The Stars Blue Yonder

by Sandra McDonald

  He squeezed out of a passage into a square chamber that was too low for him to stand without banging his head. The light here was bluish green, and most of the floor was a pool of calm seawater. Free-not-chained, human again, sat on a flat rock in the middle of the pool with a pouty expression on her face. With her was an enormous white seal. The seal lifted its head, stared at Myell, and then transformed into a large, bearded man with water glistening on his naked chest and legs.

  “They call me Sea Unchanging,” the man said. He gazed steadily at Myell while stroking Free-not-chained’s back. “I’m her husband. I told her to bring you here and apologize.”

  “I won’t,” Free-not-chained said.

  The seal man threaded his fingers through her long hair and tugged firmly.

  “I wanted a child,” she protested. “There’s nothing wrong with that!”

  “You wanted a god,” Sea Unchanging replied, sounding annoyed. “You took this human’s seed and it grew rotten.”

  Myell sat on the ground. He thought about putting his feet in the water, but didn’t know what was swimming down there in the murky depths.

  “Tell me about him,” he said.

  Free-not-chained wrinkled her nose.

  Sea Unchanging waited, his hand still entwined in her hair.

  “He’s half man, half god, half of me,” Free-not-chained conceded. Myell didn’t bother to correct her fractions. She continued, “One of his names is Wind-not-sea. He was a good boy. Strong enough to kill sharks, smart enough to outwit the whales. We sang our stories to him and taught him how to swim the stars.”

  Myell thought she was speaking metaphorically, but Sea Unchanging said, “You taught him to swim too far. To Earth. To Burringurrah.”

  “Wait,” Myell said. “How did he get to Burringurrah?”

  “Through the oceans,” Sea Unchanging said. “Over the land. Planet to planet.”

  Myell wished Jodenny were here. Because surely she wouldn’t believe some crazy tales of crocodiles swimming their way across the universe. She was the voice of skepticism and reason. But Myell himself? Didn’t have enough energy to doubt. He could clearly picture saltwater crocodiles diving into the deep blue of one ocean and surfacing in another. The freshwater ones, too, crawling into a muddy watering hole on Earth and emerging on Fortune or Baiame or anywhere else they choose. Free-not-chained had dragged him down to this sea cave without injury or drowning and so he imagined she could drag him across the universe if she wanted, her teeth locked into his flesh and bone.

  Sea Unchanging said, “At Burringurrah, Wind-not-sea made himself a boomerang of rock. Bad magic. And you let him bring it back here.”

  “I didn’t know!” Free-not-chained protested.

  Myell asked, slowly, “What did he do with this boomerang?”

  Free-not-chained slid out away from her husband into the saltwater pool. She disappeared beneath the surface. He saw a flash of skin, the kick of her foot. When she surfaced near him she had a silver fish in her teeth. It thrashed for air as she dropped it onto the rock near Myell’s feet.

  “The old human witches, they taught him how to call his father,” Free-not-chained said. “He said, ‘Jungali, Jungali, Jungali,’ and was lifted up into what you call the Dreamtime. It’s not a place you can swim to. It’s not a place you can sing to. But there they were. Wind-not-sea said, ‘I’m a god like you’ and Jungali said, ‘You’re a god the way a fish is a whale,’ which Wind-not-sea didn’t like at all.”

  From the rock in the pool, Sea Unchanging said, “Tell him what he did with the boomerang.”

  “My story!” Free-not-chained shouted back. She was hanging off the edge of the pool, her feet kicking lazily behind her. The silver fish had gone still with one eye glaring dourly at Myell.

  “What did he do?” Myell asked.

  Free-not-chained closed her eyes. “He threw it at them. Angered them. And for his hubris and arrogance, they punished him.”

  And maybe it was more than just his imagination at work here, but Myell could see the scene unfolding in front of his eyes. Night on the island of women. Wind-not-sea, his face in shadows, calling on the ancient gods as part of his birthright. The Dreamtime unfolding: sinuous and long and like honey on the tongue, beneath the feet. A quarrel. Fury and punishment.

  “What did the gods do to him?” Myell asked.

