The Sun Dwellers (44 page)

—
she’s got legs that are wobblier than a newborn tug’s—

—
and her
chest
is flatter than the Cotee Plains.

I close my eyes, hating Hawk’s words because they’re true.

When my bleeding time first arrived I was scared, but also excited. Bleeding meant becoming a woman, finally finding my place in the world. But it never really materialized. I didn’t become a woman, just stayed a scrawny girl, the bumps on my chest no more than mosquito bites, my hips remaining as flat and straight as an arrow. The only thing that identifies me as a girl is my long hair. My reflection shatters when the tears drip off my chin.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” a voice says from behind, startling me. I go to turn but then remember my tear-streaked face. Cupping a hand in the water, I splash a bit onto my cheeks and then turn around, rivulets of tear-hiding water streaming down my cheeks, neck, and beneath my dress.

Lara. With her scalp-short haircut, she looks more like a boy than ever in the darkening evening air. Even more like a boy than me—but at least she looks like a
strong
boy, her arms tanned and toned, her jaw sticking out a little. Solid—that’s the word for her.

“Like what?” I say, remembering what she said.

“Crying because you don’t think you’re pretty, shoveling other people’s blaze, being forced to
breed
when you turn sixteen. The Call. All of it can be avoided.”

“I wasn’t crying,” I say. “And it’s not breeding.” She makes it sound like we’re animals, hunks of meat. Look at me—do I look like meat?

She offers a wry smile, her lips barely parted. “Mm-huh. They pick a guy, they pick a girl, stick you together, and nine months later out pops a kid. Sounds like breeding to me.”

My throat feels dry. I haven’t had a drink in hours. “Whatever, Lara. Look, thanks for coming by to try to…” Cheer me up? Be my friend? Scare me? “…do whatever it is you’re doing, but I really need to get cleaned up and get home.” I try to stand, but my legs really are as wobbly as a tug’s, and I put a hand down to steady myself, settling for a crouch.

Lara raises an eyebrow, as if I’ve said something unexpected. “Just let me know if you want to hear more,” she says, and then whirls around and stalks off toward the village.

I watch her go. Weird. I’m not sure what that was all about, but at least it stopped my steep dive into a pit filled with stuff far worse than blaze. Self-pity.

When I turn back to the watering hole, its face is glassy again, and there I am.

I swipe a hand through the water so I don’t have to look at myself.

~~~

My skin is clean again, free of blood and durt and worse things. The water even seemed to wash away the self-pity, at least temporarily. I almost feel refreshed.

My dress, however, is a different story. No matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn’t get all the stains out, and now it looks even worse because it’s sopping wet, dragging along below me like a wet blanket.

The moon goddess is out tonight, her eye bright orange in the dark, cloudless sky. Her godlings are scattered all around her, filling the firmament with twinkling red, orange, and yellow lights. I find myself wishing I were one of them.

The watering hole is a short walk to the village, but tonight I wish it was longer. I dread facing my father.

My father ain’t Head Greynote, but he’s searin’ close. At thirty two years old, he’s already beaten his average life expectancy, and if it wasn’t for Greynote Shiva, who’s thirty five, he’d be at the top. Most men die within one year of turning thirty. Shiva hasn’t come out of his tent in a few weeks, and rumor has it he’s got a bad case of the Fire, and he’ll be dead within the month. My father will take his place.

I pass the first of the border tents, which are inhabited by the village watchmen and their families. The guard ignores me, continues to scan the area beyond the village, his bow tightly strung and in his hand. The attack from three months ago has left everyone tense.

As I zigzag my way through the tightly packed tents, I see all the usual nighttime village activities: a woman hanging wet clothes from a line; Totters playing tag, squealing with delight, their mother scolding them for making too much noise, one hand on her hip and the other holding a wooden spoon; a big family praying to the sun goddess before eating dinner—probably ‘zard stew or fried pricklers—this one a man with his three partners and nine children. A Full Family. A rare thing to see these days.

Most of the tents are boxy and upright, a standard collection of ten wooden poles of varying lengths based on size of family, knotted tightly together with cords at each corner. Four of the poles are dug into three foot deep holes and form the tent corners, rising up to meet the side and cross beams which run along the upper sides of the tent, as well as through the middle of the ceiling, forming an X, and helping to support the heavy tugskins, which are knitted together and provide the tent covering.

However, some of the tents are half-collapsed, their support poles cracked, bent, or rotted. Anything from strong winds to wild animals to age and decay could have caused the damage, but the families that live in these tents are forced to make due, as they won’t be allotted any further wood unless the sun goddess grants a miracle and trees start growing in the desert, or the contract with the Icers can be renegotiated with more favorable terms.

We used to live in one of those broken down tents.

But now, because my father’s a top ten Greynote, we get to live in a sturdy wooden hut.

I reach the end of the eastern tent fields and cut across the eye of the village, which is the quickest path to the west side, where the families of the oldest Greynotes live. I’m not sure why I’m in such a hurry all of a sudden—I think because being alone in the night scares me.

As it has for every night I can remember in my life, a large fire roars in the village center, casting a reddish-orange halo of flickering light in every direction. Men sit on stone benches drinking fire juice and telling boisterous stories and jokes that end with raucous laughter from their mates. There are no women in sight.

A group of Youngling boys sit with the men and try to act grown up by being every bit as loud as their fathers. They even sip out of leather flasks, which are likely filled with cactus milk or perhaps milk from their own mother’s teats.

I hurry by, giving the fire a wide berth, keeping my head down so as to not draw any attention to myself. Considering I look like a drowned rat, that’s easier said than done. When I do glance over at the fire to confirm I’m in the clear, one of the Younglings stands up, stares at me.
No
, I think. It’s Hawk. Here we go again.

Forcing one foot in front of the other, I keep moving swiftly, not running, not walking, but preparing myself to run like scorch if necessary. But Hawk doesn’t move, just watches me, his eyes following me across the village, his lips curled into a smile. He points, says something to his buddies, and they all laugh. I let out a long exhalation when I pass out of their sight and between two of the Greynote huts.

Away from the glow of the fire, it’s dark, and I stop in the shadows, panting, trying to force the thud, thud, thudding in my chest to slow down. I lean against the side of one of the sturdy huts, suddenly feeling the need for something to support me. For a few minutes, I just breathe, in and out, in and out, a simple act that my body normally performs automatically, without me even thinking about it, but which now seems so difficult, as if it requires every bit of my energy to make the oxygen fill, and then exit, my lungs.

Eventually, however, my heartbeat does slow, my breathing does return to normal, and I’m able to move on. My only concern now is what my father will say when he sees me. Or more accurately,
what
he will do to me.

Fire Country
by David Estes, coming March 1, 2013!