Luckless - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Kaela walks with a limp. She favors her left foot, but as she grew up she learned to move with deliberate measure to mask the unevenness of her steps. Her limbs are thin, her skin paler than her days in the open sun should allow. Her face is made of sharp angles, cutting from mouth to cheekbone, from cheekbone to eye. She keeps her head bent forward most of the time, like she listens to the things around her more than she sees them.

We see her every morning during the field seasons. In the early parts of the day, when the Sun peers over the edge of the horizon, we leave our houses. There’s a wide, dirt path that snakes around, connecting our homes to the center well and the Council House beside it. The buildings blend into the hills, little domed constructions that look like swells of earth, with thick branch-weaved roofs and wooden walls. To the south, beyond the Council House, wider storage buildings have been built, half underground. Beyond them are narrow fields, heavy yellow and ready for harvest. Kaela’s house is the last one before the fields. We see her start out from her house at the same time we leave ours. She walks ahead of us, reaches the fields and keeps on walking until she disappears in the foothills of the mountains.

We talk about her more than we should. It’s easy. She’s rarely near enough to hear us. We murmur to each other only because it feels like the things we say should be kept secret. Yet, we say the same things we’ve always said, with our tongues to our cheeks, because we don’t honestly believe them.

“Her limp is getting worse,” Seeli says after we arrive at the fields. We’ve been working for a few minutes already and the sun is heating our skin. She leans over, tying up the barley stalks she’s just cut. Seeli winds the knot between her fingers and throws her head back to grin at the rest of us. “It’s a curse from the deathless ones because she was born at midnight. Her parents should have known better than to try to sneak her into the world when the Sun wasn’t watching.”

“I was born in the dark,” Charon mutters. She follows behind us, picking up the scraps that fall and bundling them separately for the widows. “I don’t limp.” She waits for someone to agree with her. She’s said it too many times for us to feel the need to respond. “It’s not when she was born. It’s all the Stones that her mother kept her wrapped up in.”

I stop working and turn to face her as soon as the words are out of her mouth. She jangles when she moves with three Stones tied around her ankle. I can feel the luck from a few feet away and I know that Charon revels in it. Her smile is a little wider when she’s wearing them. Her steps get a little surer, her heels picking up a little faster, until the stones at her ankle laugh like bells at each step. I’ve heard her theory before, about how the Stones are gifts from the gods, and they shouldn’t be treated lightly. I wonder how she decides how many Stones are too many. I consider asking, but bend toward my work instead.

“There’s nothing wrong with carrying god-gifts,” Seeli tells her. “You think the deathless ones get jealous?”

Charon shakes her head. “I think they keep balance.” She resettled the barley in her arms. “Why do you think you can’t feel them on her?”

“Maybe you can’t feel them,” Seeli tells her. “My skin tries to turn wrong side out whenever I get too close.”

Charon’s quiet, thinking. Seeli gets suddenly tense, like she’s not sure what Charon’s thinking and they both stop working.

Xanthus shakes his head. He swings his sickle through the barley bundled in his hand without looking back at the two girls. “Kaela’s not cursed for all that.” He gathers more barley in front of him, trying to hide a smile. “Kaela’s cursed because her first word was ‘fu—’”

Charon squeals and Seeli throws a clod of dirt at him. He ducks his head behind his shoulder and the dirt bursts over his back.

“Don’t be sick,” Seeli tells him.

Xanthus laughs, shaking the dirt out of his hair and turns around so they can’t see.

“You know what she’s cursed for,” Dion says, coming up on Seeli’s other side. He doesn’t look up from what he’s doing, just sweeps his sickle through the stalks and keeps moving forward.

“Those eyes,” Xanthus says. “Not like her ma’s…”

“… and not like her pa’s,” Dion finishes.

