Word Puppets Read online

  In the kitchen, Geroth shoved the compost aside, burrowing into it until he found the papers of his treatise. He dragged it out of the pile, brushing the dirt from it with his thousands of fingers. Sobbing coughs racked his body. He flipped through the pages desperately and his breath eased as he read. But silk still hung from his lips.

  Geroth turned to Iliath. “You did this.”

  “Beloved, I—” Her fingers vibrated so quickly their edges blurred with the motion.

  “Our betrothal is ended.”

  “But Geroth—”

  “Go.” He turned the length of his back on her.

  I followed her with the camera as Iliath crept to the door. Geroth said, “Stop recording her. I want you to edit her out of my documentary.”

  Iliath stopped at the door. “No, beloved—”

  “You will not exist to me.”

  I still held the camera on Iliath, my fingers frozen.

  Geroth barked, “Turn it off.”

  I nearly dropped the camera—I had changed events by speaking.

  Iliath crept out the door. The room was silent except for Geroth’s labored breathing.

  I stared at him. What had I done? If I had waited Iliath would have relented. Right? It would have ended happily without me; Iliath would have told him where it was and he would have gone to the Cocoon Chamber. But I had to open my trap, thinking that I was saving his life.

  Now I was part of the scene, but my role was unclear. A wave of coughing racked Geroth’s body. As he spit silk onto the floor, I realized why he had not taken his medicine. “You finished your treatise last night, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” Geroth coughed again. He held the pages in his trembling fingers. “I thought I had lost it. I thought the Chrysalis enzymes were already stealing my mind, but it was Iliath who stole it.” He looked at me. “I meant what I said about Iliath. I do not want her mentioned in the final cut.”

  “But what if you have memories of her afterwards?” Some small part of my brain still screamed that I should not get involved.

  “Iliath betrayed me.”

  I have months of footage showing how deeply Iliath cares about him. “She loves you. I don’t think she knew you had finished.”

  Geroth writhed in indecision.

  Russ met my gaze over Geroth’s head. His eyes were wide. I was in the scene fully, but he still stood outside it. For a heartbeat longer, I wondered if I could step back out of the scene, then I placed my hands on either side of Geroth’s face. “You’ll regret it later.”

  He barked a sardonic laugh. “Not if I don’t remember.”

  What do you do with a statement like that?

  Even if I had stayed outside the scene I couldn’t begin to guess what memories would survive Chrysalis.

  Christ.

  As if my memories of you make you any more alive. But you are. In my mind you are alive still. I only left home a year ago, by my count, and I still get your letters.

  Do I tell a ghost that I’m sitting here sobbing as if I choking on Chrysalis silk? I want to go home, but home no longer exists. Even if I hopped on the next ship back to Earth, even if Geroth’s treatise made a wormhole open up straight to the family home everything would be different. Two hundred years! I understand now why you clung to the family history, for the memories it preserved. If I went back to Earth, it would be as different from my memories as if I had undergone Chrysalis.

  Shit. I can’t undo my choice, but I sure as hell can undo Geroth’s.

  Dear Van,

  I’m so excited I can hardly type. Kim Perkins came home and she had an elderly gentleman with her. I say elderly, but he’s two years younger than me. Lands, I feel like a girl again. Anyway, he’s her uncle and Kim asked if I wouldn’t like to go out for a cup of tea with them.

  Well, we did and he’s lovely. His name is Terrence. We went on another outing today, but it was only the two of us without the third wheel. I’ve just come home and I’m in a whirl. We’re going to the cinema this evening.

  Anyway, I had to tell someone and I thought of you. I know you were worried about me being lonely after you left, but I’m doing fine. Now, you be well and do good work.

  Love,

  Grandma Tucker

  Dear Grandma,

  When Geroth’s cocoon showed signs of opening, I found myself in a warm dry room surrounded by the lyric figures of adult Husiths and their white larvae. In the center of the dim chamber lay a misshapen cocoon. Geroth’s cocoon was not the smooth, egglike enclosure that sheltered most Husiths as enzymes restructured their bodies for adulthood. His was gray and patched with bandages holding it together.

