Angel, long after the Apocalypse, or a story of inspiration.

The half dozen young men considered the embarrassed, confused, grey clad figure at their electronics strewn table.

"Your spiral of crops, and the lovely irrigation canal, were just irresistible. I don't mean to be a bother, but Ange..." Is there such a thing without a God? It thought and tried. "We..." Or am I the only one, now? "I cannot walk widdershins." Shrugs.

One, the giant man, peering through thick glasses, considers, decides. "It is wise to treat such visitors with hospitality." And as one, they seat the intruder, laying before him crisp bread, a red sauce, a brown fizzing beverage, paper, pencils, and a book marked G.U.R.P.S. They grin at the stranger, expectantly.

"Has anyone been a Ronin Guardian Angel before?"

In which a Leaf is rescued by a Rope, and finds a home in Stone.

The high clouds lifted too high to conceal the low sun. I found my cold numb feet trudging along what I assumed was a road. Thick forest covering rolling hills and rocky streams stretched to my right, concealing my escape, and my past. To my left, a flat stretch of rumpled dirt, and a cold salty wind. I tottered along the subtle spine of the curve in the linear surface, at the preference of my feet. They kept themselves there, not mentioning their plans to me, since we were no longer talking, apparently. Rubber (why rubber?) under my rag wrappings, the last of too many confusions in this immeasurable time since the celebration, or whatever happened, to cause my world to end. After an eternity, when the sun failed to shift it’s glare out of my eyes, the wind changed, and strengthened. I realized it was a building storm that made the air crackle with the smell of metal screen. The grit pattered over my burned and scraped arms. My eyes teared and clamped down painfully on grains of sand. Past tired, past caring about anything, I chanted the vague words of my rescuer. Take the Road to the Abbey, take the Road to the Abbey. So, entirely by accident, I found the road.

Now, what’s an Abbey?

The violet pants he had found for me, the red shiny jacket, both were now brown with mud, torn and baggy. I felt garish and shabby at once. I missed my mother. I still grieved my lost sister. I shambled, hungry, weak, trembling with cold and fear, gusts beating at my face.

I don't know why I didn't just turn around and walk the other way. I hardly knew which direction to turn. Blame my feet. My eyes refused to open, and my head drooped.

The hard drops spattered around me. I felt fat raindrops hitting the back of my neck, warm and thick. I raised my face to the sky as a torrent descended. My eyes still closed, I opened my encrusted, dry mouth to drink. Tasting funny, I shut my lips to the rain, shuddered. The warm rain, sluiced down my arms where the jacket had come apart. I pried my lids open, to see if I was about to fall. Color saturated my vision, my hands had turned umber, my feet were bathing in a rapidly forming pool of thick, opaque fluid. The setting sun burned through the pink curtains of water slapping my face. I stopped.

It was red. Red red. Familiar crimson, thick and oppressive.

The panic froze me, stopped my breath, terror heaved up my body. I inhaled, about to scream, when the smell in my nose stopped me.

I stopped, refrained from pelting down the road screaming for unlikely help. This smelled of... not blood.

I’d had blood’s smell in my nose for days, new blood and old, nearly died in it, the weight of the body on top of me, and this, this was not, not the fountain filled with blood flowed from Emmanuel's veins, but a far deeper mystery. I put out my hands again, and gathered it in my palms. I sniffed, and thought.

And as I stood, the sky bled down harder, and I realized I could not see the length of my arm in front of me. I experimented, putting out my arms, until my hands disappeared, several times. Nor could I hear above the roar as the rain saturated the formerly flat landscape. Who knew what it would look like after this? Mountains or desert or ocean? This downpour could be hiding anything. I stooped down to see if it looked different in the puddles, in my tiny pocket of reality, searching the books in my head for a hint. In that long moment, I suddenly noticed dark fabric swinging just to my side. Without thought, I reached out to touch it, tightened my fingers and pulled. It pulled back. It stopped, and bunched. And a darker face surrounded by a mass of black yarn peered into my eyes.

"Hello." Kind eyes, wide and with smudges of brown in the white. I squatted, fascinated, wordless.

I wanted to say 'hello'. I wanted to say something, anything. But my balance abandoned me, plopped me sitting in weary astonishment, and I cried the first tears since spilling the grape drink. However many days ago. I sat in the bloody puddle and snuffled. I don't remember anything more.


Thus Spake Leaf
~

Rope

My gut churned and my shoulders shook. I was so entirely not looking forward to telling my friend of her new task. She didn’t want to be a mom, although fully qualified. But the program pulled her up first, and I knew she needed a reason not to hare off on another half considered mission.

The bath had helped me, but seeing so stunted and malnourished a child emerge from the grime, her too white skin so dermagraphic as I scrubbed, going red striped and blotched had shocked me. I had never seen such pale skin among the Abby folk, nor had she, I think, seen such dark skin as mine among whomever she had. Had. Yes, I'm sure past tense. Such silence. Even when those initial sobs racked her, she made little noise. She's seen more than is good for one so small. Much more. More like, well, like my friend who is not going to like this one damn bit.

I sighed, and stood outside her cell, and scuffed my socks on the warm floor, admired her pepper pots, and adjusted my clean knits, wet along my shoulders where my locks soaked through - and smelled odd from the peculiar rain, still. I needed to get a new robe, as they were analyzing the bugger out of the doused one. Dogfish-guts, and it fit so nice, draped perfectly, the seams covered with tape, and I'd done tedious embroidery on it. I was delaying, stop it, just tap, go on, tap. And say... what? Tell her about the rain, and the trip, start there. I tapped the stick on the floor, and heard two voices, together.

"Justasec!"

The door slid to the side, and she stood there, flushed and disheveled in her long knits. Red rimmed greenish eyes, greasy dark chestnut hair skimming her chinline, lines of strain around her mouth, but a lift, as if near tears of relief, as she took me in. My oldest friend, Stone as she is known here, though I knew her as Mer and Kanji at various phases of her life. As she knew me by other labels. Stone, I thought, fit her best.

"Oh, good, you've got your robe off.” Stone stood, swaying in exhaustion, scratching her arms idly. “Fleas. We're working on them."

Hinge worked, in the corner of her cell, pedaling, furiously churning the washer, his eyes glazed and averted, sweat dripping from him, his t-shirt dark with sweat. "Grab the sprayer over there." He ordered me, not looking at me, his voice choked and unnatural. I obeyed, and helped scrub the austere room. After a week in the field, I’d lost touch, without thinking, I asked,

"Where is Bill? How is he?" They glared away from me. Oh. "When?"

Stone pulled me aside and muttered. "Last night. We gave him the drugs, poor dog, in such agony. I had to carry him out this morning. We knew about the fleas, but, well... " She waved her hand toward the distressed and urgent man working the laundry. "They've been together for 16 years. Smart dog saved his life more than once." Her own eyes dropped a few quiet tears. "I couldn't let him use his own cell, with all those books. He dreaded the other dogs in the kennel being around to sense him grieving, to smell death. He’s not thinking really clearly. Well, not clearly for him, anyway. Here is emptier, easier." She wiped her eyes dismissively, and pulled herself up. "I think everything is sprayed. Or in the wash. Won't be able to tell for sure until tomorrow, but for now..." She shrugged.

I knew her well enough not to offer comfort, not now, not yet. Any ease would cause her to collapse, and she needed to run a bit further. Well, I certainly had a job for her. No side trips, no easing in. Not, given.

"I need you to aunt a lost cult child. Emaciated, traumatized. She probably has lice." There. It went so against the grain for me, but I knew my friend, and blunt went down better, would get her automatic altruism turned on. "She needs feeding, a complete evaluation. I think all of her kin are dead. She is barely speaking. I found her on the rubber road to Death, crouched in a puddle in the middle of a red rain."

Stone stared at me. Just stared. Ok, maybe not such a good plan after this day person had been up all night with a dear friend and a dying dog. But I had read right enough, she pulled herself up and asked, "Can I start tomorrow? She sounds like she needs the spa for the first day, right? I'll go say hi later, and percolate this through my brain, do a bit of reading up on the Rule Templates for Found Children, but I need... I need... " Her hands waved in no directions, desperately exhausted. That was my signal, I could run the rest for her.

"You need to sleep. I'll get the bedding and clothing out to dry once Hinge is done. It really shouldn't dry in here, in case you missed a few of the critters. Go to my cell, sleep. If you get down to see her today, fine, but tomorrow morning will do." I figured I'd bring her cereal and tea later as well.

"Rope."

"Yes?"

"Thanks. And take care of him, too, would you?" Stone turned to leave, then walked back vaguely, puzzled, turned again. "Hinge? I love you. I love Bill, too." He nodded, and she shuffled over to the valve to let rinse water into the turning barrel. She meandered toward the door again, stopped again, snapped her fingers, reached to the lone shelf, and slipped her pewter under her arm. "Thanks, Rope, I'll be crashed on your other futon. Oh, your t-shirt is looking rusty from your hair. Are you dying it?"

I pulled out the neck of the creamy knit, and sure enough I saw the reddish stain. Shark-infested stuff had not washed out. "Not me.” Well, not this month. “Whatever had been raining sure wasn't just water." She placed her feet over the doorstep, slid the outer lint panel of her cell shut, with a drunken deliberation, to go sleep, or pace. Not sure which.

I watched him turn the valve to drain the grey water, and speed up the gear for the spin. He was a stocky fellow, darkly themed tattoos visible on his upper back, down his arms hinted at a violent past. An old wrestler, fighter, traveler, scarred and tough. "Hinge, you about done there?" I'd never liked the guy. Too pedantic, too absolute, made me feel jumpy. Never quite got his humor, either, made me feel stupid and dull. But grief claims us all, and you never know who you might need in the midst of loss, and I might be what he needed. He gave one downward jerk of his chin, set the barrel on it's wheels, the fabric clinging to the sides. We rolled it out, and worked together, for the first time. He pulled out each item, passing sheets and clothes to me without looking, and I reached with my much longer arms to pin them up on the courtyard line, reeling them out under the spread of glass, under grey skies, under ordinary rain. Creams and greens, ochers and greys, made me long for the bright dyed hemps of summer. Few other lines of linens sprawled across the Pottage airspace today.

"Oh, carp!" I muttered. “I am just not good rushed.”

"Drop one, Rope?" Hinge asked me, in a flat perfunctory tone.

"No, I had to ask Stone for a very unpleasant favor, and I utterly forgot."

"Asking her to aunt a straggler child wasn't the unpleasant part?" Hinge peered at me, I felt wholly inadequate. And he had seemed not to be listening.

"The child came in in useless rags. The next knitting won't start until next month. She's tiny, says she's ten, but she's about the size of a six year old. Cutting down old robes is no problem, but the knits... I was going to ask Stone to talk to Zipper."

"For Towel's clothes." A deep, thoughtful sigh. "It's been a year. Not enough, but." More silence. I felt accused, and guilty. I didn't know Zipper, never met her child Towel before the fever killed the child. Now I had to ask this difficult fellow, who'd just lost his dog...

"I'll go. I know what to say to her. Tow loved Bill. Children need to be warm." Not the answer I expected. He turned away.

"She'll need a Dad, too." I pressed my luck.

"She'll need an uncle. Too old for a Dad.” Not a question. Yeah, no shad, I knew she seemed too old for a dad, but I bit my tongue, and did not explain myself. He would not ever ask me a question. Nail biter, I didn't call him either. “I'll bring her the clothes. Zipper's at the lab, in the middle of a firing. Rope, I like how you take care of Stone. And I appreciate you helping me out this morning." He strode off, still not looking me in the eye. I sighed, counted to eight several times, rhythmically, and set out to find hot cereal, and scrounge tea. If Hand wasn't too busy, I would beg a shoulder rub. Then get all the weather data updated. I fear a very cold winter.

Thus Spake Rope


~

Hinge

"Morning, Hand."

"Here to see our little Leaf?"

I proffered my small pile of soft knitted goods, and admired her softness, her dreamy grey eyes. I am allowed, she has knitted me up more than a few times, and her gentility gave me ease as the pain of her needle moved in her sure hands. Her illusion still worked on me, every time, though I knew how much steel lay underneath. "What we're calling her, is Leaf?"

"She blew in with the storm. It seemed to fit her. Came in sort of clinging to Rope's sleeve. Rather comical, with this awful plastic red coat in shreds. Oh, I have a nice old cut-down for her, very soft old wool. It'll keep her warm this winter. These are nice. Zip did some pretty colors on them, didn't she?" She babbled on, and I drifted, not much listening, just enjoying the balm of her voice, the roundness of her, the clean warm aromas of her spa.

"Bill died last night. Well, we put him down, really." I hesitated to tell even her. Still, she just nodded.

"I helped Stone find a good spot for him. I'm sad for you. Maybe you'll need to find a dog for our Leaf, now." I felt the sting behind my eyes, and rubbed my face, not like I could fool this one, but she had a touch for leaving folks as much dignity as possible. "He was a very special dog. And lucky to have found you."

"So, you got our mudpuppy all spruced up?" I changed the subject, unobtrusively.

"And drugged to the eyeballs. She has some deep lacerations, caked in mud, a pressure ulcer on her right hip - no idea how, and she had what looked like an anxiety attack in the bath. Probably never been submersed before. She went stiff as ice, shaking and whimpering, almost thought she’d had a seizure. May have been. I just laid her out with the drugs, fluids through the IV, did what I could, got her warmed. Salmon will be taking over shortly, see what he thinks about all the bruising, see if he thinks we should sew her up, or just keep on with the dressing changes. He's seen a lot more of this on the Asian Chain than I ever will here."

Ah, history, my area of expertise, I tried not to think about things like lacerations too much. "We have not had a wild survivor in 48 years on this chain, and not at this Abby for 73. Really figured the outside groups were all gone, or accounted for in this area. She look like a Gypsy?"

"Fair haired, and so white she's pink, like the old pictures. Touch her and her skin shows where your hands were. She's going to need food, so at least four parents, maybe a grandparent or two. Bones sticking out all over."

"How long's she been starving?"

"This really looks like years of malnutrition, then maybe a week or a bit more, of just forest scavenging. Hard to tell." She dropped her eyes, angry and frustrated, and remembering other starved creatures, normally furry, animals she'd cared for, ones I'd brought her, often.

"Lemme take a peek at my new cousin." She slid aside the door, and on the low platform, curled into a nest of blankets on the futon, lay a tiny bird of a child. For a shadow of a moment, I imagined a black dog curled around her in the dim lights from around the floor. My heart beat too fast, and my fists tensed, and the image vanished, a fold, my eyes adjusted revealing only a small breathing being, sickly pale and snoring. "It's Uncle Hinge, and I am going to take really good care of you, little one. You'll train dogs to herd sheep, or find missing folks. And a really smart cat, for inside, to sleep at your feet, and catch mice under the glass. You'll like a cat, keep you warm." Hand stood, smirking at me, but kindly, so I saluted her, and left before I said anything else stupid. I had animals to care for, waiting for me. Just, not Bill.

Thus Spake Hinge
~
Leaf

I drifted a long, long time. Muddled together, real and dream, or confused half consciousness. Memories seemed far off, specks high in the sky. There, but meaningless and inaccessible. I don't remember being picked up, but I have vague sensations of my head brushing against softly itchy wool. I do remember being scrubbed, warm water poured over me, over and over, and I realized how cold I had been only as I warmed. My feet started returning to painful life. And a man walking in, and I floated, naked, and I shouted and shouted to protect myself from such sin, just like my mom taught me. Then bundled, and shivering, sharp pins in my arm, I drifted again. I heard words like "She's nice and pink." Which I felt they said about me, but I don't know why I thought so. I think I slept a long time, and a large, warm, furry animal curled around me, panting in my ear. I know I dreamt my mother's voice - because I have had those dreamz before - telling me she loves me. But this time, when I asked if I should pray and ask God for help, instead of telling me to have faith and trust in Him, she just hummed my favorite lullabye and faded. I saw other faces, but they were far away, nothing to do with me.

I woke, for real, I think, to total darkness, and the wind pushing against the walls. I wondered where I was, not in the sense of not being where I expected, but really, where was I? I wanted to get up, but my feet were thickly bandaged and seemed stuck in the blankets. I tried to sit up, but my head spun wildly. Lying down seemed like a reasonable alternative, really. I explored my arms, also bandaged, more lightly, and a tube lead out of one. Well. All in all, I felt better than I had out in the forest, so, I figured I'd wait, and see how this goes. I shivered, and felt nauseated, and so very tired, still. I drifted off to other nightmares, but I cannot remember them now.

When I woke again, a warm hand squeezed my shoulder, and a tender voice whispered,

"Are you hungry?"

I couldn't open my eyes, my head full of cotton lead, as I tried to move, to make a sound.

"Oh, my, your poor eyes, here." A pause, and a warm wet cloth firmly scooped away the gunk, and I managed to open my eyes. "Your hands are all wrapped up, but you should be able to move them." One arm lay fast asleep, the other one, the one with the tube could, indeed, move. The face in front of me appeared, narrow, comical, with grey eyes flecked with speckles, and very little visible hair, a vast and naked forehead, and an immensely reassuring grin. "Can you talk?"

"Hi." Hey, it was all I could manage.

"You can call me Salmon. Does this hurt? Do you understand what I am saying to you?" His hands were systematically squeezing me, pressing down on my shoulders, probing my head, face bones, ribs.

"Yup." His accent sounded strange, and not all the words were quite right, but, yeah, I did. "M'arm's sasleep." I tried to breath, but my nose felt stuffed right up to my eyes. And, occasionally, "Ow." He pressed down my belly, and let go, rocked my hips, briskly walked fingers down my legs. It all hurt, but I determined to be brave. Odd, I didn't mind, even when he had me roll on my side, and ran his fingers down my back. It felt caring.

"I just want to listen to you breathe, here." And he pressed his ear to my chest. Moved his face and pressed his ear to my back. I tried to not think about breathing, although all I could think about. I wanted to touch his arm, but I uncertain if I should, if he would allow.

"You have a lot of bruises and scrapes, and a nasty cold, but you'll be fine. Think you can eat a bit?" He tilted his head to line up with mine. "Maybe? Huh? Sure you can. Don't worry, Hand made it, not me. With me you'd get yak milk. Hand does a nice duck broth, and some press bread. Good for an empty stomach."

"How come I'm not so thirsty?" I explored my dry mouth, still, not as thirsty as I remember being on the road. "Water in this tube?"

"Got it in one. Ah, a smart one." His eyebrows waggled, I giggled, hoarsely. I sounded funny to myself. "Let's get you sitting up, and I'll get you some nourishment. Ok, little one?"

I still had no idea where I was, and then I remembered to ask. "Is this the Abbey?"

"One of them, yes. Where you told to come here?" He sparked, instantly, sharply alert.

But I waned, too tired, and I started to cough hard, and sneezed four times in a row. I nodded, and hoped he understood. He seemed to swallow more questions. Instead, he propped me up, and slowly fed me some salty wonderful warm soup, until sleep overtook me again. I held his words in my dreams, I had taken the Road, and found the Abbey. Halleluia.

Thus Spake Leaf

~
Stone

I paced. I checked my email. I checked my task list, and found it all snitched by my fellows, who all knew I'd been burying Bill in the compost at dawn. My arms ached, my eyelids sandpapered my eyeballs. My head buzzed, not allowing two thoughts to line up, but I could not sleep. I managed about two hours, then woke painfully, sure to see the next morning. I paced. Oh, wait, I mentioned that. Finally, I decided to just return to my own cell, and risk the dogie fleas. Doggy fleas. Come along little doggie fleas, yee haw! Oh, hairybutts, getting punchy. Had gotten. Willen haven will go be gone punchy, how would they conjugate in a time traveling reality?

The door slid open. My dear, dearest friend slid open the door. Even if we rarely understood each other, we just kept on being good friends. Rope carried dried cereal in a bag, in one hand, my mug in the other. "Gonna make you some real tea. How’s tea sound, O Sleepless One?"

"Better. I'll stoke up the charcoal. Where is your kettle?" I moved to help Rope.

"Um. Stone, my dear, you are not looking too steady. I’ll take care of the hot items, this morning. Did you get any rest this week, since the harvest got in?"

I thought. Thought hard. My mind hit a snowdrift and stuck there. She waited. I shook my sore head, and thought again. "I can't quite remember. Which probably means not much. I got to bed every night, but, um." I rubbed my face, shrugged.

