Jeanne G'Fellers - Sister Lost, Sister Found (16 page)

“Archell?” Olitti squinted toward him. “Who’re you talking to?”

“Archell’s family.” He placed the tray by her side. “I have two sisters.” He placed toasted bread in her outstretched hands. “Their names are Rankil and Myrla.” Olitti mumbled her own siblings’ names through bulging cheeks then reached for another slice. “When’s the last time Olitti ate?”

“The other day when I robbed someone’s snare.” The little girl gulped down the second slice and followed it with a mouthful of milk. “A hopper ain’t much eatin’ when there are four of you, and that’s all you got.” Olitti flashed a gap-toothed grin then pointed to yet another piece. “Can I have some more?”

“Slow down, Olitti. You’ll make yourself sick.” Jewel made a small step forward.

Olitti whirled her direction. “Are you Archell’s m’ma?”

“My name is Jewel.” Jewel made certain her hair was secured under her headscarf before she stepped closer. “Your m’ma is having a baby, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Olitti took a smaller sip of milk then wiped her cream-coated lip on her cuff. “M’ma is always havin’ babies. Do you have a lot of babies?”

“Only Archell, Rankil and Myrla, and they’re all but grown. I don’t have any little ones left.”

“You can have my youngest brother, Flynne. He’s a pest. M’ma says he acts just like Dah.”

“Where is your dah?” Jewel motioned Myrla to uncover her braids.

“He died in a fire.” Olitti’s puerile face darkened with memory. “M’ma rode off with us while the house burned. She said Dah was already dead. Said we had to leave before others came and took us away.” She took a small bite of bread. “I don’t really miss Dah much. He was always hitting on us.” Then Olitti strained her eyes to the figures still out of her focus. “Does your dah hang around, Archell?”

He remained silent for a moment. “Archell’s dah doesn’t come around anymore.” The expression he offered Jewel was tortured, agonized by mere mention of his greatest guilt.

“Then who takes care of you and Jewel?”

“I do.” Kaelan stepped into the girl’s range of sight. “It’s nice to meet you Olitti.”

“But you . . . the . . .” Olitti clambered into Archell’s lap, climbing onto his chest where she held tight to his neck. “Help me, Archell! She’ll eat me for sure!”

“Kaelan doesn’t eat little girls.” Archell wrapped his arms around her trembling shoulders. “She is kind to Archell. She’ll be kind to you if you let her.”

“But she’s silver topped!” cried Olitti. “A Taewach!”

“It’s pronounced Taelach, little one.” Jewel took Kaelan by the hand and together they settled on their mat, a comfortable distance from the terrorized girl. “Kaelan wouldn’t hurt you.” She removed the scarf from her head. “And neither would I.”

“But M’ma says—” Olitti’s eyes were on the reflections the fire cast on Jewel’s wavy hair.

“Your m’ma has been misled.” Kaelan placed a loving arm across her gentlewoman’s shoulders. “We want to help your m’ma.”

“You do?” Olitti’s curious one-eyed gaze had drifted back to her protector. “You like them, Archell?”

“They’re part of Archell’s family.” He disentangled himself from her grasp and presented her with another slice of bread. “My sisters are Taelach, too.”

“I sorta see them,” she revealed between bites. “Can they come closer?”

“Sure.” Myrla and Rankil were added to the circle. Olitti considered them as she ate, then, all but tripping over her tunic’s hem, took a wary step toward Myrla so she could touch her hair.

“Pretty.” She rolled a soft braid end between her fingers. “Blue eyes are pretty, too.” She explored Myrla’s face and, lifting her arms, touched her nose and cheeks. “Your clothes and milk skin are a little funny, but you aren’t ugly like M’ma says.”

“Thank you, Olitti.” Myrla laughed as the little Autlach’s fingers brushed her neck.

“You tickly, too?” Olitti wriggled her fingers against Myrla’s collar. “M’ma says I’m too tickly.”

“Didn’t know you could be too tickly.” Myrla took the girl’s hands in her own and tickled the back of her small palms. “Can I be your friend?”

“You can.” Olitti said, then turned to Rankil who, despite the need to seem sociable, remained sullen. “But your sister doesn’t like me ’cause I wet her.”

“Serves her right for scaring you.” Myrla elbowed Rankil. “You’re not mad, are you Rankil?”

