The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (22 page)

"Oh now," Breathe said, "What does that matter?"

"They don't want to be involved.  They do with what they have.  There won't be anything we have that they will want enough that I can bribe them to help."

"Ahhh, Diem, you are a wise Rha, but never forget that there is always so much more to learn," the old woman said with a sly smile.  "You are absolutely right that the Hold House won't take your bribes.  They're not that kind of people."  She chuckled.  "I learned that the first time I met them, after the Scorching."

"You met them in the Scorching?  There are more of us from back then?  How many people made it through that?" Maeve said.  It was like a family reunion, the prospect of meeting distant relatives for the first time.  Breathe's eyes darted around the room as Diem went to the door.  He opened it, gave a whistle that swooped in the middle, and closed the door.  He nodded to his grandmother.

"It is safe to tell," he said.  "Forge is watching for any Plutians."

Breathe settled back on the bed, her spine against the wall.

"There are some.  Those were horrendous times, as I've already told you Maeve, but I have to remind you, must be careful when we speak of it." Breathe said.  "You've heard the story, but to tell of the emotions in that story, well, we must hide it on penalty of death.  The Plutians scoured our information systems before the Scorching and learned our language; they learned a great deal about us, but they fail to fully understand human nature, our slang, and our sarcasm.  Thank God.

"You will hear these children..." Breathe hooked a soft finger to indicate Diem, but when the old woman looked back at Maeve, Breathe chuckled to herself.  "Children.  You still look like one of them, yourself.  I should've been down in that Archive with you. 

"The children know as much as we could teach them of what our world used to be, but in the beginning, on this new Earth, there was little time for teaching.  We had grown so afraid to look outside, when the Plutians lifted our tent, it was like we were moles.  My own children and I huddled together, along with Eon's parents.  The first thing I remember was the smell of fresh air."

She inhaled as if the memory brought pain with it, but she continued.  She closed her eyes with a deep inhale and her face relaxed as she filled her lungs and she continued on with the memory.

"When I could open my eyes, I saw what is here now.  A whole landscape I didn't know, foliage I didn't recognize, and people
—there were people, huddled, just like us—all around.  I heard so many languages, ones I recognized as being from all around the globe.  They whispered in their foreign tongues from all around me, but I could only understand one thing.  We were all frightened. 

"But we were put to work from the moment the Plutians removed our tents.  We came to use English because it was the most common language among us.  They explained what we were to do and divided us into the five Houses that we still have today.  We became the s
lave labor, harvesting dragons for Pluto's dragon trade.  They have a commerce among the planets, trading these animals to planets that desire protection.  They are the pit bulls of our day, if you remember the reputation of those dogs."  The old woman, catching sight of her grandson, chuckled again.  "The children don't know what Earth was like.  They can't fathom such a thing as a dog."

Diem only knotted his arms over his chest and leaned a shoulder to the wall, still listening.  But Maeve found Breathe to be everything she'd been needing.  Someone who remembered what normal was like, someone who understood where she'd come from because they'd been there too.  It was like being home again, just listening to the old woman speak.

"Each House has a Plutian overseer," Breathe went on, "and in the beginning, we hated them so deeply, so we named them after our old curses.  Any sign of disrespect we could heap on them, we did.  Not that it lightened our loads any, but it does help us to remember our pride in our Earth and our race.

"The Plutians only know what they read from our data bases.  We spelled the nicknames to them and they scanned for them, but couldn't find them, so they were accepted.  Some of them considered it our charming quirk, as if we were their pets who adored them.  Some barely tolerated it, but with our joyful persistence, and even without it, so long as our words remained polite, they did not understand sarcasm, so they all eventually came to believe that the names were a compliment, instead of exactly what they'd first suspected.

"But we cannot swear in the Plutians’ presence because of it.  Hell and damn are the only slightly acceptable curse words left of the archaic, and our children have added their own new words in their place.

