[Closed] Keep Ourselves Afloat

[Tom Cooke]

The Ibutatu Estate • Muluku Islands

Afternoon on the 26th of Yaris, 2719

A
remu was quiet. He watched him – fleeting; just a curious sideways glance – as he shut his eyes and settled his head back, and a little smile brushed its way onto his face, picked out by the dappled light from the canopy. Tom rested his own head against the trunk, and shut his eyes, and if he let himself smile, it was just as small and secret.

Thank you, he said, not Thank you, sir, and Tom was grateful.

He hadn’t expected Aremu to have much to say, not to the incumbent; he wasn’t sure what’d prompted him to reminisce, and he felt some embarrassment, but not enough to regret it. It looked like the imbala was enjoying the walk, leastways – and the company of the trees and the rustling kofi leaves, at least, if not the other man. He was sitting against another tsug tree, just far enough away, Tom thought, he wouldn’t feel even the edges of the porven lapping at him. He was grateful for that, too.

He rested his hat on his chest, wrist tired from the fanning. He still wondered what he might’ve said, what he might’ve been thinking. I didn’t know, he had the strange urge to say. I’d not a damned clue. There was anger, for a few seconds – then it cooled back to curiosity. A whole other world, out here, and you spent your days nurturing it like a garden, like a boch, for Uzoji – and here, I thought you’d just gone on about your business as usual; I thought you’d gone on shipside, and it’d just been me you didn’t want to see.

I thought it was something I said. He’d been trying not to think of it for days, now. Before that, months and years, ‘til he’d half-forgot the imbala, forgot he’d ever had anything to feel guilty about. Now it leaked into his head, the way it made him feel wasn’t scary as he’d thought it’d be. I thought it was something I did, he thought, letting himself feel the ache right underneath his heart. I thought it was me as hurt you, and then, a sigh: it had nothing to do with me, after all.

This was a different Aremu, same as he was a different Tom, he supposed. A hand, a body, a life. Like water through a cracked vessel, the hurt couldn’t hold. Different things were important to this Aremu; different things were important to him, now. And in thinking so, a door opened, just a crack, and he thought of the fields of cane, and – why, he wanted to ask, kofi and tsug? Why’s – intercropping – important? Was it your idea? He thought of him weaving bands of hair into a braid. Oes, it’d been his idea.

He only realized how used to the quiet he’d got when Aremu broke it.

It was a question broad as it was polite, and Tom tried to think of a way to say it. He thought he’d already shown him; he tried to think of a way to say, politely, that the incumbent liked his tsug trees very much. Then Aremu clarified. He opened just one eye, peering over at him. Aremu was staring up at the leaves overhead, without an inkling of what he’d asked of him.

But Tom laughed. “I don’t know, ada’xa,” he started wryly, shifting to straighten and roll his shoulders. He opened his eyes, but followed suit, staring up at the swaying leaves and criss-cross branches. “They say that Thul Ka’s the hands of the Vein, and the Rose is the heart, even in backwater Anaxas. It seems to me like a heart, blood rushing in and out; people, silks, spices, ships. It’s not as big as Thul Ka, not even as big as Vienda, but I think it’s easy to get lost in. I like that very much. It’s hard for a man like me to get lost in Vienda.”

Tom shut his eyes again, leaning his head back. He felt a little silly, but Aremu’d asked, even if it was only out of manners, and he didn’t want to give him nothing in return. He wasn’t sure, really, why the imbala had asked. He began fanning himself, gently, with the hat.

Do you like it here? “Why?” he asked, after a moment. “The kofi, underneath the tsug trees. How’d that come about? If you – want to tell me, ada’xa.” He smiled, looking back up at the canopy.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 26 Yaris, 2719
The Ibutatu Estate

Aremu glanced sideways at the Incumbent, curious. He wondered why the man would want to be lost; he wondered if it predated the scraping mess of the field that hung in the air around him. Worse, Aremu thought, than Niccolette’s at the height of her backlash; worse than the feeling of a spell going wrong; worse than anything he had ever felt among the students at Thul’Amat.

Was it the desire to be lost, that uncertainty, that had taken his field from him? Or had Vauquelin learned what it was like to need to lose oneself only afterwards? Aremu thought, and weighed his options, and knew better than to give an opinion; no galdor, no matter how kind, wanted to hear such things from a passive.

Thul Ka the hands of the Vein, and the Rose its heart, Aremu thought. And the islands? He tried to picture Niccolette’s anatomy books, the diagrams she had of the body, like the pieces of a machine. Aremu glanced away from Vauquelin, down at his bare arm, at the vein which ran from his wrist, which stood out against the skin ever so slightly when he clenched his hand. What were the other pieces?

“Kofi plants grow better in the shade,” Aremu explained. “They can grow in the nook of a hill, or beneath a tall tree, or against the wall of a house,” he thought of Uzoji’s garden with a faint ache, a tightness in his throat. Beneath a sheltering wing, he thought, idly, if they’re to grow at all. Like children, sir, he wanted to say. Like all your children. He swallowed it back; he did not know where it had come from, and the sudden ache of it surprised him.

“You can grow them in the sun,” Aremu continued, “but they need more water, then. If one has just a few plants, it doesn’t matter as much.”

“At first, we were only growing them beneath natural hills,” Aremu said, “or near some of the larger trees. But there's almost no such thing as too much shade for them, and the trees keep them safe from the storms. They make the soil richer for the trees too,” He opened his eyes, sitting forward, and stroked his fingers through the plants, the lines shiny and ridged, shorter and a little wider than those of the macadamia trees. He smiled, tracing his fingertips over a cluster of small green seeds, gently enough so that he did not dislodge even one. Just plants, he reminded himself.

