She only cared about Mom, but Mom wouldn't get up.
Then, one morning, Meliora could not get up, either. She was conscious enough to know it in the beginning. Then, all she remembered were boats that went in rails underground like trains, and birds that flew high enough to find the gods, and Nicolas cutting off the village's communication with the gods just because he could. She remembered Mom saying that she was tired of being Erika, that Bunny, after all, fitted her better, and whenever were they going to buy new blouses? She remembered herself and Mom walking—walking, until Mom fell and wouldn't get up. She remembered herself screaming, and crying, and the world shaking—shaking so much that she thought she'd fall off.
"Wake up, Mel! Don't go there, girl!"
She woke up to old Codes' red and dry eyes gazing into hers, then closing for a moment.
"Oh, thank you gods! Thank you for giving this young soul back to us."
Several days later, after feeding Meliora meat and hot broths and doing all chores for her together with Belinda and Mati, old Codes told her to get up.
"Your fever is gone," she said. "It is cold outside and won't get warmer for months, only colder. It is only autumn now, anyway. You must get used to it. Mati and Belle will show you how to dress warmly. You must get used to coldness and winter, Meliora. You must get used to surviving."
"Go, I said!" she yelled after Meliora had silently sat at the edge of her mom's bed.
Belle and Mati brought her a coat.
It wasn't that cold outside. The air was brisk, but the sun was in the sky, and its warmth felt good on her cheeks. There was light, too. Mel realized she'd missed it inside the cottage. Windows didn't give enough light, and candles gave even less. Mel smiled.
"So what do you find so funny?"
A crowd of village youth stood a little further in the street. Mel hadn't noticed them.
Now Elizabeth was glaring at Meliora's smile, and so were Rita and Alice beside her, and Andreas and Zack. Pat was avoiding her eyes. Alice's belly was swollen as much as Arisa's had been the last time Meliora had seen her, and the heavy sheep coat made her look like a ball. For some reason Meliora laughed at that. A young man lurched at her in the next moment, and Belinda jumped before her, spreading her arms protectively.
"Shame on you, Andreas Hunter! A strong hunting man should never attack a helpless sick girl, no matter how much he..."
Belle screamed. The fist initially aimed at Meliora caught her in the shoulder, and Belle folded herself in two, whimpering.
Andreas could have stopped. He'd had enough time to know he wasn't hitting the right person.
He could have stopped, but he hadn't.
Meliora dropped to her knees beside Belinda. She was a doctor, and right now neither a medstat nor old Codes was here. Then Mati screamed, followed by Alice. Meliora raised her head and saw Andreas stumbling back, a red blotch on his face. Another red blotch surfaced as Nicolas hit him again.
Meliora didn't even know where Nicolas had come from. Andreas fell on the ground. Alice started crying, while Lizzy and Zach stood aside, glaring at Meliora and Nicolas.
Andreas moaned. Drops of blood dripped from under his sleeve and soaked into the village's dirt road. Mel had already helped Belinda up, so she knelt beside Andreas. He must have hit his hand on a rock. It would be bad, a hunter with a useless hand. Unlike agriculture, there was hunting in winter.
"Don't touch him, decayed bitch!" Alice, Andreas' heavy wife screamed and would have scratched Meliora's face if Nicolas hadn't stepped between them. Alice didn't dare scratch Nicolas, obviously. "Don't contaminate my husband, Meliora, you abomination!" she screamed from a safe distance.
"Off you go, Alice," Nicolas said. His voice was as cold as in the temple with Meliora, and there was unquestionable command in it. "Elizabeth, you too. Patrick, Zacharias, hold this brute and take him to Mistress Codes' cottage. She'll see him—after she sees Belle."
Nicolas gripped Meliora's arm and forcefully raised her from Andreas' side. Mel almost hit Nicolas, but some small part of her mind restrained her.
"You." Nicolas didn't even use her name. He leaned and gathered Belinda in his arms.
"Andreas' condition is worse than Belle's," Meliora snapped as he started walking briskly towards Meliora's house and she and Mati had to jog to keep up with him. "Mistress Codes should see him first."
