Last of the Suncatcher Houses

Originally published in Tomorrow SF vol 4, num 5.

Rohan first met the house the night the doctors bled his mother. It was a night of only one moon, and the bleeding took place far from the cliff where the house waited.

In the Bleeding Chamber, the oldest doctor bent over her as she lay on the stone table. Yellow light from the torch Rohan held glinted off the scales on his mother's boney forearms, shining through the loose web of skin below. The scent of warm mud rose from a poultice the doctor spread with three-fingered hands.

"The bleeding took too long," he grumbled.

A soft moan escaped Rohan's mother. She didn't react when Rohan whispered her name, gently squeezing her fingers.

"You must hurry now, boy," said the other doctor. His reptilian eyes held Rohan's like prey. "When the demon spirits come out of her, they'll be blood-hungry. Take her up on the hill and don't come back for her till the morning fog thins."

"Leave her alone?" asked Rohan, shaking.

"You want to be a freak like her?" snapped the old doctor. He took back the torch, holding it between them.

Rohan swallowed and shook his head. The flames blinded him, but looking down on his mother, he didn't see a freak. Her scales were different, nothing more.

"Can you carry her?" asked the doctor in shadow.

"My sister and brother will help on the hill."

The doctors lifted his mother onto his back and pushed him out to the tunnel, where Sylee and Kippin waited.

"Momma?" said Kippin. His tiny voice was like a clear bell in the tunnel.

"She's sleeping," said Rohan. "We have to go!"

Sylee and Kippin hurried beside him in the dark tunnel as it rose to meet the night. His mother's ragged breath warmed the scales of his neck. Kippin held the edge of her cloak, his short legs running to keep up.

"Will she look normal now?" asked Sylee. "Why do we have to hurry?"

Rohan's mouth was still dry, and his body shook beneath the burden. "We can't take her with us to the Pit."

"What? What?" they both said at once.

"They said" - Rohan swallowed - "They said the demons will come out of her soon. We have to take her up on the hill above the village, where the demons can't hurt anyone."

"What about us?" asked Sylee.

"We can't stay. We have to leave her till morning."

"What about Momma?" asked Kippin. He tugged, making Rohan miss a stride.

"I don't know." Rohan had been afraid to ask. "Come on!"

An archway of cut stone shored up the tunnel exit. When he stepped out into the street, rain ran down the scales of his face, seeking refuge inside his cloak. His clawed feet gripped the paving stones, and he was half-carrying Kippin as well: His brother clung to their mother's cloak.

"Sylee, help Kippin."

She took his hand, pulling him along. "How far up the hill?" she asked.

"As far as I can carry her."

"Did they really squeeze the blood out of her?" asked Kippin.

"They didn't have to squeeze," he panted. "The cut flowed like the River Sarn."

They hurried past houses, built stone upon stone from the quarry Pit where the homeless lived, to climb a muddy path up the hill. Rohan felt a spasm shake his mother's body, and in her delerium she mumbled, "Follow." That brought back the doctor's words about demons. His mother was getting heavier.

"I'm tired!" said Kippin.

"I'll carry you a while," said Sylee.

The path squirmed around trees lurking in the darkness. They made it halfway up the hill when a gust of wind blew Sylee off balance, sending her and Kippin sliding in the mud. They sprawled in a clearing. A path across the hill intersected theirs. Pale light from a moon leaked through the clouds, making the rain visible.

"Is this far enough?" pleaded Sylee.

Rohan, who was sure the doctors meant the top of the hill, said nothing. He sagged onto his knees, laying his mother gently on her side.

In the bushes ahead of them, something jumped. Rohan jerked his head up.

"What was that?" asked Kippin.

"Just an animal." Sylee turned to Rohan. "Wasn't it?"

On the ground, their mother groaned.

"Momma!" said Kippin.

Sylee held him back.

"Water," croaked their mother.

Sylee and Rohan looked at each other.

"That didn't sound like Momma," said Sylee.

"Is it a demon?" said Kippin in a tiny voice.

Sylee whimpered and started pulling Kippin back. Closest to their mother, Rohan was paralyzed, heart pounding. All he could see was her writhing outline, close enough to touch, close enough to grab him.

