She snatched it before I could change my mind.
“Plainsday,” she said, already returning to her chickens.
Plainsday?
But that was three days ago. The day before Berrit died.
I looked up thoughtfully, my eyes drifting over the tent peaks and tar-papered hut roofs, and I saw up on the rise toward the old monkey temple a young black man with a spear, wearing the plain robes of the Unassimilated Tribes. He was an unusual sight in the Drowning, and my eyes lingered on him.
“He’s been around here too,” said Berrit’s grandmother, spitting another racial slur. “Ought to be a law.”
*
ANGER AT BERRIT’S GRANDMOTHER drove me through the shanty to Rahvey’s hut. There was no sign of Sinchon, but then, there almost never was. I knocked once and stepped in, finding Florihn sitting by Rahvey’s bedside, the infant slumbering on my sister’s breast.
They were surprised to see me. I saw it in their faces. They had talked about me, how I would let them down, break my word, violate the heart of the Lani way. All my reasoned arguments fell away in the need to prove them wrong.
It was the wrong time. The worst time. But I would no longer be judged by these people. I would leave the Drowning with Rahvey’s baby and figure out the rest later.
“Is she ready?” I asked.
The two women exchanged looks; then Florihn began fussing with towels and a basket.
“I’ll bring her back when it’s time for you to feed her,” I said to Rahvey. My face was set, but a part of me desperately wanted her to say she’d changed her mind, that she would keep the baby, raise it, love it.…
“If you don’t, Anglet,” she said, “I shan’t ask what happened.”
I stared at her, and I suppose something of my horror and revulsion showed in my face.
“What?” she said. “Florihn is right. Not everything in life is the way you’d like it to be. Sometimes it’s best to accept that and move on.”
“Vestris went to Papa’s grave,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I said it except as a way of stabbing at Rahvey, and I immediately wished I hadn’t.
“When?”
“Before I did,” I said. “She left flowers there.”
Rahvey’s face closed up.
“It was probably before she got Florihn’s message about the baby,” I said, trying to cover the cruelty of what I had done.
Rahvey nodded but said, “She still hasn’t been, but then, it really was you two who were Papa’s girls.”
I gazed at her, baffled and upset, then looked away. “I didn’t mean to suggest she cared more about the grave than about visiting you,” I said.
“No?” she said. “Even if it’s true?”
I couldn’t answer that, so I looked back at her and responded to her previous remark instead. “Papa loved you, Rahvey. No less than he loved me or Vestris.”
She nodded a little too fast, smiling tightly and not meeting my gaze. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. She passed me the baby, then turned away so I could not read her face as I settled the child into the basket of towels.
“What is her name?” I asked.
“What?”
“The baby. What do you call her?”
Rahvey shrugged. “We only thought about boys’ names,” she said. “Call her whatever you like.”
I picked up the basket. As I did so, the baby stirred, jaws flexing and closing in a yawn. I gazed at her, then looked up, momentarily still.
I felt the eyes of the world as a presence like the rumble of the ocean or the still, insect-singing heat of the savannah. Outside, the Drowning and Bar-Selehm in general were crouched, waiting.
Fourth daughter. Doubly cursed. The child that should not be.
I tried to carry the basket as if it were lighter than it was, as if it held nothing of value. I gave my sister one last look, but Rahvey had closed her eyes.
“Tell no one where she is,” I said.
I opened the door and stepped out into the world.
CHAPTER
10
THERE WERE A FEW kids playing out back, and a woman who lived two streets over, a busybody who never actually did anything helpful. The woman rose from her darning as I emerged onto the buckled porch and fixed me with the expectant gaze of one who lives for other people’s tragedies.
I felt every muscle tense and had to concentrate to keep my face neutral.
Don’t look at the basket, I told myself. Just walk away.