The Geari Wife Page 2

  “Stop saying that.” I clenched my fists at my sides and controlled my temper lest I be tempted to smack her like when we were little.

  “Then stop asking me what to do.” Felicity panted for breath. I could see the mere effort of conversation wore her out. “There isn’t anything else to do. I’m dying. I wouldn’t be like this if you had succeeded the first time you tried to get rid of me.”

  “Stop it! I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t know what to do for you. I was listening to Taishi.”

  Her eyes fixed on the scabs on my face, disgust evident there. “You hate me. You want me to die.”

  The truth was, at the moment I did hate her. I threw up my hands in exasperation. “You’re impossible!”

  “No, you’re impossible.”

  I swatted at another blood moth tickling my cheek. Sweat dripped down my back, reminding me of how hot and miserable I was.

  “Promise me you’ll take care of Taishi,” she said more gently.

  “I’m not promising you anything. You aren’t allowed to die. I need you to get better so things can go back to the way they were.” I wasn’t quite sure if I meant before my accident or before her sickness. Had I been able to, I would have gone back in time to three years before all this horror had begun. Back when my father was still alive. Back when we had a way off this godforsaken planet.

  Taishi cleared his throat from the entrance. His usually cheerful expression was somber and his almond-shaped eyes were dark pools of sorrow. “Why don’t you go to the stream and collect more cool water for us?” In other words, leave your sister be.

  I nodded.

  As soon as I crawled out of the mud hut, the bright light seared my eyes. I’d been warm before, but now I was even hotter. Every color of the jungle was raw and vivid, like the unmixed pigments from my paint box. One would never have thought such a shade of red could exist in nature, but there it was in the flowers and the nose birds zipping through the air. Nose birds were what Felicity and I called them anyway, on account of their saggy noses resembling elephant trunks. Purple ferns that looked like lace on ladies’ dresses adorned the ground. Tree snails chittered on the trunks of blue umbrella trees. The whole world was painted in impossible hues that I could never recreate in my drawings no matter how I tried.

  Yet, even with all this vivid life and beauty around me, I could only see the darkness underneath. I could only see my sister’s death pushing closer.

  Michi lay in a bed of sakura puffs. She squirmed and murmured, uncomfortable from the heat. Or her hunger. Or both. I picked her up and adjusted her swaddling. Her diaper was dry, no surprise considering how little milk Felicity gave her.

  Taishi whispered to Felicity within the hut, his voice low and reassuring. She sobbed and I heard her begging him to do something. Probably she wanted more memory moss to ease her pain.

  When I looked up from the baby, Taishi watched me from over his shoulder. His black hair was matted to his face and neck with sweat, and his leaf skirt clung to his skin. He didn’t look any cooler than I felt. He lifted his chin. I supposed he was waiting for me to be on my way so he could have privacy with my sister.

  I cradled Michi in my arms and trudged through the foliage to the stream. It was a short walk away, close enough I could hear the babble of the water over rocks, but it couldn’t be seen easily over the ferns that grew as high as my head and bushes of brilliant orange leaves that looked like chains of triangles.

  The trees shaded the water and kept it cool enough it refreshed me as I bathed. Michi quieted and snuggled against my bosom as I held her. My long skirts fell into the current, the fabric swirling and billowing around me. I stared, mesmerized by the ripples of purple-flowered fabric bobbing in and out of the water.

  When I placed a droplet of water at Michi’s lips, her tongue darted out of her mouth and she sucked my finger eagerly. I continued giving her drinks in this way for a time. I only stopped because I heard Taishi cry out.

  I leapt to my feet, clutching Michi to my chest. I nearly slipped over a rock covered in slime in my haste to reach the bank. Taishi’s wail turned into a series of sharp, pant-like screams. I couldn’t run fast enough. I feared the worst. I ducked into the hut. I dropped to my knees and had to let my eyes adjust. Taishi lay on the ground, thrashing about. He covered his face with his hands, which didn’t muffle his maniac cries. I’d never seen him behave this way. He was always the calm one. He always knew what to do.

