Jeanne G'Fellers - Sisters Flight by Jeanne G'Fellers Read Free Book Online Page B

to
go.
    "What's
wrong?" I gathered the light shift I wore and sank to my knees before
Rankil, placing my hands on top of my beloved's. Rankil jumped at the contact
and pulled back, wildness sparking in her pale eyes.
    "No."
    "Okay."
I removed my hands but not my presence as I followed Rankil's gaze to the
bookcase. "What is it?"
    Rankil's
gaze flicked from me, through me, back to the bookcase, where it remained
focused, brimming with tears that wouldn't fall. "He's looking for
me."
    "Who?"
I asked in a soft voice. "Here or at the spacecraft?" The signs were
recognizable, but such an episode hadn't occurred in over two passes. The
ugliness threatened, and there was little I could do but brace.
    "I've
got to stay down." Rankil, unlike a few embittered sisters, always
mentioned males by name, except one, and his memory was so personally
synonymous with suffering that the mention made me almost as nauseous as it did
her. A few passes back we'd made a pact never to say the name again—the name of
Tisph. And his name had become nothing more than a silhouette in the depths of
night, one that we kept away in each other's arms. Since then, Rankil's
flashbacks had stopped. "He's mad about something again."
    "I
thought you were working late."
    "Oh,
no. He's taking his belt off." Rankil seemed to be grappling to merge
memory and reality. "He doesn't see me yet. Archell, be quiet, don't draw
him. Hide."
    "Archell
wouldn't tell him." If this flashback involved Rankil's cousin Archell, it
was going to be particularly painful. Archell and Rankil had each taken
punishment for the other, sometimes enduring beatings side-by-side when neither
was to blame.
    "Shut
up, Archie. Stop singing," Rankil fairly hissed.
    "Rankil,
he's not going to—"
    "Stars!"
Rankil gulped and listed back as her eyes widened. "He sees Archie! Run,
Archie, run!"
    "Why
would he want Archie?" I coaxed Rankil as Healer Garrziko had instructed
me.
    "Don't
whip him! I'm here. I'm right here."
    "What?"
    "I'm
the one who didn't brush the nassies, not Archie. He don't deserve
whipping." Rankil crawled from her hiding spot, neared the bookcase as if
reaching for something then shrunk back, falling to the floor in her scramble
to retreat. Scrolls fell from the shelves, scattering in every direction as
Rankil covered her face. "He got me, Archie. You can stop singing your
running song now. He won't whip you anymore. I'm sorry, sir. I forgot is all.
Please, no. Ow!"
    I
scooted under the dining table, safely out of the way. Something had happened
in the Pit that evening, something severe enough to trigger a full flashback.
"It's okay," I soothed from my safe spot. "He isn't really
there."
    Rankil
rose as if grabbed up, and then fell back as if dropped, landing in her chair.
"No!" She howled something unintelligible and wilted into her seat,
sobbing. "Please, no. I forgot, that's all. Meelsa called me to help her
right after you told me to do the stalls. I'll do it right now. No, sir. Ow!
Please. Please, no, please," she repeated until her breath was spent, each
becoming more of a whisper. "Please. Everything will be all right, Archie.
I messed up. That's all. I deserve it."
    "Myrla?"
a voice called from outside our door. "Myrla, open up!"
    "Coming."
I crawled on my hands and knees to the door, looking back twice to make sure
Rankil hadn't moved. Actually, she seemed to be getting smaller, drawing her
arms tighter around her knees.
    Healer
Garrziko and Dee burst through the door when I turned the latch. "Thank
the Mother she fled here." Garrziko pulled a cloth from her cloak and,
keeping clear of Rankil's sight, reached from behind the chair and placed it
over her mouth, fighting Rankil's attempts to flee until she had inhaled. The inhalant
didn't render Rankil unconscious but lured her from the flashback, bringing
reality crashing in.
    "We
got here as quickly as we could." Dee looked me over for any sort of
injury. Finding none, she turned to Garrziko, who now held Rankil in a