Carefully, Aremu sat back. He thought he had answered the why, but not the how. The how was harder, and Aremu teased at it, carefully, peeled back the layers until he could find something to share that was his, and his alone, but not too deeply so.

Quietly, his hand resting on his thigh, he glanced at the other man, then back up at the trees above. “I’ve not been doing this for long, sir,” he said, tentatively, and rubbed his palm lightly against the linen of his pants. He thought the words over again, and wished he could have taken them back. “I mean to say – it began as an experiment, to see if…” to see if I could deserve this, Aremu thought, his voice stopping tight in his chest; to see if I could still be worth something, with all that I lack, “… the yield would be better.” Aremu said, and cleared his throat, and found he couldn’t seem to sit back against the tree again. “And if it might let us plant more.”

Aremu rose, abruptly, in a single fluid motion, easing himself out from the low branches, his hand brushing the leaves of the tree lightly to make space. His right arm found his pocket, his wrist resting lightly against the edge of it, and he looked up at the canopy again; the breeze rustled through the leaves, and washed him for just a moment in sunlight, and he closed watering eyes, blinked, and opened them again, looking down at the incumbent sitting on the ground below.

“It does,” Aremu added after a moment, hesitant, but finding a slight little smile again, turning to one of the plants, and then back again. “The kofi and the tsug both have some growing left to do, sir, but they’re finding their way.”

[Tom Cooke]

The Ibutatu Estate • Muluku Islands

Afternoon on the 26th of Yaris, 2719

H
e wondered what was behind Aremu’s pauses, but he didn’t think too hard on it; he forced himself not to. Sitting and looking up through the sunlit leaves, he listened, and he thought of the tsug sheltering the kofi, and the kofi nourishing the tsug, and that was enough. There was something fair benny about sitting in the middle of it, back to a trunk, tangling branches dipping just overhead, roots underneath. Separate but interwoven, after a fashion; one organism.

He thought, unbidden – almost with a jolt – of something he’d not thought of for a long time. A vine, toes firmly curled into the bark of a tree, winding itself round tight. He supposed there was nothing reciprocal about that relationship; he didn’t know the tree got anything from the vine. He tried to remember the name, and couldn’t. Dzos’ayo? Ayo’—? He let it go, reluctantly; he’d been what he was long enough to know that there were some things you could never wrest back from your memory.

Aremu’d fallen quiet, and Tom wondered if that was all he had to say. I’ve not been doing this for long, sir, he said then, and Tom kept his face carefully blank.

A rustle of leaves roused him. The imbala was standing, his linen shirt and trousers painted with spots of flickering sunlight and the shadows of shifting leaves. A cool breeze swept through for one blessed moment, and Tom felt it ruffle his hair. The sunlight limned Aremu’s profile, but from this angle, Tom could tell nothing of his expression.

When he turned to look down at him and spoke again, his face was dappled with shadows, but Tom thought he could see a hint of a smile on his lips. Looking up at him, head still resting back on the trunk, he couldn’t help but return the smile, though he wasn’t sure what to say.

This suits you, he wanted to say. Even back then, I knew better than to think of you as a man who only worked at airships, but seeing you among all these living things – he knew he couldn’t say that, of course. It’d take the hand of an engineer, wouldn’t it? Or maybe you were a good engineer ‘cause they were living, to you. Is it the same, he thought, working at an engine, braiding a man’s hair, planting a grove of trees and kofi and watching them grow?

There was the incumbent’s answer. It’s fortunate they have such a skilled hand to guide them. Tom knew better, right off. Even if he hadn’t, he didn’t reckon anything’d net him a Thank You, Sir quicker or more surely than that.

So he didn’t say anything, not right away. Instead, with a grunt, he pushed himself up to his feet, feeling along a low-hanging twist of a branch – not for support, but so he didn’t bang his head on it. He ducked his way out careful, still trying to keep Aremu out of porven range. When he’d got fully out from under the tree, he dusted his hands off on his trousers and stooped to look at one of the kofi plants himself.

Intently, he took a leaf in his shaky hand, running the pad of his thumb delicately down the vein. He stood there for a fair long few moments, studying the leaves. Finding their way, he thought warmly.

After a while, he opened his mouth, hesitated, shut it; then opened it again and spoke. “If it makes you more comfortable, I’ll say nothing more of it,” he said, carefully neutral, “but, ah – I’m not much of a sir.”

Now it was out, Tom half-regretted it. He didn’t know the tenth of how it’d be taken. Would the imbala think he was joking? He felt tsuter selfish.

He turned his head to look sidelong at Aremu, raising his brows. “I mean to say, ada’xa, this isn’t parliament. If anything, I’m learning from you. But –” Slow but sure, he found a grin somewhere inside himself, and brought it out tentatively. “I’m your guest, and I suspect you can call me whatever you damn well please.”

Clearing his throat, he settled his hat back on his head and looked away. “I’ll let you lead the way,” he said, cheerfully enough.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 26 Yaris, 2719
The Ibutatu Estate

Vauquelin had put it out between them carefully. Not a command, which Aremu knew he would have had to obey, but an offer. The incumbent had grinned, and there had been something – it stretched all the lines on his face, Aremu thought, in some unfamiliar way. Had he been someone other than an elder statesman from Anaxi, Aremu might have called it cheeky.

An offer, Aremu thought, looking at Vauquelin. He shifted, uncomfortable, feeling the waxy leaves brush his bare arm, hearing them scratch lightly against the linen of his shirt, as if he could hide behind them. The wind blew through again, gently, scraping them against him once more, and Aremu lowered his eyes.

An offer of what? He was not sure what it would meant to accept, nor what it would mean to refuse. You are on the islands, sir, he wanted to say, to meet with Ada’xa Yesufu, who is not a man to be taken lightly, because of your status in the Anaxi parliament. You are here, sir, because Hawke himself asked Niccolette to keep you safe. Whatever else you might be, however badly you might want to be lost, I cannot call you whatever I damn well please.

