Blood Red Road

an smiled at me, rubbin at her big babby-swolled belly. Her long golden hair in a braid over one shoulder .
    There! You see, Saba? There can be beauty anywhere. Even here. An if it ain’t there, you can make it yerself .
    The day after that, she birthed Emmi. A month too early. Ma bled fer two days, then she died. We built her funeral pyre high an sent her spirit back to the stars. Once we’d scattered her ash to the winds, all we was left with was Em.
    A ugly little red scrap with a heartbeat like a whisper. More like a newborn mouse than a person. By rights, she shouldn’t of lasted longer’n a day or two. But somehow she hung on an she’s still here. Small fer her age though, an scrawny.
    Fer a long time, I couldn’t stand even lookin at her. When Lugh says I shouldn’t be so hard on her, I says that if it warn’t fer Emmi, Ma ’ud still be alive. He ain’t got no answer to that cuz he knows it’s true, but he always shakes his head an says somethin like, It’s time you got over it, Saba, an that kinda thing.
    I put up with Emmi these days, but that’s about as far as it goes.
    Now I set myself down on the hard-packed earth so’s my back leans against Lugh’s. I like it when we sit like this. I can feel his voice rumble inside my body when he talks. It must of bin like this when the two of us was inside Ma’s belly together. Esseptin that neether of us could talk then, of course.
    We sit there fer a bit, silent. Then, We should of left here a long time ago, he says. There’s gotta be better places’n this. Pa should of took us away.
    You ain’t really leavin, I says.
    Ain’t I? There ain’t no reason to stay. I cain’t jest sit around waitin to die.
    Where would you go?
    It don’t matter. Anywhere, so long as it ain’t Silverlake.
    But you cain’t. It’s too dangerous.
    We only got Pa’s word fer that. You do know that you an me ain’t ever bin more’n one day’s walk in any direction our whole lives. We never see nobody essept ourselves.
    That ain’t true, I says. What about that crazy medicine woman on her camel last year? An … we see Potbelly Pete. He’s always got a story or two about where he’s bin an who he’s seen.
    I ain’t talkin about some shyster pedlar man stoppin by every couple of months, he says. By the way, I’m still sore about them britches he tried to unload on me last time.
    They was hummin all right, I says. Like a skunk wore ’em last. Hey wait, you fergot Procter.
    Our only neighbor’s four leagues north of here. He’s a lone man, name of Procter John. He set up homestead jest around the time Lugh an me got born. He drops by once a month or so. Not that he ever stops proper, mind. He don’t git down offa his horse, Hob, but jest pulls up by the hut. Then he says the same thing, every time.
    G’day, Willem. How’s the young ’uns? All right?
    They’re fine, Procter , says Pa. You?
    Well enough to last a bit longer .
    Then he tips his hat an goes off an we don’t see him fer another month. Pa don’t like him. He never says so, but you can tell. You’d think he’d be glad of somebody to talk to besides us, but he never invites Procter to stay an take a dram.
    Lugh says it’s on account of the chaal. We only know that’s what it’s called because one time I asked Pa what it is that Procter’s always chewin an Pa’s face went all tight an it was like he didn’t wanna tell us. But then he said it’s called chaal an it’s poison to the mind an soul, an if anybody ever offers us any we’re to say no. But since we never see nobody, such a offer don’t seem too likely.
    Now Lugh shakes his head. You cain’t count Procter John, he says. Nero’s got more conversation than him. I swear, Saba, if I stay here, I’ll eether go crazy or I’ll end up killin Pa. I gotta go.
    I scramble around, kneel in front of him.
    I’m comin with you, I says.
    Of course, he says. An we’ll take Emmi with us.
    I don’t think Pa ’ud let us, I says. An she wouldn’t wanna go anyways. She’d rather stay with him.
    You mean you’d rather she stayed, he says. We gotta take her with us, Saba. We cain’t leave her behind.
    What about … maybe if you was to talk to Pa, he might see sense, I says. Then we could all go to a new place together.
    He won’t, Lugh says. He cain’t leave Ma.
    Whaddya mean? I says. Ma’s dead.
    Lugh says, What I mean is … him an Ma made this place together an, in his mind, she’s still here. He cain’t leave her memory,