Flight of the Wounded Falcon

Pere knew it was morning only peripherally, and he was aware that he was lying in the dirt among the trees that ringed the grassy field. Performance arena, he remembered it was called.

  But his eyes refused to open. On his face he felt the odd sensation of cold morning fog and burning sunshine. He was also aware that the tops of his ears hurt, although he couldn’t fathom why.

  He rolled to his side and several rocks jab into his ribs. But trying to sit up was surprisingly difficult, since his head seemed to weigh another twenty pounds.

  “You’re Fogged,” a lazy voice came to him from a nearby tree. “Don’t try to get up too soon or you’ll feel it even more. Just wait, Bucky. Enjoy the haze.”

  Pere tried to open his eyes and managed only a squint.

  Another man, perhaps a couple of years older than him, was propped up against a nearby tree.

  Somewhere behind him, Pere heard the sound of water, and it rushed with annoying loudness. He would have covered his ears to block out the noise, but parts of his body felt unusually numb, except for the tops of his ears which throbbed.

  And his head, which now pounded as if someone were using it as a drum.

  “Good batch of Enhancements last night,” said his companion, who was slowly slumping down the tree but didn’t seem to notice. “Some nights the batches are weak, but last night’s . . . Well, I can see you’re still feeling it too.”

  “Enhancements?” Pere mumbled.

  “The vials, Bucky! Oh, are you new?”

  Pere didn’t appreciate his condescending tone.

  The man, scruffy in both face and clothes, tipped over to a dog-like position and crawled over to Pere. Grabbing his face roughly, he twisted Pere’s head to look at one ear, then the other.

  “Your right ear looks good, but they botched the left pretty bad. That’s probably going to get infected. Shove your head in the river. That always helps. Do it several times a day, till they’re better. Best to try for upstream, but at this time of morning, you’re pretty safe from the others using the river.”

  Pere did his best to focus on his neighbor and saw that the upper ridges of his ears were studded with jagged bits of metal and broken glass.

  The man fingered his own ear. “Had it done last year sometime. It hurts less when you’re in the Fog. The stinging should stop in a few weeks. Looks good, my friend! Trust me, dunk your head. Just over there.”

  Understanding only bits and pieces, but thinking that shoving his head under water sounded pretty good right now, Pere struggled to a similar dog-like position and crawled toward the sound of the water. It was deafening by the time he saw it, a moderately-sized stream, maybe three feet deep.

  Something blocked his path, and he couldn’t figure out how to negotiate it.

  His neighbor called to him, “Just crawl over her. She won’t notice. She was Fogging until early this morning.”

  So it was a body, Pere concluded, and he did his best to crawl up and over the object that felt like a squishy log.

  Dutifully he made his way to the water’s edge and plunged in his head. Almost instantly his ears went numb, matching other parts of his body. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, so he waited patiently until he could make a decision. Or until he felt better—

  Something pulled hard on his neck, dragging him out of the water.

  “Bucky, you nearly drowned yourself! Come back up, before someone else takes our trees.”

  Pere crawled after his companion to the trees and noticed several other bodies in similar conditions of half-awakeness. At the nearest available tree trunk, he fell flat on his face into the dirt and was only vaguely aware that mud was forming in his hair.

  “I’m not Bucky,” he muttered as he tried to determine if his feet were still attached to his legs.

  “I know you’re not Bucky,” the man said, irritated. “It’s just a name. You know, bucked from the house—Bucky. Left the confines of the chicken coop—Cooped. Just a label, Buckers.”

  “There you are!” a piercing voice walked up to him.

  One of his eyes tightened into a cringe and stayed that way. He squinted into the punishing sunlight to see a girl with rumpled light brown hair and a pale face standing over him. His attempt to roll over to his back to try to see her more clearly was stopped by a sharp rock stabbing him in the spine, so she crouched by him instead.

  The first thing Pere noticed was her scent. He’d encountered badgers that stank more pleasantly. Next, he noticed her clothing, or lack thereof. He couldn’t find a safe place to look at her. The thin strips of fabric wrapped around her body were carefully placed in only some areas, and showed considerably wear and dirt, and flesh, in others.

  Shifting his gaze to her eyes, he noticed they were strangely vacant and hard to focus on. Maybe it was all the smeared paint around them, making her look like some kind of bizarre animal.

