Oculum

by Philippa Dowding

  I can’t imagine why William would endanger us in this way.

  William looks over his shoulder. The massive Oculum Arm that stretches from the ground floor of the Oculum Senate to the top of our world looks almost small from here. But William is not looking at the Arm. I follow his gaze toward the wall and catch my breath. I clamp my lips together, since it would not do to gasp out loud.

  There is something I have never seen before, clearly cut into the wall. William has found something that is forbidden, unthinkable. Something that by its very nature must open and close.

  There is a shape, a rectangle. A heavy vine grows near the shape, up and over and along, partly obscuring it.

  But there is no mistaking what he is showing me.

  William1 has found a door.

  We look at each other, and I can barely breathe.

  There is a door in the wall of our world.

  mannfred

  Cranker holds his arm above the Littlun’s head. The Littlun snivels and whines and jumps up and down, trying to grab the bread that Cranker holds high.

  “I took it, Cranker! Give it back!” Cranker considers this. He sniffs the bread, licks it, smiles down at the boy.

  “You took it? You? Where from?”

  The boy hangs his head. He points at a group of even smaller Littluns throwing stones at a stray, one-eyed dog across the footbridge.

  “Grannie give it to them.”

  Cranker tried taking shots at this dog last week, but it slunk off soon as it saw the slingshot. The dog barks, wags its tail, hopeful, but stays across the river out of range of the Littluns. And Cranker’s slingshot.

  Stupidest dog I ever saw, though. Why’s it back here? We got nothing to give it.

  “What’s the law?” Cranker says, patient. If I could count how many times Cranker says this to the Littluns every day, I’d be a genius. There’s not a number that high.

  “Cranker gets it first,” the boy mumbles. He stopped crying, but there are perfect tear-tracks down his thin cheeks.

  Cranker nods. “Yes, Cranker gets it first.” He takes a wide open bite of the bread then breaks off a piece and hands it to me.

  “And who gets it second?” The boy shoots me an angry look but points at me and says, “Him. Mann.” I put the piece of bread in my mouth and start chewing. It’s hard and dry, and it does take the edge off the hole in my stomach, but it’s never enough.

  “Very good. And what else?” The boy has bright blue eyes and shoots a look at Cranker that says, You won’t always be the toughest.

  Cranker repeats his question, patient and calm. “What else?” The boy toes the muck at his feet with a busted shoe too big for him.

  “Don’t tell Grannie.”

  “Good!” Cranker breaks off a small piece of the bread and hands it to the Littlun, who tears off with it, behind the midden, past the henhouse and to the back of Gran-nie’s house. He disappears into the landscape, since he’s made of the same stuff: filth and muck.

  Cranker and me watch the other Littluns chase the dog away, then they start to romp in the black water of the slimy river. The biggest Littlun holds the smallest Littlun underwater and makes the others laugh. This is what we did at their age. Stab each other with sticks, throw rocks, hold smaller heads under water, and bury each other in muck. Once in a while, though, it goes too far, and we lose a Littlun. We got a cemetery in back of the village with flags marking each stony grave. Illness, accidents, disease. We seen it all.

  I walk over and shout at them, and they run off. I finish my bread, and Cranker passes me the second last piece. He pops the last piece into his mouth.

  “The Shiny Man is coming.”

  I shake my head. I’m a lot bigger than Cranker, ‘though I’m a year or two younger. I look down into his dirty face, his hair standing stiff and unwashed all around his head. It’s about time Grannie made us all take our springtime bath.

  “You lie.” I can get away with this. I’m Cranker’s best friend, his only friend, too.

  “No, Grannie told the neighbor. I was chasing a FatRat, and I heard her.” I look around the tiny, mostly empty village. We live on a tree-covered island surrounded by the slimy black river. The only way to get to our ten broken-down houses is over the footbridge. We aren’t what you’d call an important stop on the road to the City.

  I almost can’t remember the last time the Shiny Man came here.

