Page 184 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

EPILOGUE

Carrie

T hey stop looking for Sam three days later. Three days of relentless rain later - when the volume of water falling from the sky has well and truly washed any chance of finding her away.

Sam and Maldek stayed with Walset’s tribe for a few days so they could travel back with them.

Safety in numbers, or so they thought. They were unlucky.

A marauding tribe attacked, and though Walset’s tribe and Maldek saw them off without suffering any major injury, in the confusion and the chaos, Sam vanished.

Ran away, taken, alive, dead - no one really knows.

But Walset’s tribe and Maldek have searched extensively for her for the past few days.

A little blood and her pack, found just a short distance from the place they were ambushed, were the only traces they could find of her.

Gregar’s tribe, and Darran’s, search through the rains, hoping their fresh eyes will turn up something Walset’s tribe could not. When Walset’s tribe have rested a day and night in their new huts, they head back out to join them. But on the third day, Liv insists they all stop.

“It’s not a decision I make lightly,” she says when she tells us, her voice full of raw grief, but firm.

“I sent her out there. I asked her to go with Maldek to Walset’s tribe.

Her blood is on my hands. I know that, and I hate it.

But you can’t wash off blood with more blood.

It’s dangerous out there in the rains, and any raskarran out there is not here protecting the tribe.

I won’t see anyone else in my tribe hurt. ”

It’s hard. I want to believe that in this better version of our lives, we can always look out for each other. But the forests are a dangerous place, for all they contain wonders. I understand Liv’s decision. I agree with it. I don’t like it, but I agree with it.

I just wish it could have been different.

We hold a memorial in the gathering hut, the three tribes together. Even Callif is brought out of the healer’s hut, propped up in the most comfortable chair available, heavy furs wrapped around him to keep him warm.

The raskarrans use their entire supply of candles lighting the place up, giving it a reverent sort of atmosphere. Gregar says some words, Sally translating for us as she rocks little Marsal in her arms. A lot of talk about Lina and returning to her embrace.

Then Liv gets up.

“We talk a lot of what we’ve gained since crash landing here,” she says.

“We might have to contend with bugs the size of your arm, month long rain storms and communal bathroom facilities-” A low chuckle amongst us girls.

“-but we’ve gained so many things. Instead of Mercenia’s ration cards, we have abundance.

Instead of being treated like we’re expendable, we’re valued.

Instead of empty, single occupancy homes, we have friends.

Family. Love. I’m grateful every day that we crash landed here.

That Gregar’s tribe accepted us into their number and gave us this village as our new home. ”

Sally’s translating for the raskarrans, and a number of them make gestures of respect to Liv, pressing their fists to their hearts.

“But we can feel great happiness and gratitude, and we can still mourn.”

She pauses a moment, looking between us, catching each of our gazes for a moment.

“I know I’m beyond lucky to have found my lost family here. There was no one for me to leave behind, no one for me to miss. But I know that’s not true for all of you. I know there are siblings, parents, friends you’ve left behind.”

Liv looks up to the ceiling, blinking back tears.

“And now we’ve all lost someone else in Sam.”

A few muffled sobs follow her words. My own cheeks are damp with tears.

“Sam was the first person to accept our lot here. She couldn’t wait to meet her raskarran mate.

She was the kind of person who always saw the good in everything, and she helped everyone around her see the good as well.

It didn’t matter to Sam that she couldn’t understand our new protectors - she made friends with them all, anyway.

She was an irrepressible spirit and though she was only a part of this tribe for a few short weeks, she leaves a hole behind her that could take a lifetime to fill. ”

Liv swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, taking a shuddering breath.

“Tonight we grieve her loss. And we grieve for Penny, who never made it off the beach. And we grieve for the people still living that we’ll never see again.

But we also celebrate them. We celebrate the light they brought into our lives, the good memories that we are lucky to have made with them.

We honour them with offerings in the raskarran way. ”

She gestures to an altar that’s been set up against the far wall. Just a table, but dressed in the finest fabrics and laden with candles and decorative bone carvings.

