The ones he’d probably spent all that time arranging just for this moment. Just so Elim wouldn’t make a scene.
Well, they were fixing to have front-row seats to a spectacular backfire.
“And it’s all about you, isn’t it?” Sil retorted, provoking an anxious toss of Molly’s head as he squared up to Elim in front of her. “What you did. What you want. What your family wants. Well, think of mine for a minute, will you? What are Will and Nillie supposed to think when I lock myself in my room every day at sunset? God, that glorified broom-closet doesn’t even HAVE a lock – and what do you think’s going to happen when one of them walks in on me? How are they supposed to un-see that? What am I going to say?”
Elim was ashamed to admit that he hadn’t actually thought about it. “They’re – they won’t think any less of you, Sil. They love you –”
“I KNOW that!” Sil snapped – and then seemed to remember himself. “I know they do,” he amended. “That’s why I’m not going to put them through that. Look, we both know I never fit in there anyhow. It was only a matter of time before I lit out on my own, and... you know, and there’s no time like the present.”
He offered the letter. Elim couldn’t bring himself to take it. After all of that, losing Sil and finding him and losing and finding him again, and now to have to give him up here in the home stretch...
Elim put his hand on Molly’s shoulder, grounding himself in the ordinary world. “Sil, buddy... are you sure about this? It’s all just happened awfully fast, and if you just went and gave it a try, you might...”
Elim stopped of his own accord, finding no hesitation, not so much as a flicker of doubt in his partner’s eyes.
But there was no more anger there either, and Sil’s tone was as neighborly as it ever got as he nodded back towards Fours’ barn. “You got to make your choice, Elim, and I never said a word to sway you. Let me have that too.”
Elim let out a slow, defeated breath. It was one thing to know that somebody was going to be disappointed no matter what you did. A whole different animal to actually have to do the disappointing.
And the bridge was down, and the witnesses were waiting – Día and the Azahi and the lady-sheriff and the rest. Waiting to get on with their lives. Waiting to work Sil into their hodgepodge town, find a place for him somewhere among all this clashing patchwork of earth and life.
“... all right,” Elim said at last. “All right, sure. But if they ask about you – if they make me come back after you...”
Sil gave him a half-smile, and the letter. “You know where to find me.”
Elim hoped that was true. He thought he could just about stand it, if it were. For now, all they had left between them was a promise and a cold, hearty handshake.
“Take care of yourself, Slim,” Elim said. “I expect I’ll see you around.”
And if that might not happen anytime soon, well... Sil might be around for a good long while yet.
Maybe he thought the same thing. He nodded back at the bridge, as easily as if they were only going to split up to cover more ground – as if this weren’t the end of a partnership. “Go home, Elim. Your supper’s getting cold.”
And that was how they parted ways: Sil staying on to make something of himself in the new world, and Elim going back to try and fit himself back into the old one. It was an amiable parting. Probably the best either of them could have hoped for. But as every calm, wooden clop of Molly’s hooves brought Elim that much closer to the end of the bridge, and the beginning of the dry autumn savannah on the other side, it seemed a shame that neither of them could afford to look back.
THERE WASN’T MUCH consoling U’ru after that – and Shea knew better than to try and abridge her sadness. Her last child had left her, taking her hopes for the future with him, and there was no prescribed mourning for a thing like that.
So she did what she could, copying U’ru’s colors in amphibious sympathy, and letting herself be clutched and cried-on in mammalian grief.
Honestly, Shea felt a bit leaky herself. She had expected the boy to resist his mother’s pleading, at least at first. She hadn’t expected him not to hear it at all. And to watch U’ru’s last thread of life ride off without her, realizing that he could be shot or lynched or killed falling off his horse – to know that he could die at literally any random moment, and let him go anyway...
Well, apparently that was what mothers did. But Shea wasn’t his mother, and she didn’t have to like it.
