Infall Ch. 06

"Thank you. I am still learning." She eyed him as he let the flap close instead of going out and walked back toward her.

His eyes went to her breasts and then back to her eyes as she rose to her feet. "You are intelligent for a savorenella."

"What is this word?"

He shrugged, his eyes dropping to her mouth. "A woman-for-sex. I'd like to have sex with you."

Indya froze. "What do you say?"

"I'd like to--"

"I heard that part," she said, breathing faster. "I don't have sex with you. I am being with Kythe and Zen."

"They already have a wife," he said, getting too close, his breathing heavier. "She's beautiful, although not so beautiful as you. Her name is Anastia. But if you pleasure me, Indya, maybe I will marry you. What do you think about that?" He leaned in and tried to kiss her.

Indya stepped back, staring. Her face was calm, her whole insides frozen, a deep pain in her chest. "I don't kiss you. You go. Goodbye."

He laughed and there was a sound outside the tent, the guard Zen and Kythe had put there making noise, Alons glancing. "Your beauty makes me reckless."

"Yes. You go now," she said.

Alons inclined his head. "Then I will see you in the morning. Think about what I said. My wife would have the respect of people in the city. A salvoronella will never be anything more than an ustadt for the rí." He turned and went out of the flap.

When he was gone, Indya remained frozen, staring at the flap. Zozo came to her. Indya picked him up and went to the bed, sitting him on her lap, staring into nothing. Then she looked down at him and buried her face in his wiggling fur, smelling him. "I know that Zen will take good care of you. He is kind to dogs," she said. "I will miss you very much."

She took off the necklace and put it on the table, and then went and got her bag and some food that they kept in a locker, a little cheese and bread. Clothing. They'd given these things to her, but she'd given them things. Knowledge they wouldn't have had. She decided it would be worth these things and then she put on Zen's wool coat, far too large. It was getting cold at night, but she was afraid they would come back if she stayed to change her clothes. She took a blanket.

When she was ready, she sat down and got the paper Kythe had given her, only just learning to write in their language. Her hands were shaking, blurring, the letters messy.

Don't come. You taking care for Saba and Zozo. I am going with my people.

Goodbye,

Indya

The man who watched her tent would be outside. She picked Zozo up and kissed him and put him in his crate, where he started whining, and went out the back, raising the edge, getting on her belly and slipping under it. Standing up, she walked behind the long line of tents and into the woods, leaving him, since couldn't provide for Zozo, not anymore than she could provide for Saba.

She walked all night in the dark, knowing they would try to find her, cold despite having the coat, putting the blanket around herself, following the stars and going east. In the morning, she found a place, curling up, and cried.

When she woke, the sun was higher. Rising, she was stiff, her eyes swollen, and she found a stream, washing her face and hands and drinking water. As she walked, she went into her bag, eating.

Night fell and she found a place, falling asleep.

In the morning, she was walking again. The food was gone and the days blended into one another, the forest and the streams, places to go up and down, grass and it was cold. She couldn't eat the grass. She was dirty. Indya cried sometimes, and she walked, her hair with leaves and dirt.

Days later, her shoes were falling apart, the silk garment ripped and filthy. She crossed a stream, going from rock-to-rock, and her shoe was pulled by the water when she didn't step right and away it went. She watched it go and took off the other one, easier anyway, although the river was cold. By the next day, she was limping, her feet sore. She fell and rolled down a hill. When she tried to get up, she cried out, her ankle twisted. She sat, looking around at the forest.

The next day, she made it to the stream and drank. She slept more.

Indya sat at her place by the river. She thought about Zozo and Saba. She sang the asi, the hours, and then she sang every other songs of Atlantis she could remember. She was hungry. She'd never been so hungry.

When she was done singing, she lay down and looked at the leaves from her vision on her side and thought about her family, about Pavel. About Jae. About the cool blue corridors of her home and what she knew of the deep sea. Indya closed her eyes. She was going back there to be with them now.

* * *

"...a fever."

* * *

"...get something in you. Drink. That's good."

* * *

"What is she, Mavia?"

"A spirit, maybe, of a woman lost in those woods long ago."

"She's as beautiful as a woodland spirit. What is she wearing?"

"It's made of some kind of material I've never seen before. It doesn't cover anything."

"Will she live?"

"Probably. Don't tell others, Cana."

