Fiction Vortex - September 2013 Read online

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  Miye's In

  by Joanna Maciejewska; published September 6, 2013

  First Place Award, September 2013 Fiction Contest

  I remember it clearly: it was three days after we saw the first oskrin, and two days before we hastily finished raising the temporary fencing around the settlement when Miye first complained about being sick. Funny how such unimportant details stick in the mind even after years have passed. She was thin and rather short for her age with brownish, always tangled hair resembling an impassable thicket. The only beautiful accent in her triangular face were her big eyes, a shade darker than her hair, always wide open and watching intently, maybe a bit too intently, as if she wanted others to look away. She might have seemed a bit odd, but she was always the picture of health.

  ~~~~~

  Tanned and seasoned by salt in the ocean wind, she made it through the three-week-long sea journey in better condition than any of us. While others were hanging over the railing throwing up food, or withering slowly in the hull where we spent most of the journey, Miye was all over the place. I don’t know how, but she always managed to sneak outside. On more than one occasion, some sailor brought her, still wriggling to get free from her captor’s grip, back to her father, Tarish.

  “I apologize,” was all he muttered, as no explanations were needed, and nothing could be done anyway.

  No punishments, threats, nor promises could keep Miye from sneaking out again, climbing the rigging, and laughing as she ran away from sailors, jumping from rope to rope like a little simp.

  “I swear, her mother must have been at least a quarter feral!” Tarish used to say whenever he heard Miye’s laughter followed by the sailor’s heavy curses.

  “And what, you didn’t notice the fur?” someone would reply. Back then, I didn’t get the joke, but Tarish would turn red as a brick.

  It all ended one day when the first mate caught Miye.

  “So eager to be on the deck, are we?” he raised his eyebrow as he spoke. “Then you’re going to work like the rest of the crew.”

  And Miye ended up swabbing the deck, learning how to tie knots, and looking out from the crow’s nest. Not exactly what a father would wish for a young wiefearn to do, but I think Tarish was just relieved that she wasn’t getting into trouble anymore. From what I saw, when she was back in the hull for the rare nights when the weather was not good enough to sleep outside, the sailors didn’t go easy on her, and she was wrecked. But she was also tanned and gaining muscle, stamina, and endurance while we still hung from the railing from time to time and saw the sun on the rare days when the deck was quiet enough to let us out.

  ~~~~~

  But then Miye, healthy and resilient Miye, said she was sick.

  I was resting in the shade of the partially raised fence with some others, enjoying the midday break. Summer on Imheria was hot, and it made more sense to rest through the hottest hours of the day instead of pointlessly exhausting all our strength. We were spared the heaviest tasks, though we claimed we were grown up enough to handle them. I guess we were just typical fourteen-year-olds who thought that being pioneers in a new land made them stronger.

  This was when Miye walked past us. Three days after we saw the first oskrin and two days before we finished the fence. I don’t know why I even remember the event so exactly. Even a quick glimpse told me something was not right. Miye always either ran or walked vigorously. When she was exhausted, she would just be slower, but still looking around inquisitively, ready to dash just like a wild animal. I don’t think I had ever seen her like that. Leg by leg, she dragged herself along the street, her body stiff and head bobbing to the sides as if it was too heavy to hold straight. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was chewing on fogum leaves.

  She staggered straight to the little hut in which our physician, Sil Karia, saw to her patients. We always kept away from Sil Karia as she was eager to check our ears and hair, or throw us in a big washtub and scrub the dirt from us. Of course, Miye was the best in avoiding the coarse cleaning brush, but that day she walked straight to the pudgy wiefearn instructing some young ones on the importance of washing their hands. “After all,” she used to say, “we come from Ozellium and we are civilized, not like those savages that live over here.”

  “Miye, what’s wrong, petal?” asked Karia when she saw the little wiefearn stumbling over her own legs.

  I stretched my hearing, trying to catch the weak response that came from Miye’s mouth.

  “It’s my In. My In is sick.”

  My friends looked at each other, exchanging knowing looks, and I couldn’t shake off the feeling that Miye was not speaking metaphors.