"I'll make you tea. You just sit there not burning anything down. I brought you some sleepy drugs from Salmon. Saw our pale little child. Dead to the world for the moment. Sal told me Hinge looked in on her. They had to shave her head, she had such bad mats, and lice underneath."

"You mentioned the lice earlier."

"So I did." She built up a tiny fire in the iron box, pumped water into her kettle, and I watched, entranced by her practiced movements. "The rain is still coming down. I'm predicting strong winds tonight. My new stations are all on line, sending me pretty pictures." She made happy, hummy noises, off key, and I sigh-laughed. I slid the lint screen open enough to look at the grey wet rain on the fields outside. I let a tear or two fall, for a dog, and his friend. I fantasized about a lost child finding home. Rough home, this will be for her, I knew.

I waited for tea, and sleep, in exact order. Figured to go back to my own bed in the evening. Tomorrow, I would have a small roommate. I would go meet her in the morning. Tomorrow, when I had attention and care left to give. Now, I had to accept care, so I would.

Thus spake Stone
~
Leaf

"Come in, come in!" I heard the susurrations of several new voices, none familiar to me yet, through my clogged ears. I rested propped up on various stuffed sacks, pondering which nostril let in more air, as I eavesdropped. Only Stone's cadences were in my ears, her strange pronunciations and frequent, inviting laugh.

"Ah, Stone, you are looking better this week? D'you get some sleep?"

"Enough, bit by bit. New roomie has been sleeping even more." My Stone. Talking about me.

"Well, we brought in a fine harvest. We'll be good even if we miss a couple summers, again."

"Maybe even three!" A babble of objection and amusement rose up. "Only if the plastic holds up."

"Plastic is a resource not going away for a long century."

"I heard our winter Travelers found thousands of plastic frogs and ducks."

"Yeah, but I bet they don't look like real frogs or ducks." Chuckles and lots of talking all at once. I had a plastic toy frog, once, I wanted to say. I lay hidden in the side alcove, the paper screen shielding me from the gathering. And my voice sounded creaky and honky, and it hurt to talk anyway. I would tell them later.

"Have you got your warmer going? I got spuds and peppers here, Table has pumpkin and duck, and Scree has creamed honey tarts." A deep, dark voice charming me, I instantly wanted to hear it over and over.

A slide, a thump, another, higher, carrying voice, "I got the greeness! Saag paneer, and hot as coals." Followed by more greetings and talk of food, leaving me bored. Still nauseated, I couldn't smell anything, and the bread here tasted odd. Fresh milk and cheese were horrible experiences, though I could tell I'd confused poor Stone when she brought them to me with such expectation of appreciation. I'd tried to eat, because she worried over my bones sticking out, the sores were not healing on my legs and feet, and told me food would help. I just couldn't manage much more than the broth. I struggled to chew, my teeth hurt so. The hot tea soothed nicely, rose hip she called it, and my mouth did feel better today.

"How's life out in the Bachelor Spiral?"

"Weird." Warm, deep voice again. "We have a new member. Showed up looking... abashed is the only word to describe thim. Not sure if thee qualifies as an unattached male, thee's a good gamer."

"Just showed up? Well, sounds suspicious!" Sarcasm, I thought, as Stone had explained it to me. But I had just shown up, too. Was I suspicious?

"We thought so. No, thing is, thee shuffled there, picking up our electronic parts, with this eloquent confusion. We walked in, and thee froze, and said,” The dark voice took on a lighter tone, and a slower cadence, "Your spiral of crops, and the lovely irrigation canal, were just irresistible. I don't mean to be a bother, but Ange..."

"Ange?"

"Thee just stood there, thinking, looked like. Then stuttered out "We" like an ancient Royal We, stops thimself, and says "I cannot walk widdershins." So, we just go ahead and pull out the GURPS like usual, and thee plays Ronin Guardian Angel. Hasn't left the outside of the windmill since. Thee sleeps up on the top story, keeps the place a lot cleaner than usual."

"Ain't saying much."

"We call thim Angle. Not sure if thee gets it, but thee answers to it."

The high woman's voice again, "You reckon thee's an Angel? Or maybe a time traveler, like Hinge so wants to believe?"

"Hinge is way too deep into those old NPR files. He hears Pre-apocalyptic English in Leaf's speech, and has a pet theory she’s a time traveler." Stone, again. I didn't think I could be a time traveler, but maybe Hinge would explain how I got from when my family existed to whenever this place existed. "She hasn't spoken enough this past week for anyone to tell. She's been a sick little puppy. Coughing her lungs up, seems like."

"Hand is very worried about her. Good we had the tetanus shot, a lucky stroke, last dose we had left after all the harvest injuries." It sounded like Salmon, maybe. I sneezed and coughed, and tried to shift around and get comfortable. I’d been noticed, because Salmon said, "Since apparently she is not sleeping, I'll go in and take a peek." The screen slid, and his amused face appeared.

"How's it going, Leaf?" Salmon should know, he’d checked on me at least twice a day since my suspicious arrival.

"The tube is gone." I sounded barky, and wheezed out a hoarse giggle at the sound of myself, which I found even funnier, and Salmon laughed with me.

"Must mean you are drinking enough. Wanna come out and join the bunch? Maybe we can tempt you with a bit of food?" He held out his hand, and I took it. "Let me wipe some of the sliminess off of you." He took a cloth, dipped it in the basin, and rubbed my face, and over my bare head. "Your hair is coming in a bit." I stopped. He shook his head, and pulled out of his sleeve a knit blue cap, and put it on me. "Even so, you won't be the only one out there without hair," and ran his hand over his own scalp. I pulled my legs out from under the covers.

"How come you are so good with me?" The old ladies at the compound usually just pinched me, and the men and boys ignored me, if I were lucky. But here’s this man, touching me as gently as my own mother. I felt like crying, and it confused me.

"Oh, I've raised five children, and they all seem to be doing pretty well. I rather like you little guys." He jiggled my shoulder, then held my left elbow, and laid a hand on my back, steering my weak legs toward the main room.

No one looked at me directly as Salmon ushered me in and sat on the platform near the cook spot. Only Stone caught my eyes, then smiled faintly, and disappeared for a moment, returning with one of the big stuffed sacks for me to lean on. The conversation continued, and the dark voiced man, much taller than I imagined, handed me a bowl with a few bits of food inside. He had thick lenses in front of his eyes in black frames, and directed a question at me. "Have you seen any wonders, lately?" I swallowed painfully, and tried to form an answer.

"Leave the poor child be, Lens, she can't even talk easily, and you want her to spout philosophy!" One of the other voices, she, or he, so thee - since I couldn't tell, with a shaved head like me. I wondered how thee got lice, too. "Don't let him bother you, he's strange because he is always up at night."

Lens smiled so hard his eyes vanished in the folds of his face. "You, dear Gear, are just jealous, because I always see the Northern Lights while you are dead asleep."

"You could have woken me." And thee did a blat noise with thir mouth at Lens.

"I tried. Sonic booms wouldn't wake you."

I focused on the bowl as the teasing continued, and they started talking in a language I could not follow. Words sounding like ‘I summer’, and stressload, and ergh and dine. The red vegetable looked bright and I picked it up in my spoon. It tasted a little sweet, surprisingly bitter when I crunched down on it. I decided I liked it. The white chunks were covered with a creamy sauce, and tasted wonderful. No green mush at all, none offered. My nose cleared enough for me to smell a little, and the aroma surrounded me, like no food I had ever had before.

“Should let her try saag, she’d be able to breathe at least.” Gear, I thought.

Stone put her hand on the shaved head, saying “No. Not even. All I need is green vomit all over my new straw mat. Or her head spinning. This stuff is nearly lethal for me, I have no idea how to calculate a pediatric dose, do you Salmon?”

Lens dropped another ladleful of the creamy stew in when he noticed my empty bowl. Then I figured it out. They were not all looking at me - on purpose, so I wouldn't feel peered at. I experimented, looking at the Gear, who’d let me off the question, but wanted to poison me, and she kept catching me out of the side of her vision, and when she noticed me staring at her, she (no, not thee, she, I thought), she smiled with her eyes, nodded slightly and looked away with the smile for me still there. Stone glanced at me most often. The one with the soaring voice, winked at my gaze, then launched into a long story about, um, underwear, like the borrowed knits I wore. Gratitude welled up, and I choked, then began to cough and cough until I spit up into my hand cloth. Blood still, but less than yesterday. Lens gathered me up, and plopped me into my alcove nest. "More tomorrow, right?" I nodded, not really understanding, but ready to drift back to sleep.

The conversation lulled me into dreams. In my dreams the voices grew harsh and angry, arguments about what God meant when He said He would take all the sheep and leave the goats. My mother sat beside me, holding my hand tightly. Deer jumped over me with a clattering rush. Trees reached out branches to scratch and clutch. And I had the grape drink in my hand, and my fearsome father towered over me, and slapped my cup, so the purple spilled all over me. I knew better than to object, or show tears, and he drank his own. And grabbed me to him, and toppled over onto me, over and over and over.

I woke with a start, gasping for breath. In the dark, and very quiet room, I woke very hungry, and reached for the little switch, turned on the glow. My bowl sat on the floor beside me, and I fished in with my fingers, eating the crunchy, salty stuff, washed it down with the cold rose tea beside it.
Thus Spake Leaf
~

2

Stone

"Oh, child, you look so much better this morning. Lemme see your eyes." I opened my eyelids for inspection, and apparently passed.

"Are you feeling better, too?" I croaked, with improved clarity. I knew she had left me alone a few hours every day, then spent a lot of time clicking on her screen thing, gave me broth a lot, but she also slept almost as much as I did, whenever I woke, she woke with me.

"Yeah, I do this right after harvest. Work all the hours, getting it all in and dried and sealed, plus cataloguing all the bugs, get 'em in the pewter..." she gestured toward the now folded flat box. "Then crash for a few days. Taking care of poor Bill and Hinge, I had not expected, but you do what you do for friends, after all." She sighed, and did not add me to her list of weights.

"And then me."

"No, no, you actually meant I took enough time to rest. And eat properly. It's been good having you here." She took my hand. "Really. I am not a kid person, but you, you have made me feel like coming back here and..." She waved her other hand vaguely. "I've been here two years, I have friends, sure, but no one, no one personally needs me. Last night, for the first time a bunch met here. Usually we meet at Lamp's or Hand's, or just gather in the restaurant. They all wanted to come meet you. You are quite the curiosity."

"Me?"

"You. Don't worry, no one will intrude. Actually, some will, but all you have to do is say you have to leave, cue the nosey ones in." She shuffled around with mugs and bowls, tea and cereal. "Are you getting used to the pot?"

"Yes." Embarrassing. The first time, with Hand and Salmon, they had to carry me to a pot in a small room. I didn't understand, none of the words were familiar, and Hand pretended to, um, go. She pulled up the garment I was sort of wrapped in, and pointed and gestured. I managed to get them to leave me to it, and they left. I hesitated, worse than the hole in the woods, but at least only the boy who rescued me could have seen, with his back turned and far enough away not to listen. I sat, sort of, and emptied. Then wondered where the water tap came in. I started crying in frustration, and Hand came in and wiped me, and had me rub my hands with the dissolving chips, then threw some on my mess. All the while muttering 'It's ok, it's alright." But it wasn't, it really wasn't.

"The paper this year kinda shreds. Last year's worked better, much more cohesive. But at least the new chip batch actually does stop the odor. And I saw the research, it's really good for hand cleaning." She babbled on. “We need to haul the pots out to the Compost Heap each week, sooner on a bad week, put them on the solar truck, and Mop’s assistants dump it. Even the pot is composted. What did you grow up with, what kind of pot did you have?" This sounded like a guilty question, an emotion I’d been taught thoroughly. But sin seemed to be a different set here, and I intended to figure it out.

"Well, there was water in it. It was white shiny stone, with a black ring, it flipped up and down, for sitting on. Then there was a lever, whooshed the water, and everything disappeared. The old women cleaned it every day. It was a beautiful room, all tile and a big mirror. Only women used it, and girls. We'd wash it, and sing." But we never talked about what the room was for, even though everyone seemed to know.

"What did you sing?" Not the question she wanted to ask, but I had no idea what puzzled her.

"There is a Fountain Filled with Blood, Flowed from Emmanuel's veins." I sang, but my voice couldn't make the right notes. "It sounded better, bouncing off the tile." And I usually just sang the echoes, Guilty stains, sins away...

"You'll get your singing back after all your congestion clears up."

"I'm sorry about throwing up on your blanket." Awful, awful mess I’d made.

"You weren't the first, you won't be the last. Slippery Elm works really well for some people for sore throats, but I can't keep the filthy mess down either. Robe took it to wash and air out. It'll be fine."

"Why does Robe wear yarn on her head?"

She spit out her tea, laughing. "No, it’s just how her hair grows. In locks, dreadlocks. A lot of her genetic ancestors were from Africa and the Caribbean. When we take on a Commitment, or Apprenticeship, we either keep our head shaved, like Gear, or not cut it at all, like Robe. She's on a five year rotation, putting out weather stations."

"So, the one last night, she didn't have lice?"

"Don't think so. Thee's studying to make chips for the pewters, and recycling whatever old pewters we can salvage. Thee flies the solar plane through the summer. I'm sorry we had to do that to you, and without your permission. You had quite the infestation. Did your head itch a lot?"

"I guess. Feels better now." I sighed, "Is Gear a she or a thee?"

"Thee prefers thee. As far as I know, thee is pretty much female, but scored pretty high on some of the masculine scores. Thee is always the polite pronoun, if you are not sure, or even if you are."

"But why? It’s important for a girl to be a girly, or a boy to be manly." Had it drummed into me all my life.

"The Cassandras thought about it a lot during the decade underground. It started out as an experiment, to really raise children without gender. And to include anyone who didn't fit completely on one side of a non-existant line. And since children together tend to enforce gender stereotypes most strongly, to keep them surrounded by adults most of the time. There were no children in the bunkers, none born during the time underground - one of the Inexplicable Mysteries. Obviously, English lacked a gender neutral pronoun for a person, so they used Thee - an archaic form meaning you, and mangled a few words to sound normal. Turns out, most of the expectations about what men are and what women are were gross exaggerations, at best. And I am so putting you to sleep."

"No, I just, sometimes I don't understand what you are saying. I get the idea, mostly, but the words sound weird." And the questions overtook me, all crowding out, wanting to be asked, the ones in the back getting forgotten.

"Because we don't quite speak the same language. You seem to be speaking pre-apocalyptic English. We speak Abbey - which had English as a root, a practical choice, since it happened to be the only language just about everyone surviving spoke at the time. It’s not everyone’s main language, but the common one. Don't get me started. You are looking at the only Etymologist/Entomologist in the whole of the Abbey System."

"I really did not understand." Nor hoped to pronounce.

"I study bugs and words. You do seem to know a lot more than I would guess from a child not raised on the pewter curriculum."

"I had a lot of books. I read them." Boxes of the same books, whole shelves full of different books. Getting tired of talking, so much after being so ill, I chewed on a fingernail.

"I think you could go meet the dogs today. Hinge says he has one for you. A stray, just like you. And a cat for both of us. I think my days of an empty, tidy cell are over." She sounded a little sad, and a little glad. I felt a little guilty.

"What is a dog?" I knew pigeons and rats, saw other birds, knew what a dead deer looked like, and had deer jump over me as I slept in the forest. But what is a dog? Or a cat?

She ran her hand over my scabbed, velvet scalp, and said, "You will find out very soon. And a real meal in the restaurant, green beans and salad and rice, and my own duck roasted. First, lets get you clean and dressed."

I found out what the cone hanging down from in the ceiling the tiny room did. I wet myself down in the cool water, soaped up, rinsed off. This would become the daily routine. The bath, soaking in hot deep water, after being scrubbed and a rinsing bucket upturned over my head would, sadly, only be every ten days - a week. I dressed in the clean knits, ran a finger over the colored yarn drawing out a spiral around the upper sleeve and pant hem. A knitted sweater in cream and grey, black soft, slightly itchy pants, and a patchwork robe, buttoning down the front. It fit perfectly, clean and warm, and I felt like I belonged, or could belong here.

"Where is the box these came from?" I had never seen anything like them.

"The knits belonged to another child who lived here. The robes for children are all cut down from larger robes and clothes. You got some very old fabric there." She smoothed the wool over my shoulders.

"Did she die?" I’m wearing corpse clothes?

"Towel had a fever, like you, thee suffered and fell very ill. But thee was much younger, and we couldn't save thim. Thee died about a year ago. When you showed up, thir mom gave us thir knits for you."

"I'd like to thank her." I remembered my own mother, and the three little brothers who died when they were still babies. And my older sister, who vanished one day, they brought her body back, but wouldn't let me see her, never explained what happened to her. Mom seemed to die a bit herself then, and with each baby lost. Until the last one, when she just died.

Stone gazed at me, and hugged me hard. I think she hid crying.

Thus Spake Leaf
~
Hinge

"Well, my dogs, which one of you doesn't have a job, or a pink hairless top dog right now?" I bellowed out, which got 'em all barking like crazy. I do like getting them going in the morning. Brought them food, sang and with them, and what do they give me, "Nothing but aggravation, right guys?" Where would I be without them?

"Hey, Bolo,” Where hid my meed? They get past 20, and they learn how to hide better. “How's 'lucky' doing?" Strays from all over the place recently. Never saw such a mangled leg. Ah, there's my journeyman, knew he'd be here somewhere. Probably listening to my old NPR files. Good to have a fellow history geek around, laughs at my best jokes.

"Morning Hinge, Bob's doing fine. Perked right up this morning, walking around in his kennel when I got here. Really sweet animal, doesn't mind anything. Come take a look."

"I'm going to have our little cult child train him. Not sure what for yet, doesn't look like a herder, not much terrier in him either. Do you know if Salmon spayed him while anesthetized?" I'd hoped Bob would be well enough, the two could recoup together, each have a friend.

"Sure did boss, his spay scar seems to bother him more than where the mangled back leg used to be. Wolfed down all his food, but didn't mind the plastic hand, just licked it to check for food residue."

"Little early to test for aggression, don't you think?” Sharp guy, took good care of all the animals. “And you got all of the puppies fed already?"

"You've been having a rough patch, figured you'd want some time to get Leaf here. I heard thee felt better."

"Rumor around here is amazing, even to me after all these years, sometimes." I hadn’t mentioned Leaf coming today, in case. Well, maybe I had, come to think.

"Third hand from an biased source, boss." And gave me a shiteating grin. "Shad and giggles, all the time. Oh, and the cat is ready too. Hates, hates, hates being around the dogs. But I can handle him, he is just mellowness in a black furry coat. No biting, put out his claws, but don't scratch, then licks. Not over friendly, but not wild either. I got word back from Spigot, poor critter was thir cat, chip checks out, disappeared over two months ago, showed here last week. Covered about 350 kilometers to get home. Guess the mice taste better here."

"Teleporting cats. Again." A joke, those paws were raw and every bone visible, too farting skinny. Now, healing like mad and putting on all kinds of weight, in a bare week. "Well, Bolo me boy, since you have done all my work, I will go fetch the wee lassie, and give this poor scarred, three legged dog a boss of his own. And that cat, a kid to boss around."

I lumbered up to Stone’s cell. This always excited me, but usually I had younger beginners. To have a more grown child, if not officially a kid yet, proved a treat for me. And I'd get to listen to her familiar cadences, she sounded just like my dear old voices from radio past. My lost world. Wouldn't it be a wonder if it turned out she really had traveled from back then? And there she sat, all bundled up, waiting in the doorway, watching for me. Not a pretty one, but strong eyes, wouldn’t be lifting rocks, but she could surely cling to one through a torrent.

"I love listening to the singing." She smiled up at me. If she'd been a dog, she'd have been thumping her tail. "And looking up at the glass." I stopped, and did the same. Really noticed the morning raga, so familiar I forgot about it. I gazed skyward, and the sun on the many panes burned gorgeous, a miracle of our engineers. I'd had my head down too long, while Bill suffered. I looked up with her, and sang along in the glory of dawn, and life. While the last note soared away, I looked down, and she stared at me with her mouth open. "I didn't know men could sing so beautifully." Well, I guess she had much to learn, but so did I. So did I.

"First, let's leave your top heavy robe off. I know you don't have much fat yet, but I think just the sweater will be enough for today." Stone appeared.

