The Lost Children (Tas Owake), Part Three: Never Broken (Yaiy Tyinohayon)

(Read part one here, or read part two here)

I was very young when I first stepped into my tree, too young. Otwan, being older, had already begun that, and I wanted to catch up with her. So, one day, I slipped away to play by myself, to find my way to my tree and be in it for the first time, if I could.

Qetawiwoy, as I explain to you, is the word for those of us born with trees and with separate bodies from trees. Qeta, tree. Wiwoy, those woy who look human, as you understand it. We do not enter our trees until both bodies are strong enough to be together and separate at the same time.

Kay-tuh, you say. It is close enough for now.

I entered the tree easily, slipped in as though between sheets of rain. Deceptively easily. Inside, I was caught in the ebb and flow of life inside the bark. The pull downwards of sunlight to roots. The rush up of water to leaves. And the vast web of forest around me, the chatter of the other trees, the touch of their roots next to mine. It was so… big. I had spoken with so many other tree woy before in our silent way, could pass days with Otwan without saying a word aloud if we didn’t have to remember those around us. But here, inside. Here was the whole world and I was so small in it.

So small.

Almost nothing.

Enough to be nothing.

To be lost inside.

To be nothing but tree.

STOP THAT. The words jolted me back to myself. Who are you?

I shivered, there inside, only barely holding to the thread of myself that kept me separate.

Who are you?

Weyai, I said, and the saying of it gave me back my own skin.

Weyai, good.

What are you? I asked, politely: Kayehuwawohut? Whoever was speaking to me hadn’t been polite, but that could have been oversight. Or perhaps they could tell I was still young. Either way, they didn’t answer.

What else, Weyai? What’s the rest of your name?

The rest of my name?

For a panicked moment, I didn’t know, and couldn’t say.

Weyai! Weyai!

I don’t remember!

What do you remember?

I thought hard.

I remember Otwan.

Otwan?

My sister. Otwan Hiqwayaqiqatiy. The name came to me easily. Oh! I’m Weyai Hiqwayaqiqatiy. I settled, in my tree, myself only, the vast forest still accessible, but outside of me.

There was a pause, and I was blessedly at peace again.

Nice to meet you, Weyai Hiqwayaqiqatiy. Now, can you get out of your tree?

I don’t know how.

There was a chuckle. One of Hiqwayaq’s daughters going into her tree unsupervised. Well, Weyai, press up against your tree from the inside. Can you do that?

I think so. I made myself as big as possible within the bark and came to the edge of me. It tickles.

Good, now. Step out.

Step out? But how could I—I saw the place where my tree and the air met, and I remembered that I had a body that wasn’t a tree and if I had slipped in like that, then…

***

Otwan begged me not to go.

I hear it too, Mother had said. Follow it. And I would have followed without her being Hiqwayaq. I would have followed it only for the heavy sadness in her words, for the echo of a chainsaw. For the reason I touched my tree with affection, and where my heart ached for the touch to be felt.

***

“I don’t understand,” says the woman I sit with on the back porch of a house surrounded by trees. To human eyes, we both appeared as such—as two women sitting together while the breeze wove around us and cooled our skin. Speaking human words.

“Qetatyawoy,” I respond.

She shakes her head.

“Qeta, tree.”

“I remember that part.”

“Tyawoy—a woy who is… in between. Whose form isn’t set.”

“A tree being without set form.” She frowns, staring at the forest.

I nod.

“But I have a form. And a tree.”

“Kayehuwekeq?” I say softly, and the woman draws back. You called to me. A world full of trees and you called to me.

***

We could be like sisters, too, I said. We had spoken often after that first time, when she had taught me to leave my tree, and we had taught each other so many things since.

Wouldn’t Otwan get jealous?

I don’t th—

Her cry of pain shot through me.

What’s wrong?

She didn’t respond, and so I ran on child-legs and stepped through bark to reach from within my tree to where she was. To where the buzz of the chainsaw was the roar of a beast in my ears, where the savaging of her bark, her body, left an empty space as though not even air could fill it.

Step out! I cried.

I can’t! I’m not like you; I can’t!

Step out! I begged. Step out, step out, step out!

But the pain overtook her and her voice stopped. The tree cracked, fell to the ground, and it was empty.

***

You stare at me now.

“You thought I was dead,” you say.

“For years.”

“I thought I was alone.”

In the telling of our stories, you had told me yours. How your tree had fallen to reveal a girl, and you were taken in by the people who had killed your home without knowing, were given a new name.

“Why didn’t I remember you?” you ask.

“You didn’t call me until after your tree regrew,” I say. “Maybe it was less painful to forget.” But I don’t know. A qetatyawoy with a body like mine. A qesutlhowoy with legs. I reach for your hand, and my heart is warm when you take it.

You stop, turn your eyes to our entwined fingers. “Weyai. I knew that name when I heard it. There was a… like lightning in my chest.” I feel you shaking through your hand in mine.

“Minerva,” I say, carefully. Inawa, my mouth wanted to say when you first said it, to bring you to us that way, but you corrected me, and now I say your name to you.

You grab me into a hug, arms tight around my body.

“I can’t believe I never told you my name then.”

Holding you as tight as possible, I shake my head and hold my breath, waiting.

“I am owake no more,” you say, and draw your own breath. “Kayiyi Minerva Thiessen.” My heart swells until I’m sure my body can no longer contain it.

Minerva.

My friend.

Never broken.

(Read Minerva's story before this one in The Tree Remembers)

The Lost Children (Tas Owake), Part Two: I Hear it, Too

(Read part one here)

Otwan takes in every detail of this Ewulin. Despite her clear voice, a wrinkled brow and one hand held behind her back as she rubbed her thumb. Replaying the young woman’s entrance in her mind, she detects an unusual gait.

It’s as though she’s still learning to walk, she tells her sister. And expects the ground to be liquid. I believe her that she’s qesutlhowoy.

She speaks as though she’s a human learning speech, Weyai replies. And with a name like that… I haven’t heard any like it.

Owake, then?

“Daughters!” Their mother laughs. Beside her, Ewulin shifts, bites her lip. Hiqwayaq pats her hand and addresses her. “I take it you haven’t met any tree woy?”

“I haven’t.”

Hiqwayaq gives Otwan and Weyai a smile. “Keep your comments aloud, daughters. Or perhaps listen to what I’ve called you to hear.”

Some days ago, a crow came to Otwan and bowed its head before croaking a message from her mother: “Bring Weyai and join the lhai and lhaiqi as we meet to discuss what to do about the owake.” As woy, neither gods or spirits, as humans would term it, Otwan and her sister weren’t to be in such a meeting, but when the highest lhai and your mother tells you to come, you come. And all the rest obey.

Hearing the invitation, Otwan had thought her mother needed Weyai to provide account of the voice she’d been hearing, spoken as a tree woy would, but with human words. To what end, Otwan didn’t ask. The owake were lost; lost were the owake. Live too near the places where this world and the human world touched, and crossover happened. But once someone from this world forgot they weren’t human, well. How do you find them?

Hiqwayaq brought up the topic from time to time, as far as Otwan heard from Yehan and other local lhaiqi, but nothing changed. Not that talking appeared to have made this change possible.

“What I remember first,” Ewulin says, “is being alone in a deep pool in a forest a little like this one.”

Alone?

Weyai takes Otwan’s hand, echoing Otwan’s horror at the thought.

“I lived there for—I’m not sure how long. My earliest memories are few and far between. I lost our speech. I learned human speech from the ones who would visit the pool, and I thought I was the only one of me there was.

“One day, a human fell into the pool and drowned. She looked like me. I swam out of the water and had legs; I don’t know how. And pretended to be her for a time, until I learned about the ocean again. Until I came home.”

A qesutlhowoy without the ocean… Otwan didn’t know what she would do without the trees. And a being of their world without any of their kind, with only humans, knowing they weren’t one of them? She squeezed her sister’s hand.

But this Ewulin, this supposed owake-who-was, couldn’t have endured that kind of pain.

“I don’t believe you,” Otwan says.

Otwan…

Hiqwayaq, calming the angry eruption that burst from the rest of the listeners following Otwan’s comment, says to her daughter: “Why not?”

“How could anyone survive being away like that, knowing they weren’t human? Knowing…” she trembles, glad for her sister’s touch. “Why not try to return sooner?”

Quietly, Ewulin only said, “I didn’t know there was anything to return to.”

***

I believe her, I say to my mother, but Hiqwayaq doesn’t respond. Not being a tree being, my mother didn’t communicate often like that, and usually didn’t say anything back. But I think she always hears. I’ve never fully understood how, if she’s not like Otwan or me, but she can.

Still, bolstered by knowing what I’ll say, I speak aloud.