  “Oh petal, your In can’t be sick,” said Karia, gently stroking Miye’s tangled hair. “The In is a part of you, it can’t get sick.”

  “But it’s gotten sick, Sil Karia!” Miye was on the verge of crying. She froze for a moment like a sand statue, and then she threw up on the ground just by the Sil’s feet.

  I have to admit, the physician kept her face almost straight.

  “It’s a bit of upset stomach,” she explained calmly. “Come, I'll give you some salve to make it feel better.”

  They walked inside, but I couldn’t watch anymore; we had to get back to work. I didn’t see Miye leave and couldn’t tell if the salve made her feel better, but later on, when we were putting resin mixture between the wooden logs of the palisade, I spotted Sil Karia walking out of the hut. She held a scarf to her face and inspected the place where Miye’s sick was still drying in the sun. Then she disappeared for a moment inside and came back with a flask of dark liquid, which she poured over the spot. The look of concern on her face worried me.

  ~~~~~

  We completed the fence before more oskrin came. The palisade stood tall and proud, and we had guards posted on the lookout tower constantly scanning the area in search of threats. We burned torches to scare away the monsters and never left the settlement at night. Except for that, life went on as usual. I wondered how Miye was, but didn’t see her anywhere.

  It could have been both a good sign and a bad one. She could have been sneaking out as usual, or lying down stricken with sickness. I didn’t find enough courage to visit Tarish and ask about her. Our families were never very close. We came from different parts of Ozellium, and all we shared was three weeks of sea journey and being the first settlers in Imheria.

  With the palisade finished, I had some spare time, so I went around the settlement eavesdropping. But people were only talking about summer ending soon and preparations for winter. Some worried if we would survive it, and others pondered the threat of oskrin and the locals. So far, the ferals were friendly enough, but one could never know with them. Considered an inferior kind of fearn, ferals were much like beasts, primitive and not too smart. Even their looks, when they came to visit for the first time, were barbaric. They were decorated in bones and feathers, with unfearnly faces, many of them resembling snouts, bodies covered with fur, and large hands with overgrown claws, which made them look more like animals than fearn. Back then, I didn’t understand why they didn’t at least try to become civilized, and I could clearly see why in Ozellium they had to keep to their district. Now, after all those years, I’m unable to see the world in black and white anymore. But that's another story, for another time.

  I think it was a week after Miye visited Sil Karia when I got to see her again. It was my night to be on lookout, so I stood at the palisade staring at the blackness of the wilderness. Sometimes I thought I could see a faint glow of the gems that glittered on oskrin bodies, but none ever came close enough for me to be sure. We didn’t have many oskrin back in Ozellium; our fathers and grandfathers fought and drove them into one quarter of the sewers. We never managed to kill them all, and it seemed there were always a few left behind to breed. But Ozellium fearn didn't know the threat they could pose. In Imheria, vast wilderness as it was, the oskrin roamed freely across the land. We
knew little of what they could do, and though the wise fearn ensured us that oskrin rarely formed big packs, we still feared their attack. There was only a palisade between us and the unknown, and there were only a few fearn doing their best to see through the veil of darkness.

  We were all varispected; that’s why we were put on the night watch. But some said that the oskrin bodies radiated no heat, so our thermal spectrum was useless anyway. If an oskrin appeared, would I manage to sound the alarm before it got to me? I stood there, in the claws of fear, staring into the distant forest and hoping to spot anything before it came after me.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a familiar voice said. “So quiet, calm, and mysterious.”

