Seana, Eganene

They were parked outside an Inn and the smell of baking bread was intoxicating. It wasn’t just her, she could see it on all the children’s faces. There had been little food for over a week. The snowstorm had descended out of nowhere, trapping them all. The boys had made a shelter for the horses up against a mountainside, but one of them had died. The rest of the poor creatures looked thin and broken, having faired far worse than the people.

Bekka was lucky she hadn’t tried to escape. Kat had been right. There was no way she would have survived unprotected in the storm. It had been bad enough inside; all the children huddled together for warmth, the freezing wind finding every crack in the wooden wagon. You can’t light a fire in a wooden wagon, so they shivered around the lanterns hoping their combined body heat would be enough to save them.

The food had run out within two days, the water in four. Franc had climbed out of the trapdoor and brought back snow in cups. The door was their bathroom, but all the waste froze as soon as it touched the ground. He promised the snow he brought back was clean. They put it in cups and despite the cold, held it to their bodies. The cold was worth the risk when your lips were dried and cracked from thirst.

When Tonelle came for them, there was nearly a stampede, the children all pushing and shoving to be first. There was no organized cue, not when starvation was a real possibility. They had been waiting forever, noticing the drips of melting water sliding from the walls, knowing their winter prison was melting.

The sun blinded them as they emerged, the light reflecting off snow that covered the trees and wagons. Bekka didn’t mind the pain. It felt too good to be outside breathing fresh air and stretching her legs. Once her eyes adjusted, she saw that the strange boy from Martin’s wagon had built a fire in a clearing.

She hurried over, ignoring the snow that clung to her legs and filled her shoes. Walking had become a gift. The warmth of the fire and the potentiality of food called her like a siren. Her nose hadn’t lied. Tonelle gave them each a bowl of soup and half a loaf of bread.

Bekka made her food disappear in less than a minute, the act of eating consuming all her attention. Looking up hopefully, she was rewarded with another helping and a smile from Tonelle. Bekka understood that she wouldn’t want them to die, not when she intended to sell them at the market, but couldn’t help smiling back. It felt too good to be free of the wagon, too good to have hot food in her hands.

It turned out that they were stranded only a few miles from the Inn and Tonelle walked the horses the rest of the way. Franc told Bekka they were exhausted and likely to collapse.

“Kat,” Tonelle said as they arrived, “take Bekka and do the wash. Make sure you clean yourselves as well.”

“Yes, Tonelle,” the girl replied, her golden eyes downcast.

The weather had turned quickly and the spring air seemed warm, sunlight streaming through the barren branches of the trees. Truthfully, Bekka would have bathed no matter the temperature. After weeks of traveling, she could smell herself.

As she followed Kat to the river, she thought about running. This was the first opportunity she’d had since the night Kat showed her how to light the fire. With a full belly and the extra clothes she was carrying, she had a real chance. There were people everywhere, though. Their wagons were camped outside the Inn, cook fires smoking the morning air. And the river was filled with people, groups of women washing and bathing.

Bekka was surprised at their lack of modesty, but the frigid water soon cured her of such concerns. She stripped and tiptoed in, feeling the mud between her toes. It was deeper than she expected, the fast, rushing water filled with chunks of snow and ice. Knee deep, her body covered in goose pimples, Bekka scrubbed herself with soap, feeling the current pull at her feet as she balanced on the rocky floor.

When she was done, she gathered her courage and dunked herself beneath the surface. The cold shock was violent. She gasped, sputtering to the surface as her heart raced. Quickly, she climbed out, her skin already feeling numb.

“Here, dry yourself,” Kat said, meeting her at the water’s edge with a blanket.

Bekka didn’t need the encouragement. Hurrying, she wiped herself dry while trying not to shake so hard. Breathing shallowly, she stood up straight and took slow, calming breaths. The last things she wanted was to pass out naked in the snow.

When she was relatively dry, she put on a new set of clothes and her boots, checking to make sure her pendant was still at the bottom of her shoe. Looking up, she found Kat in the river. The dark richness of her color and the unique braids made her easy to find. Bekka gasped, feeling her stomach drop.