  “Watch out for her,” his neighbor said idly, but with an edge. “Lolo’s a sow.”

  The girl fell on all fours and hissed at him before shouting, “Shut your mouth!”

  Pere stared at her, once the words stopped echoing in his brain. He’d never heard a human hiss like that.

  “Bucky,” her voice dripped with concern as she ran a finger through his wet hair. He considered that she could have been a pretty girl, but right now she looked . . . bland. And unfamiliar.

  “You were clumsy,” she said in a low and saucy voice, “but I think that was the Fog. Tonight, no Fog. We’ll try it again.”

  “Stay away from her, Cooped!” the lazy voice sounded amused.

  “You leave him alone!” Lolo yelled at him.

  Pere sucked in his breath at the noise so close to his now-throbbing ears.

  “I’ll find you here,” she promised. “There’s no performance tonight, Bucky, so the trees will be less crowded,” and she planted an unexpected kiss on his mouth.

  She must have been mistaken as to who he was. He wanted to set that straight, if only to get her to leave.

  “Pere,” he muttered as he tried to push her away, but his arms were strangely weak.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I am Pere, not Bucky.”

  She made a face as if trying on the name. “Pear? I guess that’s better than Plum.”

  Did she really think that was funny? By the sincerely confused expression on her face, she didn’t. She didn’t look like she could recognize anything as funny. Or interesting. Or intelligent. She just was.

  “I’ll find you tonight, Peary,” she reminded him.

  As she moved to stand up, she squeezed him in a place no female in his memory had ever touched him before, probably since he was a baby in changing cloths.

  Pere froze in shock. Her startling grab released a new memory in his mind, and it was raw, vivid, and nauseating.

  He did know her.

  As she sauntered away, Pere crawled as fast as he could back to the river bank, and retched violently along the edge. The only thought in his mind was, “No, no, no, no, no . . .”

  “That’s it,” called the lazy voice again. “Now you’re doing better.”

  He slumped along the bank, sweating.

  “No, no, no,” he muttered. “I didn’t do that. It wasn’t me. I don’t do that. I wouldn’t do that. No . . .” he whimpered. “No, I did! With her! No!”

  Vomiting into the river not only cleared his belly but also his head, and memories from the night before flooded his mind, albeit in a jumbled mess. Desperate to retrace his steps and regain himself, he reached for his pack—

  Where was the pack?

  Frantically he felt along his body and back, but there was nothing but his torn shirt.

  “I must have dropped it, I must have dropped it,” he mumbled anxiously, looking around. But there was nothing.

  He scrambled back up to his tree, sure it’d be there, waiting for him—

  Nothing. Nothing but dirt and mud and crushed grass.

  His neighbor at
the tree laughed, seemingly at nothing, or maybe at him, crawling around like a terrified dog.

  “You, hey! A pack. Quit laughing and help me! I had a pack. Did you see where it went?”

  The man chuckled and pointed at a butterfly before he responded with, “A bag-like thing? When was the last time you saw it?”

  “Uh,” Pere tried to remember the evening and night of blurred images.

  Dancing, Amory, drinking down those little vials, kissing one girl, bouncing against another, eating something he’d never tasted before, another vial, another girl, drinking something foul that sizzled in his mouth, dirt, that girl Lolo, lying in the dirt with her . . .

  His belly heaved again.

  Nothing made any sense, like someone ripped out all the pages in a book then tried to read them again out of order. “I don’t know when I last had it,” he admitted.

  “Did it have any food in it?”

  “Yeah. Three days’ worth.”

  “Hmm. Any metal slips?”

  “Bunch of slips of silver and gold.”

  “Ooh. Any clothes?”

  Another wave of nausea hit Pere. General Yordin’s first uniform, Mrs. Yordin’s most treasured possession. And his knife. And his list of officers in Sands—

  “Yes!” he nearly wailed.

  The man scoffed as he pushed himself upright against his tree again. “So a bag-like pack full of food, gold, silver, and clothes, and you wonder why you can’t find it?”

  “Yes!”

  “Bucky, it’s been lifted.”

  “Been what?”

  “Lifted. Flied away. Sunk to another existence. Oiled by the carps. Twinked with clasmids.”

  “What?!”

