The Long List Anthology Volume 4 by Naomi Kritzer

Author:Naomi Kritzer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Diabolical Plots, LLC
Published: 2018-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Nearness

Ducky had just finally fallen asleep when the rear flap of canvas on the back of my wagon snapped open.

“You need to see this.”

I nearly screamed with frustration as Ducky’s head jerked. Her eyes fluttered open, and she drew breath to start wailing. Again.

“What is it, Marc?” I snapped. The tablets say not to hate anyone, and so I did not hate my husband. But I was not particularly in love with him that day, either. He’d taken to praying through the night, refusing to interrupt his devotion to the Gods even when Ducky stirred and cried. Even when I hadn’t slept for days.

“You need to come, Prophetess,” he said, inclining his head in the formal bow that most of my followers had taken to performing. I wanted to throw something at him.

“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. I climbed from the moving wagon, stumbling as I landed. It was loud outside of the wagon — the noise of the wheels crunching through the gravelly dirt of the scrubland combined with the shouts of the children who ran behind us, waving sticks and occasionally hitting each other. The wagons were moving at a fervent pace. Marc tried to get me to follow him, but I ignored him, planting my feet until Naomi caught up to us.

“Can you take Ducky?” I asked, handing my daughter to her before she could answer. “Apparently I’m needed.”

“Oh, I’ll say,” she replied, her ruddy face grim. “I already had Sam pull a mule for you. Hino is waiting for you up front.”

“Hino? Jasper’s boy?”

“He took over as lead scout when Jonah… um.” She trailed off, and I didn’t answer. I started off toward the front of the wagon train, half-jogging to beat the pace we were setting. I lifted my hand in thanks without looking back.

What she hadn’t said — what she hadn’t been willing to remind me — was that Jonah had left along with nineteen other Children of the Gods. Back between Marc’s awakening and Ducky’s birth, I’d lost twenty followers, along with all the stored water and the seed that we’d been able to save throughout all of the floods and storms and fires and deserts we’d survived.

Everyone who remained had been wonderful during the long month of my confinement, labor, and recovery. But now we were behind schedule, and we needed to catch up to the brothers and sisters who had abandoned us. They’d sworn to follow the trail mapped out by the Gods. They’d sworn to meet us in the Promised Land.

So after Ducky’s birth, we jettisoned every scrap of weight that we could spare, and we raced to meet them.

“This way, Prophetess,” the boy who met me at the front of the wagon train said. He waved an arm at me as I mounted the mule that was waiting.

“Hino, right?” I asked as we began to ride ahead of the group. “When did you get so tall?”

“I’m not sure, Prophetess,” he said. I shifted uncomfortably on the mule’s back.

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