The black plane of the girl’s back was covered by thick pink scars, the lengths crisscrossing her shoulders. The lashes were imprinted haphazardly over her middle and bottom. Bekka shuddered, realizing that the girl had been whipped. No wonder she behaved for Tonelle.

Kat glanced up and caught her eye.

Bekka’s face flushed red with shame and sorrow, stumbling backwards up the embankment. Without looking back, she ran to the forest and began to search the edge for wood, adding what she found to the fire near the embankment. She said nothing to Kat when she came out of the river. The girl ignored her, changing into dry clothes and returning to the wagon for more laundry. She also brought Ceril and Jaks who lugged the immense clay wash pot.

As soon as they were alone again, Bekka said, “I’m so sorry, Kat. I didn’t know .”

The girl sat beside the unlit fire, her hand trailing lines in the snow. She shrugged, fixing Bekka with a glare. “It is past, and they no longer hurt the way they did.”

Bekka shuddered. What do you say to some who had been hurt like that?

Kat leaned forward, “I’m going to light the fire.”

Tendrils of soapy whiteness spun from her fingers and resolved into strains of red, orange and yellow. They spun, growing longer and longer, their color darkening into a richness that was brighter than the most vibrant neon. Jagged black lines shot through her work, just a quick series of flashes, and the fire burst into existence, the blaze eagerly eating the wood she had gathered.

“Ahh…” Bekka breathed.

“How can you see what I see?” Kat murmured to herself.

“I told you in the woods. I don’t know,” Bekka returned. “When you lit the fire just now, it was amazing, like a thousand rainbows curled to your fingertips and you sent them as fire.”

“I thought I was the only one,” Kat said, scraping the bark from a thick stick. “People can’t see it or they pretended they can’t.”

“Does Tonelle really not know?”

“Yes, well, no. But she suspects. I think she just believes I’m special. The last auction in Orlenia didn’t go well for her. There wasn’t anyone at the market who could see what I did. Or who wanted to. They thought she was trying to rob them.”

“Is that where you got those scars?”

Kat shook her hair, the beads clicking together. Stirring the boiling water, she motioned for Bekka to toss in the clothes. “No, Martin did that.”

“But why Kat?” Bekka asked. “How could he do that to you?”

She shook her head, her yellow eyes meeting Bekka’s wide, green ones. “I tried to escape. They found me, beat me and brought me back.”

Bekka exhaled. “No wonder you were so upset I was trying to leave.

Kat shuddered, “I can’t do that again.”

They rinsed the load in the river water and hung it on the low branches around the fire. People bathed in the river upstream and down, but none ventured close enough to speak with them.

“Kat,” Bekka asked, when they returned, “will you show me again?”

“I have no idea how or what I’m doing. How in Eganene am I supposed to show you?”

“Well, I did something last time, didn’t I? You could at least try. If I can see it, I might be able to do it.”

Kat’s eyes darted to the closest people, but they were far enough away that their words were unintelligible, “It’s not a good idea. You should leave this business well alone.”

“Come on,” Bekka asked. “The fire’s already lit. No one will notice.”

Kat harrumphed, but settled into a crouch beside the fire, her hands outstretched and hidden behind the washing pot.

Bekka waited, straining to see, afraid to breathe. She saw Kat’s fingertips twitch upward, streams of colorless magic pinwheeling outward to wrap around one another. Bekka could see the ground below them, but the image was twisted as though she was looking through water or fast wind. Banners of red and orange fed into the stream, caught up quickly and spun about, like cotton candy wrapped about an invisible stick. Bekka’s hands were clammy as she reached out her fingers, dropping them slowly into the vortex, her heart hammering in her chest.

It disappeared in front of her.

She looked at Kat in surprise, “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t sure what would happen.”

Bekka grabbed her hand, “Kat. I’m not scared. Please, let’s try it. When we were in the forest, I helped you make it. I think I added to what you were doing.”

“It is a curse,” the girl declared. “You would be better to stay away from me.”

“Kat,” Bekka pleaded, suddenly feeling desperate. “This is the only good thing that’s happened since I got here! I need to understand it.”

“Don’t start that nonsense again. I like you better when you are pretending to be sane.”

“Fine, but can we try it again? Please? I promise nothing bad will happen.”

