Mismatched Page 2

  It has been eight lunar cycles since my marking ceremony. To the majority, that is verdict enough. But I listened to my heart-stone. I know I made the right choice to become a member of the Umet’nik clan. My life-match is here. He has to be.

  Members of other clans intermingle with ours in the Center Market, more than half a day’s travel from Umet’nik territory, and even they raise questioning brows. People are spreading talk about me. I avoid them all as much as possible. I attend female marking ceremonies and ritual sermons because it is required, and often ask Mother to trade my artwork for food and supplies instead of going out myself. She never denies my request, never implies I have burdened her.

  Worse than being alone is that I am barren without a life-match, a grievance to my mother’s genealogy. She had two children, and only one girl. I so wanted to bless her with more branches on our tree. My brother’s children belong to Se’stra. The responsibility of continuing our family line falls on my shoulders alone.

  Mother visits often. We talk and drink tea, and some nights she helps me decorate the inside walls of my tent. It is cramped and rattles when the sea-winds become fierce, but it’s all I have. It was meant to be a temporary structure, necessary for the time between my marking and my bonding, not meant to last like the timber-huts that fill our territory. And although it scared me before to be so isolated, I am thankful now that it was erected on the outskirts, away from the steady murmur of growing families living their day-to-day lives.

  Vod’ya has thrice sent the priest to comfort me, but nothing appeases me more than getting lost in my artwork.

  My current project is an image of Mother standing on the shore, looking out at the open sea. An unseen wind liberates wisps of hair from her braids. She holds a bouquet of C’vet flowers. Their ivory petals contrast well with her summer-browned skin. When I’m finished I want to surprise her with it—my way of thanking her for being the most cherished person in my life.

  Today I’m searching for a new paint component, something that will give me the perfect violet-red for the sash on Mother’s dress. In the forest I fill a basket with every variety of red and blue berry I find.

  When my basket is full, my arm aches and my legs shake. I don’t know how long I’ve been wandering. Sunlight filters through the foliage above, but not enough to justify my intense heat. I should feel cool in this blessed shade. Perhaps I need to rest.

  Soft ferns, moss, and fallen leaves pad the ground to make as adequate a bed as any rag-mattress. I strip away my shift, sticky with sweat, and hang it over a tree branch to dry. No one will see my nakedness out here. No one cares where I am or what I do anymore.

  I lie on my flat belly and rest a cheek on my folded arms. The heat persists, increasing with each passing moment. My throat is parched. My entire body is on fire. This is not from sun-sickness or strained muscles. Something is wrong with my heart-stone.

  The forest blurs into an abstract canvas of greens and yellows and browns, flickering with white light. I push myself enough to roll onto my side, but I have no strength to sit up.

  “What are you doing all the way out here?” someone says. A woman stands beside a tree in the distance. She has a thick braid of hair black as night and a piercing dark stare. I recognize her face, but can’t remember from where.

  “Water,” I say in a low, scratchy voice.

  She hugs the tree trunk for support. “I cannot help you, Liu. I can only hurt you.”

  “You know me?”

  She shakes her head.

  “But you…said my name.”

  “I am making you ill. I’ll send someone to bring you water. I must go before—”

  “No, please! Wait.” She knows me, and somehow I know her too. Arms trembling, I push myself up. My hair is slick. Sweat trickles down my neck, down my forehead and the sides of my face. Down the valley of my spine. Now that I’m sitting, leaning back on a tree for support, I can see my belly. The area over my heart-stone is glowing, pulsing reds and oranges as fiery as the midday sun.

  She is the cause of this?

  “Cover yourself,” she says, retreating. “I will send someone.”

  I don’t care that I’m naked. I won’t let her go. She’s affecting my heart-stone and I need to know why. I use the tree to stand and push myself from trunk to trunk, staggering toward her. The closer I get, the hotter I burn. And she hasn’t gone far. She tries to leave me, but her heart-stone won’t allow it. The same pulsing glow diffuses through her shift, near her left hip. The same sweat over her exposed skin.

