Unnaturals (22 page)

"My father." old Codes waved at a mound. "Once the chief. And the boy I would have married." Another mound. "They ended up on different sides. My best friend." Another wave. "Caught in the cross-fire. A bullet intended for someone else works just as well on whoever it lands on..." She laughed. It sounded as if she hadn't drunk water for a week. "But you don't even know what a bullet is, do you?"

"I know what a bullet is." Meliora almost could not recognize her voice. "Wonderful experiences. Feeds. I remember."

"There are no more bullets. Never again will there be. And those who remember will be few. And that"—another wave—"is my old apprentice. Twenty years gone now. She thought night outside the village was safe. She thought she could go anywhere."

Old Codes walked to the second mound. She pulled her shawl tight around her. Then she stood there and watched the mound for a long time, but there was nothing to see. Nothing at all. Just grass, and dirt, and flowers, and even a baby tree, its finger-thin trunk shooting up to the sky, barely taller than the grass.

The way of nature. Nature took over again after humans and gods were done with it. After time had had its say. Even the mounds were almost flattened, unlike the two in the village graveyard that people said were from last year.

They went back in silence, old Codes huddled under her shawl, her eyes red and dry. Meliora had many questions, but for once she didn't ask them.

That night she dreamed of the devils in the temple coming alive and stopping the interweb, and of the boat she and Mom had traveled in sinking in the river, and Albert the horse falling with all his knees broken. She dreamed of her father raising a large pistol to shoot Nicolas, and herself running to the chief, screaming. She woke just as the bullets hit her, drenched in sweat.

When she fell asleep again, Nicolas was kissing her, while Lizzy was shouting beside them that Meliora was decayed, that she should be kissing Pat instead. Then Nicolas and Lizzy and Pat were all gone, and there were only mounds—an endless field of mounds and baby trees growing on them.

The bed was screeching in the other room. Her parents must be busy. Meliora got up and went out in the dark. She went to the stables, where Albert and Ivy the mare were nodding over their fodder racks. Albert snorted gently when he saw her. His breath was warm, and he smelled of sweat and hay and summer. He had all his knees intact. Mel wrapped her arms around his neck and stayed there for a long, long time.

***

Meliora didn't dream of her mother this night at all. Yet, the next morning it was Erika who didn't get up from her bed. On that same day, an old man died in the village, and on the day after that was buried in the graveyard with the bigger mounds, right by the village itself. Women wailed when the old man died, even women who weren't close to him.

The
graveyard, people called this place, but Meliora didn't ask why, when there was also another one. She didn't seek out old Codes to ask all the questions she hadn't asked. She didn't even look at Nicolas when he came to her home to urge the chief to go somewhere because of something Nicolas called urgent—though Nicolas certainly looked at her.

She stayed by Erika's side all the time. All she did was care for Erika and pray for Erika. Yet, Erika wouldn't get up.

It was a cold, old Codes said. The night had been colder than the nights before. Cold air must have gotten into the house when the fire was extinguished, and then gotten into her lungs.

It wasn't the city young-age sickness. It could not be. It must not be! Yet, Erika wasn't getting up.

The chief came back from his meeting with Nicolas with a deep frown between his eyebrows. It deepened more when he saw his wife. He sat at the edge of the bed across from Meliora. Mel was holding one of Mom's hot hands, the chief took the other one. Mom didn't give a sign that she was aware of either one beside her.

The chief had been out all night, when Meliora had gone to the stables. The screeching bed had been because of Erika tossing, the sickness having gotten a hold of her already.

I should have looked before I went out. I should have at least knocked on that door. I should have stirred the embers and added new wood to the fireplace and made sure I closed the door behind me so that no more cold air could get in
.

I shouldn't have gone out
.

I should have stayed with her
!

She stayed with her now. Days and nights, Mel stayed with Mom and fed her with a spoon whenever she could make her stand upright enough to swallow. Days and nights, Mel held Mom's hand and changed her soaked sheets, washing them in a tub into the kitchen. She wouldn't get out for long enough even to wash them in the village's creek.