Nicolas said nothing. He carried Belinda to the same room where Mel's mom was. He need not have carried her! Belle could walk.
Old Codes seemed to think the same. She took a look at Belle, then told her to lie beside Mel's mom and wait.
"A healer treats patients in fairness," old Codes muttered. "You told me the wretched boy is worse off."
Nicolas stood at the door, not letting old Codes pass.
"There is such a thing as fairness, Mistress Codes," he said softly. "And then, there is justice. Treat Belinda. Now."
Old Codes looked at him. For a moment, Meliora thought she'd do justice to him with her walking stick.
Then she turned back and treated Belinda.
Justice was the province of the chief. But the chief wasn't here and Nicolas was.
He followed Meliora in the kitchen when old Codes started undressing Belle.
"What devils possessed you," he said, still softly, "to try to help Andreas?" She hated that voice. "He'd have hurt you, certainly. Killed you, perhaps."
"What has possessed you to talk of killing?" People didn't kill other people. Not these days. Not since the time of the mounds on the hill. "Do you want my father's place?"
"Want?" He laughed. "I don't want it."
"No one is to take anyone's place." old Codes had appeared in her usual quiet manner. She walked briskly to the fireplace, stirring the embers.
"Such times are gone. Gone forty-five years now, and whelps like you have no way to understand. And, Meliora, you should have stirred that fire. What do you want—your mother to die of cold? Or you, yourself. You aren't that healthy yet. And you, smart-mouth Nicolas, should have thought about that, too. Justice might be good—when there is fire. A chief keeps his people alive, boy. He saves them even from their own stupidity."
"No, Mistress Codes. That kind of saving is for priests." His voice was still quiet. "A chief's task is harder—and Julian had better start doing it again! He'd better start noticing what is going on! You should notice, too! You don't want there to be another civil war, but look at the people! You shouldn't have sent Meliora out today with no one but Belle and Mati to guard her."
"Those times are gone, boy. Forty-five years gone. It wasn't for nothing. Off you go now. There must be hunting to do, or chief-learning, I am sure."
Nicolas opened his mouth to respond, then shrugged.
"Don't go out." These words were for Meliora. "Mistress Codes here might not have told you, but Arisa's baby is dead. It came way too early, and Mistress Codes could not save it. They don't blame her. They blame you and your mother. They blamed Elizabeth, too, before she destroyed the paintings in the temple and got pregnant. Not that they accept her now, but at least no one would punch her. Pregnancy, you see. And those children you hid in the nights with—yes, of course I know, everyone knows, this is the damn village—they are too young and weak to protect you. I can't be everywhere at once, and Julian is out of the village. He is...doing chief things. He"—Nicolas sighed—"wouldn't know what to do even if he was here. Don't go out just yet."
"And hide!? How about my children? How are they treating them?"
"Your children are not your responsibility."
"Why, you arrogant... No. You're right." She lowered her head. Her hands were trembling.
"They are treating them all right enough for now," he said gently. "As long as the children don't read anything but the Book and don't write. As long as they don't talk about you, and"—he sighed—"the villagers don't know what else you've been teaching them. Otherwise..."
She shook her head. "No, you're right, Nicolas. They are not my respon
sibility." She raised her eyes to him again, and he looked at her strangely, but she didn't care, shouldn't care—about children, computers, or a young man's eyes. She turned her back to him and stirred the fire, then added a new log and stirred again, and again, until the fire was so high and strong that she could barely breathe and sweat was running from her body like a rivulet.
She didn't see him leave. She didn't notice Belinda leave. She only noticed the chief enter, hours later, because he brought more wood. He turned to her after thrusting the load beside the fireplace, and reached into his pocket.
"Happy birthday, daughter," he said.
Seventeen. She'd forgotten. She'd lost track of the days.
She took his present. It was a fresh copy of the Book of the Gods. She put it in her pocket and put her arms around him, and he patted her back awkwardly.
Then he left again, and she stirred the fire and sat by her mother's side. She read to Mom from that book for many days.