Aremu was quiet a moment longer; Vauquelin had cleared his throat, settled his hat back on, looked away – as if he had already moved on. Aremu wished it was so easy; even unspoken, he thought, it would lay between them. It was not so simple as saying nothing more of it, not anyone.

“You are Niccolette’s guest,” Aremu said, carefully, looking at Vauquelin. “Not mine.” His left hand found his pocket, too, and his gaze flickered down, away from the words, then back up.

Aremu stepped a little closer, then, slowly, back towards the path; not close enough to touch Vauquelin, but close enough that he could feel the scrape of the other man’s field against his skin, the messy tangle of it in the air around them both. He knew what Vauquelin felt: nothing. He knew, too, what he was. He had not imagined for a moment that the other man had forgotten; he could not imagine that Vauquelin would have been so friendly on the streets of Vienda.

He was sorry, then. He was sorry for the man who wanted to be lost in the Rose; he was sorry for the boyish grin Vauquelin had offered him, the one that had seemed to take ten years from the tired lines of his face. His cheeks had pinked, now, Aremu noticed, from the sun through the shaded brim and his exertion in the heat. He had needed to draw the line; he had wanted to feel the brush of the galdor’s field, strange and jarring as it was, to make himself feel better about it. A shaft of sunlight sparked red on the other man’s hair, caught a tangle of gray that streaked back from his temples.

“You have been very kind, and I don’t wish to be ungrateful,” Aremu said, soft now. He brought it out, carefully, and placed it between them, looking at the Anaxi. He did not know if Vauquelin would care; he knew that he did. If he had pricked only his own feelings, if the gentle refusal and the explanation meant nothing to the incumbent, then so be it. He kept the sir from it, for now; he could taste it on his tongue, but he held it back, to soften it just a little more.

“I had thought to show you the beach,” Aremu offered, tentatively, moving past it himself, with a faint, uncomfortable feeling that he had already lingered too long. He stepped forward, then, past Vauquelin and back out of his range, and crossed the line from the shade to the sun, feeling it bright and harsh and warm against his skin. “But if you’d rather, there’s a small facility for processing sugarcane.” He held there, to let the incumbent choose, and slowly relaxed the fist his hand had made in his pocket.

[Tom Cooke]

The Ibutatu Estate • Muluku Islands

Afternoon on the 26th of Yaris, 2719

N
o, he thought, no, ada’xa. I’ve been very unkind, after all.

It was hard to stay still with the imbala past the edge of his field. He’d taken a step down the path, clasping his hands behind his back; and when he’d heard the voice behind him, he’d turned, and he’d gone rigid. Now, he stood fair still, and his hands twisted each other white-knuckled and clammy. He had to lift his chin a fraction to meet Aremu’s eye. The brim of his hat did nothing for him: he could see the other man looking plainly into his face.

He blinked once, then smiled faintly. Aremu turned and moved toward the hazy line between the sunlight and the shade of the grove; holding his hat steady, Tom dipped a subtle bob of a bow, just his head and shoulders.

He didn’t make to follow right away. He waited ’til the other man’d got to the edge of the penumbra. The space around him was blessedly empty of everything but the breeze and the mona. He tried to make the muscles in his back relax, one by one.

Now he wasn’t looking, Tom’s lip twisted sourly. Watching him pass back into the hot sun, he felt deeply tired; he stalled yet another moment in the shade. Silhouetted by all that bright, with both wrists in his pockets, it was easier to envy the light, easy step.

Show you the beach, he’d said. I could feel every grain of sand, said another voice, muffled like a murmur on the other side of a wall. Tom shut his eyes, but he could hear the voice anyway, even if he couldn’t make out all the words clearly. Like hell’re you going to show me the beach.

“I’m afraid I don’t have much more walking in me, ada’xa,” he said, moving out into the light himself. “It might be best to head back.” Underneath his hat, Tom wiped a little more sweat from his brow. The skin of his cheeks was burning-hot to the touch.

He was afraid he heard a sharp edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before; he was afraid something about it was brittle. He was worried he sounded like a boch that hadn’t got what it’d wanted. But it was true, truer than anything else he might’ve said. He looked down at his shoes. He knew the feet inside were pinched, chafed at the heels; scattered raw pains told him they were probably blistered. If he took too deep a breath, there was a twinge of pain in his lower side. His pride wasn’t a ward; he could grit his teeth through it, but he’d be fooling nobody on the long walk back to the house.

That didn’t change what he’d been so mung as to lay between them, knowing what a man like Aremu had to be conscious of. A gust of wind ruffled his sleeve, tugged at the hem of his pants; he saw it rake through Aremu’s loose, light linen. He held his hat. This wind smelled like cane, but it smelled like salt and sun, too.

Tom looked up, adjusting his hat – over and up, looking the imbala in the face. “I saw a shorter path, on the other side of the house,” he offered more softly, smiling again. “Up to some cliffs. If – I’ve still got some fight left in me, by then,” a little shadow of his earlier grin, “I imagine the view of the Tincta’s just as beautiful, there. If you’d show me the way, ada’xa.”

He turned, then, where he remembered the path led back in the direction – winding round the fields, he thought, chagrinned; a fair manna walking, still – of the house. He paused. “I tried to pack well, but I don’t think I’ve got anything that’s made for this kind of walking, or this kind of heat. If there’s anything at the house that I could borrow, I’d be very grateful.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 26 Yaris, 2719
The Ibutatu Estate

Vauquelin had bowed, not fully, but a gentle inclining of the head and shoulders, then followed him into the light a few moments later. Aremu did not know what to make of it, not the bow nor the galdor’s polite refusal to see any more of the plantation. Vauquelin was walking gingerly, he noticed, as if his feet pained him.