  “Liu, stop!” she screams. “Don’t come near me!”

  But I couldn’t stop even if I tried. My heart-stone has taken over. I can’t control my movement. In the chaos of delirium, I realize what’s happening. We’re bonding. How is this possible?

  We lock in an embrace, hips tight against each other, face to face and breathing so hard and fast we sound like whining Mack’a cats. We fall to the ground, she on top of me, and then I on top of her, rolling through the underbrush. Her shift has burned away below the waist. I try to focus on her face, to find some clue in her expression as to how she knew this would happen. But I can’t determine anything beyond the fire between our bellies.

  Relax. Breathe deeply. Let your heart-stone guide you. Mother always told me I had nothing to fear…

  We settle on our sides, still facing each other. Our breathing slows. The internal lava fades. A new sensation floods me, dizzying and sweet, like riding a cloud. We sigh in unison. My hips rock in rhythm with hers, our bodies still moving on their own. Our legs intertwine. I feel every pulse of her heart-stone as if it were mine. Her braid came loose in the tussle. I clutch her thick waves of hair. Finger them fondly.

  She removes the remnants of her shift and presses her naked breasts to mine. Another surge of ecstasy. More cooing sighs and moans escape our lips. Her skin is well-browned and her body firm. I am freckled and weak in comparison, too soft and fragile, but she squeezes me tight as if everything about me is all that she needs.

  And I feel the same for her. This woman is my sole reason for living now, the foremost desire of my heart-stone. Everything I do from this day forward will be focused on her happiness and well-being. Nothing will ever feel wrong between us. I will never be alone again.

  I have found my life-match. The heart-stone doesn’t lie.

  “Can I ask you something?” I whisper.

  “I don’t have an answer for this.”

  “No, I mean…You already know my name. I’d like to know yours.”

  “Oh,” she says, smiling. She cradles my head in her arms, holding it carefully like an emptied eggshell about to be painted and lacquered. “I am Willa’mew of the Lajed’el clan.”

  She is of a different clan? I hadn’t noticed it before—she has no marks anywhere. She is Lajed’el, an architect. A builder. We have no similar interests. How can she be my life-match? This distracts me from the sensations of the moment, but my heart-stone compensates with a blast so intense that my throat constricts and a rainbow of colors flashes across my vision.

  It will not allow any more questions until its first-bond has been satisfied.

  We exhaust ourselves with passion, in ways I never imagined possible between women, then rest in each other’s arms. We talk until the forest grows dark and the P’tic birds fall silent. Ocean waves kiss the shore in the distance, soft and gentle as a whisper.

  Willa tells me everything she knows. Two lunar cycles after her initiation into the Lajed’el clan, she and two others were commissioned to erect my tent. I was not of age yet and so my heart-stone didn’t give notice of her. To me, she was just another builder. But she felt something for me then, slight as it was, even though she did not understand it until the night of my marking ceremony. Outside clan members rarely attend Umet’nik initiations—many feel ours is barbaric—but they are not forbidden.

  When she saw my reaction to her from across the bonfire, her heart-stone almost took over. We might have bonded r
ight there in front of everyone, but she was at a far enough distance to control it. As soon as she came to the outermost edge of the crowd I began screaming. She ran, thinking she needed to stay as far away from me as possible.

  “Even if it meant your banishment?” I say, and she nods.

  She is closer to the anniversary of her initiation than I am to mine. If she never bonded, she would have been ousted from the island. And then I would have been too, and never would have known why. I don’t see how this was a wise decision. We could have bonded seasons ago if not for her foolishness. All those tearful nights alone could have been prevented.

  She did not trust her heart-stone to guide her. Instead, she fought its natural desire. I can’t be angry with her, though. She is my life-match. Holding her now, I understand she was simply afraid of the unknown. There is no record of same-sex bonding in any clan.

  We conclude that we will never know why this happened, just that it did. And we can’t live separately now without making both of us deathly ill. Better to focus on our next course of action rather than dwell on things that can’t be changed.