  I longed for my camera as the cocoon rocked, but the documentary was finished. The Husiths around me gathered their breath almost as one when the first feeble limb tore an opening in the cocoon. At that signal, the attendants rushed forward and pulled the fibers apart letting the damp, gasping form struggle out.

  As the warm air hardened his exoskeleton, Geroth—I stopped myself and mentally edited out the last two sounds of his larval name—Gero began to assume some of the beauty of his brethren as shades of amber and cerulean swirled under his exoskeleton. Qyo knelt in front of him to create the first impression on Gero’s adult mind. It should have been Iliath.

  “Gero, welcome to your adulthood. I am Qyo, your brother.”

  Gero focused on his brother and nodded. “Qyo, I remember you.”

  One by one, the Husiths came forward, saying their names, reminding him of how he knew them. To each, he replied, “I remember you.”

  Then, feeling truly alien, my turn came. Kneeling in front of a being different from the Geroth I had known, I said, “I am Vanessa, your documentarian.”

  “Vanessa.” He cocked his head and I willed myself to see recognition in his unfathomable golden eyes. “I remember you.”

  What else did he remember?

  But my turn was over. I was already at the door when I heard, “I am Iliath. We were betrothed.”

  I turned, my mental focus racking in for a close shot. Iliath’s marble flesh had grayed with the approach of her own Chrysalis. Her fingers trembled in anticipation.

  “Iliath.” Gero cocked his head as if the camera had shifted to slow motion. “I remember you.” He turned, seeming to look for something he was missing.

  Qyo leaned in and whispered the correct response.

  Gero turned to Iliath. “Sit by my side, beloved.”

  As Iliath inched to his side, I had to put my hand on the door to steady myself. He did not remember the fight. My eyes misted, making the room look as if a diffusion filter had been placed over the lens.

  I needed to switch the documentaries. Turning, I went into the Memory Room. I had done as Geroth asked and edited Iliath out of the documentary that was in the projector.

  I pulled that reel out of the projector and stuffed it into my pocket as Gero walked into the room. Attendants supported him while his hard-wired instincts taught him to walk. As I loaded the new reel, Iliath settled next to Gero. She looked behind her at the projection booth, as if in apprehension.

  I hit the play button and the second documentary began to roll. On the screen, Geroth worked on his treatise while Iliath supported him. Their love unfolded frame by frame, the fights and anger edited out.

  I watched, imprinting the moment in my memory, as Gero pulled Iliath close.

  I think you would be proud of me. I’ve done good work.

  Rampion

  As the warrior guided his horse back home, she pondered what the future might hold. Sybille brushed a strand of her golden hair, still sweat-damp, back from her face. Tracing a path to her belly, her hand came to rest above her womb.

  If his seed failed to quicken, her cuckoldry would be for nothing. Her yearning for a child ran deep, winding through her bones and into the secret places inside. Sybille had seduced the man for one purpose—to get her the child Roland could not.

  She turned and went into the cottage she share
d with her husband. If the man chanced to look back, she did not want to be standing in the doorway, watching like a girl at a barn dance. Stripping the linens off the bed, she carried them to the pile of laundry waiting in the garden. When Roland returned from his fool’s errand, she wanted him to find nothing more than his wife doing the washing.

  As she banked the fire under the cauldron, Sybille fought the sadness simmering below her surface. Mother Gothel, the witch on the far side of the village, had said Sybille was not barren. Poor Roland. She loved him for his gentle ways, but he could not give her what she wanted most.

  So, when the band of warriors came to the village, Sybille realized how she might bear a child.

  She let down her long hair and seduced the man who looked most like her husband. And though she had come to Roland as a chaste bride, she invited the man to her home. To her bed.

  Sybille wanted to burn the sheets.

  Before the man arrived at the cottage, she had sent Roland in search of rampion, knowing it was too late in the year to find the green. She claimed to be ill from craving it.

  Roland had believed her.

