The Secret City by Carol Emshwiller Read Free Book Online

on this world. And these buildings are ponderous and more gray than white because of the granite they’re carved from. Mother had talked of spires where … “flying sails” she called them … moored … but here, in order to hide, there can’t be anything taller than the trees. I suppose it’s unfair to compare this town with what it was trying to imitate.
    I go on. I push at doors and only manage to open one and that one, huge as it is, opens to a narrow hall. There’s a pallet as though someone slept there, in the dark, windowless cupboard.
    As I come down the steps, I scare a deer and wonder that it’s still up here in the cold. Then I see it limps as I do and then I see it’s hobbled. Perhaps part of the larder for later.
    I’m doing the right thing by ignoring her. She wants to be noticed. She starts dropping pinecones on me. I sit on the stairway and let myself be pelted.
    I talk again.
    “How well you climb. I always thought our kind wasn’t good at that.”
    Silence.
    “How well you throw. You never miss.”
    “…. “
    “Down below, with the hoodwinked, my name was Norman North. Do you have a native name?”
    “….”
    “I’ve lived my life below with all my food store-bought. All my clothes, too.”
    I say that because hers aren’t. What I could see of them looked pieced and patched. And that tough piece of dried meat…. I couldn’t guess what it was.
    “I don’t know what it’s like to live up here. I wouldn’t know how.”
    She doesn’t come down.
    I get up to do more exploring. The pelting stops but now and then I hear her above me in the trees. I keep to the avenue. It’s hard unless one watches for what might be the curb. I come upon a park. It’s surrounded by a low wall that has intaglio portraits of odd plants. The wall is pink tuff. The stones would have had to have been brought from the pink cliff far below. I kneel and study the carved flowers. Mother drew several of these for us but some are new to me. I start naming the ones I know out loud. When I get to
allush
, I hear her drop—a safe distance away. I don’t look. This time I know it’s not a ground squirrel.
    Allush
, a tiny flower that grows in clusters and only opens in the light of the blue ice moon when that moon is full. Its fringed leaves have a yellow center and blue outside. It was one of Mother’s favorites.
    I say, “Allush,” again.
    I turn around, carefully staring at my feet. I sit on the wall. Then I look.
    She’s cross-legged on the ground a few yards away.
    I haven’t seen any of my own kind since my parents died, my sister left, and I went off on my own without an address. I’m fascinated. I’m trembling with…. I hardly know what. Anticipation? Joy? Yes, joy. This whole place. The secret city that I’ve always wished for, always hoped really did exist. And now this woman.
    She’s dressed in tan leather, lines of green and red stitching all over it, holding it together, but also forming symmetrical designs. It imitates pine needles and helps to hide her in the trees. On her feet are moccasins exactly like the Indians of this land used to wear. Her great mop of black hair is streaked with the red typical of my people when they get in the sun. It’s matted and tangled. Have they gone completely wild up here? But how could they not?
    I must look as odd to her as she does to me. I need a shave and my mustache needs trimming. My hair has grown out after they shaved my head when I was in jail. (Ruth gave me my latest haircut. Not the best I ever had.) I must look naked to somebody used to a full head of hair and maybe to bearded men.
    We stare at each other. I can’t help smiling. She must see how happy I am—must see how I’d like to run to her and hug her. I hope I don’t look too predatory. Hard as I try, I can’t wipe that grin off my face.
    Finally I say, “Hello.”
    She nods. A quick dip of the head.
    “Can you speak?”
    She nods.
    “I’ll bet your name is Allush.”
    Another