The Fire Children (7 page)

Calmer now, the threat of tears passing, she tried to say she was all right. But Amma was already ushering her toward the other woman. She knew better than to protest—if she submitted to the inspection, maybe Amma would forget to get mad. Plus, her palms and the cut on her leg still stung. Maybe this woman had a balm for them.

Vedra knelt before Yulla and pressed cool fingers to her face. She smelled sweet, like cloves and cinnamon. It reminded Yulla of the burnt-cinnamon smell in the Seaglass cavern, and her tongue untied itself at last.

“Amma! The witch-women are up above!”

“Yulla!” Amma sounded horrified.

“They are! They have a Seaglass instead of a Sunglass. I
saw
one of them through it. She looked right at me, and then their cellar door opened—”

“Yulla.”

Too late, Yulla realized that wasn’t the way Amma sounded when she was afraid, like when a cart had overturned on one of Moll’s grandchildren last year. This was her mortified tone, the one Yulla’d heard the time she bit Kell in front of the priestesses in the Worship Hall when she was eight.

A low chuckle came from the woman in front of her. “It’s all right, Zara,” Vedra said. “We know the children tell stories about us to frighten one another. This one’s new. I’d like to hear it, so I can tell my sisters.”

Yulla gasped and tried to twist away, but Amma’s hand snaked out and caught her in its iron grasp. “Vedra and her sisters have been searching for you just as hard as everyone else,” said Amma. “You’ll apologize to her. Right. Now.”

The words stuck to her tongue like molasses, but for the moment, Amma was scarier than anything else in the world. Yulla took a deep breath, and stammered an apology to the witch-woman standing in their home.

T
HEY DIDN’T MAKE
Vedra leave while Yulla told the story. She tried leaving some elements out, so she wouldn’t spill everything she’d seen to the witch-woman, but Amma asked her questions she couldn’t twist out of, catching her every time she hedged.

At the end, Vedra let out that soft chuckle again, even as Amma began another litany of apologies. “Peace, Zara. I think I can guess what happened here.” The witch-woman’s cool fingers cupped Yulla’s cheek. “I bet she ran until she tired herself out and fell asleep. She might even have found herself in the old collapsed tunnels.”

“I didn’t fall asleep.”

“And how would you know, down here?” Vedra sounded amused, but there was an edge to her voice. Her fingers tightened a fraction on Yulla’s chin. “I’ve been lost in the tunnels before. When you’re tired, and scared, and upset, your mind plays tricks. Did you stop and rest at all?”

“I...” She remembered pausing where she’d found the sign. “I stopped running, but I never sat down.”

“You don’t
think
you sat down.” Those cool fingers left her cheek and moved to stroke her hair instead.

It might have been Amma or Aunt Mouse doing it, from how soothing it felt. The tension drained from her limbs, and as the witch-woman spoke, her low, calm voice lulled Yulla.
Is this a spell?
But her limbs were too heavy; flinching away was too much of an effort.

“We can’t always tell dreaming from waking down here,” Vedra said. “I’ve dreamt I’ve heard the morning bells ringing, that I rose and made myself a plate of figs and cheese and ate until I was full, only to truly awaken hours later with the taste of figs on my tongue but my stomach empty.

“It can
seem
real, Yulla, but I promise it was only a dream. My sisters and I have no secret Seaglass. We’re down here in our cellar, just like you and your family.” The petting stopped, and the witch-woman laughed. “You said the place you found was somewhere to the north. My sisters and I live on the western side of Kaladim. Did you know?”

Forgetting no one could see it, Yulla shook her head. She felt swimmy, like everything had slowed down. Even when she remembered to say no out loud, the word was stretched and muffled.

“See? Exhausted,” said Vedra, and the world tilted as someone put an arm around her shoulders.
Amma
, she thought, as she smelled her mother’s soap. “I’ll go,” the witch-woman said. The farewells she exchanged with Amma, Abba, and Aunt Mouse faded as Yulla let herself drift closer to sleep.

Before she could surrender to it completely, that cinnamon scent wafted over her once more. Vedra leaned in to place a kiss on Yulla’s brow. She couldn’t move, couldn’t muster the strength to scream.

Only the softest sigh escaped her while the witch-woman’s kiss burned like a brand on her forehead.

Y
ULLA AWOKE IN
her own bed—she could tell from the familiar frayed corner of her blanket, and the place where the seam was split on her pillowcase. Kell was there, too, sound asleep; every few breaths, she’d let out a soft snore.

She reached up to touch her forehead, sure she’d feel a charred oval of skin from Vedra’s kiss, that it would flake away like ash when she brushed at the spot.

Nothing. It was smooth as it had been yesterday, not even so much as a dry patch.
Did I dream it? Did I dream
all
of it?
Yulla shook the thought away and sat up. The witch-woman
wanted
her to question what had happened. It was part of her spell. But it had been real, every minute of it. She’d seen the Seaglass, and the face looking down at her. Someone had been on the other side of that cellar door, up above where it was forbidden.

It meant people could be up there during the Scorching Days and live.

Fire didn’t blanket the world, after all, they knew that. Yulla chewed her lip. It was dangerous to get too close to the Fire Children—you’d burn. They were
children
, so they didn’t always know what was safe and what wasn’t. They could hurt someone without meaning to. They had once, a long, long time ago. The priestesses had told that story during the last few days up above:

When the Fire Children first came down from the sky to walk among their Mother’s creation, the people stayed aboveground and set out a feast to welcome them. Delighted at what they saw, and caught up in the music the people played, the Fire Children began to dance.

The Fire Children
looked
like people, their forms similar, but for the ever-burning flames surrounding them. They
moved
like them, too, learning the dances the humans taught them. But when they took their earthly brethren into their arms to dance with them as well, joy became terror.

