The Scourge (23 page)

“It’s supposed to be for good luck. A friend gave it to me.”

He plucks the fabric from my hand. “And this? It looks like a fleshie.”

I shrug. “Sewing isn’t exactly a talent of mine. It’s an animal, a bear.”

I wonder if he remembers Bear was the name of the “friend” he saw kissing me. From his silence, I’m fairly sure he does. He hands it back, and I shove it into my pack.

“Our women wear the carved birds on leather ties around their necks,” he says. “I could make a cord for yours, if you want.”

I finger the little carving, then hand it to him, too. “Thank you, I’d like that.”

We warm our dinner, and sit down to eat. There’s a new silence between us that’s uncomfortable, but not awkward. It’s not like we don’t have anything to say, more like we’re bursting to say things we know we shouldn’t. I push the food around my plate. It’s hard to eat with nervous tension like a grasping hand in my gut.

“Your hair’s still wet,” Peree says. “Come over by the fire and let me dry it.”

I scoot closer and turn my back to the flames. He sits to my side, and picks up handfuls of my hair, gently combing his fingers through the damp tangles. He takes his time, working his hands through each section until it dries. I relax slowly, just enjoying the feeling of his hands moving through my hair. After a few minutes, his fingers begin to glide across my shoulders, down my arms, and back up to graze the sensitive skin of my neck, lingering on the bare skin. I tense again. He scoops my hair up and lays it over my shoulder, then traces a looping trail down my back to my waist. The fire feels closer now—like I’m roasting over it.

“I’m going home,” I whisper, “after the Feast.”

His hand pauses at my hip. “What?”

“I'm going back."

"Fenn, I'm not sure my leg is ready for that kind of walking. Can't we wait for awhile?"

"I can't wait. I need to know what’s happening there."

He pulls his hand away. “So I’d just hold you back, is that it?”

“That’s not what I mean–”

“That's exactly what you mean,” he snaps. “I get it. You have a duty to your family and your people. And
that’s
most important.”

“Peree–”

“Forget it.”

I know what I’m doing. Trying to push him away, afraid of what might happen if I let things go too far. I want to smooth things over, but what can I say? No matter how much I might want to ignore it, I do have a responsibility to my people. I was supposed to try to find the Hidden Waters, and be home within a few days. And I
do
miss my family. This wasn’t supposed to be some kind of holiday.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, reaching out toward him. “I have to know if Eland and Aloe are okay.”

He exhales slowly, and slides his finger along a particularly deep scar on my hand. “Your commitment to your people and your duty . . . it’s one of those things I admire about you. I don’t expect you to change now.”

My willpower falters. I lean forward and touch my forehead to his, breathing in his sweet scent. “Why did you have to be so great? I’m supposed to hate you.”

He chuckles in a throaty way that does nothing to dispel the fire raging inside me. “I’ll try to be hateful in the future.”

He pulls his bedroll down from the bed and wraps us up in it, curling his body around mine again. I hear his breath quicken, but he doesn’t touch me any further. I’m relieved—and disappointed. A part of me wants to roll over and face him, let things lead where they may. At the same time I want to jump up and run.

I’ve never felt this conflicted about someone before.

My relationships with Aloe, Eland, Calli, even Bear, grew out of the close ties of family and friendship, nurtured since childhood. I’ve never questioned my feelings for them. But with Peree it’s different. We were thrown together. I didn’t expect to have anything with him at all, apart from the distant relationship of Water Bearer and Keeper. The intensity of our bond confounds me.

I can’t deny I have strong feelings for him. But I’m holding back, resisting the growing intimacy. If I let go of my heart, give myself over to him, what will we do when we go back? No Groundling and Lofty ever made a life together. There’s no precedent for it. What would our families say? What would the Three do? Where would we even live? I wish I could say it didn’t matter to me. But it does. I care for him, but I care about my family and my people too.

So I do nothing, snared in a miserable tangle of desire and caution, longing and fear.

“Fennel, I’m so glad you came.” Kadee takes my hands in hers. Her skin feels dusty.