  “Sto-len, Bu-cky!”

  He sagged. Just when he didn’t think he could get any lower, he was handed a shovel.

  “Creet, Bucky, just where are you from? Between Flax and Waves?”

  The phrase sounded familiar. He couldn’t remember why, but it sounded safe. “Yeah, something like that,” he mumbled holding his head as the reality of what happened began to squeeze his brain.

  The man laughed. “So you admit to being an idiot? That’s corn.”

  “How do I get it back?” he whimpered. “I’ve got to get it back! I’ve lost it all—everything. More than everything!”

  “You don’t get it back. It’s gone. Forever. All in one night. Poor Buckers.”

  “Isn’t there . . . law enforcement or something?” He began to sob like a little boy, and he didn’t care. “Someone who can help?”

  “Some villages still have law enforcement, but here there’s only the fort, and the only time they help anyone here is when they’re looking for new recruits. It’s gone, Bucky From Between Flax and Waves. Rooster,” he snapped his fingers, “you are rich.”

  Less than half of what the man said made any sense, but he knew sarcasm when he heard it.

  “No, no, no, no,” Pere mumbled. There was nothing left in his belly to retch, but it tried anyway.

  Then he remembered, and hope stabbed into him like a sliver in his finger. Amory! Maybe she had the pack, and was keeping it safe for him, because she saw that he was compromised during the night.

  “Hey, you again. Stop watching that butterfly for just a moment. I was with a woman earlier yesterday. Blond, green eyes, uh . . .” Pere tried to think what else he remembered of her.

  The man smiled, and it turned into a leer. “Oh yeah. I think I remember her. Whew! She was some piece of experationism, wasn’t she?”

  Pere wished the man would speak with words everyone knew.

  “I didn’t see her after the sun went down,” the man continued. “She took off with a uniform that wandered down here. Some boy looking for a diversion I think.”

  “A uniform?” Pere asked, gall rising in his throat again.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know the rank.”

  “So somebody in a uniform? She wasn’t just carrying it?”

  The man tipped his head. “You are a real snock, aren’t you?”

  ---

  Pere sobbed for at least an hour. Periodically he’d get up, search the area again, then sit again and sob some more.

  Once he even tried to climb the trees, in case he’d tossed the pack up there for safe keeping, but after he fell the fourth time because he couldn’t get his arms to coordinate with his legs, he gave up.

  The man against the other tree told him that what he was feeling was normal, he saw it all the time. It was just the enhancements wearing off.

  But Pere knew it was far more than that. He had failed. Completely and totally failed. In everything. There wasn’t one thing Pere could think of where he hadn’t failed.

  When he couldn’t sob anymore, he laid in the dirt, hopeless, alone, different body parts going numb then feeling pain then numbing again.

  He watched with only passing interest as the other bodies around him slowly came to life, vomited in the river, then staggered away. He laid there the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon wondering what to do next, but he couldn’t control his thinking or focus on anything useful.

  He tried not to think about Lolo, but she kept forcing her way into his mind no matter what he did. She must have been at least pretty, he tried to convince himself. Why else would he—

  Maybe it really didn’t happen but was just a strange dream. Tonight he’d look at her again, try to figure out if all of this were real or not. Maybe tonight he’d feel something, anything, besides the throbbing of his ears.

  Whatever thought wasn’t Lolo was Amory, in the shed before. He wondered what happened to her, if she went back to the shed to wait for him, if he tried going back, where she was now. She wasn’t any of the Fogged bodies that were around him.

  He tried to forget about her as well, but when he did all he could think about was his family in Salem. They would obviously know about his disappearance now. He couldn’t think of them either.

  Finally, in the late afternoon, he pulled himself to his feet. He felt something, and he was pretty sure it was hunger. Stumbling out of the trees, he found himself on what he assumed to be the edge of Edge. Province 8. Whatever.

  There were houses, gardens of rock and turf, and cobblestone roads with horses and wagons and people. Something seemed odd about the people, but he couldn’t focus on any of it properly. He just stood on the first corner he came to and sighed miserably.

  This was not how he anticipated making his entrance to the world. Dirty, torn clothing, no food, no slips of metal, no clue as to where he was, and a complete failure.

