Sullha
"Mama, I'm hungry." Tomek tugged on her hand, pulling her back to the here and now. "I want to eat."
"Of course, my sweetness." She rose to her feet and let him lead her toward the central courtyard and the dining area.
The evening air was warm, as it usually was on the island, the light breeze carrying the scent of cooking that lingered after the dinner service.
It was strange that she was registering the smells of garlic and onions and the faintly bitter note of the leafy greens that had been steamed for the side dish, while feeling so numb, so hollow on the inside.
Lanterns were lit along the path, illuminating the worn concrete with pools of yellow light and creating shadows between them.
Tomek was uncharacteristically quiet beside her.
He usually filled the walk back from the playground with running commentary about who had said what and which friend had done what wrong and how so and so had cried over a scraped knee.
Tonight, he was just walking, his small hand warm in hers, his face turned up toward her at intervals as if he was checking on her.
"Why are you sad, Mama?"
She tightened her fingers around his. "I'm not sad."
"You look like you are."
"I'm just tired. It was a long day."
He frowned at her and twisted a corner of his lips in that way that indicated he didn't believe her. But he was also five, and the part of him that wanted to believe his mother was all right was bigger than the part of him that doubted her.
"Okay," he said, but his eyes lingered on her face. "After we eat, we go to our room, and then you can rest."
She squeezed his little hand gently and smiled at him.
The kitchen was nearly empty when they entered the dining area.
The dinner service had ended a couple of hours ago, and the cleanup crew had finished wiping down the tables and washing the concrete underneath them.
Only a small section of the kitchen counter was still open, serving whoever got hungry for a snack after dinner.
There were leftovers to make sandwiches from, fruit, and sometimes even cookies.
Pitchers of cold tea, juice, and milk were available throughout the night.
A single cook was on duty, an older woman whose name Sullha wasn't sure about.
Nimah? Rimah? Limah? Something like that.
The woman nodded at them as they approached.
"What would you like?" Sullha asked Tomek.
"Chocolate milk."
"What would you like to eat? You said you were hungry."
"Sandwich."
"What kind?"
He thought about it. "Cheese."
"Cheese it is."
The cook smiled at him and prepared the plate, sliding it across the counter along with a tall glass of chocolate milk. "Anything for Mama?" she asked.
"No, thank you," Sullha said. "I'm still full from dinner." She patted her stomach.
The truth was that she didn't feel hungry because her heart was heavy, not because she was still full, and she might get hungry later.
Sullha carried the plate to one of the long tables near the open side of the dining hall, where the air moved more freely and the evening breeze could reach them.
Tomek climbed onto the bench next to her and reached for the milk first. He took a long pull and lowered the glass with a chocolate ring around his upper lip.
"It's yummy," he said.
"Don't fill your tummy with milk. Eat your sandwich first."
"Just one more sip." He drank a few more swallows.
"That wasn't a sip. That was a gulp."
He grinned and took another sip, this one demonstrably small, his eyes never leaving hers. Then he set the glass down and picked up the sandwich.
He smacked his lips after the first bite, the way he always did when he enjoyed something.
She loved that small percussive sound of pleasure that he'd been making since he was a baby, announcing to the world that he'd been given a tasty treat and he was enjoying it.
There was something to be said about taking pleasure in the small things.
Yaaf had been like that as a boy. Perhaps his smacking hadn't been as loud, but he'd also expressed his pleasure with gestures and sounds.
She remembered the two of them in the dining hall when they were six or seven, sharing a passion fruit that one of the kitchen women had slipped them.
They'd each gotten half of it, and as they ate the soft interior with a spoon, Yaaf had been making similar smacking sounds.
He had looked at her with the juice running down his chin and said it was the best thing he had ever eaten, and she had laughed because back then everything had been the best thing he had ever eaten.
Two boys, thirteen years apart, smacking their lips at the simple pleasure of something sweet.
The ache in her chest deepened.
She picked up a piece of bread from the corner of Tomek's plate and put it down again without eating it.
Yaaf was eight people now. Eight men who had been brought together by something that had been done to them, drugs and isolation and whatever else he hadn't told her about.
