Butler, Octavia - Wild Seed

“You have to stop her,” Kane said as though they had been discussing Anyanwu all along. “You have to. You’re the only one who can.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Doro admitted bleakly. Kane would have no idea how unusual such an admission was from him.

“Talk to her! Does she want something? Give it to her!”

“I think she wants me not to kill,” Doro said.

Kane blinked, then shook his head helplessly. Even he understood that it was impossible.

Leah came into the back parlor where they were talking and stood before Doro, hands on her hips. “I can’t tell what you feel,” she said. “I’ve never been able to somehow. But if you feel anything at all for her, go to her now!”

“Why?” Doro asked.

“Because she’s going to do it. She’s just about gotten herself to the brink. I don’t think she plans to wake up tomorrow morning—like Luisa.”

Doro stood up to go, but Kane stopped him with a question to Leah.

“Honey, what does she want? What does she really want from him?”

Leah looked from one man to another, saw that they were both awaiting her answer. “I asked her that myself,” she said. “She just said she was tired. Tired to death.”

She had seemed weary, Doro thought. But weary of what? Him? She had begged him not to go away again—not that he had planned to. “Tired of what?” he asked.

Leah held her hands in front of her and looked down at them. She opened and closed the fingers as though to grasp something, but she held only air. She gestured sometimes when receiving or remembering images and impressions no one else could see. In ordinary society, people would certainly have thought her demented.

“That’s what I can feel,” she said. “If I sit where she’s recently sat or even more if I handle something she’s worn. It’s a reaching and reaching and grasping and then her hands are empty. There’s nothing. She’s so tired.”

“Maybe it’s just her age,” Kane said. “Maybe it’s finally caught up with her.”

Leah shook her head. “I don’t think so. She’s not in any pain, hasn’t slowed down at all. She’s just …” Leah made a sound of frustration and distress-almost a sob. “I’m no good at this,” she said. “Things either come to me clear and sharp without my working and worrying at them or they never come clear. Mother used to be able to take something cloudy and make it clear for herself and for me. I’m just not good enough.”

Doro said nothing, stood still, trying to make sense of the strange grasping, the weariness.

“Go to her, damn you!” Leah screamed. And then more softly, “Help her. She’s been a healer since she was back in Africa. Now she needs somebody to heal her. Who could do it but you?”

He left them and went looking for Anyanwu. He had not thought in terms of healing her before. Let the tables be turned, then. Let him do what he could to heal the healer.

He found her in her bedroom, gowned for bed and hanging her dress up to air. She had begun wearing dresses exclusively when her pregnancy began to show. She smiled warmly as Doro came in, as though she were glad to see him.

“It’s early,” he said.

She nodded. “I know, but I’m tired.”

“Yes. Leah has just been telling me that you were … tired.”

She faced him for a moment, sighed. “Sometimes I long for only ordinary children.”

“You were planning … tonight …”

“I still am.”

“No!” He stepped to her, caught her by the shoulders as though his holding her could keep life in her.

She thrust him away with strength he had not felt in her since before Isaac’s death. He was thrown back against the wall and would have fallen if there had not been a wall to stop him.

“Don’t say no to me any more,” she said softly. “I don’t want to hear you telling me what to do any more.”

He doused a reflexive flare of anger, stared at her as he rubbed the shoulder that had struck the wall. “What is it?” he whispered. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

“I’ve tried.” She climbed onto the bed.

“Then try again!”

She did not get under her blanket, but sat on top of it, watching him. She said nothing, only watched. Finally he drew a deep, shuddering breath and sat down in the chair nearest her bed. He was shaking. His strong, perfectly good new body was shaking as though he had all but worn it out. He had to stop her. He had to.

He looked at her and thought he saw compassion in her eyes—as though in a moment, she could come to him, hold him not only as a lover, but as one of her children to be comforted. He would have permitted her to do this. He would have welcomed it.

She did not move.

“I’ve told you,” she said softly, “that even when I hated you, I believed in what you were trying to do. I believed that we should have people more like ourselves, that we should not be alone. You had much less trouble with me than you could have because I believed that. I learned to turn my head and ignore the things you did to people. But, Doro, I could not ignore everything. You kill your best servants, people who obey you even when it means suffering for them. Killing gives you too much pleasure. Far too much.”

“I would have to do it whether it gave me pleasure or not,” he said. “You know what I am.”

“You are less than you were.”

“I …”

“The human part of you is dying, Doro. It is almost dead. Isaac saw that happening, and he told me. That is part of what he said to me on the night he persuaded me to marry him. He said someday you would not feel anything at all that was human, and he said he was glad he would not live to see that day. He said I must live so that I could save the human part of you. But he was wrong. I cannot save it. It’s already dead.”

“No.” He closed his eyes, tried to still his trembling. Finally, he gave up, looked over at her. If he could only make her see. “It isn’t dead, Anyanwu. I might have thought it was myself before I found you the second time, but it isn’t. It will die, though, if you leave me.” He wanted to touch her, but in his present state, he dared not risk being thrown across the room again. She must touch him. “I think my son was right,” he said. “Parts of me can die little by little. What will I be when there is nothing left but hunger and feeding?”

“Someone will find a way to rid the world of you,” she said tonelessly.

“How? The best people, the ones with the greatest potential power belong to me. I’ve been collecting them, protecting them, breeding them for nearly four millennia while ordinary people poisoned, tortured, hanged, or burned any that I missed.”

“You are not infallible,” she said. “For three centuries, you missed me.” She sighed, shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I cannot say what will happen, but like Isaac, I’m glad I won’t live to see it.”

He stood up, furious with her, not knowing whether to curse or to plead. His legs were weak under him and he felt himself on the verge of obscene weeping. Why didn’t she help him? She helped everyone else! He longed to get away from her—or kill her. Why should she be allowed to waste all her strength and power in suicide while he stood before her, his face wet with perspiration, his body trembling like a palsied old man.

But he could not leave or kill. It was impossible. “Anyanwu, you must not leave me!” He had control of his voice, at least. He did not have that half-in-and-half-out-of-his-body sound that frightened most people and that would have made Anyanwu think he was trying to frighten her.

Anyanwu pulled back the blanket and sheet and lay down. He knew suddenly that she would die now. Right in front of him, she would lie there and shut herself off.