Stoneskin Page 5
“Looks like someone’s been forgotten,” the man said. He had both hands pressed against his nose, blood slowly dripping from between his fingertips.
That’s not true, Tembi thought to herself. Matindi used the Deep just a second ago.
“Give us the kid.” The bald woman this time, bruises already forming on her too-pale face. “Give us the kid, and we won’t haul you in, too.”
Matindi pulled Tembi away from the other Witches.
“Fine,” the man said, and laid his hand on Matindi’s shoulder. “We’ll take both of you.”
Again, Tembi closed her eyes against the jump; this time, she was crying…
…but nothing happened.
The man stopped and glanced up in the way Matindi did when she was talking to the Deep, but the bald woman? Oh, the look on the bald woman’s face was half-mad with anger. “Why can’t I jump?” she snarled at Matindi, hands curling like claws. “What have you done?!”
Matindi stood and pushed back her scarves to show the black-painted winter branches against the green of her face. “I promised not to warn them,” she said, the Deep riding her words. “Or let them jump. But they are not yours to take.”
The bald woman couldn’t tear her eyes away from those painted branches. She said something in an unfamiliar language; Matindi nodded once, sharp as a knife, and the bald woman knelt before her. She gestured and whispered, “Down, idiot!” and the man knelt (unsteadily) beside her.
“Come,” Matindi said in her own voice, as if commanding a disobedient pet. She took Tembi’s hand and walked towards the school.
After a moment, the strange Witches followed them.
They entered the school as the storm touched down. The weather cage did its best, but the building rattled and the atmosphere in the schoolroom dipped as some of the air was sucked outside.
The male Witch stumbled and turned, and stared through the open doorway. “Is that—” he gasped, dropping his hand away from his broken nose. “That’s a tornado!”
“You should know what a world has to offer before walking into it,” Matindi said, as she settled herself on the edge of her desk. “Now. Talk.”
Tembi was torn between curiosity and self-preservation: she could either listen to the Witches, or drop back into the crowd of her whispering classmates and pretend this madness had nothing at all to do with her. Self-preservation won. She worked her way towards her seat, but her classmates were there, armed with questions and, in one case, a cheese sandwich.
“What happened?”
“—saw them try to grab you—”
“Is Madam Green a Witch?!”
Tembi seized on that last question. “I think she is!” she said, her own eyes wide. She was not a good liar at the best of times, but she could twist the truth until it wept. “She… She just appeared in the air! And she’s got those branches painted on her, and—”
“Tembi?” Clay, one of her friends, was staring at her. “Your…what’s wrong with your face?”
“What?” Tembi asked.
Her classmates began to edge away from her. Worse, some of the adults who were taking shelter from the storm were now beginning to stare at her instead of the three Witches.
“What?!” Tembi asked again, slightly panicked. She touched her face. Her skin was a little rougher than normal from exposure to the wind, but it was already starting to smooth itself. There was nothing to explain why the other children were backing away from her, mouths open and staring.
“Tembi.” Matindi’s voice was a summons. Tembi took a breath, and moved from the safety of the other students to the front of the room.
The green woman looked different. The bare branches on her face were now bending beneath the painted outlines of spring-green leaves. The decorations weren’t tattoos: they were just pigment, and if Matindi gave her face a good scrubbing they vanished in trails of black down the drain. But she had assumed Matindi woke up, drew the same branches on her face every morning, and then went to start her day.
Not so. Unless Matindi had been busy with a cosmetics brush in the last three minutes, someone had painted her face for her.
Her teacher stared down at her. She sat a little taller than usual, and the little pale green lines that crinkled at the corners of her eyes were gone. “You didn’t tell me the Deep listened to you when we visited the docks,” she said. “I think you’ve realized that was a mistake.”