"You sure? She does get cold pretty easily. And it is frosty."

"She'll be moving enough. I can let thir snuggle up to the dog. The sun's out, too. My alpaca’s wool is good." And her sweater had turned out well, only a bit big. A calming job during my grieving week. And not so much of Bill's old fur to make it smell too much like dog. "Any more parents lined up for her?"

"Zipper wants to take her on, and Hand and Salmon. So, she'll be living up here, not down in the Town. Probably best, been the protocol for other found children. They have so much to learn, and they are not babies. Although, several foursomes already raising kids have made offers." She shrugged, and put an arm around Leaf. She could not give up this child, despite her misgivings and protestations of not liking kids. Well, good. She needed a reason to stay, settle, and someone who needed her.

"I think you are her best choice for primary Aunt. You passed the Parent course, with flying colors, I looked. I've been reading up on rule templates, think I found a good one to fit her. I'll send it to you, if you want to look, see if you think it's a good set to start with. And I've put her in for a pewter. The Travelers have one she can have, they'll be here in a week or two." Get her properly assessed, start a thorough education.

"I have a template started, but I'll take a look at yours, too. Go, take her to the dogs." She retrieved the robe, and shooed us off.

Leaf looked up at me, took my hand, and we set off.

Until we got to the stairs. I started down, and she froze. No tears, no protest, just clamped her hand on the railing, and stopped. I tugged, and she didn't budge. What the...? Then I knew, seen it in dogs who never came inside. She'd never encountered stairs before.

Rather blew my time traveler theory.

Thus Spake Hinge

~
Stone

"Rope, how's it blowing?" Her locks were dripping onto her sweater, just like last week, but not stained. "Did you enjoy the bath?" Just being nosey, I knew Zipper had Leaf down there, teaching her the routine.

"Afternoon, Stone, hi Hinge. Going to be cold for the Shi Fest tomorrow, but probably no rain. Clouds maybe. Bath was hot." She glared at me. I waited. There lurked a story. I looked away, mock guilty. She knew I knew. Hinge did not know.

"Oh, carp, we never talked to Leaf about the Shi Fest, did we?" Hinge loved the fests, even while he worried over his animals because of the noise. I always managed to catch site of his butt in at least one of the alcove shrines every fest. Not on purpose, really, not like I intentionally looked. Unsettling how the image of him coupling both repulsed and excited me. Damn, pull back to where are. Rope still quietly munching on the remains of lunch. Hand came over, sat and nibbled as well, also pointedly not being nosey, oh, no.

"So, I saw you went into the bath, did you see Leaf?" Hand had no subtlety, I thought. "I wondered how her pressure sore looked now. Didn't want to intrude."

We were all staring at our damp friend, who kept eating my duck as though she didn't notice. In the expectant, uncomfortable silence, Rope finally sighed, full of drama and exasperation. "Ok, fine, you all want to know. I walk in, drop my clothes in to churn, and Zipper is teaching Leaf to scrub and rinse properly. Everything is fine. I wash fast, like I do, and stop over to say hi. Zip's all telling her 'it's ok, it's no sin to be naked in the bath, you can look.'" Saying Zipper's lines in a higher pitch, I'm not sure if she is mocking, but she's got the voice perfect.

"So, she's apparently got something out of the kid about how she grew up. I'm feeling like a big naked monster, but whatever. I go steep myself, all quiet, water up to my chin. She brings Leaf in, smooth, easy, talking her through the whole way, which is ok, not what I like, but ok, you know?"

Rope, usually queen of sweet talk, over talking everything, except to me because I call her on it, make her get to the damn point. I love her, but damn, be nice and terse, I say. And she's complaining about one-word-Zipper talking too much.

"So she gets the kid to put her face in the water, blow bubbles, first step, right, normal, and she's doing it. Ok, fine, and they quiet down and just float and soak. Well, Bolo walks in."

Hand puts her head in her hands.

"She is screeching, full on panic, splashing and she goes under and Hand and I try to grab her, and she's fighting with all she's got. Little naked eel thrashing. And Bolo tries to help. Thought she fought before, now she is a whirling, gasping tornado. I thought we were all going to drown, honestly. Takes all of us, and a big towel wrapped around her just to get her out of the water."

"Did she, was she molested?" Hinge, the darkest thoughts, and he charged in, with full armor, ready to do battle.

"Not impossible, I suppose, but she seemed pretty articulate, after, with Zipper, once Bolo left. Seeing a male naked her Preacher deemed a sin, also according to her mother, reinforced by the other 'old ladies ' in her group. And to be seen naked far worse. She figured it had something to do with why her older sister died, and why they wouldn't let her see the body after. She really didn't understand some of the questions we asked, so I think molestation is really unlikely. But her imagination filled the gap with far worse demons, old hell like the religions had. And there is a huge part of her story she can't tell yet. She seems to want to, but can't find the words, I'm thinking. Strange thing, because when I bathed her the day I brought her in, she went very quiet, looked maybe a little panicked, but I figured she’d just never been full in water before."

"Zipper got her tucked in?" Hand stood up, to go see her patient.

"Yes, after she stitched up this." She held out her arm, with two neat suture knots poking out. "She got a few herself, but didn't need to sew them up. Almost as good with the needle as you, Hand. Bolo's going to have a few bruises. Leaf got him in the face with her feet. He just wishes children had a scruff to grab. I will say, she didn't bite. Give her credit. Swallowed a lot of water, though. All four of us. Too much excitement for me, after almost being blown away with my station this morning. Gust caught me up in a tree, and not bolted down yet. I should not have to envision my own death twice in a day."

"Rope, let me give you some sleepy tea, check you over."

"No thanks, Hand. Now I've eaten, I just need to lie down and be very very quiet and alone. Shirley was surely tasty, Stone. Thanks." She left me to clean up, I had not reason to object. Hand simply left. She does, often.

"Hinge, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yup. Maybe I'll sedate her and put her in the kennel tomorrow." He gave me a hangdog leer. "Well, she loves Bob, and Bob loves her. She put a rock on his head, and he just balanced it there. Looked really funny. There is one bright dog, she's going to have to be more stubborn to get such a critter trained, and evidence would suggest she will be."

"You are changing the subject."

"Let Zip handle it." Hinge reached over and squeezed my hand, "Really, leave it to her. She's studied the old religions, she knows the words. She talks so rarely, but when she does, she's a hell of a catalyst. She knows children. I'll remind her, but I am sure she already has a costume ready for Leaf."

"Oh, dear friend, how can I be a primary for this child, I never even thought about this at all?"

"We all have to start somewhere. This is where you start. Oh, and the cat should go to your cell later. I promised Leaf. And she gets to name him, I explained how we name animals around here."

"Could you just sedate me, and keep me in the kennel with the dogs tomorrow?" I wasn't completely joking. A cat. I wasn't ready, but honestly, I never was, and I jumped in anyway. No, I'd be staying sober, and out of any alcove couplings. Those days were over for me. I rubbed my shaved pate, and headed down to scrape off the velvet, and have a soak. Leaving the cleaning up to Hinge.


Thus Spake Stone
~
Leaf

I counted on my fingers. I counted seven, I could remember at least seven, and there were, I knew, a few days I lost, even after I got here. Where, I wondered, Sunday gone? I thought about this a lot, wrapped up snugly, trying not to remember how I hurt Rope, and Zipper, and even poor Bolo - who I know now meant no harm. I shudder to be so wrong, all the old rules were wrong, my world all gone. But there had to be a Sunday, because there had to be God, right? And God was Sunday, praying with Preacher, mom on one side of me, usually with a baby in her arms - one or other doomed brother, and Father on my right, praying loudest of all. All day long, and no food, only a bit of water, sitting on the hard blocks, kneeling on the hard floor, in the fanciest clothes we could find from the boxes in the dark corners of the building.

"Are you ok, Leaf?" Zipper didn't seem mad at all. "You look very sad and worried. Didn't you like your dog?"

"I love Bob. But aren't they going to take him away from me after what I did?" I never met a dog before, and now all I wanted was my dog, and the cat for home. I messed it all up, and they were going to throw me out on the road where Rope picked me up.

"No, Bob needs you. And so does Cat. Needs a better name than Mitchell, too." She shook her head, a mass of wild curls drawing my hand to touch. "No wonder that cat ran away, back here. Cat needs to be named carefully." I clasped my fingers together, to hold myself together.

"I never thought of it that way. They need me?" They need me? No one ever needed me before. "Bolo told me never to stare at a dog, but it's ok to stare at a cat, as long as I blink slowly every once in a while. And to put my hand out to a dog hand open, palm down..." I showed her, "but to make a fist to greet a cat. Odd, isn’t it?"

"Yup. You have to meet people half way, see it how they see it. Dogs have a strong social hierarchy, top dog down to underdog, upsets them when you mess with it. Cats are loners, loosely social if there is enough food, so you just rub their face with the part of you they see as another cat face. Respect their instincts, and they'll do their best to see your side of it as well." She had her head down, curls of red brown hair surrounding her head, embroidering a small leaf on my robe, in a dark green yarn, and occasionally clacking on her pewter, watching the picture on it.

"I'm so sorry I hurt you." I ached, I wanted to erase the panic.

"I know. I forgave you the first time you apologized, so did Rope and Bolo. So, what are you going to do the next time you are naked, or see someone naked?"

We'd practiced this. "I'll close my eyes?"

"And... "

"And say, it's just skin, skin is beautiful."

"Good. Because it's no sin here. We have places and times when we don't wear clothing, and places and times when we always wear clothes."

"When is Sunday?"

"Sunday happened three days ago."

I counted on my fingers again. "So today is Wednesday."

"No. Today is San. Did your people use a seven day week?"

I didn't know what to say to this. ‘Of course’ was a phrase without meaning, here. She took my silence as an answer.

"Our week is ten days long, Monday, Tewsday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Ichi, Nee, San. And to make the week fit the year, we have Festival days, and an extra day to the week, Shi. This week goes to eleven, and tomorrow is a Shi Fest. We'll go over all this when you have a pewter, and we figure out what you have to learn yet. So, what is so special for you about Sunday?"

No Sunday? The thought frightened me, and yet, I can't say I missed those long painful days of prayer and fraught silences. "Oh, nothing, really. Just wondering." She saw the lie, allowed it.

"Anyway." She looked at me, "Tomorrow may be a bit difficult for you."

I drooped, and hid my face behind the blanket. "Prayer day?"

"What? No, um. Well, in a way. We do pray, in gratitude, to each other, and send our gratitude out to whatever might be listening. We do it by putting on plays, about the Cassandras, and stories of our life since the great destructions, people get drunk on the new beer, and bring out various drugs, and anyone not officially married can couple with any other person who is of age.." I peeked out, her gaze still on me, "It can be pretty noisy, Hinge always drugs his dogs so they won't hurt themselves when the fireworks go off. And everyone will be asking you snooping questions. We have a lot of busybodies here, watching everything, pulling apart your words to be nosy You'll meet all the children and kids of the town. Most people wear some kind of costume, a mask, or whatever colorful rags they can find, plastic wings are popular."

"I thought I was the only kid in the Abbey." I was the only one I'd seen.

"Oh, they're up here, but you were so sick, you weren't near the dojo. You are the only one living here. And today, they all stayed home to prepare for the Fest. They all live in the Town, when people take on children to raise, they move into the town. Makes it easier on everyone. The kids come up here to learn to fight and dance, and when they are Meeds at 15, they live here as apprentices."

“When do I start school?” I’d read all about classes, and rows of desks. I wanted to join children my own age and learn.

“We will teach you, everyday.” She failed to answer my question, I tried again.

“But, when do I get to just sit in class with other kids?” I understood it imperfectly, but the image formed so clearly, all the Spanish books, and the picture books showed the desks and rows of children.

“Ah, your old books. We threw out classes along with meetings. The Cassandras called them corrosive to the human spirit. Have them for official inquests, necessary, but, I can see how it would be awful to meet like, like herded sheep, all the time. Lots of kids together, sitting, looking one direction, to learn by rote.” She shuddered. “No. And some kids need to run around every five minutes. Our athletic kids would hate it, and our fragile ones need to run more. Anyway, physics is best learned by practice, throwing a ball, building a better trebuchet to throw the ball, blowing the ball up.” She looked wistful of an old memory. “Chemistry too, all our studies, really. The pewter curriculum is online, with the evaluations, some of us write it there, some recite orally, some are recorded by their sensei. Not one way, but all ways. Hinge wouldn’t have passed at all if he’d had to write his lessons.”

“But Hinge is really smart.” Everyone here seemed really smart, if nowhere near as sure of themselves as Preacher had been.

“Silly to waste any kind of intelligence, simply for looking at it the wrong way.” Zipper sighed to herself.

"Children and kids are the same right?" I'd hear myself called both, but she always used both words, kids this, children the other.

"Children are from when a baby walks alone, until they can reason, there is a test. You are obviously a kid, but until you take the test, you are officially a child. My baby, Towel, only a child, when thee died."

"Can I take the test?" I didn't want to be a child, officially, around other kids. I feared being different enough, shaved head with white fuzz, as well as a stranger. Hinge loved my interesting speech patterns, other kids would tease me, I knew. If these kids were anything like the ones I’d grown up around, boys slightly or a lot older. Any difference was the focus of pain.

She dipped her head, and looked at me sideways. "Sure." She clacked away for a while, and began showing me screens, and asking me very obvious questions about the pictures. She brought out glass containers, and poured water in, asked me which held more water, the taller one or the shallow one, a silly question. She had me show I could read, and I had to look in her mirror with a dirt smudge on my face.

"No surprizes there. Ok, kid. You are now officially a kid. Stone can do this again later, just for the sake of form, but this will do for today." I guess I passed. I felt very tall, all of a sudden.

"Can I have plastic wings?"

"Sure. Let's go get your cat before it gets too late for the Song."

Zipper and I carried the cat up the terror of the stairs to Stone's rooms. I’d held baby brothers who were lighter than Cat, but except for the fur, he’d felt much the same. We let him hide beneath a blanket. Stone hurried me to the door, and we all stood out on the ledge, surrounded by all the green plants and Stone's peppers. Every door slid wide framed the hundreds who lived around the greenhoused central garden they called the Pottage.

Sunset illuminated the world with glorious golden light, hundreds of faces and conversations saturated in luminous grace. One voice, a deep clear male voice, sang out one note, and all the people sang out La in different notes becoming a four voiced vibration. They all stopped, and they all sang. I imagined I could walk out on the air between, floating on the music.

I only caught a few of the words, about the night being gone, and laying down my weary tune. I found myself joining in, unable to hear my own voice over the massive sonorous shouting. Words abandoned me for the potency and density of the sound. My throat choked, and tears sprung from my eyes.
For the first time, I began to doubt my father's pronouncements about the nature of God. This was what I think he meant, but here, doubting, lifted up, and driven in deep, I belonged.

No voice can hope to hum.

I slept without the dreams.

~
Leaf

I woke before dawn, listening to Stone making tea, and cereal. She'd already been out, milking goats and feeding ducks, watering her peppers and other plants, according to Zip. Already dressed, she smelled of cold. I pulled on my new thick socks and padded over to her. She kneeled beside the pot and the kettle on the heating element, no charcoal today. And I touched her arm. She turned and wrapped me into a hug, and kissed the fuzz of hair on my head.

"I'm so glad you are here, Leaf. I've not been taking very good care of myself, or my animals even, over the last year. You really woke me up. I want to do right for you."

Oh. I hugged her back. “How come you use glowing heat sometimes, and sometimes charcoal?”

“Goes back to the Cassandras. They considered fireplaces for the Abbeys, not knowing what fuel would be available. And thought hard about fires, and the damage of breathing smoke, and decided using non-combustible energy would be safer. They seem to have been right. Fire is pretty rare. The warmer climate Abbeys have great barbeques, and enough wood and brush to burn in them. Charcoal is when we don’t have enough sunlight for the solar panels, saves the batteries.”

"Can I go shower?"

"You don't have to ask me to shower. Feel free. Oh, and I like your wings. You are going to look like a little bat." She giggled. So I giggled too. At least I had seen pictures of bats. They ate insects and fruit, or, confusingly, blood.

"Can I help with the animals, tomorrow?" I called out, while getting soapy. I didn't hear an answer, and afraid I'd asked the wrong question, I rinsed, and dried myself, opening the door a little to keep talking. I felt a warm push against my shins. It was the Cat, who had disappeared for the night. He seemed to rethink his affectionate rub against my wet legs, and wandered off, twitching his paws. I promised Hinge I would think of a name for him, but only to chose if I knew I’d found his rightful name. A dubious proposition, I thought, but he seemed certain I could manage.

I pulled on my clean pair of knits, and the pants and sweater. "When do I put on the wings?" I asked, coming out to the main room.

"After lunch. I won't let you miss the timing. All the daily work still needs to be done before any festivities start. Animals still need to eat, food still needs to be prepared. The cooks did a lot yesterday, but they get into a frenzy this morning." She poured tea, "Zip would like you to learn the pottery, starting tomorrow. She also makes some of the working parts of the pewters, both use the kiln to fire. She is one of our best chemists, and an artist."

"Do you like goats?" I couldn't help it, I wanted her to want me to help her with her work.

"I prefer the sheep, but I don't have a trained dog, right now. I took on the goats because of a friend. The ducks are all about the eggs. Love the eggs." She looked at me. "Yes, you could help with the goats, but you need to learn a more technical skill. You will have enough to do with Bob and Cat to be Named, for a while. And you need to start your studies, and some physical training. Think about what you'd like to do today, as you watch all the exhibitions and performances. Give yourself a little more time, you are not quite up to a healthy weight yet, and you were very sick."

But I wanted to learn everything, right now. I settled for sitting out on the edge of the door, eating breakfast, fingering an uneven spot in the wood, and listening to the morning raga with Stone.

"Where are all the people getting drunk?" I peered out, looking for staggering drunks. The men and boys at the compound had gotten drunk every once in a while, and usually fought, and threw up, and the Preacher would rail at them, hitting them with a stick, and shouting - they would be damned to hellfire forever. Mom always got me and my sister and the babies into the tiled room to hide when this happened. The old ladies would wail and cry, and pray to be delivered from sin.

"Yeah, well, won't be until later, either. Then the fights, usually long after dark, and vomiting will follow. You can always come here, or Zipper's or Hinge's kennels. The last is probably your best idea, Hinge never gets so beery he can't defend his dogs. He usually heads down there with his sword once the food is eaten. He sobers up, and checks on them. Always has an extra few cots for any of the apprentices who’ve snuck too much beer, or ate too much hash."

"Have you ever had too much beer?"

"When much younger. Zipper and I blew up a silo." I must've looked shocked, I'd read about missile silos. "In the spring, almost emptied of grain. She'd been doing this experiment with urine extraction and eucalyptus oils. Made an amazing boom!" She chuckled. "We had to do most of the work rebuilding it for the harvest. Got lots of muscles through the summer, and very behind on our studies. I blame her, she's two years older, I was 17. Actually, we may have had hash, for the silo adventure." Stone laid a hand on my arm. “Don’t let anyone give you sweets not from the restaurant. This place really goes chaotic during a fest. Keep to the other kids, or the people you know already, trust your instincts. And if you are with the kids, and you are threatened, you attack whomever they attack.”

“Should I be afraid?” This place seemed so safe to me, so kind and unthreatening.

“A little. I should let you experience it for yourself, but most of those Town kids have gone though the Threat Practice several times by your age. Just, know it happens. Be brave. I wasn’t warned the first time, a bit older than you.”


I changed the subject, Stone looked so upset. "I like Zip a lot. She misses her baby. I think my own mom died because she missed her lost babies." I thought of those small corpses a lot with Zip, and my mom.

"Especially since she raised her as well. She lived in the town, had a good guy who really loved her, good aunt and uncle for Towel, and grandparents as well. She seemed very happy, although I had my doubts. I wasn’t there when Towel was born, but her emails to me, I know the babe had problems. Even the best parent occasionally slips, calls the baby he or she. Zip never did, nor did Lamp, the dad and father. When her child went down ill, she went madly desperate.”

"This is part of why biological parents normally have fosters raise their children. Bioparents normally stay close, are part of their child's life, but are not primary parents. The Abbey system, Abbey, Town and Travelers, are serious about giving every child a rich childhood. Nutritious food, education, art, strength, and emotional abundance. Parents have to educated to be a parent, no matter who's bio child they want to raise, even their own." Stone picked at her pants, pulling up threads at her knee. "It's rare to have anyone fall through the cracks, or not very far."