  There was only one thing I could imagine that would send him into such a fit.

  My sister lay still, her eyes closed. My heart felt as though it had stopped, seeing her so pale and peaceful. Taishi rolled into me, not even noticing I was there.

  “Hush! You’re going to bring Lord Klark’s men!” I shouted. He didn’t seem to hear.

  I crawled over him and crouched between him and Felicity. The baby moaned as I clutched her to me. I forced myself to loosen my grip. Tears filled my eyes as I took my sister’s hand. She still felt warm. She twitched and her breath came out in a rush. She was alive? Then what the devil was wrong with Taishi?

  “She’s not dead. Stop screaming!” I kneed him in the side, not very hard but hard enough to rouse him from his fit. He wasn’t allowed to do such things as this, not even in jest. “What’s wrong with you?”

  My sister had a tendency to know the right thing to vex me and drive me mad with anger, but Taishi wasn’t one to lose himself. I looked around the small room for some sign of what might have happened. A bowl of ground-up memory moss lay at Felicity’s side. The palms of her hands were smeared with green, and blobs of the moss were still evident on Taishi’s bronze chest. From the looks of it, they’d performed memory exchange. The moss helped ease her pain, but it was also the way the Jomon shared love and memories. Because the slimy goop was on her hands, not his, I deduced she had been giving him memories. But usually the memory exchange the Jomon practiced as part of their courtship was pleasant.

  What he’d seen that had driven him mad, I couldn’t imagine.

  In the distance a loud crack echoed. It could have been a tree breaking from a large animal bowling it over. Or a hover cart backfiring.

  All I knew was that I had to shut Taishi up before he gave away where we were hiding. I had to shut him up before they found Felicity. I set the baby down, not too close to Felicity—I didn’t trust her with her baby after she had told me she thought we should drown her. Taishi was sobbing hysterically now. I dragged him off through the foliage, no easy feat considering how big he was.

  Michi began to cry and now I regretted whetting her whistle with water. I hastened back for her and continued dragging Taishi to the stream. It was my hope the shock of cold water would sober him up. The process was an arduous one. I set down the baby to drag him, then picked up Michi to keep her from crying.

  The blue sky darkened and clouds roiled overhead. Of all the blasted luck, now would be the time a thunderstorm would start up, would it? A drop of water splattered on my nose. One dropped on Michi’s cheek and she turned her face to try to lap at the water.

  I rolled Taishi into the water and he stopped crying. He went still. Too still. I set the baby down again and hauled him out before he drowned. He was catatonic now, but at least he was quiet. I picked up Michi again, bouncing her and doing everything I could to keep her subdued. Rain pattered against the trees all around us, sounding like a thousand feet trampling through the jungle. The temperature dropped and the splatters of water against my face chilled me. I hauled Taishi to the cover of an umbrella tree.

  The water poured down in buckets, but at least Taishi and Michi were silent. Only now was it quiet enough to hear the feet thrashing toward the hut.

  I’d tried so hard to silence Taishi and Michi, but it had been in vain. My stomach cramped and fear rattled me to my core. Lord Klark’s men were coming for us! I looked from my sister’s husband to her baby. My indecision came to a close when I heard Felicity’s scream.

  At Taishi’s belt wa
s a stone dagger. I set Michi down beside him. I unsheathed the knife and hastened back to the hut.

  Other feet came crashing through the foliage. Their stride outran mine. One man passed so close, he nearly tripped over me. I can only imagine he didn’t spot me with the rain in his eyes and purple ferns camouflaging my purple dress.

  I sank to my knees in the bushes. “Please let them not find her,” I prayed.

  Father often said gods didn’t answer prayers so far out this arm of the galaxy, and that day I knew more than ever before it was true. I watched in horror as Lord Klark himself barked orders at his men. I crouched behind the cover of an immense fern, shivering from cold and fear. Each man was armed with laser pistols. In my hands I held a paltry knife.

  Felicity spoke and a man responded. I couldn’t hear every word, only the confusion in her tone.

