FEATURED STORY
“ Been cookin ’ for the soldiers nigh on five months ,” Cathay said , after a moment . She had a leanmuscled body with broad shoulders and narrow hips . Her angular visage was androgynous ; she might have been taken for a young man but for a slight protuberance of breasts .
“ Where they find you ?” Silas asked , wiping soup dribble from his chin with the back of a gnarled hand .
“ Missouri . My papa was a freeman , my mama a slave belonging to William Johnson .” “ Both dead ?” Another gravedigger inquired . Cathay nodded .
“ Papa worked for master Johnson . He was gonna buy my mama and me . Then the war broke out and master Johnson died . Most of the slaves took to the wind , but my mama , she was powerful sick at the time , so we stayed put on the small patch of land that my daddy leased from master Johnson . We was hopin ’ mama would get better ‘ fore we was run off . Or worse .”
Cathay was quiet , her eyes too hard for a girl barely sixteen .
“ One day , a handful of gray coats , war torn and full of hate , come set up camp on master Johnson ’ s property . Papa seen to their wounds , ‘ cause he knew about healing and such . I helped feed and tend to them . Once they was back on their feet , Papa thought sure they might leave us be . ‘ Stead , they burned our house to the ground and strung my daddy from a tree . Shot him till there weren ’ t nothin ’ left but blood and rags .”
The men shook their heads woefully ; they knew how this story ended .
“ For three days , the gray riders did unspeakable things to my ma and me ,” Cathay continued , her voice never faltering . “ It was a blessing when mama finally passed . Maybe they expected me to die as well , ‘ cause they took off sudden as they come . I must ’ ve lie there in the ashes for days before a Union patrol happened by . Don ’ t know why I didn ’ t just give up the ghost .”
Cathay ’ s hands strayed to a thin leather cord that hung from her neck . The cord held a glass vial , filled with a blue-purple liquid that glowed like moonlight in a bottle . Its gentle luminescence was eclipsed by the greater brilliance of the fire , yet the brief radiance held the gravediggers transfixed until Cathay released the cord , letting the vial slip back beneath her blouse . The men lurched a bit as if startled out of a dream .
Cathay stood , dusting her long skirt with the flat of her hand .
“ Reckon I ’ ll be staying close to the front lines of this war till I find a way to bring a little hell of my own to them that deserves it ,” she said , sauntering into the twilight .
Night was the most difficult time . Cathay lie awake , still as a corpse drowning in the snores and murmurs of her fellows , their knotted bodies pressed close , nothing but scraps of cloth between their
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Genesis Science Fiction Magazine Winter 2017