David Nickle - Eutopia

So when El Feeger put his hand on her shoulder, Lily said: Scat! Which was the first thing you said when a Feeger took a liberty. El took his hand away but he didn’t move too far, nor take his dark eyes off her, nor lose that awful grin.

That was fine for the moment but it would not last. Lily hummed a little prayer that the Old Man might release her big sister soon so she would not have to face El and others alone.

The Old Man heard her prayer. Looking out on the lake, which was dimpled with slanted rays, Missy pointed out the little ripple in the waters, spreading like a line from a middle point. As it grew nearer, El’s gaze removed itself from his cousin’s behind and joined the rest of them watching at Patricia came back from her night with the Old Man.

She was changed. Although she’d spent a night in water cold enough to paint a girl blue, her skin was ruddy and cheered. Was she any plumper? She soon would be, and that may have been why Lily thought she was now. But she smiled as she squinted against the sun at the family, and walked out of the lake.

Missy ran up and threw her arms around her sister, who absently stroked her hair. The men, guessing what had come upon her, stepped back and fell to their knees.

“Patricia,” whispered Lily. “You’re an—”

“Oracle,” whispered Patricia, then, loud enough for everyone to hear: “I am all Oracular now, and I have words from Him in the Lake. So heed, and keep your hands off me ’n’ mine ’til I say.”

She did not say anything else then. For the whole town had not gathered. So El went down to fetch some weave for his cousin, and they all wrapped her up in it, took her back down the ridge to the crèche where, Oracle or not, Patricia would be staying until the Old Man’s issue was done with her.

They drew straws that afternoon in the village. Lily was happy to see that it was not El who drew the short straw, but his younger brother Lothar. He was quiet and nice to girls, handsome enough, and Lily figured that he would not much harm her older sister when he laid table for her.

As much as all the Feegers wanted to hear what their Oracle had to say, they knew that this ritual, of laying table, was important. An Oracle would only live short if she carried the issue without sustenance—the issue would turn to her, tear her out from the inside.

So when the Old Man sent an Oracle back, someone had to lay table—fill her up with seed for the issue’s larder. To forestall bloodshed, for it was no chore offering this prize, the Feeger men-folk had long since drawn straws.

Lothar drew the shorter straw only second up. He held it in front of him in wonder.

“Old Man favours you,” said El, all trace of his smirk gone now.

Lothar swallowed and said, “Oh,” and then on shaking legs he headed off to the crèche.

Patricia waited, tucked well beneath the rock overhand. She was trembling, with the memory of the cold and a bit of a fever, but also with a bit of worry. Her memories of the night with the Old Man were not too clear, but happy. She’d given her Love and seemed to get as much back again. She knew how the Feeger men could be with her and her sisters. She thought about bruising and bleeding and being made to feel small again. She worried, like her sister, that it would be awful now.

Then the door opened on the wooden front of the crèche, and in the noon-hour light she saw who it was. She smiled.

“Lothar,” she said.

“Huh,” said Lothar.

“Glad it’s you,” she said. Lothar held his hands at his middle, and stumbled in. His trousers and shirt and boots were gone. “Close the door,” she said.

Lothar nodded. He turned around and closed the door. Outside, there were sounds of disappointment. But the crèche was dark. Patricia shifted. She heard Lothar shuffling in the dark, moving around the crèche.

“I’ll talk,” said Patricia, “so you c’n find me.”

“Hum,” said Lothar.

“It is going to be a good time for us,” said Patricia. “That is what the Old Man said.”

Lothar stumbled, and there was a clattering sound.

“You hit the table, now, didn’t you,” said Patricia. “You’re going the wrong way. You’re not scared, are you?”

“Um,” said Lothar. “Um hum.”

“Well don’t be. This will be—” she paused, looking for the right word “—not mean.”

More stumbling, this time closer. Then Patricia felt the heat from Lothar’s flank, next to her. She pulled the furs aside, and she felt as he scrambled to get underneath with her.

“You’re shaking,” she commented.

“Um,” said Lothar.

“Well I’ll calm you,” she said. She reached down and took hold of him. He was slick and warm down there, and he gasped as she pulled and worked him. “Now,” she said, “get ready. Babies are hungry. And they will need food for the long walk. So you go plant your seed, Lothar. Plant it for harvest.”

“Long—” Lothar made a sound as she lifted her leg and guided him inside “—walk?”

“That,” sang Patricia, “is how it is going to be.” She thrust down on him, and Lothar made a strangling sound at the base of his throat. “That—that’s the message. The Old Man’s sending us on a long walk. Down the mountains to that river place. To see about His son. Show the folk there how to treat him right.”

Lothar took his breath in sharp, and whimpered, and she felt his release in her. She welcomed it, the way she’d welcomed the Old Man. It was more love for Him.

She would need that love and more—because the Old Man had made it clear. There was heavy work ahead of them, if they were to do his bidding: find the Son, and make things right again. To do that, she would have to preach—preach to strangers, and make them see how the Son was their Father—make them raise up a Cathedral to him.

And if she couldn’t convince them… if they turned from their calling?

Either way, it would be heavy work.

Jason sat up in bed and gingerly touched his sore, bandaged hand. Dr. Waggoner was still sleeping, so he was quiet as he got out of bed and padded to the window, looked out. It was early morning and he had a good view of Eliada. The hospital was on a rise, and looking down he could see the low wooden buildings spreading along two muddy roadways. People were up and getting set for work—a couple of wagons were loading sacks outside a store. Farther along, he could see gangs of men moving around the sawmill, a team of horses in their midst hauling a pile of logs up to a ramp on the mill’s edge. The two smokestacks at the far end of the mill building sent out a long white cloud of wood smoke. Muffled by distance and wooden walls, Jason was sure he could hear the chugging of a steam engine, the whine of saw-blades.

He let the curtain fall, and stepped out the door, into the corridor and to a tall window at its end. This view was better. It gave him a look at the quarantine. In daylight.

It was not as big as it’d seemed, but it was big enough, built a little better than you’d build a barn, but shaped like a horseshoe. It looked new. It was nestled right back against thick woods and its wooden walls were painted a deep green—as though it might blend in better that way. And there was one other thing about it that Jason noted especially.

It looked like it would burn.

Jason swallowed and leaned against the wall. Was that what he was thinking? Putting torch to the quarantine? Deliberately murdering whoever was in there? Or not caring who was in there and who was not, and doing it all the same?

Last night, he might have done it. The same way he’d been thinking about picking up a gun and using it to shoot Dr. Bergstrom, he could easily have thought about putting torch to the quarantine. It was filled up with Devils after all.