Kat shook her head, grabbing a load of laundry. “Can’t risk it. You can’t promise me anything and I would probably burn you. Think about it. If I burnt you, what do you think Martin will do to me?

Bekka watched her walk off. She didn’t blame her for being frightened, the scars on her back were terrifying. She would talk to her again. Kat had shown her before. She’d convince her to do it again.

Pulling the next round of clothes from the pot into the basket, she carried them down to the river, her arms straining against the weight. The people around her didn’t spare her a glance, they were busy with their own lives, washing, bathing, chatting.

These were captives just as she was, smiling and talking as they worked. It didn’t seem so terrible in the spring light. She hung the clothes and went back for another load. The fire was dying and she fed it the last of the wood, hurrying into the woods for more. It was darker here and Bekka worked to fill her arms, the idea of escape flitting through her mind.

I should be running, she thought. Full belly, clean clothes, it probably wouldn’t get much better than this.

But, there was Kat’s magic and her scars. If Bekka could learn how to light fires, she would have a better chance of surviving. Hustling back, she wondered what else Kat’s magic could do. Could it be used as a weapon?

She just had to figure out how to do it. She sat on a large rock, using a stick to mix the clothes in the boiling water. She extended her other hand as Kat had done and tried to relax. Concentrating, she imagined the waves of magic emanating from her fingertips, wrapping downward into a spiral, lower and lower and until they were on the fire.

“Done with the pot, Bekka?” asked a soft voice.

The water level was inches beneath the clothes. Bekka cringed, she had almost burnt them.

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“Sure, I’m done,” she managed, pulling the clothes into her basket. “Take it back, I have got to rinse these off.”

Lenold nodded, shooting her an odd look as he dumped the water. Smoke curled into the blue sky. He was followed by Addi and Mika who lugged the tub.

Bekka’s hands were soft and wrinkly, but she finished the last of the wash and hung it on the low tree limbs. Then, she relaxed on the stone to wait. Kat and Ceril would return and help her carry it back. More time alone, more time to think.

Her dreams had been getting worse. Now, when she fell asleep, she woke up to her mother arguing with the man with thin lips, the angry one who showed her grandmother the hand-shaped, red mark on his arm.

Kat and Ceril returned, but the laundry wasn’t dry. Ceril produced a hairbrush, and they brushed out each other’s hair. She did Bekka’s hair in a series of tight braids that pulled her scalp. When the laundry was finished drying, they took it down, careful not to drop it in the snow and mud. When they got back, Tonelle sent them for firewood.

Bekka paired up with Kat, figuring the Inn’s woods were safe enough with half a hundred people walking in and out of them all day. The closer areas had been picked clean so the two girls ventured further into the darkness.

“Kat?” Bekka said, breaking the silence. “Please. You’re they only one who can show me.”

The girl stopped and turned.

“Kat.” Bekka begged into the silence. “I have nothing. At least if I knew how to do this, I would have something. Please.”

Kat shook her head, braids clicking, “You don’t understand. I shouldn’t have shown you. This thing I do is bad. It is majic.”

“That would be amazing!” Bekka exclaimed. “I can see what you are doing. It’s not like I can just forget. I’ve never seen anything like that in my whole life. It was so beautiful…”

Kat frowned, sitting down on a fallen long, “No, it isn’t. Majic is evil. People would kill me if they knew.”

“But why?” Bekka asked. “It is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It would be better for you if you didn’t know at all.”

“You keep saying that,” Bekka argued.

“You know nothing!” Kat hissed. “The Family killed all the people with majic. How do you not know that!”

Bekka took a step forward, palms out in supplication, “Because I’m not from here, Kat. I…”

“Don’t start that again. I don’t want to hear it. I know you want it, but I shouldn’t. I can’t.”

“But, Kat,” she tried again.

“The Family killed most of the people who could do majic. They search for them still, killing them, taking them when they find them.”

“But I thought Tonelle was trying to show people your abilities?” Bekka said, sitting beside her.

“She was,” the girl agreed, her teeth flashing in the shadows. “But not at the regular market. Anyway, it is safer if you don’t know. Truly.”

Bekka grabbed Kat’s hands, “Thank you for telling me, Kat. I understand the risks, but I still want to know.”