The girls look a little upset and blink a few times to draw attention to their own eyes. Both girls are pretty, with wide brown eyes and thick, dark lashes. Seeli’s eyes are rich, always laughing and Charon’s are flecked with green like the leaves. I’ve spent a couple nights lost in both their eyes when the evening drink has been mixed a little too strong and we all forget how close is too close. But they’re not like Kaela.

Kaela’s eyes are grey. It’s hard to get a look at them because of the way she tilts her head down when she walks. Her hair – dark, tight curls streaked with sun-bleached brown – falls over her face and she doesn’t brush it away. But then, from time to time, something catches her attention. Her back straightens. Her head snaps up. Her gray eyes seem to grow brighter and they focus for one unsettling, tense moment. Xanthus always swears and ducks away when she looks at him that way. I usually forget to speak at all.

“What do you think her curse is, Brennan?” Seeli asks me. She looks at me accusingly.

“I don’t know,” I say. I’m a little bored with it all.

“Come on, Brennan,” Xanthus says. “Her pa is always coming over to your house. What do you think it is?”

Everyone stops working and straightens up around me. Dion crosses his arms over his chest, laughing to himself. The girls just look at me expectantly. I stand up slowly, rolling the handle of my sickle in my hand.

There’s something I could tell them, but they’re all joking and I know the words in my mind wouldn’t fit right in the air between us.

So I shrug and say, “I think her first word was ‘fuck.’”

Charon covers her ears and squeals again. Seeli’s down in the dirt looking for something to throw.

“The only question is why Xanthus doesn’t have a limp,” I say. “I mean, with his first words—”

Xanthus tackles me, lays me out flat. I have to move quickly to keep him from ramming his fist in my stomach and I roll onto my feet to get ready for his next rush, laughing. We’re careful only to tumble into the paths we’ve already cut. The barley’s too precious to destroy in a friendly punch.

When Kaela was a baby, her mother, Melitta would stop at our house on the way back from the well. She never seemed to want to, kept glancing back toward the door with some other place she thought she should be. My mother was the one who would lead her inside, sit her down and put a cup of bark tea into her hands. Kaela’s mother held the cup with the tips of her fingers, keeping the heat away from her skin.

“Kaela has another fever,” she would say. And it had only been a week or two since the last one broke. My mother stopped finding things to say in return, but would grimace with her back turned.

Melitta never took Kaela out of their house, but kept her cradle as close to the center hearth as she dared. She said she touched Kaela as often as she could. She brushed the baby’s delicate arms while she warmed breakfast loaves on the cooking stones. She curled her fingers around Kaela’s tiny hands as she passed by, sweeping out the rough, dirt floors. She cradled Kaela’s round cheek against her palm between stitches in the day’s mending. Between touches, she prayed that the fever would burn away and disappear forever. But the baby’s skin was always hot to the touch.

Kaela’s father, Galen came home from the fields every day just after sunset. Stripped to the waist and sweating from hours in the fields, he had to brace himself at the doorway before he could step inside the oppressive heat of the house. He always found Melitta in the same place, perched on a stool, leaning against the cradle with her hand wrapped around Kaela’s. When she saw him, she smiled. Together they sat down at the table set against one wall of the house and ate their evening meal. Then, Melitta packed a small bag and slipped out the door to search for more Stones from the circles in the hills where the gods left them for us.

When she found a new Stone, she brought it back tucked against the base of her palm to hide its glow from anyone watching. Immediately, she would string it on a leather strap and hang it around the cradle’s edge. The baby rolled away from the new stones. Galen watched and his fists tightened. He looked to Melitta to see if she had noticed, but her eyes were shut while she prayed:

“Deathless ones, givers of good and holders of all power, hear me and lend your strength…”

Melitta tried to hang the Stones around Kaela’s neck, but Kaela tore them off in her sleep and threw them into the dirt. The room began to glitter like the starry sky had sunk through their roof. Still Melitta brought back more Stones.