Still, as morning gave way to afternoon, and U’ru’s sobbing yielded to a quieter reflection, Shea prevailed upon her to take a walk, and begin reacquainting herself with her holy land. For now, the Dog Lady was still here, still alive – and she had work to do. She had decades’ worth of discoveries to catch up on, a woman of the Maia to find, and gods willing, a drought to end.
None of which interested her terribly much just then.
But he will come back, U’ru said, unquenchably thirsty for assurance on this point.
Of course, Shea answered, and even managed to believe it. Don’t fret, Mother. His mind is full of his other family right now, but they’re only human. Their lives are already growing short, and his will be long indeed. Give him time, and when they’re gone, he’ll want to fill that hole in his heart again. He’ll want to find you again, and to learn who he is.
It was lovely to feel that flowering of hope in U’ru’s mind – and to walk down Morning Snake Street savoring the sounds and smells of another cool October morning in Island Town. Yes. Yes, of course he will. But will they take care of him? Do you think he’ll choose a good wife? What if she doesn’t...
U’ru trailed off, her senses aroused – half a second before Shea almost slammed into someone coming up Yellow Road.
She squinted up at the newcomer like a dazzled mole, a sharp remark springing instantly to mind...
... and just as quickly squelched when she saw that kinky-haired, behatted human shape.
“Good afternoon, Second Man,” Shea said with automatic courtesy. “A pleasure to find you here. Have you had the pleasure of our great lady U’ru’s acquaintance?”
By the look on Twoblood’s face, she had not. In fact, she looked as fearful as a deer caught foraging in someone’s garden, her posture as wire-tight as if she would bolt on the spot.
But Shea had no such explanation for the Dog Lady’s sudden surge of interest.
Puppy? U’ru ventured, her plump face alive with curiosity. Do you know me?
Shea took a step back to regard the two of them simultaneously, the Dog Lady’s soft, maternal contours contrasting sharply with the Second Man’s rough work-hardened edges.
And then Twoblood seemed to consider that the game was up. “Ashishii, yema,” she said, her eyes downcast and her voice subdued.
If Shea had had a perch, she would have fallen straight off it. That was Ara-Naure, and the meaning was plain as day: Hello, Mother.
Any restraint U’ru might have had vanished on the spot: she reached forward to cup Twoblood’s face in her hands, nearly knocking off her hat before the freckled woman hurriedly clapped a hand over it, scouring anxiously for curious bystanders.
Who are you from? U’ru asked, transported with delight. Where have you been?
Twoblood perhaps didn’t have enough Ara-Naure to answer that: she replied in Marín, her voice barely above a whisper. “My father was Lovoka – one of the Winter Wolves. He stole my mother from the Ara-Naure. They lived well together. He thought...” She scratched with wild abandon behind her ear, powdering her left shoulder with a fresh dusting of dandruff. “He spent many years believing that I was his.”
Shea sucked her teeth at the implications. An Ara-Naure woman, taken just as she was kindling a white man’s child... a baby born, perhaps a little on the light side, perhaps kept out of the sun... perhaps raised as both Lovoka and Ara-Naure. Father Wolf’s apostates, and Grandfather Crow’s proxies. The warriors of the North, and the peacemakers of the West. Could it be?
<
br /> U’ru all but knocked Twoblood to the ground in her eagerness to find out. Is she living? Are there more? Please, will you tell me?
Twoblood ran her tongue over her fangs, and apparently decided that she was more reluctant to disappoint the Dog Lady than she was to feed the curiosity of her neighbors. “... yes, Mother. I would be pleased to walk with you.”
Shea fell in step behind them, at a respectful remove. And as they continued on their way up the road, it occurred to her that U’ru’s proclamation might yet come true. One way or another, the Ara-Naure had brought forth a child of two worlds – albeit perhaps not the two that the great lady had been thinking of – and Shea couldn’t begin to imagine what their union might hold.
BUT IN SPITE of everything he’d said, Sil didn’t rush into any new ventures. He waited a week, until he was absolutely sure that Elim would have made it home – until he was confident that that part of the bargain was truly complete.
