Myla pulled the girl in tight to her side, a little hug and a damp pat on the girl's head. "You are a good child. You get along well with the rest of the girls. We would miss you terribly if something went wrong while you were off doing something like this. Eventually, something always goes wrong. It's just not safe to do some things alone."

  Sylia looked at the sink in her shy, silent way.

  Myla lifted Sylia's eyes with a finger on the child's chin. "You are important to me, to us. And you know about not letting people do dangerous things alone."

  Sylia tried to look away again.

  "You understand about that, don't you? How easily a simple mistake can lead to a world of misfortune. You, come to Reaha or me." She fixed the child's wandering eyes again. "You come to one of us. Danger is no place to go alone. And you, dear child, you are not so alone." She hugged the girl again, then fished for another dish.

  Understanding the words came easy to the child. Reaching her, that was something else.

  Winter cranked up the cold over the next few weeks. It kept everyone inside, as much as possible. Hihel's room, being so large and with only one person, was cold. He spent most of his time with his father in the living room. The girls tended to stay in their warmer room and play games.

  "Mother!" Hihel said, "Where are the chess pieces?"

  "Uh, did you check with the girls—"

  He thumped the board beside his father, knocking over the pieces he had found. "Of course I did! All they had were pawns!" He stomped over to the girls' room, threw open the door, and yelled, "What did you do with the rest of it! What were you doing with it anyway! You stupid bunch of cackling—"

  "I'm sure they are around here somewhere, Son," Myla said, "They are just, misplaced, for the moment. That's all."

  He stared at her as she closed the girls' door. "What the hell was it doing in their room anyway?"

  "They play it too, Son."

  He kicked their door open again.

  "Play? Play! Lost, you mean!"

  "Calm down, Son, it'll show up. We have all wint—"

  "Now!"

  "That's enough, Son," the father said. "You asked her, and she doesn't know. Let her try to find it. If it's still here, she will find it. She is good at that sort of thing."

  Hihel stomped into the kitchen, huffed and stomped to his room, back to the girls' door, then paced a few laps around the living room. He warmed his hands by the fire, guzzled the rest of his coffee, then paced again.

  He stopped by the corner.

  "Give'm here!" Hihel said to the corner. "Now!"

  Sylia galloped the knight into the house made of stacked checkers as she moved the bishops by the checker picnic table.

  "Now!" he said again. But she didn't look up. She continued to move the pieces around the table.

  He kicked over the checker house.

  She started replacing the pieces as if his foot had been a storm and the town rallied around an old-fashion barn raising.

  "I don't have time for this," he got on his knees and shoved the girl to the side, grabbing up pieces, "stupid brat."

  She reached for one when he stepped on her hand.

  The father stood to get a better look. "What's going on, Son?"

  "Retard was drooling over them— Why is it still here!" He rifled through the pile of checkers for the last chess piece, then went to his father and started setting up the board.

  Myla stood behind her husband and looked into the dark corner.

  Sylia held one hand against her chest. With the other, she started shaping walls with the scattered checkers.

  Myla sat beside the girl on the floor and helped, while trying to get a better look at the hand. It was red and dirty, but didn't look cut. She stared at her son. He needn't have done what he did. Had he been her son, she would have—

  Had he been her son. . . She ran her fingers through the girl's hair. Sylia had ignored it all, somehow. Myla couldn't get it out of her head.

  She looked at her husband and thought of filling him in, to see if he could be encouraged to punish the boy. But, from where she sat, he hadn't missed a second of it. He knew. He had seen.

  She helped stack checkers instead.

  Over the next few days, Sylia didn't lift or hold anything with that hand. It made Myla angry every time she saw the child favor it, adding to the frustration of what life had become. But, by the end of a week, Sylia was playing normally again.

  Myla sat up in bed and looked around. She was late, the sun was already up. She looked at her husband, still asleep.

  She jumped out of bed and went to the window lamp. The breakfast potatoes were hard and an hour away from being done. She looked outside. The sun wasn't up, it was the bluish white of the night sky again. She pulled the shades and went to the kitchen.

  Outside was bright as day— She ran out the front door.

  The appliance pile was burning, as were two distant homes. They looked like the abandoned ones at the edge of town, but she couldn't be sure. The picture tube of their old TV exploded like a bomb on the far side of the pile. Glass continued to crack in loud crunches in the heat. The fumes from the burning plastic and the bitter cold drove her back inside.

  It burned for about ten minutes, reaching an eerie red before making a loud hum that she felt through the ground inside. The flames slowly died down and eventually went out.

  She knelt by the window and looked up. It looked too bright to distinguish what was going on, and it seemed to pulse. She looked across the village. No shadows. The buildings cast no shadows. She looked inside the room. Her shadow was a tiny smudge.

  It was disorienting, but she quickly understood. The light outside was diffused. It wasn't a single point like the sun, but the entire sky. No shadows.

  She sat, her back against the window, staring at the tiny hint of her shadow. She suddenly felt helpless. Bleak and insignificant like that sliver she cast. Small. She wanted to make a difference in her children's lives. She wanted to cast a shadow bigger than this. But the state and the sky forbid it.

