Speaker for the Dead

before I let him lay a hand on me. You might like getting slapped around, but nobody'll ever do it to me."
      She didn't decide to do it; her hand swung out and slapped his face before she noticed it was happening.
      It couldn't have hurt him very much. But he immediately burst into tears, slumped down, and sat on the floor, his back to Novinha. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he kept murmuring as he cried.
      She knelt behind him and awkwardly rubbed his shoulders.
      It occurred to her that she hadn't so much as embraced the boy since he was Grego's age. When did I decide to be so cold? And why, when I touched him again, was it a slap instead of a kiss?
      "I'm worried about what's happening, too," said Novinha.
      "He's wrecking everything," said Quim. "He's come here and everything's changing."
      "Well, for that matter, Estevão, things weren't so very wonderful that a change wasn't welcome."
      "Not his way. Confession and penance and absolution, that's the change we need."
      Not for the first time, Novinha envied Quim's faith in the power of the priests to wash away sin. That's because you've never sinned, my son, that's because you know nothing of the impossibility of penance.
      "I think I'll have a talk with the Speaker," said Novinha.
      "And take Quara home?"
      "I don't know. I can't help but notice that he got her talking again. And it isn't as if she likes him. She hasn't a good word to say about him."
      "Then why did she go to his house?"
      "I suppose to say something rude to him. You've got to admit that's an improvement over her silence."
      "The devil disguises himself by seeming to do good acts, and then--"
      "Quim, don't lecture me on demonology. Take me to the Speaker's house, and I'll deal with him."
      They walked on the path around the bend of the river. The watersnakes were molting, so that snags and fragments of rotting skin made the ground slimy underfoot. That's my next project, thought Novinha. I need to figure out what makes these nasty little monsters tick, so that maybe I can find something useful to do with them. Or at least keep them from making the riverbank smelly and foul for six weeks out of the year. The only saving grace was that the snakeskins seemed to fertilize the soil; the soft fivergrass grew in thickest where the snakes molted. It was the only gentle, pleasant form of life native to Lusitania; all summer long people came to the riverbank to lie on the narrow strip of natural lawn that wound between the reeds and the harsh prairie grass. The snakeskin slime, unpleasant as it was, still promised good things for the future.
      Quim was apparently thinking along the same lines. "Mother, can we plant some rivergrass near our house sometime?"
      "It's one of the first things your grandparents tried, years ago. But they couldn't figure out how to do it. The rivergrass pollinates, but it doesn't bear seed, and when they tried to transplant it, it lived for a while and then died, and didn't grow back the next year. I suppose it just has to be near the water."
      Quim grimaced and walked faster, obviously a little angry. Novinha sighed. Quim always seemed to take it so personally that the universe didn't always work the way he wanted it to.
      They reached the Speaker's house not long after. Children were, of course, playing in the praça-- they spoke loudly to hear each other over the noise.
      "Here it is," said Quim. " I think you should get Olhado and Quara out of there."
      "Thanks for showing me the house," she said.
      "I'm not kidding. This is a serious confrontation between good and evil."
      "Everything is," said Novinha. "It's figuring out which is which that takes so much work. No, no, Quim, I know you could tell me in detail, but--"
      "Don't condescend to me, Mother."
      "But Quim, it seems so natural, considering how you always condescend to me."
      His face went tight with anger.
      She reached out and touched him tentatively, gently; his shoulder tautened against her touch as if her hand were a poisonous spider. "Quim," she said, "don't ever try to teach me about good and evil. I've been there, and you've seen nothing but the map."
      He shrugged her hand away and stalked off. My, but I miss the days when we never talked to each other for weeks at a time.
      She clapped her hands loudly. In a moment the door opened. It was Quara. "Oi, Mãezinha," she said, "também veio jogar?" Did you come to play, too?
      Olhado and the Speaker were