Кейт Форсит - Relics, Wrecks and Ruins - Anthology of Speculative Fiction Short Works

Allody lets out a little gasp and presses a hand to her side. “Breaker Jena!”

“Hurry, now, Maya,” I say. “The babe will come any moment. You must be ready for the taking. We only have the small time it takes for you to pass over, to transfer your soul to the child. And it must be completed within half an hour of first breath or your soul-offering won’t bind to her.”

With a weary sigh, Maya lets her long gray hair loose from its bun and discards layer upon layer of patched, gray and brown shawls and skirts. I don’t help. As the mother of two and grandmother of two, she knows what to do. She has been prepared since we knew Allody was having a girl and needed a female soul-bringer.

Finally, clad only in the bringer’s traditional scarlet shift, Maya crawls into bed with the mother-to-be. Their hands clasp. Tears shimmer in both sets of rust-brown eyes.

“You sure, Grandma?” Allody asks, her voice breaking. “I’ll miss you so much!”

Her grandmother nods. “This body is old and tired. Time for a new one.” Her wrinkled smile widens. “Anyways, you wouldn’t want your baby to be an unsouled, would you? Caring for naught but themselves. Killing off the world with greed.” She jerks a thumb at the window, at the ruins silhouetted against a stormy sunset. “You know how it goes. A life for a life. An old soul into a new body. Gotta break and bind to keep the goodness in.”

This is the way of things since the passing of the unsouled and their near destruction of our world. But it doesn’t need to be. I press my lips tight, holding in the urge to lecture. This ridiculous old belief must stop.

Could I…? I glance at the young mother. No, not this time. Here, there’s no way to hide what I want to do. She’s healthy and the birth easy. Her husband and father stand outside, waiting to witness the ceremony; waiting for the new little soul-taker to absorb Maya’s worn soul, minus the small piece I break off as my fee.

The men, the women, the whole village. They all wait for the child to no longer be an unsouled. No longer dangerous, like those whose city crumbles in the storm.

So we’re told.

No. This is not the child on whom to continue my tests. I need another birth with no witnesses and no soul-bringer. No blind followers of the Council’s doctrines.

Five women are gravid in this village and four in the next, including my own little sister—gentle, widowed, Freya. Soon there will be another newborn I do not have to break for or take for. Soon the Council will see their rituals are nothing but hollowness and control. Lies of spun sugar. Sweeteners for the bitterness of killing a grandparent to allow room for a baby in the world.

And they must see it, since there is no one to be Freya’s soul-bringer. If I help her birth an unsouled and the Council finds out, they will kill the child. Freya’s child. My family. That, I cannot allow.

Allody grunts and gives a little, whimpering cry. Her face reddens and she holds her breath. The child slides free of her mother’s body. Born into blood and storms.

I check her over while we wait for the afterbirth. The scissors cut through the cord with the strange crunching sound that always unnerves new mothers. Then I clean and swaddle and place the child between the two women.

Delight, regret, love, awareness of coming grief… all their feelings shine unguarded as Maya and Allody cradle the child and croon over tiny perfection.

At my call, the child’s father, uncle and grandfather shuffle into the room, hats in hand, bringing the dusty scent of death and the cold smell of autumn rain with them. When they stand, awed and awkward in the corner, I begin the final ritual.

The familiar Song of Taking falls from my mouth almost unheeded, its tune first rising, then cascading down. A minor key. Wistful. Full of loss. Behind me the men give forth soft harmonies that fill the room with gentle regret. Learned in childhood. Passed on from generation to generation, along with a belief that the souls are carried on cadence and rhythms and melody from one body to the next.

Reinforcing the Council’s grip on the world.

I hold the scissors in a trembling hand. There has to be another method. Why is it a life for a life, a soul given and taken? Surely it hasn’t always been this way?

Maya’s faded gaze catches mine. Her mouth twists into a wry, understanding smile. “Come, Breaker. You brought baby Dek, next door, into the world without help or singers last week, I hear. He is hale. Now it’s my great-grandchild’s turn.”

With fingers of paper and bird bone, she grasps my wrist. I swallow and steel myself to match the metal.

Maya’s hand is wrapped around mine, and mine around the scissor handles. Together we slip the sleek blue blades between her ribs. Her rheumy eyes fix on the babe then on Allody. Tears stream down the new mother’s face and she whispers “Thank you” to her grandmother.

Maya’s body tenses. A gasp flutters from her lips. Her blood stains the sheets and the child’s swaddling.

My fingers and blades glisten red as I cut her soul free of the small organ just below her heart. The pale, shining mirror of who she was falls into my waiting hand. A flat plane, like glass. A sharp reflection off water on a clean summer’s day.

Soul colors vary. Hers is the clearest, brightest I’ve seen in a while. Not a smudge of darkness to be seen. A good soul. The child will grow up kind and thoughtful.

If you believe the Council’s teachings.

I hesitate. No. I must follow through this time. I break a small shard off and hold it tight in one hand. It is cold, yet hot at once. Pains tingle up my arm but I cannot release it to freedom, or the binding won’t hold.

Allody unwraps her child. The baby girl’s legs kick feebly. Her little, perfect fingers grab at nothing. Dark hair lies plastered to her scalp.

With delicate care, I insert the largest part of her great-grandmother’s soul between brittle little ribs. She squalls and Allody stares at me, wide-eyed.

“It’s alright,” I reassure her. “That’s normal. It hurts and it won’t bind until I also put the broken piece where it belongs. But then it will heal without a scar and I’ll sing her to sleep.”

Next, I open my hand and catch the final splinter of Maya’s life between the scissor blades. A glittering fragment that will soon be part of me. Sucking a slow breath, I sing the soul-breaker’s song, trying to control the quaver in my voice. Major scale this time. A steady, unchanging tempo. A song of yearning. Of hope for the future, even when I can’t see any.

The blades cut neatly through the thick, pink scar tissue over my ribs. I barely feel the sting anymore. With my eyes closed, I find my soul’s holding place easily enough. The scissors drive further, in amongst the myriad of tiny fragments that are my broken, borrowed bits of soul.

That, I always feel. The pain of sliced flesh followed by the sharper, deeper, darker pain of carrying more and more pieces of other peoples’ lives.

How many can I hold? My mentor on the Council of soul-masters never mentioned such pain.

I withdraw the scissors.

I feel no different.

Not this time, then.

My jaw aches with tension. My shoulders, too.

Surely, I’ve taken enough? Broken enough. Absorbed enough. Killed enough grandparents. Bound enough squalling infants to goodness.

When will these endless exchanges end and leave me enlightened; wise; a soul-master? Able to change the Council’s old ways for new.

My throat closes but I continue to sing. The men’s voices swell into joy and brilliance, filling the tiny room, clearing a way through the thunder now raging outside.

I dab my blood onto the babe’s closed wound, and murmur her new name, Maya. And it is done. She ceases to cry. Her blue eyes open and stare straight at me with her great-grandmother’s look of wisdom already showing.