Silent Skies

Chapter 6

A haze lays over the grass this morning, and the pale sun sets it aglow. Solma stands outside the tent, watching it swirl and flutter around her blade-foot. She clenches and unclenches her fists. Time to get going.

Bell’s already up, (no surprise there) and has something delicious bubbling over a fire. She waves Solma over.

“Hungry?”

Solma shakes her head. She looks past Bell, to where all seven Whisperers are huddled together around the cart, talking in hushed tones. The three young boys sit cross-legged and wide-eyed, staring in silence between their elders. Taipan’s clutching her belly, complaining loudly while Ana tries to hush her to no avail. Solma frowns as she turns back to Bell.

“What’s with them?”

Bell shrugs, ladling porridge into a bowl and handing it to Solma, despite her refusal. “You didn’t eat your dinner last night,” she points out. “You gone off my cooking?”

Solma smiles before she can help herself. “As if,” she says. She spoons some of the steaming oats into her mouth. Her stomach growls its gratitude, and suddenly she’s starving. She wolfs down the porridge and hands the bowl to Bell, before turning back towards the Whisperers. Their voices are now raised enough that she can hear their words drift on the still morning air.

“I’m telling you, Mamba,” Ana says. “I’ve been sensing it for days, and it’s only getting stronger.”

“My belly!” Taipan complains, and Cobra kneels beside her.

“It’s alright, sweetie,” she says, rubbing Taipan’s back. Taipan only cries harder.

“No,” she whines. “It’s all buzzy!”

Ana seems to take this as evidence of something. “See?” she says, folding her arms triumphantly. Mamba shakes his head.

“Whatever it is,” he says. “It’s not Whispering. It doesn’t feel like Whispering. It’s like—”

He grapples for the right word and fails, shrugging helplessly.

“It feels familiar,” Cobra says, standing and holding Taipan’s hand. “And … not, at the same time. I agree with Ana. I think we should go look.”

Krait scowls. “Feels weird,” he comments gruffly.

“Yeah,” Cobra agrees. “It does.”

Solma’s got no idea what they’re talking about. She’s ready to go over and ask when Bell grabs her arm.

“You go tell Mamba those kids need more’n one night’s rest,” she says. “You hear? They’re exhausted and they’ll get sick traipsing about like this!”

Solma raises an eyebrow. Bell might be right, but—

“What about food?” she points out. “We’re running out, ain’t we? We got to get moving or we’ll starve.”

Bell squares her shoulders and tuts but worry gleams in her eyes and Solma knows she’s hit a nerve. She touches her Aunt’s shoulder.

“You can’t be a mother to the whole world, Bell,” she says quietly. Bell’s cheeks flush.

“I’m not trying to,” she mutters. “Just these seven, and you and Warren. That’s hardly the whole world, is it? Now mind out while I serve breakfast.”

Solma rolls her eyes and steps back as the Whisperers’ discussion ends and the youngsters traipse towards the scent of food.

Solma jogs to catch up with Ana as the Whisperer girl heads towards the ponies. Ana stops at Poppy’s head and offers the stocky little mare oats from her open palm. Poppy munches gratefully and the Whisperer strokes the pony’s soft muzzle, murmuring. She smiles and nods when she sees Solma approaching, but there’s a weariness to her and the shadow of a frown still mars her brow.

“Sleep well?” she asks. Solma rolls her shoulders experimentally. The ache of a heavy pack and nights on rough ground have tightened her muscles for the last five months, but she thinks she might finally be getting used to this life

“Better than the night before,” she says. As soon as he hears her voice, Burdock pricks up his ears and trots over from the edge of the forest. He nudges Solma’s hand for affection and snuffles at her pockets for food. Ana laughs.

“He really does love you, doesn’t he?” she says, scooping more oats from the pocket of her green robe and pouring them into Solma’s palm. “We had such trouble with him before you came with us, and now he’ll only do what you say.”

