by L-J Baker
Flora settled with her head pillowed more comfortably against Rye’s naked shoulder. “That dinner was yummy. I’d never thought of food as foreplay before you. What time do you have to be back?”
“Holly said that her friend’s mum would drop her home at ten-thirty,” Rye said.
Flora smiled and clamped a possessive hand on Rye’s ribs. “Another two whole hours with you. I could get used to you being here.”
“You seem much better. That course of sap is really working, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes. Hormones dampened to manageable levels. I’ve been able to concentrate on work again. I’ve almost completed my weaving about us. This is going to sound immodest, but I’m astonished at the way it’s coming out.”
“Can I see?”
Flora led Rye into her workroom. Rye frowned at the abstract pattern of colours and shapes.
“You’re going to think this is weird,” Flora said, “but sometimes when I look at this, I’m surprised that I created it. I think it’s part of that white fire creativity. It comes out without my conscious input. So, when I take a step back to look at it, it’s as if I’m seeing it for the first time. What do you think?”
“What’s that green bit?”
Flora looked like she was going to say something pithy but changed her mind. “I told you that this is about my feelings for you? Well, this is your wing.”
“Oh. Right. And that blobby purple thing?”
“Your bum.”
Rye grinned. “I asked for that, didn’t I?”
“Walked right into it.”
Rye put her arms around Flora. “I like it. Really. I can’t pretend that I understand it. And I couldn’t tell you why I like it. I just do. I’m only a builder’s labourer. Not some high-flying arty farty type. But I love you. And admire what you do.”
“And it’s a good job I love you, or I’d have to jab you with a loom needle every time you said ‘arty farty’.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes!”
Flora lunged for her loom, but Rye grabbed her before she grasped the wooden needle. Flora struggled. Rye hoisted her up on her shoulder and carried her to the lounge. She dropped Flora onto one of the sofas and lay down on top of her. Flora’s continuing wriggles had nothing to do with trying to free herself.
After sex, Rye fetched wine. She eased herself down beside Flora on the sofa. They shared a glass. Rye gently stroked Flora’s hair. She wished that Flora had not bought her those expensive gifts. No matter what Flora said, Rye knew that she owed her. She had been unable to repay a debt once before, and she wasn’t going to let herself fall into that position ever again. No one was ever going to own her. She didn’t earn much and those knives were wickedly expensive, but one day she would pay Flora back.
“What are you thinking?” Flora asked.
“How beautiful you are.”
Flora smiled and eased around so that she half-lay on Rye’s side. Her fingertips lazily traced abstract doodles across Rye’s skin. “Who was your first girlfriend?”
“What do you mean? To have sex with?”
“No. The first girl you fell in love with. You see, I’m feeling secure enough in our relationship to pry into your past.”
“You’re my first love.”
Flora lifted her head to stare incredulously at Rye. “You’re joking?”
“No. What about you? Your mother said you had lots of girlfriends.”
“My mother has a tendency to exaggerate for dramatic effect. You might have heard that, too.” Flora kissed between Rye’s breasts. “How about crushes, then? You must’ve had crushes before me.”
“Um.” Rye stroked Flora’s arm. She felt so comfortable, so safe. “Temperance. She was how I realised that I liked girls. She was a cousin. We all lived together, you see. My mother, my aunts, cousins, and their kids. Well, not all the kids. The boys got sent to the men’s compound when they were seven. But the girls grew up together with the women. All of us on the commune farm.”
Flora frowned but didn’t interrupt.
“The women got pregnant and had babies, of course,” Rye said. “But I didn’t know anything about sex. I don’t think any of us girls did.
It was never talked about. The priestesses said it was what the gods made us women for. And women who had lots of children became the matriarchs. But I had no clue how they got pregnant.”
Rye put both her hands on Flora’s solid warmth as if to anchor herself against the past.
