Unnaturals (17 page)

The fallen tree moved. It writhed on the ground, a triangular head emerging at the side of a long body at least fifteen feet long. It had no feet, but it had fangs. And yes, its colors were beautiful.

They blurred into an indistinguishable palette as the creature torpedoed towards Mom.

Mom screamed. Mel thought she screamed, too, but heard nothing of her own voice.

All she heard was the "thud, thud, thud" inside her ears and inside her head. All she saw was Mom's still, crumpled form in the grass as she shoved Mom away and took her place.

Mel swung with the axe, and the creature leaped to the side. For a moment it stood still. Its eyes were yellow and oval. They watched too smartly, too differently from those of a sheep. The monster was swinging its tail, giving out a nasty rattling sound. Then it charged.

Mel swung with the axe again. Hit with the sharp part, aim for the neck, aim for a red ribbon.

She missed, but the creature's fangs missed, too—barely. Instead, the rattlers caught Mel's leg, and she knew she must be bleeding, though she didn't feel it.

She swung again and this time caught its tail. The creature hissed, rattled, then slithered quickly away.

Mom moaned out there in the grass. Mel knelt by her, her heart still thumping in her ears. Mom wouldn't talk, and her forehead was burning.

It hadn't bitten Mom. It had been smart enough to avoid the helpless human and aim for the dangerous one. It had been
too
smart. Mel had recalled feeds about snakes after she'd seen that snake with Stella. The rattling ones weren't that smart. They weren't that big. They didn't like to attack, either.

Mom moaned again. "Oh, Julian," she said. "I'll meet you soon, my love."

"You won't meet him yet! Wake up!"

She did, for a moment.

"Mel, I am hungry," she whispered, then closed her eyes again.

The witch's cottage was hours away. Mom wouldn't make it. And even if she did, the witch had said she wouldn't help any more. As for the City of Life, the gods only knew how far it was.

"Fine," Mel whispered back. "I'll get you food. Nature's way."

The rope Stella had given her was long. Mel hugged Mom under the shoulders and carried her to the middle of the path and let her lie there, then went to work cutting the rope.

Stella had made a trap for rabbits, but that was not the only type of trap the old feeds described.

When she was done, Meliora gripped her axe tightly and moved back, just behind the trees. Out in the path, Mom looked utterly alone—and helpless.

Seconds, minutes later—a whole damn
eternity
later—Mel heard rattling. Weak, sad rattling, as if from a tail partly cut.

"I knew you were close," Mel whispered under her breath.

This time it couldn't torpedo itself forward. It was still fast, though, fast enough to slide over the system of ropes around the helpless human and find itself swinging from the branch of a tree, a tight knot cutting through the middle of its body.

It was rattling and hissing in the air. Its yellow eyes left Mom and fixed Mel the moment Mel ran from the trees with her axe.

Mel raised the axe, then hesitated. The monster was still swinging, and its hisses weren't as frightening now. It could do nothing—and unlike the cute, silly bunnies, it looked at Mel as if it knew what was coming.

"I am sorry." The axe swung, and the cut was not at all the clean, precise ribbon on the neck of an already unconscious creature.

Mel built a fire on the path, the way the witch had shown her. She skinned and dressed the monster and cut its meat into pieces. She kept the head—in a separate bag, under heavy stones. The old feeds said that a monster's head could still bite.

When she fed Mom the snakelike, bite by bite, Mom opened her eyes.

"Delicious." Mom smiled. "Where is the monster, Mel? We shouldn't be lingering in a place with monsters, should we?"

"No," Mel said, "we shouldn't."

Mom drifted away but breathed better. Let her sleep for a moment.

Mel climbed a tree to get her ropes back, then they walked. Mel stumbled with a bag of meat and a monster's head on her back, supporting her mom with one arm, an axe raised in her other hand. She didn't walk on the path. She walked straight to where the monster had last come from, following the bloody trail its cut tail had left.

Up, from a tree, she'd seen a stone cave at the other end of the trees, and the river behind that cave.

Mel and Mom crawled through the cave. It had the trail of blood, smelled of rot, and was full of small bones.

