Fire Country Read online

  But that was all before the rogue god, Meteor, attacked us. Going against the sun and moon goddess, Meteor snuck by and gave the earth a real beating, fists and feet and head swirling, knocking over mountains and drying up rivers and wiping out most of the tribes. When Teacher told the story, we were riveted to our seats. It was the first time he had all our attention at once. When he got to the part about how the first Heater crawled out of their hiding spots, in caves and deep pits, we cheered and clapped our hands. They were survivors, just like us. We don’t know where the Icers came from, but they musta survived Meteor, too.

  Unfortunately, Teacher’s lesson today is much less interesting, all about Laws and duty. Although I hate to admit it, the lashing my father gave me taught me a lesson. Since then I been careful in class. No daydreaming, no problem. I keep my head up, try to focus on what Teacher is saying, and try to ignore the nasty comments directed my way by Hawk and his gang.

  The snapper scars’ll be the worst yet. Worse’n the time I thought it’d be funny to dump a bunch of sand lice under my sister’s pillow. My mother spent three days scrubbing them all out of Skye’s hair. Father wasn’t too happy and gave me what I thought would be the beating of my life. Skye even said she’d never speak to me again, but a quarter full moon later we were best friends again. Until she snuck a handful of dead eight-leggers into my tugtail soup one night. I didn’t even realize it until I crunched one in my mouth. Blech! She got a pretty bad whooping for her little revenge prank, too, but even that one was nothing compared to what my father gave me t’other day. I screamed like a banshee as he snapped the leather again and again, across my back, my legs, even my buttocks. He was whipping it so hard I could hear him grunting with exertion. It’s times like that I wish I had just a bit more meat on my bones for padding. Or maybe some muscle—that woulda helped. Instead, each blow went straight to my bones, penetrating so deep I thought he’d cut me wide open.

  I couldn’t see a searin’ thing ’cause I was bent over, tears and pain and hair in my eyes, but I did hear my mother scream a few times for him to stop; and she musta come at him, ’cause I heard him curse and then there was a crash. Sari’s kids were crying and she was trying to comfort them, but compared to me, they had nothing to cry about.

  It still hurts to sit down, but I manage.

  Circ and I haven’t talked much. I think he feels embarrassed that he got a beating from Hawk, and I don’t really have anything more to say about it all. I thanked him for helping me with the blaze, and for standing up for me, and that was that. I believe our friendship could survive anything.

  Life goes on in the village. Late summer gets closer and closer to winter, skipping autumn altogether this year.

  There are a lot of lasts this year. The last winter before I’m child-big, my last year of Learning, the last time my father’ll be able to call me a Youngling. One good thing about next spring’s Call: it’ll mean I can move out of my father’s hut. I just wish I knew who I’d be living with.

  Teacher Mas is going on and on about the history of the human race. Don’t get me wrong, some of it’s interesting stuff, like how people used to live in these big cities, with tall metal structures where everybody went to work, kind of like the Glassies, I guess, ’cept it was all people, not just one group. I’m not in the mood for it today.

  I find myself scanning the room, seeing who else is bored. Everyone seems interested, ’cept for Hawk and his mates, who are passing something under their legs—I can’t see what. Finally, my eyes settle on Circ. As though he feels my eyes on him, he turns at that moment and smiles. I can’t help but smile back. If I didn’t have him as a friend, I don’t know what I’d do.

  I always get scared for him ’fore a Hunt. The last Hunt of the season is in three days’ time, and already I feel a little jittery, like I’ve got fire ants in my dress or something. In three quarters of a full moon’s time the tug hurds’ll migrate elsewhere, beyond our reach, off to mate and find food for their new calves. Even Younglings are eligible to participate in the Hunt, if they pass the test, that is. Of course, good-at-everything Circ had to go and pass the skills test the moment he turned twelve, and he’s been going with the Hunters ever since. So far he’s been lucky, coming back with nothing worse’n a bruised foot from being trod on or a gash from a tug horn. But I’ve seen men—skilled, capable men—return home with half their head caved in, or missing a limb, or worse.