“Temperance was just a little older than me. Which meant we ended up doing lots of chores and stuff together. All of a sudden, it seemed, she became very pretty. I wanted to be with her. I started doing stupid stuff like spending all my free time helping her weed and dig her mother’s garden, which didn’t please my mother. But I so wanted to be with Temperance that it was worth having my mother mad at me.”
“How old were you?”
“Um. It was three years before I got my wings. I suppose that would’ve made me about fourteen or fifteen. Temperance got her wings young. She persuaded one of the blokes to get permission to leave the commune, and they went together to live in a city. I doubt she gave me another thought.”
“I’m sorry.”
Rye shrugged. “It was probably better that she left, or the priestess might’ve put her on penance, too.”
Flora frowned. “Penance?”
Rye reached for the glass of wine and drained it.
“I didn’t know what was happening with me and Temperance,” Rye said. “My mother guessed. One day I was taken off normal chores and put with the kitchen women. None of them were young and pretty. I think the idea was that I’d be safe away from the temptation of girls my own age. Not that I knew that the feelings I had for Temperance might apply to some other girl. Or that they were evil.”
“Evil?” Flora said.
“Oh, yeah. The gods made us to have babies. Sex is for having babies, not for fun. So, two girls are acting against the will of the gods by tinkering with each other. Two blokes, too, I suppose, but I never had much to do with the men’s compound.”
“Oh, Holy Elm. I knew it was bad, but that’s… that’s incredible.”
Rye shrugged. “You ought to have seen the priestess when I told her that I’d seen two women touching each other and that’s what I’d wanted to do with Temperance.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“I was ignorant, not guilty. I had to be cured before I did more than just think about it. I was given extra chores and prayers to recite as I worked. Most days I’d be so tired that I’d fall asleep. Which would earn me a few strokes of the stick. And I’d have to fast for days, to help purge the evil out of me. Not that it worked. Obviously.”
Flora clasped Rye’s hand. “Oh, Holy Elm. That’s barbaric.”
Rye shrugged. “Did you really like the way I did those mint roots? You didn’t think they were too salty?”
Flora opened her mouth and closed it again. She took a deep breath before accepting the change of topic. Rye loved her all the more for it and felt justified in risking telling Flora what she had not divulged to anyone else.
Rye tapped on Holly’s bedroom door. “Holls?”
Holly did not answer. Rye frowned. Holly had said that her friend’s mother would drop her home by ten thirty.
Rye pushed open the door. Holly’s room was a chaos of clothes and magazines. Rye picked her way to the desk. She set down the stack of booklets and forms that Flora had given her. Holly should be pleased to get them. If she could get a scholarship, that would not only save Rye a lot of money, but it would make for a fantastic start to her career.
Rye surveyed the mess and sighed. If this was how Holly wished to live, that was her business. Rye sniffed and frowned. That oddly sweet smell could not be what she thought it was. It must be something lingering on one of the bits of clothing from the Goodcause Charity Shop. Some of that second-hand stuff smelled very funny.
Rye stepped over the discarded clothes an
d shoes. She paused at the door. The smell was stronger here. Not the second-hand shop.
Rye stood chewing her lip. If she rummaged through Holly’s things, that would be a violation of Holly’s privacy. But if Holly was smoking dreamweed, then she had shattered their trust anyway. And violated a lot more than her right to privacy.
“Crap.”
If Holly got caught with drugs, that would involve the police. That wouldn’t be just a minor misdemeanour and slap on the hands. The police would find out that Holly Woods was not a legal citizen. And neither was her sister. The next step would be deportation.
Rye knelt and found a top which reeked of dreamweed smoke. She slumped on the floor. “Shit. What did I do wrong?”
How long had it been going on? Right under her nose. And how could the kid afford it? Dreamweed was easily available around here – you could probably buy the stuff in every second apartment in this tree – but it would cost.
“No, she wouldn’t.”
Rye scrambled to her feet and strode into the lounge. She tugged out the loose knot and pulled out her savings. Rye counted it. Every piece was there. Holly must be spending her wages from Cloudnut’s on it.
“What am I going to do?”
