A Cup of Normal

  I set the cup on the floor and walk to my cot, my belly distended with the weight of the water. I lie down, and though I do not want to sleep, the water and mulberry lull me and I doze.

  Follow’s voice wakes me: “Put him here, Work. We will need the space to mend.”

  I am up from my cot and moving across the floor. Vaguely, I realize it is now dark outside and our lanterns have been lit to ease the blackness within the house.

  Something is wrong. Work is here, here at night, when he should be at the estate tending the lord. Then I see who Work is laying gently on the wooden floor: Bind.

  I walk over and kneel beside him, my lover, my mate. Bind is thin, all his color drained. His long hair, once smooth and gold as birthing thread, is tangled and ripped twine. The wetness from the wounds in his scalp pours down his thin face. His eyes are open, but I know he can not see me.

  “Where was he, Work?” I ask. Follow, always sensible, is pouring more water into the kettle, brewing the restorative mulberry leaf.

  Work shifts his weight. He is uncomfortable with my question. I look up at him.

  “Tell me you did not do this,” I say.

  Even in the low light I can see the anger that colors his face. “If you knew, Favor, what I have done. What I do every night so that this —” he points at Bind’s stilled form, “— would never happen, you would not accuse me so.”

  Work’s anger, so strong in the room, clears my thoughts. “Was he in the cell?”

  Work nods. “Keep him here, Favor. Mend him. If you want him to stay alive, don’t let him out of this house until that which you have seen is gone. The lord told me it will be gone in the morning.” Work pauses. “There is much I must do tonight.” He walks out the door, and across the yard to the estate and the night duties I have never understood.

  I cradle Bind’s head in my lap and gently brush my fingertips through his hair, over his scalp, his face, his eyes and lips. I have no honey and blessings for him. But I don’t need either for a mending. The threads of me flow from my fingertips, healing his wounds. It is a slow, dream-like process. I mend while Follow helps Bind sip, then drink the water. I know Spin is there too, touching Bind to give him comfort, safety, and the knowing of us beside him. We can learn of his pain, absorb the knowledge of it, but we do not. It is the one privacy we can give to each other. We alone choose who to share our pain with.

  Bind shifts his feet, moves his fingers, then his arms. He rolls his head to one side and blinks. When he looks up at me, I know he can see me again.

  “Favor?”

  “Who else?” I smile. Between Follow, Spin, and I, we help Bind to his feet and then to the bed chambers. We bring him to my cot so that I can lay with him and further heal his wounds.

  Bind says nothing during this. He allows us to take him where we will, as if we are his lords and he our mender.

  The other women go to their cots and I lay on my side next to Bind. My cot is narrow and we rest, pressed body to body, against each other.

  He looks at my face for a long, long moment, and his hand slides down to my flat belly. He does not ask of the baby. He does not have to. This close, just Bind and I, there is nothing I can hide.

  “What have you seen, Favor?” he asks, his voice soft and safe. “What have you known that has brought a change in you?”

  “There is a stranger. Jonathan. A man. Tall, thin, old. His voice —” I pause, remembering. I touch Bind’s lips with my own and feel Bind fill with the knowledge of my experience. He wraps his arms around me, holds me closer. And in exchange for my knowledge, I share his pain.

  It is this way between us, between mates. We join for babies, but I do not want to carry another child so soon. Bind pulls the knowledge from me in a sweet rising desire and I do not want to turn him away. We share the stranger’s words, his voice, the wild taste of freedom, the certain knowledge of something beyond our gate. Something we both want. A world. Freedom.

  Bind stays tangled with me, and I with him. Thread by thread, I feel the chrysalis of the child begin within me, sweet as honey and blessings. This child, I do not want to lose. This child I want to keep safe from the lord’s needs.

  It is not yet morning when Bind whispers, “I will find the man. Speak with him. Perhaps he will take us. Both of us,” his hand slips down to my belly and the child who grows there, “all of us, away.”

  “I will go with you.”