“By all the gods!” Kat exclaimed, pulling her hands away. “Stop asking!”

Eyes bright, hands bunched in her lap, Bekka said, “I can’t, Kat. You tell me that it could be my death to know, but it might save me. You have to show me.”

“No."

“Fine,” Bekka sighed. She didn’t want to threaten her again, but if she was going to have a chance to escape, she needed any weapon she could get. And setting fire with her mind was a decent way to start. “You will tell me, Kat, or I’ll tell your secret.”

“You wouldn’t!”

Bekka shrugged, wiggling her toes to feel her pendant. “Yes, I would. I told you, I need to know and you are the only one who can teach me.”

Kat looked up and they locked gazes. Bekka she did not blink. Finally, the other girl broke the deadlock. “Fine. I hope it does you more good than it has done me.”

They crouched down, huddling together in the dark privacy of the forest. As soon as Kat began, Bekka could see the Power gathering at her fingers. “What are you thinking when you start?”

“I think about what I want,” Kat replied.

“Start again, I want to see if I can touch the streams of color.”

“It could hurt you.”

Bekka shrugged, her expression serious, “I told you. I accept the risk.”

At first, there was no definite color, instead, it was like a haze in the air, waves of translucent rainbow undulating across its surface. It looked like a gasoline sheen over water. Soon, the bands of color would separate spinning in place, weaving and overlapping. Quickly, she dipped her fingers into the misty ripples.

There was no pain. What felt like electricity sparkled up her hands and into her arm, warm and alive. It felt like a transfusion, as though the current were racing up her veins, following the flow of blood.

Yes, said the voice in her mind, and Bekka nodded in agreement. This felt right.

And it felt familiar.

Kat’s yellow eyes were wide and surprised, her face a shade darker than it usually was. She was panting, and there was sweat on the smooth skin of her forehead.

Bekka touched her fingertips to Kat’s and felt a small shock. It felt like electricity was flowing out of Kat’s body into hers and then back again. It was an oscillating current, but the stream grew larger with each change in direction, so that soon it was twice what it started.

Put your other hand on the snow, the voice in her head coached.

Bekka did as it instructed.

Don’t think about fire, said the voice. Think about warmth. The way it feels, the heat. Imagine the hottest day, the way the sun changed the ground beneath you.

Bekka didn’t spare a glance for Kat, her eyes were focused down. She thought about the hot August heat, and the steam as it rose off the blacktop after a summer rain. She could feel the sun’s rays on her skin, smell suntan lotion and hear the crash of the waves on the beach.

Below her, the streams of color had begun to swirl. It was like water when you pulled the plug in the bathtub, except the jets were small and tight, no thicker than her fingertips. They separated by color first, the red, orange and yellow shrinking into themselves so that they were distinct. The cooler colors did not resolve, but evaporated into the air, the oily residue seeming to disappear completely.

She was breathing deeply, now, but there was no hitch to her throat, no hint of asthma. Her fingers tingled. It wasn’t numbing, however, it was as if each nerve-ending were coming alive, as if she had been asleep in an uncomfortable position and her limbs were just waking.

Kat sobbed aloud, and Bekka’s head jerked up. The girl’s shoulders were rolled forward, her braids and beads pooled against the snow. She was crying, the tears slipping from beneath her long eyelashes.

Bekka pulled her hand away, concern making her voice high and panicked, “Are you hurt?”

The other girl inhaled deeply, her lips opening and closing to speak. Finally, she said, “Strong. It was so strong.”

Bekka didn’t know what she was talking about. She had felt the electricity in their fingertips, felt the ebb and flow of Power as it rocked back and forth between them, but she wouldn’t have called it strong.

She looked down to where her fingers had touched the forest floor and sat back in surprise. There was no snow anywhere beneath her and no mud. Instead, the ground was hard and cracked, as through the land had not seen precipitation in months. The dry area expanded in a circle, feet across, the border of which touched Kat’s feet.

“I did that?” Bekka asked, elated. Somehow the Power from Kat’s fingertips had been transferred to hers, and she had set it loose on the ground. The voice had told her true.

“It wasn’t me!” She grabbed Bekka’s hand, “Try it again. This time by yourself.”

“I don’t know how to start.”