He had, Aremu thought, read too much into it. It would have been better to simply say no, thank you sir; likely it had been an idle thought for the galdor, nothing more, and he would not have thought twice about a refusal. Perhaps he did not still; more than likely, any discomfort was only on Aremu’s side.

“Of course,” Aremu said, with a gentle dip at the waist. He still felt hesitant to say the word sir; it stuck in the back of his throat, somewhere, and he felt the echo of it on his breath, but he could not quite manage to choke it out.

Aremu nodded at Vauquelin’s suggestion of going to the cliff path. “Very beautiful,” he offered, tentatively. “Especially at sunrise.” They began to walk, then, slowly, back along the winding path that led away from the grove, the wind shuffling at the sugarcane, the sun beating down overhead.

“I’ll see what I can find, sir,” Aremu said, trying the word once more. He did not think he could bring himself to suggest to Niccolette that Vauquelin borrow some of Uzoji’s things. They were almost of a height, but Uzoji had been better muscled than Vauquelin by far. They had been friendly, Aremu reminded himself. They must have been. But he could not – he could not do that to Niccolette, not even to ask. He knew what the clothing meant to her; he had seen it for himself in the Rose. He could not.

His own things, then, Aremu thought. This, he could do for Uzoji; this, he could do for Niccolette. He had plenty of clean linen, amassed over the years; he could certainly find something suitable for Vauquelin. He had perhaps an inch of height on the man, and he’d always been more slender than bulky. He thought Niccolette’s sandals might fit the man best, but he did not think it would be best to say it aloud; better to just borrow a pair and leave them for Vauquelin.

Their pace was slower, going back. Aremu was more careful now, more attentive; he could see Vauquelin beginning to flag, the back of his neck bright red with exertion; he could see, he thought, that his shoes still pinched. They walked; in the distance, men and woman were working once more, bright flashes of color and noise in the edges of the field, colorful wraps and shining blades glinting beneath the sun.

Closer to the road, and they could hear, soft and distant, the crash of waves against the low cliffs. Aremu closed his eyes, and breathed in deep, and he could smell the salty ocean spray. They kept walking then – back up the drive, back to the front of the house, this time. An open porch curled around it, with chairs here and there, and heavy white double doors in the center. Aremu opened the door for Vauquelin with his hand, stepping back to let the man in. It was considerably cooler inside, even at the door, the house well-built to withstand the heat; the coastal breeze danced through the white curtains.

Aremu went back outside, then, and fetched one of the coconuts from the pile against the side of the porch – a heavy green one, not yet ripe, but perfect for drinking. He knelt, balancing the coconut with his knee, and grabbed hold of the machete, striking the top off of it in an easy blow. There was a pile of grass straws in a little hollow beneath the porch, and Aremu fetched one out, and brought it inside with the coconut.

“Here, sir,” he offered the fresh young coconut to Vauquelin, the grass straw already pressed through the thin layer of white fruit. “It’s the best thing for the heat.”

Aremu hesitated, then, standing barefoot in the entryway. The house stretched in front there; rich smells drifted mysterious from the kitchen, and the staircase stretched up in front of them, leading the way back to the bedrooms. There was a scattering of furniture just beyond it, chairs and couches, and a long hallway that led the opposite direction from the kitchen, with just the edge of a bookshelf visible through the open door of the first.

“Can I get you anything else?” Aremu offered, tentatively, his right wrist tucking gently back into his pocket. He had thought to ask about the path, but he hesitated; it seemed to him that there was no easy way to do it. To offer to show him later seemed to imply he could not go now; to offer to show him now, with the older man aching and tired, seemed almost cruel. It was hard for him to stand still; he felt anxious, unsettled, in a way he did not wish to think too deeply about. He would swim, Aremu decided; the ledgers would be there still after dinner, when it was too dark for such things.

[Tom Cooke]

The Ibutatu Estate • Muluku Islands

Afternoon on the 26th of Yaris, 2719

I
n the front, the house was as broad and airy as it’d ever been, great windows all open to the mid-Yaris heat. The shade of the porch was a relief, so much so he didn’t protest, so much so it didn’t even trouble him, when the imbala opened the door for him. He felt like some of the heat had wafted in with him; he took off his hat in a clammy hand, smelling a subtle, sour tang of sweat on the air. Aremu went back outside, then.

He shut his eyes, swallowed a dry lump, and found himself leaning against the back of a chair. The breeze ruffled the curtains; he imagined he could almost taste the salty tang. Then it died down, leaving the drapes stirring gently, never quite still. He breathed in deeply and noticed the strong smell of spices again.

Somewhere outside, muffled, he heard a shuffle and then a thunk. The noise was familiar; despite himself, he smiled. A few moments later, Aremu came back in, and Tom smelled it before he opened his eyes. Here, sir, came his voice. He thought he hadn’t heard that word for awhile; he wondered if he’d been being kind.

He took the coconut when the imbala offered it, taking a few sips through the straw immediately. He hadn’t realized how dry his mouth was, but the cool sweetness of it was like a balm. His head ached. He took a breath, forced himself to pace himself. It was still fair green, smooth under his hands, with a reassuring weight; it reminded him, once, when hama – he remembered sitting near Sherry’s when they were lads, and how he’d thought there was nothing more to it, but then Ish’d showed him you could scoop out the thick, white skin round the inside –

Aremu spoke again, and Tom looked up.

He hadn’t suggested they go to the cliffs, after all, he noticed; he saw something like polite concern in Aremu’s eyes, when he could meet them, though he couldn’t be sure. His lip twitched. He only hesitated a brief moment; he didn’t even think about it. “No, ada’xa, I think I’ll, ah, rest awhile,” he said, confident and offhand as he could.