Young men of the village brought the water and firewood every day as per the chief's orders—and if some of them thrust the tub to the ground with more force than necessary, making the water splash, Mel paid them no heed. And if some gave her sulky looks from the corners of their eyes, she didn't care about that, either, just like she didn't care that none of them was ever Nicolas. Neither did she care that old Codes urged her to eat and day by day looked at her more worriedly. Neither did she care to sleep much.

She only cared about Mom, but Mom wouldn't get up.

Then, one morning, Meliora could not get up, either. She was conscious enough to know it in the beginning. Then, all she remembered were boats that went in rails underground like trains, and birds that flew high enough to find the gods, and Nicolas cutting off the village's communication with the gods just because he could. She remembered Mom saying that she was tired of being Erika, that Bunny, after all, fitted her better, and whenever were they going to buy new blouses? She remembered herself and Mom walking—walking, until Mom fell and wouldn't get up. She remembered herself screaming, and crying, and the world shaking—shaking so much that she thought she'd fall off.

"Wake up, Mel! Don't go there, girl!"

She woke up to old Codes' red and dry eyes gazing into hers, then closing for a moment.

"Oh, thank you gods! Thank you for giving
this
young soul back to us."

Several days later, after feeding Meliora meat and hot broths and doing all chores for her together with Belinda and Mati, old Codes told her to get up.

"Your fever is gone," she said. "It is cold outside and won't get warmer for months, only colder. It is only autumn now, anyway. You must get used to it. Mati and Belle will show you how to dress warmly. You must get used to coldness and winter, Meliora. You must get used to surviving."

"Go, I said!" she yelled after Meliora had silently sat at the edge of her mom's bed.

Belle and Mati brought her a coat.

It wasn't that cold outside. The air was brisk, but the sun was in the sky, and its warmth felt good on her cheeks. There was light, too. Mel realized she'd missed it inside the cottage. Windows didn't give enough light, and candles gave even less. Mel smiled.

"So what do you find so
funny?
"

A crowd of village youth stood a little further in the street. Mel hadn't noticed them.

Now Elizabeth was glaring at Meliora's smile, and so were Rita and Alice beside her, and Andreas and Zack. Pat was avoiding her eyes. Alice's belly was swollen as much as Arisa's had been the last time Meliora had seen her, and the heavy sheep coat made her look like a ball. For some reason Meliora laughed at that. A young man lurched at her in the next moment, and Belinda jumped before her, spreading her arms protectively.

"Shame on you, Andreas Hunter! A strong hunting man should never attack a helpless sick girl, no matter how much he..."

Belle screamed. The fist initially aimed at Meliora caught her in the shoulder, and Belle folded herself in two, whimpering.

Andreas could have stopped. He'd had enough time to know he wasn't hitting the right person.

He could have stopped, but he hadn't.

Meliora dropped to her knees beside Belinda. She was a doctor, and right now neither a medstat nor old Codes was here. Then Mati screamed, followed by Alice. Meliora raised her head and saw Andreas stumbling back, a red blotch on his face. Another red blotch surfaced as Nicolas hit him again.

Meliora didn't even know where Nicolas had come from. Andreas fell on the ground. Alice started crying, while Lizzy and Zach stood aside, glaring at Meliora and Nicolas.

Andreas moaned. Drops of blood dripped from under his sleeve and soaked into the village's dirt road. Mel had already helped Belinda up, so she knelt beside Andreas. He must have hit his hand on a rock. It would be bad, a hunter with a useless hand. Unlike agriculture, there was hunting in winter.

"Don't touch him, decayed bitch!" Alice, Andreas' heavy wife screamed and would have scratched Meliora's face if Nicolas hadn't stepped between them. Alice didn't dare scratch Nicolas, obviously. "Don't contaminate my husband, Meliora, you abomination!" she screamed from a safe distance.

"Off you go, Alice," Nicolas said. His voice was as cold as in the temple with Meliora, and there was unquestionable command in it. "Elizabeth, you too. Patrick, Zacharias, hold this brute and take him to Mistress Codes' cottage. She'll see him—after she sees Belle."

