The Child Goddess Read online

“Oa could hurt Gretchen!” Adetti’s face was tight with anger. “You can’t control her, that’s obvious.”

  “She’s just a child . . .”

  “Rot! And what about the others? We don’t even know what’s out there.”

  Boyer said, “Paolo, this is what caused the first tragedy. I’m not having another. Give it to me.”

  The two men faced each other in the fading light. Another roll of thunder, deeper and more insistent this time, rattled through the clouds, and a patter of rain began. Boyer put out his hand, and Jin-Li was impressed by the look of authority on his long face. “I’ll protect her if necessary,” he said in a hard voice. “Hand it over.”

  Adetti gave up the shock gun. He whirled and glared at Isabel as if it were somehow her fault. “You can’t blame Gretchen,” he said. “She’s ill.”

  Isabel’s hand was at her throat. “I know, Paolo. I know she is.” She turned to Boyer, straightening her slender shoulders. A few raindrops filtered through the canopy to gleam on her bare head. “Jacob, what can we do?”

  “We have to start by finding Gretchen,” Adetti said.

  “Shall we split up?” Isabel asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Boyer said. “Better we’re together.”

  They all turned in the direction they had last heard the cries. Jin-Li spotted a clear space, marked by a lichen-covered stone. A step closer showed a path, rutted and narrow, carving through the root mat. “Isn’t she likely to have followed this?”

  *

  WHEN ISABEL FIRST put her feet on the path, she felt a shiver of recognition. The anchens had broken this trail. How many years ago? And did they still walk its narrow circuit, dodging these vines that hung everywhere, forging this thicket of roots? These furrows would just fit long-toed bare feet like Oa’s. Her own feet, sandaled and inexperienced, moved awkwardly in the ruts. The path wound around copses of trunks, finding the easiest way, the most open space. The canopy hung overhead, mysterious, dense, daunting. And Oa was somewhere up there, had run from her as if their time together had never been. The word “reverted” came to Isabel’s mind, but she thrust it away. She would not think it, would not believe it.

  The wailing cry came again, resounding through the shadowed jungle. Isabel stumbled. It was like trying to run in a nightmare, her feet heavy, her way blocked at every turn.

  “We’re getting closer,” Adetti said.

  “What’s happened to her?” Boyer asked, as they negotiated a cramped twist of the path. “She sounds crazy!”

  “She’s desperate,” Adetti said.

  “It’s more than that, Paolo,” Isabel said. She stopped for a moment to shake leaf and moss fragments from one sandal. Everyone else stopped, too, and a heavy silence settled around them, the forest creatures disturbed by their passage. Occasional raindrops found their way through the nuchi leaves to patter against the forest floor. Isabel spoke quietly. “It’s Gretchen’s nature to go after what she wants. It’s not part of her character to submit to defeat—and in her mind, the enemy is death. Or worse, perhaps, at least to her, disability.”

  “We’d better find her,” Adetti said, and pushed past Isabel to lead the way down the path.

  Isabel followed. She tipped her head back, peering into the darkness of the canopy, yearning for a glimpse of Oa’s bare feet, her legs flashing above.

  Their way grew steep in places. They had to climb past horizontal roots and slide down banks where the surface of the ground was slippery and loose. Thunder shivered above them. Isabel began to feel chilly in her shorts and shirt.

  They stopped at a branching of the path. Adetti turned one way, and then another, cursing under his breath. Isabel held Oa’s shoes against her breast, much as Oa might have held her teddy bear. Briefly, foolishly, Isabel wondered where the toy was. She couldn’t remember, and somehow that made her feel guilty. She stared down the branching path, left and then right, both ways leading sharply downhill. Surely, if you followed either branch, it led ultimately to the ocean, to those pastel beaches. But which way led to Oa?

  And then, deep in the tangle of the forest, she caught sight of a pale figure, fronds of disordered silver hair, the face a white, distorted oval. It was Gretchen Boreson, struggling on her knees through the thicket of buttress roots and matted vines, trying to reach the path. In the filtered light she seemed unreal, a ghost. When she caught sight of the searchers, she wailed in a thin, mewling voice, “They’re not here! They’re not here!”

