Completed They Fling Their Speech

[Philomena]

Winter 52, 512
Philomena Lefting's Flat, Zeltiva
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"Qalaya, oh my mother, oh, I can feel her. Lanie is here. I can feel her, I can… she's so close…"

It was very late, later than taverns shut and earlier than bakeries opened. The only light in Minnie's flat was a spermaceti taper that burned on the altar, the pure, clean whale oil glowing steady and bright. It cast its shadows around the room not with the wavering yellow desperation of a tallow, but with a quiet, pale, smokeless dignity.

Minnie herself lay on the floor of the room. The air was as cold and pure as the light, and Minnie, who was wearing only a thin, disarranged linen slip, shivered, her skin, even in the wan light, flushed and sick and sweaty.Her left arm was stretched above her, and she lay very still. Her right wrapped around a battered, ancient doll of Qalaya, the face of it pressed tenderly against her old, drooping breasts.

"I want to be this one for you, Mother Qalaya. I am trying, I am trying. I need help, I am not strong enough for this."

She started to cry again, the noise of it lost now - she was too dehydrated for tears to provide much lubrication for sound. But her back shook underneath the thin fabric - so much sweat was in the cloth now, it practically appended to and merged with her flabby back flesh.

"This is my trial? I don't even know, not really… I… sometimes, I do not know. I guess I can't. Maybe this is your way of asking me to choose, to pick one side or the other. That's what I think, mother, sometimes. Sometimes… I … sometimes I get angry wit' you. I feel like you are upset I migh' come off happy. I am angry that you would tell me this, that I can be loved by Lanie or by you, and not both. Can you forgive me that, mother? You can, I know you can. There is a story, in my head, a whole story, I can hear it i' my skull, I can."

She pulled herself shakily to a sitting position, and cradled the doll gently, peering into its face with her unspectacled, near blind eyes.

"In my story, you love me, Mother Qalaya. Is that a silly start? Maybe. Maybe you are na' paying n'attention t'me 'tall, not hate, just not s'important to you. I could understand that, I will not hate y'for that. But, in the story, Mother, you love me, you love me very much, only… it is like when I were a chil', when y'learn some things jus' as you have to do them with no safeguards. You just have to do them, and tha's how you grow, that's what makes we little weeds grow e'en without all the dandling the flowers get. And in my story, mother, tha' is what this all is, you leave me to a test, not to test me, but because you love me, an' y'are wantin' me to be closer to you. An' then, at th'en', jus' when I figger I cannae live nae longer in it, then I feel I feel your arms 'roun' me, and you take me away somewhere ver' quiet, and I rest, and rest, and rest, and rest…"

Her voice breaks, her eyes are dull and hollow, and hungry, and her lips are dry and shaking slightly with exhaustion, "I wrote the whole story, today, in our book, Mother, start to finish." She paused, closed her eyes and kissed the little doll's face, "Oh, how I hope it's a true story. Did Bethany ever feel this way, on the Circumnavigation? Did she lay a'bed and tell you how lonely she were, and how she donny know if she could do what y'needed o' her?"

Minnie sighed, now, and stared into one of the darker parts of the room.

"No… No, I'm sure not. She 'ad Kena, after all."

This thought, sobering and heavy, drew Minnie back from the brink a bit, somehow. She gently took the doll, kissing it once more, and set it on the altar. She knelt again, and murmured softly, the normal closings of her prayers.

"Bless, for me, the ones I love. Bless Lanie first and best and most. Bless Gypa, that he is not trapped a ghost, and is happy in whatever life he went to. Bless all my books, and bless the Library. Bless Hannah's memory, that it not be forgotten. Bless the Evalin, as well, howe'er she should be blessed. And then if you've any left, bless me, mother Qalaya…"

She paused, her voice shaking there.

"…maybe… bless me just a little more than normal, now, mother, for I've need of it."

Then she leaned forward,and carefully snuffed the spermaceti candle, resting her hand on the doll, once more for just a few minutes.