The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year Eight

by Catherynne M. Valente

  Frere-Jones sighed as she stared into the shocked faces of the girl’s family. “She’ll be better once you’re on the road,” Frere-Jones said. “Keep giving her the medicine twice a day and the grains will soon be completely gone.”

  “But the memories. . .” Jun began.

  “So she’ll know why anchors protect their lands. Why those without grains are forced to continually move around.”

  Takeshi hugged Miya and Tufte, who had jumped into his lap because of the tension in the room. “It’s different to be on the receiving end,” Takeshi said. “Do you know why our last caravan was destroyed? We were leaving a land a hundred leagues from here when the caravan master’s wagon broke an axle. Normally not a problem—most caravans leave early in case of issues like this. But it turned out our caravan master also was smuggling forbidden chemicals and hormones. When the axle broke it stabbed into one of his smuggling tanks and contaminated the land for ten yards on either side of the road.

  “We tried cleaning the land. Our caravan master even took responsibility and offered his death for everyone else’s lives. But the grains didn’t care. You could feel their anger. The ground was almost shaking, the trees and plants whipping madly as if blown by an unknown wind. Then the anchors came—dozens of them, from lands all across the region. They attacked us all night before the grains finally allowed them to calm down. Our wagon was the only one they didn’t break into and massacre everyone.”

  Frere-Jones nodded. If her land became even a slightly bit contaminated the grains would force her to do the same. She picked up the remaining vials of medicine. She held the vials over the altar to encode them with her grain’s programming before handing them to Takashi.

  “Have her drink another dose then take the remaining vials with you,” she told him. “Jun and I will prepare your wagon. You’ll leave by noon.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Frere-Jones had spent decades watching day-fellow caravans, but she’d never prepared one of their wagons for travel. Harnessing the horses and securing the wagon’s cargo stirred memories of both her own life and those of the anchors who preceded her. How all of them had watched passing day-fellow caravans across thousands of years.

  As a child she’d desperately wished she could travel like a day-fellow. See other lands beyond her own.

  “Take the northern road through the forest,” Frere-Jones told Jun when the wagon and horses were ready. “That’s the safest route to avoid irritating the anchors on neighboring lands. Go north and you’ll be several lands away before dark.”

  Jun nodded a silent thanks.

  They were still waiting a half-hour later, with Frere-Jones growing increasingly irritated from the grains’ demands. “Come on Takashi,” she yelled.

  “I’ll go get him,” Jun said, hurrying to the house.

  When the family didn’t emerge a few minutes later, Frere-Jones cursed and smashed a powered hand into the side of the barn, breaking the inch-thick boards. She stomped into her own house—her house, on her land!—to discover glowing red medicine flowing among broken glass vials on her tile floor. Jun and Takashi stood beside the dinner table pleading with Alexnya but wouldn’t go near their daughter.

  “Land’s shit!” Frere-Jones bellowed. Alexnya stood beside the stone altar, her hands immersed in the flowing red grains.

  “She won’t let go of the altar,” Takashi said. “Should we yank her away?”

  “No! Don’t touch the grains!” Frere-Jones accessed the grains inside her body, connecting through them with the grains in the altar and across her land. She prayed that Alexnya touching the altar hadn’t alerted any nearby anchors. She tasted the forests and plants and animals on her land, felt the nearby anchors going about their duties and work.

  But no alarm. There had been no alarm raised. Which was impossible. That could only mean. . .

  Frere-Jones screamed as she jumped forward and grabbed Alexnya. She threw the girl across the room, only at the last moment aiming for the sofa so she wouldn’t be hurt. Alexnya smashed into the cushions as Jun and Takashi grabbed their youngest kids and ran for the door, Jun again aimed the pistol at Frere-Jones.

  Frere-Jones raised her hands as she bent over, panting and trying to stay in control. “Don’t shoot,” she yelled. “Kill me and your daughter will be stuck here.”

  “What do you mean?” Jun asked.

  “Your daughter should have set off the grains’ alarms, especially after taking that much medicine. But she didn’t. Why didn’t you, Alexnya?”