  Her voice rose. “Where’s my Poppy?”

  Our father? She spoke like a child. Didn’t she remember what had happened? How many memories had she given Taishi this time?

  A moment later a young man no older than I ran out. His face was smooth and round. He wore his long, brown hair in a ponytail, much like our grandfather in his portrait in the computer log.

  The young man rushed past the men, nearing me. I lifted the knife and thought about slitting his throat, but fear made me lower it again. Fear for my own welfare should I miss, should he scream, should the uniformed men nearby spot me.

  Lord Klark, my father’s enemy, remained with my sister. I heard him question her, asking what she remembered, but I could only hear the fear in her tone. Eventually another man came back with the youth and they hauled Felicity away. I considered my options. If there was a time to attack, it was now before they had her in their ship. But how was I to do so? I couldn’t very well sneak up on Lord Klark’s entire party of men with a little knife. They would shoot me.

  My legs cramped as I crouched, but I remained frozen with indecision. My sister was dying anyway. I couldn’t have saved her. Surely it wouldn’t matter if she died out in the jungle or onboard his ship. That’s what I told myself to make it all right.

  Only I kept thinking back to what Taishi had witnessed Lord Klark do to his own men when they displeased him. He wasn’t beyond torture.

  At one point, Lord Klark went outside the hut when one of the men brought him a leather pouch. I cringed, knowing what was inside Taishi’s bag. The red diamonds sparkled in his hand, even in the dull light. There were only a few mixed in with pebbles for playing hana ichi monme and other games, but it was enough to entice him. That’s all it had taken to entice Father.

  “Ah, perhaps this girl might be of use to us after all,” Lord Klark grunted.

  Even when I followed the party of men back to their spaceship, I saw no way to take down any man so that I might steal his laser pistol. My heart thundered wildly at the idea of running up to them and stabbing Lord Klark in the heart. If only I had been quick and stealthy like Taishi. Or brave like my sister. She wouldn’t have let fear keep her from saving me.

  I was a coward and horrible sister. And now Felicity was gone.

  I returned to the umbrella tree where I’d left Taishi and Michi. By then, the majority of the storm had passed. The rain pattered slowly against broad leaves overhead. Taishi stirred. He trembled and curled his knees up to his chest, not unlike Felicity when she was upset. The first thing out of his mouth was, “I’ve made a mistake. I need to give Felicity her memories back.”

  So she had given him something terrible and that was what had made him lose himself? I didn’t ask. There was no point. I picked up Michi who was whimpering miserably in her soggy swaddling.

  The sun peeked through the clouds. I headed back to the hut. Taishi followed. I wanted to tell him she was gone, but tears stung my eyes and my throat felt like a hard lump had settled there.

  The inside of the hut smelled like blood. Moths still fluttered over her blankets.

  “Where’s Felicity?” Taishi asked.

  The rumble of engines roared in the distance. Taishi looked out the door as Lord Klark’s spaceship rose high in the sky.

  “Lord Klark took her,” I said.

  Taishi’s lips parted, but no words came out. He swallowed and looked to the bed again as if I would jest about such a thing.

  My voice came out quivering and high. “I tried to stop them.” I looked away, feeling like the words were a lie.

  “I’m sure you did everything you could.” His words cut like a knife, mostly because I didn’t think I had done everything I could. I was a horrible sister and now a bad liar.

  He placed an arm around my shoulder. “We’ll find a way to get her back.”

  “I’ll find a way to kill him,” I vowed. Or die trying.

  Chapter Two

  All human wisdom is contained in these two words―Wait and Hope.

  ―Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Alpha Centauri

  There wasn’t a day I didn’t think of my sister during the next fourteen years. I loathed myself for my cowardice. Each day I punished myself in my prayers, even though I was convinced our Christian god didn’t listen to those on Aynu-Mosir.

