Butler, Octavia - Wild Seed

The loneliness returned as soon as he was gone. There were people all around her, but she felt completely alone on this huge vessel at the edge of endless water. Loneliness. Why should she feel it so strongly now? She had been lonely since she realized she would not die like other people. They would always leave her—friends, husbands, children … She could not remember the face of her mother or her father.

But now, the solitude seemed to close in on her as the waters of the sea would close over her head if she leaped into them.

She stared down into the constantly moving water, then away at the distant shore. The shore seemed even farther away now, though Doro had said the ship was not yet under way. Anyanwu felt that she had moved farther from her home, that already, perhaps she was too far away ever to return.

She gripped the rail, eyes on the shore. What was she doing, she wondered. How could she leave her homeland, even for Doro? How could she live among these strangers? White skins, yellow hairs—what were they to her? Worse than strangers. Different ones, people who could be all around her working and shouting, and still leave her feeling alone.

She pulled herself up onto the rail.

“Anyanwu!”

She did not quite hesitate. It was as though a mosquito had whined past her ear. A tiny distraction.

“Anyanwu!”

She would leap into the sea. Its waters would take her home, or they would swallow her. Either way, she would find peace. Her loneliness hurt her like some sickness of the body, some pain that her special ability could not find and heal. The sea …

Hands grasped her, pulled her backward and down onto the deck. Hands kept her from the sea.

“Anyanwu!”

The yellow hair loomed above her. The white skin. What right had he to lay hands on her?

“Stop, Anyanwu!” he shouted.

She understood the English word “stop,” but she ignored it. She brushed him aside and went back to the rail.

“Anyanwu!”

A new voice. New hands.

“Anyanwu, you are not alone here.”

Perhaps no other words could have stopped her. Perhaps no other voice could have driven away her need to end the terrible solitude so quickly. Perhaps only her own language could have overwhelmed the call of the distant shore.

“Doro?”

She found herself in his arms, held fast. She realized that she had been on the verge of breaking those arms, if necessary, to get free, and she was appalled.

“Doro, something happened to me.”

“I know.”

Her fury was spent. She looked around dazedly. The yellow hair—what had happened to him? “Isaac?” she said fearfully. Had she thrown the young man into the sea?

There was a burst of foreign speech behind her, frightened and defensive in tone. Isaac. She turned and saw him alive and dry and was too relieved to wonder at his tone. He and Doro exchanged words in their English, then Doro spoke to her.

“He did not hurt you, Anyanwu?”

“No.” She looked at the young man who was holding a red place on his right arm. “I think I have hurt him.” She turned away in shame, appealed to Doro. “He helped me. I would not have hurt him, but … some spirit possessed me.”

“Shall I apologize for you?” Doro seemed amused.

“Yes.” She went over to Isaac, said his name softly, touched the injured arm. Not for the first time, she wished she could mute the pain of others as easily as she could mute her own. She heard Doro speak for her, saw the anger leave the young man’s face. He smiled at her, showing bad teeth, but good humor. Apparently he forgave her.

“He says you are as strong as a man,” Doro told her.

She smiled. “I can be as strong as many men, but he need not know that.”

“He can know,” Doro said. “He has strengths of his own. He is my son.”

“Your …”

“The son of an American body.” Doro smiled as though he had made a joke. “A mixed body, white and black and Indian. Indians are a brown people.”

“But he is white.”

“His mother was white. German and yellow-haired. He is more her son than mine—in appearance, at least.”

Anyanwu shook her head, looked longingly at the distant coast.

“There is nothing for you to fear,” Doro said softly. “You are not alone. Your children’s children are here. I am here.”

“How can you know what I feel?”

“I would have to be blind not to know, not to see.”

“But …”

“Do you think you are the first woman I have taken from her people? I have been watching you since we left your village, knowing that this time would come for you. Our kind have a special need to be with either our kinsmen or others who are like us.”

“You are not like me!”

He said nothing. He had answered this once, she remembered. Apparently, he did not intend to answer it again.

She looked at him—at the tall young body, well made and handsome. “Will I see, someday, what you are like when you are not hiding in another man’s skin?”

For an instant, it seemed that a leopard looked at her through his eyes. A thing looked at her, and that thing feral and cold—a spirit thing that spoke softly.

“Pray to your gods that you never do, Anyanwu. Let me be a man. Be content with me as a man.” He put his hand out to touch her and it amazed her that she did not flinch away, that she trembled, but stood where she was.

He drew her to him and to her surprise, she found comfort in his arms. The longing for home, for her people, which had threatened to possess her again receded—as though Doro, whatever he was, was enough.

When Doro had sent Anyanwu to look after her grandson, he turned to find his own son watching her go—watching the sway of her hips. “I just told her how easy she was to read,” Doro said.

The boy glanced downward, knowing what was coming.

“You’re fairly easy to read yourself,” Doro continued.

“I can’t help it,” Isaac muttered. “You ought to put more clothes on her.”

“I will, eventually. For now, just restrain yourself. She’s one of the few people aboard who could probably kill you—just as you’re one of the few who could kill her. And I’d rather not lose either of you.”

“I wouldn’t hurt her. I like her.”

“Obviously.”

“I mean …”

“I know, I know. She seems to like you too.”

The boy hesitated, stared out at the blue water for a moment, then faced Doro almost defiantly. “Do you mean to keep her for yourself?”

Doro smiled inwardly. “For a while,” he said. This was a favorite son, a rare, rare young one whose talent and temperament had matured exactly as Doro had intended. Doro had controlled the breeding of Isaac’s ancestors for millennia, occasionally producing near successes that could be used in breeding, and dangerous, destructive failures that had to be destroyed. Then, finally, true success. Isaac. A healthy, sane son no more rebellious than was wise for a son of Doro, but powerful enough to propel a ship safely through a hurricane.

Isaac stared off in the direction Anyanwu had gone. He shook his head slowly.

“I can’t imagine how your ability and hers would combine,” Doro said, watching him.

Isaac swung around in sudden hope.

“It seems to me the small, complex things she does within her body would require some of the same ability you use to move large objects outside your body.”

Isaac frowned. “How can she tell what she’s doing down inside herself?”

“Apparently, she’s also a little like one of my Virginia families. They can tell what’s going on in closed places or in places miles from them. I’ve been planning to get you together with a couple of them.”

“I can see why. I’d be better myself if I could see that way. Wouldn’t have run theMary Magdalene onto those rocks last year.”