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  With that the giant lowered Orchid back to the dungeon, back to his cell.

  A click reverberated up his spine as the man reattached the rope to the wall. The nightmare images flooded his head.

  Mustering what strength he had left, and fighting to hold the invasive images at bay, Orchid spun, his hands coiled around the rope. It snapped taut as he pulled and jerked.

  It didn’t give.

  Above him, the giant chuckled.

  “Not this time, fella,” he said. “That cord’s connected good and tight.” Then to the woman: “Go ahead, try it now.”

  The numbers exploded in Orchid’s head like thunder.

  “One-Zero-Zero-Zero-One-One—” They burst from his mouth of their own will. His teeth ground against them, but they spilled out. “—Zero-One-One-Zero-Zero—”

  “Binary calculations are running at full speed,” the woman announced. “Good job. I’m already getting docking data. Thank you.”

  “Hey, no problem,” the man said.

  In his cell, Orchid collapsed to the floor. The orbs blinked along with the curse issuing from his lips. He watched them as his consciousness leaked away.

  “Lilly, I’m so sorry,” he managed between the ones and zeros.

  Orchid, I’m here.

  Her sweet voice sang in his head. It swirled amongst the images of the unnatural sky-fish and drew him in. He let it.

  I’m sorry, little blossom. I tried to free you, but—

  Shh, she whispered, it’s okay. We’re together, that’s all that matters.

  But we’re trapped—

  No, we’re together, she said. Now fly with me, Orchid. Fly with me forever.

  And he did. They took wing in his head, in her head, through the ropes binding them in place and in the maze of gold along the walls.

  A shadow fell across their limp bodies as the ceiling lowered back in place.

  They didn’t notice.

  ~*~

  Jon Arthur Kitson recently came back to writing after a 23 year hiatus. During the interim he spent time as a photographer in the United States Navy, a portrait photographer for a large company and, for the last twelve years, as an employ of the State of Michigan. Fortunately, a stint as Dungeon Master for a D&D game reminded him just how much he loved writing ‘back in the day’. Since retaking up the pen (computer, really) Jon’s short stories have appeared in Mad Scientist Journal, Fiction Vortex, Perihelion SF, Lakeside Circus and Geek Force Five.

  ~*~

  Water Sense

  Adria Laycraft

  The handle slipped out of his sweaty hand. Everything went into slow motion as the bucket hit the ground and tipped. Tom reached for it, willing the water to stay put just like he’d seen Marie do. A useless effort, as always. He could not stop the dark stain spreading through the sand. In his frustration, he didn’t even hear Charlie coming.

  The first blow knocked him off his feet. He scrambled up, not wanting to give Charlie a chance to get the boots to him, but the second punch took him down again. The kick followed fast, and Tom groaned as it hit a tender spot only just healing.

  Tom’s hands curled into fists, catching up sand and rock from the dry valley floor. He hunched his shoulders, closing his eyes against the sight of the wasted water and the next blow.

  It never came.

  Tom opened one eye to risk a look. Charlie stared at something beyond, and Tom swiveled his head, fearing a wild cat had come down out of the mountains. Instead, an old man dressed in rabbit furs stood staring back. At him.

  “To find your value, you must understand who you really are.”

  What? Tom looked back at Charlie, whose face had paled to a sickly shade. When Tom turned back to ask the old man what he meant, the hillside was empty.

  Climbing cautiously to his feet, Tom eyed Charlie for clues as to what just happened. His guardian only grunted, pulled his smokes out of his jeans pocket, and lit one with shaking fingers. He puffed, drew, coughed a bit, and drew again.

  “Next time you spill the water, you can go thirsty for the rest of the day.” His words seemed to hang on the air like the smoke he exhaled with them.

  Tom licked his cracked lips. “I’ll get more,” he said. His throat burned, wanting to ask Charlie what he’d seen, what he’d heard, but he didn’t dare. One beating today was enough.

  ~*~

  “And then he was just gone?”

  Tom nodded, always a little at a loss for words around Marie.

