For Whom the Sun Sings Read online

  “I really shouldn’t be late for lessons,” Andrius replied, baffled by Daniel’s nonsensical conversation.

  “Here, just a second. Come in a little closer.” Andrius cautiously obliged, and Daniel looked both ways before speaking. He lowered his voice. “Andrius, why is everyone here blind?”

  Andrius heard the last of his classmates in the distance. He was going to be late.

  He backed up toward the road. “I have to go.”

  Daniel kept talking anyway. “No, I mean it. It’s kind of freaking me out. Why is every person in this village blind? You’re the only one I’ve seen so far who’s not.”

  “I have to go,” Andrius said. He turned and ran, not having to worry about spilling his water pitcher, which was now empty. He was definitely going to be late.

  “He was weird,” Andrius said aloud.

  He had a bad habit of talking to himself.

  Andrius’s offering was not picked. No one liked it or understood it, and his instructor even made him stay late to scold him for his lack of effort. Andrius tried to explain about his patterns, but once the instructor got annoyed, he stopped trying.

  Berena’s offering was picked. She would be singing on the Day of Remembrance as representative of the village’s eleven-year-olds.

  It wasn’t surprising, really, but Andrius had let himself hope. One day he would come up with a pattern other people liked. Maybe.

  Andrius walked alone down Brick Road, past Fifth Brick and then Fourth Brick, pondering. The sun sang its dying dirge, and it made Andrius solemn. He was glad he had his cane today. When the sun stopped singing, he might actually need it.

  He was hoping to run into Daniel again when he came to Gimdymo Namai, but when he reached it, Daniel was gone. The shutters were closed and he couldn’t hear anything from inside.

  The stranger had talked funny and he didn’t make a lot of sense, but still, Andrius was curious to talk with him some more. He didn’t get to ask him why he had been on the other side of the barrier. That might have been the most curious part of all.

  And his eyes.

  Andrius walked pensively until Fourth Stone, where Milda and Berena were talking outside of Berena’s house. The sun’s singing had stilled to a whisper.

  “Hi, Milda,” Andrius said, waving. “Berena.” He meant to keep on walking, but the girls stopped him.

  “Berena, listen to this—Andrius was there with me. Andrius, come here.”

  Andrius hesitated. No one ever called him over unless it was to give him a lecture, but they seemed innocent enough. He wandered over cautiously.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “You two talked with that man we saved?” Berena asked. Her clear, high voice sang through the air effortlessly. Still, Andrius preferred Milda’s.

  He nodded. “Yes. We talked with him on the way to lessons.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Andrius?” Milda prompted him.

  “Well,” Andrius began, furrowing his brow. “A lot of things that didn’t make sense. He liked my offering though. The pattern.”

  “He liked your pattern?”

  “He kept using words we didn’t know,” Milda interrupted. She put a hand on her chest. “And I’m sorry, I know that we’re only eleven, but I do have a great vocabulary. I think he was making things up.”

  “Is that true, Andrius?”

  “I don’t know. He did use a lot of strange words.”

  Berena leaned on her cane and twisted it into the dirt. “Well, guess what I heard him say?”

  “You talked to him too?” Andrius asked, wide-eyed.

  “She caught him for a little bit after lessons, in the same spot,” Milda explained. “What did he say, Berena?”

  “Oh, normal things, mostly. But when I said something about the Day of Remembrance and I expressed my love for our heroic founder Zydrunas . . .” Milda and Andrius nodded, hanging onto Berena’s every word. She stopped and pursed her lips, and then she dropped her voice to a whisper. “He got really weird, like he was disgusted or surprised or something. He asked if I meant the Zydrunas, and of course I meant the Zydrunas, and you know what he called him?”

  The question hung in the air. Andrius held his breath.

  “A murderer. He called our honored Zydrunas, the First Prophet, a mass murderer.”

  Milda gasped.

  “Why would he say that?” Andrius demanded.

  Berena shrugged. “I don’t know, but he did. Then he got sort of angry and asked if we worship a bunch of other people’s names I don’t remember. Hitster and Jenkius Can, or something like that. I had never heard of them before.”