"What about when Edith gets back?"

"He'll be trapping all winter. She can stay for a time."

"You're not afraid of her?"

"What does a noita have to fear from a woodland spirit, Cana?"

"Don't say that, Mavia. It's not true, but people could hear."

"Who's going to hear?"

* * *

Opening her eyes, Indya saw a blanket, a pattern in red. Her eyes shifted. A woman was sitting not far in a chair. Her hair was long and white, and there were rings on her fingers. She was older, looking down, doing something.

Indya was lying in a low bed in a small wood house made from the logs of trees. There was a fire. It was warm and smoky inside, her eyes burning a little. She felt like she'd been on a long journey and she was still tired, closing her eyes again.

* * *

Indya opened her eyes.

"Good morning," a voice said, speaking Edion.

Her eyes shifting, Indya looked up at the woman. "Hello," she said, her voice not arriving.

The old woman stared at her eyes and then turned away, going and sitting in a chair not far, by the fire. "I'm glad you're awake. Now you can eat something. Have some water."

Indya looked. There was water by the bed and she was thirsty. She came up and fell back again, weak. Moving more slowly, she got up on her elbow and reached, drinking the water.

The old woman rose and went to the fire, stirring something and putting it in a bowl. "You should eat as much as you can," she said, putting it by the bed. "I'm Mavia, child."

"I am pleased to meet you, Mavia," Indya croaked. "I am Indya." She put her legs over the side of the bed, swaying. Her hand went to her hair.

"Your speech is strange. I brushed it a little, but it was full of leaves and dirt. I found you in the woods. You're not from Matise."

Indya shook her head, reaching for the bowl. It had meat in it. She didn't care, eating it, hungrier than she'd been in her life. She only got half of it down and she was too sleepy. "Thank you," she said, lying down again.

* * *

"Good morning, Indya," Mavia said, waving to her. Mavia was on her hands and knees harvesting leeks, pulling them from the cold ground.

"You should waking me, Mavia," Indya said, coming and getting down beside her, also pulling.

"You're still getting better."

Indya smiled. "I feel fine. I am helping you."

"You help me so much that I don't know what to do with myself," Mavia said. "And there's nothing prettier I've ever heard than your voice when you sing, child. It makes the work light."

"I will sing then. I'm grateful you finding me," Indya said. She was wearing Mavia's other dress, which was a long tunic in shapeless undyed linen with a smaller wool garment that went over it, which Mavia called an apron. "For you letting me to stay."

"I don't mind company for the winter. It gets lonely out here."

So Indya sang and pulled. Mavia had a son, Edith, who was trapping animals, as Indya understood it, to skin them and then sell their skins for something. It sounded horrifying, Indya swallowing repeatedly as Mavia told her about it.

"There's plenty of food, as long as I keep the garden," Mavia said.

They worked the row. Over the last week, they'd spread manure, planted new vines and pruned the older ones, Mavia showing her how. They had put fresh rushes on the floor of the small wooden house.

At night, Mavia asked her questions. When Indya said she'd come in a sky ship, Mavia had laughed and laughed. The woman clearly didn't believe her, but Indya answered all her questions and the old woman enjoyed what she said.

"Your rings are pretty, Mavia," Indya said.

"My husband believed people should wear their wealth," Mavia said, her rasping laugh. "We never had much, and he had a heavy hand when he drank, but I miss him for the company sometimes."

"What's a heavy hand?"

"He used to beat me, child, but not all the time. Now he's dead and I'm old, but I still have his rings. Edith wanted to sell them, but I told him I wouldn't part with them and he could have them when I'm dead. That'll be soon enough."

Indya's belly was tense. They were quiet, the chair Mavia was in creaking, rocking, on long arched legs that allowed that.

.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you, Mavia?" Indya said.

"A little," Mavia said, nodding. "Maybe you are a woodland spirit here to tell me good stories so the winter isn't dull."

Indya's mouth twitched, and then she laughed with her.

"That's what I like to see," Mavia said, returning to her sewing. "You're too serious. Have you been to Averdine?"

"No," Indya said, her smile fading. "I was going to go there, but I didn't."

"I always wanted to see it," Mavia said, her eyes getting distant. "I used to imagine all the people and the markets. I won't see it now."