  Adetti cried, “Gretchen!” in a tone of pure horror. Isabel leaped forward to help pull the distraught woman from the thicket. Her clothes tore on some woody prominence as she fell again to her knees on the path.

  Gretchen Boreson’s face was as wild as her hair. She lurched to her feet. Her sharp-nailed hands grasped at Isabel’s shoulders, digging through the thin fabric of her shirt and into her skin. “Not here,” she croaked. “She’s the only one! Where is she? She’s the only one!”

  26

  BORESON’S EYES ROLLED, and her hands fell nervelessly from Isabel’s shoulders. Isabel couldn’t catch her before she collapsed on the forest floor. Adetti leaped forward, and bent to lift her face from the dirt. He turned her gently, supporting her neck with one hand, brushing some sort of crawling insect from her hair. Boyer strode forward with a dry splash of dead leaves and twigs to kneel on her other side.

  Isabel shuddered, and passed her hand over her scalp. It prickled with goose bumps.

  Bits of moss clung to Boreson’s white hair, and her face and hands jerked spasmodically. Adetti pulled an ampoule out of his pocket. He pulled back Boreson’s sleeve to press the drug to the inside of her elbow. Her eyelids fluttered, showing nothing but whites.

  “Will she be all right?” Jin-Li asked.

  “In a minute,” Adetti said shortly.

  Boyer straightened, leaving Boreson in Adetti’s hands. “So where did the girl go?” He peered into the forest. Some small creature buzzed around his face, and he batted at it.

  “She’s looking for the others,” Isabel said. “Just like Gretchen.” Her legs trembled suddenly, and she leaned against a root buttress.

  Jin-Li’s steady hand touched her shoulder. “Isabel. She lived in this forest for a century. She’ll be all right. ”

  Isabel drew a slow breath. “I’m trying to remember that.” At her feet, Gretchen Boreson stirred, and her eyes opened, the pupils darting from side to side. Isabel forced herself to stand upright. “Come, Paolo. Let’s get Gretchen to the flyer. Did you give her a sedative?”

  “Didn’t expect to need one,” he said. His voice was edgy, but Isabel saw that his hands were gentle, lifting Boreson to her feet, supporting her slight weight with his arm.

  “There’s a medical kit on board,” Boyer said. “Come on, let’s all get back there. It’s going to be dark soon.”

  “I’ve got to get Gretchen back to the power park,” Adetti said.

  “She needs the medicator.”

  Isabel stiffened. “I’m not leaving the island without Oa.”

  Boyer squinted at her. “Look, Mother Burke . . .”

  Adetti snapped, “The girl can take care of herself. You know that.”

  Isabel whirled to face him, her anxiety swelling into anger. She could be angry at Paolo Adetti, and even at Gretchen Boreson, ill as she was. She could blame all of it on them, vent her fury on them, and not feel guilty about anything.

  She folded her arms, gripping her elbows with her fingers. Anger would do no good. She could blame them for driving Oa back to the forest. But she had to credit them with bringing Oa into her care.

  “Isabel.” It was Jin-Li. Again Isabel felt that muscular, steady hand on her shoulder.

  Isabel closed her eyes, and let the strength flow from Jin-Li’s hand into her own body. “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Mr. Boyer and Dr. Adetti can take Gretchen to the power park. I’ll stay with you. We can use the crashed flyer for shelter. Oa knows where it is. We’ll wait for her together.
”

  Isabel opened her eyes, and looked into Jin-Li’s long dark ones. “Thank you, my friend,” she whispered. She offered a silent prayer of gratitude as she turned away, and led the little group back up the tortured forest path.

  *

  THE NUCHI BRANCHES beneath her bare toes were like old friends to Oa. She listened as she climbed, heard Isabel calling her name, heard the low tones of Jacob Boyer, of Doctor, the neutral sound of Jin-Li’s voice. She heard nothing else, but that didn’t matter. If the anchens were there, they would make no sound. Hiding. If they weren’t there, she would climb as far as she dared, until the darkness lightened, and the top branches were too thin to hold her, and she would swing from branch to branch, looking.

  They should have hidden in the nest that day, she knew that now. When they heard the clatter of the strange flying thing, they should have climbed up into their lair and stayed there, waiting until the strange men went away.

