Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

Far to her left another voice called, and across the valley before her a figure ran toward that voice, wings extended as though to fly, feet seeming scarcely to move as they skimmed the grass. Two met; two danced. There were angels alive in the night. Treeci.

“Come!” He danced upon the hilltop, posed in glory, silver and black in the light of the moons, head back, caroling, bell sound on the hill, voice of joy. “Come!”

She ran toward him, panting now a little, wondering what marvelous festival this was, what occasion called the Treeci out into the night, remembering only then that it was Conjunction. Of course. A second celebration.

He turned, seeing her, eyes wide in their circles of feathers, wider yet as he realized who it was ascending the hill. “No,” he cried, a wounded sound. “No. No.”

What did he mean? She paused, puzzled at this denial, stopping short when he threatened her with widespread wings. She could see him clearly now, feathers on his abdomen spread wide to disclose a pulsing, swollen organ on the bare skin, black in the night, oozing silver. “No,” he begged.

She went toward him, her thighs sliding slickly, wetly on one another. “Neff? It’s Pamra. Neff?”

An agonized cry from him as he clasped her, his body beating against her, one thrust, two and three, breaking away only to close again, then away, this time really away to flee down the hillside faster than she could pursue him, no longer calling, now only crying, more like a child than an adult. She stared after him stupidly, brushing at the front of her cape, where the copious jet of sticky fluid clung, slowly, very slowly flushing as she realized what had happened, what she had been too preoccupied with her own feelings to see.

“Mating,” she whispered to herself, aghast. “It’s their mating time. Oh, by Potipur, but I’ve shamed him and myself.” Sudden tears burned hotter than her skin, and all at once she felt the cold.

She trudged homeward, a longer way than she could have imagined, trying various apologies in her head, how she would say it, how she would rectify the situation. Her cape stank of his juices, a smell as wild as the woods themselves. She would have to wash it. When she returned to the house, however, she could only fall into bed, leaving the cape where she dropped it beside the door.

She was wakened by Joy shaking her, shaking her, screaming at her. “What have you done, damn you, Pamra, what have you done?”

She sat up stupidly, drawing the blanket over her breasts as though against attack. “What … what do you mean?”

“Did you go out? Last night? You didn’t go out. Not with all the wine I gave you. You couldn’t have. No. You couldn’t have done that to him. He was my son, like my own son.”

“I woke up.” Pamra cowered, trying to explain, still half-asleep. “I intruded. But I didn’t hurt him. I’m sorry. How in hell did you find out, anyhow?”

“I smelled it. Smelled it. On your cape. That smell. Oh, stupid, stupid, selfish, unhearing, unheeding stupid girl.” She was weeping too hard to talk, weeping herself away, out of the room, leaving Pamra to stare foolishly at the door. In the cot beside the bed, Lila made a sound of pain, a creaking agony. Pamra pressed her hands over her ears, willing not to hear it.

It was Bethne who came to her about noon. “Joy asked me, to have you pack up your things. Food in the cart. Stodder’ll help you take it down shore to the west end. Joy’d rather you weren’t here. Makes it too hard for her.”

“Bethne, I told her I was sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. Where is Joy? Why doesn’t she tell me herself?”

“Look, girl, I’d have just thrown you out. I might have killed you. Didn’t she tell you not to talk to that Neff? I know she did. I heard her say so.”

“He thought of me as his sister. He said so. They can talk to their sisters.”

“Sure they talk to their sisters. That’s so their sisters recognize their voices and have the common decency to stay away from them on the night. You didn’t have the decency to listen to Joy, and you didn’t have the decency to stay away from him, either. Now he’s gone, wasted, all for nothing.”