"Rohan, come on," Sylee hissed.

Then their mother began to cry, dry aching sobs. She made almost no sound, and perhaps Sylee and Kippin didn't recognize it. Rohan had seen her cry only once, when his father died. His sister and brother had been too young to remember.

"Mother?" Cautiously, he stretched out his hand to touch hers.

She put her other on top of his, claws lightly touching his scales. She shook with sobs.

"The doctors told me..." He couldn't finish.

Kippin scooted forward to clutch her ankle. Sylee kept her distance.

"I'm so thirsty ..." Their mother's crying faded into the sound of rain.

"I can get water from the village," said Rohan. It was far below, out of sight.

"No!" said Sylee. "Don't leave us."

Rohan's mother licked water from her hands. "There's a cistern," she said. Rohan could barely hear her. "... by the cliff houses."

"Everyone says those are haunted!" said Sylee.

"I could go and come back," said Rohan. He looked uneasily at the dark forest.

"No!" said Sylee.

"It's closer than walking down to the village."

In the woods below, a large animal crashed through brush.

Sylee moved closer to Rohan. "If you go, Kippin and I go."

"We can't leave Momma." Kippin clutched her leg.

Struggling to his feet, Rohan picked up his mother and began walking across the hill toward the cliffs. Sylee trailed several steps behind her brothers.

#

On the cliff's edge, ruined houses crouched against the night sky like long-legged beasts. Each was built on stilts, and no one had lived in them for years. Rohan's great grandparents had, long ago.

"Where's the cistern?" he asked, but his mother was asleep again.

There was no street, only an overgrown path along the cliff. Rohan fought for balance in the wind. Lightning flashed in the valley, and its thunder rolled over them. A cat-like scream came from the forest. The house at the far end of the path was in better shape than the others, and Rohan laid his mother on the moss beneath it.

"Momma?" asked Kippin.

"Let her sleep," said Rohan. He sank to the ground.

"We're going to stay here?" asked Sylee.

"You want to walk back to the Pit?"

She looked toward the dark forest, hidden by the driving rain, and shook her head miserably.

"Go to sleep," he said. "I'll keep watch."

#

By morning, the storm had blown over. The sun peeked above the mountains across the valley, but the usual fog smothered the forest and river below.

Rohan's mother woke, weak as the night before, and told him where the cistern was. When he returned with water, Kippin and Sylee were awake. They watched tiny specks fly slowly around the mountains across the valley.

"This was my grandparents' house," said their mother, her dark eyes studying the cobweb-covered beams overhead. "I played here sometimes when I was small, but my parents didn't like it."

"You were never small," insisted Kippin.

Sylee laughed and their mother gave a weak smile. "My brother and I played seed-pod tag up on the roof. We used to throw them down the chimney, too, and when my grandmother found them, she'd say, 'What a wind there must have been!'"

"You didn't fall off?" asked Sylee.

"That's what claws are for."

"Nobody lives here now," said Kippin matter-of-factly.

Their mother shook her head sadly.

"Just ghosts," said Sylee.

"If there are, they're ghosts of nice people."

"Can we explore?" asked Kippin, eyeing the broken stairs beside the house.

His mother looked up at the house. It seemed to breathe in the wind, creaking a little. Her head swayed. "Be careful."

Kippin and Sylee started up the stairs first. Rohan followed, carrying their mother.

The entry door was gone, probably smashed and thrown over the cliff. Inside, light from the windows revealed a thick layer of grime covering the floor. When Kippin knocked over a box, Rohan saw the flooring beneath was inlaid with a design of different woods. The pattern looked like overlapping leaves.

"You can't even see the cliff from here," said Sylee. She stood before a window, and the thick glass distorted the view of a ruined house down the path, making it shimmer and flow.

"You have to go upstairs to see it," said their mother.

"We are upstairs," said Kippin.

"There's a ladder to the attic." Trying to rest, she laid her head on Rohan's shoulder.

"Where?" said Kippin.

Her wavering arm pointed, and in the light of the window, Rohan saw that her scales looked the same as always: long and delicate, overlapping like the leaves of a bush. The bleeding had failed to make them short like his. He supposed demon spirits were still within her, which made him uneasy.