On the other side of the monster's den there was another cave entrance and, just like she'd seen from the tree, a boat.

The witch had told her that the river was safer.

At first, Mom wouldn't let Meliora on the boat.

"You should not be coming!"

Later, she lay on the bottom and hummed and talked nonsense as Meliora rowed as well as she could through darkness and a night full of croakers.

"Oh, Julian."

Mom whispered Dad's name many times as Mel rowed. She kept whispering it as they reached a low bank where another boat was tied; she repeated the name like a chant as Mel fed her fruit from a bush and led her uphill along a winding path.

Julian. Mel hated the name already. It was her father's name—but she barely remembered her father. He was gone. He was never coming back to them.

Mel looked down once they had mounted the hill. There was a city in the valley on the other side of the hill. Or, perhaps
city
wasn't the word, since it looked nothing like Lucasta but was rather a haphazard conglomeration of cottages like Stella's. Whatever it was, Mel carried her mom to it.

The first people to meet them were children dressed in rough, homespun clothes. They shouted excitedly, asking Mel and Mom who they were and where they had come from. Then one of the children sped away.

Soon adults came to meet them as well, dressed in the same rough clothes. A tall, broad-shouldered man was leading them.

"Oh, Julian," Mom whispered again, her voice no more than a croak.

But this time she was right.

The leader was Dad.

Village

Mel woke up when the chipped moon was still shining through a kitchen window like Stella's. She lay in a similar bed with scratchy sheets, covered with blankets made of sheep.

Mel got up and walked to the door to the only other room. The door was closed, and she didn't like this. She didn't remember a time when a door had stood between her and Mom in their own home. She put her hand on the handle and opened the door slightly—and then she did remember such times.

Long, long ago, she'd woken up in the middle of softlights to find the door between her room and Mom and Dad's closed. It had something to do with Mom and Dad being mates, but this time it was different. Usually there were sounds when that happened, but this time silence had crept into the house. The little girl toddled to the door and opened it slightly.

Even the computers were silent. They lay on the little bedside table with their screens dark, their keyboards still and soundless. Mom and Dad weren't watching the screens. They were sitting at the edge of the bed, watching each other's eyes. They watched them for so long that it hurt the little girl's eyes just to look at them.

"You won't come, then," Dad said at last, so softly that Mel hardly heard him.

"You're not going anywhere, you know that as well as I do," Mom replied. Her voice sounded as if she'd been crying. "There is nowhere to go, Julian."

Dad shook his head. "There is, and I will find it. I must know. People must know. People can't really be such sheep, Erika."

"You keep talking about sheep, but I have never even seen sheep! Never even read about them in the feeds!"

"Because you won't read the feeds I tell you to read!"

"Be quiet." Mom's voice was low. "You will wake the child."

"She is my child. She should hear and she should know—"

"She is
a child
—and she is natural. She is staying with me."

"You're right, of course. The unknown is no place for a little girl. I will come back for you, for both of you."

"You will come back for us—to us—in a week, as you always do. Make sure you don't irritate Doctor Elias too much this time, I don't like it when you can't write for hours."

Mom pulled her hand from his and took her computer. Her eyes were moving again as she started typing. But they weren't moving normally. They were moving, the little girl thought, like eyes that tried to be fast but right now wanted to be slow. Dad gripped her hand—strongly, like children sometimes gripped other children and had adults chastise them for it. He pulled Mom to himself and kissed her in a way that made Mel cover her eyes.

This was the last time she saw Dad—until last night.

She hadn't even been certain it was him. The chief of the City of Life wore a face older than the face of the father she remembered—and it was marred by the brown spots dancing before Mel's eyes, anyway. The spots had been there for hours, and so had the weakness in Mel's hands. He'd squeezed her hand, but she'd been unable to squeeze his back. She'd only given him a smile—or tried to—and all the time she'd been afraid, so afraid, that it wasn't truly him, and that Mom's sickness had finally gotten to her.

