Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

I was trying to spit instead of swallow; it made it harder to breathe, and every cough jarred my broken nose.

“I regret this,” he said remotely. “But every time we meet from now on will be like this until you win or you quit. If you quit, I’ll teach you nothing ever again. That’s the lesson. I don’t think you can do it, you know. I don’t think you’re ready. I wish you hadn’t pushed so hard.” He spoke as if he were talking to a stranger on the road.

He left me at the field’s edge, under a creamy blue sky and the alders that were scarred with months of practice; all those pointless hours. After a long time I dragged myself up and limped home, turning my head away as I passed the Homrun cottage so that I would not have to see whether Tom was watching. I let my mother bind my ribs, avoiding her questions and the silence that followed. Then I wrapped myself up in wool blankets and shivered all night, bruised and betrayed, frightened, and hopelessly alone.

He beat me badly half a dozen times in the next year. Between our fights, I practiced and worked and invented a thousand different ways to keep distance between us, to protect my body from his. None of it made a speck of difference.

The day came when I knew I could never win. There was no grand omen, no unmistakable sign. I was milking our goat and I suddenly understood that Tom was right. Someone would always be faster or stronger, and until I learned my place I would always be hurt and lonely. It was time to make peace and stop dreaming of Lemon City. I should be planning a fall garden, and tending Ad’s grave. So there, it was decided; and I went on pulling methodically at the little goat’s dry teats until she bleated impatiently and kicked at me to let her go. Then I sat on the milking stump and stared around me at the cottage, the tall birch that shaded it, the yard with the goat and the chickens, the half-tumbled stone wall that bounded our piece of the world. If someone had come by and said, “What are you looking at, Mars?”, I would have said Nothing. Nothing.

Massive storm clouds began moving up over my shoulder from the west. The shadow of the birch across the south wall faded, and the chickens scuttled into their coop and tucked themselves up in a rattling of feathers. The wind turned fierce and cold; and then the rain hammered down. I hunched on the stump until it occurred to me that I was freezing, that I should see the stock were safe and then get inside; and when I tried to stand the wind knocked me over like a badly pitched fence post. I pulled myself up. Again the wind shoved me down. And again. This time I landed on one of my half-dozen unhealed bruises. It hurt; and it made me so angry that I forgot about my numb hands and my despair. I stood again. There was a loud snap behind me. It took a long second to turn against the wind: By that time, the branch that the storm had torn from the birch tree was already slicing toward me like a thrown spear.

I took a moment to understand what was happening, to imagine the wood knifing through me, to see my grave next to Ad’s. Then the branch reached me, and I slid forward and to the right as if to welcome it; and as we touched I whirled off and away, staggered but kept my balance, and watched the branch splinter against the shed. The goat squealed from behind the wall; and I laughed from my still, safe place in the center of the storm.

I had an idea now, and the only way to test it was by getting beaten again, and so I did: but not as badly. When he’d finally let me up, Tom said, as always, “Do you give in?”

“No.”

He was supposed to turn and walk away. Instead, he kept hold of my tunic with his left hand and wiped his bleeding mouth with his right. He took his time. Then he said, “What was that first move?”

I shrugged.

“Who taught you that?”

I shrugged again, as much as I was able with one shoulder sprained.

“I expect I’ll be ready for it, next time.” He opened his hand and dropped me on my back in the dirt, and set off down the road toward the village. He favored his right leg just slightly: It was the first sign of pain he had ever shown. But that wasn’t what made me feel so good, what made the blood jizzle around under my skin: It was the way I’d felt fighting him. I treated him just like the flying birch limb—allowed him close, so close that we became a single storm, and for just a moment I was our center and I spun him as easily as if I were a wind and he a bent branch.