  She put on her gloves and lifted the glass out of the lamp. There was a thirteenth groove, almost like it was for an extra wick, but that was the funnel for the oil. She poured a cup of oil in. It had to be done slowly. The oil didn't wick very well, a half inch at best, so the reservoir had to be shallow, but wide and long.

  She adjusted the wicks, then replaced the glass.

  The water in the kitchen would be hot enough for coffee soon, then she could get started on the buns that the lamps did perfectly too.

  Lamps, small room heater, and a mini stove, they were subtle, but incredibly useful. She relied on them much more than she would ever have expected. She ran her fingers across the rounded edges of its face, by the glass. A little girl made it. She could feel the impressions of tiny fingers in the irregularities around the edges. A girl that would never go to school and would have to choose among men like her son. If she would get a choice at all.

  She was sad for all that could have been.

  She hadn't used her chance for an education, Sylia wouldn't even get that.

  It all felt like such a waste, a burning pile of potential. Lost.

  She pulled out the tray, rolled balls of dough, and started their window breakfast.

  Over the next week, the metal sides of the refrigerator turned white like snow and flaked away like they had been turned to ash. Most of the pile reacted the same way, with the exception of the copper wires that simply tarnished, but remained.

  It was like the laws of physics had changed, and everyone needed to learn them anew.

  Hihel grabbed Ashina's arm, "Refill this," he said, putting his empty cup in her hand.

  "I was helping mother with—"

  He squeezed, "Go now." He pointed to the kitchen.

  She looked at her feet as she walked to the kitchen.

  "Like I was saying, Father, they have plans, massive plans. They intend to push their advantage well into our uncivilized neighbors. It's the new caliphate, and we're just in the beginnings of it. Birth pains. It's such a wonderful time to be alive."

  Ashina placed the full cup on the table beside him, then ran to the bathroom where Myla was doing a wash in the tub.

  "When's lunch, Woman?" The father asked.

  Ashina stuck her head out from the bathroom, "Momma says another hour or more."

  "Another game then, Son?"

  "Sure."

  Sylia stood and stared at their game.

  She stepped closer after opening moves, and was almost at the board by the time it started to get intense.

  Ashina ran from the bathroom to grab Sylia's arm before she got too close. "Momma wants you, Sis."

  Sylia hesitated, but followed.

  The girls stayed in their room the rest of the day. As much as possible.

  Myla tightened her robe as she stood in the kitchen that morning. Sylia stood by her side, unnoticed as yet.

  "What are you doing up this early, Child?"

  Sylia just smiled.

  Myla picked the girl up and set her on the chair. "What are we going to do with you, Child?"

  Sylia shrugged.

  "You can't keep silent forever." She promptly tickled the girl in hopes of getting even a laugh.

  Sylia squirmed, smiled, and breathed heavily, but just like with her crying, no voice was attached.

  Myla straightened the girl's hair, then gave her a kiss on the forehead. "How many secrets do you keep? How much more is there to you?"

  Sylia just smiled and shrugged as she hopped down and went for the flour under the far counter.

  Myla watched the little girl struggle with the bag while making her morning cup of coffee. It was time to make the buns.

  Sylia kneaded the dough while Myla added a pinch more flour.

  An idea struck her. "Sylia, what's going on with the sky?"

  Sylia shrugged while kneading.

  That would have been too simple. "You have an idea, don't you."

  Sylia just kneaded, no shrug this time.

  "Why did it get so bright those nights? Or those weeks of thunder in the morning and night. Why just morning and night, why not in the day?"

  Sylia stopped kneading and looked up at her mom.

  "You have an idea, don't you, Child?" Myla rested a hand on the child's shoulder.

  Sylia looked down at the dough. She smoothed it flat with her hands. "Dust above the clouds, charged by solar particles, more charge at dusk and dawn, highest at right angles." But she didn't say it, she wrote it with her finger, before plucking out chunks and rolling them into balls.

  Myla stared at the back of the girl's head. Her long, black hair curled near her shoulders. She had come a long way from that girl in a tattered shirt, cooking a cat. She had expected to hear the words, not read them. Words, perfectly spelled, neatly written, without ever being taught. They had no paper to practice on. There was a mind trapped in there. A child that could be reached. She pulled the little girl close, then started rolling balls too.

  Communication was best, a two way street.

  Theirs had been one way for far too long.

  Chapter 10

  Myla enjoyed her mornings baking with Sylia, like a secret that only they shared. She asked better questions over the many weeks that had carried them to the last month of winter. Sylia would answer only one question a morning, and even then it was limited to just what would fit on dough. Myla tried to get more by flipping the dough, but Sylia answered that with two days of staying in her room and a week of writing nothing. One a day was enough.

  Myla had asked who Sylia's parents were. She got 'Myla'. When pressed, she found that Sylia didn't remember any parents before her. She didn't remember a home before this. She didn't really remember Tour, but he just looked very familiar, like she should know him.

  Then she wrote something odd, that 'thoughts' swam in her head that she wasn't sure were her own. They gave her nightmares some times, which was why she had trouble sleeping and was so often found up.