  This was supposed to have been the first of many great moments: standing defiantly with a slight smirk, knowing that in a few short moons, he’d be leading the army, having overthrown Lemuel Thorne and announcing to the world that he was Perrin Shin; maybe even General Perrin Shin, who knows. And it was all going to begin today as he paid for a ride to Sands and began his undoing of the world.

  Instead, it undid him.

  He skulked along the road, feeling exposed and vulnerable. “Now what?” he asked in a quiet whimper. “Where do I find help?”

  Cross to the other side, then turn left at the next road.

  Obediently, Pere stepped out into the road in a halting shuffle. A wagon narrowly missed him but he didn’t care. He was half sorry it didn’t hit him. He got to the other side of the road and walked down it until he came to the next road where he turned left.

  “Now what?”

  Just keep walking, and look around.

  Pere walked slowly and looked hazily at the houses. Rock. Wood. Windows. Gardens of grasses. Rock. Flowers. Same again. And again.

  Look.

  A door opened at one of the houses. Pere stopped as he saw the seventy-five-year-old man step out.

  Uncle Honri.

  Pere darted behind a wagon stopped alongside the road, crouched, and bit his hand.

  That’s what you do next. Go to him. Let him take you home. You can fix this, You
ng Pere. Everything. Just stand up. He’s looking for you.

  “No, no, no. I can’t. I can’t let him see me like this! I can’t let him know how I’ve failed. No!”

  There’s no one else. This is what he does. Let him help you—

  But suddenly there was another voice, or something else, and it slid into his ear.

  he can’t help you. you’ve gone too far. no one will understand, especially in salem. no one will want you back now. you’ve made too many mistakes. besides, you’re not done here yet. you can try again. try everything again. just one more time. this time it will be better. fix it all on your own.

  Another voice burst in.

  That’s not true, Young Pere. You can still go back. It’s the only way—

  “No!” Pere said loudly. From somewhere he found his strength, leaped to his feet, and ran in the direction from where he came. “No!”

  ---

  They had just finished a late midday meal, having put it off while they frantically searched northern Edge for Young Perrin Shin. Finally, growing light-headed with hunger, Honri and the scout accompanying him had headed back to Honri’s rented room for a quick sandwich.

  Now Honri, holding open the door for the scout, heard footsteps retreating behind him. He turned and saw the back of a tall boy running in ragged clothing and shouting, with sunlight glinting off the glass in his ears.

  Honri sighed. So many young men in trouble, and so little time. Maybe he could find that boy again after he found his brother-in-law’s nephew.

  The scout stepped out of the house and watched as the boy dashed dangerously across the road in front of an ox cart. “What was that?”

  Honri shook his head. “Another grassena boy.”

  “A what?”

  “Grassena boy,” Honri repeated. “One of those who practically live up at that grassy arena. That’s how they came up with the name here in Edge. Woodson probably taught you the name the rest of the world calls them by: vial heads?”

  The scout nodded. “The pain mixture they altered years ago. Similar to our Pain Tea, but far more addictive. I remember learning about that in training. What was he shouting?” he asked as the two men began to walk down the road.

  “Who knows,” Honri sighed sadly. “It’s the vials. Puts them into a stupor for hours, then when it wears off they imagine all kinds of dangers, hallucinations, and visions. They just live for the next batch of vials to be delivered. They give up all that they have for it: clothes, valuables, slips of gold and silver they steal from home, even food. Then they spend all night dancing to the drums.”

  “Not much of an existence, is it?” the scout commented.

  “None at all. I’ve tried going up there a few times since I arrived, seeing who I can bring out of there. Every village has someplace similar. I had some success in Sands, and I’ve made some strides with two boys since I came here a few weeks ago. One’s thinking about going home and the other is considering joining the army. Not as if that’s the greatest alternative, but it’s better than being a vial head.

  “As for the grassena girls,” Honri continued, his tone growing despondent, “it’s even more tragic. I don’t know of anyone trying to help them. There have even been a few babies born and abandoned. A few have survived. Not sure the girls even realized they were expecting.”

  The scout shook his head in amazement.

  “The real tragedy,” Honri said, his voice growing quieter as they walked down the side of the road, “is that those babies are some of the few being born anymore. Then to lose them?” He sighed heavily. “Shem wanted me to try to learn why the birth rates have dropped so much in the past few years. I’ve found out why from the two boys I’ve been working with.”

