Zachary Jernigan - No Return

Vedas grunted and released his ankles. “You’re not missing much.” He angled his head to the sky. The Needle had not fully risen, and so he did not curse Adrash by touching the horns of his suit. Instead, he breathed in deeply, his taut belly inflating like a drum. “I smell pine trees.”

“Me, too,” Churls said. She frowned, deepening the lines around her mouth. “Wait a minute. There are no pine trees east of Anlala that I know of, certainly none in Dareth Hlum—it’s too far east. How would you recognize the smell? You don’t look like the kind of man who frequents perfumeries.”

He grimaced. Once again, she had said the wrong thing.

“I may not look it,” he said, “but I have on occasion. There are plenty of Knosi in Golna, but I wasn’t born there. My parents came to the city when I was just a boy. I barely remember Grass, the city of my birth, but I do remember the smell of sagoli pines. The stunted trees lined our street like little old women in frocks. On the way across the continent, I smelled other types of pine. Slightly different smells, but mostly the same. Sometimes, I buy pine oil. I don’t care what kind. Having the smell in my room reminds me of something... Something I might forget if I don’t remind myself.”

Berun shifted, but had nothing to add. He spun two rocks in his hands like Churls had seen monks do in Fali. They were nearly perfect spheres, diminishing in size every day. In a month, he had ground four pairs into marbles.

Churls simply nodded, and then retrieved her sword from beside her pack. With bonedust and spit, she started polishing, in truth to keep from confronting the silence. She could not name the emotion Vedas’s words aroused in her. Sadness, certainly, but this was too general. Longing?

Yes. Longing.

Did longing make Vedas different from any other person she had known? Or was it that he chose to voice it when so many others would rather keep it buried? He did not have to say such things. He could just as easily lie, keep his secrets.

‡

Maybe he can’t keep a secret , a voice said. Maybe he’s an honest man . Churls opened her eyes and growled softly.

She had not been sleeping soundly. Sometimes it felt as if she could predict when her daughter’s ghost would appear, as though she had been drifting toward the meeting all day long. It felt disconcertingly similar to when she wandered in search of water, knowing in the back of her mind that it was close. She had always been a good tracker, a good hunter, and wondered if close communion with spirits was responsible.

Not one to indulge in such speculation by nature, Churls was forced by circumstances to consider the possibility. Five years ago, the ghost of her daughter had appeared, changing the structure of her world. The dead lingered in doorways and sat around campfires, just out of sight. The dead were real.

It was this, Churls knew, or admit she had gone insane.

She rose from her sleeping bag and walked away from camp. The moon was an iron shaving, the world shrouded. Daybreak was two or three hours away. She thought she saw the burning blue coals of Berun’s eyes in the middle distance, but when she looked again they were gone, perhaps a figment of her imagination. Cool, humid wind flowed over the cliff’s edge, instantly chilling her skin. Gooseflesh rose on her exposed arms and legs.

The ocean spread below her, a sky devoid of stars.

“Hello, Fyra,” she said.

The girl appeared beside her. Churls fought the urge to step away.

I like him, Fyra said.

“Who?” Churls asked, though she knew full well whom her daughter meant.

Vedas . I like Vedas . You like him, too .

“I do,” Churls said. “But I shouldn’t. I have no reason to like him.”

You think he’s pretty .

Churls nodded. “He is. That’s not enough, though.”

Fyra walked two steps forward, to the edge. Her fine white hair lifted, became a halo around her head. Churls’s fingernail bit into a scab on her forearm, puncturing it. Blood welled, and she smeared it with her fingertip until it became tacky.

“Why do you like him?” she asked.

A small shrug. I just do . He’s not like the other men you like. They say things they don’t mean . They steal, they fight .

“Vedas fights. That’s all he does.”

Fyra faced her mother. Churls met the stare, and it reminded her too much of looking in the mirror. Fyra had inherited so little from her father. Had someone in the afterlife told her about her half-sisters, who were curly-headed and olive skinned? Had she visited them, seen her father and stepmother?

What Vedas does is different , Fyra said. He doesn’t fight for money . He doesn’t kill .

“There’s no difference, sweetie.” Churls straightened her arms against her sides. “And Vedas has killed before. He’s killed a lot of people.”

By accident , Fyra insisted. And the girl wasn’t his fault, Mama .

Churls wondered how her daughter knew these things. Had she been watching Vedas for long, or could she simply see into his soul? Churls did not like thinking that Fyra could read minds, but somehow this paled in comparison to the thought that her child had been observing Vedas since before they met.

And then it hit her. The obvious answer: Fyra simply believed Vedas. Maybe he’s an honest man , she had said. Vedas had been forthcoming about his recruit’s death, and Churls had only half believed him. She thought it equally likely that he had accidentally killed the child in the skirmish, and fled Golna to avoid the law. She considered this. Even while doubting his character, she had been attracted to him. Perhaps she had always believed him.

Foolishness, believing someone she did not know.

He doesn’t understand you , Fyra said. He doesn’t understand people at all.

“How do you know that? Maybe he just doesn’t like people.”

No, I’m right. I can see some of his memories—the strong ones, the ones that hurt. He tried to help the dead girl’s parents, but he didn’t know what to do . He wanted to say something, but instead he just stood there, looking uncomfortable while they cried . If you could see it , maybe then you’d understand .

Churls closed her eyes and took a step forward. The wind tousled her short hair. “He didn’t say anything about that.” She pictured Vedas ascending rickety stairs, knocking on a door, steeling himself to deliver the horrible news. Taking responsibility for the death of a child.

You should ask him about it , Fyra said.

Churls opened her eyes and found that her daughter had placed her tiny hand in Churls’s own. She resisted the knee-jerk urge to snatch it away. But concentrating on the contact, she realized it felt like nothing. The breeze caressed Churls’s hand, chilling the sweat on her palm. Holding her daughter’s hand felt like air passing through her lungs.

You will, won’t you, Mama , Fyra said. You’ll ask him ?

“I will,” Churls said, and stood alone on the edge of the cliff.

‡

As she expected, Berun had not yet returned. Churls often woke in the hours before dawn, always to find the constructed man absent. He returned just before the sun rose. She never asked him where he had been. It was his business—productive business, sometimes. On four separate occasions, he had brought breakfast back with him. Two rodents with crushed skulls. Once, he had bagged a rodent and an owl, which Vedas refused to eat.

Each time, Berun had also returned with a new pair of rocks in his hands, ready to be ground down into marbles. Churls wanted to ask him about his nighttime activities, but could not find a way to broach the subject. Fairly certain he liked her, she did not want to run the risk of making him uncomfortable. He reminded her of Abi, the precocious child her sister had adopted. He even stood the same way, like he was waiting for instructions. Ever watchful. Sensitive.