* * *

Sometimes the house was stifling with the wood smoke, making her eyes sting, especially when very cold weather set in, and then she and Mavia would huddle in the bed together at night, keeping each other warm. She helped Mavia with weaving, although Mavia said Indya had no patience for it, and they would walk to collect things in the forest. Indya was always singing, pleasing the older woman, who would nod. Mavia was clever, and she repaired things, and she sewed and sewed, which didn't interest Indya, but Indya got flat slips of bark and put numbers on them and taught her to play a game from Atlantis that Mavia liked.

She'd been shocked to learn Mavia couldn't read. Mavia's knowledge of numbers was limited to her fingers. The old woman could do simple addition and subtraction.

She adamantly wasn't interested in learning anything more. "I'm too old to learn anything new. Edith does the trading," the old woman said.

"Maybe you will teach him this game and you can play together," Indya said.

"Edith doesn't play, child. He's too much like his father. You'll need to go in spring when he returns. I'm happy to have you, but my son, he's not married."

Indya looked down. "I understand." Mavia wouldn't want her around his son in case he would want to marry a crazy woodland spirit, maybe, and Indya thought Mavia was saying her son had these same heavy hands. Indya didn't press her on the matter. Mavia had done enough for her. Indya was grateful. "Why more people don't be coming here, Mavia?"

"It's too far, mostly. And people worry I'm a noita because my husband is gone and I'm old and I use herbs for healing," Mavia said. She shrugged. "I help them sometimes and they don't trouble me."

"People think I'm a noita," Indya said.

"I don't doubt it," Mavia said, laughing. "With those eyes. The first time you opened them, I almost ran out of the cabin."

* * *

Time went by, and for the first time, Indya began to see dry and dead grass poking through snow that became less great cold drifts above her head and more mushy and dirty piles in front of the house.

"Spring is coming," Mavia remarked one day.

"It's warmer," Indya agreed.

* * *

A couple of weeks later, Indya came and sat with Mavia. "Is there something you think I could do in the village, Mavia? Some work?"

"I've been thinking about that," Mavia said, rocking and sewing. "You say you don't have any people?"

"Not here, Mavia. They're far away. I can't get to them."

Mavia shook her head. "I wish I could do more for you or think of something better. You're too odd, child, and people will have difficulty with your beauty. Sometimes I think you're a little simple. But then you say you can write and read a little. You might be able to go to the city and say you're from some foreign place. I was going to say I could give you some of Edith's clothing and you could pass yourself as a man. But I don't think you could do enough to make yourself look like one, even if you rubbed dirt on your face and cut off all that pretty hair."

"Rub dirt? Cut off my hair?" Indya said, her hand going to her head. "No. Why I do that?"

Mavia laughed, slapping her knee. "I like you, child. I had another idea, and it's probably not any better. You've got a voice for singing like nothing I've heard, although I haven't been farther than the village, so that's not saying much. Still, I think it's fine, and you'd be singing for people like me. The travelers come through here in the spring, the Revestin. They do entertaining, along with trading small items for food. But I wouldn't put you five minutes in their presence but that you'll be doing something you don't want to be."

"What's that?"

Mavia looked up at her sharply. "This is why I think you're simple sometimes, child, or maybe from the sky, like you say. Didn't you ever have a man try to take what he shouldn't?"

"Take what?"

Mavia looked down, shaking her head, muttering a little. Then Mavia was quiet, rocking.

"What for you worry, Mavia?"

"Have you ever had sex, child?" the woman said, sounding a little exasperated.

"Yes, Mavia. I've had sex before," Indya said, eyeing her.

The old woman's eyebrows went up. She looked down at her sewing and then glanced at Indya again. "Well, things are probably different where you come from," she muttered. "You're the strangest person I've ever met."

Indya blew laughter and Mavia threw her head back, laughing, her voice raspy.

* * *

Slowly, the weather got warmer. There was more to do in the garden, around the house. Mavia seemed increasingly restless, glancing at her sometimes.

It occurred to Indya one day as they were digging the rows, moving rocks. "Is spring here now, Mavia?" she said. "It's time your son coming home?"

Mavia gave her a sharp glance and then she sighed, nodding and straightening a little. "It is, child, any day now. I don't want to see the back of you. I'd like to keep you here, but while Edith's a hard-working man, he's not gentle."

"He isn't gentle to you?" Indya said, alarmed. "Like your husband with his heavy hands?"

