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It turned out the peace and silence I’d been craving was a lie.
After two days hunched over, cutting and sewing nonstop, the silence turned oppressive, and an ache crept into my chest. After weeks of living with the loudest species to ever evolve and then bunking with newlyweds, the sudden silence was like a vacuum, sucking away the feeling of family and leaving a quiet thatunnerved me. Charz and Pika had been jumping at my side for a year, and I missed them.
I flipped through my sketchbook. A certain Rock Dweller had found his way into most of the designs I’d planned for the competition. It seemed I missed him too. The distance wasn’t helping my confused heart as I’d hoped. Maybe TeyTey would have some advice.
With the blue snow melted, the pink soil beneath showed shoots of new life. A woodskie’s loud squawk filled the air, and I ducked the same way I would at home to avoid the swooping gulls of my seaside neighborhood. Though the mouthwatering aroma of graneth puffs baking filled the street, an eerie silence accompanied it. Yurstille’s citizens, the few who were out, moved with purpose, constantly peering over their shoulders.
An overhead chime rang when I stepped into the bakery. “Hey, D’ovey. It smells wonderful in here.”
His dark skin gleamed with the heat from the ovens, and an apron circled his torso. In my mind, I drew a stylized slogan across the white fabric while my hungry eyes ate up the display case.
“Is that a donut hole?” I tapped the window.
He lifted one of the tiny balls covered in some kind of powder out of the case. “Don’t know ’bout that, but what they are is delicious. I call them wow-ees.”
Razor-sharp teeth filled his wide smile, but I’d grown used to Boolas’ vampiric grins. They no longer phased me.
He laughed, the tie around his apron stretched taut over his round belly. “You know, ’cause you have one bite and your mouth goes, wow-ee!”
Without a second thought, I devoured the entire treat in a single gulp, savoring the warm, gingery explosion on my taste buds. Sully and TeyTey’s kids would love these.
“A pack of graneth buns and a dozen wow-ees, please.” I held my wristport out to him so he could deduct the credits.
He set a paper bag in front of me. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help them up at the volcano.”
I paused beside the deep windowsill lined with blooming plants. How had nobody thought of making the bakery an information hub? It was easily the most frequented business in Yurstille, and the enforcers were here all the time resupplying the base camp. It would be perfect. “They’re in desperate need of hoverbike parts. I’m sure they’d be compensated if anyone has parts to spare?”
The smile that lit the old Boola’s face warmed my insides. “You got it. Consider the word spread.”
By the time I reached TeyTey’s, my get up and go had got up and gone. My knees oozed like an ice cream sandwich on a scorching afternoon, and the tiredness, blissfully absent the last couple of days, returned with a vengeance. I sank onto the bench beside their front door and groaned while massaging my aching knee.
Damn it! Two days… That was it! That was how long I could go without treatment.
I tried to be grateful—any healing was an improvement—but it just wasn’t long enough. The flight back to Earth alone lasted two weeks. And I couldn’t just come back once I got home—it was crazy expensive. My next complimentary flight to visit Geo wouldn’t be for two years.
I tilted my head up to the bright sky and leaned into the sunbaked wall’s warmth with my eyes closed. I wouldn’t cry. There had to be a way. A couple of minutes later, with my sadness firmly compartmentalized, I reached over from where I sat and knocked.
When TeyTey opened the door and found no one there, she shook her head, likely thinking one of her boys was messing withher. I laughed, which alerted her to my presence, and passed her the package from the bakery.
“Surprise!”
“Ginger!” She hugged me tight, and her silky tunic rubbed against my cheek. “I can’t believe Geo and Makir would take you away from me and up to that unsafe volcano.” After releasing me, she hustled me into a comfy seat in her kitchen. “Then I said to myself, you’re talking about Ginger. The female who learned to ride a hoverbike faster than I can wrap my head scarf and manages not to strangle Geo’s puppy doggies when they wrap themselves around her feet all day long, getting in the way. That female isn’t going anywhere she doesn’t want to.” She paused for a breath. “You aren’t looking well. I’ve just the thing to fix you up, and then you must tell me everything that’s happening with those veiny white bastards.”
Oh, God, was there a way to pick TeyTey’s brain about JayJay without telling her about the treatment plan Dr. Ten had prescribed? Shit. In comparison, talking about hellsna would be easy.
TeyTey placed a Rock Dweller-sized glass of hiscus wine in front of me. As the first sip of wine met my tongue, I already felt looser. That should help.
In a springy-backed chair across from me, TeyTey sipped from an identical cut-crystal glass. “Sully took the boys to work this rotation. They’re shorthanded without Geo and JayJay. They’ll probably be more trouble than help.” She smirked. “So I’m pretty much having a rotation of leisure.” Her face sobered in a flash.
Keeping up with her emotions was giving me whiplash.
“What’s it like at the Starry Volcano? Have you seen a hellsna?” She whispered ‘hellsna.’ “Is JayJay taking care of himself?”
“JayJay’s fine.” My voice thinned to a squeak. “I haven’t seen a hellsna since I was trapped in the volcano with JayJay. But they’re out there. Did you hear that two enforcers and a Nacer were killed yesterday?”
She lifted her eyes toward the sunbeam streaming through her skylight. “May the goddess Sola be with them and the ancestors guide their way.” TeyTey drummed her fingers over her heart before dropping her gaze back to mine. “We’re completely in the dark. Occasionally I hear something from D’ovey.”
A glass of wine later, a plan had formed. I promised TeyTey I’d connect her with one of the injured enforcers at the volcano. They would update TeyTey on the news and what supplies were running low as they restocked the base camp in town, and she would write something up for D’ovey’s bakery.