Rankil drew up on her knees to frown above Olitti’s head. “I’m not angry.” She said in a low voice. “Just a little damp.”

“Good!” Olitti jumped into Rankil’s arms, throwing her back in a hard sit. “I like you. Paelu and Flynne will like you, too.” Her hands drew across Rankil’s head and face like she had Myrla’s, pausing to trace the raised scar line. “Must have hurt.”

“It did.” Rankil brushed her hand away.

“How’d it happen?”

The question so distressed Rankil that she appealed to Jewel for a reply.

“An accident,” said Jewel, rising to bring Olitti to Kaelan. “Rankil had an accident.”

“Oh,” Olitti stood before Kaelan, one hand in her mouth, the other twisting her makeshift dress. “You sure are big,” she said, waving a wet finger. “Bigger than dah, and I thought he was huge!”

“I’m tall enough for what I am.” Kaelan pulled two beads from her life braid and offered them to Olitti. “Does your m’ma have enough blankets for you and your brothers?”

“We got two,” said Olitti, held the beads up to the firelight. “M’ma sleeps in her cloak. She says she’s not cold but I see her shiver sometimes. We build fires but the wind comes in and blows them out. Mamma gets awfully mad when it happens.”

“So would I.” Jewel twisted a strand of Olitti’s hair into a neat braid then added the beads. “We’d like to bring your brothers and mother here, Olitti. We’ve spare blankets and—”

“And food?” piped Olitti, dangling the braid between her fingers.

“Plenty of food.” Kaelan rose to collect her cloak. “Can you take us to meet your mother?”

“I don’t know if I should.”

“We only wish to talk to her.” Jewel wrapped Olitti’s slight frame in a blanket and a double layer of Kaelan’s heaviest footlings. “Will you show us?”

“Do Paelu and Flynne have to come, too?”

“Don’t you think they’re hungry?” Jewel clasped the cloak Kaelan placed over her shoulders. “It’s not fair that you’ve eaten when they’ve not.”

“I guess.” Olitti twisted from Jewel’s grasp. “Will Rankil carry me?”

“Me?” Rankil looked at Olitti then to Jewel who smiled.

“Rankil can go. Archell, too. We may need their Aut voices. Myrla, would you stay here and begin a stew?”

Myrla, though disappointed, started assembling a hearty meal. When she imagined the outside cold, the gray sky and stark winter surroundings, the cavern became less restricting. Her voice carried farther with the others gone so she sang while she worked, fracturing one of Archell’s lighter songs with her out of key voice.

“I told you M’ma wouldn’t like this.” Olitti sat beside Rankil on a snow-cleared boulder, watching as her mother protected the younger children by brandishing the long stick she used as a fire poker.

“Witches! Demons!” Sharillia lunged at Jewel, who had no difficulty keeping out of the pregnant woman’s way.

“Please, think of your children.” Jewel indicated the rags covering their feet. “High winter is yet to come and—”

“We’ll starve before serving Taelachs!” screamed Sharillia, waving the poker to halt Kaelan’s slow advance. “We’ll not fill your cook pots!”

“The only thing in our cook pot is hopper stew.” Kaelan extended her hands to show her passivity. “You cannot permit the children to starve when food is available to you.”

“You’ve already got one slave.” Sharillia indicated Archell. “What else would you want with three children besides something tender to chew?”

“M’ma, behave!” Olitti wriggled free of her blanket and jumped from her perch, dodging Rankil’s grab to bound to her mother’s side. “They fed me, M’ma. They said we could stay with them. They have the most wonderful cave. It has water and a smoke hole so they don’t choke up like we do.”

“They have none of that. You’ve been crazed by them.” Sharillia drew the girl against her great belly. “Stay with M’ma, baby. I’ll keep you safe.”

“But, M’ma, I’m tired of being cold and hungry.” Olitti tugged on her mother’s sleeve. “They want to help.”

“Listen to her,” called Archell from behind Kaelan. “Olitti speaks truth.”

“Truth as it suits your mistresses.” Sharillia’s two youngest bawled and clung to her skirts.

“You’re distressing your babies.” Jewel searched Kaelan’s face for what to do, but Kaelan showed no emotion, something Jewel knew meant her broadback was thinking.