“I believe her.”

“What?” Otwan nearly pulls away from me.

My mother nods and addresses everyone. “The qesutlhowoy that Ewulin returned to have checked everything thoroughly and I am convinced. An owake has returned. And it could be that there are still owake who think they are human but, for the sake of those who are alone—” I feel Otwan’s shiver at the word through my hand— “and who know they are such, we cannot leave them there without some effort to bring them home.”

“Oh, like we’ve always done?” says Iyhan, lhaiqi of a small pool-glade some way from here, near a thin place between ours and the human world. “We’re so good at leaving the human world alone.” She was still just young enough that disgruntled worked for her.

“You might have been owake yourself,” Hiqwayaq reminded her gently. “If things had occurred differently.”

Iyhan closes her mouth, her expression softening. “How do we find them if we don’t know how to identify them?”

Who are you?

I should tell Mother about the voice. And, as I look to her, I find her eyes meeting mine.

I hear it, too.

(Read the conclusion here.)

The Lost Children (Tas Owake), Part One: Kayehuwekeq?

The leaf bent under the weight of water, a single drop too large for the new shoot to hold and, with unselfconscious grace, green bowed to shed blue from its back.

With the same quality of motion, the girl knelt to cup the leaf with one hand.

“Not broken,” she said with a smile. “Never broken.” And stood, giving the leaf a stroke almost absently, but with a great deal of affection. Behind her, her mother reaches out and the two leave, hand in hand, before mother stops to pick up child and carry her home.

***

A tree now stands there, tall, still young by the count of trees, and I stand with it, watching the time when I was small in my memory.

Never broken, but others have not been so lucky. I remember the day, one of so many, but the day I knew, the bite of the chainsaw as the man who held it cut through wooden flesh, not knowing what it held.

“How many lost?”

“Too many,” says my sister, Otwan, coming to meet me. “Ready?” I nod, giving my tree a caress before we depart to a meeting with lhai, what I suppose humans would call gods.

“Has mother forgotten we’re woy?” I asked when Otwan first told me of the invitation. She shrugged.

“You know they wouldn’t dare say no to her.”

I supposed being Hiqwayaq has its advantages.

***

Who are you?

A voice reaching out from the distance, the farthest distance and the closest.

Who are you?

But it does not respond to that. So I try answering.

I am Weyai, daughter of Hiqwayaq.

Who are you? The voice echoes mournfully, and it is only now I realize we do not speak the same language. But I heard and responded as if its “Who are you?” was my native “Kayehuwekeq?”

“Kayiyi Weyai Hiqwayaqiqatiy,” I said to the silence after my question, before I realized, but now all I hear is the mournful echo of “Who are you?” and though I understand the words, I am too shocked to respond before the sound fades.

“Kayehuwekeq…” I taste the word.

“Weyai?” Otwan’s eyebrows are drawn together as she bends to see my face.

Human words again, I say, through my tree to hers. Spoken like this.

Did you tell her…?

I lift my head sharply to meet her gaze. I thought you had.

Otwan stares, open-mouthed. Then why…?

“Daughters!” Our mother says with amusement, dark hand raised to call for silence. She wears her summer aspect, golden and green, with brown between, and her hair brightens the forest with its burnished sunlight.

The lhai around her and the lhaiqi, the minor gods, among them stare at us only a moment before muttering and shifting as a group of strangers arrive. The man and woman weave through those at the far end, a young woman of about eighteen following behind, auburn hair nearly red when in the spots of dappled sunlight. The lhaiqi of this forest stands before them, stopping their approach.

“I am Yehan,” she says, “And this forest is my domain.”

The woman and man draw back with a bow. “She comes here at the behest of Hiqwayaq.”

Woy, then, to speak formally like that with a lhaiqi. Not tree woy, like myself or Otwan, I don’t think, as they do not respond to the unseen reaching out of the trees around them, nor are they connected with plants for the same reason.

“I am Ewulin,” the young woman says, voice wavering. Odd name. And human-accented words—could she be? But no, wrong voice. And too young. The voice wasn’t clear as they usually are in that communication, but something in me knew the speaker hadn’t been this young.

Kayehuwekeq.

Humans don’t have lhai, woy, the rest. They don’t care. Their “Who are you?” could be to any kind of being. Why assume the voice called to one close to it? But it did. I don’t know how I know, but I know it did.

“Let her past,” my mother says. Yehan draws back and Ewulin, glancing quickly with furrowed brow to the lhai and lhaiqi around her, approached my mother, the highest of the lhai. Hiqwayaq, with a wide, genuine smile, beckons for the girl to come to her and takes her hand with a comforting squeeze. “Tell them what you told me, and do not worry about formal address.”

Ewulin, keeping hold of my mother’s hand, turns to face us. She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders.

“I am Ewulin,” she says, “Qesutlhowoy. And I used to be an owake.”

Murmurs breaks out, first at her assertion of being qesutlhowoy, louder at owake.

She has legs, says Otwan, sounding dumbfounded. But I heard her real question behind the obvious comment. More so than a qesutlhowoy—a sea being which would look to a human to be part fish or other marine life—having legs, an owake found.

A lost child.

Found.

How does someone who forgot what they are return from the world of humans?

How do you undo the felling of a tree?

Kayehuwekeq?

(Flip the page to keep reading.)

Here We Leave

When all has fallen,
fallen to the ground
and, deeper still,
into the flesh
and the ashes have subsided,
the storm has passed, eye and all
we are in the calm that follows, that precedes,
that is
without deception
calm

here we make our decision

here we make our peace

here we leave

Come to Me

Come to me
In my hour of need
Lord, you sustain me

Come to me
When I am weak
Lord, you sustain me

Though my lips may fail
And my heart be overcome
You sustain me

Come to me
Lord, you sustain me

I cannot see a path
But you are with me
I do not know the way
But your rod and your staff, they comfort me
I am drowning in myself
You lead me beside still waters
I wail and tear at my hair
You make me lie down in green pastures
“How?” I cry, “How can this be?”
You restore my soul

Lead me out of my anger
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Bring me back to peace again
I shall fear no evil
What do I do when all are enraged around me?
You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies
Oh Father, Father, comfort me
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life
Grant my broken heart release; take away this pain
The Lord is my shepherd
I come to you
I shall not want

Come to me
When I am weak
Lord, you sustain me

Come to me
In my hour of need
Lord, you sustain me

Though my lips may fail
And my heart be overcome
You sustain me

Lord, come to me
I will dwell in your house forever

Don't Let This Be the End

“Stop!”
Ears pressed
Hands straining
How many voices need to speak before silence comes?
I am three again
Stop, please stop
Please stop, please

Lassoed into the middle
Not the middle
Lassoed nonetheless
Why did you have to tell me
Everything?

Stop

Please stop

Angry words are steel swords
They aim to rip hearts out
Leave the whole bloody mess on display, dripping

Why did you bring me in?

Do I join the burgeoning war?
Or choose to hold my fury mute?
These inherited passions threaten to kill, maim and destroy
I want, with a calm mind, to reason
But my mind wants to rage
And the raging mind disembowels

Why can’t you stop?

Hurt blossoms at the fingers of wrathful hearts
Pain births its children
And I am
in
pain

why could we not have been patient instead?
calmed our hearts to seek
calmed our minds to understand
it is not our place to decide the motivations of another
and yet we do, calling it righteous fury

Life and death lie as choices
On our hands
on the hands of everyone rearing for expression

I want to scream so you will stop
Why
Why did you choose this?

Destruction has expensive PR
compelling branding
an award for the path of least resistance
Its fans, its followers
Hold to their lips a megaphone
Preaching quick success
All while
The jaws of their master
Tighten unnoticed around their waists

I am pulled by its sway
It promises distraction with cacophony
Security with chaos
The assurance of everlasting invalidity
My senses are assaulted
Do as we do
And you will be justified
Your foes will be quelled

But they aren’t my foes
They aren’t anyone’s foes

Is it simpler
To drown in the sea of perception?

Wait
Wait
Eyes closed
Head down
Quiet
Quiet, please
No more

Volcanic winter falls as fire ebbs
Ash in hair
Mouth
Breath
Like snow, minus healing
Excrement instead of clean water

We have ruined this island
It stands disconnected
Sullen in its cover of failure
Will it re-emerge?
I pray not
Its land may become fertile
But only when the volcano dies
Alive, it forms clouds
But soot can neither bring rain
Nor dissipate

And I am afraid
Afraid of this island dying
And staying dead
So please stop
Please
I am afraid

‘Come to me,’ whispers life.
‘Come to me.
Bring me your sorrows,
your detached, bleeding heart
Bring me your blackened life
and watch.
Allow a single drop of rain
onto your dying skin.
Cup the leaves of one seedling
in your hands
whisper songs to it.
Calm the force behind your violence.
It is not what you think
Build again those dreams and visions
Yours, and of those around you
Strengthen the architecture of wonder
Do this
And you will turn around
To find beauty
Already emerged and flowering
Already waiting
For those who have eyes to see
Come
Choose me;
your world will burst
into green.’