Galen watched the baby while Melitta was gone. Kaela lay silent in the cradle. She rarely cried. She never murmured the way he remembered his younger siblings mumbling in his mother’s arms. Kaela tried to twist as far away from the Stones as possible. She burrowed in the blankets and turned her face from their light. Galen leaned forward over one end of the cradle and watched the baby’s face, quiet.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” he said. He had to pause, wetting his mouth, before he could speak again. “But if you can hear me, please, don’t hurt us.”

The baby turned in the cradle. She twisted again and her eyes fluttered open. She looked back at him. Then she twisted further away from the Stones.

When she was older she still used to run from the Stones. I caught her once, sneaking out her front door when were both knee-high. She was kneeling in the dirt, pressing the stones in the soil under the weeds. Her cheeks were flushed red, her hair sweat-soaked and stuck to her forehead in sharp curls. She only pressed down for a few moments, then yanked her hands back and sucked on her fingertips like she’d been burned.

She saw me and forgot about the stones for a minute to stare at me. She was unsteady, even on her knees and had to lean back against the house.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I feel the luck coming up out of the dirt. Strong. I couldn’t tell if she was mad or just stupid for thinking that she could get rid of the Stones by hiding them so close to her own front door.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

She didn’t speak, but stared up at me with those grey eyes.

I rolled by eyes at her and dropped into the dirt beside her. I grabbed a stick and dug at the dirt, popping the stones back up to the surface. There were dozens of them and they rolled out under the plants like so many pebbles on the paths in our mountains. I hadn’t ever seen so many. I didn’t know what you did with so many.

I glared at her. “Don’t bury them, stupid,” I said. I plucked them out of the dirt, more and more and pulled them all together in one heap.

“Why can’t I?” Kaela asked. She leaned against the house and looked back and forth between me and the Stones, tired. She tucked her fingertips into her mouth again, waiting for an answer.

“They’re presents,” I told her. “From them.” And I pointed down. “The ones that don’t ever die. That’s what momma says.”

“I’m just giving them back,” she said. She forced the nearest one down into the dirt with the heel of her palm.

“No, stupid,” I told her. I dug the stone back up. “The Stones come from the Circles up in the mountains. It’s where they…” I pointed down again. “… talk to us. If they want. But they don’t usually. Not unless it’s a special time and they have something they need to tell us, or something they need us to do for them. They don’t like us to step inside the Circles. But momma says, you can send them things.”

“What things?” she asked.

“Lots of things. Whatever they like: gold buttons, or the best apples, or one of your dolls. You just throw your present into the Circle and sometimes, they send you a present back. Stones. And then we get our luck.”

“I don’t like them,” Kaela whispered. “They hurt.”

I blinked. “But we need them.”

“What for?” she asked.

“So the deathless ones will watch us,” I told her. “So they’ll keep us safe.”

She shut her eyes. She was sweating harder, breathing harder. I eyed her warily. Then I pushed some of the stones toward her. She needed the luck.

“They can help you, you know,” I told her. “You ever hear the stories? About Aegus?” She opened her eyes, but didn’t move. I dug around the dirt, but I’d uncovered all the stones. I buried them again. Dug them up again. “He got this horse, see, Hepto? Hepto came from the ocean, and he was like the waves – wild. Real wild. No one could touch him. He ran on the sand by the ocean and ate out of the kings’ gardens and did whatever he wanted. No one could catch him. Everybody tried. The kings tried, and the kings’ sons tried, the kings’ stewards and the kings’ best soldiers, but no one could catch Hepto.

“Aegus was a King’s son too, and his da was fighting a war. Aegus needed to win, but he knew that the battles were far away and he would get tired if he walked all the way there. He couldn’t fight if he was tired. He needed Hepto.

“He tried to catch Hepto, but he couldn’t. So he went to the Circles and he asked the deathless ones for help. They sent him a Stone and told him not to show anyone what he had. They said he should keep it a secret. He kept it hidden in his pocket and went to Hepto. Aegus felt stronger than he’d ever been before, so strong that he thought he could capture the horse, just by tying a rope around its neck. And he did!”