  She closed her eyes against the memory; she had never lied to him before.

  Plunging the linens into the cauldron, Sybille tried to wash her guilt away with the soil on the sheets. As she worked over the boiling water, new sweat beaded her skin despite the October air. A droplet trailed between her breasts, reminding her of the man’s hand. She wiped furiously at it; Roland would be home soon.

  Sybille hung a shirt, which she had made for Roland shortly after their marriage, over the line. She imagined hanging a girl’s dress on the line beside it. In her mind, the dress had tiny pintucks and delicate lace at the hem.

  She smiled, fingering the sleeve of Roland’s shirt. The autumn sun lit the linen, seeming to bleach it back to a new white, but she knew that when she pulled it from the line, eight years of toil would still tinge the fabric. How long would her guilt tinge her mind?

  The sound of footsteps, running along the path, reached her ears before Roland burst into the back garden. Beneath his sandy hair, his face was flushed red as maple leaves.

  Her heart seemed to race in answer to his haste. Sybille turned from the line, conscious of the perspiration still between her thighs. “Roland?” Had someone seen the man come to her?

  Roland ducked past the laundry and wrapped his arms around her, pressing her to him. His shirt was damp and heat radiated from him even though the autumn day was cool. His breath was ragged in Sybille’s ear as he clung to her.

  “I love you.” He kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

  She squeezed Roland back, her fear of being caught replaced by concern for her husband. “I love you, too.”

  He smoothed her hair as he released her. “I don’t know if you still will.”

  “Roland, what’s wrong?” Fear seemed to form a bubble at the top of her throat, stopping her breath.

  In answer, he knelt and swung the strap of the basket off his shoulder. He lifted the lid. A sweet peppery tang floated from the greens within. “I found rampion.”

  Sybille sank to her knees beside him. She reached into the basket, plunging her hand into the cool green leaves. Scattered across the top were stems covered with purple flowers. It was too late in the year for rampion to grow. Far too late. Mesmerized by the green, she pulled out a leaf and placed it between her lips. The flavor exploded on her tongue with promises of hot summer.

  She lifted her eyes to Roland and leaned across the basket to kiss him gently on the lips. “Thank you, my love.”

  He pulled away from her and shook his head. “They were in the witch’s garden.”

  The taste in her mouth turned to ash. The witch. Mother Gothel, who had told Sybille her womb could bear a child. “What—?”

  “She caught me.” His eyes were huge, like a little boy’s. “I had to promise—I thought it would be all right, because it’s been eight years and—”

  “What did you promise her?”

  “Our firstborn child.”

  His words seemed to silence every sound from the surrounding forest. His lips continued to move, but she heard nothing he said. She staggered to her feet and stumbled away from him. Racked with sudden nausea, she clutched her stomach and vomited, bright green flecks spattering the dirt.

  She felt Roland’s hands on her back. “I’m sorry. When she demanded a child, I thought I wasn’t giving anything away . . . We had tried so hard.”

  He could not know the truth. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she said, “You had to get away from her.” Roland could not know how she spent the afternoon. “And we can’t have children, so you’ve promised her nothing.”

  A moan of despair ground out of him. “After I promised, she said you would have a child, a girl.” His voice dwindled to a whisper. “We’re to name her Rapunzel, after the rampion I stole.”

  Sybille straightened slowly, with her hand over her womb.

  Roland hovered by her, tears coursing down his solid face. “I didn’t think we could have children.”

  “I know.” She looked away from him, at the sheets hanging over the line. “I tried everything.”

  At the Edge of Dying

  Kahe peeked over the edge of the earthen trench as his tribe’s retreating warriors broke from the bamboo grove onto the lava field. The tribesmen showed every sign of panicked flight in front of the advancing Ouvallese. Spears and shields dropped to the ground as they tucked in their arms and ran.

  And the Ouvallese, arrogant with their exotic horses and metal armor, believed what they saw and chased the warriors toward him. The timing on this would be close. Kahe gathered the spell in his mind and double-checked the garrote around his neck. His wife stood behind him, the ends resting lightly in her hands. “Do it.”