Kippin scampered in the direction she'd indicated, his claws clicking on the wood floor. He found a pantry, the door fastened from the other side. They could see through cracks.

Sylee and Kippin rattled the door without effect. Then Kippin worked his tiny clawed fingers around the edge of the door and lifted the latch. The door swung outward. Empty shelves lined the small room, except for one wall with wooden climbing bars.

Sylee peered upward. "It's dark."

Their mother had drifted into slumber again. Kippin started climbing, followed by Sylee. Rohan laid his mother on the floor and waited beside her. Kippin and Sylee disappeared over the edge of the opening above. He heard them whispering to each other, heard their claws scratching on wood, moving away. Something banged - a door?

"Sylee?" he called. "Kippin?"

They didn't answer, and he no longer heard any sound of their movement. Springing to the ladder, he began to climb, grasping the bars with hands and feet.

When his eyes reached the level of the attic, he saw there was only a small platform here, with the thatch of an old inner roof sloping away from it. A narrow bridge stretched across open space to another platform. Cracks of light outlined a door above it.

He shouted Kippin and Sylee's names and heard a noise. The door banged open. They stood silhouetted in light so bright he had to squint. He waved at them.

"Come see!" called Kippin.

"I don't want to leave Mother alone."

"There's a perfect place for her to rest," said Sylee.

"We'll help you carry her," said Kippin.

Together, the three got their mother up the ladder, Kippin pulling in not-so-helpful jerks. Sylee helped make sure Rohan didn't fall.

Not until Rohan stepped onto the narrow bridge did his mother wake, at Kippin's banging of the door on the other side. He felt her raise her head from his shoulder. The old wooden bridge bowed under their weight, and the wind made it hard to balance. By the light from the open door ahead, he realized how far the drop below was. The part of the house ahead was an addition with its own stilts, angled out from the cliff. Only the roof overhead and the bridge connected the two parts of the house. Below, the rocky slope fell away toward the fog of the valley. He trembled on the bridge, and his mother gripped her arms around his neck. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he staggered forward.

Sylee grabbed him on the platform and pulled him into the light beyond.

"This house isn't safe," he gasped as his mother loosened her grip.

"Come see!" said Kippin.

Rohan could barely make out anything, his eyes squinting from the brightness.

"It's still here," whispered his mother.

Sylee tugged him forward into the room, and his eyes gradually adjusted. The light came from shafts in the roof, where glass panes and silvered mirrors focused light toward the middle of the floor. Even in the alchemists' lair he'd never seen anything like it.

His mother eased herself from his back and hobbled forward to settle onto the floor. The sunlight flamed off the great mirrors, cascading down upon her, a fragile husk of life. Kippin curled up beside her, and her uninjured arm draped around him. They slept in the warm light.

#

By the time Rohan hiked and slid down the hill into the foggy valley, the village was long awake. Rohan worked in the Pit with the other boys, and Master Lampey cuffed him sharply for being tardy.

"Sleep when it's dark," he growled. "Not when there's light for hauling rocks."

Rohan had a hard time finding his workmates, the fog was so thick in the Pit. He followed the sounds of hammers against rock.

The boy Dunch, loading rocks onto a wagon, looked up at his approach. "Did they bleed her?"

Rohan nodded.

"Did it help?"

"I don't think so."

"Must not have paid them enough." Dunch carried a load of rocks in the folds of skin beneath his arms. He dumped them onto the wagon. One rolled off onto his foot, and he hopped back, cursing.

"We paid them all we had," said Rohan.

"Not enough. Where were you all night? In the village?"

"The doctors told us to take her up the hill."

"Into the high forest?" Dunch's eyes opened wide, showing the tips of his vertical pupils. "At night?"

"I didn't get much sleep."

"You should have stolen money. The doctors don't care where it comes from. Just take a rock and - Bam! Bam! - take what you want."

"But you don't have any money."

Dunch frowned at him, annoyed by the joke. "Neither do you, now. How long you going to stand there? Carry your share!"

Because he'd been late, Master Lampey wouldn't let him join the other boys for the lunch ration. But at the end of the day, tired and sore, Rohan got his usual two coins.

