Chapter 10: 12. Speak

Pak

(After the Incident)

 

The ritual is simple.

1: Draw a circle in green chalk, about the size of a dinner plate. Done.

2: Sprinkle citrus zest on the perimeter of the circle. Easy.

3: At the center of the circle, gather up a mound of fur taken from any small mammal, and make a depression in the middle. I do feel bad for the squirrels…

4: Place a stolen magpie’s egg in the depression. I’m sure it won’t be missed.

5: Sprinkle cedar dust over the egg. Done.

6: I hate this part…

I meditate on my body’s heat, concentrating it into the center of my chest, then channel it into each of my fingertips, until they tingle, then burn. A cold sweat collects on my forehead as I strain to evoke my body’s magic. Finally, my fingers twitch, and arcs of fire converge upon the cedar-dusted egg, igniting the fur beneath it.

The burning hair and wood and egg overwhelms the pleasant citrus. I retch with every trace of smoke that wanders to my nose. The fire licks the egg for minutes, burning longer than any ordinary fire should. Eventually it reduces to embers, and the egg’s charred, speckled shell flickers an unnatural green.

Step six is complete. My stomach flattens against my spine, fearful of what is to come.

7: Eat the egg.

I pluck it up from the smoldering mound of burnt squirrel fur and inhale deeply, attempting to settle my stomach, but my stomach protests louder. I take another deep breath, pinch my nose and pop the entire thing into my mouth, chomping through the acrid outer shell into the tender, unusually juicy core. There, my teeth encounter something… crunchy. I heave, but manage to hold it in, keeping my mind on the goal – though, whatever guilt I had felt before increases tenfold, knowing now that the egg was fertilized. I have to swallow in tiny increments, lest I cut my throat on the shell or tiny bones.

Before I finish, something crackles, spits, and ascends my esophagus, leaving numbness in its wake. It reaches my mouth as the last bit goes down, and my teeth buzz. My tongue turns hot and cold at once, and the inside of my cheeks ripple. It sizzles up my sinuses and skitters into my ears, until I can feel nothing in my head or my chest, as though my head and chest don’t exist. A surge of panic takes me, but it subsides as feeling returns, and I find my teeth cutting into my tongue. I flee the ritual room, not knowing how long this will last.

I sneak into our dormitory room, greeted by Kano’s gentle snoring, and crack the window open. I can touch the closest tree if I stretch my arms out, and birds often roost on its branches. There’s nobody there now, so I wait, anxiously tapping the windowsill.

A few minutes later, a plain, tan-colored nightingale flutters to the closest branch. It takes two hops up and nibbles the underside of its wing. I open my mouth to speak, but hesitate, suddenly extremely self-aware. I clear my throat and try again, but my throat catches in the same way. I inhale sharply. Exhale slowly. I can do this.

“H-hello!”

The bird whips around. Though its face makes no expression, I assess that it is likely shocked, and quite possibly terrified.

“Um… how are you?” I whisper. From my perspective, my speech is ordinary, but I have no idea what someone else would hear, nevermind the bird itself. It looks to its left, then to its right, then hops forward, tilts its head, and fixes its sideways gaze on me.

“How are you talking?” it says. My ears hear its shrill and even chirp, but my mind interprets its meaning as plainly as it would any Elvish word.

“Oh… It’s… um, a magic spell?”

I have no idea if it can comprehend the concept of magic. An awkward silence ensues. It looks away. I shift uncomfortably.

“Okay.”

It leaves its reply hanging in the air, no follow-up or elaboration. I feel pressured to continue making conversation.

“So… what’s your name?” I ask.

“My what?”

“You know…” I twiddle my thumbs, averting my eyes. “Like… what are you called?”

It stares for a moment, then chirps a chirp which my mind interprets as… a chirp. I nod. I don’t know what else I expected.

“What are you called?” it asks, though I get the sense that it feels obligated.

“Pak,” I reply. Another uncomfortable silence passes. Then, without another word, it flies away.

I smile in spite of myself. The ritual was successful. I shrug on my coat, slip on my shoes, and clamber out the window, wasting no time.