  Solar powered dust. That was a vastly shortened answer. It had to be to fit on a lump of dough. Myla hadn't bothered to dig further into that line of questioning, even though she was more than a little curious.

  Over the weeks of winter, it slowly started to make sense. 'Dust' was over simplified, but dust-like particles could easily have been scattered up there. She vaguely remembered some plan by western scientists to try to fix global warming with dust. Dawn and dusk made some sense too. She remembered a school project on static electricity with glass and wool. If the 'dust' held the place of glass and wool was the stream of charged particles from the sun, then it would make sense that the highest charge would be dusk and dawn. She just didn't think on a planet-sized scale.

  It made sense with the appliance pile too. Phones used to ring when lightning would strike nearby. If the 'dust' facilitated this solar-powered lightning to strobe across the sky, then the effects on the ground would be much like what the world had witnessed, extending far beyond phones this time. She only wished she knew more about such things.

  The town's only library had been burned to the ground a decade ago. It had been filled with 'banned' books. Surely, some of them would have helped.

  But what no book could have explained was how such insights could have come from a seven-year-old girl.

  The girls had spent most of winter cooped up in their room. It was small and confining, but it kept peace in the house with Hihel. He had a very strict interpretation of the rules of conduct. It was rational of them to hide, but a shame. She missed seeing them in the living room and at the dinner table with their father. She missed that. It was a loss. Oppression came in many shades and forms.

  Sylia stood at the table beside the father as the men played chess late into the night.

  The father poked the girl in the stomach, "Aren't you supposed to be in bed, Child?"

  She smiled, then shrugged, nodding a no.

  He pointed to the girl's room, "Go on."

  She shrugged again, looked at the board, then her feet.

  Frustrated with the game, "Do as you're told!" Hihel said, giving the girl a firm shove in the direction of the room.

  She stumbled, then fell. Stood, dusted her pants, the returned to the side of the father.

  Hihel stood, raising his hand to the girl.

  "That's unnecessary, Son," the father said, "she's harmless enough."

  "She's the most distracting little—"

  "Have a seat, Son," he said, "she'll get bored soon enough." He pulled the girl beside him, and out of Hihel's reach.

  "You shouldn't have to put up with such insolence, Father." Hihel stared at the girl.

  When the father made a move, Sylia leaned forward too, but refrained from touching any pieces.

  It was as difficult for her not to interfere as it was frustrating to Hihel to have her there.

  Sylia stayed through all their games that night, but missed making buns with Myla that morning.

  Ashina gathered the last dishes off the table, scraped them over the compost trash, then sunk them in the hot water side of the sink where Sylia was standing on a chair. Washers didn't dry or clear. Those were the rules, such as they were.

  Ashina washed her hands, then got the towel.

  It was a little frustrating when Sylia washed. She picked and scrubbed at the tiniest morsel that most would let slide. She took longer. Not that they had anything else to do. Chores would soon return with the garden again, but until then, this was it.

  Sylia dunked the plate, pulled it up again, then frantically scrubbed. This was the fourth dunk of the same plate.

  "Enough is enough, Sis," Ashina said, taking the plate, dunking it in the rinse side, then starting to dry.

  Sylia stood, hands dripping over the hot water. When interrupted, she lost her place, and it took her a few seconds before she could pick up her place again.

  Ashina had little patience for that either, dunking her sister's hands in the water.

  That did it. Back on track again. She picked up another and started scrubbing.

  "Reaha and Momma were gonna tell stories tonight. We got to hurry or we'll miss some."

  Sylia scrubbed faster.

  After Reaha finished reading aloud from the book, Myla started telling another story, one never written down. She told of a time when markets had food everywhere, when people could travel hundreds of miles a day, and when they could buy and sell things from around the world, like chocolate and oranges, that these children had never had, and an abundance they had never known. At least not firsthand.

  The girls loved these the most. It was hopeful of what once was, and could be again. Should the dust ever settle down.

  Men pounded on their front door, first thing in the morning. "You, in there, Wake up! Get up! Open this door! Hihel!"

  Myla ran from the kitchen into the bedroom to wake her husband.

  "I'm coming!" Hihel yelled from his room, "You just wait a second!"

  The pounding only got louder.

  "I said, in a second!"

  The father stuck his head into Hihel's room, "Do you know them, Son?"

  "Maybe, maybe not." He tightened his robe and braced for the cold as they both walked to the door. A few bats were scattered around the house in strategic locations, but they were unlikely to be needed. Burglars would not make such noise, they would silently break in.

  They unbraced the door.

  It opened. "Hihel, right? Of the Cief brigade?" The tallest of three said.

  "Yeah, that's right—"

  The three pushed their way into the room, the last one braced the door after tossing three sacks against the nearest wall.

  "We're here 'til you pull out in a few weeks," the tallest said, then shook the father's hand. "This is Fahar, Sythe, and I'm Lar. We live a little further out than you. To make it in time, we had to chance the cold."

  Hihel looked at the sacks, then took a step back. "I don't remember you guy's from my—"

 

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