Chapter 23: Of Something New
A house in Lost, three moons ago
Black Sparrow was monumental and withholding, tucked into her rocking chair by the fireplace. At least six feet straight up, cannonball hips and soft doughy middle distending her white cotton nightgown. Her skin lightish tawny brown, patches of darker on her face and hands. Pale blue yolks floated in the whites of her eyes like gas fires. Her dark hair tucked under a vivacious turmeric-colored sleeping bonnet.
"You got another auntie, you know," she said.
Sadie Crane knelt and came closer, their heart racing above the speed limit, and listened to their auntie's story. As they always would.
Their second auntie--the sister of Black Sparrow and White Doe--was called lots of things, but the name she took for herself was Bear. She left home at sixteen years old after a fight with her guardian. Bear was a witch, you see. An honest-to-gods bona fide.
This scared her royalist papa, made him say things he could never take back. He would regret it for the rest of his life. But he never went looking for his youngest daughter.
Bear, despite her name, was more catlike--always moving around. Black Sparrow and White Doe chased after her when she left, found abandoned houses and box shacks but never their sister.
The two remaining sisters grew. They stopped talking about Bear and it had been years since they thought of her. They refused to believe she was dead. Bear would have stopped off on her way to join the ancestors.
Whatever Sadie Crane was after, they needed to find Bear. Black Sparrow was sure of that, with her blind eyes that saw nothing and everything. She was sure of it cause of a dream she had several nights ago, about two spirits intertwined holding one other as the world ended all around them.
The larger of the intertwined spirits pulled back, looked right at Black Sparrow, and said she was in the town of Wayback. That she would wait, however long it took.
Black Sparrow gave Sadie Crane a letter and sent them away.
A coffeehouse, present day
"That's how I ended up here," Sadie Crane ended their story.
They drank more black coffee, the taste rich as a Turaq sultan. Didn't even like coffee that much, but drinking it made them think about Viola and picture what she might be doing. Cursing their name, tears bursting like thunderclaps from her big brown eyes.
In all ways, she was perfect. In all ways, Sadie Crane was a damn fool for leaving without her and De'afi. But too late now.
They watched a couple of uniformed faci officers tabled in the far reaches. Because of all the livestock killings, they figured. They were detaining anybody who looked sideways. And Sadie Crane looked pretty damn sideways, lets just say.
Sadie Crane and Sunlight Over Snowy Pastures booked it for the door. Made it without being seen.
"They got faci all over now," Sadie Crane said. "Like way back in the hills too."
"Keep walking," Sunlight Over Snowy Pastures urged.
He'd already been arrested twice and had to escape once. Keep small, insignificant, not even worth stopping. Like his folks said moons ago.
"Getting dangerous just being out anywhere," Sadie Crane high lamented. "It's bullfuck."
"Absolute bullfuck and bulldick," agreed the kid.
Little past the coffeehouse, they met a stretch of open road. Lined either side with abandoned bikes and derelict houses.
A pile of slain crows piled in the middle of the road, cut mounds of blood wet feathers and meat half ground into the dirt. Sadie Crane almost couldn't tell what they were at first.
"Mighty gods," they said through their teeth.
They touched the crow feather hanging from their deerskin self-consciously, reassurance of what mattered.
Sunlight Over Snowy Pastures winced. Gnarly.
"Where I'm from, we call that free meat," said the kid. "What do you call it?"
"We call it trouble," the anarchist said back. "Cripes. Think we got culties."
They knelt a while, apologized to the animal's spirit for the tragedy of its passing. And took the meat with them, cause--well, yeah, cause meat.
Sadie Crane roasted up the crow meat with herbs and whatever veg they had on stock. Made themself a shopping list for the market tomorrow.
They put a couple of clay bowls and spoons on top of the kitchen table.
"You don't gotta stay with me," they said. "I can handle myself."
"What?" he said back. "Oh, yeah, I know. You look it for sure. But I wanna stay. Maybe your other auntie knows my Great Big Sky, right?"
"Maybe," replied the anarchist.
Sincere as all hell. They meant it.
End of Chapter 23