Solma shakes her head and scratches Burdock’s cheek as he gobbles down the proffered oats. “I got no idea why,” she admits. “I had nothing to do with the horses in Sand’s End. And they were both huge. I was a bit scared of them, actually.”

Ana winks at her. “I’m more scared of these two than I ever am of any village heavy horse. These guys have twice the attitude.”

She takes a deep breath and Solma realizes the young Whisperer’s been opening and closing her left fist, like she’s trying to grab something. Solma almost reaches out to grasp Ana’s shoulder, but then thinks better of it. She’s not sure how to ask Ana about the strange conversation she overheard and they stand in awkward silence for a bit.

“You ok?” Solma manages finally.

Ana jumps and stares straight at her, copper eyes wide and shining. “What? Oh. Yes. Sorry. Just—I don’t know.” She bites her lip and shakes her head. “We’re all uneasy. There’s been a … I don’t know. We can sense something in the Earth. Something … hard to explain. It feels kind of familiar but also like nothing I’ve ever sensed before and it’s … ancient.” She stops, chewing her lip as she forages in her pocket for more oats. She offers them to Poppy and shakes her head. “Maybe we’re all just tired.”

Solma frowns.

“I don’t understand,” she says. “You mean, like the sense of a Whisperer?”

It’s no secret that trained Earth Whisperers can sense the signals of those with dormant power. It’s how they always know which village children have that secret ability, whisking them away despite the parents’ efforts to hide them. Solma used to resent them for it, as she knows many village folk do. It still doesn’t sit right with her that kids are taken from their parents so young. But gifts like that must be shared. People not sharing was what caused the Hive War that wiped out the insects a century ago. She shudders at the memory of those pictures in Bell’s books, how they’ve haunted her since last summer. Since Maxen’s betrayal.

Ana shrugs and shakes her head. “It doesn’t feel like a Whisperer,” she says. “It feels …” she grapples for the word, but can’t seem to come up with anything better than Taipan’s earlier description. “Buzzy,” she finishes.

Solma blinks, nonplussed. She’s about to ask more but Poppy finishes her oats and tosses her head. Ana soothes her with a gentle touch. “They need water,” she says, nodding over to where Roseann has just trudged out of the forest carrying two metal buckets. She puts them down by the fireplace and heads straight for Bell’s porridge.

“Sol, can you help with the pack down?” Ana asks. “Looks like we’re heading out.”

She points over to where Mamba and Cobra are already dismantling their tents and Olive is ushering Warren out towards Aunt Bell. Ana grins wryly.

“I knew Mamba’d never be able to resist,” she says. Solma raises an eyebrow.

“Resist what?”

“Following the signal,” she says. “We’re going to find out what’s calling us.”

Solma rubs Burdock’s velvety nose with the back of one hand and tries to quell the uneasiness in her gut. “Know where we’re going?” she asks. Ana shrugs.

“Beats me,” she admits. “But the signal’s calling us through the mountains. It’ll be better if we move off early and get as far as we can before midday.” She shields her eyes and squints at the sky. “I think it’s going to be warm. Spring’s here.”

Solma’s heart bucks. Spring’s here but the bees aren’t. Instinctively, she glances over to the fire, where Warren sits with Olive, eating porridge.

Buzzy.

Could it be? She almost doesn’t want to hope it’s bees that the Whisperers sense, but hope is too tenacious to be so easily uprooted. It’s flowering despite her best efforts.

Olive catches Solma’s eye and turns away from the fire, heading over.

“Thanks, Ana,” Solma says. “I’ll get the others going as soon as we’ve had breakfast.”

Ana smiles and heads off to get water for the horses. Poppy watches her go and nickers softly. Burdock nudges Solma again, snuffling at her pockets.

“I don’t have any more, buddy,” Solma tells him, but he’s insistent.

“Got yourself an admirer there, eh?” says Olive as she approaches. Her hands are shoved in her pockets and she’s unsmiling. Solma nods.