"He's fine with me, girl," Mavia said, her voice short. "It's not me I'm talking about."

Indya nodded, rising. "I washing up, Mavia. I can go."

"Not today, child," Mavia said, looking down, her hands pushing. "I'm not angry with you. I don't want to put you out and it's gnawing at me."

"I like you too, Mavia," Indya said. "I wouldn't be alive you don't be saving me. You don't put me out. You do good for me. I'm going with the Revestin. They coming soon?"

The old woman was digging and didn't speak for a time. "They'll be here in four days. I'll take you to them. They get me things sometimes. I imagine they'll agree, given how you look and your voice. Endure what you have to. Find yourself the kindest man you can and stay with him."

"All right," Indya said, getting down again, working quietly because Mavia was upset, the old woman crying, her hand rising to wipe her eyes every once in a while, although she didn't make any noise.

* * *

Three days later, Indya was at the river, the same river where she'd sat and sung her songs, which is how Mavia said she'd found her, hearing her voice. It wasn't really warm enough, but tomorrow she would be going with Mavia to the village where the Revestin would be in their brightly colored wagons, traveling from place to place. Indya was nervous. Maybe they would have an instrument she could learn to play.

But she'd never been so dirty, as much as she'd insisted on sponge bathing, Mavia expressing her opinion that it was another sign Indya was simple or just too strange.

Indya wanted to scrub herself and cold water was better than no water. Mavia had a crude soap that stung when you used it, made from animal fat and wood ashes. Indya had already buried the clothing she'd come in, not wanting the reminder and it was ripped up anyway. The dress Mavia had given her was drying in the sun, clean now.

Indya waded in the deep and cold water. Very cold. She was shivering and had a rough cloth and was absolutely determined. Going under, her breath stuttering from her, she came up and started at the top of herself and worked her way down, scrubbing her skin pink, wanting to feel clean when she came out, whatever it took.

When she was done, she turned to walk out of the water, getting to the shore. She looked up and Kythe was standing there.

For a moment, she thought she was imagining him and then she knew he was really there. They stared at one another. He looked like a statue, he was so still for so long.

"Brother," Kythe said sharply, not taking his eyes off her.

Her eyes shifted and Zen was there, doing the same, staring at her like he didn't believe it.

Kythe took off his cloak, walking toward her. Indya went to her dress quickly, putting it on, putting the apron on over it. She pulled her hair through and tied it, backing away. They were both staring at her still.

"Indya," Zen said softly.

"What do you do here?" Indya said. Her hands were shaking. "I telling you both. I don't want to seeing you. You forget how to read?"

Zen was walking toward her, his face intense. Her cheeks were hot. They were big and still so handsome, looking alike. She pulled her hair over her shoulder, dripping everywhere and cold, walking away toward the cabin.

"We've been looking for you," Zen said behind her, coming after her.

"Why?" she said, turning and looking, facing forward again, still walking.

"We didn't think you were alive, alea," Kythe said behind her.

She turned around and stopped. They were still following her. "Don't you call me that," she said. "You don't call me that no more. I don't have to talk to you. I don't care who is your father. Go away. I live here now. You don't like me. I don't like you. All right."

She turned, walking, her heart pounding, and two dogs came out of the woods to her left, running toward her. Indya stopped. That was Ashka and the other--his hair wasn't fluffy anymore, and he was so much bigger, all long legs and big paws. She'd never seen anything so beautiful. She went down on her knees and he was there. "Hello, Zozo," she said, and he was all over her, whining. Indya buried her face in his fur and she was crying, so angry at herself for doing so and Zen and Kythe were right there.

"Nina," Zen said.

"Don't you call me that. Why for you bringing him, Zen? It's a cruel thing for both of us. You like him. Go away," she said, getting up and walking away from them. She was walking faster, and then she was running.

Zen must have held Zozo back, because her dog didn't follow. Indya got to the cabin.

Mavia saw her coming, frowning, in the garden in the yard, struggling to her feet. "What is it, child?"

"It's nothing. I'm sorry, Mavia. I don't mean scaring you," she said, wiping her eyes with her fingers. "I coming to say goodbye. I'm going now."

"They're not in the village until tomorrow, child, the travelers."

"I know. I finding them there. You don't worry about me. I want to saying thank you. You're the kindest person I meet here. Goodbye." She walked and hugged Mavia, who hugged her back. "I miss you."