And when Sil found himself still alive, or at least still endlessly, sleeplessly present, he set about assembling a new mode of living.
That was what found him there in the farthest back reaches of La Saciadería’s ornate corridors, occupying the single undecorated chair at the end of the hallway. He’d fitted himself with new clothes, thanks to Fours’ generous inventory – a little old, a little out of fashion, but it was a start.
Sil had no money of his own left: he hadn’t been able to find the exact pearls that Faro had absconded with, but helped himself to an equivalent weight from the fop’s private holdings, and left the rest for Shea’s disposal. He had already outraged Mother Opéra by helping to depose her golden-curled favorite – he didn’t need to make it worse by stealing from her too.
But during the long, quiet hours of night, Sil liked to imagine the look on Elim’s face when he found the surprise in that saddlebag – when he returned Boss Calvert eleven exquisite freshwater pearls in payment for eleven yearling horses, and told the story of how Sil Halfwick had brokered the deal. Someday, Sil would go back and see what manner of reputation had grown up around his name in Hell’s Acre. He would love to know what they said of him now.
“Master Halfwick?”
Sil looked up as one of the young ladies of the house emerged from the opening door – her pink evening finery swapped out for a plain, sensible house-dress here during the daylight hours. Inside, he could just glimpse a richly-appointed office, and smell a hint of herbal smoke.
“Miss Addie will see you now. What business do you have with her?”
Sil stood, hat in hand, to express his gratitude as she held the door for him. “Ah, thank you. I understand that she’s recently found herself in need of a clerk…”
Yes, it was a bit brash, putting himself forward to fill a position whose last occupant Sil had conspired to have dragged kicking and strangling out the front door of this very house... but if Sil’s own turn in the noose was any indication, the madam seemed to appreciate a good show of initiative.
Regardless, Sil had made an extravagant wish, one whose fulfillment promised to cost him dearly. He meant not to waste that – to take ownership of what he had bargained for, no matter how long it took, or how winding and humble the path.
For now, it was time to start making good on the debt.
IT WAS JUST a plum.
That much was obvious. It was over a week old now, and its firm red-orange flesh was beginning to soften.
Día lay on her side in her small, spare sacristy bed and watched the aging fruit, waiting less for a miracle than for enough willpower to do literally anything else.
The sacristy was never meant to be used for anyone’s living quarters, of course. It was intended as nothing more than a holy supply closet. But she’d long ago filled the shelves with her books and crafts and instruments and collections, and discovered that if she made a roll-up mattress out of some old blankets, the floor was exactly large enough for her to comfortably lie down.
It still was. Despite those horribly silly things she’d said to Elim, Día did still fit here. In this little repurposed room, everything was as snug and orderly as ever. It was just the rest of it, the world outside that old scorched doorframe, that seemed to have lost all sense of proportion.
Día really ought to go out and rejoin it. It was nearly noon – no time of day for any able-bodied person to be lying in bed.
But as soon as she stepped outside, she would have to be someone. She would have to represent someone. People would see her as the Azahi’s ambassador, the Dog Lady’s acolyte, a grave bride for the ‘Starving’ God … and her behavior would reflect on them. Worse than that – their behavior would reflect on her. Their cruelties, their negligence, their cosmic injustices… by heaven, how could she have been so naïve?
And yet…
The plum stared at her, interrogating her with its baleful brown age spot.
And yet there were still things to believe in. Somewhere out in the desert, a tree was fruiting in open defiance of the season and the drought. Somewhere in a wounded man’s mind was a living goddess, a chance to bring back the rains. And right here on this very island, an old dream was coming back to life.