  Grannie comes out on her porch and rings the bell for soup. Cranker and me didn’t catch any FatRats today, so there’s no fresh roasted meat. But the chicken broth soup will have carrot and runner beans from Grannie’s greenhouse. And it’ll be warm, which is something. We’ll have milk from one of Grannie’s goats.

  I follow Cranker and the Littluns into the house and sit at the huge table. I grab a wooden bowl, and Grannie slops warm soup into it. There’s bread on our trenchers, one thin slice each. When all the bowls are full, we bow our heads and Grannie says what she says over every meal: “May the sun shine, the sweet rain fall, and the fruit trees blossom once again.” Then she mumbles under her breath, “What I wouldn’t give for a peach.”

  The Littluns fall to it, eating and slurping until every crumb, every taste, is gone.

  Cranker and me sit at the edge of the table, eating in silence. I got no idea what a peach is, or an apple, or a pear, or the other things Grannie calls fruit, because they all vanished long ago.

  But I do know what the Shiny Man is. It would be something to see the Shiny Man again. Most of the Littluns at the table weren’t even born the last time he visited.

  More than likely, though, Cranker is lying.

  But soon enough it’s clear that Cranker didn’t lie.

  The Shiny Man DID come. We all waited on Grannie’s porch, watching the footbridge, for two days. Then one of the Littluns came tearing across the river, calling and singing about the Shiny Man.

  Then there he was.

  He was pretty much as I remembered him, tall, mounted on a great horse pulling the Shiny wagon, dressed in a shining shirt and shining pants, with huge shining boots. He wore a tall, bright helmet with a white feather waving high above. He had a big, red beard hanging down to his chest and a powerful build, with arms that bulged with muscle. He was quite a sight.

  His horse was huge, much bigger than our old nags Nancy and Nellie, and it pulled the wagon behind it. The wagon rode low to the ground and had four doors with busted glass windows and seats inside it. There was a wheel for steering tied to the Shiny Man’s horse. The wagon sat upon four rubber wheels, which we don’t see often. We only got wooden wheels on our carts.

  But the Shiny Man isn’t like us. He’s like a memory of a past time, the Olden Begones, as Grannie calls them. She tells us stories sometimes, and in the Olden Begones, the wagons drove magically along without horses. Later, when she asked him, the Shiny Man opened the front lid of the wagon and showed us what he called an “engine” inside, the part that once upon a time made the wagon run without horses. But I don’t see how that could be true.

  The Shiny Man travels from village to village with his goods. He gets them from the City, from other Grannies in other villages, even from faraway places, and then brings them to us and places like ours, in the lonely villages where people still are.

  We need shiny goods made of metal, too, just like everyone else.

  He spreads what Grannie calls “his wares” around the countryside, far and wide, and he gets wares in return from the people he visits. Maybe sweaters knit by a Grannie, or hens, or a precious goat, to carry with him and share with others in the next village. Every village gives him something in return for his shiny goods, and on it goes.

  He crosses the river and draws his horse and wagon into the muddy track in the center of our ten houses, and all the Littluns, Cranker, me, the two neighbors, and Grannie go to greet him. He looks like a he
ro standing among all us filthy beings. I never seen so many teeth beaming in mud-covered faces.

  “Hello!” the Shiny Man calls through his helmet, and all the Littluns call hello back. They crowd around him and want to touch his horse. I touch the horse, too, and wonder at his muscle and soft nose. It’s a huge dray horse, good for pulling and plowing. Then we all draw close around the wagon and peer through the broken windows at the treasure inside.

  I’m amazed by what I see.

  The wagon is filled with all the shiny goods we could ever need. New pots and pans for Grannie. Metal wheels for our handcarts. A metal box with a lid on it for safe storage. Metal tools, like a hammer and a screwdriver and a small handsaw. All of ours are wore out or broke, so we need them. There are toys for the Littluns that look just like the Shiny Man’s wagon but fit in a hand. He gives these out, and the Littluns run off down the street to watch over their treasure and to fight each other for them.