  The scout, seeing Honri didn’t want to continue, gently cleared his throat. “Maybe if you tell me first, it’ll be easier to explain to the guide.”

  Honri smiled sadly. “In a few generations, there won’t even be a world to worry about. The population isn’t being replaced. These girls, as soon as their bodies start changing into women, go to the doctors and ask for The Drink.”

  The scout stumbled in his walk he was so surprised. “Willingly?”

  “Eagerly,” Honri sighed. “What was forced on women for generations now is sought out as early as possible. The combinations of herbs that destroy their bodies’ ability to have children is in demand. And the girls are very young. Fifteen, fourteen, even thirteen—”

  “Why?”

  “So they won’t have any . . . consequences,” he said. “It seems they just want to indulge in the emotions of the day with whatever boy attracts their attention, and they don’t want the worry of conceiving. And even worse, if they find out they have conceived, they take The Drink to deliberately destroy the baby and their fertility.”

  The scout stared at him in shock. “But . . . but . . . that’s . . . that’s . . .” The scout couldn’t find the words.

  Honri gave him an understanding look.

  After a moment the scout could speak again. “But The Drink is irreversible. Once they lose that ability, it’s gone forever.”

  Honri smiled sadly. “Most fifteen-year-olds can’t think beyond what may happen tonight. They care nothing for their future selves because they hardly care for themselves today. They’re becoming more animalistic all the time, just looking to satisfy urges. Nothing more.”

  The scout’s gait had slowed to nearly a crawl.

  Honri took his arm to bring him up to speed with the old man’s walk. “It’s your first time to the world, isn’t it?”

  The scout nodded. “I went through Woodson’s training, but I just never imagined—”

  “And you’ve hardly seen anything yet. Up at the grassy arena, they pull out a few bodies each week. Some spend so much time pursuing the vials they forget to eat and starve to death.”

  “What are their parents doing for them? Isn’t there someone to stop them?”

  “Who?” Honri asked. “Besides me? Most of their parents don’t know what to do with them, so they quit trying. The community doesn’t care; this isn’t ‘home,’ remember?” Speaking the word ‘Salem’ was forbidden in the world. “No one here remembers they are all family. It’s always someone else’s problem.”

  The two men walked quietly for a moment before Honri spoke again. “I tried once going to the trees to see who I could reach. I saw so many young people headed there, I figured it was another performance or something. But what I saw . . . Well, let’s just say an old widower like me shouldn’t be seeing such things.”

  The scout only blinked, not daring to wonder what Honri saw.

  Honri scoffed sadly. “Rector Cox told me that not long ago he had a young couple come to him wanting to take vows together. It’s become so rare that anyone wants to commit through marriage anymore, especially since all laws pertaining to marriage were eliminated, but Cox was thrilled to see someone serious about the concept.

  “Turns out they weren’t as serious as he hoped. They thought it was a good idea to make sure no one stole their ‘mates’. And then they asked Cox how ‘long’ their marriage would be for.”

  “How long? What an odd question.”

  “That’s what Cox thought. He told them the Creator intended marriage to last their entire lives, even beyond, if they chose it. That wasn’t the answer they were looking for.”

  “What were they looking for?”

  “Something to bind them for a couple of seasons, then be over. They both didn’t think they would want to stay together too long. Once the excitement wore off, you see, it’d be time to find someone new to experience.”

  “Experience?” the scout nearly shouted. Honri patted his arm to quiet him. The scout lowered his voice. “Marriage isn’t an experience, it’s . . . it’s . . .”

  “Much more, I know,” Honri said. “But consider this—if you have a society which no longer understands real love, whose only concern is satisfying their urges, why would anyone want to be
in a relationship for more than a few seasons? Why would anyone want the commitment of bearing and caring for a child? They’re destroying themselves, deliberately,” he finished in a solemn whisper. “How do I give my brother-in-law that kind of news?”

  The scout was silent, not knowing what to say.

  Honri tipped his head. “That boy,” he said, slowing in his gait. “The one who was running. Quite tall and large, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes,” said the scout.

  “There are very few men in Edge as tall as that. As tall as Young Pere.”

  The scout looked at him in disbelief. “You think that was Young Pere? Honri, he’s been missing for only a day and a half! That boy looked like he’d been down the river and back in a flood.”