  “He’s crazy!” Milda exclaimed. “I knew he was.”

  Berena was nodding. “I wanted to ask him why he’d say something so . . . so . . . disgusting, but then the Prophet and the Regent of Stone came out and took him into Gimdymo Namai.”

  “Wow,” said Milda breathlessly.

  “Wow,” Andrius repeated.

  “And he used a lot of words I didn’t know. Like you said.”

  “Huh.”

  “But you can’t tell any of the other kids, okay? Touch four walls and begin.”

  Milda’s face scrunched in confusion. “Berena, village leaders only say that when they’re discussing matters of life and death so they can make sure no one overhears, but there aren’t any walls out here.”

  “And you already said what you don’t want people to overhear,” Andrius added.

  Berena sighed. “It’s just an expression.”

  A voice called out from the house suddenly. “Berena? Berena, are you out there?”

  “Coming!” Berena shouted back. It was never very loud when Berena shouted, but she tried. “I have to go. Dinnertime, you know.”

  “Bye, Berena.”

  “Bye.”

  She groped for the guideline that led from Fourth Stone to her house. Once she gripped it, she followed it away and was quickly gone. It was getting harder to hear.

  Milda walked with Andrius to the next stone, where she lived, but they did not speak much. Andrius was thinking.

  He couldn’t help a smile. Milda had called him over. Thoughts of his bizarre conversation with Daniel kept trying to creep to the forefront of his consciousness, but he pushed them away. For the moment, he wanted to think about Milda.

  “Hello?” Andrius called. The old wooden door creaked as he opened it and stepped into the hut at Twenty-fifth Stone. It was impossible to hear inside. “I’m back,” Andrius said. “Have you gone to the Stone Gathering already? Is there any dinner?” he added, mumbling to himself.

  Daiva’s harsh voice came out of the nothingness. “You come home late and you dare to ask about dinner?”

  Andrius’s stomach knotted up immediately. He didn’t like to be wrong. “It’s not my fault,” he began. “My instructor made me—”

  “All I hear are excuses for disrespect, tardiness, and . . . what else? Gluttony.”

  The chair Daiva must have been sitting in made a popping sound as she shifted her girth in it. It almost sounded like something had broken.

  “No, I didn’t mean any of that. I was just hungry and no one was around, and sometimes I talk to myself, so—”

  “Quiet!” Daiva railed.

  “Daiva,” another voice soothed. “Let the boy slide. I’m sure he has a—”

  “Daiva?” she cried. “Aleksandras, you can’t even call me by a pet name or show me any sort of affection at all? I know you don’t love me anymore, but at least be subtle about it.”

  “Daiva, that isn’t—I mean, my dove, of course that isn’t—”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  Andrius heard Daiva strike Aleksandras’s hand away with her meaty arm.

  “Sorry, dear.”

  Andrius felt sick. He was still hungry, but the sick feeling was more powerful. He wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere and die.

  He turned to leave, and the door creaked open once again.


  “Andrius, I’m not done with you yet! Stay right there,” Daiva ordered him. Andrius was suddenly rooted to the ground. The floor shook with Daiva’s thundering footsteps, and she breathed heavily from the effort of shifting her mass. Andrius shivered.

  “You’ve been slinking out of here an awful lot lately. Leeching off our food, leeching off our property, and thinking you can come and go as you please. Your sly little sarcastic comments . . .”

  “Sarcastic comments?” Andrius asked, confused. His stomach was knotting tighter.

  “Yes, sarcastic comments!” Daiva screamed. “You think I don’t know what you think of me? Your own mother, and you treat me like garbage. You think I’m just a fat, useless monster.”

  “What? No—”

  “Well you’re wrong, Andrius! Do you have any idea how much work I do around here?”

  She hit him. Andrius stumbled to the side and caught himself on a chair.

  “I slave and I slave and I slave, and what thanks do I get from you?”

  She kicked him in the shins over and over. Andrius tried to avoid her feet, but he was in the corner. He could feel hot tears escaping from his eyes.

  “Daiva,” came Aleksandras’s voice. She ignored it.