With the light fading fast, the market street was nearly deserted. The widow Bolger still had a loaf of bread left, and he bought a couple of fish from her neighbor with the other coin. No one seemed to notice when he headed up the hill into the forest.

#

Sylee and Kippin were up on the high roof, dangling their feet precariously over the edge and holding on against the wind. They waved as he walked up the path along the cliff. It was still light here, above the fog in the valley, and red streaked the sky to the west.

"How's Mother?" he called up.

"Sleeping," said Kippin.

"Is that our supper?" asked Sylee.

Rohan nodded. He went under the house and climbed the stairs. Kippin and Sylee had brought wood into the kitchen, and he started a fire to cook the fish. Some of the wood was wet, and it steamed and spat as smoke rose up the chimney. He climbed the ladder to the suncatcher room. Kippin and Sylee's claws scampered on the roof above.

His mother wasn't sleeping. Red light bathed the room, and she sat by a window, staring out across the valley. When she turned, he saw the mud poultice on her arm was gone. The long scales were clean, like leaves washed by the rain.

"Are you better?"

"A little." She smiled ruefully. "It was a mistake."

"The doctors?"

She nodded.

Kippin and Sylee entered through a window.

"Sylee threw a seed-pod down the chimney!" said Kippin.

"The smoke got in my eyes. I was aiming at Kippin."

"Did you see any ghosts up there?" asked Rohan.

She rolled her eyes. "No."

"They turned into trees," said Kippin. "Momma said."

"No, that's what people in the village say. She says only one person saw, who wouldn't tell."

"About your grandparents?" Rohan asked his mother.

"The people who lived in all these houses. One day they were here, the next they were gone. No one ever found them."

"I don't want to talk about it," said Sylee. "When's supper?"

#

Every morning, Rohan slept late in the suncatcher room, and every morning Master Lampey hit him. He got used to skipping the lunch ration.

"You don't sleep in the Pit anymore," Dunch observed.

"Staying with friends," Rohan mumbled.

"Your Pit friends aren't good enough for you?"

"Mother's friends. They're looking after her." He moved away, to get rocks from Nosh, a hammer man with arms like tree trunks.

There was no wind, and fog hung thick in the quarry. Rohan felt rather than heard the hammer blows that split the stone. The smell of rock dust permeated the fog. One by one, he picked up rocks, collecting them in the folds of skin beneath his arms.

Nosh stopped hammering the rock. "People says you go in forest."

Rohan ignored him, continuing to collect rocks.

"Every night, people says."

Rohan shrugged.

Nosh placed his chisel in the rock and swung the hammer. Rohan felt the blow through the ground.

"People is grounders," said Nosh, "not tree hoppers."

Rohan took his rocks over to the wagon. He tried not to look at the others working around him.

#

Kippin wanted a picnic on the roof.

The sun was long gone, the first stars coming out. Loku, the larger moon, was nearly full. Rohan's mother had sliced the bread, and Kippin and Sylee had picked the bones out of the fish. They braced against the windward side of the chimney, watching the valley below. When Rohan shifted his weight, the roof creaked a little; the only other sounds were the wind and their eating. Kippin was noisiest.

"What do you do all day?" asked Rohan. "When I'm in the Pit."

"This afternoon," said Sylee, "Kippin told me I look like a tree."

"You're very pretty," said their mother. "You don't look like a tree."

"But she's green," said Kippin, "and her scales are growing long like leaves."

"Like Mother's," said Rohan quietly. "So are yours, Kippin."

"And yours are starting," said Sylee. She picked crumbs from her bread, scattering them in the wind. Some danced over the glass of the roof's suncatcher windows. "We're all tree demons. Like the doctors said." Sadly, she looked out across the valley.

Sylee's mother pulled her toward her, hugging her. "Demons don't cause it."

"The doctors don't know anything," said Rohan.

"When I grow up," said Kippin, "I'm going to have seed-pods on all my branches. When a good animal climbs me, it can eat the seed-pods. But when a bad animal climbs me, I'll shake it off, and I'll throw seed-pods at it, and it will run away." He hurled bread crumbs to demonstrate. They had all the force of snowflakes.

Sylee giggled.