  “It must’ve been an inipi,” she said, her eyes as wide as a startled deer.

  “Inipi?”

  She bent over her basket weaving, her black hair tucked behind one ear. The baskets sold well to the white tourists, making her useful. Tom wished he was useful for something.

  “Ghost spirits. My grandma told stories about inipi that made people crazy and sick until they died. Don’t tell me you never heard the same stories.”

  He wanted to say he’d never have asked if he had, but he kept his mouth shut. Seemed the smartest way to get by these days, whether with a girl or a bully.

  “Was it looking at Pa?” She looked worried and hopeful all at the same time.

  “No.” Should he tell her? Would she worry for him?

  Her head came up and she studied him, eyes narrowed. “Was Pa roughing you up again?”

  “No,” he lied. To tell her the truth would be to admit his clumsiness with the water. Around here, a drop was never spilt, never lost, and every Kawaiisu could find water in uncanny ways or make it stay where they put it. Everyone had a special way with water, except him. The elders just shook their heads at him, and the mamas clucked their tongues and felt his forehead, poking his ribs and trading looks.

  “Maybe they came farther than we first thought,” one mother said once, only to be hushed by the others.

  “Don’t matter now,” another said. “He’s ours and nothin’ to be done about it.”

  Right now Marie’s look said she didn’t believe his lie. “Well you never mind. Do you know where the blue sage grows by the canyon rocks?” He nodded. “Gather some and keep it with you. Mix in some tobacco… not cigarettes, mind you, the real tobacco the elders chew.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause it’s more powerful, duh.”

  “No, I mean why do I need that stuff?”

  “Oh.” She hesitated, then she reached out and squeezed his hand with hers. It was cool, soft. Her brown eyes were worried and serious. “Those inipi, they’re also called devils. They’re evil, Tom. If you see or hear one, you toss some sage and tobacco at it and tell it to leave you alone.”

  Tom looked up from where her hand touched his. “That’s all I have to do?”

  “That’s it.”

  ~*~

  “Who are you?”

  The shouted words brought Tom wide awake, his heart hammering against his rib cage. Was it the dream, or did someone call? He tried to quiet his breathing so he could listen.

  Coyotes yipped, way far off. Charlie snored, like usual. Marie made no noise, like usual.

  Then Tom heard whistling. It came from behind the house, as if someone wandered by. He rose and went to the open window, but he couldn’t see anyone there despite the bright moonlight. He peered out at the scrub brush and sand and the rising mountains beyond. The junk scattered around Charlie’s shop made weird shadows.

  A deer trail went up the ridge where the old man had stood. He could follow that trail, find the man, ask what he meant about Tom finding his value. Even if Marie said he was an inipi ghost. Even if Charlie had told him to stay off that mountain on the threat of the worst beating of his life.

  What did a threat like that matter if Charlie hit him anyway? Everyone turned a blind eye, but Tom was growing up. Pretty soon he would fight back. Or maybe he should run away. Trouble was, that wouldn’t help Marie. He’d seen the marks on her arm, spots just where fingers would fit turning purple and yellow. It made him want to kill Charlie, seeing that. Which wouldn’t help Marie ei
ther.

  He shivered as his sweaty t-shirt cooled. The sound of the whistling came to him again, far off like the coyotes. He slipped his jeans and shoes on, swung his legs over the window ledge, and jumped down into the rocky dirt. With slow careful steps he avoided the nettles he knew were there and moved out into the moonlight. He patted his pocket to make sure his blue sage and tobacco mixture was still there.

  If he knew what value he had, or how to find it, maybe he would finally discover his water sense. Maybe he would be able to finally put Charlie in his place, and protect Marie.

  Tom hummed the whistled song as he walked past Charlie’s shop and through the scrub. He hesitated at the beginning of the trail, right where it led up off the sandy valley, wondering if he was being a fool. But the moment he stepped from the basin onto the deer trail he heard the same melody sung in a high reedy voice.

  Sun be sun, rain be rain,

  Neither alone can bring the grain.

  Earth, water, wind, sunfire,

  Each sense comes from the sire.