  But if they had? Would the men have taken away Raimu-ke? Nahnah would not have died. But Oa would not have met Isabel.

  There was an old song about the two sides of the wind, which brought evil and good together. Oa thought if she could have another evening on the northern point with the anchens, she could remember all the words . . . the words would come back to her, and then she might understand.

  She swung through the canopy, knowing her destination, growing warm with exertion. Her muscles burned. She had not climbed anything in a long time.

  She worked her way inward to the crisscross of branches that formed the anchens’ nest. It was a rough bowl shaped by roots and low branches and slanting trunks. They had reinforced it over the years, carrying armloads of moss, grass, twigs, slabs of bark they softened in the surf and beat as smooth as they could. It was littered with the few things the anchens possessed—rags, battered sleeping mats, the baskets they wove, little piles of cutting stones, and their two precious digging knives, black now with rust.

  She was almost there. She paused, needing to know, but afraid. She thought of turning back, climbing back down to let Isabel and Jin-Li take this burden from her. They would do it, she knew. They would search for the anchens with their scanners, and deal with Doctor and Gretchen. They would allow Oa to be a child. Even now, they believed she was one.

  But she was not a child. She was an anchen. Raimu-ke lay above her on the hill, and if Oa were the only anchen left to care for the kburi, she must know.

  She listened. Gretchen’s wails had faded. Even Isabel’s calls had died away. The thunder had passed to the west, and raindrops pattered against the canopy, caught by leaves and vines before they could reach the forest floor.

  She dropped now, climbing down the old familiar ladder of branches. Wood creaked beneath her weight. The nest lay only a little farther, beyond the veil of vines.

  She flared her nostrils, searching for that old scent of salt water on skin, of hair full of leaves and moss, of familiar bodies. And for the lingering essence of long, long memory.

  She shimmied forward across the branch, her Earth-material shorts catching on the bark, her hands sticky with resin. She pulled at the vines with her fingers, separating them, peering between their twisted cords.

  *

  ISABEL PACED BEFORE the flyer, the yellow grass catching at her knees, her hands clenching and unclenching, her brow creased with anxiety. “Where could she have gone, Jin-Li?” she asked for the tenth time. “Why doesn’t she come back?”

  Jin-Li said, again, “She’ll be back. We’ll wait. She’ll come back.”

  And when Isabel protested again, Jin-Li repeated, “Try not to worry.”

  There was nothing more to say. Neither of them needed platitudes.

  An hour went by, and another. They watched the storm pass, the sky clearing from east to west as the light faded. Isabel, exhausted with tension, sat on the bent strut, her head in her hands. Jin-Li stood scanning the gentle slope of the hill. Nothing moved. The brief rain had charged the air with the scent of ozone. The volcanic rocks that dotted the meadow shone in the evening’s glow, freshly washed by the rain. Stars began to glimmer above their heads, and the song of evening birds filled the air.

  “It’s getting dark,” Isabel said. “She won’t be able to find her way back.”

  “She’s spent many nights in the woods. She’s at home here. We’re not.”

  “But the—what if they’re not here? What if she’s alone out there—all night?”

  “That’s what Oa needs to find out.” Jin-Li hesitated, questioning the appropriateness of giving advice to Isabel Burke. But there was no one else to do it. “Sometimes,” Jin-Li finished softly, “you have to let them do it on their own.”

  “I know,” Isabel said sadly. “I know. But nothing has ever seemed so hard.”

  27

  JIN-LI HELPED ISABEL climb up into the damaged flyer. They slid on its slick floor, catching themselves on the tilted seats. Jin-Li touched the button for the door, and it creaked forward, not closing completely, but almost. “Enough to keep the bugs out,” Jin-Li said.

  With one hand on the seats for support, Jin-Li worked back to the cooler and pulled out two ration packets and a foil bag of water. “Here, Isabel. Let’s eat, and then try to sleep. There’s nothing we can do until morning, and Simon will come back with Boyer then.”

  “I can’t sleep,” Isabel said. “Not with Oa out there, somewhere. She’ll think we’ve abandoned her.”

  Jin-Li struggled back across the slanted floor, and handed her a ration packet. “Eat, at least. You may feel a little better.”