  Honri scratched his chin. “Let me show you where the grassena youth live. Just so you know. Just so I feel better.”

  ---

  Pere ran all the way back to the field, the only place that felt anything like a home to him now. He flopped helplessly on the grass.

  this is where you belong now.

  He lay there for how long, he didn’t know. His belly was gnawing and he even resorted to chewing on a blade of grass, just to see. It had no flavor at all.

  He half hoped Lolo wouldn’t find him, but was also hoping she would. He wanted another chance, just to see. But he also found his empty stomach lurched whenever he thought of her. After a time, he heard footsteps and looked up.

  “Bucky! I thought we were going to meet by the trees. You don’t look so good. The vials must have been really strong last night. Come on. Let’s go find someplace more private.” She pulled on his hands and righted him.

  He looked her carefully in the face. She was pretty enough. Her hair looked a little better than this morning, and her eyes were . . . not that bad once you got past the yellow paint around them. A little muddy, but all right. And she cared enough to find him.

  She pulled something out of a grungy bag that was slung on her shoulder. “Hungry? Found this along the way. I didn’t think you’d get to eat today, with that look in your eyes.”

  Pere didn’t even ask where she found it, but wolfed down the cold and greasy bacon pie. “Thank you,” he remembered to mumble between bites. And she cared enough to feed him.

  They walked slowly to the river bank. Lolo was talking but Pere didn’t really hear her. She was saying something about a friend who ditched her the night before, but Pere couldn’t remember seeing any ditches around the area.

  ---

  The two men stood at the wooden posts that signaled the opening to the Grassy Arena. They watched as the tall boy and a girl, about fifty paces away from them, wandered into the trees.

  Honri sighed. “It’s been a while, but that’s not the way I remembered Young Pere carried himself. He walked exactly like his grandfather.”

  The scout nodded. “He doesn’t look familiar to me, either.”

  “And now that I remember, the boy by the rectory had tagging in his ears.” Honri said. “That’s not the one we’re looking for, but he’s still one of our sons. Dear Creator, will You please help whoever that poor soul is to come out of the trees again? And help that poor girl find a way out of there, too?

  “Let’s try the markets,” Honri suggested. “I know Woodson and the others were going to check there for Amory, but there are a lot of shops to investigate. Surely he’d be curious about those. I’ll bet he’s peeking in some windows, wondering what cuff frills are all about.”

  ---

  “Then I was worried you wouldn’t be here—”

  Pere only dimly registered what Lolo was saying.

  “—that I wouldn’t find you, but then I thought, you’re not that kind of boy, are you, Peary?” She stopped in a stand of trees.

  Pere had finished his food and stared at where he was now, wondering how he got there so quickly. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted—

  Without warning, Lolo stood on tiptoe and gave him a messy kiss.

  Without thinking, Pere kissed her back.

  Five minutes later, as Pere rolled onto his back in the dirt, he came to some conclusions.

  Lolo was a sow. Which made him nothing more than a swine.

  He watched her vaguely as she slipped back on her strips of clothing. Only for a moment he wondered where he had thrown the rest of his. He tried to feel something, but couldn’t. Sometime in the last five minutes everything he was inside died, but his body just kept going. He would have preferred to feel pain, if he could. He glanced into Lolo’s eyes and felt only loathing. The beauty of her was only skin deep, and her skin was surprisingly transparent. He hated everything about her. About himself.

  He’d never felt so filthy. All he wanted to do was wash himself, wash her off of him somehow. But he couldn’t even manage to get up the desire to crawl to the river.

  Lolo finished fixing the strips of fabric around her body and knelt down next to him in the dirt. “That was much better, wasn’t it?” She ran her hand down his arm.

  Pere couldn’t even feel sick. He felt nothing. She started to lean to kiss him, but he grabbed her wrist. “Just leave,” he snarled.

  Lolo’s face went pale, but Pere didn’t care. Suddenly she slapped him across the face with her free hand.

  Although his cheek was bright red, he barely felt it as he glared at her. But he was finally feeling something: rage and revulsion.

  “I’m sorry, Bucky! I’m so sorry!” she wailed. She went to hug him but Pere grabbed her other arm and pushed her above him easily like a bale of hay.

