I had painted Holy Efra. The thought boggled me.
The Great Unknowns sent visions with the revelations, everyone knew that, but they were supposed to be metaphorical. Difficult to interpret without guidance. That was the Justry's main job, when they weren't throwing girls out of the city.
What did it mean? I sat under a tree with Sefi at my side and stared at the automa. Abursa hadn't covered it again, not since my painting. I wasn't the only troupe member looking at it. Some of them seemed to think there was holy truth in it.
I relaxed at the thought. It was a metaphor. I'd interpreted it to create this life-like picture. I had seen Holy Efra frozen in ice, and her death had nothing to do with the cold. She had died of heart ailments and been installed in the great mausoleum of the August City – her hometown, to our pride. My parents had taken me to see her once, on one of my few childhood outings outside our home. We'd bowed before her mummified feet and left offerings of silver-blue irises, which legend had were her favorite. I wondered now if my parents had hoped she would heal me.
My visions were sendings from the Unknowns, like normal. They were simply a little less nonsensical than most.
Amaz, the leader of the pilgrims I'd met earlier, strode between the troupe's tents. His beautiful gold locks hung thick and heavy around his head. He spotted me where I sat with Sefi under the tree, and he angled towards me. His smile pulled at the scar of his nose.
"What are you doing here?" I gestured to him, delighted to have someone around who spoke sign, even if I didn't much trust him.
He knelt across from me, smiling as if I were a long-absent niece. "Zisha. I see you have found shelter. I regret it was not with us."
I shook my head. "They want me to paint their automas. I think I can be content with them."
He inclined his head. "Contentment is a noble thing to seek, but do not forget what I spoke to you about when we first met."
The first time we met, he had told me the only way I would be happy was if the Great Unknowns cured me. I changed the subject. "What are you doing here?"
"I? Merely checking on the wellbeing of the imperfectas."
"Spiritual or physical?"
"Both, of course. The two cannot be divided." His smile faded. "I often walk through the troupes, but I admit I stopped at this one for a reason. I must speak with Abursa. Perhaps you and I can talk more, once I have finished my business with her."
I nodded, and he rose and walked to the troupe leader. I, curious, scrambled to my feet and circled to where I would have a good view of both their mouths.
Amaz bowed to the troupe-leader. "Abursa. I have come again, as I said I would. Where is Frisa?"
Abursa's lips pressed tight enough to turn white. She jerked her head towards the crowd that stood to the right.
Amaz turned, his eyes searching the troupe and then going still.
He was looking at a young woman who in coloration could have been his sister. Their faces were a contrast, though: his was beautiful and scarred, hers was flawless and too raw for beauty.
Amaz's mouth moved slowly. "Frisa."
The woman stepped back among the crowd.
"Frisa," he repeated. "Your belly has grown small."
I couldn't see Frisa among the others anymore. They had stepped forward to surround her.
Abursa said, "Leave." I missed the rest, angled as I was, although the tirade was long, and I thought she had called him a vulture. I moved to watch her.
Amaz didn't seem angry, only grieved. "Where is the child, Abursa?"
"Dead. She lost the baby." The troupe-leader's arm shot to the left. "The burial is over there."
Amaz turned his head, hiding his face and any words he spoke.
Abursa swelled, her face turning red. "Do you call me a liar?" Part of her words were lost as she spat. "–Stillborn. –Don't believe me, go dig up the body yourself!"
In the distance rose a small mound of displaced dirt. I looked away. I didn't want to know what happened next.
A shadow fell across me. I glanced up.
Amaz stood over me, his face an emotionless mask.
I signed, "I don't have a shovel, if you're looking to borrow one."
He blinked at me, and then his chest heaved in a sigh. "I am not going to disturb the body, Zisha. You need not fear that of me."
I nodded. "She was going to have a baby?"
"Frisa? Yes. She was careless. Perhaps it is kinder, to her, that it did not survive to be separated from her."
I gaped at him. My hands flashed, so quick the signs blurred together. "You would've taken it?"
He shook his head. "Not I. But the cities would have, once it was reported."
"Reported by you?"
"Someone must do it."
"Why? Why would you want them to take a child away from its mother?"
He blinked. "Why, such a child would grow to be an imperfecta. It would have no chance of enlightenment out here. Better to raise it without a family than risk such a fate."
He signed it without emotion. As though he were discussing the weather.
"For this reason, all children born outside the Plenary Cities are collected and distributed among the orphanages. Fear not. They are kind places, who wish only the best for the children."
"I know about the orphanages," I signed with a cramped gesture, my throat tight. They were cruel places. My parents had been raised in one.
I told Amaz, "You shouldn't take children from their parents."
"I told you, I do not. The cities do what the cities do."