  First I flinched, caught unaware. I didn’t hear her coming, but there she was. Her hair was messy as usual, and her clothes looked like she hadn't changed them in a while. She was squatting down on the top of the logs, resting her hands leisurely on the sharpened tips of the wood, balancing with ease, almost as if she was nonchalantly sitting in a cozy armchair and not clinging to a palisade.

  “Miye—”

  “I don’t understand why everybody fears it so much,” she interrupted me. Or maybe she didn’t even hear me speaking.

  Only then, in the faint light of the smaller of the moons, I saw drops of sweat on her skin not just silvered by the moonlight, but sickly pale.

  “Is your In still sick?” I asked.

  Miye smiled gently at me.

  “It’s getting better now,” she reassured me, but some undertone in her voice told me that she wasn’t telling the whole truth.

  I was about to smile as well, if for nothing else than to cover up my doubts about her state, but Miye was already looking back at the forest. There was some strange longing in her face that enchanted me so much I didn’t notice Miye’s eyes closing slowly and her body going limp. My Ra did not realize what was going on, but my In reacted almost instantly. As I dashed toward her, I was grateful that she fell backwards, onto the palisade, not forward — into the darkness.

  I always thought Miye would be as light as a feather, so her weight surprised me. I called out to other fearn for a replacement at my post, and burdened by the unconscious wiefearn, I made my way to Sil Karia’s hut.

  “Sil Karia! Sil Karia!” I shouted pounding at the door. “Miye’s unwell!”

  She came out sooner than I thought, still in her nightgown. Her expression was already of dire seriousness.

  “Get in,” she huffed, moving to the side and letting me into the dark corridor. I knew the way to the patient room, so I rushed straight there as Karia saw to some lighting. A short flash ripped through the darkness, temporarily hurting my eyes, but they quickly adapted. And in no time, there was a lit lamp in the room.

  “She came up on the palisade,” I explained as I lay Miye down on the bed. “Then she lost balance and fell down.”

  “Was she sick? Did she cough? Sneeze?” Sil Karia inquired with her hand already on the young wiefearn’s forehead.

  “No, nothing. She just was there, staring at the forest,” I replied. “Maybe I should get her father?”

  To my surprise the physician shook her head.

  “I will handle it later. For now, will you be so kind as to watch over her? I need to prepare some salves.”

  I nodded, slightly confused. I couldn’t understand why Sil Karia didn’t want me to go find Tarish, but then I was happy enough that I wasn’t simply sent away. I sat by the bed watching Miye looking so calm. If she was really sick, one could not tell it by her expression.

  Karia came back after a while with two mugs. One she lay on the sturdy dresser, the other she handed to me.

  “Here, have some broth. It might be a long night,” she explained, as she fetched a small spatula out of the dresser drawer. It was wrapped in a piece of cloth, and Karia used it to get some liquid into Miye’s mouth. I kept sipping on the broth, enjoying the warmth it gave my body, and watching the physician doing her work.

  “Is her In really sick?” I whispered in the end.

  Sil Karia gave me a weird look.

  “In can’t get sick,” she claimed. “But sometimes, when the body is sick, the In gets confused.”

  I nodded, or maybe my head was bobbing already out of tiredness. Funny, I thought, I shouldn’t be that tired. But then my eyes were already closing, and my head was getting drowsy. Karia simply reached over and took the mug out of my suddenly numb hand. I think I saw her gentle smile, though by then, I was already falling asleep. In no time I rested my head on Miye’s bed and fell into nothingness.

