The Book of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #1) - M. R. Carey Page 0,68
“The red needs a button,” say, or “That would do well if you put some kohl on your eyes.” She was happy on account of they was happy, and I knowed she would be the same if it was me.
I felt somewhat ashamed, right then, for how heavy my heart was. It made me feel like I was an enemy to the happiness that was around me. But when my mother asked me what I was purposing to wear for the feast and the wedding, I only shaked my head and muttered that I hadn’t given it no thought.
“Well, it’s high time you did,” she said. “With only three days left to think in.”
“If I take three days to dress and three days to undress,” I said, “there’s the whole week gone.”
Everyone was looking at me now, kind of wondering. “Koli, it’s your best friend,” Athen said. “Don’t you want to be rejoicing with him on the day he marries?”
“Of course I do,” I said, and it sounded just about as hollow as a barrel.
“Enough,” says my mother. “Why don’t we do some sewing once we’ve cleared up? I think I’ve got a button for that red skirt, and a strip of cloth that will make a ribbon.” She was trying to find the happy mood and put it back again, but that’s not a thing that comes with trying.
I finished my meal and went off to bed, having nothing to say for myself. Jemiu watched me go, wearing a look that was troubled. If she had been a different woman, she might of asked me what ailed me, and I might of told her. But then, that was what Athen and Mull had been asking, in their various ways, at the table, and I never said nothing then.
In my room, I undressed and sat down on the bed, the DreamSleeve in my hand. I called on Monono in whispers to answer me, and I slid the switch across again and again, until I had to leave off for my thumb was too stiff. There was not a breath of sound or a glimmer of light from the box. It was still dead.
I gun to grieve then, the way I should of grieved to start with. I had done this thing because I was so dead fixed on being a Rampart. I had sent Monono away on a fool’s errand in a world that wasn’t the same as the one she remembered. It was like I sent her out of the gates on a day like this one was, with the sun almost showing through the clouds, and waved to her and wished her well as she walked off towards the deep woods.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the DreamSleeve’s window. “I’m so sorry, Monono. Please come back. I don’t care about you not being a weapon. I just want you to play music for me, and be my friend.”
But there wasn’t no answer, and by and by I fell asleep. I must of done, for I waked the next morning with the wind rattling the window and my mother calling me to breakfast. The DreamSleeve was where I left it, on the bed, where anyone could of seen it if they come in the room. I slipped it under the bolster and washed myself in the basin, the cold water making me shiver and gasp out loud.
It seemed the weather had turned at last. On a short rein, as they say, between one day and the next. There would be no more sun now until Spring come round again.
“Good riddance,” Jemiu said. “Now we can get some real work done. And that includes you, Koli. Whatever’s been ailing you these past days, you’ve got to set it aside and help me.”
“I’ll do it, Ma,” I promised her.
Inside my head I thought: what did it matter now what I did and didn’t do? Work was as good as anything.
27
I worked furious hard.
I had seen drunk men fight twice in my life, and drunk women once. All three times it seemed to me like in some way they was fighting themselves. There was a kind of fury inside them that the drink brung on, and it had them throwing punches at whatever come in front of them. It didn’t really matter where their blows fell. What they was swinging at was that red fog inside their own head