Thann moved in front of xe’s daughter. +Shashi.+ She made the movements large, a silent shout.
Isaho blinked, then seemed to crumble as her concentration broke and the automaton that had been wearing her body disengaged. “Thanny?” The word was dragged out and blurry.
+We need a place to rest a while and sleep. Seems to me, this is as good as we’ll find inside the city.+
Isaho leaned heavily against xe. “‘M s000 tired, Thanny.”
+Listen, Shashi. This wall is still pretty high. I’ll lift you, but you’ve got to pull yourself over. Soon as you’re down inside there, stay very still and wait for me. Do you understand, Shashi?+
“Mm. Unnerstaahhhh…” The word was swallowed by a huge yawn.
Thann dragged xeself wearily onto the broken stones, eased around, and let xeself fall into the weeds at the base of the wall-and, for a moment, fell into a panic when xe couldn’t see Isaho anywhere. Xe pressed xe’s back against the wall and thinta swept the garden until xe touched the child’s small bright life.
Lost in the hot flush of fear/anger, mouth gaping in a soundless scream, xe ran toward the life fire, pushing xe’s body through the thick overgrowth of hedges and goneto-wild plants until xe reached an old garden shed, shaky and smothered in plant debris but still standing. Isaho was stretched out beside the small stream trickling from beneath it, scooping up water and drinking avidly from her cupped hand.
Thann caught her by the shoulders, yanked her onto her feet,, and stood shaking her and sobbing, mouth opening and closing with the words xe wanted to scream at her but could not.
“Thanny?”
The weak wobbly cry broke through the spasm of rage and Thann caught xe’s daughter hard against her, hugging her and shuddering.
After a moment xe stepped back, brushing a hand across xe’s burning eyes, then signed, +I told you to wait for me.+
“Thanny, I was s000 thirsty. So I came here to get a drink”
+How did you know there was water here?+
Isaho blinked. “I dunno. It was kinda like I smelled it. Anyway, I knew it was here and there wasn’t anybody to bother us, just some mayomayos and a nest of wejeys and some little brown birds hopping around.”
Thann closed xe’s eyes, drew a long breath, let it trickle out. +Shashi, I almost died when I saw you weren’t there. Don’t do that to me again. Please, daughter meami.+
Isaho stiffened, then flung herself at Thann, her hands clutching frantically, her body shuddering. “No no no no, Thanny don’t die, don’t die eee.”
Appalled at what xe’s thoughtless words had done, Thann held her and whistled softly until her shaking stopped, then xe unhooked Isaho’s fingers and patted the small hands. +So let’s get camp made. Do you think you could pull some of that dry wood off the shed? A little fire under the eaves back there would be safe enough, and we can have a hot meal before we sleep.+
Thann sat by the small fire gently massaging the egg in xe’s pouch and watching xe’s daughter sleep. For the first time in weeks Isaho wasn’t writhing in the grip of nightmares; her face was smeared with dust and a crust of dried moss, but it was calm and sweet, and the sight of it was balm to Thann’s weary spirit.
The red faded in the dying coals as the sky lightened. Finally xe emptied a mug of water onto the last patches of fire and curled in xe’s blanket next to Isaho, listening to the femlit breathe and wondering if xe was going to be able to sleep. Almost in the middle of the thought xe was gone.
Thann woke not remembering where xe was, lay staring at the crooked lacery of twigs and leaves over xe’s head until last night’s events came back to xe. Xe sat up and smiled despite the aches and stiffness of xe’s body. Isaho was kneeling close by, a little pile of broken wood beside her. +Did you sleep well, Shashi?+
“Ground’s hard.” She rubbed at her side. “And there was a stick poking me. But I didn’t dream.” She wrinkled her nose. “Thanny, I saw some plants, they looked like pictures in my farm book, you know, tatas, I was thinking maybe we could dig them and cook them? And there was some qanteh, I pulled one and it was fat and yellow, see.” She reached behind her and brought round a dirt-crusted root with the three leaves like feathers growing from its crown. “I remembered Mam… I remember you washing them and cutting the tops off and slicing them for me to eat. I liked them.”
+Must have been a kitchen garden, Shashi. Let me get my teeth cleaned, then you can show me where you found those things.+ Xe pushed the blanket back and got stiffly to xe’s feet, then turned to frown at Isaho. +Did you clean your teeth and wash yourself?+
“Ahhh, ‘Thanny…”
+No matter. We can have our wash together.+
The wild garden was quiet and peaceful in the waning hours of the day; the pop pop from the snipers and the scream/boom of the shells from the Mountain Guns seemed distant and somehow muted. As the sun slipped lower in the west, Thann found xeself increasingly reluctant to leave. Xe and Isaho could live here well enough, at least until the egg hatched and the anya inside began to suckle, venturing out only when they needed things the garden couldn’t give them. They could clean out the shed and use debris from the house to weatherproof the walls, and the war could go on around them, but they’d be safe.
Each time xe’s mind traveled that road, xe would catch sight of Isaho watching the sun, measuring how soon they could leave. Then the dream would slip away from xe. And even without Isaho’s urgency it would still be only a dream, xe knew that. Peace anywhere was ephemeral, to be treasured and dismissed.
They left the garden as the red was fading from the western sky and crept on through the fringes of city, an area deserted, ruined, gone wild. Several times they ducked behind a wall or under a hedge to hide from peddlers or farmers packing in produce on the backs of munymys, but that was only because Thann didn’t want anyone to see or question them, not because there was any danger in these folk. The scavenger gangs never came this far, setting their ambushes deeper in the city.
By midnight even the ruins were behind them. The road was a collections of shell holes and erosion, but it was at least an open space in the tangle of weeds and plants gone wild, berry bushes whose long tough canes had brittle thorns that caught at anything that brushed against them and broke off at the slightest pressure. The small farms that had once lined this road and provided fresh vegetables for the city had been deserted for years, the families who worked them driven from the land by the Pixa phelas who killed as many as they could and burned out the rest.
Thann was back to being scared again. Xe didn’t like having no straight lines xe could depend on to orient xeself, didn’t like knowing nothing about what lay on the far side of any bend in that awful road. Letting Isaho guide xe’s steps, xe sent the thinta sweeping round and round again, fearing that Pixa phelas or the murdering robber bands xe’d heard about on the radio would somehow slip past xe’s senses and come down on them.
The anya-in-egg was restless, kicking and scratching at the leathery shell; Thann’s fear was like nettles rubbing at it. Xe knew that, but xe couldn’t control xeself. All anyas had trouble dealing with uncertainty; they liked order and calm, with their cousins and bondkin close about them.
The road grew slightly better as Thann and Isaho left the city behind; there were no more shell craters, only ruts and potholes decorated with the dried manure from packer munymys and teams of draft skazz, wheel tracks from the farm wagons and the footprints of the small lives that ran in the briars and birds hunting out grass seeds.
Thann kept to the road because there didn’t seem to be anything else to do, but it worried xe. Their only hope of actually reaching Linojin was to stay elusive and apart like mayomayos living near a mahay’s lair. The road made them targets.
Near moonset they came on tilled land.
The field was enclosed by a double fence of barbed wire, the strands only a span apart, the outer fence at least two meters high. In the narrow lane between the two lines of barbed wire.a pack of hunting chals came running toward them, throwing low threatening growls at the walkers in the road. With a small squeak Isaho crowded against Thann, clutching at xe.