

  “They don’t need weeding,” he replied.

  “They need something,” she told him.

  “What?” he asked.

  Frieda waved her hand again. “I don’t know. Maybe they just need to be touched and handled and cared for. They need someone to do something to them. That’s what this whole place needs. It needs someone to care enough to do something—anything.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Are you talking about the house, or are you talking about the Aqinas?”

  She blushed. “I was talking about the house. I thought the whole Aqinas world was the same way, but I know differently now.”

  “What changed?” he asked. “What made you think differently?”

  “I saw something,” she began. Then she changed her mind. “I haven’t seen enough of this world. That’s the problem. There’s so much I haven’t seen that it looks incomplete. I thought the whole world needed people to care enough to do something to make it lived-in, too. But now I know they are doing something. I just hadn’t seen them doing it.”

  He turned around in the chair and faced her. “Maybe it will be like that between you and me, too.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  He looked around the room again, but didn’t say anything.

  Frieda shifted in her seat. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything to offer you to eat.”

  “I’m not hungry,” he told her.

  She didn’t know what to say, so she just sat and fidgeted in uncomfortable silence. Whatever else the water could do, it couldn’t do this for her. But she had to say something. She’d invited him into her house. She had to make the visit a pleasant one for him.

  She couldn’t think of anything to say, though, and he got up. Her shoulders slumped. She didn’t blame him for wanting to leave. She wouldn’t stay, either, if she was in his place.

  But he didn’t leave. He sat on the bed next to her. “We’re having a family gathering at our house tomorrow night. I’d like you to come.”

  She brightened up. “Really?”

  He nodded. “And after that, you should come to the convocation.”

  Her smile evaporated. “The convocation?”

  He nodded again. “We always have them after big gatherings. You should come. It will be your first one. You’ll be able to experience the Aqinas fully in the convocation.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked. “Haven’t I experienced the Aqinas fully?”

  “Not fully,” he replied. “You’ve experienced a few moments of visions with me, and maybe some others. In the convocation, you’ll share vision with hundreds of Aqinas at once.”

  “What will all those Aqinas do in the convocation?” she asked.

  “We use the convocation to see beyond the ocean,” he replied. “We see the other factions, and we see what’s going on in all the other parts of Angondra. Since we don’t travel onto land, this is our only way of keeping track of what goes on with the rest of the planet.”

  She snorted. “It’s sort of like a psychic satellite feed, isn’t it?”

  He frowned. “What?”

  She stiffened and moved a fraction of an inch away from him. “I won’t go to the convocation. I won’t be party to any spying on the other factions or anything else on Angondra. If you want to see what’s going on, that’s your business. I won’t participate in that.”

  He stared at her. “I don’t understand you.”

  “It isn’t ethical,” she told him. “If you really have to know what goes on with the rest of the planet and you won’t travel on land, there must be some way of sending messages to find out. You don’t have to use the water to spy on them unawares. That’s no better than peeking in on them in their bedrooms.”

  He blinked, but she interrupted him before he could speak. “Don’t tell me. You don’t think anything of peeking in on someone in their bedroom because you share bedrooms in your family homes. You have no concept of privacy or personal space, so you wouldn’t understand how a person could feel violated by you watching them without their knowledge.”

  “You’re right,” he replied. “I wouldn’t understand that. Everyone here can see everyone else at all times.”

  “I’m surprised Sasha hasn’t said something about this,” Fri
eda remarked.

  “Maybe she said something to Fritz about it,” he replied. “She wouldn’t attend the convocation for months after she first came. But she does now.”

  Frieda turned away. “I will never attend it.”

  Now he would leave for certain. She’d offended their most sacred institution and called it a lot of nasty names. She had no business staying here. That vision she shared with Deek in the meadow was nothing more than wishful thinking, a fantasy like the rest of this dream world.

  She wouldn’t look at him. When he walked out that door, he wouldn’t come back. He wouldn’t try again to welcome her into his family after she snubbed him twice. As soon as he was gone, she would go find Sasha and find out how to go back to the land.

  She waited, but he didn’t move. Then he took her hand. “You don’t have to attend the convocation, Frieda. If you live here the rest of your life and never attend it, no one will care. If you want to join our shared vision of Angondra, you are very welcome. You are very welcome no matter what you do.”

  Her eyes drifted around to his face. “Do you really mean that?”

  He nodded. “No one will require you to do anything you aren’t comfortable with. If you don’t want to join the convocation, you don’t have to. I’d still like you to join me at our family gathering. There will be a lot of my relatives there you haven’t met, and I’d like them to meet you.”

  Her heart fluttered. She couldn’t contain her overflowing emotions. “Really?”

  He frowned. Then he sighed. “I don’t know how to explain to you that you are welcome here—more than welcome. You’re the answer to our prayers.” He pressed her hand between his. “You’re the answer to my prayers.”

  She looked down at his fingers tracing over her skin. “I’m a breeder.”

  “You’re so much more than that,” he murmured. “Do you think I would throw myself at any woman who showed her face here? You’re the woman marked for me by the water. The water brought us together, and we belong together.”

  She shook her head, but she couldn’t look him in the eye. “I can’t accept it that way. I can’t put my reservations aside and accept this world as my own.”