  Tom climbed up over the first ridge and down through a slight bowl before climbing again. As he crested the topmost ridge, the sky brightened, and dawn broke in the sky.

  “How the hell…?” he said, watching as light changed the landscape to the east, making the high mountains there stand out in stark relief. It had been full night just a moment before. Had he walked longer than he thought? Maybe it had just been too long since he saw such an early hour. He could still make it back before Charlie woke up, if he turned back now.

  The song continued, so faint now he couldn’t make out the words. He pushed the thought of Charlie’s temper aside and hurried on, worried more about losing the song. Tom entered a juniper and pine forest and climbed further as the sun rose, leaving his fear and following his heart.

  When he stepped into a clearing and saw the old man, the song stopped. Tom fingered the sage and tobacco in his pocket.

  “Were you brought by the music?”

  Tom nodded, his tongue too thick in his mouth for words. The old man had built a Tomo-Kahni, the traditional winter house of the Kawaiisu, and wore rabbit skins as before. He crouched at a small fire.

  “Then you know.”

  “Know what?” Tom asked. “All I know is you told me something yesterday, and I want to know more about it. And you scared Charlie.”

  The old man studied him with bright eyes sunk within folds of wrinkles. “I did not tell you anything.”

  Tom’s anger flared at this lie. “But you did… you said I had to find out who I really was to have value.”

  The old man sighed. “Not my words, but they make sense. Would you like some acorn mush?”

  Tom gave him a skeptical look, uncertain now about everything. The old Kawaiisu man went back to poking his fire, humming tunelessly. A pot simmered, and the smell made Tom realize he was hungry.

  “What is acorn mush, anyway?”

  The man quirked an eyebrow at him. “I am Joe, pleased to meet you too,” he said, sarcasm ringing through his words.

  Tom flinched. “Sorry. I’m Tom.”

  “Tom, are you sure you’re supposed to be here?”

  Tom shrugged, glancing around the tumbled rock and wind-bent pine. The sky above was sharp blue, and he realized suddenly there was no wind. That, in itself, was unusual, but the whole experience seemed like a dream already. It gave him a spark of excitement, like he was really living for a change.

  “Charlie will be mad I’m not there to bring the water up from the creek,” he admitted. “I don’t know why it should be my job. I can’t control water the way everyone else can.” He moved closer and hunched down across the fire from the old man who had somehow been able to stop Charlie from finishing his beating. Joe handed him a rough clay bowl of mush, which Tom sniffed at. Sunflower seeds specked the brown grain porridge-like mixture. He tipped the bowl and sipped, giving an appreciative grunt.

  Joe watched, his brown hands beating out some unheard rhythm on his knee. “You don’t know where you are,” he said finally, as Tom lowered the empty bowl. “You haven’t the faintest clue.”

  “Sure I do. I’m up the mountain behind Charlie’s shack, talking to the guy that actually put the fear of God into him.”

  “Gods…” Joe murmured.

  “What?”

  “Boy, you aren’t up some mountain. You’re in the Otherworld.”

  Tom didn’t believe him. He stood and retraced his steps, the old man following, until he looked over the valley he’d called home for as long as he could remember. The valley he saw had no houses, no dirt road leading to town, no nothin’. It looked like it might have looked hundreds of years ago, before the white man came and the Kawaiisu stopped being hunter-gatherers.

  “What have you done to me?” he demanded, facing Joe. “Where are we?”

  “Told you,” Joe said. “The Otherworld. Don’t you listen?”

  Tom pulled out a handful of his herb mixture and threw it. “Leave me alone!” He stumbled back, trying to watch for a reaction and check the valley below for his home again.

  Joe scooped up a bit, sniffed it, and sighed. “Good waste of tobacco, that,” he said, his voice sad. “Do you have more, by chance?”

  Tom swallowed on a dry throat. “Why am I here?” he whispered. “How do I get home?”

  “Ah, both very good questions. First, you have to actually want to go home. Then you need to find whatever blocks you from your water sense. It’s like you have resisted being at one with your people, and so you are now apart.”

