Old Souls
By Aiki Flinthart
On the day that could change everything for me, the sky roils in shades of grief and sorrow. Behind the fallen city, clouds curl into fists that pound the darkening sky and cracked earth. Crumbling buildings—broken teeth in a vast, voiceless mouth—throw purple shadows through warped glass and onto the cottage’s bare floor. Fine white dust billows before the storm, rushes towards the village that huddles between the sluggish river and tangled, regrowing forest.
The men of the house pace outside on the porch in the fading light. Their boots grate on sand; their coughs and muttered conversation are almost inaudible over a distant rumble of thunder. They will stay there until I call, for they are not needed for the birth of a girl nor the death of an old woman.
As the storm thickens, I instruct Maya, the elderly soul-bringer, to shutter the windows. Best to keep out any wind-borne toxins left by the long-vanished, unsouled civilization. New lungs should take their first breaths in a clean world; start fresh—as our people had so many years ago. After the collapse.
Lying on the bloodied bed, her traditional black shift high on her hips, Allody pushes back sweat-soaked hair and blinks blearily at me.
“Is it time, Soul-Master Jena?” the young mother-to-be whispers, her face drawn with the pain of a long labor.
“I’m not…” I resist the restless impulse to deny the title of soul-master or to shove bloody fingers through my short hair. I’ve done this a hundred times and more. I am twenty-seven. Young for the honor to come, but experienced enough to deserve it.
Maybe this will be the one.
My grandmother used to be a soul-breaker, like me. She never made it to soul-master. Perhaps this time I’ll finally earn the title. The title my grandmother deserved. Then I can finish her work. Show the Council how wrong they are.
“Yes, it’s time,” I say to Allody and check the baby’s crowning head. “One more push.” A pair of blue-metal scissors lies heavy in my hand. Heavy and sharp. The cutting of so many cords and souls has yet to dull their edge. Mine, yes. The scissors’, no. “Is your soul-bringer ready?”
Old Maya touches her forehead in a commoner’s sign of respect to a soul-master and shuffles back to her granddaughter’s bed. “I’m ready, Soul-Master Jena.”
I can’t let it pass a second time, much as I want to.
“I’m not yet a master.” I try to keep my voice steady and calm. “Still a breaker. Maybe soon, though. Perhaps…” I brandish the scissors; the symbol and tool of my office, “…the piece of your soul I break off so I can bind the rest to this little babe will elevate me to master and into the Council.” I give a tight smile. “We never know which soul-bringing and breaking will do it. Not until I cut the cord.”
Let it be this time, I pray silently. If breaking for this child paves my path to joining the Council, there is a chance the soul-masters will finally listen to me. Then we can save more people from this painful, unnecessary form of passing.
I shouldn’t have to replace one life with another. We have enough food and water to support bigger families.
All lives are of value, not just the newborn.
I touch Maya’s blue-veined hand. “I do hope it’s this birth. The family that helps a breaker to become a master is richly rewarded by the Council.”
“That’d be nice,” Maya agrees. “Nice to leave my grandbaby and her girl a softer path through this world. Softer than the one I had, anyways.”
It takes an effort not to glance around the small cottage, with its uneven walls and floor made of broken concrete. The storm winds whistle through gaps stuffed with rags and mud. A faint haze of dust, smelling of ancient, bitter death, swirls in the room. She’s right. Even in these times, under the too-careful governance of the Council, some have easier lives than others.
Allody lets out a little gasp and presses a hand to her side. “Breaker Jena!”
“Hurry, now, Maya,” I say. “The babe will come any moment. You must be ready for the taking. We only have the small time it takes for you to pass over, to transfer your soul to the child. And it must be completed within half an hour of first breath or your soul-offering won’t bind to her.”
With a weary sigh, Maya lets her long gray hair loose from its bun and discards layer upon layer of patched, gray and brown shawls and skirts. I don’t help. As the mother of two and grandmother of two, she knows what to do. She has been prepared since we knew Allody was having a girl and needed a female soul-bringer.
Finally, clad only in the bringer’s traditional scarlet shift, Maya crawls into bed with the mother-to-be. Their hands clasp. Tears shimmer in both sets of rust-brown eyes.
“You sure, Grandma?” Allody asks, her voice breaking. “I’ll miss you so much!”
Her grandmother nods. “This body is old and tired. Time for a new one.” Her wrinkled smile widens. “Anyways, you wouldn’t want your baby to be an unsouled, would you? Caring for naught but themselves. Killing off the world with greed.” She jerks a thumb at the window, at the ruins silhouetted against a stormy sunset. “You know how it goes. A life for a life. An old soul into a new body. Gotta break and bind to keep the goodness in.”
This is the way of things since the passing of the unsouled and their near destruction of our world. But it doesn’t need to be. I press my lips tight, holding in the urge to lecture. This ridiculous old belief must stop.
Could I…? I glance at the young mother. No, not this time. Here, there’s no way to hide what I want to do. She’s healthy and the birth easy. Her husband and father stand outside, waiting to witness the ceremony; waiting for the new little soul-taker to absorb Maya’s worn soul, minus the small piece I break off as my fee.
The men, the women, the whole village. They all wait for the child to no longer be an unsouled. No longer dangerous, like those whose city crumbles in the storm.
So we’re told.
No. This is not the child on whom to continue my tests. I need another birth with no witnesses and no soul-bringer. No blind followers of the Council’s doctrines.
Five women are gravid in this village and four in the next, including my own little sister—gentle, widowed, Freya. Soon there will be another newborn I do not have to break for or take for. Soon the Council will see their rituals are nothing but hollowness and control. Lies of spun sugar. Sweeteners for the bitterness of killing a grandparent to allow room for a baby in the world.
And they must see it, since there is no one to be Freya’s soul-bringer. If I help her birth an unsouled and the Council finds out, they will kill the child. Freya’s child. My family. That, I cannot allow.
Allody grunts and gives a little, whimpering cry. Her face reddens and she holds her breath. The child slides free of her mother’s body. Born into blood and storms.
I check her over while we wait for the afterbirth. The scissors cut through the cord with the strange crunching sound that always unnerves new mothers. Then I clean and swaddle and place the child between the two women.
Delight, regret, love, awareness of coming grief… all their feelings shine unguarded as Maya and Allody cradle the child and croon over tiny perfection.
At my call, the child’s father, uncle and grandfather shuffle into the room, hats in hand, bringing the dusty scent of death and the cold smell of autumn rain with them. When they stand, awed and awkward in the corner, I begin the final ritual.