  Alexnya stood up from the sofa, her eyes sparking red light, a growl escaping her snarling lips. For a moment Frere-Jones remembered herself at that age when the grains had first activated in her body. “The grains don’t like you,” Alexnya whispered. “They changed the altar’s coding so the medicine wouldn’t remove all of the grains from my body. They promised that if I didn’t tell you they’d let my family stay.”

  “You can’t trust the grains,” Frere-Jones said. “No day-fellow is ever allowed to stay on a land for more than a few days. That won’t change no matter what the grains promise.”

  Frere-Jones started to say more, but fell silent as she tasted an unsettling tinge in the grains. She felt Alexnya’s frustration at travelling from place to place, never settling down long enough to have a home. Frere-Jones also saw the attack which destroyed Alexnya’s last caravan. As the anchors shrieked and smashed on the outside of her family’s wagon, Alexnya swore she’d never go through this again. That one day she’d find a place to call home.

  The grains, Frere-Jones realized, had found a willing partner in this young girl.

  “I’m sorry,” Alexnya whispered, looking at her parents. “I want to live somewhere. I want a home. The grains said we could all stay.”

  “The other anchors won’t let you be one of us,” Frere-Jones stated. “And even if they did, the grains will never let your family stay.”

  “They promised.”

  “They lied. The grains only want a new anchor to take my place. They’re incapable of caring for your family. They are programmed to protect this land, not to protect unlinked day-fellows without a grain in their bodies.”

  Frere-Jones glanced again at the altar. She was missing something. If the grains hadn’t told her they’d changed the altar’s programming to negate the effects of Alexnya’s medicine, what else weren’t they telling her?

  She heard a slight rapping on the kitchen window. Dozens of fairies buzzed outside the glass, their tiny hands tap tapping against the panes like angry snowflakes blowing on the wind.

  Framed in the glass, surrounded by the fairies, was a red-tinted face.

  Malachi, Chakatie’s oldest son.

  Frere-Jones ran for the front door, but by the time she opened it Malachi was already running away, nearly gone from sight. She reached out to the grains, trying to power up her body so she could catch the boy, but the grains resisted her, not giving her anywhere near enough to catch him.

  Instead, the grains rebutted her in flicks of angry memories. They had a new anchor. They didn’t have to obey her any more.

  ~ ~ ~

  A few weeks after their son had been born, Frere-Jones had woken to find Haoquin standing by the altar, rocking Colton back and forth in his arms in the grains’ red-haze light.

  “You okay?” she asked sleepily.

  “I was thinking about all the previous anchors who raised their kids in this house,” Haoquin said. “I bet many of them stood in this very spot and let the grains’ glow soothe their babies to sleep.”

  Frere smiled. “You could ask the grains to share those memories. Sometimes they’ll do that, if you ask nicely.”

  Haoquin snorted. “When I first became an anchor, that’s what scared me the most—that the grains spoke to us using memories. I mean, after I’m dead is that what they’ll do with my memory of this moment? Use everything I’m experiencing now—love, exhaustion, tenderness, caring—to tell some future anchor that this is how you calm a crying bab
y? Is that all my memories are good for?”

  Frere-Jones hugged her lifemate. “Your memories mean more to me than that. Perhaps they’ll mean more to any future anchor who experiences them.”

  “Maybe,” Haoquin said as he and Frere-Jones stared down at their son. “Maybe.”

  But neither one of them had sounded convinced.

  ~ ~ ~

  The anchors came for Frere-Jones and the day-fellow family at midnight.

  Frere-Jones had finally been able to power up her body after Alexnya ordered the grains to do so. The girl had still been torn, wanting to believe the grains would protect her family, but in the end her parents convinced her the grains would never protect day-fellows. “Have the grains shown you a memory,” Jun had said, “any memory across the land’s thousands of years where they protected a single day-fellow? If they do that, you can believe them. If not. . .”

  When the grains hadn’t been able show such a memory, Alexnya broke down and cried. She ordered the grains to obey Frere-Jones.

