She placed her hands on his. She raised her head at him. They were so close now that she felt his breath on her face. He felt hers, too. She knew that. She moved one of her hands and rested it on his back, and felt his heart pounding through his ribs. He was skin and bones, just like everyone, but his heart, at least, was beating strong. Strong—and, right now, fast. As fast as she wanted it.
"I was a foolish city kid, yes," she whispered. "That is exactly what I was when I came. But I am not a kid any more, Nic." She raised herself on her toes and brushed her lips to his. He kissed her back. She knew he would. That much she'd learned about people.
Her own heart pounded when he wrapped his arms around her so tightly that she could hardly breathe, and kissed her for a second time, deep and hard.
"Yes, I know you're not a kid." His voice was still deceptively soft. "I wish that you were. Go away, damn you! There is another place you can go. Not the cities, not the village. A third place. I know a part of the way. I will tell you all I know, and I will give you the information from my computer—perhaps you will find it. No. I am sure you will. Just don't try to go back where you came from, all right? Too dangerous. Ten years ago they shot the chief's best friend when they both tried to go back—"
"I know. My mother told me. Someone shot bullets from the door. At least, the chief thinks it was bullets. Bullets like what old Codes says they had here before. You've seen the graves, haven't you?"
"Yes. They had bullets here. Bullets and—never mind. I don't think the city door is as simple as bullets. I think it's computerized, and I think I can crack it, but—"
"You think I can't?" She smiled again. She thought her smile unnerved him.
"I'd rather that you didn't try. It's not worth it, anyway. For people like us"—he sighed—"the only way is forward. Some kind of forward." He grew silent. He was still holding her and was still looking in her eyes. Yet, she thought he was seeing another place entirely.
"Why didn't you tell me," she whispered, not smiling any more, "about that third place before. Before my mother—" She couldn't say it. She clenched her teeth so that she wouldn't cry. She had not cried. After that night, she hadn't shed a single tear.
"I didn't know about it then, Mel. I've only learned about some things recently." He caressed her cheek. She took his hand, thinking she'd like to push it away. She must unnerve him. He must not unnerve her.
Then she jumped at the sound of steps and her father's voice, and she squeezed Nic's hand tightly. Her heart was beating even faster than before. Nic's arm was still around her shoulders. How much had the chief seen? You didn't go kissing people randomly in the Village of Life. At least not in the street. You didn't go kissing people with disease rampant in the village at all.
The two men looked at each other. Something passed between them that she didn't understand, but she understood enough to know that if she just stood there and said and did nothing, something would happen. But Meliora the priestess and healer didn't let anything just happen any more.
"Hello, Dad," she said quietly. "It's good to have you and Nic in one place. I have something to say, but with two chiefs these days, it is a bit hard to know what to tell whom. So, hear me, both of you—I won't abandon the village. I won't run away ever again. Going away is easy. It's fixing the mess right where you are that is hard."
She let go of Nic's hand, but he didn't let go of hers. She pulled herself away, and it hurt.
"Good night to you both now. I've lost a patient today, I need my rest. And, I know I'm not supposed to order the chiefs, but you need yours, too. Go home, both of you."
Inside, Belinda and Mati knew better than to say anything. Belinda even smiled at her, though Mel noticed the girl's reddened eyes.
Belle, this is not the time for matters of the heart. Mel, this is not the time.
She couldn't fall asleep for a long time, and it was a pity. She had to get up at the crack of dawn. There was the little boy to bury tomorrow, and the sick mother to deal with, and old Codes, and Elizabeth, who was fainting again and refusing treatment—and everyone else. Mel didn't even pray any more. These days she believed in the existence of gods just as much as Jerome had.
There is only us. And we are not good enough.
Yet.
Lizzy
The villagers wanted to take the little boy's body to the temple before they buried it. The boy's mother was screaming, Melanie was begging, Walter was watching silently, his eyes narrowed. To ask the gods' blessing for the boy, they said. To seek the gods' forgiveness for people's sins and to beg them to take the disease away.