Tembi nodded, chin and ears high, seeing nothing. She was unsure where the mistake lay—was it talking to the Deep, or not telling Matindi, or both?—but she was not going to cry. Not now. Not with three Witches and her classmates and a dozen strangers taking shelter from the storm, all of them watching her.
Matindi relented. “The birds suit you,” she said, her smile touching her eyes again. “Take your seat. We’ll leave for Lancaster when the storm is over.”
Dismissed, Tembi walked to the rear of the classroom, holding herself as straight and as steady as she could manage.
Lancaster.
—supposed to go years from now, they won’t let me see Mom, they won’t let me listen to music, they won’t let me come home—
She was numb. Nothing felt real, not even her classmates hurrying away from her as she passed, not even their whispers of Witch, Witch, Witch!
Her desk was beside a window. She had been one of the class’s storm watchers for most of this week, and sitting there was still something of an honor even though the metal shutters had been locked and shielded. Her reflection stared back at her from the polished steel, and she was not at all surprised to find that the left side of her face had been painted with a rising cloud of golden birds.
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human
human nature
FIGHT
Excerpt from “Notes from the Deep,” 3 November 3364 CE
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Chapter Six
Her second ride through the Deep was dark and silent, and she couldn’t shake the notion that the Deep was…sad? Hurt?
Hurt. Yes.
The bald woman with the painted spots held her hand as they moved through a world of color and song. It was different than when Matindi had brought her to Adhama; the Deep’s colors were muted, its song less vibrant.
She could feel Matindi behind them. The green-skinned Witch hadn’t been allowed to travel alone: the man held her by a wrist, as if to keep her from stepping off the Rails and vanishing forever. Tembi felt deep satisfaction at having broken his nose.
“How do you keep a Witch in one place?” she whispered to herself.
“You make the Deep promise to ignore her requests.” Matindi’s voice cut through the colors, and the feeling of—hurt—grew deeper.
Neither of the two other Witches spoke.
It was a shorter trip than the jump between Miha’ana and Adhama. One moment, they stood in the street, watching Tembi’s classmates walk home in the aftermath of the storm. The next, they were sliding across the Rails. And the moment after that, they were walking across ground as soft as a green cloud.
Tembi gasped and tried to find firm ground. There were plants everywhere, growing all around her, just like in the alley on Miha’ana, but their blades were pointed like spears—
The bald woman laughed. “If you’re scared of grass, kid, this place’ll kill you within a week.”
Matindi raised an eyebrow at her. The bald woman turned red beneath her painted spots, and dropped her eyes to the ground.
“It’s safe, Tembi,” her teacher said, as she set off across the…grass? “The plants are used for decoration and rainfall control.”
Oh. Practical plants. Tembi followed, cautiously; the grass seemed harmless enough, and was very pleasant between her toes. But there was pavement not too far away, a slab of white cutting through the green, and she moved onto that as quickly as she could. Once she was safely on solid ground, she looked up.
And up.
And up!
The Tower was a shell! A shell cut in half to show off a perfect spiral of whites and creams, plucked straight from the ocean and dropped within this sea of green. It was dotted with shining stripes of pale golden plass, all of it with the appearance of being as fragile as a wish. Paths radiated from it in slow, sweeping curves, and the main door was an archway of spun crystals, the entrance protected by a weather cage and nothing else.
“They used a nautilus from old Earth as the model,” Matindi said.
“It’s beautiful!” Tembi spun around in a slow circle, trying to take in the details. Around the shell were smaller auxiliary buildings with different designs. None of those smaller buildings were shells, but all of them had the same rounded symmetry. The whole place felt as though it had been grown instead of constructed.
A man was waiting for them in the crystal archway. He wore a suit instead of robes, and had the same timeless look about him as Matindi, but his skin was a normal healthy brown instead of green. And (Tembi had to check to make sure, but yes, there they were!) the left side of his face was painted in branches bending beneath the weight of new spring leaves.