Can’t you hear it?
Won’t you hear it?

please stop

listen

before you destroy each other

But you are still yelling
How do I turn away without shutting my ears?
My eyes?
I want my heart to receive sight of you
I want to breathe in your words
Please
Don’t let
This

Be


the



end.

The Mountain is Falling, part two

“What is truth?” asks my Father. (Read part one.)

“You.” I pause. “The forest?”

“And why did it die?”

“It wasn’t the whole truth.”

“A partial truth will never sustain a forest.”

“And there were rocks underneath.”

“Were there?”

I think. “No? Yes? I couldn’t tell. The roots might have got to them. They were buried.”

“A buried truth will keep the water from sinking in.”

At this, I squint at him. “But there wasn’t any water.”

“You didn’t get far enough for anything to change. What was the petrified wood?”

“What do you mean, I didn’t get far enough?”

“What was the petrified wood?”

I sit up, affronted. “No, what is this about not getting far enough? What do you mean?”

Gentle: “What was the petrified wood?”

I squint again, but it’s clear he won’t say anything about that until after I’ve answered his question so, with a sigh: “It was the forest.”

“And what is it now?”

“The mountain.”

“Do you see the cycle?”

The cycle?

Pain.

Fear and confusion.

Stepping back.

Partial truth.

Death?

“What’s the petrified wood?” I ask.

“Death,” he says.

Death.

Pain.

“What breaks that cycle?” I ask.

“Forgiveness.”

“I knew that.”

“If you already knew that, then why did you ask the question?” he says this not as a reprimand. He really wants to know the answer.

“That feels like the forest.”

“The mountain is falling,” my Father says, “and it falls to pieces. Those pieces grow a forest, but the forest dies and its bones are bleached by the sun-”

“They were bleached by the wind,” I remind him.

“Its bones are bleached by the sun,” he continues, “and I bring those bones to life.”

“Is that the only part of the cycle where things can change?”

“I haven’t finished the cycle.”

Eyebrow raised, I say nothing, but I listen. He has caught my attention.

“I bring those bones to life and they form a mountain. The mountain falls and, by my life, the forest grows, bigger than before. It is a process, you see.”

“But I feel like I’m missing something!” I cry. “This can’t be all there is! How do I know the forest will grow into a whole truth? How do I know the mountain won’t fall?”

“Why does the mountain grow?”

“The wind.”

“No.”

“Fear.”

“It comes together to protect itself. And then it gets hurt. What do you think it’s trying to protect itself from?”

“The sun,” I say nonsensically. I don’t know where it comes from.

“Who is the sun?”

“You,” I say, just as nonsensically.

“And who are you?”

“The moon.”

“Where are you?”

“In your arms.”

“Is the cycle still going?”

“It’s on pause.”

“Do you want it to stop?”

“Yes.”

“Then hold me, and let me turn your mountains into forests that will never die.”

“Will it take a long time?”

“It doesn’t have to. But that depends on you.”

“What do I do with the mountain?”

“Give it to me, and I will face it for you.”

“It can’t be that easy,” I tell him. “That feels like the forest, too.”

“A full truth partially received becomes a partial truth in the heart of the receiver. What was missing in the forest this time?”

I bury my face in him. “Animals.”

“So let me sing animals to you.”

And he does, a melody sweetly filling the emptiness that once was a world, the emptiness that is paused time, for to pull out of time for a moment is as if the world no longer exists. Softly spreading tendrils of white, yellow, gold, turning to scarlet, the notes twine the air around us. Notes of green and blue follow, the vanguard of a rainbow profusion as vines bloom and tender leaves open to brush against my cheeks. The buzz of insects chase after the ever-unfolding fragrance, bringing the blossoms nearer to fruiting. Butterflies thread through the space, purple wings vivid as though made of light, but it is the Father who is the sun.

I close my eyes and breathe in the music.

But how do I stop the mountain from falling?

“No,” says my Father gently. “That is the wrong question. How does a tree live?”

It takes in the sunlight. It takes in water through its roots, nutrients from the ground. It is made strong by the wind that presses against it.

“What does the tree do to make sunlight come to it?”

Nothing.

“The water?”

Nothing.

“Nutrients? Wind?”

Nothing. “It draws near to them?”

“Where do you find life?”

“In you.”

“How close am I to you?”

My arms tighten around him in answer.

“And how does the tree draw nearer to the sun, when the sun has already reached close enough to enter its veins?”

I open my hand to see a tree sprout from my palm. Light pours down on it; it opens its leaves to drink and, in so doing, raises arms to reach back.

“If you try to stop the mountain from falling because you yourself are not connected to life, the ground will not become ripe for a forest. If you tend a forest of partial love, that forest will die. And its death will grow into a mountain until it falls. But none of this is the path. Does a tree walk?”

“No.” I resist the urge to tell him the forest was about truth, not love. His hand in mine was knitting together something in my heart and the distinction became less important. Where else is truth found, if not love? If not him?

“So where does it go?”

Up.

“Come to me.”

But we’re together.

“Come to me.”

As the tree and the sun are together, yet they each continue to reach.

“Come to me.”

The mountain rises before me, a gnarled mess of ancient wood-become-stone. As it falls to dust and the forest grows up around me, I find myself surrounded by butterflies.

I stand in my forest, holding hands with my Father. As I lean against his shoulder, we begin to sing.

The Mountain is Falling, part one

The mountain is falling and the pebbles made from its crushing weight race to me and pile around my toes.

The mountain is breaking and the stones that couldn’t be made any smaller roll over the pebbles onto my feet, digging their jagged edges into my skin.

The mountain is crumbling and rocks form hills around me so I won’t be able to move forward when I come to my senses and regain the use of my muscles.

The mountain is split in two and the boulders race towards me, some stuck in the field of their weaker brethren, others flying past me, a few set to collide and I raise my arms but they bounce and land somewhere behind me, some stopping, others continuing on their incessant way.

The mountain is falling and now its bulk towers over me as it loses its balance and I am trapped against this wall of rock that came to rest against my body and in my mouth and in my nostrils and in my eyes and in my ears and I can’t go that direction but the mountain is falling and the mountain is falling and the mountain is falling…

I am the rock in the avalanche and as I grope behind myself, I realize I parted the waters and the air behind me is clear of disaster.

I step back.

The mountain crashes before me, its great bulk pulverizing all that came from it until lesser parts are dust and least parts are less than dust.

I face the mountain, trembling.

“The way is clear, the way is clear,” booms a voice around me.

“The way is gone,” I say, “The mountain has fallen.”

“The way is clear, the way is clear,” the voice says again as if I’d said nothing. “The mountain is gone.”

The mountain sinks into the ground and the grass grows over it, the trees sprout and reach into tall, spindling birch only to fall and die and decompose as new trees grow, over and over until the dirt covers the stone and there is nothing left of the mountain.

“The way is clear, the way is clear,” says the voice.

“The way is not clear,” I say. “The forest has obliterated it.”

“The way is clear, the way is clear.” I wonder where the voice gets its information. “The forest is ready.”

The forest dies without animals, carbon dioxide used up and nutrients leached from the soil, and the wind bleaches the fallen trunks, petrifies them.

“The way is clear, the way is clear,” says the voice.

“There is no way,” I say. “There’s nothing.”

“The way is clear, the way is clear. The mountain is building.”

The petrified logs shift with the changing seasons as the ground shifts, shift with the winds that dance through, shift with the earth as it moves, restless, beneath them.

The petrified logs clump together and entwine their branches until there is no beginning or end, they hold together, huddled against the cold and the rain.

They form the mountain.

“There is no way,” I say. “The mountain must fall.”

The mountain is falling.

I stamp on the ground, done with this game, and grow until I am a giant, taller than the mountain could ever be, taller than the sun is high and the world is a speck beneath me.

“Where do I go,” I cry, “When I don’t know the way I’m going?”

I lift my face to gaze into the eyes of my Father. He reaches for me and I let him take me into his arms to hold his adult daughter close to his chest.

He takes the world-speck between his thumb and forefinger and quietly smashes it to nothing between them.

“You had a whole world to learn in,” he says. “What did you find?”

“Nothing goes the way I want it to,” I say into his shoulder.

“That’s not true.” His voice is gentle and he holds me out to bend down and look into my eyes. I choose to meet his, though mine are downcast. “What did you learn?”