  It’s getting late. If I’m not at my tent and Mother goes to visit me, she’ll worry. But it’s too soon to make known to anyone what happened between us. Willa says no one in her clan will wonder about her absence. Her mother is long dead, and she is so near the end of her allotted time to find her life-match that everyone has been treating her as if she were already gone. She was on her way to the island’s south shore when she found me in the forest. She has built a small ship and stocked it with supplies, preparing for her imminent sea travel.

  She wants me to go with her. Tonight.

  “We have proof that we bonded,” I say. A starburst of reddened skin, intricate and symmetrical in design, blossomed on her lower abdomen near her right hip. It is identical to the one her heart-stone impressed on me. “Even the priest cannot deny this. She will be forced to seal us and let us live together as any other couple.”

  “But we are not like any other couple.”

  “We can puzzle this later. Come home with me. We both need to rest, body and mind. Our path will be clearer at sunrise.”

  “Sealed or not,” she says, “no one will look with favor upon this mismatch.”

  “We are not mismatched. The heart-stone doesn’t lie. Please. Come back with me. The Law of Hospitality grants us permission to care for someone in need, of any clan, or even a foreigner. Until we can arrange an audience with the priest, I’ll claim you as my guest.”

  Even in these moments of uncertainty I am sure of how my heart-stone feels for her. If we must leave the island together, so be it. But I will not be disowned without testing other options first. I will not quit the fight before any fist against me has been clenched.

  With much exasperation, Willa agrees to stay at my tent as a guest until we know how the priest will react. I slide my shift back on and she leads me to her boat. It is a long weary walk, but worth it. She puts on a new shift, bundles another under her arm, and offers me food and drink. I hadn’t realized how famished I was, but of course she sensed it. She is my life-match.

  We hurry back to my tent in the dark. Mother is waiting inside, her face wrinkled with worry. I assure her I am well and introduce her to Willa, explaining that I met her in the forest while collecting berries for paint…but that is where the truth ends and the lies begin. I’m surprised by how easily they flow from my lips.

  I say Willa is a traveler who was thrown overboard from her vessel during a storm, and the sea carried her here. She is in need of supplies and a safe place to rest. I have no one to care for but myself, so I offered my hospitality for as long as she wishes to accept it.

  If Mother doesn’t believe my story she hides it. She leaves us to get our affairs in order. We set aside the unknowns of tomorrow and lie down, snuggled against each other. Our heart-stones have promised eternal, unconditional companionship.

  This is the first peaceful rest I’ve ever had in my own bed.

  Weeks pass into the start of a new lunar cycle. Summer heat wanes. Vibrant reds and yellows edge the leafy trees. Fields of C’vet flowers have exploded into bloom, so thick with white petals that from a distance they are like patches of unmeltable snow. We are one lunar cycle from the annual C’vet flower harvest and the week-long celebrations that accompany it. This time last year I eagerly awaited the transition into my adult life. Each day seemed to drag. Now each sunrise turns to sunset and back again as swift and ominous as a fish chasing a baited hook.

  At first Willa and I were more concerned with pleasing each other physically than revealing our secret to anyone. It didn’t matter that our bond had not been made official. She ran errands for me and kept the tent maintained so I could concentrate on finishing Mother’s portrait, and she shared in my joy when I presented Mother with the gift. But now that we’ve settled into a mundane daily routine, as any couple would, she appears more like a partner than a guest. People question our co-habitation and the circumstances under which we met.

  Vod’ya assures us we have done no wrong. We haven’t revealed all the facts to her, though. She commends me for taking this stranger into my care, but even she cannot keep people from wondering.

  Her reasoning makes sense. But to my heart-stone she might as well have told me the sea is orange, the grass is blue, and the sky is green, full of brown clouds.

