After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia (34 page)

Sai seemed to come out of nowhere. She had the piece of rebar she carried whenever
she went out. The three of them raged at the sprouted, screaming and hitting. Millie
kicked and kicked. The sprouted screamed back in pain or fury. Its eyes were all bleedy.
It swatted Citron aside, but he got up and came at it again. Finally it wasn’t fighting
anymore. They kept hitting it until they were sure it was dead. Even after Sai and
Citron had stopped, Millie stomped the sprouted. With each stomp, she grunted in thick
animal rage at herself for letting it sneak up on her, for leaving the warren without
her knife. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a few kids that had crept out
from other warrens to see what the racket was about. She didn’t care. She stomped.

“Millie! Millie!” It was Citron. “It’s dead!”

Millie gave the bloody lump of hair and bone and flesh one more kick, then stood panting.
Just a second to catch her breath, then they could keep looking for Jolly. They couldn’t
stay there long. A dead sprouted could draw others. If one sprouted was bad, a feeding
frenzy of them was worse.

Sai was gulping, sobbing. She looked at them with stricken eyes. “I woke up and I
called to Max and he didn’t answer, and when I went over and lifted his coat”—she
burst into gusts of weeping—“there was only part of his head and one arm there. And
bones. Not even much blood.” Sai clutched herself and shuddered. “While we were sleeping,
a sprouted came in and killed Max and ate most of him, even licked up his blood, and
we didn’t wake up! I thought it had eaten all of you! I thought it was coming back
for me!”

Something gleamed white in the broken mess of the sprouted’s corpse. Millie leaned
over to see better, fighting not to gag on the smell of blood and worse. She had to
crouch closer. There was lots of blood on the thing lying in the curve of the sprouted’s
body, but with chilly clarity, Millie recognized it. It was the circular base of Jolly’s
musical penguin. Millie looked over at Citron and Sai. “Run,” she told them. The tears
coursing down her face felt cool. Because her skin was so hot now.

“What?” asked Sai. “Why?”

Millie straightened. Her legs were shaking so much they barely held her up. That small
pop she’d felt when she’d pulled on the sprouted’s neck. “A sprouted didn’t come into
our squat. It was already in there.” She opened her hand to show them the thing she’d
pulled off the sprouted’s throat in her battle with it; Jolly’s gold necklace. Instinct
often led sprouteds to return to where the people they loved were. Jolly had run away
to protect the rest of her warren from herself. “Bloody
run
!” Millie yelled at them. “Go find another squat! Somewhere I won’t look for you!
Don’t you get it? I’m her twin!”

First Citron’s face then Sai’s went blank with shock as they understood what Millie
was saying. Citron sobbed, once. It might have been the word “Bye.” He grabbed Sai’s
arm. The two of them stumbled away. The other kids that had come out to gawk had disappeared
back to their warrens. Millie turned her back so she couldn’t see what direction Sai
and Citron were moving in, but she could hear them, more keenly than she’d ever been
able to hear. She could smell them. The easthound could track them. The downy starvation
fuzz on Millie’s arm was already coarser. The pain in her handless wrist spiked. She
looked at it. It was aching because the hand was starting to grow in again. There
were tiny fingers on the end of it now. And she needed to eat so badly.

When had Jolly sprouted? Probably way more than twenty-eight-and-three-quarter minutes
ago. Citron and Sai’s only chance was that Millie had always done everything later
than her twin.

Still clutching Jolly’s necklace, she began to run too; in a different direction.
Leeks, she told the sprouting Hound, fresh leeks. You like those, right? Not blood
and still-warm, still-screaming flesh. You like leeks. The Hound wasn’t fully come
into itself yet. It was almost believing her that leeks would satisfy its hunger.
And it didn’t understand that she couldn’t swim. You’re thirsty too, right? she told
it.

It was.

Faster, faster, faster, Millie sped toward the river, where the spring tide was running
deep and wide.

Loup.

I.

I
HAVE A NAME
.

It sits upon the tip of my tongue like the taste of something familiar. Something
warm. Something that sends droplets of memory down my throat and warms my empty belly.
Water on a hot day; the splash of coolness after the heat of the ever-present fluorescent
lights that burn the rims of my eyelids raw, the merciless brightness that keeps sleep
pressing from behind and underneath the burning of my eyes.

The lights are always on so my captors can watch me behind their veil of darkness,
keeping me under their ever-watchful gaze so I cannot escape. Where can I go where
there is no one watching me, pinned down by bright lights that never dim, never burn
out? Chained by bonds to this hard, cold steel platform that serves as bed, table,
chamber, prison? I am their prisoner. I have known nothing else, no light, no darkness,
no night sky, no stars shining overhead to guide me home. I have no home. Only the
one I go to in my dreams.

If I did dream.