  Yet Frere-Jones knew, even with her body completely powered up she couldn’t fight so many other anchors. She messaged them, saying the day-fellows would leave. The only response was laughter. She said she’d allow another anchor to be selected, if only the day-fellows were allowed to leave safely.

  Again, more laughter.

  Now, at midnight, the anchors were coming. They ran through the river mists. They ran across her new-plowed sunflower fields, their massive bodies and claws destroying the furrows and scattering soil and seed to the winds. They came from the road, giant feet pounding on the dirt packed by centuries of wagons. The came from the forests, knocking down trees and scattering deer and coyotes before them.

  Frere-Jones sat on the sod roof of her home, the laser pistol in her hands. The grains showed her Haoquin’s memory of building the illegal weapon with parts acquired from day-fellow smugglers. How proud he’d been. His mother had said the grains wouldn’t like the pistol, but Haoquin merely laughed and said if he ever was forced to use the laser the displeasure of the grains would be the least of their worries.

  As usual, Haoquin had been correct. Maybe that was why the grains had killed him.

  “Here they come,” Frere-Jones yelled down the air vent into the house. Jun and Takeshi and Alexnya were inside, Jun holding the knives Frere-Jones had gifted them, in case a final defense was needed.

  Frere-Jones looked around her. She knew she should give the anchors a warning. She’d known these people all her life. They’d worked together. Had bonds stretching back a hundred generations.

  Her land’s red fairies buzzed around her, the faces of her ancestors silently pleading with her not to do this. As long as she remained anchor the grains couldn’t warn the other anchors. But the grains were outraged at what she planned. A fairy with Haoquin’s face flew in front of her eyes, the tiny red body shaking side to side in a silent scream of “No!”

  But she knew what the real Haoquin would want. On his last day, as he lay in their bed while the competing grains destroyed each other and his body, he’d told her not to be angry. “Life here was worth it,” he’d whispered in her ear as she leaned over him. “Too short, yes. But knowing you made it worthwhile.”

  Why had the grains waited so long to share his memories with her? If they’d done so years before, maybe she wouldn’t have been so angry. Maybe she wouldn’t have forced her son into exile from the only land and family he’d known.

  Frere-Jones tapped the cord connecting the pistol to her farm’s power grid. She aimed at the anchors running toward her. She hated the grains. Hated every memory they spoke.

  Burn them all.

  The laser lit the land green, the light dazzling through the river mists. The first row of anchors in the sunflower fields flashed and burned, bodies screaming and stenching like spoiled meat over bad flames. Howls of outrage rose from the remaining anchors, who split up to make less obvious targets, but they all still burned bright in Frere-Jones’s enhanced vision. She shot two next to the barn, where she heard the day-fellows’ horses whinnying in fright. She shot three others on the dirt road. She split one massive anchor in two right before the oak tree in front of her house, the laser also severing the tree’s trunk.

  She shot every anchor who came near her home. And when the remaining anchors broke ranks and fled, she detached the laser from her power grid and chased after them, using the remaining charge to sear every one of them into char for the coyotes and wolves to feast on.

  “Share this memory with the land’s future anchors,” she told the red fairies as they stared at her in shock. “Share this memory with the whole damn world.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “The laser is potential,” Haoquin had told Frere-Jones the night they were married. They lay in bed after making love awkwardly, then excitedly. Afterward, Frere-Jones couldn’t help looking at the pistol on the bedside table.

  “Potential for what?” she asked.

  “To upset the grains. To force them to experience something they’ve never before considered.”

  “So you’d burn the land?”

  “That would merely set off the grains’ anger. No, I’d burn any anchor who tried to harm you or me.”

  “Then you’d have even more anchors attacking.” Frere-Jones had heard stories of day-fellows who’d tried defending themselves with lasers. Eventually the anchors overwhelmed them through sheer numbers.

  “Yes, we can’t defeat the anchors. There are too many of them, tied to millions of lands around the world. But what if we could use the threat of killing so many anchors to make the grains change?”