"What?" said Kippin, looking vexed.

Rohan and his mother laughed.

#

"We know where you go," said Dunch. He smiled, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. "We had you followed, night before last, and then yesterday our tracker-boy, he went up again in the light, when it's safe. Told us all about it in the Pit by the fire last night."

"Did he?" said Rohan, gathering more rocks. The scales on the skin beneath his arms were much longer. The cloak hid them, but their padding kept the rocks from bruising like they used to. It was like holding rocks in a basket of leaves.

"He said demons danced on the ruins by the cliff, howling at the light."

"Really? I've never seen a demon."

"They were green," said Dunch, looking pointedly at Rohan.

Rohan dumped his rocks in the wagon and went to gather more.

Dunch followed him. "Shaggy. He said they were shaggy, too. Why do you wear such a long cloak, Rohan?"

"Leave me alone."

"You're a demon, aren't you? You and your whole family. All because you didn't pay the doctors enough to cure your mother."

Rohan whirled on him. "Maybe I am a demon!" he snapped. "Maybe I'll turn you into one, too."

Dunch fled. Rohan regretted the words as soon as he'd spoken them.

#

Rohan lay with his family in the suncatcher room, soaking up the morning light like a tree in the forest. He could smell the wood floor. A tiny insect buzzed nearby, and he lazily opened an eye to look for it. Twisted rainbows glowed on the floor, projected by distortions in the windows and mirrors above. Kippin snored softly beside him.

"Rohan?" Sylee whispered. "Are you awake?"

He opened his other eye and nodded.

"Look at my hand," she whispered. She stretched it out to him. The scales on her arms had grown so long and leafy, they nearly covered her hand. She wiggled her three fingers.

Rohan examined the long thin scales and her hand with care, then gravely announced, "I'm afraid these fingers will have to come off."

"Rohan, be serious," she hissed, snatching back her hand. "What are we going to do? I'm covered with leaves - I am a leaf."

"I don't know. Mother thinks the light causes it, not demons. She says it's not really a sickness."

"Maybe you should go back to the doctors, tell them what's happening."

"We don't have any money, Sylee."

"Can you get some?" Her face was pleading.

He remembered Dunch's words: take a rock. "Maybe." Rohan wasn't sure he could do that, even for his family. But he knew if he had a lot of money, the doctors would try a lot harder.

"My grandparents were rich," said their mother.

Rohan turned. He hadn't realized she was awake.

"Is there a treasure?" asked Sylee.

She smiled and shook her head. "Just this house."

"If they were rich, why did they disappear?" asked Sylee.

Abruptly, there was a sound of breaking glass.

Kippin sat up. "What was that?"

"Someone's come from the village!" Rohan sprang to his feet and ran to the door.

Hurrying across the bridge to the main house, he heard voices from outside. He smelled smoke. On the other side, from the top of the ladder, he could see no one below in the pantry. Cautiously he climbed down. Beyond the doorway, broken glass lay in the main room. He was breathing fast, trying not to make noise. Smoke drifted into the pantry; he fought not to cough.

The voices were still outside the house, so he stole a glance into the room. Empty. Smoke blew in through the shattered window. The shards of glass looked like icicles dripping toward its center.

He thought he recognized some of the voices. Creeping forward, he peered over the windowsill. There were the homeless from the Pit, as well as some villagers. Many were carrying torches. Smoke came from burning houses behind them. He saw Master Lampey and at that moment, their eyes locked.

"There's the boy!" said Lampey.

For a moment the group outside was silent, then one stepped forward; the old doctor who'd performed the bleeding on his mother.

"Come out, boy. I want to talk to you."

"But he's a demon!" said Dunch, waving his arms.

"Quiet."

Rohan stayed where he was. Flames and dark smoke rose from all the other houses along the cliff. With the crowd silent, he could hear the roar of the flames. Smoke fanned out across the valley, casting shadows on the fog below.

The doctor spoke. "We can still help you, bleed the demon blood out of you. You're not as far taken as the others."

Rohan only stared, seeing Nosh, Dunch and all the others gathered against him.

"Come now or burn with the others!"