I sat very still, listening as hard as when my mother comes to my dreams. She swallowed hard, turned away from me. I thought about Bolo's lesson on how to live with a cat. Don't chase, don't make startling movements, wait for them, as long as it takes. I didn't know about cats, but I knew Stone looked as ready to flit away as the pigeons roosting on the compound walls. Still, she picked up her bowl and beaker, and stood. "Zipper made your bowl, too." I looked at the dark blue bowl, with the fish drawing at the bottom, and nodded. But Stone disappeared inside, and the raga ended.

“Did you fall through the cracks?” It jumped out of my mouth, from some unguarded corner, and I wished it back in my mouth.

She froze, frighteningly still for a long time. Cat emerged, and slunk under her hand. Her mouth opened, closed, and then in a bare whisper, she started.

“They raised me in a house a little too far from an Abbey for me to go up every day. My primary mom was also my biological mother, she was older, well respected, an historical geneticist, a genius among the brilliant. My father was my primary dad. My aunt and uncle lived there too, they had been protégés of my parents.” She swallowed, stroked Cat absently, began again.

“My mom liked being sick. Every day. A lot. Smart, sneaky, knew the system, too well. She diagnosed herself with diseases, poisoned herself to fit symptoms. She kept me near her, and taught me herself, always on the verge of dying, she kept me close to care for her. Altered her DNA records to support her phony diagnoses. And fudged my testing. Made me think she mothered a genius, too, but she was cheating for me. My other parents did nothing to protect me, didn’t make sure, didn’t take me out themselves, test me themselves. For all the Abbey folk are supposed to watch out for each other, they respect privacy way too much, they let secrecy trump honesty. They let her twist me. Thoroughly trapped, and I didn’t even know a way out existed.” She’d turned away from me, speaking clearly and calmly, amused, even.

“I found out when I went for my apprenticeship. I left early, puberty hit me young, and I begged to be let start then, not wait to be fifteen. My father, in a rare moment of courage, or maybe just because mom started getting ill for real, by then and losing her grip, argued my point. The first exam proved devastating. I failed, utterly. Answers in math had to be correct, and mine were not. My dear architectural master had known my mother once, and he could add. Bless him, dear Cam.”

She had stopped, and I could tell more story dangled. “What happened?” I asked, in a whisper to match her own.

“They were censured. None of the four can ever raise a child again. Mother’s records were examined, and she cannot get into any files again. She cannot be thanked or recognized for her contributions. She can never live in an Abbey.”

“No, I mean, you.”

“Me? Oh, well, here I am. I went with the Travelers. I know how to make good shoes of grasses and string. I know bugs. I study words, and meanings. I keep the ducks and goats fed. No genius, just trying to be useful. I have a kid I dare not go near, although I sent thim messages, and new clothes every year. I was barely fifteen when thee was born. Thir parents are very good, thir father is in touch. I check. Thee knows my story, and why I live across the ocean from thim.” She shrugged it off, but her eyes glistened.

“I’m glad you’re here. “They dumped me on you, because you need a kid?” Eavesdropper me, said.

She looked at me for the first time, “Yes, I expect so.” And she smiled, picked up Cat, and kissed his head, which he took with a slow blink of his eyes. “Seems to be working out.” Then leaned over, and kissed my fuzz of hair, and I blinked, slowly.

Thus Spake Leaf
~

Stone

"Time to feed Cattobenamed. I saved out a spoonful of egg, and a duck bone." I handed Leaf the pot. “He’ll supplement his nutrition with mice and grass in the pottage, and in the summer, he’ll have silo duty, meaning even more, fatter mice. Won’t you kitty, yes, good old Bastat.”

"Is this like when I start training Bob, I’ll always have to feed him, so I'll be boss dog, and Cat will be grateful?" Leaf asked, in utter ignorance of catness.

"Not such as I've ever noticed. This is more so you can be responsible, expecting no gratitude. Cat may be grateful, but not for what you would expect, and it may take a bit of translation to see it." Leaf put the food down, and a long, slender meander of black slunk out to sniff, and examine.

"Isn't he hungry?" She had seen what Bob did to a bowl of food.

"Never can tell with cats." Or kids, I thought. Dogs were easier, but I preferred cats.

She really did have the Gift of Quiet. I hid in my silence, watching, until feline met meat, and purring ensued. Leaf crouched and petted, and his tail arched over her hand. A moment of peace.

I should enjoy the day of a Fest. I had no other work to do today. The baths only open for the Town, and their children, until midday, so showers for us. The critters were fed, the eggs gathered, insect survey completed, and Leaf healing well, obviously much healthier, after her long coughing fit last night. A nap applealed.

"How about I get you on the internet, have you start searching for a name for the cat?" Assess her reading and logic skills. Keep her quietly busy, get her started. Ok, real reason, let me doze. I got her started, and lay watching her tap out letters with two fingers, and move the cursor from the pad, painfully slowly. While the Cat watched her fingers intently.

And I dreamt of my father, teaching me to dance, on a glass floor. I woke to Leaf's grin, awkwardly holding Cat up by his front leg pits. He didn't seem to mind terribly.

“Ulysses."

And so, our journeying cat became Ulysses. Unless she’d found James Joyce. I decided not to pry.

"What are the little spaces in the walls off the ledge? With all the pictures and writing, and the, um, shelf?" Ah, she'd been out exploring, a very good sign, the first time she'd shown any interest in going out alone. And what had she found? On the morning before the fest? Our best art, and a huge gaping pitfall for her anxious notions of sin.

"Those are niches, Alcoves and we decorate them with our most beautiful creativity. The ledge is normally called a balcony." Come on, come on, I took the parenting course, wasn't long ago. "And on Shi Fest, you have to promise, if you look into them, you can't scream or panic." There.

“When do you check my DNA? I read about the First Rules on your pewter. Don’t you have to read mine? Does it hurt?” So earnest. I’d wanted her to ask, wanted her to see it all written clearly, for herself.

“We have your DNA already, but we won’t read it until you give us permission. If you don’t, it’s recorded, kept for history, but no one here now will decipher it.”

“I can say no?” Apparently, a shock to her. “But then what would I do, where would I go?” I feared she would escalate to a panic.

“You can stay here, for a while, even if you say no. There are a few settlers living along the roads who don’t belong, who refuse to be part of the data. We would find people there who would take you in, when you turn fifteen. Until then, you can learn about us, decide if you want to stay, and refuse us knowledge of you. That is our Deal. We have no real privacy here, no one has any Right, no one is entitled, no one guaranteed, no inheritance. Goes all ways, just as you have no right to your robe, I have no right to it, either. And it would be unkind for me to take it from you, and everyone here has a duty to stop me from, say, stealing from you. We record our lives, in our writing, in our art, our genetics. We study ourselves, trying with all our lives to be genuine and compassionate, to understand when we trip and fail. We yearn to be more intelligent and loving, and to sustain a healthy culture.” Stop ranting, I thought, and boring her. Stop.

“The Cassandras salvaged huge amount of the technology produced by billions of people, because they believed scientific reasoning would preserve our humanity. We try to prove them right.”

Leaf thought, head down. I resisted the urge to pick off the dried skin of the old scabs in her growing burr of hair. “I want to stay here, with you. What will you do with my DNA?”

“Match it up with everyone else we have recorded. Find out if you have any living genetic relatives, figure out who your people were, or try to. Make it available for anyone doing a study. If anyone looks at it, you will get a note, telling you who looked at what part of your record. If they haven’t asked first, or should not have peeked, you can Rebuke them. So if you at anyone’s record without permission, you may be called on it.” She’d found mine, I saw in her face. “It’s not a big deal, better to look if you are suspicious of a problem, than not to look and abandon a friend to a problem.”

“You write in there about everything? It’s not very big.”

“It stores it all very, very small. Everybody’s pewters are connected, too. And we have specially printed books, paper the pewters can read, holding all we know, all we’ve written since the Cassandras, and much from before.”

“Do you write about dreams?” I sensed this going somewhere, I watched her struggle to find the words.

“The Cassandras amassed all the tech and information, stored food and abducted teachers, because they all had dreams. They were obligate Forteans.” I’d confused her, ok, confused her more. “A lot of data does not fit. It’s not logical or reasonable, but it won’t go away. It’s like us, eccentric and intelligent together. Charles Fort was a peculiar writer, from long before the Apocalypse, who collected stories of fish falls and earth lights, ghosts and two headed calves. Since the Emergence, we have gotten a lot more of these experiences than can be explained statistically.” Wrong word, try again, “The day to day weirdness is much higher for us than for our ancestors before the cataclysms.” And now, “Why? Other than the red rain when Rope found you, have you had dreams?”

A shoulder twitch, lips pressed white, a sigh, “When I was sick, and Hand gave me medicine… “ And stopped. “Tell Salmon to read my DNA. I’m staying.”

This kid resonated with me, frighteningly. We’d both squeezed through cracks.

Thus Spake Stone.

3

Hinge

"You may kneel and kiss my ring!" I felt grand in my beribboned finery, and Hand bounced across the floor to greet me, as instructed.

"Silly old bear, you are Hinge." She knelt in gently mocking reverence, and her wet lips pressed around the ancient and heavy gold horse head ring I wore to every Shi Fest. "Are those hemp leaves?" She, well let's say admired, my garland crown. Snickered, and wrapped herself around my arm. I leaned down, but just a little, for her to whisper in my ear. She didn't whisper anything, just breathed amused affection. She wore colorful rags of her own, and tiny black wings, I couldn't help fingering the edges.

"Salmon here yet? He always has an interesting take on the idea of costume." Meaning he wore, things, sewn to his knits. "Hope he doesn't do spoons again. Looked just too odd."

"Only the ones on his face. And the big one in front. No sign of finery yet. He's with Candle fixing up a kid with a broken leg, putting on a bicycle frame."

"Spiky, spoke and three-wheel thing?"

"And moaning about how the ancient surgeons had plates and screws to fit, and it being the Dark Ages, you know him." She leaned her exasperated head on my shoulder. "Still, a functional contraption. And Candle just smiles and nods, and keeps the kid 'punctured and sedated and breathing. So sweet to see the two of them together."

I remember their wedding, ten years together across all the Chains, and all the Continents, they had their celebration here. I couldn’t imagine how they’d managed to get all the affirmations, all professing they were a committed and nurturing couple. I considered starting the decade process with Hand, for the first time. Past time, I began to realize.

"Have the Cassandra skits started?" My favorite part of my first apprenticeship, we’d been especially clever making mockery of the old stories of dreams and theft, our wily forebears.

"You missed the best one, guy with a sign saying "Astrophysicist", sits down, head in his hands, big dramatic sigh. Another guy comes in, "Paleontologist" sign, sits down, huge whimpering sigh. Both moaning about how they are never going to understand the far reaches of space or time. Guy walks in wearing a sign - says "God," sits at the far end of the platform. The two look at each other and say "Could be worse!"

"A two hundred year old joke." I sent out a grateful nod to the makers of the sling and satellite, and the geothermal wells.

"They just did it so eloquently, it really was very funny." She glared at me. "It was."

"Leaf sure is holding her own with the Town kids. Stronger than she looks, our little one. I think she had little brothers, once, which probably helps."

"Stone is in a panic that they will tease her, or hurt her. Which they will, no doubt. But that bigger one, what is she called? She'll defend her if they get too rough."

"Can't remember her name. She brought in one of her Giant rabbits with a corneal abrasion this week. Very good with the huge furball. Promised me a rabbit stew and some mittens when her mom does the butchering."

"Glad I don't have to kill any of my animals.” I admitted. “Unless we are down to eating dog. Don't mind the necropsies, but having to kill them." I shuddered. “I know, I know, and I like Stone's duck, and in spring, the roast lamb, I know.” And so does Hand, who butchers her goats when the stores get low. "Still." She comforts me for my squeamishness. Best Leman anyone ever had. Patient with me, too. “Move in beside me, take the cell next door, I’ll get you moved.”

She pulled me to face her, and nodded. Enough.

The crowd filled the bamboo hall, spilled into the pottage and the restaurant, the brewers poured beer for anyone with a mug. I danced in the circles, and shouted and hugged and picked up children to let them see the sparring better. Hand’s sparkling skill with her naginata, and Bolo bruising his opponent, spent hours gleefully showing off his own kendo bruise. Leaf ran the Abbey in a dither, first up to me to be lifted up, then wriggling to get down and run around again. Warmed my heart to watch her as just a kid, not a brooding survivor, with a black dog guarding her. She even confided in me, she had witnessed an alcove coupling, and had looked, and not panicked. Well, well, I suppressed a laugh, but she scampered off again. And back, asking if dentists would torture her, and once asking why everyone's skin looked so much darker than hers, and what the drawings on everyone’s skin meant, and wanting to learn to dance and play every instrument she saw, and fight, like every other kid.

Hand glowed, the beer tasted especially good, as the sweet almond sheep stew filled bellies, and our cooks impressive spread of savory breads and meats, fruits and vegetables brought out the ravenous hunters in all of us. Hand and I were making our way to our own alcove, when the BOOM shook our feet. The musicians shuddered to a comical halt, and the singers choked out a harmonious shout.

"To the North! To the North" I heard from the fire guard, and called my kennel squad to me, checking for my red light in my pocket, and ran four steps, walked four steps, ran four, our disciplined rhythm, out the wide opened door. My ten falling in behind me, and another explosion, heard as well as felt this time, into the icy black air, and caught up with the sheep squad ahead, and marched with them, lights swirling around our feet, our eyes adapting until I could see the orange glow to the North, and the compost complex. Bugger. Wet drops patted down around us, and on my head, but I just counted out ich, nee, san, shi, one two three fout, keeping us calm and in step the kilometer to the site.

There were no flames, and the burning light faded, as we turned the pumps for the generator, bringing on the sodium lights and a weirder orange. My head buzzed and turned over slowly, soaked in beer as t’was. Poor brain. There were more people out here than should have been able to get here, I thought. Then a familiar, deep fat bellow, pulling my gut taut sounded out, "Calm down, you druhnken morons, it's just shit and fish! But your Travelers will save your sorry butts!"


Thus Spake Hinge

~
Zipper

"Zipper! You joining us today?" Such a chorus of welcomes and homey aromas, I'd forgotten how much I loved the company of cooks, and the warmth of the bread ovens and meat roasters, steaming vegetables and salsas.

"My favorite kind of chemistry, you know." Had been, my first apprenticeship, when I doubted my own ability to learn and succeed. I’d underestimated the difficulties of cooking well, and learned my chemistry here, first.

"You were always too smart to just cook all your life." Cookie, who had taken on the stereotypical name himself, and would answer to no other, handed me a canvas apron and pointed me to the sink, to wash my hands and cover my hair. He assumed I would forget, even though he’d been younger when we started than me. Some things never change.

"Don't know if I ever had as much common sense as you, Cookie. Or better hands with dough." I made him laugh, such a sponge for praise, his strongest motivation. Clean and covered, I joined in, measuring, mixing, luxuriating in the smells and textures of honey and flour, new nuts and fresh fruits, pumpkin and treasured spices from the south, rose hips and lemon grass, bamboo shoots and rice, salt and yeast and wines.

Poor Towel, never knew thir mom could cook, save over a brazier on the home hearth. Too little, too weak, too damaged, and I knew it from the moment thee was born. That thee made it six years was a wonder, but I missed thim, achingly, and always would. Leaf was a balm, a new focus, so in need of care. Leaf ran through with other town kids, a few times, all with little batwings. Asking questions about foods she'd never seen, her group having apparently subsisted on ancient canned stuff, and whatever ‘only the men’ could hunt or gather, or the women grow in a small patch. I snitched her shreds of meats and a spoonfulls of honeyed nuts, feeding her as she hummingbirded through. I would make her a bowl and beaker of her own tomorrow, get her to the town ironmonger for her own knife and spoon, and the bambooist for chopsticks. Everyone welcomed her, all so eager to help her fit in, and feel wanted, even the kids, who could be unpredictably cruel.

"You miss your baby, I know. I've raised three, one my own biochild. The other parents taught them the science, and I taught them to be kind and loving to the slower folks, like me." Cookie nudged me, wanting me to understand his lesson. "I miss your baby, too." He brought me near to tears, bad, unwanted, I concentrated pummeling the rabbit meat until the sting left my eyes. "And your spouse, he was a good one, I always thought. You should get him back. You know."

I pummeled harder, "I had no choice there. I'd burned those bridges black, and blew away the ashes. He'd forgive me, but never trust me enough to return. And I wouldn't take him anyway. Don't need the reminders."

"Don’t let Cookie upset you, you are right, you know best." All together, the cook's chorus, who'd been listening and commenting all along, younger versions of myself, and Cookie. Hard working folks, who loved to nourish, and tell stories, and ask pointed questions. We took food out, laid long boards out, for the hoards to descend, and roar with joy, such a complete pleasure. The brewers were already set up, barrels tapped and sampled, a good year for the barley and oats, and the yeast doing it's magic.

Full from the day's nibbling, I slipped off with a mug of stout to listen to the music in the gloaming, and watch the sly comings and goings from my balcony garden. I sat, and dangled my legs over the edge. Leaf, trying to be very sneaky around the curve, scootched along, glancing sideways into the curtained recesses, until she froze, apparently catching a glimpse. I bit my lip to not laugh, as her hands gripped her own elbows, and she crouched lower, curiosity taking over. By now, I could hear sounds of coupling, and movements of the curtain. She better get away soon, or they will trip over her, I thought. I looked away, then back, and she ran down the stairs. Bolo and a meed I recognized as a dancer, giggled their way past the drape, and failed to nonchalantly wander, in opposite directions down the walkway. Bolo sauntered by me, waggled and eyebrow, while I bestowed a tolerant, or amused nod. Not sure which, maybe both. Welcome to the Abbey life, little Leaf, it’s not as simple as it looks.

I sat out there, among my spices, mint and eucalyptus, aloe and violets, as the cheers and drums lulled me, and the light from the sky blossomed pink and sank into deep royal purple. The small LEDs sparkled in the garden, reflected in the overhead glass. I think I healed, a bit. A small, discrete blue light fluttered around my grass shod feet, the Tooth Fairy, momentarily lost. It winked out.

Then BOOM. I had dozed, but I jumped to my feet and down to the dojo, to hear the shouts, and watch the fire squads race to the North fields and nearly fell at the second boom. I ran after, out.

I saw the lights come on, illuminating the compost heap steaming, a chunk bitten out of it. I slowed, and looked up. The night sky full of stars, bright big moon, lit the still and icy air, as a fish fell on my upturned face. And it wasn't even Friday


Thus Spake Zipper

~
Hinge

"You stinking bugger, you nearly missed Shi fest!" I hugged the old wolf hard, and thumped his back.

"Hey, at least we make Shitfest!" Yup, my old sarge, Boot to the head. Could tell a dirty joke in a dozen languages, most eloquently in Kurdish, most enthusiastically in Abbey.

"Hinge, I don't think you got a fire problem here. We saw a light flash down, maybe a meteorite, we can do a good fix in the morning, right?" He wanted to get to the beer, likely his assessment would prove right. "Everybody pocket a few fish, we catalogue the beasts, and fry 'em up good, right?" His band of travelers, meeds training, journeymen, lifetimers with itchy feet, all wanted a warm bath, a hot meal, and too much beer, in reverse order. "Hey, I'm senior man, so I get to say, if the Abbot this week agrees." He stood back and shouted in his terrifying bellow, "Who is Abbot this week?"

"I am." Lens, wintering here from the Spiral. "I have to agree, the heat pipes are broken. But how in the Ash our compost heap blew up, I have no idea. We turn it, the methane just should not have built up. Not much to do in the dark, those lights are not enough for this job. It's going to be a cold night in the Abbey. Or would be if the ovens hadn't been burning all day. I'm not going to authorize emergency heat, when we can all just bed down in the dojo." He pondered a fish in his hand, muttering to himself, "Holy mackerel, and at night. Don't know if we've ever recorded a fish fall at night."

I felt a tug at my sleeve, and looked down into the moonbeamed face of little Leaf. "What happened?" She shook, but she stood firm, had apparently run out with everyone else.

"I don't know, yet. The Compost Heap exploded, and there are fish falling. Pick up the fish, put them in your pockets, and we'll count them, figure out their species back at the Abbey." No, not what she her question. "What happened, Leaf?"

