Hurley's Heroes Collection Volume 6 by Kameron Hurley

Author:Kameron Hurley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Kameron Hurley
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE WOOD OF WICKED CHOICES

My mother bore me while fleeing through burning cities.

And yet I am thinking of better times.

Before the war.

And the plague.

Before this war.

This plague.

The times when I knew less and so thought the world and our choices were simpler.

My mother must have felt the same, when she swaddled me in smoke and muslin. Wiped the afterbirth from my face, and went on because she did not have time to weep. Before me, before all that, her life must have felt so much clearer. More focused. You lived in the same village. Were burned on the same pyre. Time, like a wheel.

Until the wheel breaks.

And it always breaks.

My wheel broke when I was thirteen. A good age for it. Your body is breaking around you already, shifting into something, someone else. You begin to feel like a stranger in it, overwhelmed by new feelings; rage, desire, an above all else, for me – the need to go, to get away, to throw off the yoke of my parents and my small existence and burn my own path. To make a choice for yourself. Even if it’s a single choice.

And so I planned to run away the night before the soldiers came.

My mother found me wrapping cheese in waxed linen, my pack open on the table beside me. She did not argue or yell or scold, only asked me of my plans. Where would I go? Where would I find water? Where would I sleep? How would I eat when my supply of cheese ran out? Where would I find clean water? Where would I sleep? What occupation would I have for myself? What if I got sick, or broke my leg? How could I care for myself then?

She asked question after question after question until I began to cry in frustration. The details became overwhelming. The idea of leaving felt so much bigger than me.

“I don’t know,” I wailed. “I just can’t stay here any longer.”

“When I was fourteen,” she said, “I was married to your father. I came here to this valley knowing no one but him. He already had a husband, your uncle Petir, and another wife, your aunt Jiv. They welcomed me, but I did not know them as I knew him, and it was hard, at first. They were never cruel, but I was homesick, and so after a few awkward days trying to adjust to this new family, I decided to run away. I would go back to my parents’ home. I would beg them to take me back. We could agree this had all been a mistake. We could undo it.”

I had never heard this story before.

“There is only one road connecting our villages,” she continued, “but it is long, and takes six days to travel on foot. I did just as you are doing now. I wrapped a brick of cheese in linen.

I decided to sleep far enough off the side of the road that anyone looking would be able to find me.

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