"You're making excuses," I signed, but he was no longer looking at me. He stared past me, towards the automa I'd painted that morning.
The portrait stared back at him, its blue eyes disdainful. I couldn't tell if he recognized her. He made no sign at all.
He stood and walked away.
#
I found Thesil trying to dig up a small bush, some yards away from the rest of the troupe. She had managed to gouge her thumb with the digging knife, smearing blood across her wrist like it was a new cosmetic. I sat next to her and held out a hand.
She kept jabbing at the ground. "I don't need help."
"What are you doing?" I asked aloud.
She glared. "Gathering food."
The bush hardly looked edible. Its branches were brown and gnarled, dry as paper and covered in warts. It had no leaves.
My doubt must have shown because Thesil scowled. "I talked to a couple of the old ladies who tend the cookfire. They said this one was good to eat, at least the root. I'm not bringing back bark."
"Of course not."
Thesil's face flushed. "I'm not useless, you know. You all think I'm useless. I can help. I'm the most able-bodied person here."
"You don't act like it," I said.
The flush spread down her neck. "What does that mean?"
I gazed at her patiently. "You haven't contributed until now. You don't try to get to know people. You sleep most of the day. You didn't seek out a troupe when you got here a month ago. You lived on what people threw you out of pity."
"You think I'm lazy?
"No," I said, thinking my answer through as I said it. "I think you're sad."
She twitched. "Am I supposed to be happy to be exiled here?"
"That's up to you."
Her face bunched up then, twisted with emotion. "Well, I'm not. This place is in shambles, and everything is gray and dead here. The trees aren't even real trees – they're no taller than I am!"
I stared at her, seeing her outbreak for the exposed nerve it was. "I'm not dead," I told her. "Neither are you."
She rocked back as though I'd struck her. Her lips moved.
"What was that?"
She looked up. "I said, I might as well be."
The pain on her face made my heart ache. I too wanted to go home. I sat beside her and pulled a chunk of hacked-apart root out of dirt.
She sat with the digging knife dangling in her hand until I took it from her. "What am I supposed to do now?" she said. "This isn't the future I planned for. This isn't what I was bred for. My parents never prepared me for anything like this."
I was glad the visions had made it easy to read her mouth. That mumbled speech from anyone else would have been indecipherable. "I didn't expect to come here, either. My parents didn't warn me." I paused, gaze still locked on her face. Mother and Father had never told me this future awaited me. But they were preparing me, with everything they taught me. All my life.
I missed them terribly.
"It's different for you," Thesil said, her face still squeezed in that miserable expression. "You must have had some idea you were..." She left the sentence unfinished, her mouth gaping like a fish.
"Different?"
She nodded.
"What did you expect to do with your life?"
Her eyes closed. Her lips spread around a single word. "Lead."
I waited. She said nothing else. My instinct was to wait until she looked at me again, but I reminded myself I was talking with my voice, not my hands. I said, "There are things to lead out here. Not cities. But troupes. If you get to know the people here, perhaps someday you can lead your own."
She did look up at that. "The people out here are miserable."
"They get along."
"They shouldn't have to."
"Then become a leader. And make it better."
Thesil still stared at me, but she sat straighter, and the lines smoothed out of her forehead. "They won't follow me, though. I'm not like them."
I didn't know if she meant because she had no obvious disability, or because she had been raised rich. I supposed it didn't matter, either way. "Everyone out here is different. I haven't even met another deaf person yet."
She searched my face. "Doesn't that bother you?"
I shook my head. "My parents weren't deaf, either, but they taught me everything I know. You're only as different from other people as you let yourself be."
Thesil frowned and waved her hands in a meaningless flutter. "So they spoke like this, even though they could hear."
"They did. I could teach you sign, if you wanted. Or to write."
She studied me, a new hunger in her eyes. "Could you?"
"Which?"
"Both." She reddened. "My parents were too busy to teach me writing. And they were... traditional. Children should not see things that might blight them."
"Or read them?"
"Or read, at all." She picked at a fingernail. "They said I'd take classes when I passed my revelations, like everyone else. Only I didn't pass."
I reached out and took her hand, when she let me. "Neither did I. I'll teach you. I promise."
Her mouth thinned; it took me a moment to realize she was trying to smile. I tightened my grip on her hand. "I saw your painting," she said. "It was beautiful."
"Thank you."
"It looked so real, even from a foot away."
My hand shifted on hers, my fingers brushing her skin. I felt raised bumps under my fingertips. "What happened to your wrist?"
She pulled it away from me and held it up between us. Pink welts splotched the skin below her hand, none bigger than my fingernail. "It's fine. Sometimes my skin does that."
"Really?"
"It will go away," she said, and took the digging knife back.
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