  It would be dangerous enough if the Hunters had only the tugs to contend with. The problem with tugs though, is that they’re so full of hunger-satisfying meat that they draw all kinds of attention from predators that are much nastier’n the Hunters.

  So, as usual, I’m nervous for Circ, and for myself, too, I guess.

  Circ looks back at Teacher, but I keep looking at him, and for just a second, I allow myself a brief daydream, a much needed respite from the real world I live in. What if, in a different world, in a different time, he was my Call? He’s the only one under the watchful eye of the sun goddess who really knows me. Would all my problems go away? Would I be just Siena, not Youngling or Scrawny or Tent-Pole? As I gaze at the face of the only person who seems to know exactly what I need and when I need it, I can almost picture what it’d be like. I mean, forget about all the stuff about going to bed with him—he’s my friend and I’m no shilt, so I’d rather not think about that—but the rest’d be amazing, right? Waking up and making breakfast with him; playing games with our children; spending the day together, at least when he doesn’t hafta go off for another Hunt. A beautiful dream, but then, of course, there’d be another Call, another wife, Call-Children. I know, I know, that’s just the way it is, but it’d still suck having to share him.

  Like my mother’s always had to do with my father. Although nowadays I don’t think she has any problem sharing, considering how hard he’s become, I hated watching before, when she used to laugh, laugh, laugh at things he’d say. And then he’d go off to bed with one of his other Calls and I could see the hurt in my mother’s eyes. I hurt for her, wish there was another way.

  Breeders.

  The word pops into my head like a burrow mouse from its hole. Lara’s word, not mine. But it’s true, ain’t it? Naw, I can’t think like that—not when it’s only months ’fore my Call.

  Something thuds against my shin. I cringe and almost hiss out Ouch! ’fore I catch myself and remember where I am. I glance at Circ, who’s shaking his head. He’s the one who kicked me. I don’t know how much time has passed while I was lost in my thoughts, but all t’other Younglings are standing up and leaving our open air Learning hut.

  “Try to focus, Siena,” Circ says. “I know it’s hard, but I don’t think either of us wants Blaze Craze again, nor face the wrath of our fathers.” By the wrath of our fathers he means the wrath of my father. He got away with a warning and a secret pat on the back for standing up to three Younglings at the same time, while I got the beating of my life.

  I realize Circ’s asked me a question, but I didn’t hear it, just see his face full of expectation. “Huh?” I say.

  “Are you daydreaming about daydreaming now?” he says.

  “Was that the original question or a new one?” I ask, trying to keep a straight face but failing miserably.

  Circ laughs and it’s like we’re not Younglings on the verge of major changes in our lives. We’re new Younglings again, or maybe Midders, with not a care in the world. Life is fun and I ain’t scared of my father and the future holds more possibilities’n living with strangers, a flock of children in tow.

  “It was a new question. I asked what you were thinking about when I snapped you out of it,” he says.

  “Ugh. Don’t say that word. Just hearing it makes my flesh hurt,” I say, reaching a hand over my shoulder to gingerly touch my back. Even through the dress my skin feels raw, like someone’s rubbed it with sand, or maybe rope.

  “It’s not right the way he beats on you,” he says.

  “Like you’ve never been snapped
,” I say.

  “Not like you,” he says, shaking his head. “A few snaps to the wrist and Father’s done. He says it hurts him worse than it hurts us, and I believe him, too. But your father…” He trails off, looking away.

  “He likes it as much as I hate it?” I offer.

  “Something like that,” Circ says.

  “Don’t worry about it. I can handle him. And saying something to someone’ll just make it worse.”

  Circ looks at me for a long moment, then changes the subject. “Honestly, though, you did look like you had gone far, far away. You were smiling at first, but then frowning.”

  I scowl at him. “Must you read my expressions when I’m daydreaming?” I say.

  “I must,” Circ says, laughing again. “But you’re dodging the question. What were you thinking about?”

  There’s heat on my cheeks. “I was just…” My mind races to come up with something. But I don’t lie to Circ—never have, never will—and my mind knows it, so it just goes blank.