I imagine instead, lying here on this cold, hard platform, what my dreams would be
like. I see my mother there. We are on a cliff high above a large body of water that
I suppose is the ocean. I have never been there, but in my waking dreams it feels
very familiar, and so I go there to pass the time, the waiting for the stealing of
my blood. I go there in my head and I can see my mother standing, her hands moving
across the grasses as the ocean wind whirls around us. My mother’s voice is full of
awe and joy as she tells me a story:

On the island of Limuw, there is a story of a beautiful young woman. She was so lovely
they called her Pahe Pahe, or Flower of Limuw. She was the pride of her family, of
her mother and father and sisters and brothers; and she grew up knowing each place
for the stars, each ocean, each plant, each animal of the land; and she was a good
girl because she understood her world as one would understand their world, through
the stories and songs of her people.

One day, Pahe Pahe took her tomol, her canoe, out into the beautiful kelp beds surrounding
her home. While out on the kelp beds, she became entranced by their beauty, by the
way they waved to her, dancing underwater to the song she sang: “Beautiful place,
beautiful home of mine, singer of stars and light, keep me safe on this journey to
and from my beloved homeland.…” The giant kelp swayed back and forth, graceful, loving
Pahe Pahe’s song.

Old Man Coyote saw Pahe Pahe out in the water and he decided to trick her. He didn’t
like water, but so great was his desire to trick Pahe Pahe that he swallowed up his
pride and dove under the water, making himself look like a seal. Quietly, he crept
up on Pahe Pahe’s tomol, pretending.

Slowly Old Man Coyote inched up the line of Pahe Pahe’s lure, and soon Pahe Pahe felt
the tug on her line, and look! She pulled up and it was Old Man Coyote! Pahe Pahe
laughed and laughed. “Old Man Coyote, what are you doing here on my line?”

So funny did Pahe Pahe think Old Man Coyote looked, all bedraggled and wet and smelling
like two-day-old wet dog, that she dunked him
back into the water. “Perhaps you need a bath to smell sweet again?” She laughed and
dunked him once more. Old Man Coyote sputtered under the lash of the water and the
moomat, growing angrier and angrier—and still Pahe Pahe laughed and dunked him three
more times, until Old Man Coyote let go of the line and swam back to shore, old and
bedraggled and wet and furious.

As she paddled on and on, Pahe Pahe became sorrowful, for in spite of his tricks and
lies, Old Man Coyote was a respected elder among the people; and maybe, just maybe,
Pahe Pahe had been disrespectful of him by teasing him the way she did. So despondent
she became over her behavior that she just sat there as the birds came and took all
of her fish, and she sat there all night even as the stars came out and twinkled their
greetings to the Flower of Limuw. She returned her tomol to land, growing more and
more unhappy as she did.

At sunrise, Pahe Pahe’s guilt got the better of her, so she climbed to the top of
the cliffs above her on Limuw and swore that she would kill herself for her terrible
transgression toward Old Man Coyote. As soon as the sun peeked up over the eastern
mainland, she leapt off the cliff and into the water below. But the tide had receded,
so she hit the bottom of the white foam and broke her legs from the fall.

Hatash, the Great Mother, took pity on Pahe Pahe because she was such a good and loyal
and beautiful daughter, so that wherever the water touched Pahe Pahe’s broken body,
scales the colors of abalone—pink, green, blue, lavender, all the colors of the flowers
of Limuw—took shape on her legs. Fins that danced and waved like the giant kelp sprouted
from these colors—and grateful for her gift of life, Pahe Pahe dove into the waters,
swimming on the dawnlit sky reflected in the deep ocean. Her brothers and sisters
came to swim with her—the dolphins, whom she loved, the seals, and all the beautiful
fish jumped and dove with her in their joy. Pahe Pahe swam all morning, all afternoon,
and when she grew tired, she found herself at Pimu Island, some seventy miles from
Limuw.

As she went upon the rocks to sun and warm herself, a little boy
who was helping his grandfather tie the nets together to fish saw her. “Grandfather!”
cried the little boy. “Look! Look there!”

The grandfather and his grandson were so moved by Pahe Pahe’s beauty that there were
tears sparkling in their eyes. “She was once the Flower of Limuw,” the grandfather
said, “and now she is the Flower of the World.”

I stare into the sun, watching the light stream across the sky, hitting the ocean
with sparkles like stars. My mother’s voice fades as the bright lights come into view
once again.

Pahe Pahe is the name of the Flower of the World. This is the story of her name, and
I remember this as I lie under the burning light, my eyes fixed ahead but also on
the sea. I imagine myself as Pahe Pahe, not as “2231” or “it” or “dirty Indian.” Pahe
Pahe would not allow herself to be poked and prodded by her enemies. She would sing
them away.

My name, ever elusive, burns like a deep gnawing thirst that refuses to be quenched
under these lights. They hide behind the lights, keeping their faces hidden from me.
The illness that sets their blood on fire, bursting within their bodies, is not inside
me. They think that by taking my blood from me they will be healed. Their skin grows
sallow, pale, colorless under the lights. My skin, like their rage, grows darker and
darker under the lights. This enrages them even more, so that their words lash out
at me under their lights. They think their words hurt. Redskin. Whore. Bitch of the
earthborn.

“2231,” they say, or “it.” “Thing.”