"No!" Meliora was screaming back at the group of people standing tightly together before the little boy's house. "We don't bring a dead body to a public place, period! That spreads disease, people! Especially now, as spring turns into summer. There isn't even ice and cold any more! We bury the dead quickly and with the least impact! Go dig the grave, Walter! How much longer are you going to do nothing, you lazy brute?"
Walter looked at her. He said nothing, he didn't even move. Yet, something spread from him and soaked into the air. She felt the others shuffling with it, saw their looks. It was just like the disease, but it was in people's minds only.
Nicolas was out hunting, and so were many of the healthy young men. You could not stop the hunting even on a day with a burial. You'd only get more burials in this way.
"Walter, you beast, go dig the damn grave, or I'll make you sick, I swear!"
She shouldn't have said that. Their fear and hatred became palpable. It didn't fully fade from their faces and clenched fists even when the chief finally appeared. Walter went to dig the grave, and the crowd dispersed, but something invisible lingered.
Mel went back home to prepare medicine for old Codes. She'd lost an hour in shouting at fools.
"Why don't they just do what I tell them to do!" She thrust a log into the fire harder than necessary. The fire hissed. The log had been half-damp, but Meliora hadn't noticed. Now she—or Mati—had to waste additional time in rebuilding the fire. The medicine, so far bubbling in its small cauldron, was hanging forlornly still. She had to start that from scratch, too, and she'd wasted herbs.
"Lizzy says—well, some people say—that you brought the disease with you from Lucasta," Mati suddenly blurted. "And chased the gods away. Not that I believe it, Mel—not that I believe a word of it!"
"Of course you don't." Meliora thrust new herbs into the cauldron. "You, at least, have some brains in your head."
She had to start the medicine from scratch again.
***
She didn't go to Rick's burial. She let Belinda handle it and headed to Stella's cottage and to the dens of monsters. The monsters must be waking up; she must be able to find them now that the snow and ice were letting go of the world. She'd wasted too much medicine today. She needed more.
Albert wasn't in the village, and Mel thought of waiting for Nicolas and Ivy, but decided against it. He might try to stop her—or chase her away in some other direction.
If she ran quickly enough, and rested often enough, she'd be back to the village by tomorrow. Time, she needed only time. She hoped Belle would be all right.
Once upon a time, I had all the time in the world to browse useless feeds. I wonder when that was. Ages ago. Lifetimes ago. Many lifetimes.
But she'd saved more than she'd lost. She should remember that. She'd saved more than she'd lost. In the end, that was all that mattered.
She ran for fifteen minutes before she had to stop and walk. Then she ran again, walked again, and cursed everything she could when a sharp pain cut through the right side of her belly. She bent halfway and stayed like this for several precious minutes before the pain ebbed.
Then she walked on, and it hurt like hell. Her body hated her. She could almost hear it scream. She hadn't fed it properly or rested it properly in months, but that was not the reason. It hurt worse than that. A long time ago, a medstat would have come and knocked her unconscious with shots
and pills and what not.
And why was that so bad?
Because it—and things like it—killed Mom, you idiot!
And BarbButterScotch123, and countless others. And because, before it killed them, it took away their—it took something away. They had no real sun, moon or stars, they didn't know what wind was. They didn't ever wonder who'd die tomorrow and who'd live. They had happiness, but it was empty. The happiness in the village was fuller—Mom had been happy with that husband of hers—but there was precious little of it.
Mel didn't even know any more which of the cities and the village was worse.
She went on. She reached the Gloomy Wood, and she might have fought a new monster, but she didn't remember it. Her mind only kept flashes of images and emotions, as if she'd been through a wonderful experience. Perhaps the fight wasn't even real. She thought she'd seen the gods amid all that.
She woke up with a bloody axe, a dead snake in a bag, and Fairy Eyes and blood moss in another.
