The Fade

40

Mama and Papa were kissing by the stove again. They had a game they used to play, in which he would creep up behind her while she was cooking, grab her round the waist and bite her neck, all the while making snarling noises like a monster. She would laugh in delight and pretend to fend him off.

Chada and I looked at each other across the table and wrinkled our noses in amused disgust. Papa often pretended to be a monster. He was a burly, hairy man who seemed impossibly huge to my five-year-old eyes. Dark hair, dark beard, dark eyes, dark complexion. In contrast, my mother was small, slender, light-skinned, her hair a wavy fall of tawny brown. Her voice was tiny bells and trickling water, my father's the rumble of the earth.

'Go and sit down,' she told him. 'It'll be ready in a moment.'

He nibbled her ear and she squealed and hit him with a wooden spoon. Chada and I laughed as he hurried over to the table with his hands over his head, mumming fear.

Our house was small, cosy and shadowy, with thick walls and small windows. The stove kept out the steady chill of the cavern outside, and lanterns brightened the corners. We had a couple of jinth bitches who slept at the foot of my bed, though Papa kicked them out at mealtimes because they got too frisky and knocked things over. They were hunting now, patrolling the farm for ground-bats and rackles.

Chada was swinging his little feet and kicking the underside of the table, tormented by the scent of Mama's cooking. I told him to stop, and he stuck his tongue out at me. Then Papa told him to stop and he did. Then I stuck my tongue out at him in snide triumph, and Papa caught me doing it and cuffed me.

'You're the older sister,' he said, as I rubbed my head and pouted sulkily. 'Set an example.'

Chada just looked smug. Only one year younger than me, but he was such a baby. He had Papa's look about him, while I was more like Mama. Sometimes he was fun to play with, like the time when we had gone down to the pool at the bottom of the grove and named all the fish and made up stories about them. But he could so easily throw a tantrum, and then I hated him. The tiniest thing would turn him into a scrunched ball of shrieking fury.

Mama started dishing up the food, and Papa had to glare at Chada to stop him grabbing at it before it was all served. There were roasted tubers, great hunks of basted fungus, spore-bread and a plateful of eels and crunchy arrow beetles. We were poised to eat the instant Mama sat down, but as usual she said: 'Ah! Ah!' and held up a finger the moment we dived for our plates. Then she made a great show of arranging herself, shuffling in her seat and flicking her hair, while we writhed in hungry agony. After she decided we had suffered enough, she kissed Papa on his bearded cheek and said: 'Eat.'

We went at it ravenously. We were always starving at the end of the turn, worn out from playing and from helping Papa and Mama with the farm chores. We helped them feed the lizards and collect the eggs. We followed them as they tended to our small herd of yoth. We went to the stream, checked the traps for crabs and then tottered back with buckets of fresh water.

Our farm was far from anywhere, and I wished for other girls to make friends with; but we were happy. I had no cares but the cares of a child, and there were no troubles so terrible that Papa couldn't deal with them. We had little money but our needs were small. Our lives were simple, slow, honest.

At the end of the turn, Papa would tell us tales while Mama dozed. Sometimes he frightened us with stories of the White-skins: those narrow-faced men, pale as pearl, who would steal children away if they were naughty. Then Chada clutched at me and I pretended not to be scared. Papa would crank up the tension and at some point he would lunge at us, yelling: 'The White-skins are coming!!!' We would shriek and laugh and the fear would be gone. Then Papa would gather us up in his huge arms, we would snuggle into his chest, and he'd promise that the White-skins would never get us if we were good.

In that, at least, he was mistaken.

We all heard the jinths, their rapid, popping cries coming from somewhere down by the stream; but it was only Chada who thought that something was wrong, and nobody listened to him.

'They've found a rackle,' Papa said, head tilted as he listened. 'Sounds like it's leading them a good chase.'

One after the other, the jinths fell silent.

'See?' Papa said, settling back to his food. 'They got it. One less vermin to bore into my sweet-puffballs.'

Papa's sweet-puffballs were the pride of his crop. When dried and powdered, they made sugar, which we never grew tired of. Usually just the thought of it was enough to distract Chada, but not this time. He kept fidgeting, uneasy. He'd heard the warning in the jinths' cries that the rest of us hadn't.

'Don't worry, Chada,' said Mama. 'It was just a rackle.'

'Can I go see?'

'Finish your meal first.'

Chada knew it was useless to argue, so he began stuffing food into his mouth.

'Chew your food, dear,' Mama said patiently. 'You have to get one lot out of the way before the next lot goes in.'

Papa harrumphed and pushed back from the table, chair legs screeching noisily across the stone. 'I'll take a look.'

'Oh, leave it,' said Mama. 'The jinths are excited, that's all.'

