Nassun doesn’t have any money beyond her allowance, you see, and she’d already spent that on books and sweets when word came that a lorist was in town. But no one in Tirimo knows that there’s a potentially excellent diamond mine in the region—no one, that is, except orogenes. And then only if they’re looking. Nassun’s the only one who’s bothered in several thousand years. She knows she should not have found this diamond. Her mother has taught her not to display her orogeny, and not to use it outside of carefully proscribed practice sessions that they undertake in a nearby valley every few weeks. No one carries diamonds for currency because they can’t be sharded for change easily, but they’re still useful in industry, mining, and the like. Nassun knows it has some value, but she has no inkling that the pretty rock she’s just given to Renthree is worth a house or two. She’s only eight.
And Nassun is so excited, when she sees Renthree’s eyes widen at the sight of the glittering lump poking out of the black hunk of rock, that she stops caring that there are others present and blurts, “I want to be a lorist, too!”
Nassun has no idea what a lorist really does, of course. She just knows that she wants very very much to leave Tirimo.
More on this later.
Renthree would be a fool to refuse the offering, and she doesn’t. But she doesn’t give Nassun an answer right away, partly because she thinks Nassun is cute and that her declaration is no different from any other child’s momentary passion. (She’s right, to a degree; last month Nassun wanted to be a geneer.) Instead she asks Nassun to sit, and then she tells stories to her small audience for the rest of the afternoon, until the sun makes long shadows down the valley slope and through the trees. When the other two visitors get up to head home, they eye Nassun and drop hints until she reluctantly comes with them, because the people of Tirimo will not have it said that they disrespected a lorist by letting some child talk her to death all night.
In the wake of her visitors, Renthree stokes up the fire and starts making dinner from a bit of pork belly and greens and cornmeal that she bought in Tirimo the day before. While she waits for dinner to cook and eats an apple, she turns Nassun’s rock in her fingers, fascinated. And troubled.
In the morning she heads into Tirimo. A few discreet inquiries lead her to Nassun’s home. Essun’s gone by this point, off to teach the last class of her career as a creche teacher. Nassun’s gone off to creche, too, though she’s biding her time till she can escape at lunchtime to go find the lorist again. Jija’s in his “workshop,” as he calls the offset room that passes for the house’s basement, where he works on commissions with his noisy tools during the day. Uche is asleep on a pallet in the same room. He can sleep through anything. The songs of the earth have always been his lullaby.
Jija comes to the door when Renthree knocks, and for an instant she’s a little taken aback. Jija is a Midlatter mongrel, same as Essun, though his heritage leans more toward the Sanzed; he’s big and brown and muscular and bald-shaven. Intimidating. Yet the welcoming smile on his face is wholly genuine, which makes Renthree feel better about what she’s decided to do. This is a good man. She cannot cheat him.
“Here,” she says, giving him the diamond rock. She can’t possibly take such a valuable gift from a child, not in exchange for a few stories and an apprenticeship that Nassun will probably change her mind about in a few months. Jija frowns in confusion and takes the rock, thanking her profusely after he hears her explanation. He promises to spread the tale of Renthree’s generosity and integrity to everyone he can, which will hopefully give her more opportunities to practice her art before she leaves town.
Renthree leaves, and that is the end of her part in this tale. It is a significant part, however, which is why I told you of her.
There was not any one thing that turned Jija against his son, understand. Over the years he simply had noticed things about his wife and his children that stirred suspicion in the depths of his mind. That stirring had grown to a tickle, then an outright irritant by the point at which this tale begins, but denial kept him from worrying at the thought any further. He loved his family, after all, and the truth was simply… unthinkable. Literally.
He would have figured it out eventually, one way or another. I repeat: He would have figured it out eventually. No one is to blame but him.
But if you want a simple explanation, and if there can be any one event that became the tipping point, the camel straw, the broken plug on the lava tube… it was this rock. Because Jija knew stone, you see. He was an excellent knapper. He knew stone, and he knew Tirimo, and he knew that veins of igneous rock from an ancient volcano ran all through the surrounding land. Most did not breach the surface, but it was entirely possible that Nassun could by chance find a diamond sitting out where anyone could pick it up. Unlikely. But possible.
This understanding floats on the surface of Jija’s mind for the rest of the day after Renthree leaves. The truth is beneath the surface, a leviathan waiting to uncurl, but the waters of his thoughts are placid for now. Denial is powerful.
But then Uche wakes up. Jija walks him into the den, asking him if he’s hungry; Uche says he isn’t. Then he smiles at Jija, and with the unerring sensitivity of a powerful orogene child, he orients on Jija’s pocket and says, “Why is shiny there, Daddy?”
The words, in his lisping toddler-language, are cute. The knowledge that he possesses, because the rock is indeed in Jija’s pocket and there’s no way Uche could have known it was there, dooms him.
Nassun does not know that it started with the rock. When you see her, do not tell her.
When Nassun comes home that afternoon, Uche is already dead. Jija is standing over his cooling corpse in the den, breathing hard. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to beat a toddler to death, but he hyperventilated while he did it. When Nassun comes in, there’s still not enough carbon dioxide in Jija’s bloodstream; he’s dizzy, shaky, chilled. Irrational. So when Nassun pulls up sharply in the doorway of the den, staring at the tableau and only slowly understanding what she sees, Jija blurts, “Are you one, too?”
He’s a big man. It’s a loud, sharp blurt, and Nassun jumps. Her eyes jerk up to him, rather than staying on Uche’s body, which saves her life. The gray color of her eyes is her mother’s, but the shape of her face is Jija’s. Just the sight of her pulls him a step away from the primal panic into which he has descended.
She tells the truth, too. That helps, because he wouldn’t have believed anything else. “Yes,” she says.
She’s not really afraid in this moment. The sight of her brother’s body, and her mind’s refusal to interpret what she’s seeing, have frozen all cognition within her. She’s not even sure what Jija is asking, since understanding the context of his words would require her to acknowledge that what stains her father’s fists is blood, and that her brother is not merely sleeping on the floor. She can’t. Not right then. But absent any more coherent thought, and as children sometimes do in extreme situations, Nassun… regresses. What she sees frightens her, even if she does not understand why. And of the two of her parents, it is Jija to whom Nassun has always been closer. She’s his favorite, too: the firstborn, the one he never expected to have, the one with his face and his sense of humor. She likes his favorite foods. He’s had vague hopes of her following in his footsteps as a knapper.
So when she starts crying, she does not quite know why. And as her thoughts skirl about and her heart screams, she takes a step toward him. His fists tighten, but she cannot see him as a threat. He is her father. She wants comfort. “Daddy,” she says.
Jija flinches. Blinks. Stares, as if he has never seen her before.
Realizes. He cannot kill her. Not even if she is… no. She is his little girl.
She steps forward again, reaching out. He cannot make himself reach back, but he does hold still. She grabs his nearer wrist. He stands straddling Uche’s body; she can’t grab him around the waist the way she wants. She does, however, press her face against his bicep, so comfortingly strong. She does tremble, and he does feel her tears sliding down his skin.