He waited until Matindi had drawn close, and then asked, “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Matindi took her time. Her eyes moved from his dark hair to the painted branches, and then down to a pair of black leather shoes gleaming from an absurd amount of polish.
“I always wanted to be a teacher,” she said.
“You could have come home to do that,” the man said.
“Yes, well,” Matindi said with a sniff. “I meant, I always wanted to be a good teacher.”
They stared at each other. Tembi felt her fists knot tight as the man in a suit moved towards Matindi—
Matindi and the man fell into each other’s arms, laughing.
“Oh, it’s good to see you, Piki,” he said, his arms moving easily into place around Matindi’s wrong-jointed elbows. “Been far too long.”
“Or not long enough,” Matindi said, resting her head on his shoulder. She was smiling. “It’s Matindi now, by the way.”
“Noted. Oh my.” The man’s eyes had turned towards Tembi. She realized she was still ready to start punching, and stood as tall as she could, her ears flattened back against the sides of her head. “You’re a fierce one, aren’t you, Tembi Moon?”
“You have no idea,” muttered the boxy-faced Witch.
“Dismissed,” the man in the suit said to him.
The other man nodded, and there was a brief rush of air as he vanished into the Deep.
“Sir?” asked the bald woman.
“Not you, Leps,” he told her. “You’re Tembi’s guide for the rest of the afternoon.”
Tembi glared at the spotted Witch (Did he say her name was Leps?), who waited until the man had turned away before she stuck her tongue out at Tembi.
Well. That was unexpected. But now she had to deal with the man in the suit: he had crouched down in front of her so they were of the same height. This close, she could see that he had kind, dark eyes that looked much older than the rest of him.
“Hello, Tembi,” he said. “My name is Matthew. I’m sorry we had to meet this way.”
“Why is your painting like Matindi’s?” she asked.
He smiled. “Why do you have birds?”
Tembi’s hand moved to the side of her face. She had all but forgotten her own new paint. “I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.” Matthew stood, smoothing his suit coat over his hips. “You’ll find many answers here, Tembi, but in some ways, we’re at the whim of a vast alien intelligence. Sometimes it doesn’t explain itself.
“But with the paint,” he added, still smiling, “I like to think it’s trying to show its love.”
Tembi glanced over at Matindi in time to catch her rolling her eyes. “You never change, Matt,” Matindi said.
“You know me and tradition,” he said quietly. “Sometimes, it’s the only thing that’s stable around here.”
“Yes,” Matindi said. “On that note, I was wondering if my old quarters are available. I was thinking of staying on for a few years.”
“Of course they are.” Matthew nodded towards one of the smaller buildings around the Tower. “I make sure they’re cleaned once a week, in case you decide to grace us with your presence.”
“And do you still have a day school for the community’s children? Or did you finally decide they should attend the schools in the city?”
“We still have our own school,” he said. “It’s turned into a very good one.”
“Walk with me, Matthew,” Matindi said, setting both of her long-fingered hands on his arm. “I want to see what you’ve done with the gardens.”
“Yes, dear,” he said, placing a kiss on Matindi’s cheek.
Tembi watched Matindi leave—watched Matindi leave her!—and told herself it was okay, that she shouldn’t panic, that she was just fine standing here in front of a giant sliced-open shell with a stranger who had tried to kidnap her—
“C’mon,” Leps said. “I’ll show you around. But let’s start at the bathroom.”
“I don’t have—I don’t need a bathroom,” Tembi said quickly.
“You gotta wash those birds off before someone sees you,” Leps said. “Otherwise you won’t fit in with the other Witches’ children. Hang on,” she added, and laid a hand on Tembi’s shoulder.
Leps jumped them both into the Deep before Tembi could prepare herself. It was a jump too fast to recognize; there was no rush of colors or song, only a brief pop of white light and then the smell of cleaning chemicals.
“Whoa,” Tembi whispered.