Maldek is the first to rise. He turns something over between his fingers as he walks slowly to the altar, head bowed low. When he sets it down, I see it’s a colourful stone.

The others rise, forming a line. Flowers and stones and shells and bones are left. Some for Sam, some for the raskarrans lost to the sickness. When Khadija sets down a doll made from sticks and twine, I know she’s thinking about the brother she’s left behind. The brother she can’t protect anymore.

I touch my fingers to my locket, feeling its familiar shape, then reach round the back of my neck to unfasten it.

The old, fragile chain pools in my hand, the locket resting atop it.

It’s an ugly thing, honestly. Oval with some pattern shaped into it that’s been worn down and faded over the years, the metal all tarnished.

The clasp that holds it shut is stiff, and I have to dig my nails into it to prise it open.

When it releases, it goes with a suddenness that makes me fumble, and the thing inside the locket, the chip with my family’s generations of savings on it, tumbles to the floor.

I search for it, but even bathed in all that candlelight, the gathering hut is quite dark, and the chip is small and black.

It will slip into the shadows easily. Might have even slid down between the floorboards.

But bless raskarrans and their superior low-light vision, for Endzoh bends down, plucking something tiny from the ground with his big fingers. He holds it out to me, and there’s confusion and curiosity in his expression. I’ve come to know his face so well, I don’t need much light to read it.

I’m wondering how I can explain chips and money with hand gestures when I see what he’s holding. It’s not a chip at all, but there’s no question it must have come from the locket. Because it’s a piece of paper. A tiny, folded piece of paper.

I take it from him, my heart hammering in my chest. When Mom gave me the locket, I was so sure the chip with her savings would still be inside it. But the locket is definitely empty, and nothing else would have fit inside it with the piece of paper.

I put the locket on my lap so I can use both hands to delicately unfold the paper.

It has to hold some message for me from Mom, but she couldn’t read or write, and when I left her, I couldn’t either.

Then I open out the last fold and I actually laugh, even as tears spring in my eyes, a sob escaping my throat.

Endzoh touches his fingers to my neck. I lean into it, taking the comfort he offers. I turn the piece of paper to him, showing him the picture drawn on to it. Crude, thick lines made by a fabric pen, but it’s quite clear what the image is.

“Butterfly,” I say.

Another butterfly that he has, in a way, given to me. If I had any lingering doubts left to chase away, this would have done it.

His eyebrows twitch upwards in a question I’ve got no chance of answering. I think of my mother in the hallway, telling me to bring her with me.

She never meant literally. Life on Alpha Colony was supposed to be better, but despite her passion for fairytales, I think in the end Mom was a realist. She knew there was a huge gap between ‘better’ and ‘abundant’.

If Alpha Colony was what Mercenia promised, it would have been a life of hard work, fighting tooth and nail for every little advancement I made.

Even with the meagre head start Mom’s savings might have provided, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to fly her to join me.

The only way I could ever bring her with me was in my heart.

In my memories of our time spent together, in the sewing skills she taught me from when I was barely old enough to speak in full sentences, in the stories she told me every night as she tucked me into bed. As long as I tell those stories to my own children in the future, she’s with me.

I look down at the picture she drew for me one more time. The message direct from her heart to mine. To spread my wings. Fly.

Find someone who gives me butterflies.

I smile up at Endzoh, taking his hand and tugging him over to the altar.

As we reach it, he puts his hand on my shoulder.

For a moment, we both look down at it, the collection of things placed there by everyone else.

So much grief. But so much good to grieve over, too.

I place locket down first, then the butterfly picture, resting it on top of everything else.

My mind flashes back to lying in bed at night, making butterflies on the wall with shadows cast by candlelight. I press my fingers to my lips and blow her a kiss. How far can a kiss travel across the stars? As far as it would take to reach its destination, I hope.