  “We can’t change the grains’ programming,” Frere-Jones whispered. “That’s beyond us.”

  “But what if we could change the memories they spoke with?”

  “What good would that do?”

  “If this land only spoke through certain memories—say yours and mine—the grains would be forced to say very different things than if they spoke through the memories of anchors who’d supported their damn work. Over time, it might change everything.”

  Frere-Jones smiled at that possibility. “So you’d really kill, or threaten to kill, hundreds of anchors merely to force the grains to delete the memories they’ve stored over the centuries?”

  Haoquin sighed. “You’re right. I couldn’t do that. I guess it’s a bad idea.”

  Frere-Jones had kissed Haoquin, glad he wasn’t someone who would do such evil in a silly, misguided attempt to change the world.

  ~ ~ ~

  An hour before morning’s song of light and warmth, Chakatie arrived. Frere-Jones sat on the sod roof of her home, the laser pistol in her lap, the smoldering corpses of the other anchors glowing in her land’s fields and forests.

  She scented Chakatie ten minutes before her mother-in-law walked up to the house. Chakatie had deliberately come from upwind so Frere-Jones would catch the scent. She wasn’t surprised by Chakatie’s arrival. After killing the anchors Frere-Jones realized she hadn’t seen or scented any member of Chakatie’s family during the attack.

  Chakatie looked nothing like the powerful being she’d been the other night in the forest. She was powered down and tiny, and wore a neatly pressed three-piece suit and bowler hat. Instead of claws her hands were manicured and folded over themselves at her waist, as if to show she meant no harm.

  Frere-Jones snorted and patted the grass on the roof. “You’re welcome to join me, but that suit doesn’t look like it’s made for sitting on a sod roof.”

  “It’s not.” Chakatie jumped up to the other side of the roof. She grinned nervously as Frere-Jones shifted the pistol slightly so it pointed at Chakatie’s chest. “My children made me wear this. Said it’d show you I meant no harm since no one in their right mind would fight while wearing such fancy clothes.” Chakatie laughed softly. “I think they’re worried about you killing me.”

  Frere-Jones wanted to laugh, which was likely Chakatie’s other intent in wearing the suit. Perhaps
to catch her off-guard. “And did Malachi also suggest you wear it? Perhaps after he spied on me?”

  Chakatie spat. “Malachi did that on his own. I sincerely apologize. To spy on another anchor. . . any punishment you wish against him will be given.”

  Frere-Jones didn’t believe her mother-in-law but accepted the lie as Chakatie’s round-about means of apology. “And my punishment for killing dozens of anchors?”

  “Ah, that is the question, isn’t it?”

  Chakatie sat down on the roof, running her fingers through the grass. “Is the girl in the house?” she asked. “The day-fellow anchor?”

  “Yes. The grains lied to her. Said her family would be able to stay if she became the new anchor.”

  “That’s why it’s difficult for someone who grew up without the grains to become an anchor. You and I, we know the grains’ memories don’t always tell us the truth. We sort the memories the grains show us. Sift the wheat from the chaff. Your day-fellow girl doesn’t know this.”

  “She will after today. I doubt she’ll ever again trust the grains after witnessing this massacre.”

  “Then she might end up making a good anchor.”

  Chakatie stretched out on the sod roof, laying on her back as she looked across the sunflower fields. “No anchor with any sense loves the grains. But most anchors also have the sense not to challenge them directly.”

  “Too late for that. Now what?”

  “The grains demand vengeance. You’ve upset their programmed order.”

  “How about I simply burn you first?” Frere-Jones said.

  “Your choice. My family would, of course, attack. And can you sense the other anchors on their way here from distant lands? The more you kill the more who will come.”

  Frere-Jones sighed and pointed the laser pistol at the grass. “Funny how your family didn’t join in the attack.”

  “Nothing funny about it. I raised my son, after all. He told me all about his little plans when he was younger. I knew he’d never carry out such evil. That’s why I let him build the laser pistol—it satisfied him, and I knew he’d never use it. But you. . . I suppose I should have seen this coming.”