"Where is the big black dog, thee ran out here with me, wouldn't let me stop. I ran nearly to the water over there, when I heard Mary, my sister call my name." She spoke in an eerie calm tone,nevermind the shivering shoulders. "She said 'Anne', just like that." Boot stepped beside me, and went down on his knee, to look at our newest member.

"Where do you come from, little one?" I half expected this nightmarish face to finally frighten her, but she smiled at him.

"I come from the compound. My family is all dead. They drank purple drink and died, even the Preacher. But my father spilled mine on me, and he fell on me and I stayed there all day until a boy came and rescued me and we ran through the woods. Now I live here." What the carp? Boot had a talent, I knew well, but what kind of story did she tell? She picked up a few small fish at her feet, took my hand, we walked back home, Abbey, Town and Travelers.

When we got back, the platform all set for the poetry readings, the hall filled, and one of the young meeds told the old story in new words.

“The Abbot of the Week peers out gloomily. Centuries away from the end of human belief in gods and devils, a tiny human remnant strung out in chains of carefully salvaged and lovingly maintained technology, a greenly self renewing planet, and what do we get? Fish falling from the sky every Friday. Believers would know what to do with this, but we are researchers, scientists, we don't theorize ahead of the data. After a resigned sigh, he picks up his pail and notepad, recites his ichthyology mnemonics, and heads out to the field with the rest.”

And we all respond, itadakimasu.

We say the prayer for the seven billion, we who are the remnant, the crust left behind after God took his followers. I find Sol, and sing it out, as the voices tune to me. Come my soul and let us try/for a little season./Every burden to lay by/ come and let us reason./What is this that casts thee down?/ Who are those that grieve thee?/ Speak and let the worst be known/ speaking may relieve thee.

So ends Shi Fest, and we gather our bedding, and camp on the dojo floor, pondering the mysteries.

Ulysses padded down, and slept on Leaf’s ankles.

Thus Spake Hinge.

~

Leaf

I listened in. Again, and no one seems to mind, even when they notice, here. Hinge winked at me, so did the wolfman they call Boot, Zipper motioned me to be quiet and stay back, but didn't shoo me away. So many people here in this big room, Stone tells me it's 40 to judge, plus everyone who is involved, anyone who knows about what happened. And it will be 400, if they can't settle the problem, which sounds scary. I'm sure I’m not included, but here I stand.

Lens stood taller than anyone there, his dark brows creased and solemn. He read from a pewter on a table in front of him. "I found the bodies of 152323 called Tank, and 585385 called Hasp, at 23 hours, an hour before sunrise, on Monday, the 36th day of the ninth month of this year. The light was only from one generator light, the moon having set, and cloud cover obscuring pre dawn light. Both were under chunks of blue colored ice, other pieces were broken nearby. One section was flat and rounded, weighing approximately seven kilograms, and was wedged into the compost beside the body of Hasp, who had been decapitated. The temperature of the air was -10C, but the compost at the bottom of the pit where the bodies were found was +20C, and may well have cooled in the hours from the explosion until the discovery. There was evidence of the remains of a common experiment to create a detonation, as used by apprentices of general engineering, which both meeds were. The heating pipe ran directly under the crater, and was broken both there, and had split along it's entire sub-compost length to a measurement of three meters from the compost line." He coughed, and stopped. He called Salmon, as the pathologist to come forward, who said the youngsters had probably been killed by blunt trauma, and a full autopsy would be done.

More and more people stepped up, recounting their stories, about the night before, about the two males who loved exploding experiments, and from the parents, who simply expressed grief and dismay. I hung on their words, their speech so formal, so unlike what I had seen here before, and I didn't know who could be blamed, and hoped it wouldn't be me. Then the jury stood and spoke, one by one, until a woman only slightly taller than me, one I had never noticed before, stood up on a chair, and spoke.

"This is all sad, and I do not wish to add to the parents' grief. But they must take responsibility for the selfish and thoughtless intention of the young people they raised, even if the actual damage was an anomaly. Not as punishment, but to give them work, to remember and to heal. I'm sure they did their best, and meed behaviour is well documented. But they vowed to be held accountable, both when they accepted Abbey Rule, and again when they took on the role of Parent. They have the skills, and must take the lead to repair the floor heating pipe. They cannot be held responsible for the loss of the heating compost, and I propose that element is simply forgiven."

The rest of the jury each raised a hand, and then, without ceremony, everyone left, the eight parents shaking hands all around them, and asking for assistance in their job, and were assured of help, all the while moving toward the remains of the compost. They were all headed out to work. I stood speechless. I'd seen arguments between my father and Preacher about women's hair last longer, with much more shouting. I found Stone, and pulled her aside, still a little afraid to speak in this room.

"Why are they making the parents, all of them, fix the pipe? Isn't she being mean?" This all felt terribly unfair. To make them pay for an act of God, surely?

"It's a gift. They will get plenty of help, but they get to have control over the repair, they will have the right to stand where their children died, see all the evidence themselves. They can even shift the compost so their place of death is accessible, if they want that. They can face their own guilt, and they will feel it, even if they could have done nothing different, and work to make it better. They could have refused the task, any one or all of them. Instead, no one will blame them later, when we all get tired and cold and frustrated, especially looking at a long cold winter, all dependent on each other, living so closely together. Some of them may come back to live in the Abbey, since they will not be raising a child in the Town anymore. They will have all of us, to hash out the anxiety of the sheer weirdness of being killed by falling blue ice.”

Thus Spake Leaf

~
Leaf

"Stone, why is the floor so cold?" I had taken off my new felt boots with the rubber soles, and instantly wanted to put them back on. We'd slept fitfully on the floor of the dojo, eight hundred of us, according to Hinge.

"Compost heats up, deep down, enough from all our organic waste, to provide the most efficient heat to the Abbey, from under the floors. There is fluid in the pipes, and when the Heap exploded, the pipe broke." Lens explained to me, for the third time, I realized, and almost asleep. "Gotta fix it before winter really sets in. The geothermal pump we are going to need for the knitters and looms, and the solar panels aren't going to be powerful enough, especially if we have a blizzard. Can't just keep burning driftwood and forest litter...." His voice growing softer, and drifty. He had thumped down on Stone's futon, and she piled her blankets on top. He started snoring softly.

"Poor guy. He stayed up most of yesterday afternoon. And after a night so hard, to have to testify and worry about so much damage. Bugger of a week to be Abbot. Well, we couldn't let him be woken by kata all day." He feet hanging off the ends were still in his boots. I untied them, and pulled them off, amazed at the size of them.

"Why... um, I don't know how to ask. Why Abbot? He wasn't before, was he?" I continued to be overwhelmed by how stupid I remained. I'd always thought I was so bright, because I'd read all those books, I was a dummy, a real smart girl. But this place had so many unexpected corners, and I couldn't absorb any of it fast enough.

"It's our version of government. We have a program, and get randomly chosen to perform tasks not otherwise assigned, including being in charge, making decisions and judgments. Every week, someone is the Abbot of the Week. For ten days, the AOW, anyone over fifteen, makes decisions that last for that week. Abbot of the Month covers longer term issues, helps the Weekly Abbot, and has to be over twenty. The Annual Abbot is an adult, over twenty-five, coordinates the various abbots over the year. But really, most of our governance is immediate, five random individuals who see meanness, selfishness, conflict - as minor as a sharp word, or a carelessness, and correct it."

"I saw! Yesterday, one of the older kids ran over a baby. I didn't notice how many, but they all grabbed him, all littler kids, too, and made him pick up the one he kicked and rock thim and sing to thim!" How peculiar, I’d thought, the boys I grew up around could have kicked me with impunity, and on purpose, and laughed about it. "They asked me if I agreed, so I nodded. Did I do alright?"

"Ha! Very clever of them. " She grinned, "You have participated in your first act of Abbey justice. And before you have learned dog training, too. I'm very proud of you, Leaf."

"Oh! Bob, I get to go start training Bob!" How could I have forgotten my own dog. I wanted to make sure his sore was healing, where his leg used to be. I longed to feed him and play with him.

"I forgot about him, too, honestly. I'm sorry, but I think all able hands are going to be working on fixing the pipe. And tomorrow, if we are done, we will take the bodies out for the scavengers. I'm feeding my animals, and going out there right now. Hinge will be out at the Heap, I'm sure, right after all his dogs are fed, too."

My mind reeled, no dog time? And what did she mean, scavengers? But she changed her clothes, and brushed her teeth, and rushed out the door. I stayed, forgotten, and lost. I wanted my mother, and my sister, maybe even my father being stern and angry. I wanted a place to made sense. I wanted my books, and my baby brothers, and a stash of colorful clothes from plastic bags inside a box. I curled up, cold and abandoned, and grieved for all I'd lost.

I had stopped sobbing, my nose clogged and my eyes sore, when Ulysses poked his nose around the corner, and crawled toward me to sniff my tears, and lick my face with his scratchy tongue. "You were abandoned, too, huh cat?" And he came all the way home, three hundred kilometers according to Bolo. I imagined myself running away down the rubber road, cutting through the woods, seeing the wall of the compound, running through the gap... And seeing the bodies rotting on the concrete, grass grown up through the cracks, my mother's grave collapsed, rats taking over. Or, worse, the end hadn’t happened, but because all food had been eaten - if there had been any much remaining before, all of us starved to death. Mom had told me she doubted God would ever come pick us up, because He'd already gathered the faithful during Armageddon, and we'd missed it. She thought maybe God didn't care about children of the damned. Her last word, the last time she spoke to me before she died. Along with the usual warning not to mention this to my father. I didn't need to be told.

I stroked Ulysses, as he purred, and nestled into my belly, kneading through the thick sweater Hinge had given me. I could be fine, here. This could be home, I supposed. I wondered why they put up with me, why they took such care of me. I wondered why Hinge held Hand all through the Fest, when I thought he, what word had the old ladies used? Going with? Well, I thought he loved Stone. But Stone told me she thought they looked so happy together, like it wasn't a surprize, or anything but wonderful. And now Lens lay sleeping in her bed, even if she wasn't sleeping with him. I fell asleep to purring, and warm fur under my hand.

Thus Spake Leaf.

~

Leaf

I woke up, to Lens busily making tea, looking bleary and disheveled. "Morning, short stuff, how are you?"

"You didn't sleep very long."

"It's ok, I'm going back to bed as soon as I get some nourishment. Had a nightmare about those two meeds, and had to use the pot, I think I was hungry, didn't eat much for the last day or so."

"Stone said they would be left out for scavengers, I must have heard wrong." Surely, I'd heard wrong.

"Nope, it is what we do. The Tibetans did it, called it a sky funeral, the vultures would clean the bones. So did the Indians, some of them, can't remember which bunch. For a while the vultures were in trouble, because of some pesticide they used. Since Apocalypse, they've come back, just like a lot of other birds." He poured bubbling water on the rose hips, and sat back, looking very contented, and very large.

"But, you have to bury the dead. Or burn them, or something, how horrible." I thought of my mother, under shovels of debris.

"Seven billion human beings died within a ten year span of time. They were all left unburied, unless by natural accident. The Cassandras considered burial issues, hard to ignore when the bodies pile up. They knew it would prove an impossible task. It's why we don't live on old urban sites, even as we try to be a cosmopolitan society. They considered simply composting, and we certainly could. In a moment of mysticism, not unheard of even among them, they decided it would be a way to give back to the animals we sometimes hunted and ate." A shrug, utterly matter of fact, sipping his red tea. "Not exactly scientific method, nor critical thinking, but... " He suddenly stood up, and rubbed my head (happened a lot, felt nice) and then he staggered off to bed, mug in hand.

I noticed Stone's pewter, and decided to try to look this up, it seemed to be a magical endless dictionary. She hadn't told me I couldn't. I slowly got it started, turning the crank, and attaching the cord hooking it to a solar panel, so I was told. I put in, scientific method, and there were a list of titles. I touched the pad, and it missed doing anything, I tried again, until different words came up, and I worked my way through them, word by word, look it up, just like when I found the book on Spanish.

4

Leaf

Rope found me on the first floor, near the restaurant, in a cell with black swirls all over the screens, animals and people and angels and indescribable figures with eyes and expressions, dancing in a circle, all over the walls.

"What are you doing? Why are you in my cell?" She spoke quietly, but I jumped. She tilted her head. "Did you need weather advice?"

I stammered, and felt my face going hot, "I was." What was I doing? "I read about scientific method." There.

"And how did scientific method lead you to my cell? With the door closed?" She took off her heavy coat, her locks sprang out from their constraints. "Hmmm?"

"I gathered data, not just trusting my own ideas inside my head. I don't have a theory yet, since I'm not sure what theory actually means, but I know my world a little better. I have looked in every room, starting at the top floor, that way." I pointed to the far corner of this curving U of a building.

"And what, my heavy Leaf, did you find?" She looked dubious, I had to explain.

"I looked in every Alcove, one has three mirrors, huge ones, and I could see hundreds of myself curving away from me."

"Ah, well, if you have discovered optics." Could she be laughing at me?

"And I saw the work on the Heap, I looked out every room, just slid the felt doors back. The wall slopes down, you know." I almost wanted to slide down, but all the plants and silvery boxes were in the way. "Just like on the inside. Oh, and there are drawings on the screens in almost every one." And more than a few had old books, but none I recognized, and all looked fragile, so I'd left them alone.

"So, my only theory is, the ones without drawings don't have anyone living there. Did you draw this?"

"Do you like it? I live with it. I don't usually decorate my walls, I only really spend winters most places. I'm out in the field so much of the time. I didn’t commission it, I prefer a lot of color." She listened intently for my next words, so much so I almost forgot them.

"I watched the workers on the Heap for a while. And what is the big shining area just beyond that?" I saw the sun catch on it, huge and bright.

"The river?"

"I thought rivers had little bridges across them, and rocks in the middle, and you can walk through them, if you don't mind getting wet. I saw one in the forest. The boy called it a river." It couldn't be the same thing. She had to be wrong.

"It is a big river, but it's still a river. It goes right to the ocean, about fifteen kilometers from here. The rivers through the forest are more like brooks or streams, lots of different words for them. Do you remember anything more about the 'boy' who rescued you?"

"Just, he pushed my father off of me. He crushed me under him when he died, the ground pressed so hard, he laid so heavily on me. I had a hard time breathing. But the boy got me out, it after dark, and he handed me clothes to change into, mine smelled of throw-up and, um..." I really didn't want to think about the bodies. "He even had a can of spam, I hadn't eaten any spam since before my twin brothers were born. He said I ate the last one in the whole universe."

"What did he do then? Do you remember?" Of course I remembered, I didn't want to remember, but there it all lurked whenever I closed my eyes, haunted my dreams as I drifted when Salmon gave me the drugs.

"He picked me up, and carried me outside the walls. I'd never been out there before. It smelled wonderful, even if cold chilled me." I often got cold at the compound, too, but outside meant wind roaring, biting my face and ears.

"How long were you out there? I'd like to find your old home, find out where you came from. I think I can, in the Spring." My nightmares of piles of the rotting bodies of my family seared my vision. But I couldn't help her, even if I'd wanted to. Memories blurred, one night, two, three? "What did the moon look like?"

"No moon, not at first, not the first night. After, I don't remember looking up. And then, he wandered off. He only talked a little to me, all instructions. "Don't eat that berry. Find the Road to the Abbey. Go over there to pee." Very bossy, but not mean, and he let me eat all of the spam, and showed me how to get a leaf, and pick up water to drink."


She pulled her pewter from her satchel, and starting typing really, really fast. "Yes, clouds all night, and New Moon on the 23rd, I think I have it figured.... Oh, holy mackerel's fins, what the Cassandras' shit is going on out there. Leaf, we have a problem. Huge storm, or indications of a huge storm, just registered on one of my outer stations. We have to get everyone into the Abbey, done with the heat pipe or not. Carp!"

"Do we need to run out there and warn them?" I shook my hands in a panic, afraid for all my new friends, I needed them.

"Oh, dear, little one, no, nothing quite urgent, not this second, didn’t mean to alarm you so. But they may need to adjust the repairs. They really should be back here, with everything battened down, by evening meal. No one is out there checking pewter warnings, though, so... I guess you are right, we do need to go out and warn them." She sniffed, and felt the wall. "Lunch is about ready, let's give our cooks a hand, and start carrying food out there, let them know we may be under a meter of snow by this time tomorrow." I touched the brick wall, the kind I'd only seen in the lower rooms, warm, very warm. She had taken out her little book, and wrote in it with a small pencil, nodded, and grabbed her heavy coat back up. "Let's go, run and get your coat, I'll meet you in the restaurant, and we'll go."

As I ran for coat and boots, she called after me, "Stone's doesn't have any drawings, either." And I wondered why I hadn't noticed.

Thus Spake Leaf.
~

Rope

"Ah, Rope, aren't you a welcome sight."

"Hinge, you are only happy to see me because I am trundling all this soup and bread out here. I heard the Gut Truck cheer go up." Well, at least he laughed. "Bad news, though, I have to go talk to the parents in charge. Looks like we are going to be getting some weather here, by tonight, maybe sooner. May change the repair plan."

"Door's been leading this, thee's over there, in the red vest. It's been a working funeral here. Did you get your last station up and running?" I spotted the botanist hydrologist among the throng, all of them digging, or preparing the new pipe and bed. I didn’t want to approach them, I never felt good with the grieving. I talked too much, or not at all, and they were all under enough pressure.

"Rope?"

"Oh, sorry, yes, I got it up and running just fine, just fine. After I talk with Door, I have to talk with you about Leaf, but one blizzard at a time, don't you think? She helped me get the truck here, might want to ask her yourself, to start." I babbled, again, dreading my time to be a Cassandra myself. I climbed the pile of almost soil, and Door spotted me coming toward thim, face falling as I approached.

"Hurricane, hail or high winds, Rope?" Thir voice cracked from the strain of the joke that wasn't a joke. I'm never surprized, but it's always amazing to me how people know when bad news is coming, and I'm the one who did an exhaustive study of the phenomenon. "And cut to the chase, like Stone makes you." Sardine mash, I had to learn to be more terse, well, here goes.

"Blizzard, Door. Very low pressure, lots of water in it, just caught my most distant station, and the river is between us, so it'll probably pick up more energy there. I figure you have four to eight hours. It's not an if, but a when. Just in the time it took me to get here, two more stations are giving me more of the same, and we are sitting in the middle." Thee looked stricken, his wooden expression admitted no more feeling, thir jaw managed to tighten a tad more, and thee thought. Thir eyes went distant, and thee poked the ground with thir stick, thought more. It felt like an hour, but could only have been a few minutes, thee thought, planning, mapping it all out.

Thee nodded, not to me, and patted my shoulder and turned. As thee stalked up the heap, thee stopped, without turning thee asked, "Flood?"

"I'm not a hydrologist, you are. I'll talk to Lint. Probably not right away, it's frigid, maybe when it melts." A sheer guess. But another nod, and thee bellowed out to the folks working, "A day without freezing rain is like a day without... Guys, we gotta make this good, not pretty anymore!" I tried not to laugh at the idea of a pretty compost heap, the huge field toilet and the rakes to turn the mulch with our kinetic energy on the downward wheel. Not pretty, a thing of beauty, now halved, and already spread out on the fields, efficient, but a few months early. I looked down the slope to where Hinge crouched, and an awful realization hit me, I ran back toward him, a tight ball on the mucky ground. Oh Holy Carp, no, no. My pet phenomenon sure does work.

He rocked, silently, and Leaf knelt beside him, her tiny white hand on his dark paw, the mess of familiar dark fur at his feet. The week dead body of his beloved friend, Bill.

Thus Spake Rope.

~
Leaf

I found the big wolf man, gave him the bread and stinky cheese. I gasped in awe. His dark furry face drew me in, and I just wanted to climb up on top of him to look around. His voluminous voice wrapped me up, and made me feel like I could fly. I wanted to tell him my story, entire, and ask him every question, but I also just wanted to stare at him, in all his enormity. I whispered out what Rope called, the magic word to would make him roar happily. I practiced it in my head, first. Then said.

"Coffee." He looked even more like the wolf picture Bolo showed me, his long ivory teeth opened in a howl of joy, and he scooped me up for the run to the truck, all the while chanting "Coffee, coffee, coffee!" The Abbey and Town folks were already heading toward the food, some had already been, and were passing back, pockets full and canteens balanced, to share out. They made way with smiles and jokes for the big Traveler pounding toward the metal barrel Cookie had sent out with us.

