Commitment Hour

I could feel…

Pressing into me, the unmistakable feel of… pressing into my rump…

I've been a woman. I know what it's like when a man comes up fondly behind you and snuggles his crotch against your butt.

Thank the gods, at least Dorr wasn't erect.

There was a fight… or maybe it only deserves to be called a scuffle. Steck drew her machete, its blade glinting at the edge of my peripheral vision. Then Rashid shouted something I couldn't hear because of Dorr's pained panting in my ear.

Whatever Rashid said, it had to be a threat — Spark Lords had a strict scorched-earth policy when it came to protecting their own. I don't know if Rashid even drew a weapon… but that armor of his might have concealed an arsenal of guns, death beams, any of the thousand and one lethal gadgets you hear about in campfire tales. Even Mintz was smart enough to realize he'd gone too far. In a moment, I could hear feet pounding away into the distance, our brave warriors running off through the trees.

And I scarcely paid them any attention.

Dorr was a Neut. I could feel a woman's breasts and a man's groin, tight against me, touching me except for our clothes.

Feverishly, I tried to crawl my way out, away from being sandwiched between a corpse and a Neut. I didn't know which appalled me more.

'Hold still!' Hakoore hissed, and he slapped my shoulder. 'Dorr's hurt.'

Hakoore. The Patriarch's Man. He had to know about Dorr. How could he not know? He lived in the same house, for heaven's sake. Wouldn't she have to shave several times a day to keep her face looking female? Maybe not — I'd heard that some Neuts were naturally smooth-faced like women. But even so…

He'd have to know. The Patriarch's Man. And he protected her.

Oh, I could imagine how it all happened. If anyone in the village had the self-destructive defiance to Commit Neut, it was Dorr. She might have done it simply to rebel against Hakoore, or to make an artistic statement in the same vein as her taffy-stretched horses. Then again, Dorr might have chosen it as the only escape from her grandfather's tyranny: guaranteed banishment to a new life in the South.

Except that she must have looked too much like herself.

When people come back after Commitment, no one asks them to drop their pants to prove they aren't Neut. It's assumed everyone will just know — if you return from Birds Home and you don't look like your male or female self, you have to be Neut. But suppose Dorr was like Cappie's sister Olimbarg: suppose the Neut version of Dorr wasn't so different from the female. Dorr's last year before Commitment had been spent male… so when she came back from Birds Home, no one had seen her female body since the summer before. If her Neut body looked enough like her female self that no one immediately cried foul…

Back Dorr went to Hakoore's house. Probably delighted with herself. She'd never openly confronted the old snake, and wouldn't do so now — no stripping naked to exhibit what she'd become. But in her passive defiant way, she'd soon make sure Hakoore found out: leaving the door to the commode ajar as she urinated standing up, something like that.

Only Hakoore never kicked her out in disgrace. He didn't set her free.

Our Patriarch's Man hadn't denounced her. Maybe he didn't want to lose face in front of the community; maybe he refused to let Dorr slip from his grasp; maybe he had some actual affection for her, hard as that was to believe. He kept her home and kept her under his thumb.

I tried to remember how many times I'd seen Dorr out of the house without Hakoore keeping a milky eye on her. Not often. And it suddenly occurred to me why Dorr seldom spoke, and then only in whispers: her Neut face might be close to her old one, but her voice had changed. Her voice must have deepened and Hakoore bullied her into keeping that a secret.

For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her… for It. Then I remembered those two kisses in the basement, and I almost retched. My lips had touched a Neut. Been touched by a Neut. Had that thing been pining for me all these years? No, I told myself, no. This was all Steck's fault. Dorr had only grown brash at the sight of another Neut, an unashamed Neut with no sexual scruples…

'Let me help you up,' Steck said from close by. She was talking to Dorr, and there was a soppy tenderness in her voice. Another person might have taken this as simple gratitude — Dorr had saved Steck by throwing off Mintz's aim — but I thought I heard more in my mother's tone.

Recognition? Approval? It wouldn't surprise me that Neuts could identify each other in some creepy way we normal people wouldn't understand.

Dorr's weight eased off me. 'Did you touch the corpse?' Hakoore hissed. 'Do you know who you are? What's my name?'

'Bonnakkut didn't take me for his death-wife.' Dorr spoke in her usual half-whisper, but I could hear the strain in it. 'Fullin saved me.'

'Don't mention it,' I mumbled as I rolled off Bonnakkut's corpse. Partly to avoid meeting anyone's eye, I carefully started brushing ants off my clothes.

'I'm sure,' Dorr said, 'you would have done the same thing, Grandfather, if Fullin hadn't reacted first.'