“Yeah, seem to. Hey, Ana says we’ll be moving out soon.” She points to the activity of the Whisperers. Olive raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll start the pack down. You can help Bell with the little ones this time.”

She turns to go but panic flares through Solma. “Actually!”

Olive freezes. Solma sees her shoulders twitch with tension as she turns back. “Problem?”

Solma feels her hackles raise. This is the Olive from before. The prickly, stubborn Olive whose frustration gets the better of her. Solma’s known that that Olive still exists, of course, she just hasn’t seen her for a while. Solma folds her arms.

“Yeah,” she says. “It makes more sense if I pack down. I’ve been doing it all winter and I can do it quicker.”

Olive folds her arms too, mirroring Solma. “You have been doing it all winter,” she points out. “For five months. All that time you refused to get to know the kids. You barely talk to Cobra, who was your best friend, once. D’you know she’s a really mean dancer? Or that Mamba has a wicked sense of humor? D’you know Ana’s an amazing archer? She can hit a bullseye at five hundred yards. D’you even know she’s got a bow?”

Solma throws up her hands. “What’s your point? How’s this important?”

Olive growls her frustration loud enough that Bell glances over, frowning. “These people took us in, Sol. You understand that we’re alive ‘cos’a them, right? Like it or not, they’re our village now. They’re our family. I know you ain’t a fan of Whisperers, but you got to make an effort with them—”

“I got nothing against Whisperers,” Solma retorts. She might have done once, but those days are long gone. It was Blaiz who convinced her never to trust the Earth Whisperers. Before he used and then exiled her. She’s disregarded everything he taught her.

“Well why then?” Olive demands.

Solma blinks. Where has all this come from? “Why what?”

“Why won’t you talk to us?” Olive says, loud enough that everyone in the camp turns to look. Warren frowns at his sister. “Why won’t you talk to me? How long you gonna hang about on the edges like this, separating yourself from everything?”

“I ain’t!” Solma insists, but there’s a flicker of recognition in the back of her mind. She is. She knows it. “Not on purpose!”

Olive’s frown melts into something sympathetic. She reaches out. Solma steps back before she can help herself and Olive’s demeanor changes again. Hurt. Angry.

“Whatever, Sol,” she says. “Look, you know I’m here. I been here all this time. I was here even when you thought I weren’t. But one thing I won’t do is let you act like an i***t. And you’re acting like an idiot.”

That old anger blossoms in Solma’s chest. She’d thought they were over this, Olive always sniping at her. She’d thought they really had something. Flashes of those quiet moments alone flicker in her mind, kisses stolen at twilight, fingers intertwined. She can’t have made that up, surely?

“Sol?”

Warren’s little voice snaps her back to the present and she glances down to find he’s wandered over, clutching his bowl of porridge. He slips his free hand into hers. “Can you come sit with me?”

He gazes hopefully over to the fire. Habu’s bouncing about on all fours, pretending to be a redbear cub, and King roars with amusement. Bell brandishes her ladle, admonishing them for their lack of manners, but her eyes twinkle and a smile tugs her lips.

There’s nothing about that scene that Solma dislikes. But her heart hurts all the same. “Go on then, Warren,” she says, ushering him over. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Olive puts her hands on her hips. “Don’t want to go over, do you?” she says.

Warren tugs at Solma’s hand, whining. “No, Sol. Come now.”

Solma glances from Warren to the busy fireside and back to Olive, whose eyebrow is raised in that infuriating I-told-you-so way. She offers her hand to Warren, never taking her eyes from Solma’s.

“Come on, War,” she says. “I’ll come with you. Solma has to pack down the tents.”

Warren gazes between them, his lower lip pushed out. He takes Olive’s hand and gives Solma a look of such disappointment that Solma feels her world quaking. She watches as the girl she adores walks the brother she would die for over to the family she can’t be part of and wonders when it was, exactly, that she became so distant.

She turns, eyes stinging, and heads to dismantle the remaining tents.