Lois Bujold: Passage

Fawn watched it drift away. So, if the boat sank out there on the big sea, would they ever be able to get back to Graymouth? Far up the channel, a faded red sail loomed, so perhaps they would be able to hail another fisherman, and not be stranded. On that reassuring thought, she took Dag’s proffered hand, warm in the cool light, and scrambled up the dune, sand shifting under her sliding feet, which made her laugh breathlessly. Dag watched her profile anxiously as she pressed to the crest, and the world’s rim opened before her astonished eyes.

The vast expanse of water gleamed like steel, blending in a muted, distant, silvery-gold line with the equally vast, lavender-edged sky. It was like being inside a great bowl of liquid light. On the strand, stretching away like wool rolled for spinning, waves broke and murmured. The damp, strange-smelling air caressed Fawn’s flushed cheeks as she stared and stared. The smell seemed to be some stronger cousin to that of a riverbank or creek bed, but with a tang all its own like nothing she’d smelled before. She took in a huge breath of it. “Oh. My.”

Hawthorn whooped and ran down the sand dune; Berry, laughing, called him to slow down and slid after, Whit on her heels. Remo and Barr, with a wild look at each other, followed.

Dag scanned the horizon, brows pinched. “It was all warm and blue, first time I was down here,” he muttered. “Which was fifty or a hundred miles west of here, though.”

“That was late spring, too, you said. ’Course it was warmer,” said Fawn.

He cast her a grave look, and swallowed. “This isn’t…this wasn’t the wedding trip I’d promised you, I’m afraid.”

“You promised to show me the sea. That there is it, isn’t it?” Most amazingly the sea. Fawn tossed her head.

“I didn’t anticipate Crane, nor river bandits, nor exposing you to all those horrors.” With a hesitant finger, he traced her neck where Crane’s knife had lain. He added after a moment, “Nor making you cook for a boatload of folks the whole way.”

Blight Crane. “I don’t think we anticipated the Fetch at all, nor Berry, nor Bo and Hawthorn and Chicory and Wain and all those others, but I’m glad to have met them. Even Remo and Barr turned out pretty good, in the end. I’ve learned so many new things I’ve lost count, which I wouldn’t want to give back nohow.” She hesitated, searching for the right words to ease his misplaced fear of disappointing her, without pretending that the cave hadn’t mattered. “Mama used to say to me, when I was young and pining for my birthday or some other treat to come quick, right now, Don’t go wishing your life away.” She tightened her grip on his hand. “Don’t you go wishing my life away, either.”

He smiled a little, although she was afraid it was half for amusement at that when I was young part. “There’s a point, Spark.”

“You’d best believe it.” Firmly, she pulled him down the slope.

Hawthorn already had his shoes and socks stripped off and trouser legs rolled up, and was prancing about in the foam that bubbled and hissed around his feet. Barr and Remo watched him rather enviously. They set down their baskets beside a likely-looking mess of driftwood and all walked up the beach together. Everyone including Dag bent to collect seashells and marvel at the strange shapes and colors. Fawn was especially taken with the round, hollow ones, like sugar cookies with flower patterns pressed in the center, trying to imagine what wondrous creatures had made them or lived in them.

Noting that no blood-sucking tentacles had yet reached out to grab Hawthorn’s ankles, she took off her shoes and socks, too, gave them to Dag to carry, and walked through the tickling foam despite the chill. She scooped up a handful of the water and, not that she hadn’t been warned, tasted it—salty, metallic, and vile! But for all that, not regretted. She spat it out and made a face that made Dag grin, or at least smirk.

A half-mile on, they came upon a huge dead fish washed ashore. It was even bigger than Dag’s channel cat, sleek gray with a pale belly, with an ugly underslung mouth lined with far too many sharp, triangular teeth. It had teeth in rows. It had evidently been there awhile, because it also stank to the sky, which at least saved any argument about its edibility and whether Fawn should be made to attempt to cook it. Hawthorn, Remo, and Barr were delighted by it, especially the jaws. Dag and Fawn walked on, leaving them crouching down trying to cut out the jawbones from the smelly carcass to carry off for a souvenir, possibly to work the teeth later into some sort of Lakewalker hair ornaments. There certainly seemed to be plenty of teeth to go around. Berry and Whit wrinkled their noses at the aroma wafting up from this process and retreated as well, to walk side by side along the top of the dunes.

Fawn and Dag held hands and strolled on, though after the fish with the teeth Fawn put her shoes back on and kept her feet safely to the damp sand. You just never could tell about Bo’s stories. Fawn glanced up to find Dag’s brows had pinched again. She thought of shaking him out of his abstraction, or making him wade in the water to wake up, or something. Instead, she simply asked, “What’s weighing so heavy on your mind?”

He pressed her hand, smiled too briefly. “Too much. It’s all a tangle, in my head.”

“Start somewhere. Doesn’t matter which end.” Whatever had bit him was still gnawing, that was plain.

He shook his head, but drew a long breath, so he wasn’t going to go all surly-quiet, anyhow. “My healing work, for one. I saved two fellows in the cave. If there’d been three or more hurt that bad, the rest would have died all the same. How can I set myself up as a medicine maker for farmers when I know it’d be a cruel false promise for all but the first-comers?”

“Even Lakewalker medicine makers have helpers,” Fawn pointed out.

He frowned thoughtfully. “I sure do understand now why they leave as much to heal on its own as they can.”

“Two’s still more than none. And most days they wouldn’t come in mobs like that.”

“But on days they did, it could sure get ugly.” His frown did not lift.

“There were other problems came clear to me at the cave, ones I hadn’t thought of. Justice, for one. How can Lakewalkers and farmers live together if they have to have separate justice? Because there’s bound to be clashes, that’s what justice is all about, dealing with clashes folks can’t settle for themselves.”

Now it was Fawn’s turn to say, “Hm.”

“Crane said…” He hesitated.

“You shouldn’t let Crane’s lies get under your skin.”

“Isn’t his lies that bother me. It’s his truths.”

“Did he tell any?”

“A few. You are what you eat, for one.”

Fawn sucked her lower lip. “All folks learn from the folks around them. Good behavior and bad behavior both. You can’t hardly help it.”

He ducked his head. “Lakewalkers tend to think themselves above that, when they’re amongst farmers. Takes ’em by surprise to be taught anything, it does.” He added after a moment, “It did me, leastways. But the other thing he said…”

Sudden silence. Now we’re getting down to it. “Mm…?”

“About Lakewalkers rising to the top. One way or another. Whether they want to or not. That, I’m afraid I’ve seen. On her own boat, Berry defers to me!”

Fawn wrinkled her nose in doubt. “You’re also a man near three times her age,” she pointed out. “You’d be a leader amongst Lakewalkers. You wouldn’t expect to be less a leader amongst farmers.”

“Amongst Lakewalkers, there would be others to keep me in line.”

“Well…Wain didn’t defer so easy, for one.”