Kat frowned, “Well, how did you do that, then?”

Bekka looked at the circle, seeing the imprint of her hand in the dirt, “I think I just funneled what you were doing into the ground.”

“No,” Kat disagreed. “I don’t know how to dry the soil. I’ve only ever been able to start fire. That was more than just my majic. You were adding to it, multiplying it. I felt it in my fingers. It felt like I was the beach and you were the ocean.”

She touched Bekka’s hand, watching as the sparks of light lit between them. “Or maybe you are like a well.”

“What does that mean?”

Kat shook her head, her braids clicking, “I don’t know. I’ve just never felt anything like it, not even in the people I thought had Power.”

Bekka pressed her boot into the dry earth at her feet, “I didn’t make a fire. I wasn’t trying to. When you make a fire, the light is red and cut by black zigzags.”

“Yes, that is what I see, too.”

“What did you see when I dried the dirt?”

“I’m not sure I saw it all,” Kat replied, her voice turning sour. “It was started slow, but then all of a sudden there were too many spirals. I could not keep track of them all.”

“I want to try and start a fire,” Bekka said. “By myself.”

She could hear the people still at the river and the babble of voices from the Inn.

“Go on, then. We can’t be out here forever. If you’re going to try it, now is the time.”

Bekka put her hand back on the ground and closed her eyes.

Starting is different than molding, the voice told her. You were fashioning that girl’s majic, adding your own and shaping it. To begin by yourself, you must search your soul.

What did that mean? Bekka wondered.

As strange as it was, she had started to trust the voice in her head. But it was cryptic and strange, knowing things that Bekka herself, did not. And that opened a whole other can of worms. If it wasn’t herself she was talking to, then who was it?

You want to think about that, now?

No, she thought back, she didn’t. But how was she supposed to search her soul?

Inside her boot, she could feel the reassuring presence of her amulet. She let her mind think on that, to imagine the green gem as a touch-stone from which she drew her Power. Closing her eyes, she reached out her hand, her fingers trailing patterns in the air. She visualized what Kat had done, seeing the waves of red and orange spinning as the black lights sped through. It seemed erratic, but she knew it was not. There was a focus, a direction to the madness which had to have been orchestrated by Kat.

In her mind, she watched the pattern and summoned the will to recreate them. She fed more and more energy into her fingertips, calling it out from inside herself, wrestling the hazy tendrils into their form so that the colors separated and took shape.

If her eyes had been open, she would have seen Kat backing away. The girl fled to the side of the forest and took shelter behind a tree. But Bekka was focused inward, desperate to make fire, to be helpless no more.

Only Kat could see it, but a great ball of spinning colors had formed at Bekka’s fingertips. It had started out the size of a child’s hand, but grown to be bigger than Bekka. Spinning in space, it hovered over the ground, the interior filled with snake-like tubes of light and color. The ribbons of light whirled and danced, seeming to twist and wind without ever touching one another.

There was dark light inside the bubble, too. Heavy streamers of black lightening that flickered and fled, zig-zagging their way through the other colors. It was this light, this destruction, that Kat feared. What she did when she made fire was but the smallest percent of what Bekka commanded in that forest.

Stop, the voice in Bekka’s mind told her. You have too much. You aren’t ready.

Bekka tried to ignore the warning, concentrating on what she was making. She knew she was doing something, she could feel the electricity pouring out. It felt like a dam had opened.

No, Bekka, stop!

Leave me alone, she shouted back. Her body felt like it was on fire, a cold fire which covered her fingers and arms and neck. Bekka reveled in it. Finally, she had control.

Please, begged the voice. Please, stop. I love you.

And just like that her focus was broken.

The bubble dissipated, the energy sinking into the ground and air, evaporating like water.

Kat sighed in relief.

Bekka sobbed and opened her eyes, seeing nothing, no fire, no smoke.

“Come, on!” Kat called her, shooting a worried glance back at the wagon. “They’re going to come looking for us soon.” She hurried forward and filled her arms with firewood.

Bekka used the back of her hand to wipe away her tears, picked up her own load, and stomped out of the chilly woods. She wasn’t going to give up. She might have failed this time, but she would figure it out. And while she might not have made fire, she had done something!

