A shriek of pure panic rent the darkness. Sudden and electric, a lightning bolt of sound shook James from a deep, dreamless sleep and sent him hurtling for the doorway well before he was awake enough to know what was happening. Frantically, he groped for the light switch in the hallway.
“Becky? Becks? Wake up, honey. You’re having a bad dream.” James said as he came into the spare bedroom where she was sleeping with Mikey.
Mikey was already sitting up in his bed. “It’s not a dream, Daddy,” he said through the darkness. “She’s having a terror.”
“Becks?” Sitting down on the edge of the bed, James drew his young daughter close. “Daddy’s here.”
“I’m gonna put the light on,” Mikey said and climbed out of his bed. “That’s what Mum always does.”
Becky clawed at James, clutching his pajama top so fiercely that the hairs on his chest were caught in her grip. The overhead light came on. Becky’s eyes were wide open, but she didn’t look at James. She didn’t respond to his voice. Instead, she screamed and thrashed against him.
“Shh-shh-shhh,” James whispered. “I’m here. Daddy’s here.”
Mikey stood beside the bed, his face puckered with worry. “I wish she wouldn’t do that,” he murmured.
“She’s all right. She’ll go back to sleep in a moment and she won’t even remember it.”
“How come she never remembers?”
“Because that’s how it works,” James said. “Know how I know? Because when I was a little boy, sometimes I had night terrors too.”
“How come it happens?” Mikey asked.
“Well, it usually happened to me because I got way too tired, and that might be what’s happened to Becky too. You two had a long journey today and we stayed up pretty late.”
“Oh.”
“But sometimes it happened to me,” James said, “because I was feeling upset about something and didn’t know how to say it. Has anything been upsetting Becky lately?”
Mikey drew his shoulders up in an exaggerated shrug. “I dunno.”
Slowly Becky’s distress quieted. She blinked vacantly and James could tell she still wasn’t awake. “Shh-shh-shhh,” he whispered and smoothed back the hair from her face. “Close your eyes, sweetheart. It’s time to sleep.”
At last her eyes drifted shut and she fell silent. Very gently, James lay her back on the bed and pulled the covers up around her.
Rising, he turned to look at Mikey. “You too, cowboy. Come on. Under your covers.” He tucked his young son in, pulling the blanket right up to his nose.
“Will you leave the light on?”
“Let’s turn this overhead one off because it’s too bright. I’ll leave the hallway light on instead. How’s that?”
“Okay.”
James laughed. “You look like a Furby, lying there. All I can see is sticky-up hair and two great big eyes looking over the edge of the covers.” He leaned down and kissed Mikey’s forehead.
Mikey didn’t smile back. “I’m looking like I’m a Furby ’cause I’m scared.”
“And what makes Furbies scared, huh?” James asked gently.
“I don’t like it when Becky does that. It’s got me all woke up now and I’m scared to be here by myself.”
“Well, you’re not by yourself, cowboy, because Becky is right there. And I’m just down the hall. Really close.” He smoothed Mikey’s hair. “But I’ll tell you what. You scoot over and I’ll lie down with you until you’re not feeling scared as a Furby anymore, how’s that?”
“Will you stay ’til I go to sleep?” Mikey asked.
“Yes, ’til you’re safe and sound asleep again.”
James lay down in the twin bed and pulled the blankets up. Mikey snuggled in close. Cheek pressed against Mikey’s head, James’s nose was filled with his little-boy scent, a faintly saline mixture of baby shampoo and something warmer, like the smell of sunshine on an old wooden floor.
They lay in cuddly silence for several minutes. In fact, Mikey remained still for so long that James assumed he’d fallen back asleep. He shifted in preparation to go back to his own bed.
“Daddy, don’t go,” came Mikey’s small voice.
“Are you still awake?”
“Why’s that?”
“I’m scared.”
“With your daddy right here?” James asked and drew his small son in closer against him. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“Daddy?” Mikey asked after several quiet moments.
“Yes, Mikey.”
“I wish we lived here.”