  “They chained him to a chunk of driftwood and threw the wood into the sea,” Free-not-chained said. “Where even now he drifts, lost. Only his human father can help him. Only his father can intercede with the gods to free him from his punishment.”

  Myell squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I have no influence with the gods. I have nothing to do with them anymore. I died on Burringurrah, but someone came to Garanwa’s station and changed time. Don’t you understand? I’m as adrift as Wind-not-sea.”

  “Untrue,” said Sea Unchanging, who had abandoned the rock and was now bobbing in the water next to his wife. “You were cast off not adrift but with a purpose: save your people.”

  “Humanity has already fallen,” Myell said. “I can’t change that.”

  Free-not-chained said, scornfully, “See? He’s learned nothing.”

  Sea Unchanging swam to the edge of the pool, picked up the dead silver fish, and pressed it into Myell’s hands. “Take your son to the gods of the Dreamtime. Petition them to forgive Wind-not-sea and save your people. With the proper sacrifice, all will be well again.”

  The fish was slimy in his hands. Myell skipped past the word sacrifice because nothing good had come of that the last time around. Instead he said, “I don’t even know how to find Wind-not-sea.”

  “You’ll find him again,” Sea Unchanging promised. His eyes were warm with the compassion that Free-not-chained lacked. “You’ve already met him. He uses a human name now.”

  Myell didn’t have to think hard to come up with the answer.

  “Homer,” he muttered.

  “Homer,” said Sea Unchanging.

  Cappaletto and Shark Tooth were sitting on the beach when Free-not-chained surrendered Myell from the surf. Dusk had come on, with a smattering of stars across the rose-blue sky. They dragged him out of the waves and laid him down into the sand while he caught his breath and spat out salt water.

  “What the hell happened?” Cappaletto said.

  Myell told him the bare bones of it.

  “So some crocodile and her husband a seal want you to save your only son, who pissed off the gods?” Cappaletto said.

  More salt water rose in the back of Myell’s throat. He was never going to get the taste off his tongue. “Basically, yes.”

  “He’s not some university student from the future?”

  “Apparently not.”

  Shark Tooth’s head swiveled back and forth, watching them speak.

  “And he’s trapped somehow, but he can appear all over time and space?”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “Huh.” Cappaletto threw some twigs into the fire. “You’re going to write ‘Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime’ on your arm?”

  “Not that easy.” Myell scratched sand off his legs. His clothes were wet and his skin itched. The smell of dead fish was stuck in his nose. “According to Sea Unchanging, we can get to Homer through a Painted Sphere. Like the one on this island, but one that hasn’t been broken. And we need witches or shamans to call the gods to us. Whatever witches or shamans we can find.”

  Shark Tooth fed more twigs into the small fire. Cappaletto opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but Myell already had the answer.

  “Yes,” he said. “I know. Team Space has never surveyed a Painted Sphere. Only regular Father, Mother, and Child Spheres. But Sea Unchanging told me where to find another. Turns out, I know the place. A bunch of kids died to protect it.”

  Carefully he inked another name on his arm.

  “Who’s that?” Cappaletto asked.

  “Ensign Darling,” he replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENr />
  After delivering Molly’s baby, Jodenny found herself enormously popular with the impoverished pregnant women of Sydney—or at least with the servants who heard of the eccentric American at Lady Scott’s house who could diagnose ailments and deliver infants.

  “But I’m not American,” Jodenny said.

  Her medical patients usually arrived on the kitchen doorstep early in the morning, on their way to or from market—thin, emaciated girls expecting their first babies, worn-out women who’d birthed and lost children already, tired women who were already supporting children and grandchildren. Most of them were rugged enough to have survived Sydney’s harsh environment so far, and most were resigned to the pain and danger of labor—some flat-out told Jodenny they expected to die giving birth, and at least one told Jodenny she was looking forward to dying.

  “Anything to get this beast out of me,” said one girl, Nancy, as she poked at her stomach.

  Jodenny asked, “You don’t want the baby?”

  Nancy frowned glumly. “Tried throwing myself down some stairs, that didn’t work. Tried drinking some poison. Just gave me a headache.”