She looked back at the dry circle of mud on the forest floor. If she could avoid going crazy, she might have a shot at escaping.

The voice had said, I love you. It made her feel strange, like she should have known who it belonged to.

Who are you? she asked it angrily, but the voice remained silent.

Returning to camp, she saw that the number of people had almost doubled. “Where did they all come from?” Kat asked Ceril.

“Don’t know,” the girl shrugged. “Some were saying this part of the road be dangerous. Outlaws live in the woods, attacking people, murdering, stealing their things. People be grouping together for safety, I think.”

Bekka emerged from her thoughts long enough to ask, “But why don’t the police do something?”

“Who?” Ceril asked.

She had forgotten they didn’t have police in Eganene. “The army or something. Why don’t they deal with the people killing and stealing?”

Ceril didn’t answer right away. When she did reply, she said, “I don’t be knowing, girl. You be thinking that they got their own shipments coming down the Black road. It be making sense for them to keep the road safe.”

“They’ve got their own men to protect their wagons,” Franc said, joining them at the fire and handing them each another half loaf of bread.

Bekka took a careful look at the men from the other wagons. Most were young and fit, with swords strapped to their belts. They grouped together talking while the women prepared to depart.

“Looks like we’ll be leaving soon,” she said through mouthfuls.

“Tomorrow morning,” Franc replied, puffing his chest as though he were a trader, too. “Almost everyone here is headed to Orlenia and no one wants to miss the first Spring festival. It is the most important market of the year!”

Bekka and Ceril exchanged glances.

“Or so I hear,” he trailed off.

“Well, if we do be making it in time,” Ceril started, “we may be getting to see the Reenactment. I’m sure Tonelle would be taking us.”

“Why? What is it?” Bekka asked, searching her face.

Ceril looked at her strangely, “I’ve never seen it myself, but everyone’s heard about it. All the people who go are blessed for the new year. Tonelle would be wanting us to get that blessing. She could ask for more at the market.”

“Oh, right,” Bekka said, “that makes sense.”

When the lunch was gone, Ceril and Franc left her to finish their chores. Bekka spent the next few hours folding laundry and surreptitiously watching the other caravans. There was another wagon, its garishly painted sign depicting muscled men in chains lifting boulders. Beside it was parked another whose sides were filled with wooden bars and resembled a circus wagon. A few of the captives were as curious as she. Their fingers were wrapped about the wood, their eyes lost in darkness.

Several one horse carts had parked together, their cavities stacked with furs and pelts. That group had two guards, although one of the men seemed too skinny for his function. While she watched, the traders began to group about him, gesturing at his sword.

The thin man and a trader stepped from the group with their swords drawn. Bekka had a second to wondered why the trader would want to fight his own guard and then the trader yelled something unintelligible and launched himself at the man, his sword coming down in a vicious arc.

The man stepped nimbly out of the way and the trader’s sword bit the ground. Scattered applause rippled from the crowd. Bekka took a few steps closer, curiosity over coming trepidation. The number of people around the fighters was growing quickly, and she had to hurry to get a spot where she could see.

A sword fight! she thought. The only sword fights in her world were at Medieval Times. It was getting easier and easier to believe that she really was in a different world.

When she was close enough, she realized that the thin man wasn’t a man at all. Her guess was that he was younger than her by a few years. His face was gaunt and pale. Again and again the trader swung at him, but each time the blade sliced the air, the younger man leaping nimbly from side to side as though the trader’s swings were slow and clumsy.

Finally, out of patience, the trader yelled again and swung viciously, the blade flashing into the space where the younger man was standing. Bekka watched him dance out of the way, then dart in behind the bigger man and smack him on the backside with the heel of his sword.

The trader crumbled to the ground.

The skinny man retreated to stand beside the other guards while the traders gathered about their fallen companion, helping him to his feet and then into the inn. Bekka retreated to her laundry. This was an odd place she was in, that was certain.

She believed them, now. She wasn’t on Earth. Somehow, she had woken up in another place. It was uncanny how similar the worlds were-- the landscape, the buildings, the names. And yet it was all different. The people spoke strangely, doing and saying things she would never have imagined.

And there was magic! If she hadn’t been a captive, she thought she would probably have been excited to be here.