He glanced up the hall, caught another glimpse of curtains, the edge of a heavy leather-upholstered chair; then his eyes drifted, lingered on the doorway to the kitchen. He took a deep breath and caught another whiff. He smiled at Aremu. “I’ll go and sit in the kitchen.” He half-turned, paused, turned back.

It was harder to look the imbala in the eye this time; he felt a burning up through him, one he knew again was shame. You didn’t have to be kind about it, he wanted to say. Maybe you have to be kind about everything else, but I don’t understand why you were kind about that.

He frowned slightly. “Thank you, ada’xa,” he said. He hesitated, then did turn; if Aremu offered, he’d let him lead him to the kitchen, but he’d start moving slowly in that direction anyway, fingertips tracing the backs of chairs, brushing the banister briefly.

He had names for some of the spices, now, the ones he’d asked about. Úfeyiru, the plain brown-skinned root that ground deep yellow like a dye — that smelled like churned earth, rich and pungent, and maybe orange peel. Others, ones he’d known, he found different names for: epit, coriander; iye’tsereg, dark and molasses-smelling, what Anaxi called Bastian greens, even though it was the seed you wanted. They mingled with the smells of cooking onions and lamb, the sweet waft of coconut, the faint drift of mint like a dream of someplace that no longer was.

He’d sat watching Ahura cook for what must’ve been an hour and a half. He hadn’t spoken much. Hed sought the kitchen, warm and bright, knowing if he didn’t he’d be alone with his thoughts; he’d thought it might force his hand, thought he might commandeer some good cheer from somewhere, push back the tide for a few more hours. Instead, he’d heard his voice in quiet questions: ada’na, what do you call—? He’d mostly sat in silence, content and cooling off despite the heat from the stove. He’d smiled, when she’d told him what she was making for dinner.

He’d never got close enough to the counters, to the lovely spread of dried herbs and spices and the busy-burbling steamer, for his field to brush Ahura’s skin — never of his own accord. He’d thought it the least he could do, though he hadn’t moved away when she’d brought him a cup of tea, matter-of-fact.

The ghost of warmth and spices followed him out of the kitchen, when he could no longer handle even Ahura’s quiet, busy company. The drapes in his room upstairs were ruffling, filling up like sails, as he changed quietly into another clean shirt and trousers and lay for awhile on his back. The stairs had been difficult. It took effort not to fling his shoes, once he’d got them off; peeling off his socks, he felt like a different man.

He’d thought the dam would break, now he was alone, but he felt like a seed out of the pod. He shut his eyes a long time, unable to think; he wasn’t sure how long it’d been, but the light had shifted slightly by the time he opened them.

He saw the ruffling of curtains, heard distant voices. Nearby, in the corner, stood his washstand, and his mirror covered up with his coat.

Down the stairs again, this time; his feet hurt – not just the soles but up through, lancing – but it was easier barefoot, though he kept glancing about him up and down the hall, upstairs and down, feeling like he was doing something moony. He found the doorway he’d remembered fair quick, the first on the hall opposite the kitchen. He was more relieved than he could say to find it empty.

It was broad and open and airy as the rest of the house, as full of light and air, but it seemed quieter. Tom wouldn’t’ve known it for a library, not at first. He knew the heavy table, the comfortable-looking, leather-upholstered chairs scattered about, the two writing-desks positioned against the walls in shafts of early evening glow. But the shelves themselves were covered in dark curtains, hanging heavy and only slightly stirring in the breeze.

The first time he drew back a curtain, he felt like he was getting away with some kind of theft, or trespassing; he wasn’t sure why they were there, or if it had something to do with – he tried not to think of it. He thought somebody would’ve told him. He found himself relaxing fair quick at the sight of rows of books, at the smell of paper and leather and paste; he wasn’t sure when that’d become the smell of comfort, even more than the salt sea or cooking onions, even more than whisky, but he couldn’t bear to look too closely at it, not right now. Right now, he accepted the feeling and was grateful.

What grimoires he could find were physical and static, on one row of shelves; living, on the other, some looking more dubious than others, and padded out with textbooks and treatises on human and galdor anatomy that Tom didn’t much want to think about. There were clairvoyant texts, here and there, grims and monic theory and case studies — most Thul’Amat published, most fair conventional. One or two, on one side, about the arcane relationship and monic redemption, and Tom nearly settled, but he couldn’t bring himself to it.

There was a smaller collection tucked in the corner, in the shade beside the last of the long bright windows. It was just a few shelves; Tom had drawn the curtains back, briefly, and skimmed the titles, mostly in Mugrobi, some soil surveys, some with names like Estimating and Controlling Transpiration in Seven Kofi Cultivars and Methods of Centrifugation and their Effectiveness. A book on Muluku property law, 2717-18. Frowning, Tom eased the curtain back.

He wandered back to the other shelf, then, the one he knew’d been Uzoji’s, because who else? — he tried not to think of it, but there was no sense in that; it was something you felt, whether you wanted to or not. He drew the curtains aside again, and this time, began to look for poetry.

They were all in one place. Some were in Mugrobi, but enough were in Estuan, or in a mix. He couldn’t figure how they were organized, knowing so little of the names and titles; he found Hadima pezre Saynab first, and then Brellos pez Hirtka, and thought, time period, maybe, or style — he reached for pez Hirtka, two fingertips trembling over the spine of something he’d never heard of, Iwayi, then left it there. His chest ached.

Maybe he was disturbed for the reason anyone would be; maybe he was afraid he’d find it strange and sad and ghoulish, if he stopped to think. Or maybe he was disturbed by the thought that he wouldn’t — that the motion was too familiar. Like a Hexx handling the dead, maybe he was comfortable in the space a man left behind.