"Other than work, there is little to tell of what occurred after the Scorching.  The Houses were here for us to inhabit and we began our new lives in them together, many of us not understanding one another.  It was an enormous problem in a very short amount of time, since we had to work somewhat with each other to do the business Pluto had given us to do.  Other languages still exist, but many have slowly fallen away.  We are the story of the Tower of Babel, in reverse."

Maeve sat beside Breathe, trying to soak it all in.  It was all too fantastic for her to fully absorb.  Dragons and Plutians, a scorched Earth and a whole generation that never even knew what it was like to live the way Maeve and Breathe had once lived.  No cars or TV or tabloids.  No fast food or apartments or nail polish.  She tried to grasp how everything she once knew could be gone now.  Forever and ever gone.

"Yes," Breathe said, moving to drape an arm around Maeve's shoulders.  "I see it in your eyes.  That was the way I felt too, after the Scorching.  The shock of losing everything we had and knew.  But you will be fine, Maeve Aypotu, you will be fine.  You are a strong woman and you will be fine."

Maeve was suddenly unsure of how strong she was.  Just because Breathe knew the tabloids’ portrayal of Maeve's life, it didn’t mean Breathe knew Maeve’s capabilities at all.  Maybe Breathe was assuming too much, based on her folded paper talisman and recollection of tabloid stories. 

Maeve realized who she was, the curtain lifted, and what she saw was only a failed trust fund baby and a girl suited up for battle
against the world, inside heavy, buckled shitkickers.  The weight of it threatened to bow Maeve's shoulders.

Maeve kicked back her spine at the thought.  She would not bend to the what ifs
and assumptions.  She couldn’t.  Maybe she'd actually been training all her life for this.  Maybe her piercings and tattoos and leather outfits were all the armor her subconscious had always known she would need to make it through all of this.  After all, she was the one who was here now.  She was a survivor, and whether or not it was coincidental, she was here, and she was going to face what was coming at her, like she always did.

"Yes, that's it," Breathe encouraged her with a squeeze to Maeve's shoulder.  "You're going to be just fine."

"You said Hold House could help, Gra?"  Diem asked. 

"Yes, I believe the Rha of Hold House would help," Breathe said, a grin fixed to her soft skin.  She divided her eye contact between the Maeve and Diem, skipping back and forth as her words were intended for one or the other.  "You are correct that they cannot be bought, Diem.  The Hold House's Rha is named Shown.  His House occupants are diligent workers and honest.  If any of our Houses could be considered happy, I suppose Hold House's occupants are the closest to it."

"I see Diem's point then," Maeve said and she felt his eyes snap to her.  "Why would they consider putting their necks on the line to help me?"

"Because they are what we used to call good people."

Good people.  That was a shot in the dark.  Maeve had known so few good people.  Her gut told her that Breathe and Diem were good, but Maeve's gut had never been all that reliable.  What if these people ended up being people she actually knew?  Her long-lost caregiver, Agnes, or Popi the traitor, or even one of the guys from the tattoo shop?  It was against the odds, but wasn't the whole Earth against the odds now?

"Do you know what the Rha's name was, before the Scorching, Breathe?"

"Oh," Breathe's eyes squinted as they rolled to the ceiling.  She tapped her lip again.  "What was Shown's original name?  It's been so long since I thought of it...wait, I do know the original names of two in his House.  Generation and Nature still use their archaic names like pet names for each other.  His name was originally Garrett and hers was Nalena.  The Rests, no...The Reeses.  Yes, they were the Reeses."

***

"Do you know them?" Diem leaned in, hoping Maeve recognized the names.  He couldn't stop himself.  He wanted her to be happy.  To feel safe. 

But Maeve frowned. 

"No," she said.  "I wish I did.  I can't imagine a total stranger, no matter how good they are, risking anything to help me out."

"All they'd have to do is vouch for you as one of their own.  Pizant's their overseer and he's the most lazy of all of them.  He's got nothing to worry about; the Hold House doesn't have quotas like the rest of us do."