  Jodenny hadn’t thought much about colonial Australia in terms of birth control or abortion, though the situation became more clear with every new patient. The women who came to see her had no access to reliable family planning, and no options for unwanted pregnancies. Another mouth to feed was no welcome news in most of the families, assuming there was a family—many of the women had only casual relationships with the sailors, diggers, or other laborers who’d impregnated them. Some were victims of rape, with little hope of justice from the colonial legal system. Nancy wasn’t the only one who’d tried to end her fetus’s life.

  “What’ll become of the child?” Jodenny asked Lilly, after Nancy was gone.

  Lilly was carefully polishing some silver. “Orphans’ home, likely. Front step of the church, maybe. Down to the state home in Parramatta. Or it won’t live long past birth. They die in their cradles, either on their own or because someone helps them.”

  The women came to Jodenny with symptoms of anemia, malnutrition, constipation, hemorrhoids, and sexually transmitted diseases. They reported migraines, leg cramps, back pain, and painful varicose veins. Jodenny insisted on washing her hands so much that Sarah and Lilly thought she was crazy. They wouldn’t believe her stories about little tiny germs no one could see but did start keeping hot soapy water always available. Jodenny taught them what she knew from the Digital Duola, even though they both claimed to be stupid and not worth teaching.

  “Never went to school,” Sarah confided. “We can’t read or write or anything, ma’am.”

  “You can learn it in your head,” Jodenny said. “And teach others.”

  Osherman was not delighted by her new vocation and fretted over Jodenny picking up a disease or two. “You don’t even have sterile gloves,” he said.

  “Don’t I know it. But what do you want me to do? Abandon them?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “No. You would never do that.”

  Jodenny resumed drinking her morning tea.

  “Come out with me to the lighthouse,” he said. “It’ll do you good. Fresh air and sunshine.”

  She was tired all the time now, but Jodenny agreed that it might do her good to get out of the house. The Macquarie Lighthouse was an impressive sandstone tower near the entrance to Sydney Harbor. It overlooked the cliffs near South Head and though the trip was long, the magnificent view and ocean winds were worth the effort. Here was the edge of the continent, where million-year-old rock met the clashing sea far below. A three-masted ship was slowly making its way into the harbor bearing food or silk or immigrants looking for new lives. The ship was still too far away for Jodenny to see anyone standing on the decks, but she had the urge to wave her hand at them—a welcome, or maybe a warning. It was hard to say.

  She settled into the shade of a fig tree near the tower while Osherman made a trip up the stairs with the lighthouse keeper, a friend of Lady Scott’s named Joseph Siddons. Lady Scott had already been up to see the oil lamps and metal reflectors. She was more than happy to stay with Jodenny and watch the ocean waves.

  “It’s said that a man can see his whole future from here,” Lady Scott mused. “What do you see, Josephine?”

  Jodenny wanted to see Myell walk across the grass. She wanted to throw her considerable bulk into his arms and knock him down and kiss him to pieces. She wanted to see the look of wonder on his face when he felt Junior kick or hiccup. Instead she saw Osherman returning from the lighthouse tower. His expression was relaxed and happy, and his face was tanned under the clear relentless sky.

  Lady Scott, following her gaze, smiled knowingly. “He’s a fine gentleman.”

  “He is,” Jodenny agreed faintly.

  She knew then, sitting in the shade, what she had to do. When Osherman reached them, smiling and satisfied, she asked him to take her for a stroll along the cliff line and they excused themselves from Lady Scott’s company.

  “I want you to do me a favor,” Jodenny said as they walked along. She kept her voice calm and her gaze on the horizon. “You’re going to say no, but it’s only fair. It’s something I should have done weeks ago.”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  She decided she had to be looking at him to say the words. Jodenny stopped, took his hands, and fixed her attention on his face. She still didn’t like his mustache much but he was handsome, no doubt about that, and he’d come a long way since their first days together. She supposed they both had.

  “I want you to divorce me,” she said.

  The happiness on his face abruptly vanished.

  “Don’t be silly,” he said flatly.