James hugged him tight. “Yes, I wish you did too. With all my heart. You’re my best boy and girl in the whole world.”
“Why can’t we?”
“Well, because you’ve got everything back East. Mum’s there and your school and all your friends.”
“We could go to school here,” Mikey said.
“But you’d miss Grandma and Grandpa. And all the cousins. And going to the beach.”
“I don’t like Uncle Joey,” Mikey said.
“Why’s that?”
Mikey sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Does he do anything to make you not like him?” James asked.
“No. I just don’t. I like him all right in the daytime, because he buys us stuff. But not in the nighttime. That’s when I want you.”
“Yes, that’s when I want you too,” James said. “And in the daytime as well. It’s hard, isn’t it, when Mum and I don’t live together. When I live out here and we don’t get to see each other very much. I feel bad about those things.”
“Yeah,” Mikey said. “Me too.”
Long after Mikey finally fell asleep, James remained in the small bed with him. It was he, now, who was wide awake.
He had instantly recognized Becky’s night terror for what it was, not only because it was quite a common phenomenon among the children he worked with; but because, indeed, as he’d said to Mikey, he had suffered them himself for a while when young. He didn’t remember anything about them other than vague, formless sensations of fear. His parents’ distress when talking about his night terrors had always been much more upsetting to him than the experience itself.
But when had Becky started having them? How was it that Sandy had never felt it significant enough to mention to him? It made him feel isolated and impotent.
And certainly the little conversation with Mikey afterwards hadn’t helped any. What was he doing out here, so far away from his own children? How could he spend his days helping other people’s children and so completely ignore the distress of his own? How did he balance his own needs and his kids’ needs against the needs of others? That was the real question.
James finally slipped silently from Mikey’s bed. He spent a moment looking at the two sleeping children. Smoothing out Becky’s bedding, he bent and kissed her. She turned away in the darkness. He then kissed Mikey, who never stirred.
He went out into the kitchen to make a hot drink. While the milk was warming, he noticed the folder of stories Laura had given him sitting on the kitchen table. James picked it up and riffled through the typewritten pages. He couldn’t sleep. This seemed as good time as any to take a break from reality. So taking his cup of cocoa into the living room, he sat down in the recliner and began to read.
The year Torgon was nineteen, she and Meilor celebrated their betrothal at the midwinter feast. Then came the month of snow and with it the coughing illness known as Old Man’s Chest. Word spread among the workers that it flourished in the holy household and the benna herself had fallen ill with it. And so it happened that in the last month of winter the holy benna died.
All the acolytes were sent home to observe the official mourning period with their families and await the selection of the new benna. When Mogri returned to her home among the workers’ huts, she was dismayed to find her mother at the loom, making, of all things, the feasting robe for Torgon’s wedding.
“Mam, it is not seemly that you should work. It is the benna’s mourning period.”
“Dwr loves busy hands as much as he loves bennas,” Mam said off-handedly and continued weaving. When there was no answer, she turned. Seeing Mogri’s worried face, she stretched out a welcoming arm. “Do not heed everything they teach you there. What happens in these next days is only meant for higher born. It will have little consequence for us.”
What Mogri’s mother meant, of course, was that the holy choosing would have very little to do with workers. They’d be allowed to watch the ceremony from the palisades and, if luck was with them, at night the sector gates would open and the workers could go in among the feasting tables to clear up what the higher castes had left. But that was all.
Then the unthinkable had happened.
Mogri and Torgon had been sleeping in the back room midst bales of wool for Mam’s weaving stacked high around their pallet to keep the winter draughts away. The midnight knock, when it came, had terrified them. Certain that it would be drunken warriors come to take their pleasure among the worker girls, the sisters had clung together, pulling the hides up over their heads in hopes that if their father could not keep the bar across the door, no one would find them there.
