The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [13]
Ahead, to the left of the great mountain, the dull ocean glimmered under cover of the clouds. A storm was picking up, far out over the water, angry and black. Even here, winds grew stronger. He sniffed the air. He would need to keep an eye on this weather, though the rocks that ringed the shallow crater where the sisters had instructed his ancestors to build sheltered the small community—
Like a stab in his throat, another bitter call came, a taste so sharp and painful that the exemplar groaned aloud and put his hands up to his neck.
Hurry. You need to watch us leave. What’s taking you?
He was frozen with shock. Had the sisters said what he thought they had? Leave? Was leaving possible? The benevolent sisters, bless them, had always been sitting side by side, inert, on their pad. How could they leave?
Filling with foreboding now, regardless of the pain in his feet, the exemplar began to run.
At the northern extremity of the community, ringed by boysen-berry bushes and clusters of red flowers, the sisters rested on their massive shale slab. Looking overhead, the mountain was craggy and dark green. When the exemplar got very close to where the sisters rested, he felt movement in the ground under his bare feet, and movement—not a wind, but a tremor, a quaver—in the air itself.
Coming over the final ridge, he saw them. The benevolent sisters, bless them, were shimmering. Vibrating. Garlands that had covered them—offerings he had draped casually over the past few days—fell from the smooth backs of the sisters to the rock. He saw the garlands wither with growing heat and, as he stepped up onto the shale, felt this heat himself, radiating from the goddesses like the blast of fires. There was a loud hum, and the smell of thunderstorms.
An eye cracked half-open. Never had he seen this before. Never had he seen the eyes of the sisters. The pupil was large and black and bottomless; terrified, the exemplar dropped to his knees, lowering his own feeble gaze.
Get up, the sisters commanded. We shouldn’t be gone long. Are you all right? Get up!
On shaky legs, the exemplar managed to stand.
Unforeseen events have occurred, they told him. We’re needed elsewhere. You’ll relay the story of our lift off to the people. You’ll tell them.
“Of course,” said the exemplar. But what was lift off? What would he describe to the people?
If we haven’t returned in two days, get everyone inside the cavern and remain there. Do you understand?
“Remain? But, but sisters . . .” His voice was as tremulous as the air and the ground. “Most benevolent sisters, may you be blessed and bless us in return, where are you going?”
Get everyone inside the cavern if we don’t return. Do you understand?
He managed to nod, though all he wanted to do was weep.
When he looked up, more impossibilities unfolded: the sisters—each as big as a house—had spread out their arms, sweeping them over the perimeter of bushes, and now they hovered over the shale slab, a meter or so in the air. Their faces were alert, energized, their wings a blur. Muscles along the great spines bulged. They continued to watch him. They did not speak again.
Flowers that had died, and which he should have removed, and flowers that should have been replaced fresh this morning, all rolled from the shale, withering further or bursting into flame. The growing heat dried his skin and hot winds blew hair back from his face. He turned away, feeling small, ashamed of his weakness. He wanted to ask so many questions but was frozen dumbstruck as the sisters, bless them, rose even higher into the sky, turning their faces away from him at last.
Slow swells of water, as if the grotto had powers to alter viscosities of basic elements, such as thicken liquids or vanquish light, and the sound of distant dripping, had lulled the cherub into a deeper sleep. Little round face, pressed snug up against the gunwale, wings ruffled like a blanket over its pudgy torso. The creature breathed quietly. Watching the cherub in the dim lantern glow, the abductors had momentarily