She cursed herself for sleeping. Her right side still hurt and was swollen. She couldn't run, she barely walked. She crawled towards the hunting cabin, which was closer than the village, and reached it by night.
Her dad was there, and he had Ivy with him. He took one look at Mel and lifted her in his arms. She remembered lying in a bed this night and him sitting by a table laden with empty glass jars, his face in his hands.
She remembered whispering in a hoarse, weak voice, for him to take the medicines and go, go—to take them to Belinda. He mutely shook his head.
Hunters came from the village in the morning, and he sent them back. An hour later they came back with Belinda and Albert. A blanket was tied between Albert and Ivy, and Meliora was transported to her home. Belinda walked beside her.
"You shouldn't be here," Mel told her quietly. She wanted to shout at her but her voice wouldn't obey yet. "You shouldn't have come at all—but once you did, you should have taken the medicines and gone back to the sick."
"Orders of the chief," Belle said, matter-of-factly. Her words were quiet, for Meliora's ears only. "Besides, I shouldn't be here now, but I should have come. I might lose others because of you, true—but if I lost you, later I'd lose even more."
"True. That's called allocation of limited resources." Meliora sighed. "Forget I said that. It's from an old feed. Something about computers, processors, and memory chips long, long ago, when they were slow—when there were still kings and queens and dragons and such."
"Forget it? Why?" Belinda smiled sadly. "It sums up about everything we have to deal with. Everything we are."
"What we are," Meliora replied, "is scavengers. We steal the medicine we need, but we haven't picked the herbs ourselves. We kill animals, and we haven't even grown them from genes. We tease meager grain out of the soil and think we have done something big. We dig jars out of that same soil and gather candles from the caves—and those don't even grow there. I saw them, Belle, I saw the jars in the hunting cabin, he'd taken them from somewhere else—"
"Shhhh." Belinda cast a worried glance at the men. Meliora's voice had started to rise. The chief was watching her with his brows furrowed. His eyes were swollen and red, lined by heavy bags of sleeplessness.
The other men weren't looking at her. She was becoming tired of people looking at her, or not looking at her, in this way.
"Have you perhaps thought that," Belle whispered, "one doesn't have to know everything? Could you bear the weight of it, Mel? Could you care for everything when caring just for some of it is so hard? You'd need all the time in the world, and none of us has that, Mel! We must do what we can, with what we have."
"No. We must do what is enough."
During Meliora's absence, Melanie had taken to bed. The chief wouldn't let Mel go to her. Neither would he let her see anyone else of the sick. Old Codes, weak as she still was, was up.
The chief took Meliora home not to old Codes' cottage but to his. He ordered Belinda to give her sleeping medicine, and, tight-lipped, Belinda did.
Meliora woke up later because of voices in the outer room.
"You need to go out," Nicolas was saying. "You can't abandon the whole village because of your daughter. People are anxious. You need to punish her for leaving without permission, yet let her heal people, so that those who—"
"You are overstepping yourself." Her dad's voice was slurred. "She won't heal anyone. I won't let her go out of here! Warnings, threats—no more! She's all I have left, all I live for! I'll kill her myself before I let them—anyone—get to her!"
"I'm not overstepping myself. I am your deputy, it's my job to tell you when you are being stupid. You've been stupid ever since your wife and daughter came, ever since you got the message that glass wouldn't be coming any more! They haven't sent a threat! They've just denied us glass, it might have nothing to do with your daughter! Likely it has nothing to do with her. The threats to her will come from this very village—because you only know how to rule it when everything works as it is supposed to, but at the first sign of trouble—"
"Are you two arguing about me, chiefs? Sorry to be of such trouble." She pushed the door open and swayed into the kitchen. "I won't bother you, all right? I'll simply go do my own job with Melanie..."
She swayed again, and the ground rose. Nicolas was closer to her than her father, or faster. She felt his arms around her.
"Nicolas, let go of my girl! Or I swear I will kill—"
Her dad grabbed her arm and pulled. It hurt enough to make her gasp and bring tears to her eyes. He squeezed her in his embrace.
