The Anatomy of Curiosity

by Brenna Yovanoff

  “There’s something I’ve needed to tell you for days, Rafel.” She shook her head once, abruptly. “No, weeks. Since you—since we …”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She paused, mouth open, almost as if caught in a gasp.

  I kissed her.

  Her lips were parted, and mine, too, and so though it was a gentle kiss, we breathed together, and I felt her tongue touch mine and skim across my bottom lip the way she read the flower mines.

  I wrote everything previous just to get to this kiss, of course. Remember? “Sometimes a kiss is like a magical bomb?” Well, it’s about explode all over Rafel’s character arc.

  Then Dinah Aniv dug her fingers into my hair and dragged me closer, kissing me as surely as she did all things. I did not know what to do, how to kiss; I was a child, a new recruit to this particular service.

  I fumbled, I pressed my palms to her ribs. I did what she did with my mouth and tongue, closed my eyes, and pulled at her.

  Kissing should always, always, always build characterization and add to the story. It’s sexy, but like everything, it reflects character and world, too.

  But Aniv drew away, keeping our bodies apart. She sucked at my lip, exactly the gentle, patient way she’d sucked water from the cloth last night. And then she stepped fully away.

  I stared at her, listening to the wind and the cry of blood in my skull. She was so lovely, bright-black eyes and parted, mysterious mouth, colorful robes, hair like the night sky and all its sparkling stars. Tall, strong, lean and graceful. I remembered that when I first saw her, I’d thought she was only striking, but not beautiful. “Dinah,” I said. “Aniv.” Then I grinned: a face-splitting, delighted grin, with all my teeth because I felt everything we’d been told teeth meant to the star clans: intimacy and aggression both, a promise and a challenge.

  Aniv put her gloved hands to her mouth, dragged them down her neck, and folded them over her heart. “I am so sorry, Rafel,” she whispered.

  The hum was there, buzzing my teeth, in the palms of my hands. It was the feeling of dread now. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “You will have difficulty understanding, my pacer,” she said, in an odd, tired voice.

  “Tell me—I’ll find a way. That is what I am good at.”

  Aniv smiled sadly. “I am not what you think I am. I am not a woman in the way you will understand.”

  I shook my head, withdrawing a little from her. What a strange thing for her to say, I thought. Why would she? It was funny, at first. I almost laughed.

  She pressed on. “I live as a woman, dress and behave as one. My heart is a woman’s heart, Rafel—that proof is in my magic.”

  My laughter fell away; I was afraid then, afraid of rejection, that she was telling me mages are different from other women. That they do not love, do not feel the way others do. It was impossible for us to share anything because she was a star clan mage.

  And then she said, “But I was not born with a woman’s body. My parents had a son, until I went to live with the women.”

  I did not understand.

  It was the wine, I was sure. The wine, the weariness, the dancing and crowd and energy and hum. All of it fogging my ears. I shook my head again, slowly, felt my face dragging into a frown. “A … son?” I said, staring at her through the fog and hum. “But you … are …”

  I could not see what she was telling me. So blind I was, so confused, I did not understand how a person could be a son and then later a woman with a woman’s heart. I imagined some magic, some strange desert secret we did not know. Transformation.

  Aniv put her hands to her chest, her flat chest. She smoothed her thin robe against herself until it was clear the layers hid no breasts at all—I did remember thinking about that before.

  She slid her hands lower, but when they reached her belly I swallowed a sharp pang of panic and fell away, turning. I stumbled a few feet back, caught my breath, and felt myself humming, deep in my throat.

  The desert hummed, too.

  Not magically different, that was not what she was telling me. He was telling me. Dinah Aniv was a man, only pretending to be a woman now.

  My lips buzzed. I bit them back. They were soft, damp. Hot from her. Him. I didn’t know. I glanced back to see Dinah Aniv standing exactly where I’d left her, watching me. Dinah Aniv as she always seemed. Herself.

  Lying.

  #theme! World, politics, romance, war, bombs, all about the same damn thing.

  The word pounded through my thoughts, and I walked away.

  • • •

  I slept. I did not expect to.

  • • •

  I woke angry.

  Still in my uniform with the medals and rank pieces. I tore them off, tossed them onto the foot of the cot.

  In An Riel we are taught we are not as good as women, we are not so important. We are expendable most of the time, generally less good at thinking, too likely to be caught up in our emotions, especially aggressive ones like anger and the protective instinct.

  We are supposed to love women; we are supposed to respect them. We are not supposed to be them. It does not happen in An Riel. Outrageous. I had never heard of such a thing. Surely if a man felt he should have been born a woman, he must ignore it; he must swallow it. You are your body, I told myself, flexing my hands. It is your vessel, your weapon, your canvas and home. Your bones, your flesh, your beating heart—those things are what make you.

  We give our bodies to the ocean when we die because our bodies are the material essence of our spirits.

  This is world building as much as characterization: it was Rafel’s world that taught him to believe these things. He was raised this way, and gender roles are insidious.