  He looks surprised at this, his brown eyes wide. “You do not understand, Favor —”

  “What do I not understand? Pain? I have birthed a thousand babies, and never seen one live. I understand pain. Do you think I can not feel your wild hope? The wanting to run through the gates and never stop?” I touch his face gently even though I am still angry. “We will find the stranger. We will ask for knowledge together.”

  Bind leans into the soothing touch of my hand and I realize how tired he is, how thin. He does not have enough strength even to fight me.

  We rise, silently. Favor and Spin open their eyes and watch us walk from the room. They do not care where we are going, do not ask, though the fear of our decision is so thick on the air, they can not ignore what we are planning. I hear them turn in their cots, feel them draw their awareness away.

  We step outside the house.

  “Where are you going in the night?” Work’s voice is so close, I jump and press my hands over my belly.

  Work shifts his weight, and behind him I see the tall pale form of the stranger. “Favor, Bind,” Jonathan says, “come with Work and me. Quickly, before dawn.”

  “Work?” I ask. I do not understand. The world is folding again, turning inside out. Where is the lord? Why is Work not tending him?

  Bind backs away, his hand on my arm, ready to run. But where can we run? What gate is left open for menders?

  I tug out of Bind’s hold and walk up to Work. “Explain this to me.” I stretch my fingers toward his lips. “Let me know.”

  Work’s eyes narrow and his hard features flush with guilt. “You do not want to know it all, Favor.”

  “I have lived it all. Let me touch you Work, or I will go to the lord and let him decide my actions tonight.” Even that small declaration of my own will is as frightening as when the gate swung open. But I stand strong.

  Work looks over my shoulder at Bind. I do not look back, do not want to see if my mate agrees with my choice.

  Finally, Work nods.

  I lean toward Work and press my fingers against his lips. I ease closer to him, slowly. My fingers slide down to his chest. The images Work carries, his knowledge, is so foreign I wonder that I did not sense it in him before. Work trembles at my touch. I lean fully against him, my lips pressing against his so that we can know, can experience each other’s knowledge.

  I see a strange room that can only be within the estate, feel Work’s fear of it, then his hunger to understand it. In the room are words, recorded words. More words than I can understand, concepts that leave me dizzy. Of planets, of technology. First contact.

  Work tries to pull away from me when I cross that concept, and I dig my fingers deeper into him, needing to know and drawing the knowledge from him with my lips.

  First contact. Interspecies integration. Cultural impact. The creations were simple, safe. Blankets. Blankets woven of threads that held information. Threads programmed to adapt, to self-repair, to absorb a culture and send that information back to the givers.

  Hundreds of years ago, just blankets. Hundreds of years ago, contact was lost. But the threads adapted, absorbed the new culture, and became more than just blankets. The threads became us.

  I pull away from Work so quickly it hurts.

  “How long have you known?” My voice is rough.

  Work rubs his hand over his face, as if trying to ease what he too has seen from me, the birthing again and again of babies, the pots, the fires.

  “Years. I did not understand. None of it made sense. The historian was the missing piece.”

  His
torian. I now know what Jonathan is.

  “You were never meant to be slaves,” Jonathan says. “The institution has tried for years to find a way to release you from the Ceive family. But we thought you were fabric. Valuable, priceless blankets. Stolen technology. If we had known you had become self-aware —”

  He has no chance to finish. A crack of sound, louder than spring thunder splits the air. Jonathan jerks and crumples to the ground. Something red seeps through to soak his clothing. He is wounded. Dying.

  From out of the darkness, we hear the lord’s voice. “Step away from him and go into your house.”

  “Understand him, quickly, Favor,” Work says. “Before he is dead.” Work steps between the lord and Jonathan’s fallen body.

  I drop to my knees and place my hands on Jonathan’s chest, even though I hear the lord’s footsteps coming nearer.

  I hiss at the acid feel of his blood, so different than ours. Images, more vivid than any I have seen, fill me. Skies, stars, books and languages. A woman’s face, red hair, gray eyes, like no one I have ever seen, the laugh of a red-haired child.

  Thunder cracks in the air again, and I hear Work grunt, know that he falls.