"My girl. My little girl who can read and type, and asks questions even Dad can't answer—"
Was that alcohol on his breath? She had a daily alcohol allocation for everyone, even the children, because it sometimes helped keep the disease away. But that shouldn't be enough to make a man babble like this.
Just then there was pounding on the door. It was Mati, tears streaking her face. "Oh, Mel! Melanie is dying and Walter is shouting and breaking things, and Belle and Mistress Codes can't help! Please, Mel—You're her only hope, Mel!"
Nicolas carried her, she couldn't walk alone. Yet, it wasn't fast enough. Melanie was dead by the time they arrived, and Walter was held by three men. Nicolas let Meliora down and talked to him, but Walter didn't stop pulling and tossing and shouting obscenities. Nicolas punched him in the face. Walter sagged in the arms of his guards, his body lifeless, his eyes rolling up. Blood was dripping from his split lower lip.
Oh, gods-damn you Nic, that's not what you do with a person in shock and grief! You give him medicine! Now I have to patch him up!
The villagers, though, were of another opinion about Nicolas' deeds. As if everything he did was all right. As if they'd obey him.
She wouldn't—and they felt that. Their looks towards her weren't nice.
He is the real chief. My father...
Mel remembered other chiefs. She remembered the mounds up there on the hill, the graveyard that no one knew about or no one admitted to know about.
"You need to go home, Mel," Nicolas said, almost gently. "I am sure the chief would like you to."
Mel went, and couldn't fall asleep for a long time.
***
The next morning she woke up able to walk, so she went around the houses to dispense herbs and check on patients. Most still didn't meet her with good feelings, but at least fewer people were sick, she realized. Some had died, others were getting better. She went home again before midday had come and slept through the day and night. For one day, Belle could do without her.
When she stirred late on the next day old Codes was hovering above her, still weak but fully conscious.
"Enough of that priestess-healer stuff, girl," she said. "You're in the fields today."
Perhaps Mel wouldn't have done what she did if her body didn't still hurt, and if some of that sleeping medicine hadn't lingered. Had they given her more of it? She thought it strange now that she'd slept through the previous day. He
r father or Nicolas could have easily ordered Mati to put some in her breakfast. Mati was nowhere to be seen, so Mel could not ask.
She didn't say, "Go back to bed, Mistress Codes," like she would have two days ago.
"Fine," she said, and marched out.
She didn't go to the crop fields. She went to her father's house and then to Nic's. She even went to the temple, though almost no one visited the decrepit building these days. When she didn't find them, she sent Nicolas a message.
Do you want to tell me about the jars? Candles? Do you even know that in the feeds that you've kept in our personal interweb there is information about how to make glass from sand, and how to shape it?
He didn't reply.
Fine, she wrote. In this case, I will just go to the fields to harvest some glass.
She could have gone to the hunting cabin, to seek the jars she'd seen, and to seek clues. She'd become good at finding clues when they weren't about what mattered the most to her.
But I am tired of being a child who seeks and does not necessarily find, and of being a scavenger. I will make new glass, with my own hands.
Three of the children joined her on her way out of the village to the river. Children she'd taught before and healed from the terrible disease later. She'd lost the mother of one and saved the mother of another, and the third hadn't had a village mother in the first place. No matter. They were her children. The four of them spent the day digging a hole, building a large fireplace, and finally melting sand. By nightfall they had glass. It even resembled jars.
She gave the jars to old Codes. Old Codes put them in the cupboard behind the other jars so that they could not be seen easily, saying nothing.
Belinda was already at home. "Everyone is getting better," she told Mel. "Even Mistress Reneta."
Melanie's hag mother.
"This doesn't concern her!" old Codes snapped. "Let her sleep."
So that was how it would be. Meliora would be treated as a child again, as a fields servant, as if nothing had happened. As if no one remembered last week, or the past months. It was Lucasta all over again.
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