The Hammer Unfalls

2.26 Foraging Gourds

˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱ⋅.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱᐧ.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱᐧ.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱᐧ.˳˳

“One, two… three!”

Maggie and Tom walked together through the fields, lifting their daughter into the air between them. Baby Lhani laughed whenever they said ‘three,’ chortling as her parents swung her.

“Can you take her?” Maggie asked. Tom scooped his daughter into the air, tossing her and catching her against his chest. She burrowed into him, cooing happily.

Maggie rubbed her back and looked around for any sign of the gourds they’d been told were out in these fields. “They’ll trip you up if you aren’t careful,” Gertie had warned her. “They blend in with the wheat.”

But she and Tom had walked from one edge of the field nearly to the line of trees on the other side, almost an hour’s walk. The autumn air chilled her, and she drew a scarf tight around her neck. A vee of geese flew through the blue sky, honking in a syncopated rhythm as they passed overhead.

The sound startled a pair of elk, who bolted from the forest and ran past them. Maggie followed them with her eyes, turning to watch them run. She stopped in surprise at the look on Tom’s face. He stared at her in a way that caused tingles of alarm down her back.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Your scarf. The geese. The elk. I’ve seen this before. Back in Welkin Ring.”

The tingles intensified. For reasons she could not explain, the hairs on Maggie’s arms rose.

“What does it mean?” she asked.

“That… we’ve found the right place,” he said with a soft smile. He set Lhani on the ground and pulled Maggie close. She felt his heat as he wrapped her up in an embrace, stroking her hair back over her ear. “We’re where we are meant to be.”

Emotion welled inside her. A little fear, and a lot of sadness at leaving her family behind. But whenever Tom held her like this, she became filled with warmth, and love, and rightness. She kissed him and pulled him down, snuggling against his chest. They lay on the ground next to Lhani, who crawled towards a bright orange leaf. The journey seemed to frustrate her, so she stopped and sat, staring ahead. A gust of wind blew the leaf right into Lhani’s hand. She giggled and crammed it into her mouth.

Maggie thought over the last year or so, which seemed like a dream. The strangeness of it all caught up with her: Tomykas proposing, their flight from Welkin Ring, the cold, and the birth of their daughter. She felt detached, as if she’d watched herself do all of those things, and was waiting to awaken at any moment.

“But why, Tomykas? Tom, I mean. Why have we come here?”

“To be together,” he said simply.

The explanation had carried them this far, but it didn’t begin to cover things.

“But why here?”

Just as he started to answer, Lhani dropped the leaf with a piercing cry of alarm, and crawled towards the woods where the elk had bolted from. Maggie bent down to pick her up, but Lhani shuddered and wailed louder. She babbled, pointing towards the woods, and strained to reach them.

“Mhagi!” Tomykas hissed, pointing.

A glint of strange light winked from the shadows. Her eyes rebelled, unable to process the sight. She’d seen such a thing once before, from a seedling on a long tendril in the waters of Welkin Ring. Her eyes had hurt then to look upon it, just as they did now. From the grip of Tom’s hand taking her own, she could feel that he also recognized the sensation.

Her sense of mounting dread crested into an emotion she could not name. Neither alarm, nor fear, but Mhagi tensed just the same. Waves of strange energy made her breath catch, as if she were drowning and sinking into a peaceful-heightened state of mind.

A white doe emerged and looked at them with whirling eyes. Crazed light reflected off the reddish-orange leaves of the trees around the creature. A light she could sense, rather than see.

Lhani cried out again, crawling towards the doe.

Mhagi felt she should stop her daughter, but her limbs would not comply. The doe knelt and waited. Lhani climbed onto its back and curled her brown hands into its white fur. The doe rose gracefully and stared at Mhagi with patience. As if waiting for the woman’s thoughts to catch up. The elk turned and walked into the woods.