  There are women who do not bleed, who cannot be the roots of a family. Not-quite women, but nearly, and we speak little of them if we can help it. And there are women true born who choose not to marry, to rule. They live like youngest sons. Little power, little influence. Of course you can always choose to be less than you are.

  But it is offensive to reach above yourself. From man toward woman.

  I could not even think what might happen to Aniv if she went to An Riel and this secret was revealed. Some old punishment we’d long given up for being too cruel, like being stoned to death or drowned in a sack, bound and weighted to the bottom of the sea so your bones would always be near the great whales, but never part of their song.

  She and I were done.

  I know now that was the thing angering me most; we were over, and we had never even begun.

  What I hope is that when readers read this section they realize that I’ve been telling them (Rafel’s been telling them) about Aniv’s “secret” since the very first page. Whether readers guessed or not, saw it coming or not, I want them to look back over the first part of the story and be amazed that it was all there, woven in through the world building, so that if it’s a surprise it’s a good one, and if it’s not a surprise, it feels like it was meant to be.

  The worst part, I told myself in my tent, shoulders heaving with emotions, was that it was hypocrisy that had led me there. An Riel’s, and the star clans’, and Aniv’s, and mine.

  We were all hypocrites in the desert.

  #theme! This line came with that very first line of Rafel’s, “I thought I understood hypocrisy.” And I wrote it down, waiting for the right moment.

  • • •

  She was waiting outside my tent with tea and a small box of breakfast. Calm, gloves on her hands. “You must have questions, Rafel.”

  “Dinah,” I murmured, accepting her offerings and allowing her inside. Withdrawing into politeness. It is what I do when I am angry at my mother too.

  The space of my tent was limited but ordered and simple: cot, open crate with folded clothes and my few belongings. It was difficult in the small space not to meet her gaze, though she helped by taking a blanket from the cot, spreading it on the rug, and setting out a picnic. She knelt there, her striped robe subdu
ed in the dim sunlight that managed to filter through the canvas.

  When she finished, she looked up at me. “Ask.”

  I towered over her, jacket undone, barefoot, hands hanging uselessly. And I stared down. She looked the same. Was the same. No particular hint of maleness—though her hands had always been long, as large as mine. She lacked all the outward signs I had, for example: the rough shape of my face, wide, square shoulders, muscles everywhere. A man was strong on the outside. Women were strong inside, their greatest muscles being their hearts and wombs.

  That is what we believe in An Riel.

  I opened my mouth and then only asked, “Why?”

  She nodded. “Because women do magic in the star clans. Our gods gave that gift to me, and so to use it, I must be a woman.”

  “But doesn’t everyone in your clan know?”

  “I believe so.”

  “So it is a collective lie. An illusion you all … perpetrate among yourselves.”

  “It is not a lie. I have magic in me, and only a woman has magic. So, I am a woman, despite my body.” She said the last firmly.

  “Your body makes you a man.”

  “My magic makes me a woman.”

  “I have magic,” I said, too loud.

  So many of our problems come from using the same word to talk about different things, or using different words to talk about the same things. Language is all signs and symbols; it’s messy and flawed just like us. I wanted to bring that in here because gender and sexuality, and war, are things I think we have a nearly impossible time discussing. We think we understand it, until we suddenly don’t. Add in religion and, well.

  My world building and stories try to ask questions. I don’t always (ever) have all the answers.

  Aniv stripped off her silk gloves. She rubbed her hands on the robes over her thighs as if nervous, sweating. “You sense magic, Rafel; you do not use it. You could not without being a woman.”

  “Your gods made a mistake then, didn’t they?”

  Her glance was cutting.

  I said, “Either they make mistakes or they are fools. To do it accidentally.” I would argue until the horizon, I so badly wished for this not to be true.

  She touched her fingers lightly together. “Maybe the god of shapes and the god of the desert song did not speak to each other when forming me. One thought to shape a man, the other gave me a woman’s gift. Should we be so rude as to point this out to them? I am a woman because I respect myself, and the desert song, and the gods and my clan.”

  “It’s not natural,” I said. “You say it’s respectful toward your gods, but it is not respectful toward actual women. You are pretending to be what you are not.”

  “I am a woman,” she said again, as if sheer stubbornness was enough. “Because of what is inside me.”

  “Inside you?” I held myself taut, else I would pace jaggedly, I would walk circles around her, or tear my tent to the desert ground. “How can you know what it is to have a woman’s insides when you do not have a woman’s muscles? You cannot know a woman’s strength any better than I can, cannot know the pain of carrying death inside you, you cannot know those things than make women women. If you bled as they do, you would weaken and die.”

  She unfolded herself from the rug, standing nearly as tall as me. “I know because I grew up among them. I lived as a girl with other girls and women. I learned, I lived, I understand. I am a woman, Rafel Sal AnLenia. My spirit and my life tell me so. You may ask questions, but stop arguing with me—I know you cannot understand, but you will not tell me I am wrong.”

  I could not have written this argument or story if I hadn’t studied gender studies and feminism in college and grad school. That’s where research comes in, or life experience. Familiarity with the political and cultural discourses of the themes you’re engaging with.