"Boot, gotta get to the coffee first!"

"Old Boot needs his coffee, man!"

"Nobody gets the cafe before Boot..." And other teasing, laughing shouts, me carried along in the wind, laughing right down to my belly, holding on tight, half terrified, soaring. He stood in front of the poor young girl, one of Cookie's apprentices, with his canteen held out, he dropped to one knee in prayer, sliding me down off the other shoulder. She poured out the black fluid reverently. I got the feeling she had never met him, but appeared well warned. Canteen full, he sniffed dramatically, and reached out to snatch her hand, kissing it effusively, before he sipped delicately. I didn't think he could be a happier man, but his shoulders eased, and he sighed and smacked his lips in sheer pleasure.

"My beloved, it has been so long." This to the steaming fluid. Smelled to me of old socks. The crowd clapped their hands and laughed, and lined up to fill their metal cups as well.

"Leaf, you probably won't like coffee now, but someday, when you have been awake for a day and a half, and you still have hours to walk to the next warm bed, you will understand my passion." I doubted I would ever really understand such passion, but I reveled, already in love with it. "There are only a handful of Towns can grow the beans, and even then, not so much of it. We try to share it around, but this trip I could not find any. You, you're Cookie's apprentice, you small priestess of the black nectar of dead gods, how did we get coffee?"

She startled at Boot addressing again, and stammered a bit, "Cookie don't tell us, she has a locked closet, keeps a stash of stuff like chocolate and tea, and coffee, sugar, brings it out for celebrations, when she thinks we need it. No one wants to go in there, she has such a touch for bringing it out at the right moment."

"Ah! Ah! Ah! I almost forget, I have maple sugar, in the caravan! So sad, to have coffee, but it would get cold if I ran to get the sugar, so sad." He pouted for a moment, then gulped more of his beloved. I wondered if Hinge had the same love of coffee, and couldn't see him. I went to where I'd seen him with Rope, almost missed him, sitting in the smelly, mucky ground. I wandered closer, and saw the fur, black and curly long haired pelt, and the odor of rot. I held my nose to get closer. But his eyes were shut in pain, his fists pale from clenching.

"Hinge? What's wrong? Are you hurt?" But he didn't answer. I swallowed hard against the stench, and put my hand on his, and felt my own tears spilling over, while he seemed not able to cry. I heard shouting and movement around me, but all I cared about Hinge, my new parent, curled helpless before me. "I love you, Hinge, tell me what is wrong, please."

Rope appeared, and stooped down on his other side.

"We can bury Bill, again, Hinge. These sorts of things happen to us all the time, now. Almost makes me want to have God back, you know? We could at least rationalize it, believe it makes sense. Times like this, being an obedient Muslim seems better than being a Fortean, but... " She placed a hand over her mouth, and coaxed Hinge to his feet, without words, and walked him over to the coffee. I stayed and peered at the dead animal. Bill. So this was Bill. The hints of the story about Hinge's dog, who died the night Rope found me on the road, had drifted around me. No one had told me directly, and until now, I hadn't put it all together. I had not known, a big black dog, Bill.

Thus Spake Leaf

~
Leaf

Salmon examined the body on the long metal table, peering and poking, while Candle entered his words on the pewter. I had been warned I might not want to see, when Rope stopped in, on her way back to her cell. But I could see very little from my low vantage point, I suppressed my intense curious about the boys who blew up the Heap. guessed they were boys, based on the boys I grew up around.

"Salmon, have you made any headway at all on the stuff I had rained all over my very best robe ever?" Rope spoke in hushed, hurried tones. She had wanted to help re-bury Hinge's dog's remains, but he’d just shoveled some compost over him, without ceremony or explanation, and stalked off to help with the pipe work. Boot had watched him, thoughtfully, and followed. Although he did stop, to pat my head, and give me a glance, he seemed to say, I'll take care of him, I know Hinge.

Salmon now stood and stretched his back, nodding. "I've washed it all out, you can have your robe back, it's in the small bin. As for what it was..." A tilt of his shining head, a pursing of his lips. "It's not blood, as our Leaf knew, no heme, no iron. I want to think I saw some lipid membrane, but I really am not certain. Now Zipper has it for more extensive chemical analysis. We are just going to have to record it as is, and hope it happens elsewhere. There are other records of red rains, mostly from the former Sahara desert dust, but unlikely now, being underwater these days. Have you seen any evidence of dust storms around time we got doused, on Oogle Girth? No? Well, would have been too easy. Anyway, no other red rains that were properly studied match with what we found dripping from your wool. Did the stains come out of your white knits?"

"Not completely, could it be some insect, I hear some are used for red dye?"

"I checked, and I doubt it, although I can't completely rule it out, yet. Rock tripe goes purple, we use that already, not it. I just don't have an answer. Bugger Charles Fort to the deep. " Salmon turned back to the bodies on the table, "Right now, I have to do this, if we want to get them out to the cemetery tomorrow."

"I don't think we are going to be able to. Seeing a huge winter storm coming in from the north, I was out to the Heap to warn them just now."

"Oh, good. Sorry, but it makes my life much easier. Oh, and I have no clue about the ice either, don't know why blue, no idea how ice so big got into the sky to just fall, although there are plenty of other examples of large sky-falls." Salmon had brightened considerably, the only one who reacted happily to her storm warning. Rope gathered her woolens, rolled her eyes at the rolled up wad, and sniffed to her dissatisfaction, leaving me there to ponder death in the Abbey. He bent down to me, "Before the Cataclysm, the official explanation stated with great assurance that the blue ice came from Airplanes, but we don't have any flying right now, the solar ones only work in full sun."

"Leaf, have you ever seen anyone dead before?" Candle asked kindly, in between notes.

"Yes, my baby brothers, three of them. And my mom, with the last baby, I never saw thim because it, thee, died still inside her. She bled and bled until she lost it all. We buried her." I tried not to feel this, and kept myself calm and scientific. I did not add, and everyone else I'd known, because I didn't really see them, not while my father's body pinned me to the concrete, nor the terrifying night, so dark and still.

"So, do you want to see, or would you rather just hear?" Candle offered. I looked at Salmon, and the table, and decided, if I hoped to have a place here, I'd better be strong and willing to open my eyes. I found a square stool, and dragged it over to the table, clambered up, and looked. He lay there, all naked skin, but this could be no sin, even by Preacher. The dead must be washed, Jesus’ mother and the Marys washed his body, surely.

He looked like he’d been made of wax, not even real, though he felt like a presence at the same time. The other one remained covered right now, on a plank behind Salmon. Salmon looked very proud of me, and gave me a general description of what we were looking at. "A male, seventeen years old, healthy, bruises and abrasions," he pointed them out. The abdomen gaped open, but it just looked like a deer being cleaned, only smaller, neater, without the overpowering stench of blood. He showed me where the brain looked damaged, I hadn't noticed he'd cut off the top of the boy's skull, because all his curled hair covered it. "Some of this tissue, I will look at under a microscope, some I'll stain with dye, to show up different kinds of cells. All of it gets recorded. We all wind up here, the last gift to the data stream."

"Does Hand do this too?" I couldn't quite imagine it.

"She is a talented pathologist, yes. I couldn't take care of everyone here alone. Candle here does most of the bio lab work, and thee puts patients under anesthesia if we need to do anything too painful. We may have lost our ability to replace joints and heart valves, but no one has to die of a ruptured appendix just because we can't take it out safely." He never stopped working as he talked, interrupting himself to dictate to Candle. "We can actually do a lot more for chronic pains, and less invasive bone repairs, if not quite as effective for the really bad breaks. We do much, much better at prevention and stress related disease. Could be we have a healthier genetic sample, the survivors, and we reproduce regardless of genetic background. Better diet overall."

Though lost, I let it all wash over me, sure I would understand someday. I wondered what an appendix did, but I would ask later. Didn't want him to stop talking, as though I understood him completely. "How about the other one, the one who was... um..." What word had he used?

"Decapitated? Over there. I've already done thir."

I dragged my stool over and got up, lifting the drape. Oh. That's what decapitated meant. I looked, and by what Salmon had just taught me, not a boy. I had an awful feeling, heated, while my hands started to shake, as I continued to look at all shredded skin, the open gashes. Sweating and feeling a bit ill, Candle slipped his hands under my arms and I leaned against him, wondering why they'd turned the lights so low when they were working. I melted on the cold stone floor, my feet up on my stool, feeling very, very stupid, and nauseated.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll be alright really." Dizzy and clammy, I wanted only to slither off and hide.

"Kid, I wouldn't have thought you could get more pale. You look nearly as bad as the first time I saw you. White as milk, and blue lips, the whole dish. You lie there. Candle has gone to get you some juice. When did you last eat?" Salmon knelt beside me, and took my boots and socks off. I felt cooler already.

Food? I wanted to have bread at the Heap, but I forgot. "Breakfast, no Stone didn't make any this morning. Lens gave me some tea, and I had some hardbread then, I think." Salmon sighed. At Stone, I think, but just shook his head, and had me slowly sit up, staying on the floor until Candle brought me some strawberry juice and a piece of bread, and Salmon went back to his job, glancing over at me occasionally. I didn't want to eat at all, but I slowly started to recover, until Candle deemed me sufficiently "pinked up." Thee carried me back to Stone's cell, dumping me on my futon in the alcove. Lens grunted waking up noises, and took over, promising Candle he would tuck me in and feed me a decent meal.

I told Lens about the coming storm, and the events at the Heap, while he heated me up soup and tea and asked questions, checked Stone's computer, which seemed to tell him all he needed to know. We settled in to wait.

I jumped, I heard a bang and a sustained whoosh.

"Rope's storm, I think." He wandered over to the outside screen, and slid both layers aside. A gust of cold, dusty air blew in, and he shut it quickly. "About on time, and no joke. If you are alright, I'll give you the pewter, and go out there, see if I can help." I huddled, frightened by the force of the wind, and being up so high off the ground for a blizzard, but I shooed him off. At least he didn't offer for me to come with him. He grabbed his coat and boots, and loped off to offer aid. I hunkered down in the padded sacks. I put a bare foot on the floor, and it felt... warm. I ate my bread, and waited.

Thus Spake Leaf
~
Hand

They came in, the cold, the injured, soaked and bruised, and we tended to them all. Travelers bunked in, as is normal in the winter, with the Abbey residents, but without ceremony or chosen rooms, randomly sorting themselves by severity of hypothermia and need for care. Bolo's feet were burned and blistered by the puddles of chemicals and fermentation, as were many others. Salmon and Candle and I earned our keep, bandaging and drugging, as did Cookie and her crew of apprentices fed and warmed, and Mop’s assistants, and the elderly cleaners kept the mud at bay. The Heap repair workers organized themselves into shifts, with short baths, just enough to warm up, to make sure everyone got into the hot soaks. Hot rice balls and rabbit stew, beer, and pumpkin pies, green beans and salsa by the liter, until only the night guards sat up, wishing for the coffee, again. But the floors were warm, and we soaked it up like hope through our soles.

I searched for Hinge among the throng, but didn't see him. I ached for him, his touch would have fed me for the long night, but he did not appear. For a long time, I assumed he would be caring for his dogs, or had simply gone to sleep in his cell, and would come to me in the morning. I worried, of course I worried. I ran, I was needed, I couldn't just let so many suffer, uncared for, just for my own worry. I held my heart still, and waited.


Thus Spake Hand

~
Stone

"Hinge, if I crawl, can you grab my hood, and follow?" I swayed in pain, tolerable as long as I stayed still. Movement was agony. But we couldn't bide out here. The parents had sounded the clacker, and gathered everyone, including us.

"My leg's pretty bad." I could hear the strain, enduring as he always did. If he called it bad, he would not exaggerate. "I can maybe crawl."

"At least the pain means the pelting ice isn't appreciably worse." A hoarse bark of a laugh. "So, what did you fall in?"

"Felt like metal, not sure, my light had gone. No help now, I got the same crap in my eye Bolo and the others got on their feet and clothes." I forced myself to my hands and knees in the icy mud, and decided, as bad as shooting electrical shocks down my legs were, I needed to walk.

"How's your back? What did you do?"

"Oh, I've been having this. Just got worse when we lifted the board to cover over the fix." I could hear him roll his eyes in the dark. "Ok, a lot worse. Nevermind how much we hurt, or how much damage, we won't survive if we stay out here, you know as well as me. Don't make me carry you." Yeah, like I could on my best day.

I shouted into the fierce wind as I struggled to shuffle my feet, my legs searing, my back sending out pounding agony. "C'mon, no one is going to come for us for hours, we won't be missed for a while. Bolo's going to have his feet treated, Hand will miss you, but she'll be so busy, and assume you are in the kennels. This is the problem with the buddy system, buddy." What the scrod was going on with him? Not his usual stubborn self. I took each electric step, and pulled on his... oh, no coat either, his knit sleeve. It really wasn't far, and the road nearly ahead, all I could do, I fought the pain for each step, and let him drag himself along, blind.

Thus Spake Stone
~
Leaf

Lens had only been gone a short while, when I heard the arrival of almost everyone who lived in the Abbey. They came in covered in mud, cold and hungry and injured, but very proud of themselves, shaking snow pellets from their coats, and stomping their feet. Salmon and Candle and Hand were funneling the injured to the dojo, then had the well and bathed take them to rooms. The Travelers numbered half again as many people, but the Town folk had simply gone to their own hearths. I searched for Stone and Hinge, and Boot. The last being the easiest, as he regaled the gathered with a story in the restaurant over soup. I crept in, and tugged on his pantleg, until he leaned down, all attention on me.

"Leaf, what did you do all day?"

"Where is Hinge, and Stone?" He looked around, as though to say, they are right over there, don't you see them? But they weren't. "They were counted, I thought they were right behind me. I shall go and find out, you go to the kennels, and meet me back here. I take it Stone is not in her room? You checked there already?"

"And Hinge's room, and Hand's, I can't find them."

"You heard the young Leaf, we must find our friends, leave the food, go now." And quietly to me, "I am worried about Hinge, he wouldn't talk to me, very unusual. I will search, I promise." He ran to his Travelers, so I ran to the dogs.

"Are the dogs fed?" I asked the bent and elderly person staunching a puddle in the kennel entrance, no hair, I'd seen thim, but never spoken to thim.

"Hello, you are the cult child, are you not?" A cracked, whispery and wavering voice, vague and distracted.

"Yes, and I know Bolo is hurt, and no one has seen Hinge, so I came to make sure the dogs are alright." Not quite true, since I got here, I knew what Hinge would want me to do.

"I knew about all, the bother up there, my pewter, gave me this job to do. So I have. See? They all have water, and food. They have had no exercise, not in my ability, not tonight my task. I did clean out all the shit, from the kennels. Poor beasts, but by tomorrow, those who know them better, will be assigned to take them, out to exercise, I'm sure." Thee shook thir nearly bald head, wispy white hair hung in a halo around the bony head. "I was Mundi, you see, for many a long decade, but my mind faded, and they relieved me, of the duties, except in emergencies. I have to go home, now. Please tell the Abbot, I have done my job."

"What are you called, I'll tell Lens." Thir slowness actually calmed me, allowing my racing thoughts to slow.

"I am one of Mop's, just tell the Abbot. It will be enough." And thee shuffled off, amiably cooing at the dogs. Not just being polite, I could not guess if the kindly confusing presence was a man or a woman, or just past being either.

I searched out my Bob, so neglected in all the changes. My dog, and I could at least take him out for a walk. He wagged his tail and one-legged backside so hard when he saw me he thumped both sides of his enclosure. I grabbed one of the leashes and snapped it onto his collar, and opened the gate. He leapt up on me, licking madly and whimpering with glee. I wanted to whimper too, but I had formed an idea. Bolo mentioned he thought Bob had some bloodhound in him, a sniffer, he said, as well as a hardy Labrador, and no one knew what else. I ruffled the floppy ears, touched along the wound. A scar, but not red, as healed as my own sore on my hip. If I could do it, how much more this tough little guy could. Glad I'd put on boots and coat, intending to meet them on the road, I lead Bob out into the wind and thickening snow. North, into the teeth of the wind.

~
Leaf

I found them, or Bob did.

I realized my uselessness, a small girl and a three legged dog. They had stopped, Stone standing there, and Hinge sitting on the path. They barely responded, Bob began licking Hinge's face. The snow drove sideways, stinging and blinding. The Abbey door wasn't that far, what could be so wrong with them? Stone wouldn't lean down, Hinge wouldn't talk, but at least he held Bob, sort of.

I needed help, I'd forgotten Boot. I ran, to the Abbey, the wind shoving me, sliding in the black. The door slid open before I got there, Boot and a dozen Abbey folk were rushing out, lanterns in hand. I shouted to them.

"They are just a short ways, but they've stopped. I can't carry them, I'm sorry. Help them." Help them, please, please, but they were already running in the swirls, two carrying long poles with cloth wrapped around. I should have just stayed there, I knew I myself useless, could have gone to Hand, they would have found them anyway. Instead they nearly tripped on me, carrying both my, well my friends (I'd never had a friend, I wasn't sure) slung on the cloth between the poles, running faster than me. Bob bobbed behind, and I caught his dragging leash, he pulled me along until we were back, safe in the warm.

Mop's assistant pushed a rag along the floor with a stick, muttering amiably about all the dirt, when thee saw me and Bob.

"Oh, hello. Good dog you got there. Can I take him back to the kennel for you? Get him toweled off?" Thee held out a hand for the leash. "I'll give him extra food, won't I you good dog?" The last in a sing song tone to Bob, who wagged a limp tail. I wanted him with me, but Boot ran up to me.

"Let Bob go bed down. He'll be happier in the quiet. Too farting noisy up here." He'd gotten a towel for me, and helped me out of my wet outer wool, and dried my fringe of hair. "You did good, you know. Very brave of you."

"I didn't do anything, you got to them at the same time, and I forgot to come get you." I drooped, wrong and weak and tired. I sat down on the floor to pull off my wet felt boots, the grass undershoes came apart, and I snarled in frustration. My mother would have stroked my hair and soothed my anger. Boot did not.

"Is ok, you did do good. We would not have brought the stretchers with us right away, but for you. Bob gave them hope and warmth to hold on those last few minutes until we could reach them. Beforehand I would have wanted you to check with me, but you followed your instincts, thoughtfully, and you made a difference, I assure you."

"Are they going to be ok? They didn't talk to me, didn't answer me, I was so worried."

"I don't know, yet. I don't want to make a big noise and jog their arms, you know? Let me feed you, let me take care of you, so I can calm down, too, right? Those medics we got here, they will do their best, sure. Give them time, and so will I. Quite the halibut storm out there, eh? Come with me, let Mop and his crew clean, so it will be ready for the morning katas, and they can go to bed. "

Listening to him felt like when Ulysses licked my fingers, all rough and calming at once. I gathered my precious wet clothes, and waddled after him in my socks. Other very old folks, and a couple of younger ones who looked funny and limped, were pushing rags on sticks around the gleaming wooden floor of the dojo, shooing out a few other stragglers, like me.

“Hinge and I are great friends, but we didn’t used to be. Would you like to know how we got to be friends, Leaf?” He sat me in the gloom of the pottage, on a curvy bench, herbs and berries clustered around.

“Well, Hinge as a boy got into heaps of trouble. He loved to fight, loved to shout loud and run fast. Hated to read, couldn’t be bothered to think. Lived to see his sensei spar. He broke whatever he handled, never touched but he hit. Had to throw his body into everything. An athlete, and a great one. But no control, too much force, a boy heading to a short life at sea, or as a bandit on the roads of the more remote Abbey Chains.

“I started training to lead Traveler bands, I’d grown up on the road, then a few years older than Hinge. I have seen many kids and meeds who don’t give a carp, or don’t seem too. Too angry, embarrassed, too much of everything. But Hinge, oh, Hinge was terrible.” He pulled his erratic eyebrows into a ferocious bunch. “No, too much, but close, on his way. His parents tried, but could not get him to get through our basic education. And me, as a poet, a dancer, a musician, to hear him say such awful curses about art, well.” A huge shaken head. “He only loved fast and angry, the kata, but spinning out of the dojo.