Sometimes, when the kinder ones come to stick my bruised, torn skin with their long,
sharp needles of steel and other shiny metals, I am “her.” Upon the kind ones is the
scent of impending death. This sickness in their blood makes them the same as the
others. This disease doesn’t understand the difference. Their faces are covered by
thick, clear plastic, so that all I can see of them is a reflection of the light that
burns behind my eyes. I can see myself in their masks. The girl I see there is not
who I picture in my mind.…She is a dark-skinned wisp of a girl, with closely cropped
black tufts of hair sticking out from her head, and bruises and curses where there
should be kisses.

Perhaps they are kind because they sense their end is coming fast.

I remember when two long braids hung from either side of my head, skimming past the
line of my shoulders to the middle of my back. Mama made sure my braids were smooth,
shiny, and tied into even lengths, with red bows fastened at the ends. I wonder sometimes
if whoever first shaved my head kept the bows as souvenirs.

The door opens and they come. The kindly ones. Their eyes are hidden, like the others,
but I see through the shadows. I see the blood that is filling their eyes and blinding
them. This is a disease of their own making, grown in a lab somewhere, much like the
one where they are holding me. So much time has passed, yet they still think my blood
can heal them. Six times a day they come into the bright, hotly lit chamber, approach
the platform where I am tied by my arms and legs, and prod at the bruised, tender
flesh of my arms with their sharp, pointed fingers. I have grown accustomed to their
intent, their anger, their rage at the sight of the nerves and veins running in blue
lines beneath the chalky brown outer layer of my skin. I try not to wince, to not
give them the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurts, that pinch upon my skin,
and the sharp, sharp pinprick. Sometimes the needles aren’t as sharp as they once
were, but they say nothing as the blunt end of the needle punctures through the purple-and-black
bruises all along my arms.

I turn and watch the liquid spurt into the long, clear glass cylinder. Their hopes
rise with each filling of the specimen collector, each change that my blood undergoes
as they try to craft their cure for this disease of their own making. My face is reflected
in the glass syringe, and my lips purse and my eyes shimmer with tears I can no longer
shed. The only liquid my body can conjure is my blood; and soon, I know, if they continue
taking it from me against my will, there won’t be anything left inside of me to steal.

II.

My mother had a beautiful laugh. I can still remember the sound, coming from dreams
that pretend to follow the false sleep the lights keep me in. She was always laughing.
She laughed when my father sang to her with his clapper sticks.

Oh my darling, don’t you cry for me
.

I’m not so far away from you, ya hey yah
.

In your dreams I’ll sing how I love you so
.

Stay right by your side forever, yah hey yah
.

So close your eyes and dream. I’ll see you on the other side
.

Hey yah ha, hey ya hah, ho
!

My dad’s hands always moved in perfect rhythm, pushing his song skyward. My mother’s
laugh moved up and down the length of the sticks, and this is how I remember them.
Laughing. Singing. But never speaking my name. Just singing into the thousand tiny
pinpricks of light under the dark sky of home.

I remember watching her touch the tall grasses, singing to them as they drifted under
her fingers. The image of the kelp beds dancing under Pahe Pahe’s song come to me,
and I see that my mother, like Pahe Pahe, is singing to the grasses of the earth.
Her song makes magic as she pulls certain grasses from the earth and begins to pass
them through her teeth. “The grass needs to be softened before it can take the shape
of the basket,” my mother says. Some grasses make the journey through her mouth, others
remain undisturbed. “We save some for next year so that there will always be baskets
for the coming seasons.…” I can hear her voice so clearly, so sweetly, that even in
my mind, after I have spent all this time locked away in a laboratory that keeps me
alive for my blood, I feel her strength seep into my bones.

Her fingers shape the tough grasses, softened by her mouth, into a knot of a cross.
“This is the heart, the beginning, of any basket,” she says. My fingers, tiny, follow
hers, moving the softer pieces between the tougher ones, her patient and loving hands
guiding mine. “Baskets hold water, seeds, grass, even babies. The baskets hold our
hearts, keep us connected to the earth, to the sky, to the sea, to one another.…”
Her hands are gentle as she guides mine, and when I am finished, my basket is lopsided,
uneven, filled with little holes. My mother laughs and holds it up to the sun. “This
one is good for collecting acorns,” she says, her smile coloring her voice. “We’ll
need those for good soup.”

When they came to take me away, my mother wasn’t laughing. She made no sound at all
as the dark matte of blood oozed out from the wound in her head where they had shot
her dead. It spilled onto the red dirt as it pooled in the setting light of the sun.
My mother’s blood was weak, they said as they pulled me from her arms. Not enough
Indian to make a cure, they said.

Get up, Mama
, I screamed in our language.
Get up and chase them down!

Her eyes were open and empty as they pulled me into a helicopter, the sound of the
blades drowning out my screams.

My father does not come for me.…Only his voice seeks me out in the darkness, in the
crying-out voice that tears across my mouth. He is there, too, his body lying not
far from my mother’s. He does not move. His blood is thin, weak; yet it is the same
color as mine.

I lost my name that day. It was then I became “2231.” “It.” “Redskin.”

Dirty Indian.

III.

My father’s voice is singing in my mind when I feel the kindly ones’ fear shift into
something different.