It didn't help Mom wake up.
Old Codes came sometimes, and so did Belinda and Mati. Young men didn't come any more. The chief brought wood and water himself. A month passed. Then the snows came, and they were nothing like the waterfall.
Then, one day, Mom woke up. Mel was dozing by Mom's side, she didn't really sleep in her bed any more. Suddenly a hand gripped hers, and eyes stared at her widely.
"I'll be going soon, Mel, my dear. You and I were on the boat together. I am glad. But, for the next stage of the journey, I'll be traveling alone."
"No," Mel shouted, "Don't you dare, Mom!"
Mom smiled at her. "Find your Dad for me one last time." She closed her eyes.
Meliora found him. She ran out in the snow, her thin shoes slipping, letting the chill get to her soles, her thin clothes keeping no warmth.
It was always hot in the cottage. She kept the fire roaring, always. Even the wind that sometimes sneaked in through the cracks in the wall or by the edges of the windows' heavy shutters could not fight with the heat.
The cold gripped her, but she felt none of it. She felt none of the people's sharp looks and shaken heads, either. At least no one tried to punch her this time. She ran straight to the temple, where she knew her father would be giving his weekly ceremony, yet another story of loin-cloth-wearing gods.
Did gods wear loin cloths even in winter? She wanted to laugh. She hated herself for it, but she so much wanted to laugh. Even at the temple's walls. She hadn't seen them since Elizabeth had been at them. There weren't pictures, and there wasn't any bareness, either. There were ghosts of many colors, pale, scratched, scraped, crossed out, dug out, until the walls looked like they'd been through the wonderful experiences and caught gaping wounds or smallpox.
The chief took a look at her face and ran to her from the gods-wall. They both ran home, and a trail of onlookers followed them, murmuring.
Too late.
Mom was still there. She was still breathing, but it was faint, so very faint. Then, she started thrashing, and her clothes became drenched with sweat. Old Codes started shaking her head.
Mom woke up when it was already dark. Her eyes were fever-bright, as bright as those damn stars out there in the sky, as bright as the stars had been on Mel's first night out here, in what the chief called the real world.
Mel remembered BarbButterScotch123's happy eyes, the way she'd peacefully lain on the bed in the Academy, she remembered Barb's smile as she'd squeezed the medstat's metal hand.
Mom was thrashing, whimpering, and she was squeezing the chief's hand, but she didn't seem to recognize him at all.
"Do something," Mel whispered. "This is your village, Dad, do something please!"
He couldn't. Mel couldn't, either. He'd been smart once upon a time, he'd selected her genes himself so that she could be even smarter—much good had it done them both.
Mom reached out and took Mel's hand, her other one still in Julian's.
"I am proud of you, Mel." Mom whispered. "You've done so much in your life—and you've even given life to your old mom. You gave me back your dad, and you showed me the real sun. I couldn't have asked for more. No one could have. I love you. Both of you. I am proud of both of you. Goodbye, my loves."
She smiled before she closed her eyes. She squeezed their hands. Her mate and child both had aspects—yet, she seemed happy to have them both there with her.
The smile froze on her face.
Mel stood up and walked to the window as the chief bowed his head and old Codes started wailing. It was a rule in the Village of Life, that someone must wail at death. It was an expression of sadness and mourning, to send the departed properly on their way. Mel had wondered why most of the time the wailer was someone who could not have loved the departed much.
Now she knew. Love didn't wail. Love got stuck at your throat. It gripped your heart like an iron wrench and squeezed so hard that you got numb enough not to feel your own tears. The only thing love let you whisper at the stars and snow and wind and glaring moon, so softly so that your father wouldn't hear you, was "Damn you, Doctor Jerome, and to the devils with you."
Fight
Meliora moved in with old Codes that same night. It wasn't proper for a grown daughter to live alone with her father.
The next morning, it was old Codes who didn't get up. She tried to. She slid from her bed instead of leaping from it like a young goat as usual. She cursed her old creaking bones all the time—and when Mati, as usual, ran to her with the walking stick, old Codes used it to poke Mati in the ribs.