“There’s no way out,” I say. “There’s the mountain and the rockslide, the forest and death, and none of them are right. None of them are real.”

“What is real?” he asks, casually. “Someone once asked me that of truth. What is the mountain?”

“Pain,” I say, and close my eyes to hold him tight again and nestle my face into his shoulder.

“What is the rock field?”

“Fear and confusion.”

“Why did you step back?”

I pause. “I didn’t want to be buried.”

“Good. What is the forest?”

“Life.”

“But it died.”

I sigh. He sits, and I rest on his lap as I think.

“It’s me.”

“You think you’re missing something?”

“Maybe? I know I’m not, but what if I think I am? What if I’m operating out of this assumption that I have nothing but plants and all this oxygen but no one to breathe it?”

He doesn’t answer, but gently asks again, “What is the forest?”

“Nothing. It’s a lie.”

“What kind of lie?”

“But isn’t it some sort of truth, though? Because it did live, for a little.”

“What is truth?” But he says this seriously.

“You.” I pull out my head to look at him again, speaking with the earnestness of a child concerned that her parent doesn’t know something terribly important.

“What is truth?”


Read part two.

The Kitten Psychologist and the Kitten Come to a Conclusion

(Just jumping in now? Read the previous installment, The Kitten Psychologist and What the Kitten Did, or start at the beginning with The Kitten Psychologist.)

Both Worn Jeans and Green Shirt looked at me.

“Well, I have been having a hard time getting patients.” I said. “How did you know?”

“You told me about it. Before you knew I was sentient. And you’d told everyone else about it just before then, if not so bluntly as you did me.” The kitten glared at its owners. “What else did you think all those tales of financial woe were about? So, since you nodded and listened and did nothing to help, I decided to do so. After all, I had problems, and here was a psychologist in need of patients. You would have paid for the sessions if it had been your idea.”

I vaguely recalled that day—it had been at a party. Unfortunately, I’d been so down I’d had a little too much to drink to remember details.

“So you do have a heart,” I said. My friends bristled, but the kitten gave me a wry smile.

“I wasn’t about to let you know that. I am a cat. But,” it sighed, “it appears circumstances have forced me to reveal myself. Don’t go telling anyone.”

“I’d thought you were just being down on yourself,” Worn Jeans said to me.

“How are you paying for this office?” Green Shirt asked.

“Weren’t we here to talk about…” I waved my hands in their general vicinity. To tell the truth, I was embarrassed to admit that the only way I’d been able to afford the office for the past year or so was by subsisting off of less-than-stellar food. Which hadn’t helped my emotional state, that was for sure. “Was this only about the bank, or is there more?”

“Well, clearly there’s more,” remarked Worn Jeans.

And then proceeded to say nothing more.

“Ah, yes, well.” The kitten cleared its throat. “I went to more than the bank.”

“You what?” said both my friends in aghast chorus.

The kitten ignored them and addressed me instead. “Have you heard of the cat cafe that opened up in our neighbourhood?”

“The Cat’s Paws?”

“Take a Paws. Yes. They’re… willing to give me a job. If I have a bank account so they can deposit my paycheques.”

My friends and I all sat back. Hadn’t the kitten lectured me at length about the unfeasibility of kittens getting jobs? In great detail? Over Skype and email? Without giving me a chance to say much more than three words in a row?

“What will you be doing?” asked Green Shirt.

“Roaming their establishment, entertaining their customers by virtue of being feline. In return, they would provide me the means with which to pay off the debt I have incurred and, afterwards, continue to make use of this fine psychologist’s knowledge and experience.”

“Provided everything you do is your idea,” I said, a little dazed at being called a fine psychologist.

“Precisely. I do have my dignity to maintain.”

“And that’s why you went to the bank,” said Worn Jeans, as though not quite sure to believe these words.

The kitten nodded.

“You did all of this to help our friend?” asked Green Shirt. Oh. Wow. I hadn’t even thought of that.

“A friend who did everything possible to help all of us when my first strategy fell apart.”

“So what do we do now?” asked Green Shirt, but not of me. Of the kitten. Worn Jeans had also turned away from me and to the young cat.

The kitten, in turn, drew back and gave me a pleading stare.

Be honest, I mouthed.

The kitten’s head drooped, but only for a moment. It took a breath, drew itself up, and said, with the kind of poise only a cat can have:

“I cannot do this by myself. Will you help me?”

Maybe one day, the kitten won’t need a psychologist. Maybe one day, I won’t need a kitten. That’s what I’d thought more times than I could count ever since I decided to grow a conscience. But, before I left my office on Wednesday with my friendships intact and the kitten, impatient, had already gone outside, I paused a minute with Worn Jeans and Green Shirt.

“It’s hard to think it was scared of going outside when it first spoke with you,” said Worn Jeans. “I wish we’d known, but it looks like you really helped.”

I guess I did.

“Will our kitten’s visits be enough to help you keep afloat?”

“Not really, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Anything we can do?” asked Green Shirt.

I considered. Referrals would be great, but how awkward was it to tell your friends to go to a psychologist?

Probably no more awkward than telling them their cat was sentient.

“Let your kitten make its own choices,” I said. “And if you hear of anyone needing a psychologist, send them my way.”

“What if those people include us?” asked Worn Jeans.

“Just make sure you pay me,” I said, with a bit of a forced chuckle. My friends smiled, but I remembered our previous sessions. “How about, for now, let’s focus on being friends for a while. I’ve been moping around by myself long enough.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Worn Jeans. “Want to come over for dinner tomorrow?”

“That sounds amazing. I’ve… uh… been having a lot of Kraft Dinner lately.” I paused. Did I want to leave the reason in the blanks for them to fill in? But I supposed that, for all the talking we’d done, it was the things we hadn’t said that had led to all this trouble in the first place. “For the last year, actually. That’s how long my finances have been this tight.”

“Then,” said Green Shirt, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Come over as often as you like.”

There once was a little kitten who had decided that the outside was bad. One hundred percent, unequivocally, without question or shadow of a doubt dangerous. And yet, one day, outside it went.

Now the time had come for its psychologist to go outside, too.

And, once my friends and the kitten had left the building, that’s exactly what I did.

--

This story was first published on my Patreon. :)

The Kitten Psychologist and What the Kitten Did

(Just jumping in now? Read the previous installment, The Kitten Psychologist Tries to Be Patient via Email, or start at the beginning with The Kitten Psychologist.)

Wednesday arrived, and 2:55pm found me in my office, sweating.

I’ve really got to turn the heat down in this place.

Oh.

It is down.

Well, crap.

I’d cancelled my other appointments that day when it became clear partway through my first one that all I could think about was this one. This one in thirty minutes. My lunch tried to regurgitate itself. It did an excellent job. 4 out of 5 carrot-flavoured lumps for effort.

Who knew a kitten would be so much trouble?

I did.

And I went for it anyways.

And now I’m here.

Was the thermostat actually working, or just pretending to work?

I simultaneously wished the kitten’s owners would come early and that they’d never come at all. Between ripping this experience off like a bandaid and waking up to find it a dream… I honestly didn’t know which one would be better. Maybe the bandaid.

I sighed.

Yeah, it was the bandaid.

2:57.

What if I didn’t show up? I could escape out the window, right? Three stories isn’t hard to climb down. I’m sure it’s not.

2:58.

My knee bobbed like a squirrel on cocaine. When had that started. Stop that. Stop it. Gah. Now the other one was doing it.

2:58.

Still?

Agh.

Okay, this is ridiculous. Pull yourself together. Or at least pretend to.

The door opened. I jumped.

The kitten entered first, followed by Worn Jeans and Green Shirt.

Oh dear lord.

I licked my lips.

Had I had enough to drink today? My mouth was undergoing desertification.

“Hello,” I said. Cleared my throat.

“Tell the psychologist what you told us,” Worn Jeans demanded of the kitten.

‘The psychologist.’ Ouch.

“I went to the bank,” the kitten said.

“You what?”

“We’ve obviously got to supervise it more,” said Worn Jeans, arms crossed.

“Wait, wait, two months ago, your kitten was too afraid to go outside. Period.”

“It was?” asked Green Shirt. “I didn’t know that.” Both of my friends had been sitting tensely and, due to my nerves, I hadn’t noticed until now that they both… softened? Not much, but enough to remind me to listen. To focus.

I took a deep breath.

“Well, I’m not now,” said the kitten. “Obviously.” Its usual arrogance faltered for a split second when it glanced at its owners, but it soon regained its composure. “Since the source of all our arguments seems to be money and how to get it, it followed that I should start by opening a bank account. However I end up acquiring money, I must have some place to put it first. And let us not forget that this all started because I was paying you out of an account not my own. It was the logical course of action.”