“I don’t need a horse,” Kaela told me. She pulled herself up and teetered back into the heat of her house.

Kaela always tried to keep from sleeping. She kept her eyes open for as long as she could and watched her mother wade through the morning’s chores. Her eyes fluttered shut when she could stay awake no longer, and then her eyes snapped open again when she realized she had fallen asleep. She tossed in her bed, whispered to herself under her breath, tapped her fingers against the bed frame in a repeating rhythm, anything to keep herself from drifting into sleep.

Finally, when she was ten, she sat up and looked directly at her mother.

“I’m not going to sit here anymore,” she said.

Her mother stared at her as she pulled herself out of bed and stumbled toward the door. She teetered outside, disappeared for a moment, then teetered back. Leaning against the doorpost, she looked determinedly at something near her feet.

“I’ll be back,” she told her mother. “Later.” Then she left. Melitta stared after her, shocked.

She had not returned when Galen reached home. Melitta stood at the hearth, stirring the dinner pot over and over, though Galen could smell that what was inside had already burned. Smoke clung to the air. Melitta had been crying.

“Where is she?” Galen asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Melitta said. She didn’t look up at him. “I tried to find her. I went to the well, but no one has seen her. I thought… I don’t know where she went. She can’t go far. She…” Melitta looked at the dinner pot helplessly.

“I’ll find her,” Galen said. He turned on his heel and strode back through the doorway.

The houses were quiet, almost blending into the ground with their brown walls and roofs. From there, Galen could hear chickens clucking to each other and cows murmuring as they fell to sleep. He could see the narrow fields of barley and wheat tucked between rocky hills on the other side of the buildings. On the other side of the fields, the white glitter of the shoreline rested far below. Away from the hearth fire, everything smelled like sea salt, aging citrus fruit and the dry scent of barley.

To the north of the village, the hills quickly turned to stony slopes and white-capped mountains. Twisted-trunked trees covered the mountains’ sides, coloring them in gentle greens and browns. Around the base of the mountains, the trees bunched together until it seemed like a leafy garland strung between them. Galen started toward the trees at a run.

Under their branches, the Circles lay like a string of chain links. Each one was formed by a ring of green grasses with rounded leaves stretching several feet across. The ring rose a little higher than the grass around it, but was difficult to distinguish from the rest of the wooded floor. Now at dusk, the insides of the rings were beginning to glow. He couldn’t see it when he was looking directly at the Circles, but only when he was looking away and the bright spots flickered at the edges of his vision.

Galen picked his way carefully between the trees. He stayed as far back from the Circles as possible and still watched his feet to make sure he didn’t accidentally place his toes where they did not belong. The sun sank below the horizon, and the air around him grew thick and dark, but the Circles still did not grow brighter. He moved more slowly.

“Kaela,” he called. But he felt somehow as if he were calling the wrong name. “Kaela!” he called again.

The trees continued down a sharp drop, but the Circles stopped. Galen jumped from stone to stone, holding tight to branches on the way down until he reached the bottom. A clearing spread out around him, covered in grass and he glanced from side to side to make sure that there were no more Circles nearby. Ahead, the grass fell away and sand continued on until it reached the ocean. Larger boulders sat half buried in the water. The coast cut in and out jaggedly with high gray stones and trees leaning over the water, hiding anything further along the beach from his view. To the right, a river had wound down from the mountains, trickling over the stones. It gathered in a pool near the edge of the grass. The water was clear and motionless.

Kaela sat cross-legged on the far side of the pool. Galen had to step closer to see any of her face. It seemed like she had been staring into the surface of the water, but as he stepped closer, she turned and looked at him instead.