  There are new knives for skinning FatRats and cut-ting carrots and beans. There are bows and arrows and a machine called a crossbow, which looks vicious but efficient. Cranker eyes them, but the Shiny Man says they’re for another village. There’s a new slingshot for Cranker, though, with a strong rubber spring, which is good because his old one is almost wore out, too.

  And then there’s something for me I never had before: a knife with a leather sheath.

  When Grannie asks the Shiny Man to show us knives for two boys such as us, I almost fall over. When the Shiny Man hands me my own knife, my first one, he smiles and says, “Use it well, Mannfred. You’re a good boy, a strong and honest boy. You’re nearly thirteen now, almost a man. Let this knife be your sword.” Then he pats my back, and I feel strange.

  No one gave me a knife before, and no one calls me by my full name. Not since I can remember. Not Cranker, not even Grannie.

  I’m Mann.

  The Shiny Man hands us bags of oats and grain for bread, barley for soup, some salt for preserving goat meat. There are blankets and blue flannel cloth too, and Grannie gets a bunch of both. And needles and thread, which is also good because our clothes, such as they are, are nothing more than rags. And a fine new pair of scissors, which is fascinating to me. Grannie always keeps her scissors hid, and they’re so old they’re held together with wire. A new pair is a huge gift for her. She looks almost young with the excitement of all these treasures. Her gray hair is all over, and her apron is full of brand new shiny metal tools. Cranker and me stand and stare at the wonder of it.

  Then Grannie hands the Shiny Man two big bundles of clean, mended clothes the Littluns all outgrown but are still good for someone else in some other village. She hands over a bundle of sweaters and socks she knit from wool she saved for this very thing. She also hands the Shiny Man a basket of fresh hen’s eggs and a sack of carrots and beans.

  The Shiny Man takes all Grannie’s gifts and stacks them at the back of the wagon. There’s a lot of sacks back there. Every village he passes through, he takes and he receives.

  But then there was the biggest surprise of all.

  After he puts everything away, and the job of swapping his shiny wares for our goods is over, the Shiny Man reaches into a special covered seat and brings out the biggest surprise yet: a baby!

  A new Littlun!

  We haven’t had a baby here in a long time; no one has dropped one at the footbridge or knocked on the door and run in the dead of night, the usual way of getting Littluns. It’s a girl, also something we haven’t ever had. Right now all the Littluns are boys. The baby girl has soft, curly hair and huge brown eyes. She wakes and smiles at us all.

  Grannie calls her Lisle, wraps her up tight in a bright blue sling around her shoulder, and sticks a rag soaked in goat’s milk in Lisle’s little mouth. I can tell by Grannie’s soft voice and bright eyes that she’s happy with the baby. She thanks the Shiny Man, and he seems happy too. He doesn’t bring many people new babies, he says. And never girls.

  The Shiny Man shows us coins, too, which I seen before but which don’t mean much. They’re just silver and gold and there’s no use for them, but the Shiny Man tells us that in the Olden Begones, people gave the shiny coins for food and such. He hands them out to us to keep in our pockets as something to remember his visit by. I never had a coin before, either.

  Then when the Littluns are gone to sleep, he takes off his shiny suit and helmet. He’s just a man under all that metal, a big man with a red beard. He takes Grannie, me, and Cranker outside and shows us another thing I never seen before, only heard of: a gun.

  They’re so rare, most people never seen one. Cranker asks him where he got it. It’s a holdover from the Olden Begones, he says, and no one can make them now.

  He let Grannie hold it, and Cranker, then me. It was heavy in my hand. It felt alive somehow, like something mysterious. He showed us a box of what he called “ammunition” and how the bullets fit perfect in the gun.

  Then he pointed it at a far-off tree and showed us how to take aim.

  Then he fired it.

  Cranker had the biggest smile I ever seen, but me? I was just scared. What a horrible loud noise.

  Then he sent me and Cranker off to find FatRats for a late meal, and he and Grannie sat talking by the fire for the rest of the night. But it was all dull adult talk, the little that I heard through the doors to the room we all sleep in, about food, crops, and what was happening in the City these days.