Never mind Voldemort. Now I was dealing with Spock. Or Spocklemort? Voldepock? “So you have an account now.”

“Of course not. The idiot banker refused to open one for me.”

“Because you’re a cat.”

“Because I have no money. And I’m underage.” The kitten scoffed. “Underage. The whole system’s felinist. I needed to be accompanied by a parent or guardian, apparently. Which my humans refuse to do for me. Neither will they lend me any money with which to make my first deposit.”

“Can you blame them?”

The kitten eyed its owners. “I suppose not. But still. I’m trying to be responsible, here. You would think they’d see that.”

“And how are you supposed to pay back your loan, exactly?” asked Worn Jeans.

“I’m working on that!” the kitten retorted.

I made what I hoped was a placating gesture to both of them. “I’m confused. Why are you talking to me about this?”

“Don’t you see?” Worn Jeans’s hands jabbed the air. “It went to the bank. On its own.”

“Why is this even a problem?” Green Shirt exploded.

What the what now? The kitten and I exchanged glances, but said nothing.

“Honey…”

“No, really, why do we need to make a big deal about this? It went to the bank to open an account. That’s not a crime.”

“And whose money will it fill that account with? Ours?”

The kitten flicked its tail.

“It’s going to pay us back. It said it would.”

“It stole money from us for weeks, why would we believe what it said? And why does a kitten need money?”

“Because your friend needed help!” the kitten yelled.

And now for the thrilling(ish) conclusion!

--

This story was first published on my Patreon. :)

Farewell

The birds have flown
go on, go on
Their dark-rising shapes giving way
To the dark-arriving clouds
Thick with thunder
and the cleansing rain

The Peace of the Gods

Under the maelstrom sky, a pond. Beneath that pond, a wellspring. Around that pond, the forest. The heads of the trees nodded over the small liquid hollow, needles a lattice as though the spring had reached into the air to form a shield against the violence of the atmosphere.

Into the peace it created, saint Gih arrived.

This was before his power; this was before his fame. Saint Gih came to the wood of Belameh while the goddess fought the first battles of the uprising, when doom lay on all their foreheads. A poacher, he entered the wood, seeking the white deer the hunters spoke of in reverent whispers, the white stag whose antlers shone like the moon. The antlers which, when ground to a powder, would keep a man from death.

Saint Gih arrived at the pool.

The spring lay beneath, unnoted, unseen. From it poured all the water of the air. Saint Gih had entered the clearing to escape the storm; Saint Gih had arrived to find the source of its chaos. Though he had found no deer in the wood, the lightning across the sky remained atop the water. The pool held it, branching to one side, branching to another.

And in the image held there, saint Gih found what he sought, though he did not know it.

A deer stood at the edge of the pond, a doe white as the moon. Saint Gih raised his bow. If he should not cheat death this night, at least he should eat. The arrow flew, shot truly, bent awry in the air that rose above the water. The doe fled into the darkening wood.

Though he did not know it, saint Gih’s death left him.

Before him, an arrow. Beneath it, a wellspring. The power that shielded the storm held half a weapon at eye level, and saint Gih stood transfixed. He turned to the sky, the dome above him, grown out of nature as though shaped by hands. He turned to the trees, arced when they should be straight. He turned downward, and saw the lightning in the water.

Saint Gih saw the storm in the water.

The words of those who were not yet saints came to him out of the spring. The words of those who fought the gods entered his mind and churned therein. He could not deny what he had once doubted, and though they saw only defeat, under the sky he saw their victory.

Under the sky he saw their peace.

Leaving the arrow, he entered. Leaving his bow, he drowned. Leaving himself, he submerged. And the wellspring rose to meet him. The wellspring poured through him to the clouds. The wellspring put the lightning into him. Saint Gih, who had hid from battle for fear, though that fear ate him until his shrinking heart sought the secret the trees hid, broke the surface converted to their cause.

He arose saint Gih, firstborn of the entombers of gods.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story, first published on my Patreon, comes from my work in progress Hunter and Prey, which will be the third book in the White Changeling series. It may have differences in the final book, as this is taken from the first draft, but I anticipate it will remain mostly the same.

The other books in the series so far are Hidden in Sealskin and Like Mist Over the Eyes.

From Two Comes All

There was a goddess who pulled two points together
Unconnected
Unrelated
They were nothing
They were something
She held one in each hand
Lifted above each shoulder, as if in blessing
Brought her palms together
Not enough to touch
She didn't need to
She knew
The points only needed proximity
A moment
Before pulling her hands away
And an entire web expanded between them
A world, created on two poles
A world, created
By two points
Two hands
And the possibilities have never stopped growing

Opening to "Star and Ice" (actual title TBD)

Sema didn’t sleep as well as she used to. Her back ached, the house creaked, and her mind would rise full of thoughts and memories when the stars shone on the ice, which was every night. So, this night, when the crash against the door that made the house shake intruded around the edges of her sleep-muzzed consciousness, she only wrapped the blankets around tighter and curled up on the bed. There was a voice in the wind, she thought dreamily, almost a wail. But such thoughts came from her grandmother’s generation. The immortal world needed no help from mortal beings, was not even immortal. Nothing left but the too-tired mind playing tricks on a lonely old woman.

Pink pearled the horizon after a night of swaying from asleep to not-quite-asleep, wanting to fall, but never quite managing to. Overcast again. For a brief moment, the sun stared dully down at the glacier, but it must not have liked what it saw. Sema brewed a pot of tea from the supply her son had left before his voyage across the sea. Almost gone now, it was, but with only one person drinking it, it would last a while yet.

Rain had come down last night, rain mixed with snow, and it occurred to Sema that she ought to see if the mat had frozen to the front step. Odd weather, that, it now seemed to her in the daylight hours. Too warm for the season. Too wet. She built the fire back up to a cheerful blaze and laid the horsehair blanket on the rocking chair, that it might be ready for her after her morning exertion. Tea ready, she covered the pot and set her cup by the chair that it might cool. Then, finally, she took the worn wooden box with a broken lock from its place under the window and placed it next to the chair, in front of the funny table with three legs — built that way — upon which sat her tea. The window had streaks on it, which she frowned at and tried to rub away with a corner of her sleeve, but they were on the outside, and would not leave.

Then, to the door. Snow fell in small, dry flakes on the other side of the window, so she wrapped herself in several layers — shawl, coat, parka — before touching the handle. It was warm, warmer even than the inside of the house. A trick of the senses only, reminding her to put on her fur-lined mittens, which she did. Prepared in all ways, she opened the door.

The air should have nipped at her nose and cheeks. White flakes should have swirled, sticking to her face and clothing. She should be regretting that first breath after the door is wide open and the worst is over, so you stop holding your breath and let the cold drill down into the lungs. But the air was mild as mid spring, the snow turned to water the moment it came within four feet of the door. That first breath went down easy, if a bit dry and, before the front step, lay a young woman naked as the day she was born, surrounded by a puddle of water mixed with blood.

Note: I'm not sure when/if I'm going to finish this story. I rather like Sema, and I find the mystery surrounding the young woman she stumbles upon fascinating, but I'm thinking that I'll need to change a LOT before I hit on the right form this story needs to take for me to be able to finish it. Maybe Sema and the young woman need to be in two different stories?

Hm. I'll ponder that.

In the mean time, I'll leave this unsolved mystery to rattle around in your brain a while. :D

Aish of a Grey Lion: A Storm-Dance Short Story (part 2 of 2)

Read part one here.

“Aish of a grey lion,” he said. “Where are your claws?”

They stared at each other, Niobe sick to her stomach. He had done it. He had gone out into the eseteij and cried out for change. Why now?

No, she knew why. Either the Teeshlawat Fyareng had survived or one of his followers continued in his name. Which didn’t matter. They were recruiting again, both children and from the old ranks of child-soldiers. Even if she rescued the child, she couldn’t let this soticheij live or else he would tell the others about her. It didn’t matter how they would use that information; they would destroy everything she cared about, everything she’d built since her escape.

Except, without the other knights, her and her sword would not be enough to fell the beast. Wound it, yes. Scare it off, yes. But, to kill it…

“A samyot for the child,” she said. In a secret pocket, she still carried the one possession that remained from that part of her life.

He sneered. “We’re not children anymore.”

“A samyot.”

The soticheij sighed, but nodded assent and stepped back. Niobe sheathed her sword and retreated behind the dogwood. Off came her coat. Then the leather armour. Inside the coat was her identification as a knight of the Royal Militia, at the back of which was a pocket. With a nudge at the pocket’s spell, an oval of red jasper wrapped in a criss-cross of pale leather emerged. Her talisman. This Niobe held in one hand as she removed and put all her clothes but the coat into the pocket, the enchantment shrinking each to fit.