He noticed a few slim, dark volumes with gilt lettering, Tsadi pezre Awameh I, II, III… he skimmed the row with his eyes, up to six. He’d never heard of her, but she was flanked by Adopu, the imbali poet, and another name he didn’t know, Eyo pez tsúlú, something called Glass Words. Easing it out gently, he picked the first Tsadi book, then drew the curtains back over the rows of spines.

He turned away, and his hip ached, and suddenly he didn’t feel so shy about the furniture. He picked a small, soft-looking chair over by one of the windows, where the sun cast itself in but not too brightly. He settled, holding onto the sturdy arm, crossing his legs and resting his back.

One deep breath, holding the book shut in his lap. Oes, boemo, he could feel it now, godsdamn, welling up in him and threatening his tired eyes. Another shuddering breath. He drew in the smell of salt; he listened to the distant waves, the calls of gulls. One more deep breath that didn’t shudder.

Leaning his head against the arm, he opened the book in his lap to the index, running his thumb along the cut, uneven pages, the soft old paper. Finally, a familiar motion: he looked over the index, picked a poem, and turned to it, unhesitating, emptying himself of everything to receive the words.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 26 Yaris, 2719
The Ibutatu Estate

Vauquelin had inhaled the coconut water without hesitation, the first few sips so fast that Aremu had almost worried he would choke. He slowed himself, then; inside, looking at the galdor’s sagging face, Aremu could see how tired he was.

Should he have said something? No, sir, the tsug grove is a long walk in the heat; perhaps I could show you the cliffs instead? He thought he knew what Vauquelin would have heard: No, sir; you cannot. He doubted, somehow, that Vauquelin would have thanked him. Could he have -

It was too late now, Aremu thought. Vauquelin did not ask about the cliffs, but instead said he wished to sit in the kitchen. Aremu nodded, thoroughly relieved; the galdor hesitated, the turned.

“This way, sir,” Aremu slipped past him, feeling the scratch of the incumbent’s field just at the edges of the motion, and led him to the kitchen. Ahura, busy at the counter, smiled at them both. Aremu nodded to her, and left Vauquelin to settle in at the table.

He was shaking when he left the room; Aremu could not have said why. He didn’t want to know. He went upstairs, to the second floor, and then up again, opening the door at the top of the stairs to his rooms.

Aremu washed his hands, and went to the chest of clothing against the wall of his bed room - he sorted through it, carefully, and took out two pairs of pants and shirts he thought Vauquelin might wear. He set the clean linen on the edge of his desk, and then sat himself slowly on the floor next to the bed. He bent forward, and pressed his face into his hand, and breathed, slowly and steadily, until he could move again.

Uzoji would have known what to say, he thought. But, then, Vauquelin would have been Uzoji’s guest; perhaps he still was. There was a freedom to it. He missed him, then, with a sharp ache he could not set aside. He missed his laughter, and his kindness, and now aware he had been of that freedom, how he had never hesitated to use it.

Aremu stripped off his shirt, damp with sweat, and hung it out the window; laying it in the laundry basket straight away was a mistake one only made once. He went back down the stairs then, out the back door without stopping in the kitchen, along the thin path that led up and out to the edges of the cliffs.

Aremu stood, at the end of the trail, and breathed deep the salt and sun, eyes closing, the wind whisking across him. He stripped off his pants, slow and careful and deliberate with the buttons, folded them over his arm and set them on a rock, and the underthings beneath as well. He stepped closer to the edge, bare toes wriggling against the dirt - closer, so he felt the warm rocks beneath his toes -

And Aremu dove.

He arched himself forwards, and he hit the water with a splash; he plummeted deep into the cool dark blue, still and calm beneath the turbulence of the waves above, down - down - down - until all that momentum came to a stop, the water pushing back against him.

It was easy to rise in the Tincta Basta.

Aremu swam up to the surface with steady, even strokes of his arms, legs pumping beneath him. Deep and dark, he thought, living and breathing. Down here the memory could not hurt him; there was so much else to feel other than the pain in his chest. Down here, it did seem to go on forever.

Aremu lingered, just beneath the surface, and now it was a struggle to stay below. He could feel the ache of breathlessness in his lungs; he could feel the water trying to drag him upwards. He held, just a little longer, eyes squinting against the salt, light streaming through the surface, losing the battle against the depths.

And then Aremu thrust himself up over the edge and breathed in deep, treading water. He was far enough from the cliffs that he did not need to worry about the waves catching him unawares and smashing him against them. He breathed deep, blinking at the salt water, listening to the echoes of gulls above and waves lapping at the cliffs and the shore, treading water lightly.

Then, with an exhale that seemed to echo through him, Aremu shifted himself into the water and began to swim. The sun warmed him from above; the waves lapped at him from the side; he could lose himself in the steady, even motions, the rhythm of it. And so he did.

It had been bright the first time Niccolette woke, too bright. The second time too, and she had turned her face to the pillow, buried herself into the blankets, and wept. There was a cool breeze sweeping through the curtains, ruffling the tangle of hair against her head. If she held, very still, if she let herself believe, she could imagine it like a hand stroking her hair - as if at any moment, he would lean forward to whisper, his breath soft against her skin -

Niccolette slept, then, and she woke alone, and she wept. 

The light had begun to slant, flitting in through the edges of the window. Niccolette shuddered, hands tight in the blankets, and wept a little harder, and did not try to do anything else. In time, the tears slowed to a stop, and she could breathe again, slowly, unsteadily. It did nothing, she thought, all this weeping; she was beyond sick of it, and yet she could not seem to stop. She felt dry, now, wrung out, as if she might never cry again, and yet she knew – she knew – it would return, would find her and catch hold of her, tight, smothering her.