“Kaela,” he said. “You should be home. What are you doing here?” He reached out for her hand to draw her up. He expected that he would lift her easily and that she would crumble against him when her legs couldn’t hold her. But she didn’t give him her hand. She didn’t move, but remained solidly where she was. She wasn’t breathing.

Galen stumbled closer, pressing his fingers to her wrist. Her skin was warm, but no longer burning. There was no pulse under the skin. But her head had turned and her eyes were following his motion. Galen dropped her hand and stared at her.

“Kaela?” he said.

She hesitated, blinking at him. Then she sucked in a breath, coughed as she tried to exhale and forced herself to breathe in again. Her cheeks flushed with color, with heat. Sweat formed on her forehead. She took another deep breath, then another.

“Is that my name?” she asked, so quietly he had to lean closer to hear. Her eyes were bright and they flicked over his face searchingly.

“Kaela,” he said again, unsure if that was an answer or not. He thought that if he said her name enough she might believe him. Or perhaps he would find he was dreaming. If he kept saying her name, his real daughter would hear him and shake him awake.

“Am I yours?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. She had been his when she was born, he was sure of that.

She looked back down at the pool. For a long moment she seemed to stop breathing again. “I won’t hurt you,” she whispered.

Galen’s heart battered the inside of his chest and his eyes widened. He watched her face and didn’t move, hoping he had heard wrong. His fingers dug into the grass around his hands. The dirt gave way to water and mud caked in his fingernails.

“What?” he asked.

She faced him, turning slowly. “I won’t hurt you,” she repeated. “I wouldn’t have even if you hadn’t asked.” Then she stopped breathing again and rose from her seat in the grass. Slowly, she moved away from him and climbed back up the slope.

I overheard Galen tell my father that story. They sat in our house, huddled over their drinks. They thought that my mother and I were asleep. I closed my eyes whenever they glanced my way, because I wanted them to keep thinking that. I wanted them to keep talking. I watched Galen’s fingers tighten around his cup and my father’s eyes get wider. I tried to imagine Kaela’s voice whenever Galen repeated the things she’d said to him. I tried to imagine her face peering out at him in the darkness with those gray eyes that looked so different from her parents’.

"What happened to her?” my father asked when Galen was finished.

Galen was very quiet. He slid his cup back and forth between his hands. “You remember the raid?” he asked my father, looking up through his hair. “Right after Kaela was born? Maybe you hadn't come to the village yet.”

My father looked my way. I snapped my eyes shut.

“We were here,” he said. “Brennan was scared half out his mind when they came through. He said they looked like ghosts. Wouldn’t come out of the house for weeks.”

I was too old to still be frightened. Twelve. But lying there in the dark, I tried not to think of the shapes that had passed outside our house that day. People, but brighter than they should have been, like someone had clothed them in the brilliant garments of the dead.

“They caught Melitta and me in the mountains,” Galen told him. I opened one eye to make sure my father wasn’t still watching and waited for Galen to say more. “We were… we were supposed to be watching the flocks that month. It was our turn. And we had to bring Kaela. She was too young to leave behind. We had to run. I was carrying Kaela. And I tripped, right at the bottom of the mountain. I dropped my girl into the Circles.” Galen raised his head and looked at my father. His brows were scrunched together in confusion. “I picked her back up, quick as I could, didn’t even realize it had been a Circle until I stepped out of it. But… I think the gods took my girl. And she’s what they gave me back.”

Galen didn’t say anything more before he left for his own home. He had a lot to drink that night. So did my father. My father does not remember Galen’s story and Galen does not remember telling it. I didn’t believe the things he said at the time. The gifts that the gods gave us shone like stars. Kaela did not. Kaela was dull gray. Quiet. She sat cross-legged in the Council, with her head bent forward and her fingers laced between her mother’s. She only shone at odd moments, when you didn’t expect it and very few were looking.

That was ten years ago. And now I don’t know whether I believe the things Galen said or not. But it explains the looks that pass between he and Kaela: they both know she’s not alive.