  Behind me, Bind makes a sound I have only heard from a wounded animal. I glance up and see him rush past me and into the darkness toward the lord, to stop him from wounding again. To stop him from killing again. From killing me and our child.

  “No!” I scream.

  There is more thunder. I shudder as the thread of Bind’s life snaps.

  My mate. Dead. Hatred pours through me, over me. I tear through all that Jonathan has known, hungry for knowledge, consuming what I find in his fading mind. The blankets, the threads. We have been taught to mend and birth and spin. We can learn more.

  We can learn to kill.

  The press of warm metal against my chest brings me back to myself. I sense in the metal the workings of energy, of molecular implosion, of pain. I look past the gun and up at the lord.

  “Go back to your cot, Favor. Now.”

  I do not think he expects me to stand and step over the dead historian’s body so quickly. I do not think he expects me to shove the gun aside and wrap my arms around him, and hold him close.

  I know he does not expect me to dig fingers into his flesh and send the threads, finer than a needle, sharper than glass, into him. His body is not exactly like Jonathan’s but it is close enough. I find his heart and wrap it, bind it, tight and tighter, until it can no longer move. His finger spasms on the gun’s trigger, sending balls of raw energy streaking into the night.

  I hold him close. Until he no longer breathes. Then, I push the lord away.

  When Work can move again, stand again, he finds me beside Bind’s body, my fingers tangled in his hair.

  “Favor?” Work says. His voice is filled with ache. I know he is injured — his shoulder — and know how to fix it. But I can not take my hands away from Bind. I can not bear to know I have lost him.

  “Favor, do you know how we can leave?” I look up, and see he has gathered Follow and Spin. None of them have supplies, but I don’t suppose we will need any. There is plenty of water in the forest for the three week journey to the ship that awaits Jonathan’s return. Still, I do not know how I can leave Bind behind, and choose instead, the new world.

  Work goes on one knee, and puts his hand down into Bind’s long hair. He tangles his fingers with mine, holds my fingers in the warmth of his. “Do you want to come, Favor?”

  His touch, strong, steady, pulls me from the pain. Just far enough I can nod. There is one other I must live for. There is my child, Bind’s child who I will not let die.

  Work patiently draws Bind’s hair away from my fingers, slowly taking away the last connection between us. Then he plucks a single strand. With that strand in his hand, he draws me up to my feet.

  I look into Work’s face, tired and lined with pain. I take the strand of Bind’s hair and tie it around my neck. There is knowledge in that single strand of hair. I hope I will find a way to re-weave Bind from that strand — a technology I glimpsed in the historian’s mind.

  But now there is more I need do. I place my hand on Work’s shoulder and send threads from my fingers to mend his body. It is not as hard as it once was. I have learned so much.

  I take Work’s hand and lead him and Follow and Spin to the gate nearest Jonathan’s craft. Within me, Bind’s child stirs. My footsteps fall fast, and faster. I run and run, and whisper promises like beads of hope hung on fragile strings.

  Sweet honey for my baby’s lips. Prayers to bless its soul. I will know, see, touch, learn. Anything. Everything. To keep his child safe. To watch our child grow.

  Then the fence is there, in my reach. I stretch out my hand, touch the gate. Work and Follow and Spin are beside me, waiting, watching as I work the latch, and open the world.

  I’d been given the advice to stop writing such lyrical, descriptive short stories. Taking that advice to heart, I tried writing several “bare-bones” stories to no avail. Eventually, I gave up and threw myself headfirst into this lyrical, rhythmic original fairytale.

  LEEWARD TO THE SKY

  Crouched beneath the wet stone doorframes in the old town of Brinkofsea, sits Stigin Niddle, fingers too bent to make the magic, build the magic, push the magic, flying, driving the night into morn.

  Some see her, bent Stigin Niddle, making the finest sails the fleets have worn. Sails so thin a child’s smile shines through them, so strong, the storms of black winter can’t tear them. Sails over her bony legs, like a wedding dress about a corpse, sails flowing like honey and sunlight to the edge, but never beyond the stony-arch of the doorway where Stigin Niddle sits, pushing magic.

