The fat drops began falling as I ran down the rope stairway that twined around the massive fir at the center of the Great Ones. At Bough Two, I brushed past an unshaven builder rank with the stench of heavy labor, his sweat captured in his woven tunic. He yelled, “Watch it!” then recognized me and bowed his head. “Joshua’s feeding day. May the Great Ones protect you.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, nodding stiffly, and then continuing down the stairway. I landed on the pathway of Bough One and sped east, running as fast as I dared across the pathway. My hastily tied up hair had come unbound somewhere along Bough Three and, having narrowly avoided colliding with a woman tossing mop water from her shanty, I ran through a damaged sprig of needles that joined with my hair and arrived at the market along with me, five minutes before closing.
The market was a shanty with three walls near the central stairway. A large cedar slab counter displayed the plant harvest of the day and any birds and animals provided by the hunters. Every family in the canopy was given an allotment of food tallied daily by the market keeper. No money exchanged hands because we had no need of money. Every able adult had a responsibility to the canopy and to each other. The canopy continued to function because everyone did their duty.
So proclaimed The Book of Silvanus.
But the way the market functioned was that if you had something to trade, something of value to the market keeper, he might forget to log your rations or might offer you items that weren’t displayed on the cedar slab. A transaction between you and him, a wink here, a sly look there, something hidden in the dark corners behind the counter, out of sight of the Council of Elders.
Pulling the sticky twigs from my hair, I panted, “What … have you got … left?”
“Got some huckleberries. Not the sweet season, but they fill an empty belly,” yawned Yew, keeper of the market, sometime thief, substance abuser, and my father. “You’re late tonight, Ostrya. Thought I might not see you, Joshua’s day and all.” He blinked quickly and cleared his throat. “You and your mom busy at the clinic these days?”
Yeah, like he cared about Joshua. “Haven’t stopped all day.” I wiped the rain off my face and squeezed water from my hair. “Is that really all you’ve got left?”
“We had some fresh chard earlier. I gave away the last of the broccoli just five minutes ago. Hold on—I may have a bit of miner’s lettuce left.” He handed me a bundle of limp, weedy-looking greenery. “Throw it in some water, should refresh it. Squirrel meat, you know, this time of year I can’t keep it in stock. You let me know, I can maybe set some aside for you. Against the rules, but … if I could maybe get some of that … mmm … you know …,” he coughed into his hand, “magic mushroom?”
Any other parent would have set aside some of the good food for their family, against the rules or no. But not Yew. We got the leftovers. It wasn’t that he was a rule follower. He wasn’t. He simply resented my mother that much.
“You know I can’t get you psilocybin. Michelia administers that in select psychiatric cases under close supervision.”
“Aw, come on. A little something for your old dad. She won’t notice—”
I glared at him. “I’m not even allowed to touch it. Don’t bother asking.” I knew he was winding me up. He’d wheedle and complain, throw on a guilt trip, sprinkle in some anger, and a dash of show-some-respect-I’m-your-father. He was a user and a loser. My using loser.
Yew had gotten Cassia’s mother pregnant when they were teens. Realizing he wasn’t cut out for fatherhood from almost the moment Cassia was born, he began chasing my mom around the canopy. She initially encouraged his attentions to spite her own mother, councilor and all-around badass Butia. Butia and my grandfather, the previous doctor, had hated him. Mom hadn’t liked him much either, but that hadn’t stopped her from falling in love with him. My mother was a little older than me at the time—nineteen, I think—and Yew had allegedly been a good-looking, charming, bad boy. Laughable if you saw him now. Occasionally you could catch a glimpse of handsome, well-hidden beneath whiny, grasping, neediness.
Nature took its course, and Yew had two more children with Michelia, the maximum allowed for a partnered couple. One for each of them. Produce to replace; one of the unbreakable commandments. Cassia replaced her mother. My brother and I replaced Yew and Michelia. Yew’s interest in us, me and my baby brother Joshua, had lasted longer than with Cassia, probably due to pressure from the power couple, my grandparents. My mom was a babe once upon a time, so she kept his attention for a while. She’s almost fifty now, and I see how some of the older guys watch her when they think she doesn’t see. She could get another partner easily if she wanted one. I think she’s done with men; Yew saw to that. After several years together, our family crashed and burned leaving my mother separated from my father and me responsible for the marketing.
“Do you even know how dangerous mushrooms are? You could feed the Great Ones while you’re tripping.”
“Okay, okay. I hear you.” He leaned in closer and I could smell his unwashed hair and stale breath. “I don’t really want the mushrooms, you know. Just a little drop of that apple juice you got locked up at night. Quench my thirst. That’s all I need.”
“No way! You know that apple juice is alcohol we need for sterilizing instruments and cleaning wounds. It’s not for drinking. And you’re a diabetic! You can’t drink that stuff!”
He scowled at me. “I don’t need no lecture from a kid. Pseudotsuga’s balls! You’re as bad as she is! Take your huckleberries.” Our interactions had been like this ever since he left, me the adult and him the spoiled child.
I opened my satchel and dumped the huckleberries inside, beside my blood pressure cuff and stethoscope. “How’s that foot?” I asked, more gently. “Giving you pain?”
He grunted in response and carved a notch in the log that he used to keep track of ration allotments. He’d turn a blind eye on trades that would benefit him personally, but where Michelia and I were concerned, he never forgot to record even the smallest item we received from the market.