  “It’s not fair,” she said. “I haven’t been fair, that is. I haven’t been very good to you lately. Everything that happened before this, though? It’s gone. The Yangtze and living on Providence and all of it. What we were together is gone. We’re something else now, but we’re not lovers, and we won’t be. I’ve been clinging to you, counting on you as a backup, but you deserve a true love of your own. Someone who’s not me.”

  His gaze shifted from her face to the ocean. He took a deep breath but didn’t say anything.

  Jodenny cupped his face and made him turn back to her.

  “I’ve been selfish and afraid for myself and for Junior,” she admitted. “But I can stand on my own two feet. I need to stand, Sam. And I need you to be happy in your own right. Can you do that for me?”

  His voice was shaky. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “I think I do,” she said.

  The ride back to Lady Scott’s house was made in silence and contemplation. Osherman would look at nothing but the view out the jostling window. Lady Scott snoozed, her head tipping against Jodenny’s shoulder, and that was fine. Jodenny herself felt exhausted. When they reached Lower Fort Street, Professor Wallace hurried from his house to meet them.

  “There’s been terrible news,” he told them breathlessly. “Tragic!”

  Lady Scott allowed Tulip to help her down to the ground. “What happened?”

  “They found Lady Darling murdered! Past Parramatta, on the way to Katoomba.”

  Jodenny couldn’t help a little startled noise. Dead. Murdered. And all her secrets, gone with her.

  Osherman, quick and angry, demanded, “Murdered? By who?”

  Wallace’s expression was stricken. “No one knows. The body was discovered half buried in the woods by a farmer out walking with his dogs. The corpse was in a sorry state. They identified her by her clothing and a ring the robbers overlooked.”

  Osherman stepped from the carriage and stalked inside the house. Jodenny tried to maneuver herself out and down, but Junior’s bump made balancing difficult. She was grateful for Tulip’s helping hand and told him so.

  “You’re welcome, missus,” he said, ducking his head.

  She had the strangest feeling, then, that she’d known him at some other
time outside of this tidy house. Not quite déjà vu, but something close. Jodenny bit her lower lip, thinking hard, but Tulip moved to help with the horses, and the feeling vanished.

  Lady Scott and Professor Wallace continued to commiserate about the murder. Jodenny went in search of Osherman, who was in the dining room pouring himself some whiskey from a decanter. He downed three gulps, steadied himself, and splashed some more into the glass. His hat had been carelessly tossed on the table and he’d ripped open the collar of his shirt.

  “Sam, tell me,” Jodenny said.

  He glared at her. “Tell you what?”

  Though she too felt unsteady with shock, Jodenny followed her instincts. “Who she was to you. Why you’re so distraught.”

  “I don’t get distraught,” he said, but that was patently untrue. He wiped his hand across his eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Did you love her?”

  Osherman turned away from her. Jodenny wanted to step forward and put her hand on his shoulder, but she didn’t think he wanted that. He had always had more pride than was good for him. It was a pride that had been badly battered these last years, but had finally regained some footing here in Australia.

  Either Lilly or Sarah had partially closed the curtains against the blazing afternoon sun. The stripes of light fell over Osherman like long streaks of paint. Lady Scott and Professor Wallace murmured outside, the words indistinguishable.

  “We were involved,” Osherman finally said. “Before you came. And that’s all I can say about it. Excuse me.”

  He left her standing alone in the dining room—alone but for a new idea about why Darling’s helpfulness had seemed subtly laced with resentment. She wondered how far their romance had advanced before Jodenny’s arrival had disrupted it. Maybe they’d been engaged. Maybe Darling had been hoping for a ring or a promise from a man who understood what it was like to be trapped in an age that was not her own.

  Osherman went out for the rest of the day, and returned stinking drunk long after midnight. Lady Darling’s murder was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald the next morning, with sensationalistic headlines. Murder was not uncommon in the colony but it didn’t usually occur to women of high society. It was through the article that Jodenny learned that another body had been located along with Darling’s. Her paid assistant. Both women were presumed to have been killed on the road by thieves. Their private coach driver was being sought for questioning.