"Pizant?  Like Piss Ant?" Maeve giggled and Breathe joined her. 

"That's nothing.  You should hear the rest of their names."

"What are they?"

"Well, Phuck's our overseer..."  Breathe said and Maeve burst out in peals of laughter that left Diem speechless.  The sound was light and easy and he hadn't heard anyone laugh like that in...ever.  The sound healed small wounds in his soul.  "Tiddy controls Hot House and Phart has Ice House...Dick-Edd is at Breed House and want to hear the best?  The chief overseer, we call him Shetbahg."

"Oh, that's classic!" Maeve laughed.  Diem couldn't help the broad smile that appeared as he watched her.  Her face became a different thing when she laughed, as enchanting and lovely and bright as the moon.  And she pulled his eyes to her, as if he were just a rolling wave.  What in thunder was happening to his mind? 

"I'll go to Hold House tomorrow," Diem said.  "You'll only have to stay one more night in the shack."

"Why not go tonight?" Breathe asked. 

"In the dark?  You want them to send their dragon after me?" 

"I don't want Maeve to have to spend the night in this shack."

"I'll stay with her," Diem said.  Well, his tongue said it.  His body tensed and said it in other ways.  But Breathe's teasing grin made his face flush hot.  She was his Gra, after all.  And then he was just annoyed.  "So no one bothers her.  And she doesn't spook Forge."

"Yes, Forge is so easily spooked," Breathe laughed, patting Maeve's leg before getting to her feet.  "But I do think it's a good idea for you to have some company and you can't be safer than with my Diem, Maeve.  He won't let anything happen to you.  As for me, I should get back to the party and take care of things that actually need taking care of."

***

Maeve saw how Diem eyed her freed hands before he took his granny back to their house.  But there was no way in hell she was going to offer to be shackled just to give him peace of mind that she'd be there when he got back.  Especially since she was considering her odds of making a break for it once his dragon was out of sight. 

She heard Diem whistle as he called Forge, then whistle again to leave.  Maeve felt the quiver of the dragon's take off through the floor.  Sitting there in the shack, she was no longer 100% on what she wanted to do.  The shack was dry, there was food in the cupboard...and the bed was soft.  On that last thought, Maeve hopped to her feet.  She still wasn't about to be anyone's bitch.

Diem's dragon was long gone and she had to be the same, before it got back.  Maeve's ancient note, which the old woman had produced, tugged at Maeve, but shit.  She really didn't know these people and she couldn't be sure that there wasn't a 7-Eleven sitting just down the street, outside the funky tree line.

She cracked the door open a wedge.  It was the color of slate outside, the shadows draped over everything so that the woods appeared twice as ominous.  Maeve took a deep breath.  Then she took a step out the door.

The animals rushed at her in a flurry of diamond-ended tails and heads like pointer dogs, enormous bat wings, and the smell of cold cigarettes.  Maeve shrieked and stumbled backward as the St. Bernard-sized dragons knocked against her.  She landed on her butt as one hissed and then there was a tremendous belch from another, followed by a flame that shot across the width of the porch.  It took Maeve only a moment to realize these dragons were the real deal.  She rushed back inside the shack and kicked the door closed.

She was breathing hard as she got to her feet again.  This was Diem's doing.  That bastard had set his little band of dragons on the shack to keep her in.  And now, just because of it, she wanted out more than anything.  She grumbled curses as she unlatched the window shutters and swung them open wide, as quietly as she could.  She pulled herself up on the window ledge, ready to lift out a leg just as she heard the feet of the creatures beating around the edge of the shack.  She dropped down just in time.  A stream of flame burst in through the window and hit the ceiling. 

Maeve, beneath the sill, reached up with only the tip of her finger.  She hooked it on the bottom edge of one shutter and slammed the thing closed.  Another line of flame burst through the still-open shutter, but once the blaze vanished, Maeve flipped that shutter closed too.  It wasn't sealed shut, but the dragons didn't shoot any more flames at it.