Khe by Alexes Razevich

have what’s on the sled.”
    “ Arrumm. Arrumm .”
    “I could maybe spare one of the knives,” I said.
    The babbler stopped humming and pointed one dirty finger at me. “All this time, I’ve been alone, without the sound of another’s voice.” She leaned close. “You must tell me your history as it happened, completely and in detail. Then you must listen to mine. That is the price I ask.”



Chapter Twelve
    The trees all glitter with promises,
    Broken, broken, and alone.
    --The babbler’s song
    The sun’s rays stabbed through the cave’s ragged opening, laying a too-bright line of white across the shadowed walls. I closed my eyes against the light and listened to the babbler moving about the cave.
    I’d learned a great deal about her in the six days I’d been here. She often thought that what happened to others was directly linked to her.
    I opened my eyes. The babbler was staring down at me.
    “Is there more to your tale?” she asked.
    I sat up in my makeshift bed. “There’s always more, but I’ve told you everything that matters.”
    “Good.” She stirred the dead ashes of the fire with a stick.
    The snow had stopped falling on the third day. I could have left then, but I had promised to tell my complete story and didn’t want to break my word. And, in truth, the babbler’s strange company was better than being always by myself.
    “We should look for food while the weather’s good,” I said. Last night we’d finished the last of the babbler’s stores. She’d been generous, sharing what she had and asking nothing in return but that I keep talking.
    “Listen to this, Khe,” the babbler said. She opened her mouth and sang in a voice as deep and pure as a river.
    “ Birds of the northern lands, a shadow on the rise
    New as the leaves I once twined round my brow.
    Where are you going, your sharp eyes turned blind?
    Tossed by the traitor wind
    On these barren grounds?
    The trees all glitter with promises
    Broken, broken, and alone.
    Hear how the snow is mourning,
    Broken, broken, and alone.”
    At Lunge we’d sung of Resonance, the joys of work, and praises to the creator. The babbler sang of herself, a song from the soul. I hadn’t known that was possible.
    She thumped her chest. “I am more than a babbler, more than a First in weather prophecy. I am a songmaker, too. Better than your Thedra, I’d wager. I used to be called to sing for—” Her face clouded and she looked down at her feet. “That was a long time ago. I’m surprised I remember.”
    I braced my elbows on my knees and asked, “Will you tell me your story now? How you came to be here?”
    The babbler’s lips crinkled. “I thought you were hungry.”
    I raised my shoulders in a small shrug.
    “Sometimes, Khe, you act like a hatchling. Food and water always come first. Then shelter. Then fire. Stories can wait.”
    Outside the cave, the air smelled clean and wholesome. The heat from the sun warmed my head, neck, and hands, the only parts of me exposed outside my cloak. I heard the schloosh, schloosh of the babbler’s steps through the slush. When she stopped, there was no sound at all. Was this what life was like inside the egg—white and silent?
    The babbler disappeared around a small bend. I followed slowly, in thrall to the beauty of the land, the faint strains of a bird cheeping somewhere in the distance. Low-slung jipini bushes, their ripe yellow berries dusted with snow, grew near-by. In the leafless tree branches, drops of water hung from icicle tips as if holding their breaths, then fell. Water from the melting snow sheeted the canyon walls, darkening their natural pale-red color. The crystalline veins threading through the rocks acted as prisms, making tiny rainbows that slid across the stone.
    The babbler’s wail tore the silence. I ran through the slush, the muddy snow sucking at my foot casings. I came around the bend and saw the babbler on her knees, her back humped, her face in the dirt. I wanted to call