  “Were just what?” he persists. I wish he’d drop it, but that’s not the way our friendship works.

  I look around. We’re alone now—everyone’s left, even Teacher Mas. “I was thinking what it’d be like if you were my Call.” Dropping my head, I study my feet, noticing how small they look from up here.

  “That’s not—”

  “Hey, Siena!” a voice shouts from the entrance. I turn to see Lara poking her head in. Across the room and out of the glare of the afternoon sun, she really looks like a boy.

  “What?” I say, glancing at Circ, who looks surprised that someone else is talking to me.

  “Have you thought about what I said to you the other day?” Lara says.

  I wince, not because I haven’t, but because I have.

  “I’ll see you at the game,” I say to Circ. To Lara, I say, “Walk with me.”

  ~~~

  I avoid her question all the way to the feetball match. She prods and pokes and rephrases it a dozen different ways, but I just keep changing the subject. At the game, I’m doing the same, studying the match like it’s a strange ten-legged insect with a red tail.

  Feetball. Yet another activity I’ve never been good at. Trying to run around while simultaneously kicking and throwing and catching a ball? Well, let’s just say it’s about three too many things for my two left feet to handle at once. Not to mention the hordes of defenders trying to do everything in their power to grind you into the unforgiving desert floor. Yeah, violent sports and me don’t mix. Scorch, any sport and me don’t mix.

  I played when I had to as part of the physical activity required during Learning, but never for fun. Thankfully, as a fifteen-year-old female Youngling—also known as a pre-Bearer—I’m exempt from any physical activity that might prevent me from having children in the near future. Which means I get to watch Circ play, which is like watching Greynote Giza paint one of his famous paintings: fluid and natural and graceful. The score is tied and it’s already in extra time, which means the next goal’ll be the decider.

  I’m sitting next to Lara, ’cause, well, ’cause I don’t really have many friends at the moment. I don’t know if she’s my friend exactly, but at least she’s not an enemy, and she’s never called me any of the not-so-flattering nicknames that I’m used to. So she’s okay in my book. Although she is starting to freak me out with all of her cryptic messages.

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” she says, asking for the fourteenth time since the match started.

  Circ takes a pass off his left foot and quickly darts past a defender who tries, and fails, to grab him. His movements are faster’n the lightning we get during the winter storms, but not nearly as shocking. So far he’s doing nothing I haven’t seen him do ’fore. He has three goals and a dozen steals, far more’n any other player.

  “I’m trying to watch—”

  “Oh, come on. I could see in your eyes that you were intrigued by what I said. That a life of breeding and childrearing and waiting on your Call hand and foot doesn’t exactly excite you.”

  “Shhh, keep it down,” I hiss, glaring at her. She might not hate me like most of t’other Younglings, but if she keeps talking like this, using that dirty word—breeding, shh!—she is gonna get me in trouble. Again. I’m pretty sure my father’s threat to chuck me in Confinement is a load of tugwash, but I’m not itching to test him. Especially not so soon after the last time.

  “Sorry,” she whispers, rolling her eyes.

  “Look,” I say, as I watch Circ dodge another defender by flicking the ball in the air with his feet, running around them, and then catching it in one hand. “Even if I agreed with you, about the…”

  (breeding, shh!)

  “…about everything, there’s nothing we can do about it. The Call is all there is for us. Without it the older generations would die off faster’n the new ones could be created. Without it we wouldn’t exist.”

  “I thought you were different,” Lara says, a hint of disappointment in her tone. “You sound just like a Teacher. Or worse, a Greynote.”

  I grit my teeth. Circ throws the ball over the head of an opponent to one of his teammates, who grabs it and throws it back to him. He catches it in midstride, now streaking down the field faster’n a Cotee, rolls it deftly out in front of his feet and then rips a booming shot at the corner of the rope net. I hold my breath for a second, watching the potential winning shot careen just past the outstretched hands of the opposing net guard. I start to stand and raise my hands in celebration, but the ball glances hard off the edge of the wooden netpost and over the boundary line. “No goal!” the judge yells, waving his arms around like he’s swatting at sand flies.