 

*******

 

There is a place near the border of this district where dogs are housed in cages. I visit as often as I can to say hello and give them treats, but the last time I went, I met a dog who wouldn’t take any. She was the most terror-struck creature I’ve ever seen. It broke my heart. If I can speak to her, maybe I can help…

Cabbage soars overhead to scout for me. From a distance, I recognize the scared dog’s bark. She repeats over and over and over—

“I HATE THIS I HATE THIS I HATE THIS I HATE THIS—”

—and over, and over, and over…

When we arrive, I scale the fence easily. Cabbage flutters down and perches, preening his feathers as he waits. The dogs wake up—

“WHO’S THERE?”

“WHAT WAS THAT?!”

“STRANGER! STRANGER!”

—but, the one I heard in the distance goes quiet. I tiptoe closer and shush them as I go, staying low and sideways, offering my hand and a little bit of jerky to each one.

“What? Oh, okay, thanks!”

“Sorry! Didn’t mean to wake you!”

“Are you nice? You smell nice!”

It’s amazing how readily they trust. Once they approve me with sniffs and licks, they quiet down and curl back up to sleep. Silence settles over the grounds.

A low growl leaks out of the kennel ahead.

“Don’t make me hurt you…”

Her voice – if you could call it that – raises the hairs on my neck. My instinct begs me to heed her warning, but still, I creep closer, until I can hear her trembling quietly rattle the cage.

“Hi,” I whisper a few paces away.

“Don’t come any closer.”

She growls, like thunder rolling through my ears.

“I just want to say hello,” I say, inching forward as lightly as I can. I slowly raise up the gray curtain covering her kennel. As soon she sees me, she releases a frightening cacophony of barking and growling, teeth flashing in the moonlight.

“GO AWAY! GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE! I’LL KILL YOU!”

She presses herself up to the back of the cage, her nails scratching against the floor. The whites of her hard, wide, unblinking eyes shine in sharp contrast to her scruffy black coat. I’m only a little bigger than her. She really could kill me.

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

I look down, make myself small, and sneak a piece of jerky into the kennel. She quiets down, then slowly, deliberately turns away and yawns, licking her lips.

 

I’m scared, I’m so scared, I hate this, I’m sorry…

 

I don’t need the spell to understand her body. She squeezes herself further into the corner, tail tucked to her belly.

“What do you want?” she whines.

“I just want to talk,” I say, hugging my knees. “What’s your name?”

Her ears lift, then deflate. “Baby,” she says.

“I’m Pak.” I nudge the jerky forward, but she stays at the back of the cage. I drop it and rest my cheek on my knee. “Can I ask why you’re here?”

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“My person brought me here,” she grumbles, licking her paw.

“But why? You seem like a good girl.”

She perks up and her tail wags, but it droops just as quickly. She watches me from the side and drops her head.

“Because of the baby,” she says, a mournful shine in her eyes.

“But that’s you, isn’t it?”

“I thought so…” She licks her lips and huffs. “But they kept calling the tiny person ‘the baby’… I didn’t like it, but it was fine for a while… until it started walking around, and then… it yanked on my ears…”

“Oh, no,” I say. “Did it hurt?”

“A little…”

A short silence passes. She looks at me, looks away.

“I was scared, and…” She whimpers. “I hurt it pretty bad…”

A memory flashes in my mind:

 

Blood weeps from her side, where the knife carved into her, pooling beneath us.

It stains my hand, my knees, my toes, her clothes…

 

I wince and shake my head, trying to shake the image away. Baby whines, a wordless symphony of guilt and grieving. It’s a song I know too well.

“I’m sorry,” I say, whispering to steady my voice. “I… I still think you’re a good girl.” She perks up again, and her tail sweeps the floor in a broad, slow wag.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I say with a weak smile. “I can just tell. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone, right? It just sort of happened…”

She silently agrees. I scoot forward a little and push the jerky in further, risking my hand through the kennel bars. She slowly shifts, sticks out her neck, her nose twitching and huffing. She licks the treat, then stops, refusing to eat it, as if she thinks she doesn’t deserve it.

“I think they’re going to take me away,” she whimpers.