“My Boss put me in charge of him, a test for me. I watched him, for a long while, while he marched with us, or failed to march, but lived stuck with us, more like. He growled like one of our guard dogs, who loved to bite, but wasn’t stupid, or really mean just to be mean. He always picked fights with bigger folks, never anyone he thought he could beat easily. I figured, well, he likes to fight, I’m the best fighter here, I will be his reward, his motivation.

“I sit him down, no fight. I give him a book. A real book, first one he’s ever seen, I thought. He put it down, I walk away. Later, same thing, only he looks at it, I punch him a bit. Takes me three days, he reads a page, I bowl him over, give him a great beating. He’s so happy.” Boot lets out a raucous cackle. “Bit by bit, he reads, I fight him good.

“One day, I look for him. Takes me all evening, and I spot his foot under a caravan, not a smart place to just sit, but there he is. Reading. Because the book has become his reward, better even than wrestling. I know I have him. He gets hungry to know everything, learn everything, from everybody. The possibility for meanness leaks out of him, bit by bit. He even learned to march pretty good, even if he can’t ever figure out left from right.”

I goggled, appalled, this didn’t seem possible of my beloved and gentle Hinge. Or, did he tell this just as a story? I leaned against Boot’s side, and sighed.



Thus Spake Leaf

5

Zipper

"Zipper, you are a sight for many a sore eye tonight." I looked up through my own sandy eyes to see the effervescent Boot looking unbounced. "The heat is back on, I feel, nice to have warm feet." I felt a small head pressing on my arm, Leaf looking miserable, but really much healthier.

"Boot saved Hinge and Stone. They seemed hurt, but I don't know how." Poor little thing, she needed a routine, we need to formalize her parent situation, start her education, get her into the dance or maybe the naginata or tai chi katas. Ah, well, life is long. I hope it's long for her, anyway. What I said, far less.

"I saw." I should have taken her to my cell, put her to bed, let her rest, made myself rest. But I couldn't leave the restaurant. My best place to wait near the spa. I listened to the howling wind, nibbled the tasteless bread and nuts Boot brought.

"I am sorry for your baby, Zipper. I heard, and I am sad for you. I brought this for you, finally made it to the caravan when I am coming in to the Abbey tonight." He brought out a bit of paper wadded around a small object. I feared he would give me some bit of gold or a stone he'd scavenged, I had to give many of those away over the years. What sat there was, well it was brown, the shape of a maple leaf, sparkling slightly in the lights on the table. My babe's favorite treat, a shaped drop of candy. I lifted it for Leaf to see, broke it in half, popped half in my mouth, and dropped the rest in hers. Wide eyed, she smiled in sensory overload, mirroring my own momentary immersion in simple sensation. The gritty sugar melted, and my mouth retained the sweetness. We sat, and waited.


Inevitable, with Boot there, we would discuss philosophy. It took a while, this time. And a question from Leaf.

"What is going to happen to the two, um, meeds who died?" I had been wondering myself, we were not likely to be able to get them far tomorrow, couldn't encourage the scavengers to come so close to the Abbey. Boot thought along very different lines.

"They will join the collective unconsciousness. There will probably be a great breakthrough in understanding sky fall phenomenon, or explosions, or maybe compost heaps."

"Won't God take them to Heaven? Or will their sin send them to Hell?" She shocked me, even knowing she grew up in a religious cult, to realize she really believed it, literally.

"There's an old theory, there is no evidence for any of it at all. But there is evidence for what we call a Pool of Life. When we die, it looks like all our knowledge and compassion becomes available for all of us." Leaf did not look convinced, at all. Boot took over. I rested my head in my hand.

"Many of the big religions taught of an End of the World, an Apocalypse, an Armageddon. When God would take all the Faithful to Paradise. Well, it looks like it happened, almost 250 years ago. And huge numbers of the religious were out in the middles of nowhere having the most destruction. Millions of Christians flocked to Yellowstone, when the whole volcano erupted and covered most of this continent with meters of ash. All the people of the book, as they called themselves, in almost a billion, were in or around Jerusalem, when several irritable governments dropped nuclear bombs on the place. In China, a massive pilgrimage, and they don't have an Armageddon myth, to right below a huge dam, hit by the largest of the dozen meteorites to hit Earth. Starvation and diseases, droughts and redundant wars, the entire human species erased, within ten years."

"Not all of us, not all!" She gripped my arm, more and more horrified with each item on the litany of deaths.

"When there were nearly seven billion humans, and now we have a bare million, not including the probable isolated tribes who have carved out some existence, but do not contact us, we are as gone as bread in your bowl." Boot pointed.

"But there is no bread in my bowl, and we are still here."

I picked up her bowl, and peered in, then tilted it to her, an almost invisible crumb in the bottom. She shook her head in anger, but she looked, and looked again. Realization crept over her.

"Yes, we are here. But not enough to count. Our species may not exist for a thousand years. The reason the Cassandras started counting down from a thousand, if we made it to then, we could then count a new way." Boot loved to tell the story of the Cassandras, winding himself up for a good one. I stayed silent, distracted from my real concerns.

"The Cassandras were ordinary people, many scientists, many just worked hard and paid attention. A while before the disasters started in earnest, six hundred and sixteen we know of, had a dream, all the same dream. They were shown the cataclysms rocking the earth, toppling the already fragile environment into a great dying, wiping humanity aside like so much dirt. But, if they planned, and stole all they could find, keep the learning from having seven billion minds alive and recording their ideas, cached advanced equipment, develop low tech and efficient societies, the means to make the technology, they should dare everything, and survive. They were told to plan for food for the people they could hide for twenty years, hide, defend yourselves, and survive."

"They found each other, on their internet. Fearing discovery, they played a game, and developed plans, many plans, not just one. They hid their locations from each other, so if one got found, others would still survive. Then they had a second dream, and they hid. For a whole decade they hid, and recorded everything they could about themselves, as a whole population experiment. We carry on today. Much previously obscured knowledge is showing up now, subtle effects, like knowing we are being looked at. We know when those we love are in peril, even far away. It's often not useful, but the communication can happen, and does under special conditions.

"What we seem to have most lost is any ability to just believe because we are told. We are critical and curious, and we raise the young to be the same, reinforce it, train it. We don't let children raise children, but bracket them with adults and Mundi, to break childish culture. Just as we nurture compassion and kindness. We practice fighting, because we know societies which were peaceful, were also vulnerable to attack. We make it a kind of dance, and we know the aggressiveness of our fighters, we test, check testosterone levels, protect the skills with the Rules, tailored for each person." He stopped, and waited for Leaf to swallow.

"What we don't find is any evidence of God, any god. There is some good advice in the various religious writings, but when you see what happens when a society is ruled by religion, the results are poor, and largely from the selfish and entitled teachings in the remainder of the scriptures. No one here is entitled to anything, even life. But no one else is entitled to take it from them either.

"Do you know why they called themselves Cassandras?" He peered at Leaf.

"Is it to do with the prophetess? Who no one would believe?" I kept finding myself amazed, even though I knew she'd had an eclectic stash of books she'd devoured. Boot roared in approval.

"Cassandra was given the gift of accurate and truthful prophesy, but cursed to having no one believe her. The Cassandras made a joke of it, only a Cassandra would believe Cassandra. Those friends and family who followed them underground are also called Cassandras, though they did not have the dreams. We descend from smart and funny people. And other survivors who slid through other ways, like the Japanese peasants who sailed to northwest Canada, and stumbled across one of our enclaves just as they were moving in. Cassandras made space for them. Many great contributions, and the language would not have been otherwise saved!"

"But what about the two who died?" Persistent kid, I'd forgotten her question in the flow of story, too.

"Ah, you have caught me out, telling my story. Quite right, what happens to us when we die. Well, there is no way to know. But we do know we do not see seven billion ghosts, and you would think we would see some, with so many bodies littering our earth, with so much weirdness we do have, like the falls of frogs and fish, extra statistical coincidences. Maybe they were right, and there was a God, and when the world ended, He took all his faithful to a heaven. But God seems to be gone now. No evidence for prayer for assistance having any effect at all. Prayers of gratitude do bring a personal peace, and less stress, so we continue those. What we do find is a burst of understanding somewhere in the System in the area researched by the recently dead. The theory best fitting the data suggsets life is like a pool of consciousness, it flows through us as we embody it, our lives unfolding with the pattern of all life. "My life is not mine, it is just life living itself through me", as Zoketsu Fischer once wrote.

"We don't bury our dead. We only keep their life as it grows among us. Just as we could not bury the seven billion. We let the scavengers have the meat, it seems only fair, as we occasionally hunt them for food." He finished, and a thoughtful silence settled on us. I had to add my own side.

"We still grieve,” I told this child who had lost all of her own beloved, “because we miss them, miss a particular person, like I miss poor Towel. I couldn't even tell if my baby was a boy or a girl, thee was kind of both. Thee was so young, but thee saw life so clearly, so funny and loving..." I felt a dam break in my heart then. And Boot saw, and held my hand so delicately. I had not meant it to be a secret, it had just stuck so long in my throat, my babe had so much damage, body and mind, but not thir heart. Not like me. I pushed my cousins, thir parents, and my dear espoused away because I could not see them without choking.

"But didn't the dreams come from God?" Ah, she displayed a talent at poking holes, more of a scientist than she realized, she'd poked at me the same.

Boot answered, but I could have, I had asked Leaf's question myself one, while reading history, and bemoaning the losses, all the art, all the libraries and poets, all the pottery. " The Cassandras write about god, and part of the dream, each to their own language and culture, they ask the Guide, what about God? And all are told, no, don't look to any higher power, don't look outside yourselves, it's a trap, a Game Over. Love each other, and live well, figure it out yourselves."

"I'm sorry I didn't bring you any jewels or gold this time Zipper. But one day, you will melt it all down, and build a new board for pewters, an innovation and transformation of idle trinkets into a way to at least see more of our art and our writings. Or maybe just a gold glaze for your own art. " Oh. Oh, holy carp. I looked at Boot with new eyes in our eternal moment. He loved me. All those winters, approaching me through my science, and he wanted only to love me. And I couldn't see. Oh. His fingers still warm on mine, I turned my palm up, to hold back. Oh.


"Do you mean I can't believe in God?" I couldn't read her opinion on this, dismayed or hopeful?

"You don't have to do anything, we have a duty to present the research to you, and let you decide for yourself." Boot said, gently. Leaf wriggled, stood, and drifted over to the door, sliding open the panel inside the plastic window. Black night, and pelting snow. The gusts shook the walls. "It's snowing, there are drifts to the side there." She told us, staring out.

Hand slid open the paper screen, and spotted us. "Hinge has a broken leg, tibfib, Salmon and Candle are fixing him now. Drilling in pins, hoping for the best. Used up my whole excess energy portion to get an x-ray. And we rinsed out his eyes, lots of debris in there, very irritated. Good the Travelers showed, we were out of any of our tetanus vaccine before. He's lost a lot of blood, he started going into shock, Leaf. Stone we just sedated, we'll do more tomorrow. Seems she just wrenched her back, badly, but not much we can do but let her rest and heal. Boot, any idea of how Hinge could just break a leg, he's not exactly fragile? Stone says he seemed to just step off the path, next thing she knew, he told her his leg seemed hurt."

"I've been thinking about the path. I saw earlier, some of the machinery for the compost turning crumpled beside the road, maybe he steps on a part, it goes fling! and smashes into his leg. Loads of substantial metal, and twisty. No one even thinking about rubbish, with the two killed." A great lifting of shoulders.

"Zipper, does Hand mean they are going to be alright?"

"I think so, Leaf."

Thus Spake Zipper.

~
Boot

So much work, so much damage, those two good meeds dead so strangely, my dearest friends hurt so badly, my traveling cousins all scraped and exhausted, I wanted to roar and dance at once. But, we made it through, everyone still alive, my guys fed and warm, heat fixed, a long winter of repair and recuperation ahead. I stood in our lovely garden, the air cool, little lights in the trees under snow greyed glass, with hope in my heart. I wanted to pick Zipper up, and fly her though the sky, kind and brilliant, so achingly still, with her rare and precious smile to light her face entire. And Leaf, another traveler, a kindred soul with a ferocious will to grab her life and live the bugger out of it. I stopped, and sang out an off key Sol with all my heart.

Lay down your weary tune! I sang, as loud as I could. Zipper joined in her soaring treble, and Leaf hummed a bit, by the second verse, other tired voices sang in, probably just trying to drown me out. The music swelled, muted, but deeply resonant. I noticed the parents standing out on the balcony, all together, all eight with their arms around each other, eyes closed, mouths open wide. Tears leaked out of my eyes, until the song ended in a solid hum. Well, I had the right day for it, or not, but we needed it, so that's ok, right?

Thus Spake Boot.

~
Stone

We were all crowded into Hinge and Hand's adjoined cells, the screen wall removed between, ancient books on high shelves, pillows and pads all over the floor. Hinge rested uneasily on a futon, leg propped up, and thickly bandaged, his eyes still covered with anti-biotic ointments smearing his vision, but vision nonetheless. Bolo lounged beside him, big bare blistered feet sticking out over the end of the platform. Boot took up an entire corner, with Zipper perched nearby, looking very pleased with themselves. Rope is beside me, recounting her adventures with the last weather station, and her snow and wind speed measurements. Lens, and Chain, the Abbot of the month, stood in the doorway, discussing heating issues. Salmon and Candle leaning together near the cook alcove. Leaf squeezed Bob against her leg, right in the center on a pillow, and Hand passed around beakers of sweet tea.

And me, I'm on my belly, a bolster under my pelvis, flat on the floor, trying not to make any sudden movements, and happily drugged to the eyeballs. Hand has provided me with a bent straw, thoughtfully. Hinge is murky, pale and bruised, and just as drugged. Long overdue, this gathering to welcome Leaf, and work out a place for her in our merry band of eccentrics. Maybe just as well, she had some time to see us all at our worst, and could give informed opinions. The public ceremony, if wanted, would wait until everyone could stand without excruciating pain.

"Leaf, this is all about you, so you feel free to talk whenever you want." Hand said, "We have all done wrong since she got here, but it wasn't for planning wrong." We laughed, politely, Hand was always more comfortable with observable facts, but she'd wanted to start. And now, she'd changed her mind, passing the floor to Zipper, who rolled her eyes and stood.

"Leaf, there is a lot we need to know about you, so we can do right by you. You have showed us you are tough and smart and very caring. We want you here, as long as you want to stay. Since you are still very young, you need to have parents, but you are too old to just be given a new mom and dad. We call late given parents Aunt and Uncle, with Grandparents or Cousins for the other two parents. Doesn't matter what you actually call us day to day, but these are positions that carry duties, here. Your Aunt and Uncle are your primary parents, you go to them first, and they have the last say. You live in one of their cells. Your secondary parents fill in whenever the primary folks are not present, and cousins help out as needed. These four are responsible for making sure you know what you need to know, get teachers to teach you, test you, feed you, clothe you, and keep you healthy."

"Do I get to choose?" Leaf asked, shyly the center of attention.

"Everyone in this room has offered to parent you, except for Bob and Chain who is the official to record your choice, make sure it is all done fairly."

"I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings." And I wondered if she would choose Boot, who as far as I knew, planned to be traveling in the spring. Unless Zipper finally realized his devotion to her, and convinced him to stay. Or they were both planning on taking Leaf with them when they traveled.

"This is the peril of all choice. Still, are all your friends. It's a matter of comfort, and once you give us your preference, we will advise you, and maybe have you reconsider." She didn't say there were only certain combinations of parents, few choices really were going to work, but if Leaf chose well, it wouldn't be a problem. Elegant, I'd never seen it in practice.

"If I pick Stone, who will be my uncle? Stone doesn't have a husband, does she?" I laughed, I was too young to be married, even if there had been an espoused in my life all my adulthood.

"Leaf, you don't have to pick a coupled pair. Stone is laughing because she is going to have to explain why she laughed, later, and Hand gave her a lot of drugs." Zipper looked sharply at me, and I giggled again, I'd never heard her talk so much at one time.

"Stone, then. And, um, does Hinge feel well enough?" She looked worriedly at the stocky fellow looking distinctly feeble. "Because, I'd be happy with Salmon, just as much, and Candle knows how to take good care of me, too." She looked torn, we all knew she had a soft spot for Hinge. Well, we all did.

"Leaf, I have all the time in the world right now. Time to teach you up to and including calculus." And he smiled. The first smile I'd seen from him since his painful laugh last evening on the road.

"Can I have Bolo for my cousin?" A surprize, but from Zipper's face, an acceptable choice, he was twenty, just old enough, and had to pass the parenting course to be a dog apprentice, so really, not bad.

"Zipper, will you be my grandparent? Or would it be cousin?" Not unexpected, either, still she beamed, and kissed her new kid’s fuzzy head, showing snowy hair.

I dozed and drifted as they discussed testing her for her numeracy and literacy, vowing to myself scrupulous honesty there. I am a mum, a real mum. I thought of my babe, now nearly grown. I vowed to myself to do better, than my mother, than my younger self. With those three to keep me in line, I felt confident. Boot presented her with her own pewter, and Chain beamed and entered his official code, so she had full access. I knew she would be about a week getting into all my personal files, a given, and apprentices first reprimand usually. I needed to move, and go soak, so I caught Hand's hem, and she beamed at me. It would be a cold winter, but the heat worked.

Thus Spake Stone

~
Hinge

I lived in a smeary world of pain, and Bill laid beside me. Not in fact, but in my imagination, and I realized I had dammed my grief, instead of letting it flow through and out. I could do little else, now. I listened to the wind continue to shake the lint screen walls. I spun with generator wheel with my left foot, or sometimes my hands, and let the current flow in the spoked wheel of my broken leg. I meditated, but my mind tended to snarl. Hand flowed through, as her duties to so many other patients allowed, our new devotion to each other a fresh breath of air, after so long flirting and drifting. Stone, stiffly on her feet, according to Hand, kept an eye on my apprentices and the Journeyman dogger from the Travelers. Thee was sharp, a Master Knitter as well. Vivid, according to Stone, with a plan to improve our underwear and knittings this winter, reminding me of my vivacious mom, when thee stopped in to report on the critters progress.

"Howdy, dogman, how's it hanging?" Oh, spawning salmon, I could picture her with her smoky tone. Tall and formidable, or short and round and formidable, same incarnation. The kind of person I had often enough flirted with, coupled with, and found myself left and alone the next day. When young, I never quite noticed. But I'd grown soft hearted, and fond of quiet steamers, like Hand, in the intervening years.

"Sad and drugged, at the moment, Hanger. Sad and low." I pouted, and hung my head. Partly true, and let's leave it. Her laugh sounded, raucous and welcoming, I could have been a lewd as I wanted, words were all I felt up to.

"Your young fellow is whipping those apprentices into shape, and sweet as maple sugar to your little girl. Very capable." Sucked lips, double entendre, I liked her immensely.

"His little kid, too. She chose him as a Cousin. Bolo is a good meed. Is he treating you right?"

"Um hmm. It's floundering cold out there, especially after getting so chilled on your blighted compost heap, yesterday. Those dogs needed running. We got all their trainers running as much as the dogs, all over the non-cat areas of the Abbey. Had to run off some of my frustration, too, I'm thinking. Bad to have a Fest cut off prematurely, don't you think?"

"Indeed, and I hadn't even started. Forgot in all the trouble." I had forgotten, and we'd been on our way, when the explosions hit.

"So, do you need a little distraction, Hinge? Need a little oiling?" I had to laugh, but not at her. No doubt this got covered in her Rules.

"No, no, I'm afraid even if I wanted, it's against my Rules, these days." I had not formalized them, but I'd promised Hand, enough for me, official or not. So she gave me an entertaining, and thorough report on every dog and other critter under my supervision, and a "Well, you can still enjoy me aurally."

Leaf distracted me from my pain and boredom, and her stories of dogs and books, how high the snow drifted, and how Rope crowed over being right, and hew own new discoveries, and her interest in my old talk files. She agreed they sound just like her own original family. She curled up on me, a few minutes at a time, like a cat with pretensions to doghood, and I felt the same fierce protectiveness as with my injured creatures. She needed no convalescing at all, she spun on full power, running up the stairs to describe another fresh realization, which she had to share with me, immediately, only to scamper off again, for another training session with Bob and Bolo.
It took longer than I'd imagined, but suddenly, I saw the old wall, crumbling, and fallen in places. Lens and Barrel stood near a gap, talking. Boot placed me down so gently, and nudged me to them. I marched myself there, left right left right, subduing my fears, and tugged on Lens's sleeve.