Mother Sun gazed down with horror as the people perished. Even Sister Moon, whose gentle touch was said to heal grievous wounds, walked among them and couldn’t save them. From that day forward, the humans were sent below for their own safety when the Fire Children came down to visit the world.

Even when the Scorching Days
weren’t
upon them, being in the sun too long could burn you; looking on Mother Sun’s face for too long would blind you. It only made sense that her children could harm people as well.

Then why would the witch-women be up above? Was it the wards? Had they drawn them all around their home so the Fire Children couldn’t enter?

Or what if it had nothing to do with the Fire Children at all? Anything left in the houses was considered gone, given up to the Fire Children. Enough food covered the feast tables to feed the town for a week. How long might it feed a trio of witch-women? Yulla thought of Amma’s gold necklace, of Abba’s silver-chased recorder, of Aunt Mouse’s quilt. She imagined how many other families left offerings just as precious, and her head swam just thinking of all those riches. The witch-women could never sell those things in Kaladim’s market, but if they brought them to other cities to trade, who would ever know they’d been stolen?

Was that what was happening? Would they dare?

What would happen if Mother Sun found out they were stealing from her children?

Yulla threw the covers off and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She listened for a long moment, and at last heard other snores in contrast to Kell’s: there was Abba’s, long and deep; there came Aunt Mouse’s, more snuffles than anything.

Amma was the tough one; she slept like a stone, hardly moving from when she drifted off until she awoke in the morning. Her breaths came soft and deep and slow, so slow that there’d been times Yulla and Kell had held a mirror up to her mouth to make sure she was still drawing them at all.

Yet, when she was awake, Amma rarely sat still. Where Yulla could tell the others were asleep by what noises they made, for Amma, she had to be sure of the ones that were absent: no click of knitting needles or Amma’s rhythmic counting so she knew whether the next stitch should be a
knit
or a
purl.
Neither was Amma puttering around folding the blankets, or plucking quietly at the four-stringed setar she played when she thought no one was listening. Funny, how usually-bold Amma grew shy about her music.

Yulla dressed quickly, grabbing the first pair of pants and shirt her questing fingers found. She slipped barefoot out into the living room and paused to listen again. No changes.

Doubt crept over her as she stood, straining her ears. She ought to go back to bed. When everyone was awake she could tell them what she’d seen again, this time without a witch-woman there to contradict her and explain away her story. Someone would
have
to listen. If not Amma and Abba, then Aunt Mouse. If Aunt Mouse believed her, the others would take her seriously.

But what if Aunt Mouse dismissed her, too? Yulla needed proof first. She couldn’t risk them agreeing with Vedra and insisting it was all a dream. Plus, now that they’d had a few hours for the excitement to have worn off, Amma would probably wake up angry. Yulla would be lucky if her mother would even let her use the privy pit alone for the rest of the Darktimes.

She had to go now, just for a peek, just the tiniest of tiny peeks, and if she didn’t see anything, she’d come back down and be the perfect daughter until they went aboveground again. There wasn’t time to try finding the Seaglass, and even if she could, who knew whether the witch-women might still be waiting? Best to go up from her own house and see if anything was missing nearby, or venture as far as the Worship Hall and make sure all was well there.

At the bottom of the stairs, her stomach growled. Yulla froze, afraid it had been louder than even Abba’s snores. She counted to ten. No one had heard.
I’ll be back before breakfast,
she told herself.
I can wait a little—
Her stomach didn’t agree. It yowled again, and with the noise came a wave of nausea born from hunger. The last time she’d eaten was the afternoon before, all the candies and sweetcakes she and the other girls had devoured before Kell started her teasing. Which meant her last real meal had been yesterday’s breakfast.

A handful of figs, then. That’ll hold me over.

At the sideboard, she tried recalling Amma’s rhyme for what was in the jars. Figs were in the middle, she knew, and salt pork last. She moved slower than the desert turtles as she took the top off of the fig jar and fished inside. One fig she popped straight into her mouth. Her belly clamored again, so she swallowed the dried fruit while it was still nearly whole. The next one she savored, letting its sweetness wash over her tongue as she chewed. She stuffed a few more into her pockets before replacing the jar’s lid. She took some of the salt pork, too, and swiped a piece of flatbread and a hunk of cheese from the basket before calling it good.

Maybe I’m hungrier than I thought.

She could eat up above just as easily, though. No more dallying. Back to the stairs she went, scooping her sandals up as she passed the mat where they kept them. Then up, counting the steps to herself. When her hands found the door, she listened one more time—both to the sounds from the cellar behind her, and with her ear pressed against the wood to see if anyone was in the house above her. She heard nothing.

Gathering her courage, she gripped the doorknob.
One. Two. Three!
It turned smoothly and opened away from her. No fanfare. No fuss.

She stepped over the threshold, into their night-dark kitchen, and closed the door. It took a moment, but soon dark shapes resolved out of the gray gloom: the table and chairs they’d left for the Fire Children to sit at. She could tell doorways from walls by the deepening shadows. Outside, the stars seemed almost painfully bright against the sky. Yulla turned away from them, and her breath caught as she saw the symbol floating in the darkness.

It’s only the ward,
she realized, stifling the nervous laugh that threatened to bubble up. The white paint gleamed faintly in the starlight. Yulla touched it, wondering if it would be warm with spellwork... or would it be cold, to tell the Fire Children to stay away? It turned out to be neither, and was instead the same temperature as the wood upon which it was drawn. She frowned, a little disappointed at the lack of tangible magic.

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, the sigil faded and the darker shapes in the kitchen grew sharper. The offerings were still on the table: bread and cakes and cheeses. Yulla’s nose wrinkled as she got a whiff of the last. They’d left the soft ones out, and those had clearly started to go off over the last day.