Rohan turned and fled into the pantry. He heaved himself up the ladder into the attic above. Another window shattered below. He heard a hammer man pounding against one of the stilts supporting the house.

"Mother!" he shouted. "We have to get out!" He looked down from the bridge at the sharp rocks below.

"What's happening?!" asked Kippin.

"They're burning all the houses! Come on!"

There was a great crack as one of the stilts broke. The house groaned, and smoke billowed beneath the bridge.

"We need to get onto the roof," said his mother.

"What?!"

"We'd be trapped!" said Sylee.

"No, listen to me! I was here. I was the one who saw."

"Where? Saw what? Mother, we have to get out!"

Hammer blows thudded against another of the stilts.

His mother didn't make a move toward the bridge. "When the people here disappeared, I was on the cliff path. I wasn't supposed to be: I was supposed to be home in the village. It was in the morning, just like this morning, and I saw all the people up on the roofs of their houses." She swallowed.

Sparks danced up from beneath the bridge, like fire bugs in the night.

"I went to my grandparents' house: this house. They were both on the roof, too. They'd removed their cloaks, and they looked like us: Long scales like the leaves of a tree. I asked them what they were doing, and they pointed across the valley. The sun blazed there, edging above the mountain."

Another stilt broke, and windows in the main house shattered from the stress. Rohan heard the crackling of the fire.

Sylee was wide-eyed, shaking. "Mother!" she pleaded.

Their mother continued. "One-by-one, on all the roofs, the people began falling, like trees in a storm. They leaped toward the valley. And between the houses, I could see that they fell for only a little way before they spread their arms, and the wind held them up like leaves. They swirled in the air, using their arms and the wind to travel through the air over the River Sarn, toward the mountains on the other side.

"Grandmother swooped by the edge of the cliff, near where I was standing, and called: 'Follow. Someday, follow.' And then they blew away, above the fog. And I couldn't tell, because no one would believe." There were tears in her eyes.

"I believe," said Kippin.

The house shuddered, even the suncatcher part, and the crackling of flames had become a roar. Clouds of smoke drifted over the roof, shading the mirrors and draining light from the rainbows on the floor.

"Rohan?" said Sylee.

He looked into his mother's eyes. They weren't a demon's eyes, and he saw she believed the memory. But it was her memory, not his, and the valley was a long way to fall.

Sylee took his hand, leading him to the window that opened onto the roof. Kippin opened the window and climbed out. His mother followed, then Rohan and Sylee. Smoke blew past. Flames were devouring the walls of the house, curling high above the roofline facing the path. The main house tilted, crippled by the broken stilts. On the other side, the valley spread out below the rocky cliff. Smoke flew above it, showing the way to the mountains across the Sarn.

Rohan was shaking, and the smoke made him cough. The air was getting unbearably hot. He felt heavy, fragile: a creature of ground, not air. Flames lurked behind, and a deadly drop in front.

Kippin doffed his cloak, and the wind blew it away. When he spread his arms, the scales on the membranes beneath them fanned out. Sylee caught Kippin's hand as the wind lifted him, and Rohan held hers.

"We should all leap together," shouted their mother above the roar of flames. She pulled off her cloak, exposing her body to the sunlight.

Sylee and Rohan took theirs off, and he felt the wind tug at his leafy scales. People around the house had spotted them. They pointed up at the roof and shouted, but the fire's roar swallowed their words. Dunch just stared.

The house groaned like a thing alive, and Rohan felt the roof tilt beneath his clawed feet. Windows shattered one after another in the suncatcher room. His eyes burned from the smoke, and his mouth was dry. Kippin hopped up and down.

"Time to go," said Rohan's mother. She tugged him gently. "Ready?"

He wasn't, but Kippin leapt. Sylee and his mother jumped to follow. Finally Rohan swallowed and leaped toward the rocks. He spread his arms, stretching the membranes beneath them, and the wind caught him, hurling him farther out from the cliff. The drop below looked like forever, and he fought for balance in the air. The wind blew the others on ahead like leaves. They sought their own balance in the air.

"Follow! Follow!" said Kippin and Sylee, laughing.

Far ahead, specks flew around the mountain. Rohan beat the air with his wings, learning from the wind.

Copyright (C) George S. Walker 1996.