Chapter 7
To my immense relief, there is no ‘worship’ before breakfast. It’s an informal buffet style meal, with sisters drifting in and out, most taking their breakfast and leaving with it.
The tables are laden with fresh bread, fruit, and butter.
I grab a slice of bread and slather it with butter, taking small, forced bites.
I have no appetite but I know I need to eat.
After years of being practically destitute, and years of space travel, I’ve learned to eat when I have the opportunity.
Irena hovers around me, ‘helping’ with my breakfast. She pours us each a hot drink that smells like strong tea and invites me to sit with her.
I had wanted to spend my breakfast alone in my hut, deciding what to do next.
But she seems to want to keep me close, and while her watery eyes are starting to make my skin crawl, her zealous care starting to feel more like an act than genuine affection, I have no rational reason to refuse her.
I remember the way her eyes shone outside my ship, the tilt of her head when she quietly caught me in a lie. It was like a bird watching a worm crawl out of the wet soil.
Irena has been nothing but kind to me.
But I don’t know how long that will last.
After breakfast, she announces she’ll give me a tour of the village.
I wonder what exactly this tour entails.
There’s not much village to show me; I’ve already seen it all, as far as I can tell.
But with a belly full of bread and strong tea, I let her lead the way out of the dining hall.
She shows me Cadence’s hut, and hers, and introduces me to every sister we pass on our tour. I forget their names immediately.
The sun angles through dissipating fog, bathing the landscape in an ethereal haze.
I’m finally warm after the hot tea at breakfast, and our vigorous walk.
In a moment of thoughtless ease, I turn my gaze upward, past the bell tower, up toward the steep forested mountainside.
I frown, even as relief washes over me. It’s not there. The ruin is not there.
Was I really dreaming?
But then the fog drifts, and the sun cuts through, and I see it. Morning-drenched, dark stone. A structure far more complex than any in the village, all half-crumbled buttresses and empty arches, reaching skyward like unearthly stone fingers. My heart shudders.
‘Irena. What is that?’ I point.
She looks at me, rather than the direction of my gaze. ‘What do you see?’
‘There.’ I jab my finger toward the ruin. But the clouds shift again, and the structure is gone.
Irena finally turns her gaze upward, following my outstretched finger. Her brows furrow. ‘I see the mountains, cloaked in fog. It will be cold in those trees, and dark. Stay away from the forest, Midonia. It’s dangerous there.’
I exhale an exasperated breath. ‘But I saw something. A ruin of some kind.’
She takes my hand in hers, patting it, a motherly gesture. ‘It’s nothing special. Not worth seeing. A leftover artifact from some long-gone civilization.’
‘But that’s … that’s insane,’ I say, unable to contain myself. ‘A long-gone civilization? You should study it! You could –’
‘The ruin is forbidden.’ Irena’s gaze is steely.
‘Why?’
‘It is dangerous.’ She doesn’t elaborate.
I follow her through the rest of her tour, brief as it is.
I keep thinking of the ruin. The shadow that coalesced in my room, his hands reaching for me, his voice in my head.
Now, in the light of day, I feel less afraid and more …
unsettled. I hate that I can’t trust my own mind anymore.
It’s like there’s always something lodged in my throat, an unshed sob, and no matter what I do I can’t swallow it down.
I shouldn’t dwell on the shadow. There’s nothing I can do but try to forget it in the light of day.
More importantly, I think Irena is hiding something from me.
Something about the ruin. Could it be part of the sisters’ religion?
A chapel, kept secret from outsiders? The idea doesn’t seem so strange.
After all, why should I, an unbeliever, be allowed into the innermost sanctum of their deity?
A prayer before dinner is one thing, but who knows what else they do to venerate their god.
I shudder at the memory of the worship, the feverish raving, the flashes of too-clear memory.
Irena shouldn’t worry. I have no desire to visit that ruin, whatever it is.
But even I know when I’m lying to myself.
***
I skip the midday meal. Instead of eating, I try to break into my own ship.
I’m tired of wearing this ridiculous dress, and I have a change of clothes inside.
It’s not technically locked, if I can only get the door mechanism to work.
Surely there must be a mechanical method.
I’ve seen thieves work their artistry on more than one locked-up ship; it shouldn’t be that hard.
But I don’t have any tools, let alone the skill.
Instead, I gather up items that might be useful, things I could use as a makeshift crowbar.
And all the while, a little storm begins to roil in my gut.
Irena knows I lied to her about the ping from my boss.
A white lie, a throwaway. No real betrayal took place between us.
But something has shifted since that moment.
A critical pin removed from the mechanism.
All I’d have to do is step out of line and the whole thing would come crashing down.
But what do I owe her? So I tried to leave when I said I would leave.
Does it really matter that I lied? Whatever Irena sees in me, whether an interloper or a sister figure or apprentice or something else entirely, I can’t tell.