Hakoore inhaled sharply. Dorr watched him, her eyes glittering as they silently accused him of cowardice.

'Are you sure you aren't hurt?' Rashid asked.

Dorr didn't speak. I was the one who finally answered, 'She broke her wrist.'

'Nonsense,' Hakoore hissed. 'It was just a little fall.'

But Steck lifted Dorr's arm and examined it closely. 'It's swelling,' she said. 'We'd better take you to the doctor.'

Dorr shrugged. 'I can go myself.'

'We're taking you.' There was a finality in Steck's voice. 'You too, Fullin.'

'I'm fine,' I said.

'She fell on you pretty hard,' Steck insisted. 'You should be checked out.'

'No thank you.'

'Fullin…' Steck began.

'Traditionally,' Rashid nudged me, 'this is where a headstrong young man would say, 'You aren't my mother!' '

Steck's mouth closed abruptly. The Spark Lord looked at her, his face the picture of innocence.

'Get out, the lot of you,' Hakoore growled. 'Bonnakkut's mortal soul is in an empty hell, suffering torment every second until he's released. Leave me alone to my job.'

'Come on,' Steck said to Dorr, putting an arm around her shoulders as Dorr supported her own injured wrist.

'Yes, let's go to the doctor,' Rashid told me, 'just to humor my dear Bozzle. Maria can be such a handful when she doesn't get her way.'

I glanced at Hakoore. Gruffly, he waved me off. So why had he decided he didn't want his 'disciple' here after all? Guilt that I had saved Dorr from eternal damnation while he did nothing? Or was it something else? Cappie claimed my face was perennially obvious; maybe something about my expression had betrayed what I learned about Dorr as she lay on top of me.

Well, Hakoore needn't worry about me blurting the truth to the world — not when I could hold it over his head until he reconsidered this 'disciple' business. I would never stoop to blackmail; but what was wrong with two gentlemen agreeing to exchange favors?

For the first time since dawn, I could smile.

FOURTEEN A Gift of Blood for Master Crow

Doctor Gorallin's home had been on the verge of collapsing for most of my lifetime. She had the idea she would be a great renovator, handier with tools than anyone in the village because she had surgical training… so whenever someone offered to re-shingle the roof or shore up that corner where the foundation was sinking, Gorallin would growl in her suffer-no-fools way and swear she intended to do it herself.

She never did. When I was ten, Zephram persuaded me to fake a desperate stomach ache to drag Gorallin out on a prolonged house call. That gave a squad of barnstorming carpenters enough time to dash into her place and repair the parts closest to total disintegration. They said they'd done a perfect job of concealing the work they did, but it wasn't good enough to fool Gorallin's steely gaze. The moment she saw her home, her eyes narrowed; then she turned around and came directly back to Zephram's house saying, 'I've reconsidered. When a boy is as sick as poor dear Fullin, he deserves a thorough enema.'

Sigh.

In Gorallin's waiting room, we found Cappie pacing, her face pale. 'Weren't you supposed to be finding the priestess?' Rashid asked.

'I did,' Cappie answered. 'Leeta decided she'd rather visit Bonnakkut's family alone. And she told me I'd better bring Pona… my daughter…' Her voice broke off.

'Pona's giving the Gift?' I asked. Cappie nodded.

Tentatively I held my arms open. After a moment's pause, she slid in against me. I even made an effort not to look down the loose front of her shirt — Cappie had helped me through the previous year when I brought my son to give the Gift, and I believed in repaying my debts.

'What's happening?' Rashid asked, his voice too chipper and intrusive. 'What's does it mean, giving the Gift?'

'At this moment,' Cappie replied, 'the doctor is cutting a hole in the back of my daughter's neck.'

'She's…' Rashid stopped himself. 'Cutting a hole. Well, well. How extraordinary.' He turned to Steck, who was helping Dorr settle into a chair to wait. 'When you told me about Tober Cove, Maria, you didn't mention anything about giving a Gift.'

'It's stupid superstition,' Steck replied airily. 'Beneath a scientist's notice.'

Cappie pushed herself out of my arms to confront Steck. 'You think I'd let the doctor cut my daughter just for superstition?'

Steck shrugged.

'You know this is crucial,' Cappie snapped. 'Without the Gift, the gods won't accept Pona when she goes to Birds Home. She'll be Locked her whole life.'

'Really?' Rashid's voice had just shifted from idle curiosity to something more intense. 'Tell me about this Gift.'

Neither Steck nor Cappie answered — they were too busy glaring at each other. Finally, Dorr spoke in her half whisper. 'The first year of a child's life, the gods