Weisei had called the Dog Lady’s plan an act of rebellion. Miss du Chenne had treated it as a calculated maneuver. But Día saw an endless, hopeful idealism in it now – one perhaps easier to recognize because it had so recently departed her own tender heart. To believe that the world could be mended with lust and joy and babies – to fling open the doors of a whole culture and welcome all comers – to smash every pedigree, hazard every happiness on the altar of hope and futurity and free hybrid vigor… whatever had happened afterwards, it was a dream born from love and audacity.
And now it had been rekindled in Island Town, flawed and ugly and imperfect as it was. Now Día could help it live again… if she wanted to.
She huddled down deeper under the thin wool blanket, acutely aware of her naked body, her barren head. She’d have to dress them eventually, make herself presentable. But she had nothing to wear but her cassock, and wrapping herself back in the trappings of her old life, her old self, would be perpetrating a monstrous fraud.
She thought of Winshin, all but exposing Día as a shameful pretender to her profession. She thought of Elim, and her badly-worded wish to go east into Eaden, find other Afriti, other Penitent scholars – someone to share kinship with, in body or mind or both. She thought of Weisei, whose kin had brought him the deepest grief.
Día hoped he’d read her letter. She desperately wanted to see him again.
In the end, her only certainty was the plum sitting there on the shelf. It was ripening and so was she, and neither of them would be any good if they were left lying in this little room to rot.
So Día got up and ate it as she dressed, every sweet, overripe bite a balm for a nervous appetite. Her shift needed washing, and her cassock needed mending, and the golden sun-wheel pendant she’d always worn around her neck had somehow found its way into her pocket instead, and none of them suited her quite as well as they had before.
Still, they would serve the purpose at least long enough for her to go out walking in the fresh autumn sunlight, and buy herself a dress.
EPILOGUE
THE TRIP HOME was a conspicuously quiet one. Not that Elim minded having a few peaceful days in the saddle to get his mind right about things. Still, it was strange to have no herd, no partner, no friends or fellow-travelers or posse of any kind.
Well, nobody except Molly, of course.
But she was good about listening to him as he tried to account for everything he’d seen and done and found out about, and to decide what he ought to say about it... or whether he ought to say anything at all.
He still hadn’t settled that by the time she started picking up her pace. Elim didn’t need to guide her along the back roads of Hell’s Acre’s dusty flats, but his heart quickened in tandem with hers as they passed every landmark in turn: the tidy little Clinkscale farm, the old aban
doned Sugden place, the vast Hatpenny holdings, their furthest fields already gleaned and left lying fallow for next year, and then – Elim’s stomach knotting at the sight of it – the weathered white walls of their own unmistakable home.
In the end, it was only that dreadful letter in Elim’s pocket that kept him from pressing Molly to a gallop, and the same thought that had haunted him all the way back from Sixes: he was carrying both the Calverts’ happiness and the Halfwicks’ pain, and there was no delivering one without the other.
But he slowed to a full stop at the first sight of that distant, solitary figure in his periphery. There in the west pasture, visible as a black silhouette against the sinking red sun, a man with hat and shovel paused in his work, and Elim felt the guilty lance in his heart. That was hiswork. Boss was having to pick up his slack.
And just as Elim went to call out to him, the figure pointed to the house, his long shadow spilling endlessly out over the fields. Elim needed no other instruction.
So he rode up to the porch, his heart spasming like a sleep-barking dog as he ground-tied Molly outside, took the steps up two at a time, and pulled open the whitewashed door, simultaneously elated and terrified to discover what had happened in his absence – to discover which one of his ten thousand what-ifs would be made real as soon as he stepped inside.
She was lying slumped over the kitchen table in her usual seat. She had her head pillowed in the sleeve of her worn blue calico dress, her silver-threaded auburn hair pulled a little loose from its pins. Her hands were still dusted with flour, as if she’d been working the biscuit there by the sink and only stopped to rest – as if she’d gone on without him as long as she possibly could, and had just that very moment given up waiting.
Elim held his breath. She stirred at his first tentative footsteps and looked up blearily, squinting, blinking, her face opening like a weathered flower in the dust-gleaming light. “... Elim?”
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