But I do know that she watches me. She keeps tabs on my whereabouts.
For my own safety? Or for some other reason?
I’m kicking futilely at my ship’s hull, half in irritation and half in an attempt to rattle something loose, when I catch sight of her at the corner of my eye. She’s walking from the dining hall toward the woods, and pauses near my ship.
I turn to face her, leaning against the ship and crossing my arms. It’s late afternoon and I’m in a foul mood. ‘Hello.’
She folds her hands together. ‘Come with me. I have something to show you.’
‘What is it?’ I sound sullen but I don’t care.
‘The last part of the tour.’
I raise a brow. ‘There’s more of the village to see?’
‘I thought you might like to see the lambs.’
I raise both brows. ‘Lambs?’
She nods. ‘That’s what we call them. You’ll like them.’ She beckons with an arm, and I push off my ship to follow. I can’t deny I’m curious. I’ve never seen any animals that weren’t native to Earth, not outside of a zoo.
We walk together in the still-present fog, our gowns rustling about our ankles.
The fog swirls as we pass through it, and I imagine how ethereal we must look from afar: Two women walking in step, clad all in white, head to toe; and the black forest swallowing us; and the fog curling, vaporous cloud on all sides, like the strokes of a painter’s brush.
‘Where do you grow your crops?’ I ask, my sour mood softened by our walk and the beauty of the forest. ‘Is it just grains and fruit?’
‘We harvest our fruit from trees, low down in the valley. That is where we grow our grain.’
‘It seems like harsh conditions for agriculture,’ I muse. ‘And so much work for so few women. Do you hire help for the harvest?’
‘No one comes here but those who believe, and those who have been summoned.’
‘Or transport pilots.’ It’s meant to be a joke, but my tone is all off.
‘Anguish takes care of us. He grants us a healthy harvest every season. He sees to it that our fruit grows ripe and heavy on the branch. He sees to it that we are never wanting.’
‘And what does he get in return? Your undying devotion, I suppose?’
Irena says nothing, her expression unreadable.
We follow a narrow path up into the trees, away from the village.
It curves beneath a stone outcropping, and when we come around to the other side, the land flattens, and a small clearing greets us.
In the clearing wander the lambs. They’re white with thick coats like sheep, and their oversized ears are soft brown.
As one of the creatures raises its head to look at us, I see that its eyes are rectangular like a goat’s.
Its legs are long, strangely jointed, thin as a twig.
The largest of the lambs is no bigger than a terrier.
‘They are adept at climbing,’ Irena says. ‘Docile as anything. You may touch them, if you like.’
I crouch beside the nearest lamb, holding out a hand.
It places its soft nose in my palm, huffing, looking for food.
When I lift my hand to pet the top of its head, its only reaction is to press upward, begging for affection.
The lamb is truly domesticated, and eager for touch.
This creature seems too sweet to be here on this remote planet.
‘How did such a darling thing like you come to evolve on such a harsh world?’ I murmur, laughing as it paws at me with one of its cloven hooves, its long leg bent at what would have been an impossible angle for an Earth mammal.
‘This world is not harsh for those who serve our god,’ Irena says quietly behind me. ‘Nor for those who serve us.’
My stomach drops. I had forgotten that the lambs are being kept for food.
That I ate one last night. I scratch the lamb’s ears as Irena tells me about their diets, how the lambs feed on the natural grass and brush, how they utterly trust the sisters and willingly give their milk and their flesh.
As if it’s all they were born to do. My stomach twists.
I have the mad urge to gather the lamb into my arms and flee with it, back to civilization where I will keep it safe forever.
‘It seems unfair,’ I say, kissing the lamb’s head.
Irena glances at me. ‘What does?’
‘That they don’t have a choice in the matter. That their only purpose is …’ I wave a hand.
Irena crouches suddenly next to me and takes my hand in hers, holding it tight. Her eyes glow, as usual, with unshed tears. Her words are harsh, almost guttural in their utterance. ‘Tell me, Midonia. Who in this world has a choice?’
I yank my hand away from hers. I want to protest, to exclaim that I do.
So does she. But I think of Old Earth, half caught in permafrost, the other half overpopulated and stricken with disease.
I think of my life, my shitty studio flat, the multitude of beautiful existences that are simply not available to me.
I think of all the things I will never be allowed to do, the lives I’ll never be allowed to live.
‘Do you?’ Irena continues, her voice softening as she speaks. ‘Do I? Does anyone? Or do we accept that each life is given meaning, imbued with exceptional purpose, even if that purpose doesn’t make sense?’
‘I don’t believe in fate, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Not fate. Something more powerful.’
I turn away, ill at ease. I don’t think we’re talking about the lambs anymore.
I wish I had something sharp to respond with, some philosophical idea, an optimistic choice-driven belief system.
But I have only the route I’ve taken, and the blood that will forever stain my footsteps, so I say nothing.