Papa got up and went to the window. Chada watched him intently. I was more interested in my food, having been convinced that there was no cause for alarm, so I didn't witness Papa's reaction to what he saw. The first I knew of what was to come was when Papa turned away from the window, looked at Mama, and said, very calmly: 'Get the children out of here.'

She didn't question him. She got to her feet, pulled out Chada's chair, and lifted him. 'Come on. Out the back.'

'I'm not done!' I protested.

'Do as your father says,' Mama told me, holding out a hand for me to take. There was a briskness in her manner that barely concealed the terror beneath.

'What's happening?' I demanded, but I went with her towards the back door because I had picked up on her alarm.

Father had taken a long-hafted axe from the corner where it leaned. He looked over at me, the hollows of his face shadowed by the lantern overhead.

'The White-skins are coming,' he said.

I'd never felt fear like I did in that moment, and I never did again. Some part of me, even then, had always thought that the White-skins were make-believe. They certainly hadn't stopped me misbehaving from time to time. The White-skins simply couldn't be. A life of such primal horrors was insupportable to a five-year-old.

But with those words, the White-skins came crashing into reality.

We hurried to the back door, which let out onto a little fenced garden patch. Mama had to put Chada down to open it up, and then she ushered us both through. At the same moment, the front door burst open and the White-skins rushed in.

I still see that frozen instant in my nightmares. The press of narrow faces, sharp and pale and cold, like a swarm of chi-rats. Those blank, dead eyes. I see the cruel tips of their blades. They were just as I had imagined them.

Papa roared and swung an axe into the chest of one of the invaders. Another pointed towards Mama and jabbered something in a horrible, piercing tongue. They'd seen her in the doorway, heading out back. But they hadn't seen us. She was blocking us from their sight with her body.

She looked at me with tragedy in her gaze, and I knew, before she shut the door in our faces, that she was saying goodbye. She thought she would never see us again.

How I wish that had been true.

My first instinct was to pull at the door, to get back into the house, but Mama had locked it. I couldn't understand why she'd abandoned us. I was bewildered, on the verge of tears. There were crashing noises and cries coming from inside. Indecision held me for a few heartbeats longer, then I grabbed Chada's hand and we ran.

The garden patch was too small to hide us, most of the plants having been pulled up recently. Only a few bulbroots and the aerial cups of burrow-vines were left among the neatly hoed rows. Papa had worked hard to get the soil right here, using compost full of bacteria that broke up the rock into a form that was kinder to plants. Only last turn I had helped him sow the seeds for a fresh batch.

Beyond was a copse of phosphorescent mycora, ten or twelve spans tall, that Papa had planted before I was born to provide light for another garden, where he grew those rare plants that needed it. We headed for that, Chada toddling fast to keep up. He was whimpering softly, but he was content to be led for now, putting himself into my care.

'You're the older sister,' I heard Papa say again, and for the first time I felt the weight of that. Chada was under my protection. He was my responsibility now.

We ran into the copse, dodging between the curved stems of the mycora, dazzled by the bluish-white light that radiated from the underside of their caps. But I knew from many games of hide-and-find that this was the first place a searcher would look, so I kept pulling Chada on, through the copse and out, up the slope towards a cluster of jagged rocks that thrust out of the ground. Papa had told us to stay away from them after Chada had cut his hand open on one of the edges, but I knew Papa wouldn't mind now.

Beyond the rocks was a thick wedge of scrub sandwiched between two sheer cliff walls. Tough lichen bushes and red web-fungus clustered around the grey humps of uneven boulders, rising over our heads. We plunged into it. The foliage resisted us, scratching and pushing; sticky tendrils tugged at our clothes and hair. I forged on, towing Chada behind me, until we reached the foot of the cliff. There, behind a spray of stiff, spiny fungi, was a narrow cave.

Chada shook his head, tugging at my hand, but I knelt down before him. 'It's safe,' I said. 'It's my secret place. I come here to hide when I want to be on my own.'

Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be reassured, and we went inside. The cave was shallow, little more than a scratch in the rock face, barely big enough for the two of us. It was dark and cold, but I had padded it with an ancient blanket that stank of mould. We squeezed in, and I let the fungi spring back into place to cover the entrance. We were invisible now. And so we waited.

Time passes slowly to a child. Later, I could sit still for a whole turn watching a doorway for the arrival of a target or observing the movements of guards around a house I was to penetrate. But to a five-year-old patience is not something that comes easily. We sat together on the blanket, my arms around my brother, and the only sound was our breathing.

My shocked thoughts unjammed gradually, and my imagination began to take over, offering suggestions and theories both hopeful and terrible. What if the White-skins had killed Mama and Papa, and were even now sniffing us out? Were the White-skins waiting silently, hoping to lure us out when we thought the coast was clear? Or had Papa slain them all with his axe, and was wondering where we had gone?

