FSF, March-April 2010 Read Online Free

Mother's voice clips across my thoughts. She is struggling up the hill with two pails balanced out from her body in either hand.
    I snap the book shut.
    "Ourania!” Mother calls again. “Help me with the door."
    I open the door and stand back so she can pass through with the pails, honeycombs resting in sticky blocks at their bases. I keep quiet the rest of the evening. We finish butchering the stag in the cellar and jar the honey. We bake more bread. We light our lamps. We wait.
    * * * *
    "Father,” I ask that night when most of the bread from our dinner is gone. “Could you take me with you to the wood, if you wanted?"
    He chuckles, raising his eyebrows at me over the soup bowl at his mouth. “What do you want with the forest?"
    My eyes slide down to the empty bowl in front of me. I pick at a heel of bread. “You could teach me to hunt. I could help you."
    "But then who would help your mother? And who would be our messenger?” Father asks. He reaches across the table and pats my hand. “You make a better Mercury than you would a Diana, I think."
    I must be scowling, because Father laughs again. “Is your mother's company wearing on you?"
    "No,” I say. I pour the last of the wine into my cup. “I only miss you, that's all."
    "And you don't think my company would wear on you, too?” Father asks.
    "No,” I say again, cutting my eyes down to the table. I can see he doesn't mean to answer me. I open my mouth to speak again, then change my mind and snap my jaw shut instead.
    Father lifts an eyebrow. “Is there something else you wanted to ask, Ourania?"
    I duck my head and feel my face fill with heat. “No,” I say in a small voice.
    "You know I'll tell you anything you want to know,” Father says. “You only have to ask."
    I hesitate, and raise my eyes to him. “Do you know what a locomotive is?"
    Father's eyes narrow. “Where did you hear that word?” His voice has a tang of metal in it. I am suddenly aware of all the beasts he has felled.
    "Nowhere,” I say, dropping my eyes again quickly. My heart speeds up and I can feel the bread and lentils in my stomach curdle. “Nowhere. I mean, I read it. There was a book Mother had me read.” I bite the sides of my tongue and widen my eyes at the empty space on the table between us. He can't know all I've been reading. I might very well have seen the word written. I chance a look up to see if he'll take in what I've fed him. He stares back at me with that same hard look in his eyes. His usual, easy smile is gone, and I catch a glimpse of something dangerous coiled in its place.
    I rise to clear the bowls from the table. Father remains, watching me move about. I keep my back to him and push my hands beneath the water in our kitchen basin so he won't see them shaking. After a moment, I hear the scrape of his chair as he rises, and then the low tumble of wood as he kneels to build up the hearth fire. I stay at the dishes longer than I need, wiping them dry with extra care so I won't have to turn around and see the awful power in my father's face again.
    "Would you like to hear a story, Ourania?” Father asks, his voice softened and friendly again. He stands in the doorway, but I can barely hear him over the pop of burning logs.
    I sigh, slipping back into the comfort of our routine. “Please,” I say.
    Father has told me about Diana springing forth from father Zeus's head, Lord Rama, and the hero Sunjata's sister, who married the spirit beneath the hill, and later betrayed her husband to save her brother. Tonight he will tell me of the god Osiris, whose brother murdered him and scattered his flesh over the Nile, and of faithful Isis, who gathered together the body of her husband, and restored him to a throne in the underworld.
    * * * *
    But down on the earth, the sun halted its course at the edge of the sky. Dark did not fall, and all the beasts were trapped in a terrible half-light.
    " Why has Day stopped her course? Where is Night? ” the animals cried. They