When Holly came home at ten fifty, she didn’t exude the telltale smell of dreamweed nor act out of the ordinary. Rye decided not to act hastily, much as she’d like to grab her and shake some sense into her.
“Fey!” Holly ran out of her bedroom. She brandished the stack of papers Rye had left on her desk. “Did you put these in my room?”
“Flora got them for you.”
Holly dropped onto a chair at the kitchen table and started leafing through the forms and brochures. “This is utterly, completely, totally, and wholly astronomical. Mind melting. Brain bruising.”
Rye smiled. Okay, Holly had definitely not lost interest in her career plans. That was a good sign.
“Oh, look.” Holly’s eyes widened as she lifted out a set of pink forms. “The Borage-Twilight Scholarship. Not in this lifetime!”
“Something wrong?” Rye asked.
“Me? Holly Woods, applying for a Borage-Twilight? They only give one a year in the whole country. And then they don’t award one every year unless they find someone who’s so astronomically good that they leave a trail of brilliance behind them wherever they walk.”
“There’s no harm in applying is there?”
“Do you want to see me rejected?”
“You won’t get it if you don’t apply,” Rye said. “Does it cost anything to send the forms in?”
Holly levelled a disgusted look at Rye over some blue papers.
“You have no idea, do you?”
“No,” Rye conceded.
Rye watched Holly avidly reading.
“Holls? If there were something wrong,” Rye said, “something at school or anything. You could talk to me about it, you know.”
Holly grunted. “Photographs or copies, not original artwork. How am I going to arrange that?”
“Holls? Did you hear me?”
“Yeah. Talk to you, blah, blah. Urgh. Write an essay on what I would do with the scholarship if I won it? That reeks! It’s not as though I want them to give me money because I think I’m wonderful at writing.”
Rye decided not to press the matter of her discovery. The last thing she wanted to do was handle this wrongly.
At work the next day, Rye found herself eyeing the blokes and wondering how many of their kids were playing around with booze and drugs. She’d heard Blackie tell how his missus sent their children to the pub to fetch him back. He boasted how his son was strong enough to help him home when he got legless. So, he wasn’t her best source of parental advice.
Through the haze of bubbling fat at Pansy’s Fried Sandwiches, Rye watched the customers waiting at the counter. Some looked as young as Holly. The girls wore a lot of makeup and tried to look much older than they were. Some were clearly drunk. Some looked brain fried from smoking, snorting, slurping, or scamming. Rye wondered if any of their parents knew, or cared.
“Here we go.” Mr. Nuttal set a tray of cake and tea on the workbench.
Rye accepted a mug of tea and a slice of cake with alarming blue-green icing. “Thanks.”
“Now, I’m not the sort of fellow to pry,” Mr. Nuttal said, “but you don’t seem your usual self today. Trouble in love?”
“What? Oh. No. Nothing like that.” Rye broke off a bit of cake and frowned at the crumbs. “Your son ever get a bit wild when he was a teenager?”
“Hop? He crashed his new broom once. And got arrested for being drunk at a music concert.” Mr. Nuttal smiled as he shrugged. “Usual stuff. Boys being boys, you know. You having problems with that sister of yours?”
Rye forced herself to eat another bite of dry, sweet cake. “It’s not too bad. Experimenting with drugs. Just soft stuff. Dreamweed.”
Mr. Nuttal nodded. “I caught our Hop with some of that once. Kept it with his girlie magazines at the bottom of his wardrobe. Luckily, Mrs. Nuttal didn’t know what it was. She was more distressed about the magazines.”
Rye frowned at him. “What did you do about it?”
“Had a word with him. When Mrs. Nuttal wasn’t around, of course. Man to man.”
“What did you say?”
Mr. Nuttal stroked his scalp ridges. “I think I asked him what he thought he was doing. If he’d considered the long-term effects. What it might do to the rest of his life. The risks involved, with the police and whatnot. It seemed to work with him. Not that I’m sure it’s the best way. These days they have all sorts of school advisors you can ask to help you out, don’t they? And community counselling where you can get advice.”