Niccolette took a deep breath, and slowly loosened the grip of her hands on the bedsheets. Her head ached; her tongue felt fuzzy and dry in her mouth. Her hair was a tangle on her head. She touched her fingers to it and grimaced, faintly; it was still half-up from the night before, and there were pins lost in it, somewhere.

Slowly, Niccolette eased herself from the bed. She went to the things that she had made the crew of the Uccello carry in, early that morning; she knelt, and found her brush. She sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from the window, and she closed her eyes, and dragged the brush through her hair, slow and steady – again, and again, and again, until the last of the pins lay in a heap beside her, until her hair hung about her shoulders once more.

Niccolette sighed, softly. She left her shift in a heap on the floor, the brush on the bed, and she went to her closet, opening it slowly. Not only hers – there was clothing folded on the shelves, and Niccolette touched it with shaking hands. No smell, she thought; not with this, it was clean – all clean – it was –

She doubled forward, resting her forehead against the shelves, and breathed, slowly and calmly, and waited. She had expected tears; they did not come. Instead, Niccolette found it in herself to straighten up, slowly – to take one of the more colorful dresses that hung nearby, bright pink and orange and green, with a wider skirt, easy to move in. Uzoji had liked this one, she thought, tracing her hand over the soft cotton. Niccolette had enjoyed it, those first years, taking island fabrics and remaking them into a more Bastian style. She sighed, and eased the dress on, and found a sash for the waist.

Niccolette tied it as she left the room, drifting barefoot down the hallway. She could smell Ahura in the kitchen, long before she heard her. She went straight there, and held at the doorway, looking across the room at the imbala as she stirred something on the stove.

Ahura paused, and turned, and her face dissolved, then. She stretched out her arms, and Niccolette could not have said how, but she was there, then, and sobbing softly into Ahura’s shoulder. Ahura’s arms were around her, tight and strong, and she was whispering something into Niccolette’s hair, soft, sonorous Mugrobi, as painful as it was comforting. Niccolette wept, and wept a little more.

By the time she could think again, she was sitting at the table, her hand in Ahura’s, with a cup of tea in her other hand. She took another sip of it, and realized it was half gone already. Niccolette took a deep breath, and set the cup down, and patted at her eyes with her hand. She tried something like a smile, and she could see from the look on Ahura’s face it had not worked.

“Would you like to help me cook?” Ahura asked, brushing a lock of hair from her face.

“No,” Niccolette took a deep breath. “No, Ahura, not tonight, I – I shall go and read, I think, before dinner.” She closed her eyes; it was too much, suddenly, and she could not – she knew, without knowing how, that she needed to be elsewhere.

“Thank you,” Niccolette whispered, her eyes fluttering open again.

Ahura was staring at her then, and she leaned forward and kissed Niccolette’s forehead, soft and gentle. “I am so sorry, ada’na,” she whispered.

Niccolette nodded, slowly, and took a deep breath. She did not like to remember; Ahura had been there, that day, after –

“Me too,” Niccolette whispered, softly. She took a deep breath, and drank the last of the tea, and rose. She brushed her hair back, off her forehead, and sighed, softly. She thought – but she did nothing, said nothing more, and instead turned and left the bright, sunny kitchen, with smells she still had trouble naming bubbling up on the stove, and went away.

The library, Niccolette thought, tiredly. She went through the entry hall, into the first room beyond, and froze at the door. For a moment, she could not – Vauquelin was sitting in the chair that Uzoji had always liked best, the one with the soft back just next to the window. Her lips tightened, and then she smiled, slowly, looking at him. It was, she thought, fitting; Uzoji would not have minded sharing.

“Good afternoon, Incumbent,” Niccolette said, still smiling faintly. She crossed to her bookshelf, tracing the soft curtains. After a moment, she drew them back, studying the books beyond.

[Tom Cooke]

The Ibutatu Estate • Muluku Islands

Afternoon on the 26th of Yaris, 2719

H
e hadn’t fallen asleep; he was somewhere in-between, following faded print with his eyes, lips moving soundlessly. Every so often, the ache in his muscles took him under, like he was sinking into the soft cushions. After the fact, with his erse settled in a chair and the weight off his hip, it wasn’t a bad ache. It was like the sun’d soaked into the ache, gentle and luminous; the breeze was almost cool against his cheeks. He couldn’t help but shut his eyes, just him in the dark with a scatter of words, fresh and not yet traced into his memory. Then he’d jolt, open them again, and keep reading.

I am between Depthesda and Tempa,
Between the shell and the skin.
I am Idefewo in the water, before the
Wave; I am not who I am, not what

I am: what am I? I am the heart
That loves you, the hands, the arms,
The lips; and I am the tongue also
Which cannot be trusted to love –

He hadn’t heard her come in, not under the ruffle and the distant tides and the groan of the old house. But he saw something in the corner of his eye, and he looked up sharply, in time to see her standing there. He rubbed his bleary eyes. She was wearing a dress like a bouquet of island flowers, loose and airy and like nothing he’d seen her wear in Vienda or shipside or even in the Rose, her hair loose round her shoulders.

At first, he thought she was looking at him with something like – he couldn’t tell. Her lips thinned out; he felt an uneasy prickling at the back of his neck. He kept the book open in his lap and looked at her evenly. He forced himself not to look round him again, at the shelves covered with their dark curtains.

Then, she smiled, and it was just as mystifying a smile as he’d ever got from Niccolette Ibutatu. He shifted in his seat, feeling the muscles in his back relax just a pina; he hadn’t realized he’d tensed them, or that he’d been holding his breath, but he felt himself exhale. “Afternoon, madam,” he replied as she turned away, with a dry little smile of his own.