Like the outside of the Tower, the bathroom was white and cream, but it was also trimmed in a deep sea-blue tile which moved into the white in patterns which resembled waves. The floor was another spiral, blues and whites and creams spinning off into smaller sunbursts. Anything made of metal shone like gold. (Tembi, semi-reformed pickpocket, thought it might actually have been gold, or at least close enough to gold to fool most buyers. She wondered if she could come back with a wrench.)
Leps pointed to the sink. “Water comes out of there,” she said, and then she pointed at the toilet. “Everything else goes in there.”
Tembi glared at her.
“Kidding,” Leps said, with a little twist to her lips to show she wasn’t quite kidding. “Serious kid, aren’t you?”
Tembi didn’t answer her. Instead, she got to work washing off the painted birds. The paint was like nothing she had ever seen; it stayed put until it finally seemed to recognize that she was serious about removing it, and then it came right off.
Once the birds were gone, she kept scrubbing. Her family’s unit didn’t have running water; they had a hydrosonic shower for cleaning and a packbin for waste, but this was like a trip to a bathhouse. Better than the bathhouse—the water was warm and wonderful, and it kept coming out of the tap.
There were towels when she was finished, plush squares of cotton with gold stitching which were softer than clouds. As Tembi patted herself dry, Leps killed the time by inspecting her own face in the mirror. Both of her eyes were slightly bruised, and there was a distinct pattern of widespread toes across her forehead.
“Be sure to thank your sponsor for me,” Leps muttered, and then noticed Tembi staring at her. “I shave my head,” she said. “I like the spots.”
“I know,” Tembi said.
“Then why are you staring?”
“I’m not.” She began poking the walls to locate the hidden laundry service or garbage chute, or however the Witches concealed their used towels. It was probably rude to point out that she could see the blood moving beneath Leps’ pale skin, and it was very disturbing. Leps didn’t act sick, but nobody could have skin that thin and still be healthy, right? Was she contagious? Matindi wouldn’t have abandoned her with someone who had a plague—
“Stay here,” Leps said,
and disappeared.
Don’t panic, Tembi reminded herself. She found the laundry bin beneath the sink, and threw her towel inside; it vanished almost as soon as it crossed the threshold.
The Witches use the Deep for laundry duty, she realized, and was beginning to revisit the idea of panicking when Leps reappeared. The bald woman was carrying a set of linen robes in different shades of blue.
“I can get you a shirt and pants if you want those instead,” Leps said, as she handed the robes to Tembi, “but you seem to be a robes kind of kid.”
“Thank you,” Tembi said. She stared at Leps until the woman sighed and turned to face the wall.
“You’ll like it here,” Leps said. “It’s got everything you could need.”
Tembi didn’t reply.
“I grew up poor too, you know. The Deep almost always chooses rich kids. Nobody knows why. But you and me and a few others? We’re different. They won’t let you forget it, but that’s fine—here, you always know where your next meal is coming from, and that’s what matters.”
“I always know where my food comes from.” There was an enormous lump in Tembi’s throat. The linen robes were thick and soft, and fit her better than any secondhand clothing from her sisters. But dressing in them felt…it felt wrong, somehow. “My mom…my sisters…”
“Oh. Hey, don’t worry about them.” For the first time that day, Leps sounded as if she wasn’t ready to fight someone. “If Lancaster’s Tower Council treats you like they did me, they’ll give your family a huge chunk of credit. You’ll have to work it off, but they’ll be rich.”
Tembi swallowed, hard. “You can turn around now.”
Leps did, and smiled. It was a nice smile and did pleasant things to her face, even though it exposed a set of pointed canine teeth. Her people must have lived on a meat-rich planet. “Good color on you,” she said. “Didn’t think you’d like the green. Not after the grass.”
That grass…Tembi kept her face still. “I’m used to cities,” she said.
“Yeah, you’ll definitely like it here.” Leps put her hand on Tembi’s shoulder again. This time, the jump took them to the top of the Nautilus.