The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [69]
“I’ve lost my place again. I must be getting old. I lose my place so often! Oh yes, I was in the pond, unhappily surprised by a group of searchers, who had been looking for their precious boy and had labelled me a killer. Like the previous crowd of vigilantes, these people had nasty pikes and nastier temperaments. I must have been sluggish from all those years of hunger and sleeping, for to my great shame, I was captured. Dragged from the water, relocated to this awful cell, I have been passed down from generation to generation, like an heirloom, my maternal gifts discovered, turned into an act, employed in numerous humiliating ways. I have given birth to armies, lovers, pets . . .
“I suppose the food here is all right. And the guests, sometimes, are ravishing, if somewhat quiet.” She winked.
“That’s a horrible story.”
“I’m a monster. What did you expect? All my stories are horrible.”
“I don’t think that’s how testing started and I don’t think you’ve ever eaten anyone, even if they were dead.”
“Don’t make the mistake of liking me, girl. I warn you.”
“I don’t like you.”
“I think you do. A little bit. Okay, here’s another story:
“A lonely chatelaine, out for a walk, sees a pretty girl and falls in love. She brings the girl home.”
“I know that one.”
“Okay. How about this part? The chatelaine trusts the girl, who betrays her.”
Octavia said nothing.
“Or this one:
“Long after the last traces of Nowy Solum crumbled, the site was excavated. A foundation was poured on the mix of bricks and bones, a foundation for one of the tallest office buildings ever conceived. In this building, orphans were trained to become huge machines, each capable of travelling between the stars—”
“How long will it take before you give birth?”
“Oh. Changing the topic? No more stories today?”
“No.”
“All right, then, I’ll answer your question. When will I deliver? It’s not that easy, Octavia. I’d like to tell you something simple, like next week. But it’s complicated. Plus, this pregnancy seems to be different than the others. I’ve told you that already.” The fecund blinked. For the briefest of moments, the expression on her face reflected sincerity, maybe even fear or self-doubt. “Are you sure you don’t want to come a little closer to the bars?”
“No.” Octavia began to back out of the cell.
“Wait. Let me tell you one last thing. Trouble is brewing in the city of Nowy Solum. You and your brother are in great danger.”
Returning home, the benevolent sisters flew metres apart, low over the water, getting neither farther nor closer together. Clouds overhead were thinner here and paler pockets could be seen between the pulled shapes of cumuli. No light reflected off the sisters’ skin and, for a moment, they vanished, leaving vague, distorted patches that winked back into corporeal existence.
Beneath them, the ocean waters were calm, though recently there had been a great storm.
Coming over the beach of black stone, banking over brush and thin scrub, they slowed. Detritus had washed up on the shore: driftwood, branches, clumps of seaweed. Several dead or crippled seals lay entangled, not moving. Stranded on one inlet, the body of a huge cephalopod was slowly being decimated by a thousand shrieking gulls and as many silent crabs. Registering this carnage and destruction with dismay, the benevolent sisters circled. There would be work to do to retain order.
For now, other issues pressed.
Continuing toward the mountain, they reduced their wakes to minimal. Few branches swayed, fallen leaves lifted gently and settled again. Scarlet birds exploded, screaming from a broken acacia, and moved as one; the sisters banked to avoid sucking any into their scoops.
Barely wide enough for their full span, they had to stop to enter the cave, alighting and then hopping from rock to rock, or briefly hovering as their eyes scanned the dark within.
There was water in here, too, but fresh, heavy with minerals, shining with bioluminescence.
The people harvested shrimp and clams and small, blind fish. Though their