Beneath the surface of the talisman was the silken feel of common magic, of an incomplete spell. Niobe returned her identification to her coat and clutched the leather-crossed stone tight. She manoeuvered a key of magic into the spell’s lock and turned.

The talisman’s intricate power flowed over and through her body in waves. Fur sprouted, her back lengthened. Claws extended from hands and feet that morphed into paws. Her mouth filled with the teeth of a predator, her pupils became black slits in a field of yellow. The magic contorted her limbs, reshaped her muscles until, only heartbeats after the spell had begun its work, she stood on all fours. With her nose, Niobe nudged the talisman under her coat.

From behind the dogwood, a grey lion leapt at the soticheij.

He lowered his antlers.

When Niobe landed on them, he brought his head up to throw her to the side. She twisted to land on her feet and swiped at his forelegs. They weren’t her target – her aim was to get at his neck – but he didn’t move them. Instead, he brought his antlers down.

So, he still over-relied on his headgear.

Niobe leapt into the cedar behind the soticheij. As he turned to face her, she dropped and slammed into his side, enough to make him stagger. His antlers swung to the side and, while moose are agile, he wasn’t a moose. Not in the way she was a grey lion. She could see his very human Adam’s apple under that thick neck.

Darting under his belly, Niobe escaped the antlers to his other side. With a snarl, she clamped her jaws on the underside of his neck.

Now he remembered his limbs. As she tried to crush his windpipe, he grabbed her with thick fingers to wrench her off. This only served to cause her teeth to tear his skin. He squeezed her ribcage – that was how he’d broken bones and almost killed that knight before she and the others had intervened.

When she felt the crunch of his larynx, Niobe let go. She twisted in his grasp, clawing at his face. The soticheij threw her. From the wounds on his cheeks, she could tell she had almost gouged his eyes.

He put a hand to his throat and tried to speak, but his voice was so hoarse as to be nearly unintelligible. With each laboured breath came the harsh vibration of broken cartilage.

“Take-” he said. “Take the child.”

Left in this condition, he would seek out another eseteij and let the icewater hold of storm magic return to him his strength. The samyot may be over, but Niobe’s work was not. She sprang at him, the top of his neck now between her teeth. Using her claws to keep hold of him as he struggled, she repositioned her grip to just under the base of his skull and bit into his spine.

The soticheij screamed; the sound was stomach-churning with his maimed throat. As it faded, a chipmunk chattered. No, not a chipmunk.

Niobe let go and retreated from the soticheij. Though she hadn’t managed to break his spine completely, his movements had become clumsy.

With a dash behind the dogwood, Niobe signalled the knights with the jays again. Come, be ready to fight. She fitted key to lock and the talisman returned her body to its natural form. Hands shaking, she dressed herself and hid the talisman in its pocket.

The other knights arrived as she stood over the soticheij, sword drawn. He had fallen, succumbing to the injuries of his spine and larynx. Niobe directed two of them to attend to the child, who still lay huddled in the cedar.

“She was in – the cult!” said the soticheij to the knights. “She fought for – for…” he coughed blood. “The Teeshlawat Fyareng.”

But the knights didn’t speak his language. Niobe, Champion of the Royal Militia that had defeated the cult of the Teeshlawat Fyareng eleven years ago with ease, didn’t translate.

She decapitated him instead.

The Storm-Dance is a planned four-book series in which the people of the country Asebei uncover, over the course of their history, the secrets of the eseteijo, the magic storms that plague their continent. The first book will be about Niobe. The second will be about Vjaited.

Aish of a Grey Lion: A Storm-Dance Short Story (part 1 of 2)

The sharp scent of pine a stab through her nostrils, Niobe kept her eyes on her target as she wound her way through the trees. Uneven ground lent itself poor to graceful movement, but Niobe had the uncanny knack of keeping her shoulders level even as her feet crept across the fallen logs and moss-covered rocks beneath the underbrush.

There, only twenty paces ahead and to the right was the soticheij, the monster that once was a man. Back to her, his antlers outlined an undulation as his head swayed. With a deep breath, almost a sigh, he pawed the ground with his forelimbs, thickened and lengthened to support his weight in quadrupedal movement. He could no longer stand upright, his back having hunched at the centre, his legs having contorted to a shape like that of a dog’s. Everything about his massive body suggested strength, a ponderous strength Niobe had already seen fell trees and break a knight’s ribs.

The aish of a moose, judging by the antlers. That’s what she would have called it, back when… but no one talked about that anymore. Or, at least, no one acted on it. This man had been merely unlucky and gotten trapped in an eseteij long enough for the storm’s magic to twist both bone and humanity. Still, the bodies of usual soticheij were more chaotic. His had a focus to it, enough that it rested on the line between what it should be and what it must never be. It gave rise to old memories Niobe would rather not think of.

She raised her pistol.

Where were the other knights? They had separated to surround the brute, but none had given the signal that they had arrived at their position. She sent the magic upwards and it caught in a tree, releasing the back and forth of jays before dissipating. No response yet.

No matter how many times she went on hunts like this, Niobe wondered what kind of people soticheijo had been before they’d changed. Common knowledge held that nothing remained of their former selves. If only. Niobe had known people who sought this change, and it had only amplified everything they already were and wanted to be.

Its antlers finished their undulation, the soticheij drew back from the tree it had pawed at. A large cedar, almost dead, and no wonder with the hollow in its trunk the soticheij had just uncovered. There was something inside. Niobe couldn’t make out what it was.

A chickadee’s call rang out, one dee, with an odd lift of pitch at the end. One of the other knights had called an alert. She responded with a chipmunk’s chatter from about five paces behind. The chickadee came again, five dees this time, accompanied by the squawk of jays. Immediate danger, come to aid.

Niobe shifted her weight to help, but she caught sight of what was in the tree. A child. As the other knights signalled that they would go to the one in distress, Niobe drew her sword and approached her quarry.

With its thick hands, the soticheij picked up the child, who hung limp in the monster’s grip. Not dead, Niobe didn’t think, but unconscious. She crouched behind a stunted dogwood. Only eight paces away now.

The child opened its eyes. It cringed, but didn’t struggle. In a low, distorted voice, the soticheij spoke to the child. Though unintelligible, the cadence and sound of its words suggested to Niobe that she should understand it. She almost understood it. But it eluded her and she couldn’t see why. The child didn’t listen to its captor. Its eyes stared off at nothing, an expression Niobe recognized with a thud of her heart. This angered the soticheij, who yelled and slapped the child, drawing blood with jagged fingernails. Two of its words came into deadly focus:

Teeshlawat Fyareng.

All at once, the rest of what the soticheij said cleared like ripples giving way to still water. The language she had not heard since childhood…

“He chose you, as he chose me, and I will take you to him when it is safe. His call is an honour, an honour-”

Niobe shot him.

His roar filled the air as he dropped the child and turned to face the threat. The child only retreated into the hollow of the tree and curled up.

No one had said anything about a kidnapping. The soticheij had been spotted, too close and too wild to be ignored, and so the Royal Militia had come to dispatch it. But no one had been hurt yet. Or missing. Which meant the child must have been taken from another village, taken here as the soticheij took it with him. Took it to the Teeshlawat Fyareng.

She had shot him in the shoulder, which bled, but his hide was too tough for much more. More shots rang out too far away, the other knights in their battle. Niobe returned the pistol to its holster. Bullets wouldn’t help here.

The soticheij scanned the forest, nostrils flared and breath heavy. Stepping out from behind the dogwood, Niobe brandished her sword and made as if to approach. She would have, too, if not for the moment his eyes met hers and she knew him. It had been years, but she knew him. And, as those eyes of gold-scratched grey widened, she knew he saw past all that time, too.

“Aish of a grey lion,” he said. “Where are your claws?”

Read part two here.

Eseteij (A Storm-Dance poem)

Chorus
It comes, the wild storm.
It comes, it comes,
The wild storm, it comes.

Man
What, ho, is this
That churns the trees
And chills the air?

Chorus
The wild storm
It comes, it comes.
The wild storm, it comes.

Man
And what wonder is this,
The soft edging of the breeze?

Chorus
It comes, it comes.
The wild storm,
It comes.

Man
I must go to it, awe-of-all.
One foot I step
Forwards
Into what I have heard but not seen.

Chorus
Don’t go, don’t go;
The wild storm, it comes.
It reaches forth it find you.
Hide, and you will be saved,
Or else it will hold you
Until you are no longer man,
But beast
And the ocean and hills
Will mean no more to you
Than earth’s song
And earth’s pant,
For the wild storm, it comes.