Neither of them expected to see the light of holy candles fall across the mud-packed floor, nor glimpse the holy Seer, clad in flowing robes, the golden circlet on his head, looking like a god himself as he came in the room. But there he was. Da pulled back the hides to show him where they lay and the Seer’s sacred dagger glinted in the light. He reached down and wrapped his fingers through Torgon’s hair. Seared into Mogri’s memory of that night was the look on Torgon’s face as the Seer pulled her to the ground to cut her hair: a look of desolate bewilderment, a look hares have when they are trapped and know that certain death awaits.
It had felt most peculiar to Mogri when returning to the compound to know that Torgon resided now within the holy cells as the divine benna. Theirs was a close family and she and Torgon had been inseparable. They’d played together and shared their food, fought and argued and suffered all the petty jealousies that any sisters do. Mogri had thought many things about Torgon during their growing years together, but holy had not been one of them.
Three months passed and in that time Mogri did not see her sister once. The Seer explained that the new benna communed with Dwr. and awaited the coming of the Power. This unsettled Mogri. The new benna sounded strange and austere, as if she were someone Mogri had never known.
Then one night while Mogri was on her pallet in the acolytes’ sleeping area, she heard a noise in the washroom, an odd, uneven rasping sound that did not filter clearly through the thick stone walls. Mogri rose up on one elbow to listen better.
On the adjacent pallet, Linnet moved. “What’re you doing?” she whispered through the darkness.
“I’m listening to that sound in the washing room.”
“Aye, I know. It’s disturbing me too.”
Then Minsi on the other side asked sleepily. “Why are you talking?”
“Someone’s being noisy in the washing room,” Linnet said.
“Ignore it.”
“I’ve tried. I can’t. And it’s woken Mogri too. Whoever’s in there should be cuffed.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Minsi replied. “It’ll be the divine benna or the Seer and you can’t cuff them.”
“I’ve cuffed the divine benna plenty in my day,” Mogri offered.
“Aye, as a sister. But she’s not your sister now. So go back to sleep. Both of you. And stop your talking or it’s we who’ll be cuffed.” Then Minsi rolled over on her other side and pulled her cover up.
What was the noise? Mogri could not ignore it. It came now as a more syncopated sound, but remained too muffled through the walls for Mogri to make out.
Perhaps the Power had come over Torgon, Mogri thought. She had no idea what the Power really was, only that holy bennas had it. So who knows how it might show itself? Perhaps it would cause Torgon to fall down and writhe the way Mogri had seen a man do once within the marketplace.
Or perhaps it was not the Power. Perhaps Torgon had fallen ill and these were the sounds of her emptying her stomach.
If Torgon had fallen ill, Mam would be so upset. She’d always fretted over Torgon so. At the slightest sneeze she’d burn the cleansing oils until the house and everybody’s clothes would reek and once she’d even brought in the wise woman for Torgon’s chest. It had cost Da more eggs than he could find in a full turning of the moon. Mogri still remembered going with him to the cliffs to pilfer from the nests of the high-flying hawks.
If there was something wrong, Mogri knew she should try to help. Mam would expect that of her.
Did she dare? They were forbidden to leave the sleeping quarters without permission.
Cautiously she rose and tiptoed noiselessly through the rows of sleeping acolytes and out the door. Silent as a shadow she moved past the rooms where holy women slept, past the Seer’s cells.
Light was seeping from beneath the door of the holy benna’s cells. Mogri paused, then without knocking she simply lifted up the latch and entered.
Torgon was in the inner cell. When she saw Mogri, she jumped in surprise and gave a small, startled cry. Mogri jumped herself because at first glimpse she didn’t recognize her sister.
“Is that you?” she queried, squinting hard against the light.
Torgon had grown gaunt and pale, and her hair, completely shorn the night the Seer had come into their family’s hut, was barely more than stubble now, giving Torgon a boyish look. Only by her eyes, still pale as the winter sky, did Mogri know for certain it was her sister, and on seeing them, she knew too what caused the noise. Torgon had been crying.
“Whatever are you doing here?” Torgon hissed. “You must go. Immediately. This is my private cell. No one’s allowed in here but me.”
“But I’m your sister, Torgon.” No. No, she wasn’t. Not any longer. Dwr had stripped Torgon of all human ties when he had made a god of her.