Yaaf was her friend, the boy she'd grown up with, but he was also a stranger who shared his mind with seven other males who had been listening to every word she had said to him.
Were they good people, those other seven?
She had not asked him about that because there was no point. He would say that, yes, of course they were good. He couldn't answer any other way, while she could only base her guess on what she'd seen in him since he'd returned.
He seemed good. He'd crouched beside her in the dirt and made her laugh by saying absurd things like inspecting the garden for weapons-grade chili peppers.
He'd brought her books and hadn't been offended when she'd explained why she couldn't keep them.
He'd asked her about Tomek with a soft expression on his face that no one could have faked so well.
He could not have done those things if the seven others were bad people. They were inside him, a part of him. They saw what he saw and felt what he felt and shared whatever he was when he was with her. If they were evil, the evilness would've leaked through, and she would have sensed it.
But she hadn't. On the contrary.
Yaaf had told her that they had his back, that they helped Number Eight deal with the blow of his mother being a member of the Sacred Mothers' order. They had also helped Yaaf deal with the grief of his own mother's death.
How much of his mind was his and how much was shared?
That was the harder question, and she did not have an answer for it.
The boy who'd been her friend was still in him. She had seen him in too many moments to doubt it. But he was also seven other men, and those men had their own memories of lives they'd lived before the merge, and they would always be there, listening when she spoke to him.
Yaaf had said that they all liked her a lot.
Sullha did not know what to do with that statement.
Perhaps once she got to know the others, she would learn to like them too, but how was she going to do that if they were merged and didn't have separate personalities? Would they all feel like Yaaf to her?
The bench creaked as someone sat down beside Tomek. Sullha looked up and found Burda settling down with a cup of tea between her gnarled hands.
"You look preoccupied," Burda said. "Anything wrong?"
Sullha forced a smile that probably did not reach her eyes. "I'm fine."
"Mama is tired," Tomek offered helpfully through a mouthful of sandwich.
"Don't talk with your mouth full, sweetie."
"Sorry."
Burda's gaze moved between them and settled on the empty space in front of Sullha. "You're not eating."
"I'm not hungry."
"Upset stomach?"
"No, well, yes." Sullha rubbed her belly. "A little."
The ache wasn't caused by hunger or thirst, but it was there.
"I'll get you some tea." Burda began to rise.
"I'll get it," Sullha said.
"Sit. I'll get it for you." The old woman pushed herself up from the bench with a small grunt and looked at Tomek. "Another glass of chocolate milk?"
Tomek's whole face lit up. "Yes, please."
"Good manners." Burda nodded approvingly at Sullha and went to the counter.
There was something steadying about Burda, the way her presence pulled the fog back a little, and her bluntness made the world feel more solid.
She had been managing the garden and the women and the small daily indignities of the enclosure for longer than most of them had been alive, and she did it without complaining and without pretending that any of it was easier than it was.
"I like Burda," Tomek said.
"Me too."
"She doesn't smile a lot, but when she does, it's a real smile."
That was an unusually astute observation for a five-year-old, but it wasn't the first time Tomek had revealed how much he was paying attention to the world around him and how much he understood.
"That's very true," she said.
"Saphira smiles all the time. But Burda's smiles are better because you have to earn them."
"Where did you learn that?"
He shrugged. "I just know."
Burda returned with the tea, a second glass of chocolate milk, and two cookies on a small plate. The cookies were the soft, dense kind that the kitchen produced occasionally and that the children competed for, and Tomek's eyes went round at the sight of them.
"Cookies," he breathed.
"Cookies," Burda confirmed.
"Where did you get them?" Sullha asked.
"I'm friends with the cook."
Burda was friends with everyone, or rather, she knew everyone. She wasn't really the friendly sort.
Tomek picked up one of the cookies and held it like it was a treasure. "Can I have one now?"
"You can have both," Sullha said. "But you have to eat the rest of your sandwich first."
"One is for you, Mama." He nodded solemnly and returned to the sandwich with new urgency.
Sullha wrapped her hands around the warm cup of tea that Burda had set in front of her and inhaled the faint herbal scent. It was not hibiscus tonight. It was chamomile, with something sweet underneath.