As we head back to our seats, Molly rises. She looks a little uncomfortable, awkward under everyone’s gazes. But Grace smiles at her, and Calran nods encouragingly, and a hush falls over the gathering hut as she takes a breath and starts to sing.

When my weary bones,

Hold my soul no more,

Don’t you cry for me.

When I go home,

To that far distant shore,

Don’t you cry for me.

Her voice is soft and soulful, the emotion of the words ringing out, but every note pitched true.

It’s an old bottom tier song. Usually one person starts it off and then everyone joins in, the only mourning we were allowed for lost colleagues, friends, neighbours.

There were no funerals on bottom tier, no ceremonies.

Just a body bag and a trip to a crematorium that no one else could go to.

An undignified exit to an undignified life.

No one on bottom tier played instruments. We never got to listen to songs. But music is something intrinsically part of the human spirit. Even Mercenia couldn’t squash it out of us.

When I close my eyes,

For the last time,

Don’t you cry for me.

For where’er the wind blows,

Is where I now go.

Their chains don’t bind me.

I look round. No one has joined in the singing, not wanting to spoil the perfect beauty of Molly’s voice, but most of the girls have their eyes closed, are mouthing along.

Only Lorna doesn’t know the song - a top tier girl would never have had cause to hear it.

She just watches Molly, eyes watery, leaning into Shemza’s side.

The raskarrans all watch with stunned faces.

In all our time here, I’ve not heard any of them sing or make music.

It’s as though Molly has cast a spell over the room, entrancing them.

And though there’s no way they understand the words, they definitely understand the spirit of the song.

As she sings through the verses, there isn’t a dry eye in the room.

And I’ll see you again,

Don’t know quite when,

But we’ll both be free,

So don’t you cry for me.

The silence that follows her final note is deafening.

For a moment, no one moves. Then Grace rises to her feet, drawing Molly into her arms. Calran gets up a moment later, putting an arm around Grace’s shoulder that encompasses Molly as well. He looks so proud of both his girls.

“Mahain flan haf Lina,” he says, and there’s a thunderous cry of voices as every raskarran in the room calls the words back to him.

I feel light as I rush back through the rain to Endzoh’s hut. To our hut.

For the past few days, we’ve slept wrapped around each other, needing the comfort and support in our grief more than we needed any other kind of intimacy. Tonight, though, I’m ready for that pattern to change.

I think of Liv’s words from the memorial, spoken to everyone, but they so easily could have been meant just for me.

We grieve for the people we’ve lost, but we should also celebrate them.

Because it wouldn’t hurt if they didn’t matter.

The people that matter to us wouldn’t want us lost in our grief. They would want us to be happy.

I think of my mother’s butterfly. Touch my fingers to the place where my locket used to rest. Then I turn and catch Endzoh’s face in my hands.

Draw him into a kiss.

We’re both soaked through, our clothes drenched by even the short trip back to our hut. It doesn’t matter, though. They don’t stay on all that long once we get started. His skin burning against mine chases out all the cold as he sweeps me into his arms and carries me to our bed.

We take our time. Touching, exploring, tasting. Speaking the language we have in common. Then we fall asleep in each other’s arms.

I know I’m not really awake, even though the scene in front of me is utterly realistic - Endzoh’s hut, exactly as it is in real life.

The giveaway is, it’s not raining. The sound of the downpour hitting the roof that’s been a constant companion for the past few days is gone, and it’s so quiet without it.

I’m lying in bed, sunlight bleeding through the walls somehow, falling on Endzoh’s face in front of me. His perfect, craggy face.

I stroke a lock of his hair back, my heart almost bursting with happiness.

His eyes flutter open. I watch the sleepiness fall out of them, his pupils narrowing as his gaze focuses on me. I see him come to the same realisation I have. Watch the happiness bloom in his face until I’m sure his expression mirrors mine.

There’s so much I want to say to him, but I’m not sure where to start.

Except at the beginning.

Once upon a time…

“Hi,” I say, pressing a kiss to his lips.

“Hello,” he replies.