Man
The winds have embraced me
Soft through with magic
No longer threads
Tiny arms, hands, fingers,
But a woven fabric
And the sinuous limbs
Of the liquid spell-stuff
That caress my skin.

Chorus
It comes, the wild storm.
The wild storm, it comes.
It comes with teeth and claws and sword:
Not a caress, but the whispered edge of a blade
Drawn from its sheath.

Man
But, O, how the wisdom of my forefathers
Has turned to ash.
There is nothing to fear
But the snapping and fall of branches in the gale.
Gladly, I go forward.
I find no danger here.

Chorus
Don’t go, don’t go,
The wild storm is here.
It rasps your skin and grows your claws
Sprouts fur and feather, twists your limbs
From square to round to inverse*
To a knot.
Can’t you see?

Man
Oh, God, I see!

Both
Eseteij!


About this poem

Why would the foremost expert on the most dangerous natural phenomenon in the world walk right onto the path of that phenomenon?

Magic storms with the ability to change humans into monsters plague the continent containing the country of Asebei. In the country's language, Abei, they're called eseteij in the singular, eseteijo in the plural. Defending settlements from these storms used to be little more than a hit-and-miss, with no one knowing why what they did work, or why it failed (as it invariably did, sometimes more than others).

Vjaited Roz changed all that when he invented a reliable defense against these storms that could keep entire cities safe. For this he is praised. Of course, he's also considered a madman, because the last thing he ever did was walk straight into a magical storm.

This Asebei poem, meant to be performed aloud, is about him.


*This line refers to the cursive form of the Abei writing system. Some characters have an overall round shape, others have an overall rectangular shape, while others cross themselves and are referred to as inverse. The line is saying that the man's form will be changed and, eventually, twisted beyond recognition

(This poem is in the same world as Aish of a Grey Lion.)

Virtual Girl (excerpt)

(Note: This is all I have so far of an experimental sci-fi story code named Virtual Girl. Expect it to be confusing.)

Faded chalk art makes me think of the things
that could have been
and might be again.
Does that make sense?
I don’t know what does
it should have been so simple
But here I am again
thrown back
Blackness
Immobile
The beeping of machines that can never
Never
Wake me up again
When will I see again?

Must be programming
Must be the code
I hide out on the waves again
A digital ocean
‘Tell me, tell me’
I say
‘Why didn’t it work?’
But they don’t know
they never know
But they have the luxury
of being able to feel their fingers
Stop.
Stop
Not knowing
Not seeing
There was rain yesterday
And the dragon on the concrete
Has turned to shadow
And all I want
are my legs back.

‘We’ve never done anything like this,’
he says in Korean.
I translate for my brother and add
‘I hate this’
‘I know Korean,’
my brother says
‘Oh
Sorry’
Who thought astral projection
through the internet
would be so hard?
Easier than owning my body again
it seems
but both are supposed to be impossible
and here I am
why can’t I have this, too?
‘You’re thinking out loud again’
my brother says
The Korean scientist is confused
‘Tell him it was a mistake’
I say to my brother.
It seems I can only use the translator
when I’m emotional.

‘I think I found something’
my brother’s excitement does nothing
How many times have I heard it?
Each time, I settle
I move
I see
I say
‘Now’
He pulls the plug
and I come crashing down again
until the beep resumes
and machines fill my lungs again
tell my heart to beat again
Either way, it’s life by machine
Either way I die
But better my body than me
Right?

Humanoid, humanoid
it had to be humanoid
fully functioning
They were all big dogs here
and arguments about alien refugees
(granted, there had the aliens, too
but they also had better robots)
‘No, no, I’ve really found it’
‘So tell the scientist,’ I say
‘I can’t, that’s the problem
They know I know’

‘I swear, if you put this—’

‘They sent someone to the house’

‘Who?’

‘Them’

‘Why the hell are you researching them?
They can’t even remember’

‘Ever wondered why?’

‘What do you mean?’
I swim through the file
‘It’s got to be a conspiracy theory
How did you get this?’

‘You did’

Seems I use more than translators
when emotional

‘They want to know more about you’

A freak of technology

‘You’re a vegetable
They know
They know it’s impossible’

‘Do they know I want to live?’

‘They can’t wake you up’

‘So what good are they?’


…


‘What happened?’

‘Don’t yell,’ I tell my brother.

‘But what happened?’

‘Someone turned me off.
Wait
What the hell
What the hell’

‘What?’

‘Look’

‘I’

‘He’s them, isn’t he?’

‘They sent him to me’

‘I need to talk to him’

‘What—’

‘Get him back. I’m moving my body
before they mess with life support
again’

How do you find the right scientist?
Search engine?
Stalk universities?
No
You know someone
who knows someone
who knows someone
who knows a guy in Korea
“who’s working on something like that”
How does that even happen?
How am I even here?
But they don’t know
They can’t know
They want something
Here I am, run from
concerns of the day
only to be thrown
Right back into them.
How convenient, though
that he would know
who knows
who knows
How convenient

He’s at the apartment
My brother isn’t sure
He didn’t like last time
But how else to scare them?
(And he did like it last time
liar
I could hear him composing papers
in his mind
papers he could never write
but he would, anyway)
‘Wait’
My brother texts him to wait
I see through the webcam
I anticipate this “friend”
his shock
as I speak to him
I relish this
I just want to live
with privacy
with absolute privacy
‘Okay’—my brother’s voice betrays
his nerves
he hesitates
but puts it on
connects his brain to my reality
funny how the thing
that stuck me in the hospital
now gives me so much power
Here goes
Here
goes
I
in
in
in

The first thing to do when I’ve settled in my brother’s body is to take off the virtual reality interface and orient myself again. He mutters under the surface of me—it’s so weird having someone else’s self-talk in your head. But each movement of his body reminds me how different it is. Shorter, thicker. Male. I tell myself what I’m doing as I do it to get used to speaking with his voice. My own body, miles away, want to do the same. I can feel it moving to obey, but powerless to rise and communicate.

Ready, I text my brother’s friend. Acquaintance? What do you call someone who’s likely been using their relationship with you to exploit you? I think his name is Jason. I check the phone. Yes. Jason.

The chair beneath me squeaks as I stand, a little wobbly, but more steady as I walk across the apartment to the door. Moving through cyberspace is never so grounded as this. I have physical space around me, light through the windows, footsteps and the shift of clothing on my body with each movement.

I open the door.

“Hey!” says Jason.

“Hey yourself,” I say in poor imitation of my brother—I can hear his scornful undertones. Jason’s eyebrows draw together, but he comes in and takes off his shoes. I close the door.

“What did you want me over for?” he plops on the couch, limbs outstretched in comfort. I consider playing the charade a little longer, but this is better.

“I’d like to tell you…” No. That thought dies before my brother’s vocal cords can shape it. “I’m not particularly fond of people who cut my life support.”

Jason’s eyes bulge. He reminds me of a fish. “Your sister’s life support, you mean.”
I sit down exactly like myself and smile. “No, I meant my life support.”

“Do you have multiple personalities or something?”

“Look, Jason, or whoever you really are, I’m going to make this really simple: You’re looking at my brother’s body, but you’re talking to me. And, last night, you snuck into the hospital, shut off my life support, and turned it back on. Moreover, my brother informs me you came by the other day about some files I dug up that it seems you and quite a few other people have an interest in keeping hidden. What would people think if they knew these refugees came to Earth not because they were fleeing anything but because they were very, very interested in… what was it? ‘Harvesting latent potentials in the human populace for the improvement of our own abilities’?”

The following bout of stuttering is most gratifying. Jason peers at me.

“Why did you shut off my life support?” I ask.

“I didn’t—”

“Do you want stills from the security cameras, or should I stream the whole feed?”

“Is there some medication you should be taking?”

“Jason. Think. You interrupted my life support. No one at the hospital noticed. No one said anything about it. I’d love to know how you managed that, but that’s not really what’s on your mind right now because you know the only way I could be telling you this is if I wasn’t the vegetable you thought I was and, at the very least, I could tell my brother what you did. After all, outside of whoever else you’re working with, only I would know what you did. That’s how you set it up.”

The Kitten Psychologist Tries to be Patient Through Email

(Just jumping in now? Read the previous installment, The Kitten Psychologist vs the Kitten's Owners, or start at the beginning with The Kitten Psychologist.)

Dear kitten,

I would absolutely love to speak with you, but your humans, as you say, have decided I can’t ever see you. You’ll have to deal with the tumblr thing on your own.
 
Sincerely,
Your psychologist


Dear psychologist human,
 
There is no reason to be rude with me. As you see perfectly well, we can talk through email. Your payment will be minimal to none as a result, but I still need your help, so you are still my psychologist.
 