  Tom looked down from the ridge and thought of Marie’s smile. Of course he wanted to go home. But Charlie’s face was there, too, and the thought of her having to bear the brunt of Charlie’s temper made Tom sweat with worry.

  “Why are you here?” Tom asked then, only to discover Joe had wandered back up the trail. “How could this be happening?” he called.

  He’d never believed all those old tales, whether they were about Coyote or Rattlesnake or the magical ways of the people in the times of old. Maybe that’s why the magic eluded him. Maybe he had to believe. He looked out over the empty valley again. Believing would be a lot easier now.

  He heard whistling again and turned to study the hills around him. A cold breeze caught him unawares, nearly toppling him into a thicket of nettles. “Hey!”

  Another gust butted him from the other direction, and he went to his knees to keep from going right over the ridge and tumbling to the rocks below. Twisting around, he saw two people standing in the brush, though none of it was broken and no trail was to be seen.

  Tom pulled out another handful of sage and tobacco. “Go away!” he yelled, throwing it. They faded from sight.

  Tom scrambled away with both hands and feet. Laughter followed him, but when he looked back, no one was there.

  He stood and gathered his courage. He went down the mountain and into the valley. There were no signs of humans at all. He climbed up again and hiked to every viewpoint he could find to see if he’d simply gotten turned around and came farther than he thought. But there was no mistaking the direction of the sun, or the familiar rise and fall of the land around the valley. There was no way home.

  Joe had no good answers other than what he claimed was the truth. They were in a different place, the land of all those stories that Tom never paid heed to. Joe was friendly and loved telling his stories, and Tom sure was paying attention now. Surely they would reveal the answer. But days passed, and still the valley remained empty.

  One night, after a successful hunt, Joe told him a Coyote story.

  “Coyote was thinking one day and realized there would be many people. Bug was worried that there would be too many people and they would have to eat dirt. Coyote said no, for if they did, they would eat up all the dirt. So Coyote decided The People should eat acorns, pinyon, chia, and deer.”

  Then Joe picked up Tom’s bowl, filled it with deer stew, and sprinkled dirt over it.

  “Hey! Wha
t are you doing?”

  “As much as we don’t have to eat dirt, what I have gifted you with is the track of a wild cat.” He handed Tom his bowl, his wrinkles all bunching up in a big grin. “If you mix a wild cat’s track into your food, you will become his brother. You will know the ways of hunter and tracker. But you must also find in that bond a deep respect for your brother, or he will send inipi to haunt you and make you crazy until you die.”

  His words echoed Marie’s, and Tom missed her with a physical pain in his chest right then. “The inipi already haunt me,” he said, wondering why he decided to tell Joe that now.

  Joe’s grin faded. “I know. I hear you call out in your sleep.”

  “Will this stop them?”

  Joe shrugged.

  “Will it help me get back?”

  Joe pursed his lips. “Might.”

  Tom dug in, ignoring the grit of sand between his teeth as he swallowed down every bit. He even used his finger to wipe out the dregs of the bowl.

  Joe worked at his own stew. “Tomorrow we hunt, but not for meat. Tomorrow we hunt water.”

  Tom stared at him. “There’s water in the creek, at least in this season. Or in the dew, like you showed me. Why hunt something we already have?”

  Joe’s wise eyes flickered in the firelight, almost teasing. “We hunt the water in you.”

  ~*~

  As he dreamed that night, Tom heard the words Joe had said before. To find your value, you must understand who you really are. But they came now from the two inipi he’d seen on the hill above the empty valley. They stood together, the man’s arm around the woman while she cradled something. Tom realized, in that strange dream sense that made no sense, that she held a baby. The song wove through the dream, the words too faint to hear.

  They beckoned him to come, and when he refused, they came towards him, the baby gone now and the mother weeping. But they stopped short even as he dug in an empty pocket for his herbs, and he saw that they could not cross the cougar’s tracks. He took a step forward, curious now. Where did the baby go? Did they need help?

  Joe shook him awake, calling him. “Don’t let them take you, boy.”