Tithing Time

Tom climbed the hill to the four black, spiral-carved stones. Two stood and two lay fallen on the stubby grass.  He had so far forgotten his piety as to sit on one, watching as the sun went down, the chill from the stone seeping through his clothes.

“A little early, aren’t you?”

Tom didn’t move, didn’t turn to face the man who’d spoken.  “I’m very tired.”

“Aren’t we all.”  Kai came into view, moving gracefully like he always did, dressed in black like he always was.  He leaned against one of the standing stones and looked at Tom through half-shut eyes, fading light falling over his lithe body.

“Look, you said if I met you here at sunset, you’d help me.”  Tom pulled at one rough, homespun sleeve.  “I can’t wait anymore.  My wife—”

Kai shook his head.  “I said if you brought me something at sunset, I’d help you.  For that matter, I only said I’d get you an audience.  I make no promises about Her.”  He began circling the stones, feet tracing the old lines worn into the rocky ground.  “I don’t know what to make of Her these days.  It’s nearly time for the Tithe, which probably explains why She agreed to see you.  With my help She’s kept out of hell this long; your kind always seem to get in trouble just when the time is up and She has a use for one of you.”  He rested a hand on the nearest stone, smiling.  “And here you are.”

“I’ve always wondered.”  Tom knew he was making a mistake, but said it anyway.  “What are you to Her?”

“What did you bring me?”  Kai’s finger traced the spiral on the rock standing next to him. 

The spiral reminded Tom of an open throat, tongue protruding, a toothless scream.  Tom sighed and nodded to the basket at his feet.

Kai didn’t look at it.  “You all tell stories about it, but this is only the fourth time I’ve seen any of you actually do it.  A firstborn.  Does your wife know?”

“No.”  Tom wondered if his own father had felt this way when he’d brought the Tithe a generation ago.  “She wouldn’t understand.  You know what women are.”

“I don’t, actually.” Kai’s voice was cold as a winter river, cold as the frost-slicked feather of a starling.

“But I thought, spending so much time with the Lady—”

Kai shrugged, and bent to stare into the eyes of the baby in the basket.  They were dark, for a child this young; the baby couldn’t have been more than three or four days old.  “She doesn’t like to share, and I’m old enough now to be philosophical.  A girl?”

“A boy.”  Only the memory of blighted barley and a wife writhing with childbed fever kept Tom talking.  His mind shied away from the memory of the Lady standing framed in his doorway.  “She told us it had to be a boy this time.”

Why else would he have chosen his own child, by all that was holy?

“She what?”  Kai sprang backward from the basket, pale.  “She couldn’t have, She…”

“What couldn’t I have done?”

At the sound of Her voice both men hunched their shoulders, like birds in the wind.  She stepped lightly up the hill, the train of her green and silver gown fading into tendrils of mist.

“This baby is a boy.”  Kai’s voice went colder, if that was possible, cold as flowers in the snow, cold as pain, but his eyes burned with green fire.  “You promised me.  Don’t you dare say you’re tired of me.”

Her hair reached to her feet, falling around Her like a golden cloak, swirling in the wind.

“It has been a long time.”  Her eyes were the color of a sandstorm, and her lips were golden-pink, like plums, bitten.  “You were never meant to live forever.”

Kai turned on Tom.  “You knew, didn’t you?”

“I don’t even know what’s happening now.”  Tom’s bones creaked with weariness.  It took so much doing not to look at the basket.

“I won’t.”  Kai’s eyes were fixed on Hers.  “I won’t go.  The baby is mine.  He gave it to me.  I’ll use it to pay your Tithe.  I won’t go, you can’t—”

She smiled.

Kai’s voice broke into a high, cold wail.  Tom kept his eyes on his shoes.  That scream was so cold, cold as stone.

The wail stopped.  Tom only looked up when he saw Her shimmering fingers twine around the handle of the basket.

“You’ll lift the curse?”  Tom stood, not knowing where to look now.  At least the baby wasn’t crying.  He could hold on to that in the days ahead, when he would have to tell his wife lies and bury a tiny, empty coffin.

“Your crops will grow again, if that’s what you mean.  And your wife will live and bear you more children.”

“What will you do to him?”  This was the first time, even in his thoughts, that Tom had referred to the baby as “him”.  It was astonishing how much it hurt to do so.

“He’ll live longer than you or any of your children will.”  There was something like pity in Her tone; Tom couldn’t look at Her face.  “And when it’s time—”

“You’ll pay the devil a Tithe?”  Tom’s mouth had gone dry and bitter.  He shouldn’t have called the baby “him”.  “You’ll keep yourself out of hell with my son’s soul?”

“He’s not yours anymore.”

It was the boredom in Her tone that made Tom look up.  It was Her smile that made him run.

Five black stones shone against the rising moon, carved with spirals, two standing and three lying stretched on the stubby grass. 

She sat on one, cold as a winter river, cold as a frost-slicked starling’s wing, and picked up the baby.  She stared into the baby’s dark eyes.

She smiled.



990 words