Fearsome Journeys (The New Solaris Book of Fantasy) by Bear Elizabeth & Abraham Daniel & Canavan Trudi & Elliot Kate & Ahmed Saladin & Lynch Scott & Cook Glen & Parker KJ

Author:Bear, Elizabeth & Abraham, Daniel & Canavan, Trudi & Elliot, Kate & Ahmed, Saladin & Lynch, Scott & Cook, Glen & Parker, KJ [Bear, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Solaris
Published: 2013-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

FOREVER PEOPLE

ROBERT V S REDICK

WHEN MAJKA STEPPED out through the kitchen door at dusk she found a huge white weasel in the garden. Brazen, it locked eyes with her: a rare chelu, a ghost weasel, halfway between the garden wall and the little ramp by which the chickens entered the barn. Majka hissed. The chelu answered with a growl. The animal was nearly the size of a wolverine.

The door stood open behind her. From within came the eager thok thok of her mother-in-law’s knife as she battled a turnip, then a chord from the mandolin her son was learning to play. They had borrowed the instrument from a neighbor; it was scratched and worn, and the neck felt slightly loose, but the family treated it like the relic of a saint. It had changed their evenings, brought life to those shadow-swamped rooms.

Majka closed the door. She would face the chelu with the axe from the wood-splitting stump. Never taking her eyes from the creature, she backed along the side of the whitewashed house. A fierce wind was rising. The warmth of the day was ebbing fast.

She had guessed that a predator was about. The chickens had gone early to roost, and Bishkin, the family’s smoke-gray cat, had slipped upstairs after his plate of buttermilk instead of rambling through the village or the ravine. Of course what they needed was a dog. Just days ago she had worked the village, opening her lean little purse. Sell me that mongrel, that runt in the corner, that toothless bitch. Any goddamned dog. She’d come back with nothing. They’d wanted twice what she could pay.

And now the axe was gone. Beside the stump lay only the small spade they used to bury ashes from the stove. Majka snatched it up and advanced on the chelu. The weasel only narrowed its eyes.

Suddenly furious, Majka charged, brandishing the spade like a madwoman.

“You want this, thief? You want me to split you in half?”

The creature bared its perfect fangs—and then thought better of the confrontation, and dashed away across the yard. In a white blur it flowed to the top of the garden wall. Looking back over its shoulder, it favored her with a different sort of noise: an odd, almost sympathetic keening. Then it sprang away towards the ravine.

Majka glanced quickly over her shoulder: the kitchen door remained closed. That was something. No one else knew the animal had appeared.

A gust of wind blasted the garden; the leaves of the withered sunflowers rasped together, gossiping women in a bread line. Feel that cold, now. Look at that sky full of bruises and rage. She knew this sort of weather: it had roared in from the northeast every autumn of her thirty-three years, scouring the last whiff of summer from the high country, sealing the villagers in their shacks.

Majka stomped into the barn. Chelus were horribly unlucky. Even to glimpse one in the forest could prompt certain old hunters to call it a day. She couldn’t imagine what they’d make of a chelu in the garden.