Daughters of an Emerald Dusk by Forrest Katherine V

Author:Forrest, Katherine V. [Forrest, Katherine V.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781594934544
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2015-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

PERSONAL JOURNAL OF JOSS

The top of the pyramid is vast, extending as far as the eye can see. Moments after sunset, in the darkening blue twilight, the landscape—strange to begin with, eerier territory if possible than the one from which Emerald and I have just ascended—is turning even more fantastic.

The area is astonishingly well-populated. I cannot estimate how many young women surround us, but many dozens mill within my view, and at least as many others undoubtedly are concealed amid the clusters of trees and foliage.

Even with a sort of woodland all around us, the “floor” beneath our feet is smooth yet spongy, and wildly uneven as if we walk over solidified waves, some as high as two meters.

Emerald, staring with a fascination equal to mine, jabs repeatedly at the ground. “Leaves,” she exclaims, “it’s all leaves, Joss!”

Indeed it is—unlike anything I have ever seen. The surface is richly patterned, an intricate leaf mosaic. The few leaves that lie intact and as yet covered by others are the size of those we saw growing at jungle level, and are in fact the same leaf species. Thus we have our first rational explanation for one aspect of the behavior of these women: why they collected them from the jungle floor. Several of those who brought us here are on hands and knees flattening and pressing the newly arrived leaves into place near where we stand.

Since I carry no instrument with a cutting edge, I test where we stand with the toe of my boot, then lean down to run a fingernail over it, increasing the pressure. The leaf under me remains unmarked, impervious. Malleable as it is underfoot, it is also extremely tough, and if there is perhaps little of actual substance beneath where we stand, it doesn’t matter. The surface is efficient, versatile, uncomplicated, unique.

A strip of light, from one of our small glowing moons, emerges from a parting of the cloud cover to reveal variations of blue and gray hues in the mosaic, probably reflecting the age of the leaves—the newest are a brighter ivory-blue. If the surface is this spectacular in the moonlight of an intensifying night, it must be truly extraordinary in the light of day.

Many of the women around us sprawl unceremoniously in declivities on the surface, their nude bodies an aesthetic delight in their various states of repose. Many gaze off into the horizon as the final light of day extinguishes; some sit, leaning back into the waves. There seems little contact among them, except with their young whom they embrace and stroke with rough, artless affection; and everyone fluffs the fur of a number of whoofies that have somehow gotten themselves all the way to this continent—unless they were taken here or even perhaps originated here. No one, including the youngest children—including even the whoofies—displays the slightest interest in us.

“Adira!”

Emerald lunges over the uneven surface toward a dark-haired woman standing with her back to us. She seizes the woman’s arm with both hands, whirls her around…and slumps in disappointment.

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