  “Just leave,” he repeated darkly.

  A tear fell down her face and splashed on his bare chest, and she nodded, terrified.

  He shoved her off so violently she landed on her feet.

  She took a few awkward steps backward and said in a timid voice, “Tomorrow, Bucky? I mean, Peary? The Performance? I’ll come find you.” She took off running into the trees without waiting for an answer.

  Pere rolled into the dirt and wished somehow it could bury whatever was still alive in him. Just finish him off.

  Why did he do it? He already knew the water was hot. Why did he have to test it again? The first time with Lolo might have been the vials, but this time it was all him. He had gone too far. There was no returning now. Ever.

  was it the ‘sweet union of souls’ your father said it would be?

  No. She has no soul. Leave me alone.

  seems you have no soul now, either.

  Shut up.

  wasn’t it at least a thrill?

  For a moment. But then disappointing. Nothing that my cousin Lek would get all passionate about.

  maybe you did it wrong.

  Shut up.

  and now you’re lying in the dirt. again.

  Just leave me alone.

  yes, definitely gone too far now. no going back now. why would you want to face your family like this? no wonder cephas is your father’s favorite.

  Shut up.

  he wouldn’t lie to his family, deceive his rector and guide, abandon his responsibilities—

  Shut up.

  —then recklessly play with the Creator’s greatest gift. how did your father put it? “what truly makes a man is presenting to his bride that which he kept sacred as a symbol of trust—”

  Just stop, just stop . . .

  now you think i should just stop? why not a few minutes ago, before you lost your ability to become a true husband? before you took the Creator’s greatest gift, the act of creating new life, and wasted it on a sow—

  Please, just stop . . .

  she probably doesn’t know any better, but you? who could have been taught better than you?

  I know! Shut up!

  what will you do now? you have nothing. you are nothing. no one in salem could ever tolerate seeing you again. can you imagine the look on your mother’s face, on your grandmothers’ faces when they hear what you have done? your sisters? did you imagine them watching you and t
urning away in shock? why are you still breathing? taking up space? you’re nothing . . . nothing—

  He lay there for hours, waiting for the rest of the dark to come.

  At some point in the night he realized he was dreaming, and felt icy cold water, and remembered hands grabbing at him, then pulling him on to a frozen shore. He was twelve, and heard shouts that came from a distance, then saw nothing but black. He relived the hot bed and chills that wracked his body for days, and felt the cough that cracked his ribs. It was night, and his eyes opened because of a sharp pain in his chest. There was a figure sitting in a chair next to him. In the dim candlelight he could just make out hands supporting a head, and a large body leaning forward, rocking worriedly. The pain increased in his chest and a ragged cough forced itself out. Young Pere’s eyes closed as he fought against it.

  “It’s all right, Young Pere,” he heard a deep whisper in his ear, moving him quickly to an upright position. “Let it out. I know it hurts, but you have to get it out. You can beat this. You must beat this. You can’t let it fester in you! It’s not too late!”

  It was Puggah, and he was pleading—

  Pere’s eyes opened again. He saw rocks in the dim moonslight. He saw dark trees, felt a sharp pain in his chest, and heard the river rushing by. He was miles away from home, alone and unwanted. As his eyes started to close again he thought he saw a shadowy figure sitting on a rock nearby, holding its head in its hands and rocking.

  “Puggah?” he breathed. He thought he saw the figure quickly leave the rock to come to him, but his eyes closed in despair before the figure reached him.

  In the morning he sat and stared at the stone where he dreamt Puggah sat.

  It was bare and cold.

  ---

  Peto sat up suddenly in bed, sweat dripping off his forehead. He struggled to catch his breath and looked around his dark bedroom. Assured that he was safely in his bed, he rubbed his eyes.

  “What is it?” Lilla whispered quietly.

  “Nothing, my sweety. Go back to sleep.”

  “You had a bad dream, didn’t you? Was it about Young Pere? Please tell me!”

  “I don’t know if it means anything but . . . remember when he was four and he didn’t believe that swimming was more complicated than he thought?”

  “Deck finally caught up to him down the river,” Lilla said. “One of the many times he nearly drowned.”

  “He’s drowning now, Lilla. Not in water, though, but in the world.”

  Chapter 23--“You can stay, look around a little.”