  I’m able to ignore the slanderous murmurs until the day my womanly bleeding returns, and Willa’s appears at the same time. Perhaps it was foolish of me to think it, but I had hoped our bonding and subsequent, frequent displays of affection would somehow result in a child, if for no other reason than that I want it. Willa has a sister in her clan who has already borne children. Her family does not need her to reproduce as mine does. She comforts me as well as she can, better than anyone else ever could, but still, I withdraw into a deep depression. Willa forces me to get out of bed and bathe. I’m not motivated enough to even lift a brush, let alone mix colors and paint images. My creativity has bled dry.

  And it aches even more, knowing the reason for this is that I have found my life-match. Is this not what I wanted? But it has resulted in more pain. Willa insists we must see the priest soon and let the clan leaders decide our fate. She can’t stand to feel me in such despair. My pain is her pain, and then her pain feeds back to me again. We are trapped in an endless cycle of hurt.

  Mother visits, although not as often. She respects the privacy of my guest. But tonight she has come hurriedly, after hearing that no one has seen me emerge from the tent in four days. Someone saw Willa cleaning bloody cloths at the creek and rumors spread that she had murdered me. I’m astounded anyone would think her capable of such a thing.

  As I lie on the rag-mattress, silent but awake, Willa brews them each a cup of Cheau tea. The spicy scent usually tingles my cheeks with delicious anticipation, but now it pricks my nose and induces an ache between my brows. Everything about me has been twisted backwards. Mother sits at the table, hands folded, studying me for some clue why I am without a man. She knows what will happen if I never find my life-match. I yearn to tell her I already have, to keep her from worrying, but the truth may create even more worry. I cannot tell her anything until I know what it means.

  They sip tea and talk about me as if I’m not here. Mother asks Willa if she knows what ails me. Willa doesn’t lie, but withholds certain truths. She says I’m sad over my flat belly and blood-soaked woman-cloth. She says this is something she doesn’t understand. Willa has no desire to have children, and Mother assumes this is because Willa is a solitary traveler as I have previously relayed.

  When they’ve expressed all that can be said between them, Mother sits beside me, kisses my forehead, and bids me good night.

  “I’m sorry I failed you,” I say.

  “You’ve done nothing of the sort.”

  “I trusted my heart-stone and followed its path. I swear on my life that I did.”

  She traces a fingertip o
ver the C’vet flower mark on my bare arm. “And you must continue to trust that your heart-stone will guide you in the direction that is best for it.” She thanks Willa for the tea and for keeping watch over me, then leaves us.

  As soon as the sound of her footsteps disappears, Willa undresses and climbs under the blankets. She holds me snug against her, bosom to bosom. With our heart-stones close it is impossible to feel anything but content. We lie like this, unmoving, until she falls into deep, rhythmic breathing.

  I’ve been in bed all day. I’m not tired. I can’t sleep, but I can’t leave her either.

  A new set of footsteps approaches. Harsher than Mother’s. Determined. I scramble to clothe myself and pretend to be asleep. Who would be visiting this late?

  The tent flap opens in a flourish. “Liu?”

  “Bre?” I sit up and meet my brother’s face. It is creased with anxiety. “What’s wrong?”

  “I should ask you the same,” he says, and kneels beside me. “Mother sent me to check on you. She says you’re ill.” He reaches toward my left hip and I push him away.

  “Don’t touch me!” This comes out more forcefully than I intended, as did my push against him. He tilts backward and catches himself on his palms. Before he can question my outburst, Willa stirs awake.

  “What’s all the noise?” she mutters.

  “Go back to sleep,” Bre orders. “This doesn’t concern you, foreigner.”

  Willa’s eyes widen and she clutches the blankets up to her neck. “Liu? Who is this?”

  “I said this doesn’t concern—”

  “He is my brother,” I say. “He’s here to assess my well-being.”

  Willa’s silent fear sends my heart-stone into a burning panic. She knows that even if Bre doesn’t see my bonding mark, he will sense the difference in my heart-stone. He is no longer my closest kin. Willa is. But he might attribute the weaker link to my supposed illness.