I realised suddenly that our jinths must have been killed by the White-skins, and that was the thing that set me crying at last. Chada joined in, and we sniffled and wept together as quietly as we could. Had it been our naughtiness and disobedience that had brought the White-skins down on us? Was it all our fault?

Still there was no sound from outside. No clue as to what had happened down at the house. Not knowing was the worst of it.

I peered out of the cave, but the scrub was too high to see through. Something rustled and I shrank back, fearing that the White-skins were stalking through the grass nearby. I looked back at Chada. He stared at me, seeking answers, seeking guidance. I felt his need, but I couldn't provide.

Then: the clattering of a door, the sound of their shrill voices, our Mama's screams.

Chada's breath quickened. He clutched at my arm, and I pressed him back against the wall of the cave. Mama was shrieking, hysterical, calling the White-skins names I had never heard before. I heard her struck, mid-sentence, and she began to wail. It was a sound of awful, wrenching despair, and it made me shrivel inside to hear it.

Where was Papa? I asked myself. Why wasn't Papa there to save her?

But of course I knew the answer to that.

They were squabbling between themselves. Mother's cries had quieted below audibility. I strained to hear, trying to learn what was happening down there; but all I could catch was nonsense.

It was no good. I had to know. Chada was depending on me. I have no idea where that stupid, suicidal courage came from. Maybe it was the desire to protect her in any way I could. Maybe I just wanted to be with my Mama, so she could make the decisions again, so she could somehow make it all right.

'I'm going to find Mama,' I said to Chada. 'You stay here.'

He shook his head, mute.

'Stay!' I hissed. 'You'll be safe. I'm just going to take a look.'

He just stood there. I took that as agreement, and headed into the scrub.

Now that I could hear the White-skins, I was less afraid of one of them lunging out of the undergrowth to snatch me up. But still I went slowly, hardly daring to breathe, until I came to the sharp rocks. From there, I could see glimpses of movement through the copse of luminous mycora. They were in the garden patch.

Mama began to scream anew. She was struggling. I knew there was nothing I could do to help her; but I couldn't just leave her, either.

Go back. Chada needs you.

But Mama was screaming.

I scanned the area and then slipped from the rocks, scuttling a short way to the safety of the mycora copse. There, drenched in light from above, I wriggled between the stems until I could peep out and see into the garden patch.

They were holding her down in the dirt. Three of them. Two others stood about, watching. Another was weeping over a corpse that lay half in and half out of the back door, belly opened to the air. I could see a little way into the house, enough to see other bodies. I couldn't tell if any of them were my father.

Mama was thrashing and spitting. Her clothes were torn and hanging off, her lips bloody where she had bitten her attackers, her face bruised. Despite their best efforts, they couldn't render her harmless. No matter how they pinned her, she used teeth and knees and elbows and nails. I thought they were trying to imprison her, to take her away. Mercifully, I didn't understand.

Fight, Mama! Fight! I willed her. I thought that there was still hope of a saviour. Maybe my father was only unconscious, and would revive any instant. Maybe one of our distant neighbours would come. Maybe the fabled Eskaran Army would save us.

Then Mama twisted, and got her arm free, and she plunged her thumb deep into the eye of one of her assailants. He recoiled with a high, ululating wail, gore leaking dreadfully from the socket. Mama had his eye in her hand, and with her teeth gritted she crushed it between her fingers and it burst like a spore pod.

The White-skins went into a frenzy. One of them hit Mama across the face, another went to aid his wounded companion. Then one of the bystanders walked over to where they were holding Mama, and in one quick movement he drew a dagger and thrust it into her neck.

'Mama!'

At first I thought it had come from my own throat, that the shock and horror had forced the cry from my lungs. But then I turned to my right and saw Chada behind me, his face slack, body trembling. He'd followed me.

The White-skins turned towards us, speared us with freezing gazes. I shrieked and ran, pulling Chada with me. We didn't get far. Irresistible hands swept us up and dragged us, howling, back to the garden patch.

Mama was watching us. The soil around her was sodden with her blood, and her tawny hair was black with it, but a flicker of life held within her as she lay there with the knife in her throat. Long enough to meet my tearful stare. Long enough to ask: Why? Why did you come back?

Then she relaxed, and her eyes went flat.

Chada and I were incoherent with fear, faces running with tears and snot. Two of the White-skins gripped our arms while the others argued about us. But the argument was a short one. One thing about the White-skins that Papa hadn't mentioned in his tales: they only took girl-children to be their slaves. Boys tended to grow up violent.

I could barely see through my hysterical grief as they pulled Chada away from me and one of them drew his sword. I screamed so hard I thought my throat would give, but nothing could stop what was to come.

That was the first time I failed to save someone I loved.