“I’m protecting them from predators.” Sharillia lunged again. Olitti jumped forward when she did, knocking the poker away. “Litti!” Sharillia pulled her beside her brothers.

“Shame on you, M’ma.” Olitti spanked her mother’s backside. “Jewel don’t want to hurt us.”

“Raskhallak help me!” Sharillia began backing into her cave shelter, pushing and pulling her children with her. “Don’t follow me!” She cried. “I’ve a sword inside!”

“We’ve no intention of pursuing you.” Kaelan turned away. “And if we’d wanted to slave or eat you then we’d have already done so. It’s your decision. If you change your mind, Olitti knows where we are. Archell and Rankil, please go assist Myrla. Gather some fresh wood on your way. We’ll be along shortly. It’s a clear day so Jewel and I are going to enjoy the walk.”

“Kaelan?” Jewel peered back at Sharillia’s victorious expression. “Are we really going to leave them to the elements?”

“Course not.” Kaelan whispered, urging her forward. “But, we can’t make the mother feel she’s being coerced.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Let’s get out of her sight, and I’ll show you.” Once behind a knot of high shrubs, Kaelan paused. He face twisted with devious intent, she turned to Jewel.

“Kae?”

“Shhh,” Kaelan closed her eyes. “Listen.”

“What?”

“Just listen.”

Jewel turned her ear toward the Autlachs’ inadequate quarters. A small child’s whine rose from the cave. It was a pitiful cry, one for food that was beyond a mother’s bearing. Kaelan popped open one eye and smiled. “Wanna help?”

“Why, Kaelan!” Jewel grinned. “You’re decisively corrupt.”

“No more than you, lover.” A second, higher pitched whine rose, discordant with the first. Olitti’s wail, which needed no encouragement, completed the trio.

“Now, this
is
something Raskhallak’s witches would do,” whispered Jewel as she overwhelmed young Flynne’s mind with hunger pangs. “How long do we keep this up?”

“Not long.” Kaelan was already tapering Paelu to a whimper. “The children’s minds are fragile. We’ll repeat it in a few hours if need be.”

“If she is any kind of a mother another episode won’t be necessary.” Jewel backed her presence until only Olitti’s cries were audible. And, after a moment, those ceased as well. “I’d so hoped it’d work.”

“Fright can overwhelm judgment.” Kaelan took her arm. “Our own children will be concerned if we don’t return soon.”

“Very well.” Jewel walked beside her broadback. “Should we gather some wood on the way?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.” They were near their cavern, their arms laden with branches when Olitti’s joyous cry pierced the crisp air.

“Jewel! Kaewan! Wait! M’ma’s coming. She wants to talk to you.”

Sharillia’s children were a rambunctious lot, into everything and full of questions, their mother quite content to let them explore while she rested. On occasion, she helped with the easier meal preparations, discussing her life and lost Taelach children as she worked beside Jewel.

“Raskhallak says the pale-skinned babes are punishment for our sins.” She shaped dough into loaves of quick bread.

“How could a helpless infant be a punishment?” Jewel lifted the loaves onto a long-handled paddle.

“A white hair is a scar, evidence of our disobedience of his requirements.” Sharillia, ignoring Jewel’s glare, began shaping another loaf. “I’ve yet to figure out what I’ve done to deserve three.”

“What happened to the other babies?” Jewel almost dropped the paddle when she saw the Autlach’s sunken expression. “You didn’t?”

“Me? No!” Sharillia touched her stomach. “Taelach or not, I could never kill my own child.”

“Then where are they?”

Sharillia pounded the dough, flattening a hole through the middle. “Longpass,” she whispered. “He took them before I ever saw them. Punched me when he saw the first one, whipped me on the birth bed ’cause of the second. He would’ve killed me when he saw this one.”

“How do you know you’re bearing another Taelach?” Jewel drew the kneading board from Sharillia’s trembling hands and began to reshape the loaf. “I’ve never heard of a woman bearing two Taelachs, much less three.”

“Taelach babies are always moving. They never rest.” Sharillia drew Jewel’s flour-covered hands to her abdomen. “Or do I miss my guess?”

“No.” Jewel smiled when the tiny body pushed against her hand. “She’s Taelach. I sensed it on our first meeting.” A second, stronger vibration responded to her mental touch. “What are you planning to do?”