  Isabel slit the opening on the ration pack, and pulled out a wedge of something that looked like dried cheese. She nibbled at it obediently, but she had no appetite. She glanced up at Jin-Li. “You’re not very hungry either,” she said.

  Jin-Li sighed. “I remember what it is to be alone in a jungle. Mine was an urban jungle, but still. . .”

  Isabel put down the wedge of cheese. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ve been thinking only of Oa. And of myself. It was Hong Kong, wasn’t it?”

  “It was. But I was never as alone as Oa.”

  Isabel pushed away the ration packet. “Maybe she’s not alone, Jin- Li. Maybe they’re still here. Maybe she found them.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I do, too. But if they are here, why didn’t they show themselves?”

  “After what happened the last time? I doubt they’ve forgotten so soon.”

  “If they’re like Oa, they never forget anything.” Isabel took her cross in her hands and held it, seeking comfort from the familiar texture of its carved wood. Please, dear God, she prayed silently. Watch over my Oa. Send her back to me, safe and sound.

  She sighed, and slipped into the familiar comfort of litany:

  REGARD NOT OUR SINS, BUT THE FAITH OF YOUR CHURCH

  *

  THE STARS ABOVE the island of the anchens sparkled coolly, diamonds scattered on a shroud of black velvet. Isabel stared at them through the window of the flyer until her eyes burned. She didn’t believe she could sleep, but it seemed, in the end, she dozed. She startled awake to find that the sky had paled, and the stars were beginning to dim.

  She had heard something. There was a soft sound outside the flyer, something that wasn’t the ever-present murmur of the ocean, or the soughing of the breeze through the fringes of the forest canopy. She straightened, making no sound herself, and strained to listen.

  For a long moment, she thought she was imagining it. It was a murmur, like the murmur of Mother Ocean. It was the sound of soft voices, the whisper of bare feet through dry grass. Pushing on the back of the seat in which she had uncomfortably reclined, she managed to stand. Beside her, Jin-Li woke, and sat upright, dark eyes gleaming. Isabel, gripping the seat backs, moved to the partly open door.

  The fading starlight made the scene outside the flyer into one of half-seen images, ephemera that drifted in the morning twilight, seeming as much imagination, as much the magic of a wi
sh fulfilled, as it did reality. Midnight-dark faces, eyes flashing white in the gloom, hesitant movements, slender arms and legs and full lips, a cluster of old children sidling cautiously toward her. Isabel’s heart pounded in her ears and her lips parted. Behind her, she heard Jin-Li take a sharp breath.

  “Isabel.” The sweet, familiar voice was like air to someone who was suffocating. “Isabel. Oa finds the anchens.”

  *

  OA REACHED FOR Isabel’s hand, to help her down from the broken door of the flyer. The scent of fear was sharp in the air, coming from the anchens, but also surrounding Isabel.

  “Oa! Are you all right? I was so worried!”

  “Oa is sorry,” she said. “The anchens are afraid, Isabel.”

  “Yes, of course, sweetheart.” Isabel put an arm around Oa’s shoulder, pressed her cheek to Oa’s hair. “They must be frightened. I’m just so glad to see you safe.”

  “Gretchen?”

  “Gretchen has gone back to the power park, Oa. She’s very ill.”

  Oa gave a sigh of relief. She regretted causing Isabel concern, but it had taken most of the night to tell her story. The anchens could not comprehend what had happened to her. They had believed for a long time that Oa was dead, and when she put her head through the curtain of vines that shielded the nest, they thought Raimu-ke had sent them a ghost.

  There were no words, in the Sikassa language, to explain huge not-canoes that flew through space, towering shahto that loomed over the cold gray waters of another world, the icy marvel that was ice cream, the terrors of a spider machine. And Isabel—Oa wanted so much for the anchens to understand Isabel.

  The anchens hung back now, staring openmouthed at Isabel. When Jin-Li jumped down to the ground, they turned as one to face this new threat, pale brown skin, long heavy-lidded eyes, the brush of black and silver hair. As the sky brightened, the anchens watched the newcomers.

  Their bare feet shifted, their hands touched each other, and Oa knew that at the slightest disturbance they were ready to flee. Or to fight. Po’s knife hung at his braided-vine belt, and his face was tight with suspicion.