"Is it bad in there?" The horrors filled my mind.

"There are bones, and clothing, scattered. We went as far as clearing the front area away. The wall probably has buried about a dozen of them. Nothing for you to see, that you haven't seen far worse." Lens knelt on the muddy ground, and began the ceremony for hitting, but this time, he asked to steal. To take all found in my compound, for the use of the Abbey. I did not know he planned this. I put my hands on his and said “Hai.”

All the salvagers around me said with me, All the salvagers around me said with me, itadakimasu.
Leaf's voice, again. I smiled. "Hinge, I brought you a visitor. She is a real Gypsy, and she has a story to tell us!" I couldn't see, even if the bandages were off, my eyes were thick with anti-biotic goop, but I held out a hand.

"Greetings Abbeyman Hinge, your new daughter is a fellow lost child, like me. So when she insists you need a good story, I cannot deny her, now can I?" Her hand pressed, dry and calloused, boney and long in my own. "I am sorry for your injury." A pause as she settles herself on the futon, and Leaf snuggles up to my leg, and under my hand, right where I'd imagined Bill. "I think I must first tell my own story, yes?"

"Yes, please.... um, " I really was drugged, I couldn't remember what name she had given.

"I am called Camera, a word with a strange history, like me. I was born among the Rom, and raised in a Caravan, but not quite like all the Travelers today." Ah, I had seen a band of real Gypsies when I was very young, but they never came close, never acknowledged us. I had ached to run after them. Her laugh chuckled low and suggestive, but honest, no pretense there. "My family scraped by, poor, and me, the oldest girl. No much use for me, you see. So when your Travelers were camped nearby, we played music and danced together, and I fell in love with the golden tresses of Linen, and ran away from the Gypsies forever. Ha! Not the normal way, eh? Have you traveled, Hinge the Abbeyman?"

"I have, long ago, across the Britain Chain, and here for a few years. I, too, grew up, for a time, on the road, with a horse and dog. I have not gone for more than a month at a time, since I was a Journeyman, though. I am not, perhaps, a natural Traveler." No, I didn't need to be warm and have regular meals, but I surely liked it. "And I'm in no shape to travel right now." I touched my bandages, and the wire cage around my lower leg, the pins sticking out running right through the bone.

"Ah, then I will take you traveling, even though I am sure you know this journey well." She coughed, and I felt her shift, her voice taking on the tones of the Story. "Once upon a time, in an Abbey far, far away, there lived a charming young lad by the name of Joe..."

"Why did he have a dog's name, Camera?" Asked Leaf, annoyed at the change of Rules. She lived in a rule addicted age, I knew, but Camera stayed patient, unperturbed at the interruption.

"Because this is a story, and in a Story, the people are all called by the old people names, and the animals are given descriptive names. It is a clue, it is how we know it is a story, true, but not fact." She chortled, really chortled, a sharp sort of deep throat laugh, and probably rubbed the halo of white hair on poor Leaf's head. She began again.

"Joe was charming and pretty, he laughed a lot, and everyone liked him, because he was pleasant to look at, and he made them happy. Joe slid along, not having to work quite as hard, everything came easy to Joe. And Joe, hardly noticing, started taking a little more when there were sweets. He snitched an extra spoonful of jam, or an extra bite of meat, while making a joke, or telling Cookie how pretty she was this fine morning. He found a wild raspberry patch, and ate all the fruit himself, not bothering to tell anyone else. It got worse, he started picking up the odd sock left in the Bath, and keeping it instead of finding who lost it, and needed it. He found a way to give himself a few more points on his pewter course scores, and told himself "I am so smart, I will learn it later, so I should get credit for it now." He took a book or two from the library, and stashed them under his futon, promising himself to return them, when he'd read them. He would let his hands roam a little, when he danced at the Fests, and his partners blushed, but said nothing, it was such a little touch, he probably didn't mean it, they thought. Always little cheats, too little, to be called on it would be embarrassing to both, so Joe got by, and liked feeling a little better than everyone around him.

"Well, Winter, SenFest morning, Joe got up, and decided to take a nice hot bath, even though he should not have, being only for the Townfolk on fests. But he knew he could talk them out of bothering with him, he would entertain them, and soak as long as he liked. And he did. Never even washed anyone else’s backs, just made them laugh, and slipped through.

"But when he got out of the Bath, do you know what happened?"

I heard Leaf take a deep breath, and not answer.

"Joe's clothes were gone. Not a stitch left, everyone else's clothes were hidden, so he couldn't even snitch. All the towels were gone too, balanced on the heads of the Townsfolk soaking, and ignoring his pleas for a bit of cloth. Not a thread for poor Joe. So he had to run naked through the Abbey, which is not good in any Abbey anywhere. No one talked to Joe, no one seemed to see him at all. When he got to his cell, the screen to the hall had gone, and inside, what do you think?"

"All his clothes were gone!" Yipped Leaf, who had quite the repulsed interest in anything involving nakedness.

"Right, and not just his clothes, but everything. His pewter and his futon and his cooking pot. Not a single molecule of what Joe had once called his own was left. Now, Joe was mad, and he shouted and raged. But, again, no one noticed, and ranting didn't seem to be doing any good at all. So Joe got sad, and cried, but again, no one noticed, maybe because Joe’s were selfish tears, I don't know for sure. He tried begging his neighbors for just a little bit of clothing, even making a joke of flashing the whole Abbey and Town on a Fest day, but they ignored him. He finally ran to the Abbey, who shook thir head and said the name of the Abbey of the Month. He went to the Abbey of the Month, who shook thir head and said only the name of the Abbey of the Week.

"And the Abbey of the Week took Joe into thir cell, and suggested he stay in the Bath, where he could be properly naked, until he figured out what was happening. Then thee turned thir back, and Joe walked out, baffled and lost.


"Joe kicked his heels, bored and tired and frustrated, so when the last few Townsfolk came in for a scrub, he tried to talk to them, but they wouldn't talk to him either, wouldn't laugh at his jokes, barely glanced at him. Until he, in desperation, began to wash their backs for them, and then they would say "thank you." By the end of the day, someone had given Joe a pair of underpants. While he shivered in his cell all night, listening to the Fest playing around him, he began to open his eyes. Every day after, Joe worked hard at his normal job, and did little acts of kindness and usefulness, just to hear someone say "thank you." By the end of each day, he would have an item of clothing, or a spoon, or a blanket. Bit by bit, people were talking to Joe again, laughing at his funny ways, and enjoying looking at him. And every day, Joe gave back a little more than he felt he had been given, just to make sure." A long, ending pause. Camera told it differently than I remembered, but not badly.

"The End. But what does it mean?" Frustration soaked her tone, Leaf got the form, she knew from stories.

"Well, Leaf, it's a story. You learn it, and you have to find the truth in it yourself." Camera stood, I assume. "Hinge, we will tell each other tales this Winter, yes? I must go do my job now. Try to convince my apprentice not to break any more strings on his fiddle." Camera departed, Leaf pestering her for more explanation as they closed my door.

I dreamed for awhile, of being on the road, I think, and woke with the thought of Tank and Hasp's bodies, rotting in Salmon's workshop. Leaf ran in, and sprang onto the platform.

"Gently, gently, please!" I had to laugh, but it hurt.

"Oh, oh, sorry." She crept slowly under my arm. "I don't want to hurt you. I was talking with Salmon. They have the two sealed in plastic, for now he says. Rope says the storm is not letting up at all, and there's no break today, probably. I got Bob to sit and stay! Bolo says he's a very smart dog. He didn't do very well with stay, but he did it once." She nuzzled in, and I could hear a question coming from afar. Slowly, hunting for words, it came out. Had she done any good at all for me and Stone?

"Leaf, bringing Bob out to me, inspired good. Made me remember my dogs, and my friends. Hand says I already developed compartment syndrome in my leg, the blood leaking out stopped fresh blood feeding my foot. Not much longer, and they'd have had to cut it off. Matter of minutes, says Salmon. You gave me a few minutes. All the difference."

"A few minutes doesn't make a difference." Leaf averred, critical and absolute. I tried again.

"If I were to jump from the top balcony across to the other balcony, would it be better to just barely make it, or miss it by an inch?" I felt her shudder, her terror of falling providing the force for comprehension. Ah. And she raced off again, hopefully not to try for herself.

Thus Spake Hinge

~
Stone

"Hi Stone, hi Hand, can I come in?" Leaf, again, with a new question, or a new revelation. Hand had stopped having me torture myself for neglecting my back, and now tormented me herself, as my fellow sufferers were verbally lashed on, to get strength or flexibility back, and incidentally charge the generator for the spa. She pushed and pummeled and massaged my aching butt, with the promise of a bag of fresh packed snow to follow. I repented my neglect, but there much expiation required. Answering my new kid's queries seemed just a smear on my burden, and a distraction from the pain.

"Do fish really fall from the sky every Friday?" Ah, she'd seen the reading at Shi Fest.

"No, but for a year, one Abbey, in the Britain Chain I think, got fish every Friday. We probably average about two a year." Hand answered.

"Oh." She peered at my squished face in the rest of the massage table. "Your skin is pretty." Ah, I wondered when the question about our Abbey tattoos would come up. But she seemed to have changed her mind. "Zipper said she would teach me math, we only folded paper and drew on wet clay, there weren't any numbers at all."

"Perfectly right, she's teaching you math the right way round, the numerals will come later, not to worry." And to Hand, "Ow."

"Quiet you." And continued. We heard a commotion beyond the screen, and I heard Boots sonorous bellow.

"Ah, the lame and the lazy, may I join you? Where is Stone with the ducks and the goats?" I saw his felt boots below my face. Then a jumble of knees and elbows, and he laid himself on the floor beneath me, grinning wickedly. "I never hoped to see you from this position, sweet Stone."

"M'urg" I said.

"I'm sad to have bad news for you, for although your ducks are unhappily being blown about on the close pond, with sufficient free water, and I have retrieved most of your goats from oblivion...."

"You went out there?" He was built like a stone wall, but such wind and cold were nothing to play around in.

"I had to set the ropes around, and down to the Town building, nevermind. And you charged me with feeding your goats, or the Program did, same same, so I go take care of your animals, since you are crying about your poor back." A huge sorry face, bushy eyebrows disappearing into each other. "So, I do my duty. Or I get my useless meeds to do it, also same thing. Three of your dear goats, and I check by their ear marks, they are gutted. Throats slashed, one has a leg missing, all are missing their male apparatus."

Male apparatus? Aw, Boot. "Mountain lion, you think?" Had to be, they were the only large predator we saw this far north, this time of year. "Or, bear?" Forgot about the bears.

"Could be, could be, but not eaten enough for either. And to have the three, all together, unlikely. Very strange. A little snow under them, could have melted down, maybe."

"Chupacabra!" This from Leaf. Boot turned his head toward her, she existed outside of my vision, Hand stopped momentarily.

"I read about it, the Goat Sucker." Well, it she had a theory, but what kinds of books did she have in her former home? "Oh, and Salmon found a needle in Tank's brain." She ran off, presumably to tell Hinge. A needle? I needed to hobble off and see Salmon anyway.

"I'm sorry about your goats. But the meat will feed the dogs. Probably alright for us, but farting tough, you know."

"Hand, is it time for snow?" Not looking forward to it, but Hand’s particular pain would be over for today.

"Ah! I will get you snow!" Boot turned and stood, to take the plastic bag out into the storm, just to add to my misery. I'd rather be taking care of my own animals. Chupacabra. Raising Leaf may well prove trickier than I had imagined, and I imagined pretty hard.

"You stay there until your monster brings you ice. I don't care how weird today gets."

"Yes, Hand."


Thus Spake Stone
~
Leaf

My head spun with so many ideas. I learned how to talk dog, and a few hand talk gestures, my first dance class ever, and I held a spear in my hand, watching the rest of the class swing them around in a shouting choreography of swhooshing movement as I froze in fascination. And I got my first job, the pewter had it in red when I turned it on this morning. I had to help Mop, with directions to the rag closet. First thing, I saw my nameless friend, holding a stick with a rag on the end. Thee smiled, and, as always, said,

"Oh, hello." Thee handed me a wad of rags, and with a dozen others, elderly, limping, or just meeds with a vague look in their eyes and a funny sweet smell about them, we set off to dust and clean, starting at the top, we worked our way down the entire building, catching all the dust and mud outside every personal cell, and cleaning the observation rooms, the fourth floor small cells, with no pot or shower or cooking place, but with a clear glass window, and a rounded outside balcony. I had not noticed these narrow screens when I had explored before. My friend gave me a disjointed, but very interesting, explanation of the building.

"So the guards can look out, and send up an alarm if there is trouble."

"Like when the compost heap exploded?"

"When, friend?" Thee seemed unconcerned, and genuinely oblivious, so I simply didn't answer, which seemed to work just fine. I just continued to wipe low, as thee wiped high, and we chatted aimlessly.

"Why are we so careful about water, when there's a whole river out there?"

"Oh, well, there have been intermittent problems with contamination, even after so long. Much more of a problem during my generation. Heavy metals, poisons, all kinds of bad leaks into the water, from the ancient cities and what they threw away. Sea urchins were a great help, but we are still careful. It's not the amount of water, but to be certain that what we drink and bathe in is clean enough."

Thee mentioned again being Mundi, which I guessed meant thee was a little crazy, but nice. We were done by the time I my belly started growling, and we wandered together to the restaurant, where the cooks gave us a little tea and cereal, with a dab of raspberry jam.

"Why is everyone so peaceful and happy here?" I asked. And immediately thought of Hinge's grief and Zipper's.

"Oh, we have our troubles, but we try with all our might and attention to keep them small. The meeds working with us, today? Have you noticed them being happy? No. Well, we have failed them, and we don't quite know why. Can't find what would motivate them, honestly, it may be power, and we can't just give them unearned power without imperiling all of us. So they grow marijuana, and eat it, as much as they can stand. Or ferment alcohol from old fruit. Many wind up along the roads, scraping by. We keep them moving, they must work on the planting and harvest, and they clean under Mop. They barely exist, rather like me, now. But I am happy with my little jobs, and they are not. All the Abbeys have a version of them. If they are lucky, they wander with the Travelers, some come back with discipline and find a place among us." Thee absently rubbed a grease spot on the table.

"And if they are not lucky?" I asked.

“Many of them go off with the Travelers, and many do not arrive."

"They disappear? Are they killed?" I vividly imagined my lost, elder sister, and what might have happened to her.

"Disappear. Into the wilds. We know there are tribes, lost peoples, strays. Rarely, a serious crime is committed, a murder, a rape, arson. And we take the offender out to the edge of the wilderness, to where the ash starts. We tattoo them, with their crime illustrated, and leave them there. It is cruel, but so are they, or we would not do this." Thee looked deeply sad, then grew vague again, and smiled, and greeted me.

"Oh, hello. Are you having a good breakfast?" I held thir hand, and smiled, and thought.

"I don't have a tattoo." I told thim, hoping for a random story.

"No, you are too young. Although the Traveler sometimes tattoo their children, since they get lost more often. You will have one when you become Meed, at age fifteen, or so. Can't tattoo children, would make a mess." Thee sprayed out spit, and made a loud mouth noise.

I copied, and thee laughed and made an even more obnoxious blat, which I tried with less volume, hindered by own giggling. Other breakfasters peered over, and to my relief, grinned and shook their heads, a few even blatted back.

"Ah, ah, ah, I must go to the pot, dear. I hope you may help me tomorrow, I have enjoyed this." Thee stood, but I had one more question. I fumbled the words, stammering, being terribly rude, but thee answered, anyway.

"I honestly don't remember anymore, does it matter?" Smiling kindly, thee hurried off, slightly off kilter.

Thus Spake Leaf
~
Leaf

The wind howled, and I moaned in hunger, I ate out of an empty can. My hand bled from an enlarging cut that spurted my face. Mom was angry at me for eating on a holy day. The Preacher stood behind her, scowling. He intoned "You are a sinner, you have forsaken your own!" And he picked me up by my arm, hurting my shoulder, and handed me, dangling painfully, to my father, who carried me out, out to the forest, into the dark and the cold, as I screamed and cried, and my father shouted louder,

"Turn off the waterworks, can't you see I'm saving you?"

Only, my father turned into a skinny boy with dirty hair and a wild look. My mother standing in the snow, pale and cold, and did not look at me, as babies and small children lay still at her feet. I sat down with them, my feet in icy water, where fish teemed, eating my toes off, and I could not pull away or move.

Then a black dog, enormous and snarling, turned to me, and licked my face.

I woke shivering and cramped, cat on my feet, Stone snoring beside me in the nest of stuffed sacks and patched wool. The wind outside rattled the panels, and scatterings of ice hit the wood. I crawled out, hiding in the dim red glow of the pot room. I felt around for my coat and boots, and slipped out to the garden.

The glass overhead glowed grey with snow, heavy and stifling. I watched a large figure tread toward me on the balcony.

"Leaf, the wind getting to you?" Lens, unsettling, but familiar. His voice became gruff and he recited,

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

“Raymond Chandler, I only wish I could find more of his writing.” He sat beside me, dangling his feet over the rail. "Getting to me. I'm betting on fights and squabbles tomorrow. Glad I sleep through it all. Several others up tonight." He gazed up to the snow layer. His quotation sounded sort of familiar to me.

"I can't imagine anyone here fighting, except in the, um, kata."

"Kata, yeah. Well, helps some. The real male end of the spectrum, not so much. Or the end of the female range, either, come to think of it. Depends." I was not awake enough to do more than look vaguely worried, and puzzled, apparently. "Don't worry, it's not all the time. But there are still enough wild folk out there, peaceful societies often forget defense. We didn't, but we pay for it, when the winds steal our calm, or the beer is too strong. All the Vikings are not dead yet, they never will be."

"Why're you up at night so much?" I fought my drowsy, heavy eyes, but I did not want to face my dreams, not yet.

"I'm always up at night. Natural rhythm, can't be up all day, or I get in very bad shape, hands shake, muscles spasm, not good at all. I do the night walk here in the winter, and the rest of the year in the spiral. There are a couple more who are almost the same, the young ones don't mind being up all night either. I try to overlap the evening to be with friends. I read a lot. Hinge has a lot of my books, I have hundreds more stashed."

"I thought everything is recorded on pewter."

"No, not at all. It's just complicated to get a book printed, now. Good inks are not a high priority. And to reprint an old one is a low priority, sadly. I love books, love reading."

"I used to have more books than I could ever read, in the compound. I wish I could get them now." I wanted them now, right now, to immerse myself, be in those mirrors to other worlds, better for me, even, than Hinge's old talk files.

Lens studied me. "Would you like me to help you find them? I'm being greedy, of course, I would like to read them as well. But, do you think, we could try to find where you lived, and in the Spring, we can search?" I could have said no. Part of me cowered, terrified, what would be left? I forced myself to imagine reading from a real book, instead of corpses strewn about, and I nodded.

"I heard about the person called Angle. What happened to thim?"

"Crazy trout stayed at the spiral. Says thee can't come out. We left thim food, as much as we could spare, the day of the explosion. Thee has sent us all emails, claims thee is fine, nothing to worry. I worry. Our building is not best insulated, the windmill will give thim heat and power, but it's prone to winter damage, with the solar panels on the vanes." He tilted his head back in a long stretch. "You going back to bed?" He lifted me up, and directed me inside.

"I am afraid of my dreams." I admitted.

"Me too," and was gone, stealthily along the surrounding walk.

6

Leaf

When I woke again to grey sticky dawn, the light had not come, and the wind ripped fiercely at the walls. Stone stood stiffly by the door, the tea heating, but the breakfast only cold bread and dry cheese.

"Still?"

"Still. Rope reports it should end by tonight. But she said the same yesterday. My ducks are hiding, three are missing, another goat died, but j if(window.yzq_p==null)document.write(""); if(window.yzq_p)yzq_p('P=Rh7kkNhtfYL_w7NUDVc9AwbO2LTukkatSXEABhyd&T=13udfkl19%2fX%3d1185761650%2fE%3d96062901%2fR%3dyahoosrch%2fK%3d5%2fV%3d1.1%2fW%3dJ%2fY%3dYAHOO%2fF%3d3007009650%2fS%3d1%2fJ%3d0E7D6DD8'); if(window.yzq_s)yzq_s();