  I sat in my private chamber with my niece, showing her how to grind the yellow and red ores to make the powders needed for more paints. Dull winter light rained down from the window, along with a few flurries. The room was warm from the hot springs flowing underneath the stone floor, but not warm enough. It was one small blessing that the remaining Jomon had the cliff palace where they could hide out of sight of ships that might fly overhead.

  Even with the natural heat keeping my derriere warm, it wasn’t enough to keep the winter breeze from chilling my fingers. I wore long sleeves I’d fashioned out of hide, made to resemble the puff sleeves of a woman’s blouse—or as much as I could manage with the stiff material. My skirt was longer and more modest than the other women of the Tanukijin tribe and it kept me warm at the very least.

  The other women didn’t like my clothes. They whispered that I was wasteful, using more hide than one needed, but no one told me I couldn’t sew my clothes this way. So long as I did my work, they left me alone. On mornings like this, I kept to my own room where no one would bother me.

  I said in English to my niece, “Back home, in the United Worlds of America, every young lady who wishes to consider herself accomplished must study painting in addition to music and dancing.” Not that I was young anymore at the age of thirty, but such learning might help Michi acquire a husband someday.

  Michi scrunched up her freckled nose and spoke in her father’s language. “Use Jomon, Auntie.”

  I mixed in the animal grease with yellow ochre until it was creamy like butter. I continued on in English. “Speaking your mother’s language is a valuable skill.”

  I probably spoke more like the space sailors who had brought my family to the planet than an educated lady qualified to tutor my niece in the English language, but I did my best to sound educated and use lady-like words—at least in front of her.

  “The colonists and traders who come to your world won’t know Jomon,” I said.

  “It’s your world too,” Michi insisted.

  I shook my head. Michi had the same blue eyes as my sister and the same petulant tone I remembered from my childhood. This world wasn’t either of ours. It belonged to the Jomon, and though Michi’s father was one of the tribal people, she didn’t look like she belonged here anymore than I did.

  I nodded to the tanuki-hair paint brushes in the box. “Select your finest brush and I’ll show you how to paint jungle flowers today.” Flowers always brought people joy. They made the Tanukijin and other tribes think of summer and happier times. It was a shame Michi had seen so little warmth in her life with the pollution-induced winter that had slowly crept over the planet. Sometimes it was hard to believe that the plains above the cliff palace had once been jungle.

  Michi stuck out her lip like a child half her age, rather than a fourteen-year-old girl. “I don’t want to
paint flowers. I want to paint people. I want to paint you.”

  I shifted from my kneeling position to cross-legged, allowing my blonde hair to fall over the scars on the right side of my face. “No one wants to look at me. If you do well with flowers I’ll help you paint a portrait of your father another day. It would be good for an artist to capture his likeness.”

  Her dour mood lifted. “Yes, let’s paint his portrait!”

  I nodded. “You will have to convince him to let us paint him. In the meantime, practice something simple.”

  I made four swift strokes to create the shape of the star-shaped siki flower. I started with a basecoat of powdered white shell mixed with grease. Michi imitated me. We painted a pattern of flowers on a stretched hide that Taishi would trade with one of the smaller tribes. When Michi dragged her hand across one of the drying areas, I had to wipe down her section of our canvas and make her start over. By then my section was dry enough to lay down a glaze of bright yellow ochre.

  Michi dipped her brush into the yellow.

  “Your basecoat is still too wet,” I said. “If you apply another coat without waiting longer, it will lift off the white layer.”

  “It’s dry enough.” She ignored me and laid down another coat.

  She frowned when the paintbrush scrubbed away the first layer as she applied a second. She scooped up a bigger glob of paint and covered up the bald spots in her petals. The yellow was too translucent to hide the mistakes. Not to mention no one would want a painting with an uneven surface.

  “You need to practice patience, little mei.” I used the Jomon word for niece, my little endearment to soften the sting of the words.

  I handed her a clump of wooly higotai leaves to clean up her mess. She started over. I worked a red oxide into the tips of my yellow flowers and blended them toward the center with melted animal fat. I’d finished a dozen fist-sized flowers by the time she finished her first one. She looked from hers to mine and sighed in frustration.