“You shouldn’t use my name,” Torgon said, her voice grown softer. “You must get used to that or the Seer will take his stick to you.” She brought a hand up and wiped her eyes. “And you must go. Or he’ll take his stick to me.”
“I heard you in the washing room and feared that you were ill. I only came because I worried.”
Lowering her head, Torgon said wearily “Thanks for your concern, but I am well. Go now, quickly, before someone notes that you are gone.”
“You look not well to me. Truth is, you look most unhappy to my eyes. Here. Take the comfort of my arms.”
“Mogri, I’m not playing at some game. I am the holy benna now. You must not touch me.”
“No one is here to see. What would it matter between the two of us?”
“Things are different now.”
“Do you want them different, Torgon?”
“No,” she said piteously and began to weep again. “But if the Seer comes at me just one more time, I know I’ll break.”
Crossing the room, Mogri sat down on the bed and gently put an arm around Torgon’s shoulder. “You’re worker kind and made of tougher stuff than he.” She leaned near to kiss her sister’s cheek. “And you are still my sister too, no matter what the teachings say. Da’s blood runs yet in both our veins, and even Dwr can not change that. I will not give up the right to call you by your name. I love you much too well for that.”
Torgon didn’t answer. She only sat, her head still down.
Mogri glanced sideways at the fine, embroidered cloth of the benna shirt. She looked then at Torgon’s stubbly hair and tentatively brought a finger up to touch it. “Does it itch, when it’s growing out like that?” she asked.
In spite of herself Torgon turned her head and smiled. “Silly question, Mogri. Only you would think to ask it at a time like this.”
“Well, so? Does it? It looks as if it would. And I must admit, I don’t like it much. Such a style doesn’t suit your face.”
“Do you forget I didn’t have a choice?”
A small silence came then. Torgon snuffled noisily and gave her eyes a final dab, examining the tears on her fingertips before wiping them on her shirt.
“What’s it like?” Mogri asked. “Being the divine benna, I mean. Being holy. Do you now feel very different than when you lived with us?”
“No.”
“’No? So did you always feel holy?” she asked in surprise. “Because if you did, you kept it very well disguised.”
Torgon grinned. “No. Hardly, Mogri. I never felt that I was holy. Truth be said, I don’t feel holy now.”
“It’s a most astonishing thing. You must admit. Mam still can’t believe it’s happened. But Da, he’s quite adjusted, and he’s so proud of you.”
“Don’t talk of this. You’ll make me cry again.” She lowered her head and brought a hand up over her eyes. “Do you know what night this should have been? My wedding night. This very moment I should be wearing that beautiful robe Mam had on the loom and dancing with Meilor at our marriage feast. Look me instead, sitting here, not knowing what to do, not knowing who I am. Not even fit,” she said, gesturing to her shorn head, “to be called a woman.”
“Doesn’t the Power tell you what to do?” Mogri asked. “For I’d rather assumed it would.”
“Power? What Power? What is the Power anyway?” Torgon asked. “I don’t know. I wasn’t taught that in the fields. nor when working at the loom.”
Mogri sat in bewildered silence.
“You know what my life is like?” Torgon asked. “If it is daylight I am not allowed to leave this room. If it is night I am not allowed to sleep. I may not even approach the window, if it’s not the Seer’s wish. The only soul I see is him. The only human flesh I feel is his when under guise of holy rites he relieves his lust with me. Otherwise, I sit. Alone. Each day, all day, and every day. ‘Communing with Dwr’, the Seer calls it. But what is that? I wish I knew. For my part I’m only sitting. And when I’m not sitting, I am with him. And if I don’t do things exactly as he says, he takes his staff to me, as if I were naught but a stupid cow in need of breaking to the yoke.”
“And Dwr allows this? Because the divine benna is holier than the Seer.”
“I don’t know what Dwr allows. I don’t know anything except that I am suffering. Why has this happened to me, Mogri? I never aspired to anything more than being my mother’s daughter, who knew happiness in work. How is it that I am now on this other path?”