She could feel a tremor in Tom’s grip. They followed the doe, who stepped gently over roots and fallen trees. The ground writhed beneath it’s hooves. Vines twisted away, and gourds grew from flowers into full fruits before Mhagi’s eyes.

Birds chirped and chattered in the canopy. Grubs and worms emerged from the ground, twitching pallid among the russet litter of leaves.

Lhani shrieked a third time and reached a hand towards the dim shadows of the forest. A wind kicked up, drawing the stench of death to Mhagi’s nose.

The doe looked back at her and knelt. Lhani tumbled down and crawled towards the putrid scent of rotting flesh.

A weak cry sounded from the bushes.

Mhagi bolted towards the sound, her protective instincts rising. She parted the leaves of the bushes to reveal a clearing.

A dead woman lay on the ground, covered in black flies. She wore the simple tunic and warm furs of a mountain woman, though Mhagi did not recognize her. Next to her, the leaves rattled. Lhani stopped crawling and raised her hand. A gust of wind blew the papery leaves aside. An infant with white-blond hair rocked in place on the ground, crying weakly.

The doe circled the baby and lay next to it, scooting close until the boy’s mouth found her belly. The infant suckled at her, taking gulping breaths between feedings. His skin barely darker than the white of the doe’s fur.

Tom let go of Mhagi’s hand and spoke to the doe.

“Yes. I will raise him as my own to honor you.”

Mhagi felt the doe turn towards her with those whirling, unreadable eyes. A dull pain gave way to euphoria in her mind. She saw visions of the boy growing tall, holding Mhagi’s hand. Sickles of ice flew from his outstretched palm, slicing nearby wheat stalks, which fell to the ground in neat swaths. She saw another vision of a beautiful girl with long black hair, with one white streak, laughing beside the blonde boy and another child. One with black, spiky hair, simmering brown eyes, and straight white teeth. Just like Tomykas.

“Yes,” Mhagi said. “I will honor you with a son of my own.”

The doe nodded and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the strange light had vanished from her brown eyes. She stood on unsteady feet and ran into the woods.

The blonde boy babbled happily in the leaves. He settled against Mhagi’s breast when she lifted him to her, and slept in her arms.

She looked at Tom, who seemed dazed, but somehow pleased. She felt it, too. As though a contract had been fulfilled. They’d been shown this land and this life, and now something had been asked of them in return. A simple thing, considering the circumstances: raise this foundling as her own.

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Endless blue sky swallowed the mountains. Maggie looked out over the view, framed by the sharpened tree trunks that formed the palisade wall of Hiehaven. The gate never closed, so she always had a breathtaking view of yellow fields, brown forest, gray mountains, and sky. The sight filled her with peace.

Maggie sat at a long table outside their hut, pounding grain with a mallet and watching Tom run with the kids. The four chased each other, laughing and pouncing. Maggie couldn't tell whether Tom was teaching them or playing as one of them. Whether there were three or four kids running around. He'd laughed more here in these mountains than she'd ever seen. His heart seemed light. It lightened her own.

Her youngest son stalked his foster brother. Maggie saw a gleam of yellow at his palm.

"Tomyko!" she called out sternly.

The little boy straightened, with no small measure of guilt.

Tom walked over to his son. "Tomyko. What were you planning to do?"

"I no know dada," the toddler replied.

"Then no plying." Tom patted Tomyko's chest. "Fire stays here."

Arrad turned around, suddenly aware there had been some sort of attack planned. His eyes teared up and he sobbed. Tom hugged the little blonde boy. "It's alright, Arrad. You're safe."

Noticing her brother's tears, Lhani also walked over. One look told her the situation. "Tomyko! You bad boy!" she chastised him, with a stern frown.

Tomyko started crying as well, which made Lhani cry because she'd hurt his feelings too much. The three children stood in the matted yellow grass, their sobs escalating in an attempt to outdo each other.

Maggie smiled and walked over to her children. She and Tom hugged the three little scamps until the drama passed.

That's one downside to raising kids in Hiehaven, she thought wryly. No servants to give me a break.