Shepherd’s End
1001 – 1011
Xalati & Ixtalan
Their life had more days of Mama’s absence, but her presence was so overwhelming and loud when she was there that it sometimes—almost—balanced out her absence.
She came through Shepherd’s End perhaps twice a year, signed as she was on the small whaling ship the Diamond, chasing down whales and rarer monsters. Those days were always precious, and once in a while days could stretch to weeks, or even months. Ixtalan and Xalati had been too young to remember much of the time when Mama had Yevhetsek, but the months when Mama stayed home while pregnant with Zakhal had been some of the happiest they could remember. Papa smiled nearly every day, in a way he did not for them, and even little Yev did not tantrum as much as he normally did, fascinated by this familiar giant who smelled of salt and whose hands could nearly encompass his entire body. Mama played tag with them and told them stories of the faraway lands she’d been to and the creatures she’d taken down, and they would fall asleep all together in a pile on the rug before the fire, barely stirring when she would carry them to their beds.
It was even better when she was there for Feastdays, because then the musicians would play, and they could dance with her to real music, not just the rough tuneless rhythmic humming that Mama substituted for music at other times. She would catch their wrists in one hand each and whirl them up through the steps of the dance, letting them stand on her feet at first until they learned the steps themselves, spinning faster and faster until they tumbled down, dizzy and laughing. She would drink a lot, and so would Papa, and eventually they would disappear at some point—the twins could never figure out when exactly they lost sight of them, but there was always so much going on during Feastdays that maybe it made sense they would lose track of them. Anyway, they always reappeared to scold them when Yevhetsek fussed and cried because they wouldn’t let him join their games and dancing, but he was too little to really join them and it wasn’t fun to have to dumb it down and play more gently with him around.
Those happy times always ended, though. They learned to sense the going even before being told, by the way the wind smelled and the tide went, and the faraway look Mama would get in her eyes and the amount of time she would walk the hills and stare at the ocean, and how often she smelled like the strong, sweet-smelling but awful-tasting drinks the adults had. By the time Mama left on the Diamond again, it would be just a little scary with the really loud way Mama would tell stories and throw them around while playing. Xalati was secretly a little glad for every shipping-out day. She would cry just as hard as Ixtalan, but though she cried for Mama’s going away, she also cried at how Mama left them before she actually left.
Then, one day Mama asked them, “You’re getting to be big, strong girls now. Want to join me on the Diamond for a little trip?”
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