  ~~~~~

  “If Pershoni didn’t put all that gohn skip in their heads, maybe we’d be able to actually learn something!” Karia’s angry voice stirred me out of my blissful slumber. “Sick In! That’s just ridiculous!”

  I slowly lifted my eyelids letting my eyes adjust to what I thought was morning light, but instead I saw only a lamp by the bedside. While I was asleep, someone had moved me to another room. I wanted to get up and ask Karia how Miye was, but then I heard another voice:

  “For Rin’s sake, not so loud, wiefearn! Do you want to get killed for heresy?”

  I didn’t recognize who the fearn was, and it only sparked my curiosity. Why would our physician call for someone other than Miye’s father?

  “I am not saying that they don’t exist, Harrevith,” Karia said. “Just pointing out that flooding the young ones’ heads with such complicated ideas ... we would have a better chance of learning what happened otherwise. The whole colony’s existence is at stake!”

  Harrevith ... I knew this name. After a few moments, I managed to recall that it was our Elder’s son, said to be the next leader of the colony. But why would Karia call for him, and why was the colony at risk? I was anxious about eavesdropping, but I kept listening intently.

  “Karia, it’s only one sick wiefearn! Be reasonable!”

  “I would be reasonable if she had any ailment or disease I know of, but it doesn’t seem to be an ordinary fever. There’s more to it; I can tell, and it might be the start of a plague we don’t know how to fight. Before we figure it out, everybody might be dead!”

  There was a lingering silence after her words. I sat in bed trying not to breathe too loud in case they might discover I was awake. I was terrified by what I had heard, though I have to admit, I was young and had little understanding. I didn't care about the plague, and the whole colony dying seemed both improbable and unimportant at the time. All I could think of was Miye having some sickness Sil Karia didn’t know how to treat. And that she could die because of it.

  “And the young fearn?” asked Harrevith. “Is he sick too?”

  “I don’t know,” tiredness echoed in Karia’s voice. “I don’t even know if it’s contagious. I don’t know anything!” she almost shouted the last words, then paused — maybe to calm herself down. “He brought her here, they seem to be friends. He doesn’t have any symptoms, but if it’s pestilent, my guess would be either he or Tarish will catch it next.”

  There was a muffled sound that resembled 'danzen' and shuffling and rustling followed. I leaned forward straining to hear, trying to figure out what was going on, and when the realization came, I hastily landed back on my pillow pulling it over my red ears. I wasn’t the shy, blushing type, but overhearing some other fearn mating just in the next room was too much for me. Of course, all the nuances of the situation escaped me. I didn’t wonder about their motives back then, and why they kept their relation a secret instead of announcing they were mates was beyond me. Though I would never admit it back then, I was still young, and many of the subtleties of adult lives and doings were unclear to me, simply irrational nonsense at best.

  I laid in the darkness, pressing the pillow to my burning ears to muffle the sounds from the other room, and all I could think of was Miye being sick.

  ~~~~~

  Despite Sil Karia’s concerns, I didn’t get sick. She kept me in bed for another three days, but since I didn’t s
how any signs of weakness, she let me visit Miye every once in a while. Sometimes I thought she just hoped that in the end I’d catch whatever her other patient had. But I didn’t. I was the way I’ve always been, a healthy young fearn.

  Miye, to the contrary, was still sick, and even though her state did not seem to get any worse, there were no signs of recovery either. There were days when she laid motionless, unconscious but calm, and others when she shrieked in pain or moaned feverishly. And I sat there holding her hand in mine watching drops of sweat form on her skin.

  Sil Karia seemed helpless. She put compresses on Miye’s head and chest, burned incense, used balms and salves ... nothing worked. She even resorted to consulting farmers living outside of Galstead, who came from Ozellium years ago to colonize the new world, but none of them had ever heard of such sickness.

  Even when I was finally allowed to go home, I visited whenever my duties allowed. I still held night watch, staring at the forest, but fear had finally released its grip on me. I don't know whether it was due to the routine and lack of real threats, or if I started to perceive the forest the way Miye did. Of course, back then I was ready to claim it was the latter; but now, after all those years, my memory might be dimmer, but my understandings are broader. We still saw oskrin from time to time, but none of them ever came close to the palisade. Nor were there any attacks. Over time we grew used to their presence, and though no one was willing to let their guard down when outside of Galstead at dusk, fear did not cling to us anymore. We protected ourselves the best we could, and life had to go on.

  Sometimes I met Tarish in the infirmary, but we never spoke except for exchanging greetings. I could see how day after day he was slowly fading, being only a shadow of the fearn who arrived on Imheria. I don’t think he talked to anyone anymore, though from what I’ve heard, he tried to perform his duties as usual. The only person he still had some words for was Sil Karia, but more often than not he was just pleading or arguing with her. I felt embarrassed whenever I came in at the wrong time, witnessing their heated discussions. I escaped to Miye’s room hoping they didn’t even notice me.

  I think it was nearly a month since Miye had gotten sick when I learned what Tarish and Karia were arguing about. The whole settlement was buzzing like a hive of angry wasps, and news traveled quicker than wind through the trees: a feral had arrived at Galstead.