The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Author:Alaya Dawn Johnson [Dawn Johnson, Alaya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2023-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

The aurochs draws a hoof through the earth. Ants, red and gold, spill out of the furrow. They fall upon two fingers inching across the mud like fleshy worms. Within seconds, the fingers have been reduced to bones, then meal. The girl, sunk an inch into the mud, clutches her stomach as she watches. The god steps into her line of vision while the ants finish off the rest.

“What did the old bastard tell you?” the god asks.

The girl shakes her head, remembers where she is. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He bristles and blusters. “Tell me!”

She unfolds to his height, matches her face to his horns. “No!”

He backs down. Prances to the side, swings a calculating glance at the sky, where six suns chatter distantly among themselves. “Don’t tell me, then. My own avatars have denied me the same for centuries.” His great nostrils flare a moment before a flash of red lightning sends the suns scurrying. Their world turns dark and thunders with the inarticulate roar of an enraged beast.

The aurochs stands over the girl, who has dropped to her knees as the earth of their imagining quakes. “Look, can’t you see how Valaver rumbles?” Aurochs shouts over the din. “He’s finally noticed I’m awake. Wants to be his own god, that one, but he doesn’t have the heart for it.”

The fingers in the grass inch over her hands and feet, but she is too frightened to notice them.

As quickly as it came, the darkness vanishes. The sky is clear and blue. The girl jumps to her feet and knocks the fingers back into the grass with jagged, violent shakes.

“It looks like I’m not the only one with unwelcome visitors from my subconscious.” She stomps a pair of nearby fingers into the ground for emphasis. She steams with rage and fear.

The god watches her. “That one cannot overwhelm me. Not yet.”

“Neither can this one’s! Slimy! Hands!”

Her screams echo across the plain, nearly as loud as Valaver’s. She puts her hands to her mouth and chokes back a sob.

“Your body will give out soon enough. That virus is burning inside you.”

The girl’s laugh is a soft, bruised thing. “Is that what this is?” More fingers, indexes and middles and tiny pinkie fingers with clean, clipped nails, are popping up among the blades of grass.

“It seems that it’s got ahold of your memories.” He sweeps them away with a hoof. The ants fall upon them, voracious.

“It wasn’t real,” she whispers.

She considers this aurochs of the Nameren, the lost incarnation, now found. Even his outer avatars wanted him asleep and harmless. Her gaze is unfathomable.

“Remember,” he says, “the folktale of the piper and the ghosts in the desert? Maybe you’re the piper, and we do know how her story ends.”

“Because I’m likely to dry out here in the desert with them? That’s good, Aurochs. But I’ll still tell you my stories as long as I can.”

“So tell me what you found in Huehue.”

“Not until it’s part of the story. What I found there is all tangled up in … what happened next.

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