“You know where I am if you need a debridement.” I picked up the wilted miner’s lettuce and turned away.
“I didn’t charge you for the lettuce.”
“You’re a real prince.”
He snorted. I looked over my shoulder at him. His grin revealed several gaps that used to hold teeth. For a fraction of a second, I saw a glimmer of what he once had been. He chewed on a hangnail, pulled the loosely woven fiber curtain across the open wall of the shanty where he also lived, and the image was gone.
My mother was going to love this. Squished sour huckleberries and wimpy weeds for dinner after laboring how many hours at the clinic? She’d wonder why dinner was so meager, and I was going to have to think up something. Another lie. I was getting good at them, but it made me feel even worse than I already did most days. Maybe I could try a new tactic: silence. Simply not answer the questions? How would that work? Mom would tell me I was being rude, ignoring her. Didn’t matter. I could either feel bad for lying or feel bad for keeping my mouth shut. I’d lose no matter what I did.
As I slumped back up the rope stairs toward Bough Two—our shanty was on the eastern side—I heard Mangrove calling my name. I climbed to the landing and watched him crest the stairway. Sparse, scruffy hair dusted his cheeks and chin. He was trying to grow a beard, unsuccessfully. Three small black carcasses dangled from his right hand.
“A great day of hunting, but Yew closed up shop already.”
“Oh? You’ve been hunting all day?” Was it possible that he hadn’t heard the rumor about me and Wingnut? Mangrove and I weren’t seeing each other, but I’d have to be both blind and stupid not to know how he felt about me. And the rest of the canopy assumed we were together. “Is this the first you’ve been back in the canopy?”
“Yeah. It was a great day out there. Hey, I only need one bird, two if I share with Salix and Sorbus.” He bounced from one foot to the other, nervous, not meeting my eyes. “Joshua’s feeding day. May the Great Ones protect you. What are you and the doc having for supper?”
So he hadn’t heard yet. But he would by the time he sat down to eat with Salix.
“Um, thanks Mangrove. I’ve got some huckleberries. Miner’s lettuce.”
“Well, I got three ravens. You and the doc can have one.” He thrust a drooping black bird at me with a shy smile.
“No, thanks. I couldn’t. I don’t have anything to trade. Unless you want the miner’s lettuce.”
“No, you keep that. You and the doc need your vitamins. I don’t expect anything. Especially not today. One day, maybe, you’ll have something that I need.” He blushed and stammered, “I mean, like extra food or, um, medicine, or something.”
I knew Mom and I could use the protein. I was regretting not having eaten that orb weaver when I had the chance. Coming home nearly empty handed from market would be difficult to explain. I didn’t relish the thought of my mother having one more thing to yell at me about. I knew she’d heard the Wingnut rumor by now; I didn’t look forward to that conversation either. But if I brought home fowl for dinner with those huckleberries? I might survive this day after all. I didn’t feel right taking from Mangrove though. Especially knowing how he felt about me and the lies he would hear from Salix shortly—that would be cold-hearted. I must have something I could trade.
“Sorbus snores, doesn’t he?”
“Like two ash trees moaning in a storm wind.”
I dug my hand into my satchel until I felt the soft, sticky spider fleece. I pulled it out and gingerly picked a huckleberry from the web. “How about stuffing this in your ears so you can sleep?”
“Whoa! That’s a serious hunk of spider-fleece! You’ve got yourself a deal. Though, really, you could have just taken the bird.”
Our fingers brushed as I took the dead raven. I felt heat rise to my cheeks and I avoided his eyes, pretending to be interested in the carcass.
“It’s a big one.” Stupid. Stupid! An idiotic thing to say, the sort of comment admirers probably chirruped to Wingnut.
But Mangrove beamed with pleasure. “Yeah, I think that’s the biggest of the three. But, I mean, you and your mom should have the biggest one. There are two of you. Three of us will share the other two. That seems fair. Nothing will go to waste.” His eyes sought mine. They were warm and kind and searching.
My stomach was fluttering now. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to draw blood, focusing on the pain, not the red heat in my cheeks or the sick feeling in my gut. I balled up the spider fleece and shoved it jauntily in his ear. “Here’s your spider-fleece. Does it work?”
He laughed happily and pulled the fleece from his ear. “Huh? What’d you say? I couldn’t hear you with this spider-fleece in my ear!”
“Okay, then. I’ve gotta get going. Michelia will strip the hide off me if I’m late. Um, listen. Don’t believe everything Salix says, you know? She doesn’t always get it right.”
He snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.” His face grew serious. “You know, she only eats with us because she’s Sorbus’s sister. I, um, don’t have a thing for her.”
I nodded. “I know. I really have to go, okay?”
“Sure thing. See you, Ostrya.”
“Bye, Mangrove.
I walked along Bough Two a few paces. I knew I should have said something, warned him about what he was going to hear, but it was all too stupid. Wingnut and I were friends. Same as me and Mangrove. It wasn’t Mangrove’s business who I spent time with—he didn’t own me.
But I remembered how he’d sat with me the day we all found out about our traineeships that day in the Outer Reaches. How he’d stayed with me after Salix and Sorbus had left. How he’d really listened to me, really cared, and now I knew I needed to tell him. Or at least prepare him for Salix’s vicious gossip. I turned back around. To my surprise and our mutual embarrassment, he was watching me walk away. He flushed bright red and ran up the stairs. This was getting serious.