  The Shiny Man left the next day.

  And as soon as he did, the Black Rain comes.

  For two days, the Black Rain comes in greasy sheets that fall from the sky like oily soup. It slides down the roof and off the trees. It hits the ground harder than normal rain and smells different. I can’t name like what, though. Grannie says “brimstone,” whatever that might be.

  It’s a long rain. It comes now and then, but lately we seen less and less of it. When I was little, the Black Rain came twice a year or even three times, but this is the first rain like it in a long while.

  This is the hardest rain I ever seen, though.

  The rain comes straight down in sheets and hisses where it lands. Big trees can live, small, delicate things can’t. Grannie tells us this is why there’s almost no grass, just tough bushes and not much else but mud all around us. I think about that sometimes, how I never known much but mud, but once there was green grass here, long ago. There’s tall grass and grains out in the fields, but it’s not green and never was.

  When the Black Rain starts, me and Cranker help Grannie get all the herbs and potted plants into the greenhouse. We strap heavy oilcloth over the henhouse and find all the wandering goats in the woods and put them in their pen behind the midden. We tie down the door and make sure none of the rain can get in.

  Then we help her cut up an old sheet in strips and get the masks over the howling faces of the Littluns, but that was a bust. By end of the first day of Black Rain, the Littluns are bored and whiny and don’t want to stay indoors anymore.

  Already most of them ripped off their masks and hid them where Grannie can’t see. Cranker and me sit on the porch with Grannie’s masks tied tight over our mouth and nose like she told us. We got some sense, at least.

  So the Littluns are all indoors, whacking each other and brawling and whining. Grannie has some of them quieted, though, and is showing them letters and num-bers. She’s got one book she had since she was little, by a man called Aesop, with pictures in it that are a wonder. I can hear she starts reading the story of The Fox and the Crow, and the Littluns all stop their yowling to listen, although they heard it a thousand times by now.

  I can read. Grannie taught me enough to read Aesop’s stories, anyway. But the truth is, I already knew how to read a little and do numbers, too, when I came to Grannie, even though I was such a Littlun. I have no memory of the time before her, but there was one. My different way of speaking comes from then, some of my
words.

  But we all got a time before Grannie.

  Cranker and me sit on the porch in Grannie’s two old rockers. The porch is deep and covered, and we can hear and see the rain, but it can’t touch us. Cranker looks weird, just his eyes and crazy, mud-stiff hair sticking out above his mask, and I must look strange, too. I’m using my new knife to work at a piece of wood. Grannie says Lisle needs something called a “soother” to suck on, so I’m making a shape that Grannie drew for me. A big round end with a little ring handle and a smaller bulb end.

  When it’s finished, Lisle will keep it in her mouth. It’ll make her happy. I have to make it smooth and safe for her, and I like the idea of it, and working with my new knife.

  Cranker has a big pile of pebbles beside his rocking chair, and he fires them from his slingshot at broken tin plates he nailed to trees before the rain. Every once in a while I hear a plink-pock as he hits one.

  The one-eyed dog slinks into view by the footbridge. Cranker stops shooting at the trees, takes aim at the dog, but I make him stop.

  “Don’t,” I say. Cranker pulls his hand away and scowls at me. At least I think it’s a scowl. It’s hard to tell with the mask on his face.

  “Shove off, Manny Mann!” he says, all muffled through the cloth. He knows I hate the name Manny Mann. He’s teasing me, challenging me.

  The dog has his nose up and his thin tail down between his legs. His one good eye spies us, and he wags his tail, just the end. It near breaks my heart. Stupidest dog I ever saw.

  “Get!” I yell. I stand up and wave my arms. I hope to scare it off, since Cranker is a dead shot. He stands and takes aim at the dog, a perfect killer. I could fight him, I could stop him. I’m bigger. He draws the strong new slingshot with all his strength, straight along his jawline to the ear.

  Just as Cranker lets fly, I jump up and push his arm. The rock flies wild, and the dog runs off.