It was him. The face she now saw through the door was older, but it was his face. Years ago he'd had blue hair streaked with red, while now he had brown hair streaked with gray, but it was his hair. Mom was sleeping, murmuring something in her sleep, while he sat at the edge of her bed, holding her hand. His head was bent and his eyes were closed. Just like years ago, Mel suddenly felt out of place.

"And just what do you think you're doing?"

The words came in a harsh whisper in her ear, and a wrinkled, bony arm reached past her. The door was softly closed, and Mel found herself face-to-face with an old woman like Stella. Mel could tell this woman hadn't grown old under a city's artificial air and lights. Her rough, brown face and hands bore witness to years spent out here in nature's world.

"You leave them alone, girl. Don't they teach you
anything
in those gods-forgotten cities?"

The tone of voice would have been jarring—to someone who had not killed medstats and monsters. Someone like this could have shouted back, or cried.

Meliora said nothing. She walked to the fireplace and took the metal rod leaning on the wall. Then she turned and looked at the old woman. The old woman stepped back. Something in her eyes reminded Mel of Stella's eyes when Mel had faced her with an axe.

This old woman reached towards something leaning on the other wall.

Mel paid no attention to it. She turned again and started poking the embers like Stella had taught her. A moment later, sparks came alive from the ashes. Another moment later, Mel added new wood from a pile by the wall to the now glowing pile before her. The flames rose higher, wood crackling. Mel realized there had been tears on her face only when the flames dried them.

"So you know about work, at least." Another harsh whisper in her ear, perhaps a bit milder that before, this time accompanied by a gnarled hand on her shoulder. "Come on—now that they have warmth, you'll cook their breakfast on my fire. Dress up! Quickly!"

Tap, tap, tap. The woman's thick stick barely made a sound as she hobbled towards the outer door. She was leaning on the stick. Earlier, she must have held it high, ready to meet Mel's fire poker.

"I never intended to hurt you," Mel said when they were both out of the cottage. Those were her first words, and her voice sounded rough and strange in the chilly morning air.

"And you'd better never intend such a thing," was the woman's only grunted response. "This is not a place for hurting."

***

"A grown daughter must cook for her parents," the woman—old Codes—told Mel as she ushered her into another cottage's kitchen and pushed a heavy-bottomed pan like Stella's into her hands.

The snake head that Mel had brought was hanging from the ceiling at the far side of the room.

The old woman noticed Mel's look.

"Right," she grunted. "It's good to have it. I've taken the venom out of those fangs—and that kind of rattler venom can sometimes save a new mother's life, and her baby's if mixed with ground Fairy Eyes."

"A new mother's? How about an
old
mother's?"

Old Codes shook her head. "No. That why you came?" She gave Mel a meaningful look. "Anyway, chasing monsters is not for women and girls."

Just then the door opened, and another girl Mel's age entered, carrying firewood. Her cheeks were as pink as if she'd had special pinkness treatment—but the only treatment this girl had had today was crisp morning air.

"Women and girls," the old woman said, loudly, with a stern look at the girl, "have more important duties than chasing monsters. Killing animals is a hunter's task, and even the hunters don't go into the Gloomy Wood and they don't chase monsters if they can avoid it. Regular big game, and the monsters that come near the village, are hard enough."

The new girl had carefully placed her wood on the pile by the wall and had taken another pan and some strange elongated ball. Then, suddenly, the ball slipped from the girl's fingers. Mel had dropped a potato in Stella's home, which had made a soft
thud
onto the floor, earning an exasperated sigh from Stella, who'd then told Mel to go wash it in the creek. The ball here cracked, and whatever was inside it splattered yellow on old Codes' floor.

Old Codes slapped the girl. "How many times do I have to tell you, city girl!?" she shouted. "One takes care! One doesn't waste food!"

She'd have slapped the girl again if Mel hadn't jumped and caught her hand.

"You said this wasn't a place for hurting," Mel said softly.

The old woman raised a hand again as if to slap Mel. Then she let it drop.

"No, this is not a hurting place," she said slowly and with much controlled effort. "This is your first day, which is the only reason I... We don't hurt, girl. We
educate.
"