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes when they come for us, they act happy, like we’re going for a walk, but they smell sad, like…” She looks off as though searching for the word, and then returns her knowing gaze to me.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

“I heard they use some kind of magic that makes you go to sleep forever… But all I really know is they never bring you back.”

She speaks in a doleful howl. A void creeps into the night air. It swallows my heart.

“If they’re going to, I wish they’d just do it already…”

“But that’s not fair,” I say, gripping the bars until my knuckles go white. “You were just defending yourself!”

Her chest swells, air rushing from her nose in a heavy sigh. I bite my lip. I want to take her, but I can’t. I know I can’t. I am well acquainted with the unfairness of elves and men, but to place the same burden on a dog…

My mind goes silent. Something clicks.

“You said they smell sad, when they take one of you away? That means they don’t want to, right?”

Baby looks past the bars. “I guess, but… I haven’t been very nice to them either.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. Her eyes widen, her ears pinned back, brow wrinkled with worry.

“I’m always yelling at them,” she says, panting heavily. “I tried to bite one of them…”

“I get it,” I say. “It’s scary and cramped and you don’t know them. I’d feel the same way.”

She slowly raises into a sitting position and lifts her paw meekly, flicking her gaze between me and the floor.

“Can you take me?”

I scramble to wipe the tears from my cheeks and smile as best as I can.

“I wish I could, but where I live, they don’t even want me.”

My throat closes up. I’ve always known it, but I’ve never said it out loud. Something cold and wet nudges my hand. I jump. Baby pushes her nose to me, soliciting attention, for my sake, I think, more than hers. I sniff hard and clear my throat, scratching the side of her neck.

“I think I have an idea,” I whisper. Her ears perk up. “But you have to be nice to the people here. It won’t work otherwise.”

“I can try…”

“No, Baby, you have to,” I say. “I know they’re scary, but I don’t think they want to hurt you. Please trust me.”

She ducks her head. It’s a lot to ask…

“Okay,” she squeaks. She’s still unsure, but I detect something different – something hopeful – that wasn’t there before.

“Alright, hang on!” I give her one more good scratch and back up, moving around to the front of her kennel, where the people who work here would come out to clean.

I test the ground with my shoe. The dirt is malleable enough to carve into, but firm enough to retain its shape, as long as it stays dry. I summon the weapon and kneel before her cage. She watches, head tilted, as I carve symbols into the earth that no-one could possibly miss. My plan is imperfect. It relies on sentiment, and the hope that someone here will heed a ‘sign’, for whatever such a thing is worth, but I can’t imagine that anyone who comes here every day to feed these creatures and shovel their waste would ignore a prompt to save one.

I stand and brush the dirt from my pants, stepping back to observe my handiwork. In the ground before her kennel is a message, written in both Elvish and Human:

 

please give me another chance

 

I look at her sitting patiently behind those bars. Her eyes are soft, her tail wags slowly and broadly behind her, and her tongue hangs out of her loose, open mouth, giving the distinct impression of a smile. I kneel before her one more time.

“Be a good girl, Baby, okay?”

That sizzling feeling has already worked its way out of my head. She licks my hand and nuzzles in, and though I can’t hear her speak anymore, I know exactly what she’s saying.

 

Feathers of light crest the horizon as I scale the fence.

I tell myself that they’ll all find their ways home.

 

*******

 

I wake up the next morning, and… something isn’t right. It’s the same uneasy gut feeling I get when I’m being watched, but there’s nobody else in here besides the soundly sleeping half-human. I summon the weapon and rise, scanning the room for the source of this disturbance. Something in the tree catches my eye.

Nestled deep in its branches and all but obscured by foliage, the tan bird perches and stares. Our eyes connect. It squawks – no, it screams – and fluffs out its feathers in a frenzy, hopping up and down the branch in some frightening, furious dance. Another bird rustles in the leaves farther up, rallying the same war cry, and then another, and, another. I leap from the bed, slam the window shut, and draw the curtains. Kano stirs. My heart pounds as I catch my breath, unable to fathom what I have provoked.

 

(I still fear the gaze of the common nightingale.)

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