I rub my fingers together and a smile crosses my face. “Flour?”

“I’m doing some baking for the Feast. How are you?”

“Still shocked about everything, I guess.”

“And upset with me, for not telling you sooner about Peree.”

I shrug. “I was, a little, but I know you had to tell him first.”

“He was so badly injured, and then when he woke up, I didn’t know how to say the words.”

I nod. “I wouldn’t know either.”

“Somehow I doubt that. You don’t seem like you’d shrink from a difficult situation.”

My cheeks flame, thinking about the night before. “
Um
, would you like help with the baking?”

“Please—I have so much to do still.”

I’m as much of a failure at cooking as I am at sewing, but I do love to bake. When I was about eight, I pestered the baker unmercifully one afternoon until he finally shoved ingredients at me and showed me what to do with them. I fell in love with kneading the dough, feeling the soft mush slowly thicken under my fingers. Over time I learned how dough feels when it’s the right consistency, and how bread smells when perfectly baked—spongy and warm inside, crusty outside. I still sometimes join him at the clay oven near the roasting pit when I finish early in the caves.

As Kadee and I work, blending and forming the lumps of dough, my mind wanders back to Peree. Suddenly I realize the dough I’m working with has become more rock than loaf. She takes it from me with a chuckle. “Do you want to talk? You must have a lot on your mind.”

“It’s about Peree.”

“Is he all right?”

“Yes, it's just . . . I think he wants . . . more from me than I can give him.” I squirm with embarrassment, but I have to talk to someone, or I’m going to explode. “I’m sorry, I know you probably don’t want to hear this about your son.”

“I want to hear anything you have to tell me, Fennel,” she says. “Anyway, I’m not surprised. I won’t claim to know Peree or his feelings as I once did, but I do know young men. And the way he looks at you–”

I groan. “Not that again. What does that even
mean
?”

“He watches you. All the time. When you move, he moves. When you smile, he smiles. When you walk away, it seems hard for him not to follow. Clearly he has strong feelings. But do you feel the same way?”

“Does it matter?” I grab my head in frustration, remembering too late that my hands are covered in sticky bits of dough. “No matter how we feel about each other, there’s no future for us! Not one I can see, anyway. I’m a Groundling. He’s a Lofty. That’s not going to change, no matter what happens when we get home.”

“The future can be hard to predict,” Kadee says. “I certainly never saw Koolkuna in my future, when I was your age. And after I came here, I didn’t allow myself to hope I might see my child again, but that too was meant to be. Who knows what might happen to any of us? All we can do is follow our hearts.” After a moment she says, “
It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.
”

“That sounds like something Wirrim would say.”

She laughs. “Those words were written long ago, before the Fall.”

“Written?” I wonder if that’s a Koolkuna word.

“Writing is . . . marks on a piece of cloth. Marks that can be read and repeated. People used to write down what they thought and said, so that it could be passed on to other people. I can show you what I mean, if you’d like. It won’t take long.”

We clean the dough and flour off our hands and leave the village, walking along the path to the water hole. A bird shrills from a tree beside us and I automatically tense. I wonder if I’ll ever quit listening for the Scourge, or if it will always be part of me, as permanent as my Sightlessness.

“When I came to Koolkuna the first time, I was entranced by Wirrim’s storytelling,” Kadee says. “I was especially intrigued by stories from before the Fall, when the world was a vastly different place. After I went home, I was afraid to tell people the stories, worried they’d ask where I learned them. So I whispered them to Peree at bedtime, night after night.”

I smile. “He told me some to distract me as I collected the water.”

“They distracted
me
, too, and they helped me remember my time in Koolkuna.”

We pass the turn to the water hole. I can hear the crashing waterfall as we go by. I didn’t even know the path continued on. “Where are we going?”

“To a special place—for me, at least. The place where I learned many of the tales.”

Some minutes later we enter a large clearing that’s unimpeded by trees, judging from the bright light. Tall grass sweeps across my legs. It’s quiet, except for the chitchat of the birds. They sound like they’re gossiping about us.

