Glory Season

The one time she had asked a Lamai about the door, Maia had received a slap that left her ears ringing. Leie used to fantasize about what mysterious riches lay beyond, while Maia was seized by the puzzle itself. Smuggling paper and pencil to trace the outlines, she would spend hours contemplating combinations and secret codes. It had to be a tough one, since the Lamai blithely sent unsupervised varlings to the cellar, on errands.

On that day, after finishing loading bottles aboard the dumbwaiter, Leie had come alongside to put an arm around Maia's shoulder. "Don't let the vrilly jigsaw get you down. Maybe we can sneak a hydraulic jack down here, one smuggy piece at a time. Bam! No more mystery!"

"It's not that," Maia had answered, shaking her head despondently. "I was just thinking about those old women, those grandmas. We knew 'em. They were always around while we were little, like the sun an' air. Now they're just lying in the chapel, all stiff and …" She shivered. The funeral had been their first to attend, as four-year-olds. "And all those others in the first row, lookin' like they knew it was gonna be their turn soon."

Full-blood Lamais normally lived a ripe twenty-eight or twenty-nine Stratoin years. When one of them went, however, a whole "class" tended to follow within weeks. No one expected this to be the last funeral of the season, or of the month.

"I know," Leie replied in a voice gone unusually reflective. "It scared me, too."

Maia had rested her head against her sister's, comforted by knowing someone understood the questions troubling her soul.

On their way back up the dank elevator shaft, Leie had tried to lighten the mood by relating some gossip picked up that morning from another town varling. It seemed several younger sisters of Saxton Clan had started a ruckus near the harbor, harassing sailors until, in desperation, the men called the Guardia and —

A covey of spiny-fringed pou birds erupted across the road, causing the sash-horses to neigh and prance while Calma Lerner pulled the reins, speaking to soothe the frightened beasts. The birds vanished into a cane brake, pursued by a clutch of pale foxes.

Maia blinked, holding her breath for several seconds. The flood of memory had briefly seemed more vivid than the dusty present. Perhaps the rocking wooden bench seat reminded her of the creaking dumbwaiter. Or some other subconscious cue, a smell, or glitter in the twilight, had triggered the unsought fit of retrospection.

Funny. Now that her train of thought was broken, Maia couldn't recall what choice bit of hearsay Leie had shared with her that day, while the two of them hung suspended between cellar and scullery. Only that she had guffawed, covering her mouth to keep her squeals from echoing throughout the house. Her sides had hurt for hours afterward, both from laughter and the effort of suppressing it, and Leie had joined in, giggling, barely able to hold the crank still. A wine bottle tipped over, cracking and dribbling red liquid across the wooden floor. The crimson pool had spread and found its way through wooden slats to audibly splatter, after a brief delay, into the tomblike cellar far below.

Why don't you leave me alone? Maia thought plaintively, shaking her head and fighting tears. Memory wasn't what she wanted or needed, right now. Poignancy was a bitter tang in her mouth and eyes.

Yet it was a mixed thing. While renewed mourning hurt, the sweetness of that recollected laughter seemed to suffuse a deeper part of her, permeating the wound with a sad pleasure, a tryst solace. Against her will, Maia found herself wearing a faint smile.

Maybe all we get is moments, she thought, and decided not to resist quite so hard if another happy memory came to mind.

Calma Lerner hadn't spoken in some time, perhaps sensing her passenger's absorption. So Maia gave a start when the woman abruptly announced, "Your stop's comin' up. Jopland Hold. Over past that orchard."

While Maia's thoughts had turned inward and the afternoon faded, a dark expanse of fruit trees had appeared just beyond a gurgling watercourse. She peered at the plantation, whose disciplined array of slender trunks made ever-changing row-and-lattice patterns. As the wagon clattered across a plank bridge, the cultivated forest seemed to explode around Maia in an ecstasy of planned geometry, a crystalline study in living wood. The rapidly dimming light only enhanced each viewing angle, trading ease of distance for an impression of infinity.