My current dilemma has less to do with tumblr and more to do with the conversation you had with my humans. I overheard you, you know. What is this nonsense about cats not being moral? We are most certainly moral. Explain this to me.
 
I also seem to be having difficulties accessing my humans’ bank account. Do you have any solutions to that?
 
Sincerely,
You know who


Dear kitten,

That’s… not really how being a psychologist works. It’s a job. I need to get paid.

And, while I disagree with your owners on principle, your last paragraph sort of proves their point.

Sincerely,
Your psychologist


Dear psychologist human,

Thank you for Skyping with me. Finally. I hope you now understand the unfeasibility of my obtaining employment (not to mention a bank account of my own) in order to pay you. This really isn’t a moral matter so much as a pragmatic one.
 
I am a kitten. And I live in a world where kittens cannot get jobs. I, therefore, cannot get paid. You will have to help me, regardless.
 
Meanwhile, I’ve noticed my humans are more attentive to me of late. Not in the way I like. They have been keeping me from doing as I please in regards to electronics and leaving the house. 

Speaking to them about the matter has changed nothing.
 
How do I convince them that I am perfectly capable and trustworthy enough to be left on my own?
 
Sincerely,
You know who


Dear kitten,

If you’re actually going to take any advice I give, you’re going to pay me. Or work something else out. Otherwise, you’re telling me that you’re not trustworthy and that working for you isn’t working for you. It’s you using me.

Which, while I’m being perfectly honest with you, is what you’ve been doing with your owners.

Sincerely,
Your psychologist

Dammit. Maybe I shouldn’t have worded that so strongly, but I’d sent it before I could stop myself. I’d been emailing my friends, too. They wanted to know how to deal with their kitten, and I’d agreed to give them free sessions in exchange for keeping the money the kitten had paid me from their bank account.

It was one of those things you know is a bad idea, but you’re too worried about what might happen if you don’t that you say yes to it anyways.

Those sessions were… hard. They’re my friends, but I had to be their psychologist instead and, let me tell you, telling your friends to solve their own problems doesn’t ever go over very well. Especially when they’re dead set against it. All they wanted to do was figure out what to do to get the kitten to do what they wanted. All I wanted was to get them out of my office before I yelled at them.
I freak out over my finances too much. If I hadn’t, I never would have been in this situation. Now, if I could just get a time machine and go tell my past self that, that would be great.

Oh. A new email. Great.

Dear psychologist human,
 
And how, exactly, do you propose I “work something else out”?
 
Sincerely,
You know who

I could always turn off my computer and pretend I hadn’t read that. Or that my email had glitched and I’d never received the message.

Except that I’m doing that thing where I’m trying to get out of this darn mess.

Dear kitten,
 
Talk to your owners about it. And don’t let them tell you you’re not able to do anything. The moment you’re feeling helpless or powerless or incapable is the moment you’ve started going in the wrong direction.

Sincerely,
Your psychologist


Dear psychologist human,

I am never helpless, powerless, or incapable. I am a feline. But I will speak to them, since you obviously didn’t know what you meant in the first place.
 
Sincerely,
You know who

I’m never going to get over getting emails from a kitten that’s basically telling me it’s Voldemort. It’s certainly mean enough to be him. I wrote an angry reply which I deleted right afterwards as I sat back in my chair and sighed.

Seven or so more deleted angry replies later, another email arrived in my inbox. Two emails, actually.

Dear psychologist human,
 
You have a devious mind. I like you.
 
Sincerely,
You know who

And then, from my friends:

You’re not going to believe what our kitten just did. Can we have our next session earlier in the week?

I’m not sure what to feel about this.

…

I’m really not sure what to feel about this.

To my friends:

I’m open on Wednesday between 3pm and 5pm. Does that work for you?

It’s amazing what you can do on autopilot.

From my friends:

Yes, 3pm. This can’t wait.

Uh oh. What did the kitten go and do now?

And how am I going to get out of this with my skin intact?

Glass

Isabelle took off her glasses, squinting in an attempt to see the hand she held outstretched in front of her face. All that her eyes showed was a great blur. Frustrated, she returned the glasses to their accustomed place and stared at her fingers thoughtfully.

‘How could you think they are artist’s hands?’ her mother’s voice echoed through her mind. ‘It is quite obvious that they are a pianist’s hands. Anyone could see that.’

‘It’s true,’ Isabelle’s father had agreed, adjusting his glasses. ‘No-one could mistake it.’

“Well, I obviously could.” Isabelle grumbled to herself. “Why can’t they see what I see?” Sighing, she picked up her pencil, began to draw.

In the town of Un Vue, named so because the view from the nearby hill, while not as great as the town of La Vue, was still somewhat spectacular, each and every person wore glasses. Upon the week of their first spoken sentence, every child would receive brand-new glasses and, upon the day of their death, those glasses would be buried with them. As if to mediocritize everything more, all of the glasses were the same, from colour to shape, not a single thing differed among them. Because of this universal similarity, not a single person noticed the presence of their glasses in any particular way, just as no-one would really notice that another person had two eyes. It was the way everyone was, from generation to generation.

Now, Isabelle was slightly unique among the rest of the town. She did not begin to speak at all for the longest time and so, unlike anyone else, could remember slightly what it was like not to wear glasses. Therefore, this particular instance of her taking them off in order to see differently could occur within the realm of possibility. She never did so in public, however, where the absence of glasses would be noticed like the loss of a limb. No-one would understand because no-one could remember that there had been another way of seeing things. But Isabelle could no longer see in that way. The blur in front of her face was evidence of that.

Then why? She thought. Why do my parents and I see so differently? All I want to be is an artist, but no matter how well I can draw, no matter what kind of art I create, Mama always frowns upon it. She thinks it’s stupid, and she doesn’t care if I know. The only thing she has wanted from me is that I become a pianist, just like her. Never mind the fact that I can barely tell one note from another, or the concept that black dots on a page somehow mean music is completely beyond my understanding. Isabelle drew angrily, having to stop and erase each time she accidentally made a line that was too dark or too thick. The slowly developing image on her page was that of a girl sitting in a dark room, her head flowering, glowing with ideas and impressions.

You can’t make me, Mama, she told herself fiercely. You can’t make me.
   
They are pianist’s hands,’ repeated her mother, followed again by her father’s affirmation.

No! Isabelle threw her pencil onto her desk with such vigour that it nearly broke. Unable to focus, she stood, running her fingers through her hair, repositioning her glasses. Why can’t they see what I see?
Outside Isabelle’s window, a gentle sunset delicately painted the sky a pink that was slowly deepening to purple, then to black. It mocked her with its very tranquility. She made a face at it and turned away. Everyone else in her family had gone to sleep earlier, and Isabelle wondered if she should do the same. Staying awake was accomplishing nothing here, only frustration.

Why can’t they see what I see? For some irrational reason, Isabelle felt she would be unable to go to sleep unless she was able to answer that question. “Go away,” she told it, hoping that, by doing so, she could ignore the problem. She tried to turn her mind to sleep, to her drawing, to something that would not take a hold of her mind in the way this question was. Instead, Isabelle found those seven small words growing in her mind, disturbing her attempted self-distraction. It seemed incomprehensible that her she and her mother could look at the very same thing, yet see it in two completely different ways. They both had eyes that worked, they both wore the same kind of glasses, the world should look no different to them. Even if they switched glasses –

A sudden wild thought entered Isabelle’s mind. Without a word, without even another thought, she left her room, stepping quickly and quietly down the hall to her parent’s bedroom. Easing the door open, she slipped in, her eyes scanning the room for her mother’s glasses. She spotted them quickly and nimbly picked them up, lifting them in such a careful manner as to not make the slightest sound.

This is preposterous! Her mind cried indignantly. Looking through her glasses won’t change things in the least! You idiot, they’re exactly the same!

Nevertheless, Isabelle returned to her room with the glasses, almost proud at they way she had been able to move so silently.

“Okay,” she breathed, “Now.” With a swift motion, Isabelle removed her glasses and put her mother’s on. Immediately, she noticed a change in the room. All the things her mother had scorned now seemed scornful. Isabelle’s most cherished drawings were now colourless, insipid, worthless. She looked down at her hands, now hanging nearly lifelessly at the shock of what her eyes were showing her. Pianist’s hands, to be sure. Her very fingers seemed able to conjure beauty out of even the most out of tune upright.

Slowly, Isabelle replaced her mother’s glasses with her own and sat down at her desk. Picking up her pencil, she continued to draw until the picture was completed, returned her mother’s glasses, changed, and went to bed. The drawing still showed the girl sitting, the same thoughts growing out of her mind.

But she wore no glasses.