"I don't need this, you foolish girl!" Her voice was slurred. "What do you think I will do—break? What do you think I am, eh? A dirty glass canning jar fresh from the earth? I'll walk without this!" She threw it towards the fireplace. It clanked over the tea kettle, and the water hissed into the flames.
Old Codes grunted and fell into her bed. Belinda ran to her with a pan in one hand and dough in the other.
"Mistress Codes! Mistress Codes, what is the matter!?"
Old Codes muttered something incomprehensible. Mati started crying, and even Belinda stood with her mouth open and hands trembling, sticky dough dripping forgotten to the floor.
Meliora didn't cry. Neither did she tremble. That night, she'd cried and trembled enough for a lifetime.
She ran to old Codes and checked her temperature and pulse. She started undressing the old woman and ordered Belinda and Mati to make the fire roar, boil water, and bring dry clothes. Old Codes was sweating. Just like Mom. It was just like with Mom—all of it.
Disease could jump from person to person, Stella had said.
"Mel..." Belinda was gasping for breath. She'd come back with more clothes than old Codes could wear in a week. She'd brought old Codes' clothes, Mati's, her own, and even Meliora's. Even Mom's. Mel had taken those with her to old Codes' house.
"Mel, what are you doing!"
Mel was silently thrusting all of Mom's clothes into the fireplace. Mati had already made the fire stronger. The flames were already leaping high. They didn't leap any higher as they swallowed Mom's gray homespun village dress and gulped her white, exquisite Lucastan blouse. They were flames. Flames didn't care.
Mel turned back to Belinda, her eyes dry. "A sick person's clothes can make disease spread. Didn't she teach you that much, at least?"
"She taught me almost nothing! You know she taught me almost nothing! Oh gods, I am not ready, Mel!"
Mati, by the fireplace, was crying again.
"Neither am I," Meliora whispered. "Neither am I. But we'll have to do with what we have, and what we are."
***
They did what they could. Once Belinda had drunk the anti-stress tea Meliora had Mati prepare for her, and once she had washed the dried dough from her hands, she remembered at least the basics. How to check old Codes' pulse, how to undress her, what tea to tell Mati to make for the old woman. Mati, crying softly, was feeding the fire and cooking the delayed breakfast. Mati knew nothing about fevers, pulses, or teas.
Why, old Codes, damn you! Why did you teach Mati, who lives with you, nothing, and Belle, who not only lives with you but is your apprentice, almost nothing? Damn you, old hag!
But damnations were of no use.
The knock on the door came only minutes after old Codes had fallen. It was Andreas, face still bloated and hands turning into fists the moment he glimpsed Meliora.
"Where's Mistress Codes!" he half-bellowed from the door. "Alice needs her!" He scowled at Belinda when she stuck her head out from behind the inner door. Mel saw Belinda finger her shoulder and step back.
"Stay with Mistress Codes, Belle," Mel said quietly. She then turned to Andreas and pushed his chest with a palm. It was an unexpected motion, and it caught him unprepared. He stepped back over the threshold.
Just this time. Next time he will know better.
But there was time until next time.
"Lead the way, Andreas," Meliora said firmly before he could raise a hand. "Mistress Codes is unavailable. I am all the chance for life your Alice has."
"Mati!" Mel heard as she grabbed a coat and boots. "Mati, go find Nicolas, quickly! Tell him..."
Meliora didn't hear the rest, she was already walking. She could have laughed at Belle if she had the time. Couldn't the girl do something without Nicolas around her?
Alice was sweating just like old Codes, and Elizabeth was wriggling her hands beside her.
"You, Andreas," Meliora snapped. "What are you gaping at? Go boil water!" Andreas, sweating even though Mel didn't think it was fever in his case, ran to the kitchen.
"Baby..." Alice murmured. "Don't hurt my baby, city girl."
"You're all right if you can think and talk so coherently, Alice. There, help me with your skirt. Lizzy, what are you looking at? Help me."
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