  The strength in her voice immediately cowed me—as would my mother’s or aunt’s or the Queen herself.

  Rafel is still subject to his world building and characterization. He MUST act in-character until I show through story that his character is changing.

  I went silent. Staring at her, brow pinched so hard a headache began behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw against the desert hum. I tried to see the man. Him. Tried to see him standing before me.

  I could not. I only saw her, even imagining the shadow of a beard on her jaw, or slicing off all her hair—none of it changed how my eyes would look at her. “Don’t you feel a man’s … urges?” I finally said, quietly.

  She nearly smirked. “I feel many urges, pacer. Sometimes I want to touch a woman, yes, which must be what you mean. But mostly I desire what my sisters and girlfriends and cousins taught me during my life with them. What my spirit desires. What many women desire: a finely shaped man.” Aniv’s gaze then traveled down and back up my body, making her point clear.

  My stomach twisted in its heat—it made me tight and hot all over. For a moment I didn’t care at all, I just wanted her to trace my body’s pathways with her reading lips.

  And it hurt. That hurt exploded like rage. I could not have what I wanted, and so I said, “You can’t make a family with those desires. What good is a woman who cannot be the root of a family?”

  She drew up her chin and proudly said, “You mean I cannot make a family with you.”

  I whispered, harsh and final, “My family would never welcome a star clan refugee like you.”

  I hope my world building has been good enough that readers know Rafel is wrong about this. And I hope my characterization has been good enough that readers know Rafel doesn’t truly believe it.

  That’s why world building matters so much: the emotional epiphanies and breakdowns, the crises of character that drive the emotional engagement for readers will be believable only if the world is believable. (And characterization too, of course.) You do your building work up front and the payoff hopefully happens, comes together in the end.

  Aniv tilted her head away, the slash of her mouth bitter and, I think, disappointed in me. With no further looks or talking, she left.

  I sank to a crouch on the rug, thrusting the food and tea away in a mess. I put my face in my hands, and I tried not to cry.

  The hum the hum the hum, I thought.

  • • •

  It shames me now, that I was so afraid. Aniv was what I wanted, but not all of what I wanted: I had dreamed all those dreams, and they were shattered.

  An Riel, the clans, me: we were all culpable. But Aniv only followed her magic where her family, her people, told her she must go.

  An Riel used the Sweet for battleground, used it and left it full of deadly flowers. Worse: we returned under the guise of helping, as if we cared, but it was political; it was because we did not want dying, angry star clans fleeing into our country. We did not want the consequences of our war. But we pretended it was charity, kindness.

  The star clans believe only women can do magic, and so when a boy was born magical, they twisted him into something he was not.

  And I let myself fall, knowing it was unprofessional and distracting to even think of the Dinah, knowing I should clamp down on my wants. I disregarded the rules and reality, and I never looked away from her.

  It was my fault.

  Not Aniv’s. The woman—the man—I loved had done nothing wrong.

  That is what I decided, cowering on the rug in my tent.

  All of this was here, but in a totally different order. I rearranged it about sixteen times trying to find the right order of information, the right progression of thought. The right way to remind readers what the world is and what the Major Themes Are. Especially as far as Rafel is concerned.

  But I had to get dressed and make a choice. A second son does not wallow and break; he holds onto the pieces, even if they are sharp and cut his hands. He acts. He steps forward.

  I had to choose a direction.

  I dressed again in the metal-free pacer’s uniform with its little ties and lack of grommets. I pulled my hair into
a tail; I washed up. I didn’t eat, though. Only drank the dregs of spilled tea.

  Hollow and stiff, I went to the star clan camp, directly to her tent, which I could easily find since yesterday. Smiling refugees practically pointed the way.

  I paused at the folded-open flap of her bright sky-blue tent and said, “Dinah.”

  Her title. Not her name. Not the intimacy of her name. (GOD, NAMES ARE SO IMPORTANT.)

  She emerged from the shadows with the end of her braid in her hand, wiping tears off her cheek with the soft hair.

  It nearly broke my resolve.

  She stared at me in raw surprise, and I suddenly saw it: the boy she’d been.

  Lanky and tall, with large, soft hands and simple, thick braids, a long nose and thin lips, big black eyes, desert skin, solid shoulders and a tapering waist, with no hips under the simple dark robe like a man might wear to drink morning coffee by the sea.

  He might have been a friend or comrade, my younger, paler brother if I had one.

  Then the young man licked his lips, tentatively, and she was Aniv again, and I was thinking of her tongue on the smooth ceramic surface of a flower bomb.

  Once again: bringing it back to magical bombs—connecting Rafel’s sexuality, and his experience and needs here in the desert, to the flower mines. Beautiful/terrible. Secretive/explosive.

  “Aniv,” I said softly. “May I say something to you I should have said a long time ago?”

  Now her name. He’s removing a shield of politeness and distance. Taking a deliberate step nearer.

  “Yes,” she replied, letting her braid drop to her knees.

  I bowed smartly and put my knuckles to my lips in salute. “I cannot be your pacer. I go from here to my commander, to request a transfer.”