“When I returned,” Kadee says, “Wirrim didn’t have enough stories to distract me from my misery over leaving Peree. So he brought me here.”

She leads me forward, placing my hand on something solid and rough, like rock, but too even to be natural. It feels man-made, like clay. I explore up, down, and across, but the rock feels the same all over.

“It’s an old building, from before the Fall,” she says.

Excitement bubbles through me. “Really? An actual pre-Fall building? Our teacher, Bream, talked about them. Is this one as high as the sun?”

Kadee laughs. “No, but it’s taller than our homes. There are other buildings here, too. This was a village once, like ours, but larger. When the people arrived in Koolkuna, it was already abandoned—except for the
runa
. Come in, but watch yourself, the building is old. It does its best to crumble while we’re not looking.”

I immediately notice the smell as I step inside. It’s dusty and dank, and makes my nose itch. There’s an intriguing odor, like the rows of pouches and pots on the shelves in Nerang’s room in the trees. The building is dark, but not pitch black, and the floors are firmer than wood. Something in here absorbs the sound. I stretch out my arm, feeling for anything recognizable.

“What is this place?” I ask.

Kadee places something in my hand. It’s rectangular, flat, and smooth—like a piece of sanded wood—but softer, with some weight to it. I explore it with my fingers. The top pulls up, revealing another smooth, featureless surface underneath. And there are more beneath that one. When I move my fingers across their edges, it sounds like a bird fluttering, stretching out its wings to fly.

“What is this?”

“A book. These are called pages.” She crinkles one under my fingers. “It has the little markings I told you about. They’re called letters. When you know how to read the letters, the pages tell you the stories. This one’s called
Viennese Silver: Modern Design 1780
–
1918
.
It has pictures, but not all books do.”

“Viennese silver? What’s that?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t read this one. The room is full of books and I’ve only read a fraction of them. Here, feel this stack.” She guides my hand to more of the books, piled on top of each other. “There are hundreds like it.” I take a few steps forward, moving my hand from place to place, and everywhere I find more piles.

“How did you learn to–” I yelp. A book fell on my foot. A hefty one, judging from the throbbing in my toes.

“How did I learn to read them?” Kadee guesses, after checking to see if I was okay. “Do you remember Wirrim told you about the woman who explained the significance of the Myuna to us
?
She arrived weak and sick, like you and Peree, only she wasn’t so young as you. She stayed for some time recuperating.”

“Wirrim said she came from the City?”

“Yes, or what was left of the City after the Fall. Her people survived by hiding in small groups, mostly underground. It was very difficult. There were more
runa
in the City—many more, and it was hard to hide from them—but there were also more survivors. They helped each other. The woman called this a library. People came here to read books for knowledge, and to entertain themselves. Her people remembered and passed down the ability to read, and she taught Wirrim while she was here. When he saw my interest, Wirrim taught me.”

I’m fascinated. Until a few days ago I didn’t know there was a way to live other than how we did. To find Koolkuna, with people like ours, yet so unlike them too, and now to hear about other survivors from the City . . . it’s like one of Peree’s stories. Too fantastical to be true.

Kadee continues, “Reading has been my love and my duty ever since, along with working in the gardens. I read as much as I can about the world before the Fall, the world this building was once a part of. And when Wirrim goes on, I’ll become the Memory Keeper for the people.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.” I try to hide it, but I’m surprised. While Wirrim doesn’t seem to be a leader in the way the Three are, he’s obviously a well-respected member of the community, sought after for his opinion. For the
anuna
to allow a
lorinya
not only to stay, but to inherit a position of honor, only highlights how different Koolkuna is from home.

Kadee wanders through the room. “The first book I ever read on my own was a collection of simple children’s tales called
Animal Fables and Stories from Around the World
. I heard Wirrim tell the people stories from it when I was first here, then I told them to Peree." I smile. So that's where the stories about tigers, the cassowary woman, and the first fish came from. "I’m using the book now to teach Kora and a few of the other children to read. Some of their parents don’t see the need, but they humor me.”