  Bless her, Mehahui did not hesitate. She hauled back, cutting into his throat with the knotted cord. Kahe tried not to struggle as his breath was cut off. Black dots swirled in his vision, but he could not afford to faint yet.

  With each breath he could not take, with each step closer to death, Kahe’s power grew. As the tribe’s warriors reached the trench and leaped down, he scanned the lava field to make certain none were left behind. Vision fading, he unleashed the spell coiled inside him.

  The heat from the firestorm singed the air as it swept out from his trench. Even through his graying sight, the blue flame burned like the sun as it raced toward the Ouvallese battalion. Screams rose like prayer as his spell crisped the men in their armor.

  As soon as the spell rolled out, Mehahui released her hold and Kahe fell against the damp red soil. The grains of dirt blended with the dots dancing in front of his eyes, so the very earth seemed to move. Air scraped across his tortured throat as life flooded into him. He gasped as the goddess’s gift of power faded.

  Beyond his own wrenching sobs, Kahe heard the agonized screams of those Ouvallese too distant to be instantly immolated. He prayed to Hia that his spell had gotten most of them; the goddess of death and magic had rarely failed him. Still, the kings of the tribes would have to send runners out to deal with the burned soldiers; a dying enemy was too dangerous to allow to linger.

  Mehahui patted him, soft as a duckling, on the back. Her round face hovered in the edge of his vision. “Stay with me.”

  Kahe coughed when he tried to speak. “I am.” His throat scraped as if it were filled with thorns. He knew she hated seeing him downed by a spell, but flirting with Hia was the only way to get the power he needed for a spell this big. Pushing against the earth wall, Kahe sat up.

  His head swam. The dirt thrummed under his hands.

  The vibration grew to a roar, and the earth bucked. A wall collapsed. Dirt spilled into the trench, as the earth quaked.

  No. A sorcerer must have been at the edge of his firestorm, and by almost killing him, Kahe had given him access to Hia’s power—only a dying man would have enough power to work magic on the earth itself. As the trench shifte
d and filled with falling rocks, the spell he needed to counter it sprang to his mind but without power. He turned to Mehahui even while knowing there wasn’t enough time for the garrote to work. He fumbled for the knife at his side.

  The tremors stopped.

  Dust settled in the suddenly still air but he had not cast the counter-spell. Even if he had, it would have been as a rush lamp beside a bonfire.

  Around them, men in the earthworks called to each other for aid or reassurance. Trickles of new dirt slid down the wall in miniature red avalanches. King Enahu scrambled over a mound, using his long spear as a walking staff.

  “Hia’s left tit! You’re still alive.” He slid down the side of the trench, red dirt smearing his legs with an illusion of blood. “When you stopped the earthquake, I didn’t think you could have survived the spell. Not so soon after working the other.”

  “I didn’t stop it.” Kahe watched Mehahui instead of the king. Her skin had bleached like driftwood and she would not meet his eyes.

  Beside him, King Enahu inhaled sharply, understanding what Kahe meant. “There’s another sorcerer in the ranks? Hia, Pikeo, and the Mother! This could be the saving of us. Who?”

  Mehahui hung her head, her hair falling around her face like rain at night. “It’s me.”

  Kahe’s heart stuttered, as if he had taken makiroot poison for a spell. Hia only gave her power to those on the road to death. “That’s not possible.”

  “I’m dying, Kahe.” His beautiful wife lifted her head and Kahe could not understand how he had missed the dark circles under her eyes.

  With only a thin blanket covering her, every breeze in the hut chilled Mehahui. She shivered and kept her attention focused on the thatched pili-leaf ceiling while the surgeon poked at her.

  Iokua stepped back from the table. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner?” he asked.

  Clinging to the blanket, Mehahui sat up. “Could you have done anything?”

  “I could have tried.”

  They had studied under the same masters at the Paheni Academy of Medicinal Arts; she didn’t need Iokua to tell her that only palliative care was possible. “Are you finished?”