Nicolas gripped Meliora's arm and forcefully raised her from Andreas' side. Mel almost hit Nicolas, but some small part of her mind restrained her.

"You." Nicolas didn't even use her name. He leaned and gathered Belinda in his arms.

"Andreas' condition is worse than Belle's," Meliora snapped as he started walking briskly towards Meliora's house and she and Mati had to jog to keep up with him. "Mistress Codes should see him first."

Nicolas said nothing. He carried Belinda to the same room where Mel's mom was. He need not have carried her! Belle could walk.

Old Codes seemed to think the same. She took a look at Belle, then told her to lie beside Mel's mom and wait.

"A healer treats patients in fairness," old Codes muttered. "You told me the wretched boy is worse off."

Nicolas stood at the door, not letting old Codes pass.

"There is such a thing as fairness, Mistress Codes," he said softly. "And then, there is justice. Treat Belinda. Now."

Old Codes looked at him. For a moment, Meliora thought she'd do justice to him with her walking stick.

Then she turned back and treated Belinda.

Justice was the province of the chief. But the chief wasn't here and Nicolas was.

He followed Meliora in the kitchen when old Codes started undressing Belle.

"What devils possessed you," he said, still softly, "to try to help Andreas?" She hated that voice. "He'd have hurt you, certainly. Killed you, perhaps."

"What has possessed
you
to talk of killing?" People didn't kill other people. Not these days. Not since the time of the mounds on the hill. "Do you want my father's place?"

"Want?" He laughed. "I don't
want
it."

"No one is to take anyone's place." old Codes had appeared in her usual quiet manner. She walked briskly to the fireplace, stirring the embers.

"Such times are gone. Gone forty-five years now, and whelps like you have no way to understand. And, Meliora,
you
should have stirred that fire. What do you want—your mother to die of cold? Or you, yourself. You aren't that healthy yet. And you, smart-mouth Nicolas, should have thought about that, too. Justice might be good—when there is fire. A chief keeps his people alive, boy. He saves them even from their own stupidity."

"No, Mistress Codes. That kind of saving is for priests." His voice was still quiet. "A chief's task is harder—and Julian had better start doing it again! He'd better start noticing what is going on! You should notice, too! You don't want there to be another civil war, but look at the people! You shouldn't have sent Meliora out today with no one but Belle and Mati to guard her."

"Those times are gone, boy. Forty-five years gone. It wasn't for
nothing.
Off you go now. There must be hunting to do, or chief-learning, I am sure."

Nicolas opened his mouth to respond, then shrugged.

"Don't go out." These words were for Meliora. "Mistress Codes here might not have told you, but Arisa's baby is dead. It came way too early, and Mistress Codes could not save it. They don't blame her. They blame you and your mother. They blamed Elizabeth, too, before she destroyed the paintings in the temple and got pregnant. Not that they accept her now, but at least no one would punch her. Pregnancy, you see. And those children you hid in the nights with—yes, of course I know, everyone knows, this is the damn
village
—they are too young and weak to protect you. I can't be everywhere at once, and Julian is out of the village. He is...doing chief things. He"—Nicolas sighed—"wouldn't know what to do even if he was here. Don't go out just yet."

"And hide!? How about my children? How are they treating
them?
"

"Your
children
are not your responsibility."

"Why, you arrogant... No. You're right." She lowered her head. Her hands were trembling.

"They are treating them all right enough for now," he said gently. "As long as the children don't read anything but the Book and don't write. As long as they don't talk about you, and"—he sighed—"the villagers don't know what else you've been teaching them. Otherwise..."

She shook her head. "No, you're right, Nicolas. They are not my responsibility." She raised her eyes to him again, and he looked at her strangely, but she didn't care, shouldn't care—about children, computers, or a young man's eyes. She turned her back to him and stirred the fire, then added a new log and stirred again, and again, until the fire was so high and strong that she could barely breathe and sweat was running from her body like a rivulet.

She didn't see him leave. She didn't notice Belinda leave. She only noticed the chief enter, hours later, because he brought more wood. He turned to her after thrusting the load beside the fireplace, and reached into his pocket.