Butler, Octavia - Wild Seed

“What is it?” Anyanwu asked her. “What has happened?”

“An accident,” Luisa said, longing to spare her.

“Is it Joseph?”

“Joseph!” That son of a whore Doro had brought to marry one of Anyanwu’s daughters. “Would I care if it were Joseph?”

“Who then? Tell me, Luisa.”

The old woman took a deep breath. “Your son,” she said. “Stephen is dead.”

There was a long, terrible silence. Anyanwu sat frozen, stunned. Luisa wished she would wail with a mother’s grief so that Luisa could comfort her. But Anyanwu never wailed.

“How could he die?” Anyanwu whispered. “He was nineteen. He was a healer. How could he die?”

“I don’t know. He … fell.”

“From where?”

“Upstairs. From the gallery.”

“But how? Why?”

“How can I know, Anyanwu? It happened last night. It … must have. I only found him a few moments ago.”

“Show me!”

She would have gone down in her gown, but Luisa seized a cloak from her bedroom and wrapped her in it. She noticed as she left with Anyanwu that the little girl was moving restlessly in her sleep, moaning softly. A nightmare?

Outside, others had discovered Stephen’s body. Two children stood back, staring at him wide-eyed, and a woman knelt beside him wailing as Anyanwu would not.

The woman was Iye, a tall, handsome, solemn woman of utterly confused ancestry—French and African, Spanish and Indian. The mixture blended all too well in her. Luisa knew her to have thirty-six years, but she could have passed easily for a woman of twenty-six or even younger. The children were her son and daughter and the one in her belly would be Stephen’s son or daughter. She had married a husband who loved wine better than he could love any woman, and wine had finally killed him. Anyanwu had found her destitute with her two babies, selling herself to get food for them, and considering very seriously whether she should take her husband’s rusty knife and cut their throats and then her own.

Anyanwu had given her a home and hope. Stephen, when he was old enough, had given her something more. Luisa could remember Anyanwu shaking her head over the match, saying, “She is like a bitch in heat around him! You would never know from her behavior that she could be his mother.”

And Luisa had laughed. “You should hear yourself, Anyanwu. Better yet, you should see yourself when you find a man that you want.”

“I am not like that!” Anyanwu had been indignant.

“Of course not. You are very much better—and very much older.”

And Anyanwu, being Anyanwu, had gone from angry silence to easy laughter. “No doubt he will be a better husband someday for having known her,” she said.

“Or perhaps he will surprise you and marry her,” Luisa countered. “Despite their ages, there is more than the ordinary pull between them. She is like him. She has some of what he has, some of the power. She cannot use it, but it is there. I can feel it in her sometimes—especially in those times when she is hottest after him.”

Anyanwu had ignored this, preferring to believe that eventually her son would make a suitable marriage. Even now, Luisa did not know whether Anyanwu knew of the child coming. There was nothing showing yet, but Iye had told Luisa. She would not have told Anyanwu.

Now, Anyanwu went to the body, bent to touch the cold flesh of the throat. Iye saw her and started to move away, but Anyanwu caught her hand. “We both mourn,” she said softly.

Iye hid her face and continued to weep. It was her youngest child, a boy of eight years, whose scream stopped both her crying and Anyanwu’s more silent grief.

At the boy’s cry, everyone looked at him, then upward at the gallery where he was looking. There, Helen was slowly climbing over the railing.

Instantly, Anyanwu moved. Luisa had never seen a human being move that quickly. When Helen jumped, Anyanwu was in position beneath her. Anyanwu caught her in careful, cushioning fashion, so that even though the girl had dived off the railing head first, her head did not strike the ground. Neither her head nor her neck were injured. She was almost as large as Anyanwu, but Anyanwu was clearly not troubled by her size or weight. By the time Luisa realized what was happening, it was over. Anyanwu was calming her weeping daughter.

“Why did she do it?” Luisa asked. “What is happening?”

Anyanwu shook her head, clearly frightened, bewildered.

“It was Joseph,” Helen said at last. “He moved my legs again. I thought it was only a dream until …” She looked up at the gallery, then at her mother who still held her. She began to cry again.

“Obiageli,” Anyanwu said. “Stay here with Luisa. Stay here. I’m going up to see him.”

But the child clung to Anyanwu and screamed when Luisa tried to pry her loose. Anyanwu could have pried her loose easily, but she chose to spend a few moments more comforting her. When Helen was calmer, it was Iye, not Luisa, who took her.

“Keep her with you,” Anyanwu said. “Don’t let her go into the house. Don’t let anyone in.”

“What will you do?” lye asked.

Anyanwu did not answer. Her body had already begun to change. She threw off her cloak and her gown. By the time she was naked, her body was clearly no longer human. She was changing very quickly, becoming a great cat this time instead of the familiar large dog. A great spotted cat.

When the change was complete, she went to the door, and Luisa opened it for her. Luisa started to follow her in. There would be at least one other door that needed opening, after all. But the cat turned and uttered a loud coughing cry. It barred Luisa’s path until she turned and went outside again.

“My God,” whispered Iye as Luisa returned. “I’m never afraid of her until she does something like that right in front of me.”

Luisa ignored her, went to Stephen and straightened his neck and body, then covered him with Anyanwu’s discarded cloak.

“What’s she going to do?” Iye asked.

“Kill Joseph,” Helen said quietly.

“Kill?” Iye stared uncomprehending into the small solemn face.

“Yes,” the child said. “And she ought to kill Doro too before he brings us somebody worse.”

In leopard form, Anyanwu padded down the hall and up the main stairs, then up the narrower stairs to the attic. She was hungry. She had changed a little too quickly, and she knew she would have to eat soon. She would control herself, though; she would eat none of Joseph’s disgusting flesh. Better to eat stinking meat crawling with maggots! How could even Doro have brought her human vermin like Joseph?

His door was shut, but Anyanwu opened it with a single blow of her paw. There was a hoarse sound of surprise from inside. Then, as she bounded into the room, something plucked at her forelegs, and she went sliding on chin and chest to jam her face against his washstand. It hurt, but she could ignore the pain. What she could not ignore was the fear. She had hoped to surprise him, catch him before he could use his ability. She had even hoped that he could not stop her while she was in a nonhuman form. Now, she gave her tearing, coughing roar of anger and of fear that she might fail.

For an instant, her legs were free. Perhaps she had frightened him into losing control. It did not matter. She leaped, claws extended, as though to the back of a running deer.

Joseph screamed and threw his arms up to shield his throat. At the same moment, he controlled her legs again. He was inhumanly quick in his desperation. Anyanwu knew that because she was inhumanly quick all the time.

Sensation left her legs, and she almost toppled off him. She seized a hold with her teeth, sinking them into one of his arms, tearing away flesh, meaning to get at the throat.