  “Nothing! I get nothing from you!” Her voice was raspy and her breaths were deep from exertion. She was getting frantic.

  “Daiva,” Aleksandras said again, a bit stronger this time.

  “I hate you! I hate you, you worthless child! You can’t sing or write like the other children. You’re a greedy, gluttonous slob. I hate you!”

  Daiva’s twitching fingers curled around her thick wooden cane, and she brought it down hard, smashing across Andrius’s face.

  He squealed, crying out in pain like an animal’s yelp. He crumpled to the ground.

  “Daiva, stop that right now!”

  Everyone stopped. It was silent but for the crickets chirping outside. Andrius had never heard his father raise his voice before. He tasted blood in his mouth and he covered his head, awaiting the next blow.

  It didn’t come. Daiva’s breathing came in through her mouth in halting, labored gasps. Finally it slowed enough for her to speak.

  “Go to the barn, Andrius. Mongrel.”

  In the nothingness surrounding him, Andrius raised his head, then clumsily lifted his body off the ground, holding his already-bruised face. It was throbbing fiercely, and it hurt to close his jaw. No one spoke as he slid up against the wall, then shuffled out, keeping an arm in front of him just in case. The door creaked as it eased open, then fell shut.

  He stumbled through tears to the barn. He was shaking badly.

  One of the cows had laid on the pile of hay that served as Andrius’s bed, so he just sat against the wall and let himself sink down until he reached the ground. One hand held his face, the other held his ribs.

  “It’s been a while since she’s hit me,” Andrius whispered to himself. “I thought it was done.”

  He was wracked by sobs then, feeling the salt dry on his face, trying not to taste the iron flavor in his mouth. A calf wandered by and stood in front of him for a while and then moved on. The sun was deathly quiet, and Andrius was half a world away from its song.

  He was finally bedding down on the hard-packed ground when he heard footsteps crunching on the hay.

  “Andrius? Andrius, my boy? Are you here?”

  It was Aleksandras. Andrius wiped his eye and stifled his sniffling. He sat up.

  “Yes, Papa.”

  The footsteps halted for a moment, and then he heard them angling toward him.

  Aleksandras reached out, and feeling the barn wall, he crouched down.

  Andrius waited, resolutely looking away from his father. Outside, the night-sun had begun to sing her soft, mysterious song. The melody drifted in through the barn’s open door.

  Andrius felt a hand on his head then, rubbing the hairs between his fingers, then stroking him.

  They sat like this a long time, Andrius trembling and Aleksandras stroking his hair. The animals were all long since slumbering. Andrius wanted it to stay like this forever—or part of him did. Another part of him desperately wanted his father to say something, to make sense of the world that suddenly seemed meaningless.

  Still, he had raised his voice and the beating stopped. Andrius had never heard him do that before. Aleksandras was terrified of Daiva, and so was Andrius. He was thankful somewhere inside of his sadness and bewilderment.

  Andrius was the first to speak. “I’m sorry I was home later than usual.”

  “Shh,” Aleksandras hushed him. “I’m sure you had a good reason. Don’t feel bad about that.” He continued to stroke the boy’s hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Andrius tried so hard to hold back the tears, but they came again anyway. “But then why did she hit me?”

  Aleksandras felt his son’s shaking body and he heard him weep. He stopped stroking his hair and sat down next to him, pulling him into a fragile embrace.

  Andrius continued, screaming in a whisper. “It just isn’t fair! I know I messed up—I don’t know how I could have done any different though. I didn’t even know that coming home late was a rule.” He was hyperventilating. “Why? It just . . .”

  “Shh, Andrius, my special boy. You’re all right.”

  “I’m not all right! She . . . she’s my mother!”

  Andrius spat the last word and was overpowered by sobs once more. Aleksandras hugged him tighter.

  “Andrius!” came Daiva’s muffled voice from inside of the house. “Is that you wailing? Some of us sleep at night.”

  Andrius made despairing, hopeless sounds. He had been beaten too many times to count in his short life, but tonight he couldn’t take it anymore.

  Aleksandras released his embrace and sat back. “She’s not your mother.”