Rye chewed her lip as she strode away from the back door of the pot boutique and into the night. Perhaps she should check the library. They carried community information.
She paused to look both ways before crossing the street. Back near the root strip of shops, a distinctively shaped sporty carpet was parked under a street light. Rye strode back and bent to peer in the window. Flora looked pensive and started when Rye tapped on the glass, but she smiled when Rye climbed in and claimed a kiss.
“I nearly walked home,” Rye said. “I came out the back. I didn’t expect you to be here. I’d have washed more thoroughly if I’d known.”
“A little grime won’t kill me. I was on my way home. I needed to see you.”
Rye smiled. She shoved her work bag in the back and snapped the safety harness into place. “You look fabulous. Been out?”
“Uh huh.” Flora steered up into the high, fast lane.
“With someone nice?”
Flora frowned. “My parents. Remember that I had to have lunch with Mother?”
“About us? The bud thing?”
“It mutated into dinner with both of them. Mother getting all diva on me about this is wholly unsurprising. But it’s disconcerting that Daddy isn’t reining her in. If only I’d worn a wretched hat.”
Rye felt acutely conscious of her dirty pants and the stink of sweat she must be giving off. The contrast with Flora all dressed-up and perfectly groomed could not have been greater.
“They’re not going to like me, are they?” Rye said.
Flora patted Rye’s thigh. “Panic not, lover. I would not subject us to a cosy foursome with them for anything in Infinity. Especially not with the way Mother is jabbing on about it all. Sometimes I can scarcely believe that I survived my childhood without needing intensive therapy.”
Rye flicked her frown from Flora’s profile to the way street lamps raced past the carpet. “I think you’re speeding, babe.”
“A traffic ticket would be the perfect end to my night.” Flora throttled back the magic. “I’m nearly thirty-four years old! I have my own life. I’ve lived it quite happily and successfully without their interference for many years. You know, when I was a girl, I used to pray for a sister or brother. Now I thank the Holy Elm and All the Trees of the Sacred Grove
that no other child had to suffer my parents.”
Rye frowned down at her calloused hands in her patched lap. Flora’s rich, snooty parents were going to hate her.
“It was all highly unpleasant,” Flora said, “but I did get my own way in the end.”
“Oh? Good for you. About what?”
“My birthday party. My parents throw a big one every year. It’s not just for me. It’s more like the annual Withe family bash. I won’t know half the people there. They’ll be Daddy’s business friends and people from Mother’s charity committees. It’s normally held at their house. But I didn’t think you’d be the least speck comfortable with that.”
Rye scowled at Flora’s profile. Her, at some big party thrown by Flora’s parents? Shit. Flora couldn’t be serious?
“I suggested that thirty-four was too old for me to still be having my parents throw me a party,” Flora said. “That proved to be as incendiary as I expected. Anyway, to cut a long and ugly story short, they’ve agreed to hold it at the Top of the Poplar restaurant. And I insisted on a buffet. That way Mother can’t make seating plans that will put you right in her firing line.”
Rye scowled out at the night whizzing past. “Oh.”
Flora loosed a grunt of frustration from the back of her throat. She squeezed Rye’s thigh. “I needed to see you. Needed it. Elm. How was your day? How is Holly?”
“Um.” Rye ran a hand through her hair and tried to crawl out of her mental abyss of doom. “She… she was bounced about those scholarship forms. Except she hates having to write essays for them.”
Flora smiled. “I’m sure she’ll do fine. Are you ready for Letty’s dinner?”
“Um. Yeah. No. Maybe. As much as I can be. One of the blokes at work has a brother in the carpet hire business. I can get one cheap for the day. To take the stuff over to Ms. Elmwood’s place.”
“Isn’t it about time you had your own transportation?”
“I’m working on it. Hey! That’s my turning, babe.”
Flora swerved the carpet down into the parking lane and stopped well short of Rye’s tree. She dimmed the interior lights, snapped her safety harness loose, and turned to cling to Rye.
