“We need to get the burn out of here!” Lara says.
I’m with her there. ’Fore anyone notices our presence, we dash back to the village.
~~~
That sandstorm saved a lot of lives. The Hunters. Lara’s and mine. Probably everyone’s in the village. The first of the season. Short, but a real doozy. It got every last one of those fire-stick-wielding Glassies. They burned their bodies in a separate pile to our dead ones.
I feel Circ’s hand in the storm.
Lara and me went straight to the watering hole and got cleaned up, and then snuck into the crowds when people started emerging from their huts. When she saw me, my mother squeezed me like she was a Totter and I was her tug-stuffed doll. I told her I couldn’t make it home from Learning fast enough, and ended up hiding out in a different hut with Lara. Her eyes told me she didn’t believe me, but she didn’t push it.
My father shoulda been thanking the sun goddess for sending that storm, but instead he was mad at me for not getting home in time, and at the Glassies for attacking, and at the dead Hunters for not surviving. Same ol’, same ol’.
The Greynotes have been hush hush about the whole thing. The only announcement they made was that we woulda won the battle anyway, if not for the sandstorm, but I saw what I saw. They were dead in the sand. Deader’n dead. Vulture meat. It’s as plain as day to me, but to the rest of the folk who were hiding in the huts, they’ll believe anything the Greynotes tell them. But the Greynotes can have their secrets.
The only thing that’s certain: the Glassies’ll be back. And the next time we won’t have a sandstorm to save us.
Lara’s more excited ’bout the whole thing’n I am. It’s been a full moon since it happened and she’s still going on and on like it was yesterday.
“It was like fate, Sie,” she says.
I got too much on my mind to be excited about much of anything. I turned sixteen yesterday, which is just my luck. If I’d been born a little over a full moon later, I coulda turned sixteen and then waited six full moons ’fore the next Call. Instead, my Call’ll be at the next full moon.
“It was stupid, is what it was,” I say.
“Come on, you know that’s not true. There was a buzz running through your blood just like mine. I saw it in your eyes before you tripped.” She laughs.
“Thanks for the reminder,” I say.
“Would you have used that knife on one of the Glassies if that storm didn’t hit?” she asks.
“I ain’t talking ’bout this,” I say, scooping a shovelful of blaze. I was daydreaming in Learning again. Lara agreed to keep me company while I sweat it out.
“I would have,” she says from the edge of the pit. She’s perched like a raven on a prickler bough. “I would’ve jumped on a chariot, stuck my blade right between one of their ribs.”
“They woulda shot you with those fire sticks first,” I say.
“I would’ve been too fast,” she says. “Just a blur. Sear that sandstorm for wasting our big chance!”
I drop my shovel in a pile of blaze, glare at her. “You know what? You’re wooloo! Completely out of your mind, one hundred percent, grade-A tug wooloo.” She stares at me, but I’m not done. I’m too hot, too tired, too searin’ broken after Circ. “There’s a wooloo farm with your name on it. I think when you got all that muscle you lost half your brain. No, more’n half. Three quarters. You woulda died out there, just like me. That sandstorm saved both of our worthless, Pre-Bearer lives, and you know it!”
When I finally finish my rant, I’m breathing heavy and my muscles are all clenched up. The sun’s beating on me like always, but it feels like it’s right on top of me, just hammering away at my skull. Lara’s mouth is open, shocked. I can almost see the wheels turning in her one-quarter brain, calculating the odds that she’ll ever speak to me again. Her mouth closes. The solution? Zero.
Then, in the unlikeliest of responses, she breaks into a huge smile. “Sie, you know what? That was one of the funniest rants I ever heard in my life. We are one and the same, you and I, only I’d figure you’re more likely to get yourself in trouble with that mouth of yours than I ever would. Now, what in the scorch is eating you? There’s got to be something.”
I blink. “Uh.”
“Come on, Sie. Out with it. Something’s behind that mouth of yours, and I want to know exactly what.”
Okay. Here goes. “I turned sixteen,” I say, turning away from her, my feet sinking into the mush.
She laughs. “Is that all? I turned sixteen a full moon ago. That’s one thing you can’t stop, Sie—time. I’d rather jump in front of a hurd of tug than hafta try to halt the days from ticking past.”
She’s already sixteen. I didn’t even realize it. I mean, I was pretty sure we’d be in the same Call, but I’d never confirmed it, never thought to. Why is she not bothered by it? In a full moon we’ll both be sitting there, waiting for the name. The name of the guy we’ll be Bearing children with. Not in a few years, but like, later that day. Well, not Bearing them exactly, but making them, or creating them, or doing whatever it is we’re s’posed to do. And from what Veeva says, there’s no way ’round it. You gotta do it and you gotta do it naked. I’ve confirmed it about ten times with her. Can I keep my clothes on? Do I hafta see his…prickler? Her advice: “Wait till it’s dark as scorch and make it quick. In and out. You might e’en like it. I did.” Thanks, Veeva, that really helps.
“Ain’t you scared?” I ask, turning back to face Lara.
She shakes her head. “Sometimes I wonder about you. Have you still not thought about everything I told you? I ain’t doing the Call. It ain’t for me. It ain’t for you neither, but I can’t make that decision for you.”
I’m flabbergasted. The Call isn’t something you skip, like Learning or Shovel Duty. It’s the whole point of our lives up to this point. The only way anyone’s ever missed the Call is if…
“You think the Wilds are gonna kidnap you?” I say slowly. All of sudden I forget ’bout the Icies, ’bout the Marked. It’s gotta be the Wilds she’s working with. It’s gotta be.
She laughs for the third time, looks up at the sun goddess. “Yeah, they’ll kidnap me alright.”
Then she gets up and leaves. So much for keeping me company.
~~~
I don’t know ’bout a lot of things Lara said, but she was right ’bout one thing: you can’t stop time, can’t even slow it down. I know, I’ve tried.
First I tried not sleeping. I figured that sleep is like wasting a third of a day in a blink of an eye. Sleep is skipping time, making it pass faster. So for three days straight I didn’t sleep. I snuck out, romped ’round the village, splashed water on my face, held my eyelids open with my fingertips. You know what? Those days still went right on by like I wasn’t even moving. Sure enough, I blinked and they were gone, just like all the rest.
So I filled a jar with stones and whispered a blessing to the sun goddess on each one, which represented the days left till my Call. If I could keep those stones in that jar, the days couldn’t pass. I woke up the next day, excited to watch my plan take hold. The sun rose, but I swear it was moving slower’n unusual, which got my hopes up, but by the time I left Learning it was sinking down, down, down, like always. That day went faster’n most.
You can’t stop time. It’s the most powerful force in the universe. And this time it seems to have taken sides with my father. The Call is coming whether Lara believes it’s something we should do or not.