  Boat captains treat her like queen-goddess-nymph ruler of luck and weather. Buy her sails with never a haggle. Pour gold at her feet, bow away, and adorn their great hulled ships with fabric richer than their finest tales.

  Crewmen treat her like mother’s own yes-lady, as-you-say lady and tip their hats as they go by to find less respectable women leaning from up-above windows with perfume and bright dresses promising moist warm evenings.

  Fish-hawkers treat her like ugly girl odd-out sister and keep her fed, fish and crab and sleek, pungent eel.

  Magic under foot, ugly, happy Stigin, spinning sails in the damp doorways of Brinkofsea.

  Until the landman came, from high mountain stone and thunder, pushed by a wind that smelled of change, looking for magic caught by the small sea town, hungry for something brief and sweet, like the last wine of summer on a lover’s lips.

  He didn’t know he wanted Stigin Niddle. He didn’t know magic was an ugly thing.

  Twelve days he walked the cobbled town, twelve days striding, bootheels against wood dock, eyes taking in slate sky and jade-tipped waves. Looking for the taste, the song, the filling for a hunger that pushed at his skin and bone, the need that only quieted at night in the amber embrace of ale.

  Met a man, a shipman-boatwright of strong, long-fingered, building hands. A man whose hands bent plank, carved ships from mind to solid, breathing creatures of tall mast and rig.

  Lovely Ladies, he called them, Grand Dames of tomorrow’s horizon. The shipman-boatwright made his own kind of magic, and gave it to the vessels he created.

  The man from the mountain almost found what he searched for there, his own hands pressed against sea-soaked teak, the lift and fall of ship rocking his hips like a languid lover.

  Eyes closed, mouth open he breathed in the wild call of the sea, of the ship straining against the tethered hold of land, thirsty for the sky’s edge and knew this was as close to magic as ever he had come.

  But the birds above called out, the wind drew against his skin, reminding him of land, of his mountains, of the hollow hunger deep within.

  A false love, this ship. The man opened his eyes and shook his head. No, to the shipman-boatwright whose eyes were so caught by the beauty of his own creations, he did not notice the man leave — did not
know he was once again alone with the great mahogany lady. No.

  Yet something about the ship called to the man from the mountains, lingered even as his boot touched the cob-solid gangplank. Something here, a part of this ship, was that which he sought.

  The man from the mountains turned, looked over shoulders wide and strong from life between the stone and wind of cliffs.

  Something there, in the ship, a half-heard song, caught between gull cry. Soft as a feather shaving sky. A snap of sail.

  The man from the mountains smiled. Yes. The woven strands, gossamer as diamond-spun spider silk, caught by wind to snap in short brilliant laughter, like a voice caught singing.

  Magic.

  He walked back to the deck, boots beating rhythm to his heart and pushed both hands into the unfurled sail. He felt the shock of need roll down his spine to pool, heavy and warm between his thighs. Never closer than this, than his hands against a sail too fragile to exist in a world of hook and lashings. Never closer had he been to ending his search. To finally know magic.

  He shook the shipman-boatwright until his eyes cleared of rapt fascination for the vessel. Sail, he asked. Where?

  Lips bowed in a smile, the shipman pointed. Stigin Niddle. Weaver, maker, doorstoop croucher. In the heart of Brinkofsea, perfect, magic Stigin.

  The man from the mountains ran. Boots fell in cobbled tones, singing his need, pounding with haste. So close. Would that which he sought slide away like cloud to sun, before he could glimpse it, know it finally, fully?

  If he were in his mountain’s hold, his feet would have known the way to go, but here in the shack and alley town of Brinkofsea, his feet followed street after street, coming no closer to the center, the call, the thing called Stigin Niddle.

  Night came, bringing a cold wet cloak from the ocean’s depth. Brinkofsea huddled in the cold, doors closed, windows drawn. Lantern light pushed out from the cracks between cedar shakes, throwing gold rods of light into the slick cobble streets. Smoke slipped up stone chimneys, mingled, mixed with fog and cold.