Butler, Octavia - Wild Seed

People like Isaac and soon Nweke did not know how safe they were from him. People like Anyanwu—good, stable wild seed—did not know how safe they could be—though for Anyanwu herself, it was too late. Years too late, in spite of Isaac’s occasional pleas for her. Doro did not want the woman any longer—did not want her condemning stare, her silent, palpable hatred, her long-lived, grudge-holding presence. As soon as she was of no more use to Isaac, she would die.

Isaac paced around the kitchen, restless and frightened, unable to shut out the sound of Nweke’s screams. It was difficult for him not to go to her. He knew there was nothing he could do, no help he could give. People in transition did not respond well to him. Anyanwu could hold them and pet them and become their mother whether she actually was or not. And in their pain, they clung to her. If Isaac tried to comfort them, they struggled against him. He had never understood that. They always seemed to like him well enough before and after transition.

Nweke loved him. She had grown up calling him father, knowing he was not her father, and never caring. She was not Doro’s daughter either, but Isaac loved her too much to tell her that. He longed to be with her now to still the screaming and take away the pain. He sat down heavily and stared toward the bedroom.

“She’ll be all right,” Doro said from the table, where he was eating a sweet cake Isaac had found for him.

“How can even you know that?” Isaac challenged.

“Her blood is good. She’ll be fine.”

“My blood is good too, but I nearly died.”

“You’re here,” Doro said reasonably.

Isaac rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I don’t think I would feel this nervous if she were giving birth. She’s such a little thing—so like Anyanvru.”

“Even smaller,” Doro said. He looked at Isaac, smiled as though at some secret joke.

“She’s to be your next Anyanwu, isn’t she?” Isaac asked.

“Yes.” Doro’s expression did not change. The smile remained in place.

“She’s not enough,” Isaac said. “She’s a beautiful, lively young girl. After tonight, she’ll be a powerful young girl. But you’ve said she’d keep some of the mind-listening ability.”

“I believe she will.”

“It kills.” Isaac stared at the bedroom door, imagining the favored young stepdaughter turning vicious and bitter like his long-dead half-brother Lale, like his mother who had hanged herself. “That ability kills,” he repeated sadly. “It may not kill quickly, but it kills.” Poor Nweke. Even transition would not mean an end to her pain. Should he wish her life or death? And what should he wish for her mother?

“I’ve had people as good at mental communication as you are at moving things,” Doro said. “Anneke, for instance.”

“Do you think she’ll be like Anneke?”

“She’ll complete her transition. She’ll have some control.”

“Is she related to Anneke?”

“No.” Doro’s tone indicated that he did not wish to discuss Nweke’s ancestry. Isaac changed his approach.

“Anyanwu has perfect control over what she does,” he said.

“Yes, within the limits of her ability. But she’s wild seed. I’m tired of the effort it takes to control her.”

“Are you?” Nweke had stopped screaming. The room was suddenly still and silent except for Isaac’s two words.

Doro swallowed the last of his sweet. “You have something to say?”

“That it would be stupid to kill her. That it would be waste.”

Doro looked at him—a look Isaac had come to recognize, a look that gave him permission to say what Doro would not hear from others. Over the years, Isaac’s usefulness and loyalty had won him the right to say what he felt and be heard—though not necessarily heeded.

“I won’t take her from you,” Doro said quietly.

Isaac nodded. “If you did, I wouldn’t last long.” He rubbed his chest. “There’s something wrong with my heart. She makes a medicine for it.”

“With your heart!”

“She takes care of it. She says she doesn’t like being a widow.”

“I … thought she might be helping you a little.”

“She was helping me ‘a little’ twenty years ago. How many children have I gotten for you in the past twenty years?”

Doro said nothing. He watched Isaac without expression.

“She’s helped both of us,” Isaac said.

“What do you want?” Doro asked.

“Her life.” Isaac paused, but Doro said nothing. “Let her live. She’ll marry again after a while. She always has. Then you’ll have more of her children. She’s a breed unto herself, after all. Something even you’ve never seen before.”

“I had another healer once.”

“Did she live to be three hundred? Did she bear dozens of children? Was she able to change her shape at will?”

“He. And no to all three questions. No.”

“Then keep her. If she annoys you, ignore her for a while. Ignore her for twenty years or thirty. What difference would it make to you—or to her? When you go back to her, she’ll have changed in one way or another. But, Doro, don’t kill her. Don’t make the mistake of killing her.”

“I don’t want or need her any longer.”

“You’re wrong. You do. Because left alone, she won’t die or allow herself to be killed. She isn’t temporary. You haven’t accepted that yet. When you do, and when you take the trouble to win her back, you’ll never be alone again.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Isaac stood up, went to the table to look down on Doro. “If I don’t know the two of you and your needs, who does? She’s exactly right for you—not so powerful that you would have to worry about her, yet powerful enough to take care of herself and of others on her own. You might not see each other for years at a time, but as long as both of you are alive, neither of you will be alone.”

Doro had begun to watch Isaac with greater interest, causing Isaac to wonder whether he had really been too set in his ways to see the woman’s value.

“You said you knew about Nweke’s father,” Doro said.

Isaac nodded. “Anyanwu told me. She was so angry and frustrated—I think she had to tell someone.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“What difference does that make?” Isaac demanded. “Why bring it up now?”

“Answer.”

“All right.” Isaac shrugged. “I said I knew you—and her—so I wasn’t surprised at what you’d done. You’re both stubborn, vengeful people at times. She’s kept you angry and frustrated for years. You tried to get even. You do that now and then, and it only fuels her anger. The only person I pity is the man, Thomas.”

Doro lifted an eyebrow. “He ran. He sided with her. He had outlived his usefulness.”

Isaac heard the implied threat and faced Doro with annoyance. “Do you really think you have to do that?” he asked quietly. “I’m your son, not wild seed, not sick, not stranded halfway through transition. I could never hate you or run from you no matter what you did, and I’m one of the few of your children who could have made a successful escape. Did you think I didn’t know that? I’m here because I want to be.” Deliberately, Isaac extended his hand to Doro. Doro stared at him for a moment, then gave a long sigh and clasped the large, calloused hand in his own briefly, harmlessly.

For a time, they sat together in relaxed silence, Doro getting up once to put another log on the fire. Isaac let his thoughts go back to Anyanwu, and it occurred to him that what he had said of himself might also be true of her. She might be another of the very few people who could escape Doro—the way she could change her form and travel anywhere … Perhaps that was one of the things that bothered Doro about her. Though it shouldn’t have.