  Blaze. That was so close, but now t’other team has the ball.

  “All I’m asking is that you think about it,” Lara says.

  I already have. But she doesn’t know that.

  While one of the players chases Circ’s errant shot, I study Lara. Her eyes are light brown and flecked with green bits. Really pretty, actually. I’ve never really looked at her. I mean, I’ve gawked at her a few times, wondering what she was thinking with her short hair and absence of femininity. Oh and when she started wearing guy’s britches to school I almost keeled over with shock. But now, for the first time, I’m really seeing her. Not the masculine girl who doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere, but Lara, the person, the individual. To my surprise, her face is really pretty. It’s like it was hidden somewhere, like she was wearing a mask, and at just this moment she peeled it away. But that’s not it at all. She hasn’t changed one smidge. It’s me that’s changed. I’m giving her a chance, whereas ’fore I wrote her off as some weirdo. I did to her what everyone else does to me.

  I look away, unable to bear my own ignorance. I’m as bad as t’others. But I can make up for it now. I can take her seriously, really think about what she’s saying to me, which is all she’s asking for.

  Her words flash back with a vividness that startles me.

  It doesn’t have to be like this.

  Like what?

  Crying because you don’t think you’re pretty, shoveling other people’s blaze, being forced to breed when you turn sixteen. The Call. All of it can be avoided.

  It’s dangerous talk. I’ve heard ’bout girls who didn’t agree with the Call, and they all disappeared. Maybe taken by the Wild Ones, maybe taken by the Greynotes to be punished forever for breaking the Law.

  The ball is back in play, and the opposing team moves swiftly up the field, zipping around like angry bees. Two of them get a good rhythm going: pass, pass back, return. No one can seem to stop them until Circ comes a-flying in and bashes into one just as he releases the ball. Circ lands on top of him in a heap, but now the ball is past him. There’s another bone-jarring tackle, this time by one of Circ’s teammates, but again, it’s too late as the ball’s already been launched elsewhere on the field.

  The Call. All of it can be avoided.

  Breeding.

  But
why? Why avoid the Call? What’s there to gain from it? If enough new Bearers decide to skip out on the Call, then our people’ll just die out faster. The very idea is madness! And it’s not even possible anyway. The only way to get out of it is to die, which I’m sort of trying to avoid, or get kidnapped by the Wild Ones, which doesn’t sound particularly appealing either. And it’s not like I can put in a request:

  “Dear Wild Ones, on the fiftteenth of March I’ll turn sixteen, and half a full moon later, will be forced to take place in the Call. If at all possible, I’d appreciate an abduction sometime ’fore then, if you’re not too busy, that is. Your friend, Siena (aka Scrawny).”

  Yeah, I’m sure that’ll fly.

  I remember when they took my sister. She’d just turned sixteen. It was the night of her Call. Unlike me, she was so excited. “I’m becoming a woman!” she squealed as I helped her put on her nicest dress. She really did look beautiful, older’n she’d looked only a few days earlier—transformed. I could tell she was nervous ’cause she was babbling on and on, but who ain’t nervous for their Call? My father’d already left, so we were walking, my mother, Skye and me, toward the village center, where everyone was gathering. Although it was as hot as scorch, it was a perfect summer night, with every servant of the moon goddess out to watch the event. And the moon goddess herself was full and beautiful, an orange beacon contrasting the dark night sky. That’s when it happened. Skye stopped suddenly, said she needed to take a few deep breaths to prepare herself for what was coming. ’Fore my mother or I knew what was happening, she ducked behind a tent. My mother told me to wait and she went after her. That was the last time I ever saw my sister. The Greynotes investigated, found no signs of a struggle, declared her a runaway and a Lawbreaker, said if she was ever caught she’d be forced to bear her first child while in Confinement. There was talk about the Wild Ones, as there was every time another girl went missing, but even that fizzled out after a full moon or two. After all, no one had any proof they even existed.