  Andrius sniffled and raised his eyes. The old man sighed heavily and let his head bump against the wall.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Daiva isn’t your mother.”

  Andrius stared at Aleksandras, who only nodded solemnly. The gears inside Andrius’s young mind turned steadily.

  “You mean . . . you were married before Daiva?”

  “No. I waited until I was almost old to marry. It was sort of a scandal, actually—me being single and having done so well with the farm. I had to marry someone. And Daiva wasn’t always . . . Well, she was younger. She was different. We’re actually very different ages, her and I.”

  “I know you’re older than she is,” Andrius replied quietly, wiping the last of the moisture from his eyes.

  “You do?” Aleksandras asked, surprised. “How did you know that?”

  “I’ve heard people talk about it, Papa. And I can hear your age. Hers too.”

  Aleksandras was silent for a moment, and then he chuckled. “I believe you can, my boy. Magic ears. You’re a special one, Andrius. Hearing a person’s age—ha!”

  “What were you saying about Daiva?” Andrius urged him. “You said she’s not my mother?”

  “That’s right. Yes.”

  Sadness came over Andrius. “Well, then who is?”

  Aleksandras patted Andrius’s shoulder. “I don’t know exactly, my boy, but it was probably a young woman named . . . Oh, what was her name?”

  Andrius held his breath as his father rubbed his forehead and wracked his memory.

  “Janina. Her name was Janina.”

  “Janina,” Andrius repeated. The name felt funny on his lips.

  His father nodded. “Yes. A very troubled girl named Janina. This was only a year after I had married Daiva. But this girl Janina, she lived a few stone up the road. She was always getting into trouble. Getting caught where she shouldn’t have been, missing lessons, speaking irreverently of the Regent a few times too, I think. She was on the wrong path. Only fourteen years old.”

  Andrius squeezed his father’s hand tighter and listened intently.

  “She disappeared one day,” Aleksand
ras continued, “and no one ever saw her again.” He paused to cough into his fist and clear his throat.

  “I don’t understand,” Andrius said.

  “You will, my boy. I took the pigs out that evening, after village work. I used to turn them loose to let them root and they would lead me to truffles. I followed them a while. I remember thinking to myself, there must be a treasure trove somewhere for these sows to walk so long. They led me all the way to the barrier that night, and I heard you.

  “You were crying. I thought, what is a baby doing out here at this late hour? I couldn’t remember any recent deliveries in Stone. The village was a little smaller then, not like today when we have almost a thousand people. But I heard you, and it was an infant’s cry, a newborn child.

  “The pigs led me to you, and I had to shoo them away. Your mother had set you right at the edge, thankfully on our side of the barrier. You were wrapped in a cloak, cold, and there was dried blood all over you.” He paused, briefly. “You still had your umbilical cord attached. I picked you up and felt how cold you were, but still crying. Always a fighter you were, Andrius. My boy is a fighter.”

  He smiled weakly, but then it faded.

  “I brought you home as fast as I could and cleaned you up. I bathed you in hot water, wrapped you in wool. I massaged your skin and held you to my chest, whatever I could do to keep you warm. I stayed up with you all night and you lived. I wasn’t sure if you would. I fed you goat’s milk and held you, and you lived through a second night, and you lived and you lived, and you kept on living.”

  Andrius noticed a tear slide out from the old man’s eye and run down his cheek. He let go of Andrius for a moment to wipe it away.

  “You always were a special boy,” Aleksandras whispered. “A miracle.”

  Andrius let out his breath. Suddenly he didn’t care about the hurt in his face, his ribs, or in his heart. He had so many questions.

  “What about my mother?”

  “I think she went over the barrier, into the Regions of Death. She must have given you the cure before she left you, thank goodness. You were so sticky all over that it was hard to tell, but I figured you had been exposed to the air for so many hours that if she hadn’t given you the cure, then it was too late. She must have done it before she left you, so you have that to thank her for, at least.” Aleksandras shook his head. “Fourteen years old . . . No one even knew she was pregnant, or at least no one spoke about it. Not to me anyway.”