Funny enough, “incumbent” didn’t hurt so bad, from her. The word had a different color, on the lips of a galdor – and he reckoned she’d never been one for respecting authority. He was surprised to find the thought comforting, after everything.

She moved toward the shelf he knew’d been hers, a swish of vibrant pink and green, and started to shift the curtains aside. Looking back down at his book, he felt another wash of relief. Whatever the curtains were there for, it wasn’t – ne, ne – he felt a pina silly, ’cause if that’s what they’d been for, then why would they’ve been over all the shelves, and not just–? With a guilty glance over toward the shelf he’d got Tsadi pezre Awameh from, he thought, still, it made a kov feel like he was getting into something he shouldn’t’ve been.

He shifted again with a little creak of upholstery, set his attention back on the page. He found himself studying Niccolette out of the corner of his eye, half-worried, half-curious. A quick look told him she was barefoot, too, and he felt more relief. Godsdamn, but Uptown life was doing a number on him.

He wondered what it was like, for her to be in here again. To be in the house. He remembered Aremu warning him away from her, quiet-like, at breakfast; he thought of what it would’ve been like for him, going back to the house at Quarter Fords, full of incense and Ishma’s old pipe and his oud, just empty of Ishma. He wondered if feeling the memory of him printed on everything made it easier or harder.

Either way, he wasn’t going to ask. With a soft shfff, he turned a page, but his attention couldn’t hold. He paused, then looked back up at her, half-obscured by a curtain. “You’ve a hell of a collection,” he said softly, with a faint smile of his own. “I saw T’mathyr, and more besides. D’you mind if I borrow that copy of Utúla?”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 26 Yaris, 2719
The Ibutatu Estate

Niccolette stood, the curtain soft in her hand, and traced her eyes over the books. For a moment, she could nearly – what had she been reading? There were bits and pieces disarranged, Niccolette realized; books where they shouldn’t be. What books – she reached out, hesitantly, frowning to touch a spine with shaking fingers, letting go of the curtain; the breeze whisked it against her.

Ana’matham, Niccolette realized – out of order – she had been reading it, the night before. She touched it with two fingers, her breathing coming a little too quick, feeling the tears in the corners of her eyes. Yes; she could see the page, now, if she closed her eyes. She had been sitting in the chair opposite Uzoji’s, on the other side of the window, the lamp lit between them.

“I’m going to bed, beloved,” Uzoji had said, smiling, looking over at her, his field pulsing gently against the edges of hers, a soft echo of love washing through it. She remembered the feeling; she remembered the feeling. She could not be sure of the words, not so precisely; there had been so many nights like that one. She must have heard the quiet sound of his book closing – he would have reached over, gently, to take her hand with his.

Niccolette had looked up, she remembered. She had smiled at him. She would have smiled at him. “I shall finish this chapter.”

She drew her hand back from Ana’matham now, tears stinging behind her eyes. Why, Niccolette wondered, hadn’t she – what had she thought she would learn from this book? She should have gone with him immediately; she should have thrown the book out of the godsdamned window. She would burn them all, she thought, her chest aching, for one more minute – for one more second –

Vauquelin spoke from behind her, and Niccolette stilled, closing her eyes for a long moment. There were tears tangled in the lashes, and she blinked them away, and glanced back over her shoulder at the Incumbent, sitting cross-legged in Uzoji’s old chair, a book propped open on his lap. Her vision was blurred, just a moment, just briefly, and then she blinked once more and it was clear.

Niccolette shrugged lightly, turning back to the shelves. Demontmarcy, she thought, idly. She’d bought treatise a few years ago that contained two of his papers, one on nerve spells and the other on neutralization of arsenic in the body. She had read the first and dismissed the second, then; now, she thought – perhaps – Niccolette drew out the slim green volume and her hand did not tremble more than slightly.

A hell of a collection. The galdor blinked, the words catching up to her, and shot a sharper look over her shoulder at Vauquelin. She smiled again, slow and deliberate. The Islands were where she kept the majority of the books those at Brunnhold might have said she should not have. Some were simply outdated or unconventional; others were downright illegal. Nothing on these shelves quite crossed those lines, although some came dangerously close to the edges of them. There were plenty of books which had never been forbidden because no one had got there yet, and Niccolette had, for years now, been cheerful and unrepentant in her acquisition of them when they interested her. Naturally, she did not hesitate to cross the line, but the books that might make the Incumbent blush were not kept on these shelves.

“Of course, you are welcome to,” Niccolette said. She let the curtain brush down over the shelves, and went – not to the chair across the window, but another, closer to the desks. She sat, and smoothed her skirt over her legs, and tucked her ankles together. Her fingers traced the green fabric of the cover, and she looked up at Vauquelin.

Golden light was spilling through the window, then, sideways traces of the sunset echoing through the room. She could see the edges of the cliffs out beyond him, a little distant; she knew it only by memory, the place where the island ended and the sea began. The sky beyond was glowing soft blue, a few distant drifting clouds brushed pink by the light.

Niccolette sighed, and looked back to Vauquelin. “If you are interested in Utúla,” she said, looking down then back up at Vauquelin with a faint little smile, “you might also try Tsabiyi.” Her eyes stayed curiously on the Incumbent, and did not shift away. “I believe they were contemporaries at Thul’Amat. Tsabiyi was a Living Conversationalist, and focused mostly on hematology,” Niccolette turned Demontmarcy to his second treatise, her hand resting lightly on the page.

“It is more of a journal than a book, really,” Niccolette said, casually. “Tsabiyi never names the clairvoyant involved in his experiments, of course, and no one seems interested in looking too closely into whether it really was Utúla. Or perhaps it was the chapters on monic reconciliation which interested you, and not sanguimancy?”