* * *
Later, Sarah and Cathy came to the store. Sarah held out his gun. "It's used up, or I don't know how to work it. What is this thing, Aaron?"
"They call it a gun, a pistol, or a revolver." Opening it with a practiced move, he ejected a cartridge and stared at the empty shell. The bullet the cartridge had held, fired by his hand, was now buried in human flesh.
He shook his head to break the image. "This holds a powder that explodes. The explosion pushes a chunk of lead out the barrel."
"Are you okay now?" Cathy asked with care.
"Yeah." Aaron rubbed a hand through his hair. It felt gritty and greasy. Unwashed. Unclean. It needed cutting. He vaguely recalled promising Mister Golard he would be in to get it cut. "Bun helped. I don't know how she did it, but she helped. I didn't have any choice when she came to me. I couldn't do anything but what she wanted."
"Bun has a very strong Talent," Cathy told him. "It's strong and singular so she can use it a little even without a Talent Stone."
"Yeah--well."
"You don't understand about Talent, do you?" Sarah asked.
Aaron shook his head no. "I really don't understand it at all."
"Of course not. You don't understand about a lot of things. I used to wonder about that, but I suppose it's only natural since you don't come from around here." Her voice was flat.
Aaron gave up. He did not care anymore. He was tired of living a lie, tired of deception and unsure why he continued to betray people who cared for him. Lies were against his nature, against the precepts instilled in him when he was a child, before the militia, before he became a spy.
He would tell them the truth and to hell with the consequences. They would think him insane, or they would hate him, but he would be clean. With a few simple words he would be clean, and these two would become distant memories of women who might have become something more than idle friends if only he had been honest from the beginning.
Drawing a reluctant breath, Aaron began speaking. Once started, he found that he could not stop.
"So," Sarah said after a long moment of silence when he finally finished telling his story. "You come from another realm. Truth is, I've suspected something of the sort for a little while now. Some of your goods just don't exist here. This steel? There is no such metal in our earth that I've been able to discover, at least not in any real quantity. In fact, I sent some of it back east to N'Ark University about six months ago. Entire departments have been studying it--with Talent Stones. From what I've been told, the closest thing we have to it is something called iron, and that is a very rare metal, so rare that I never heard of it before."
Aaron was shocked. "You believe me!"
"I have no choice but to believe you. You have one strong Talent and one minor one. The major one is so strong it almost radiates off you. Those of us who have the training can feel it. We just never knew what your Talent was."
"How can I have Talent? I wasn't born here."
"You weren't," Sarah agreed, "but one of your parents was born here, or maybe one of their parents. Your Talent is rare but it's not unheard of. About the time I sent the steel to the university, I also sent a letter to a woman who said she read a book that claimed there are other realms. The author died a couple hundred years ago, but she claimed she could travel to three different realms. If she could do it, I see no reason to doubt some other rare Talents can do the same thing. Tell me, is it easier for you to transport over to here than it is for you to go back?"
Aaron felt as if a light had suddenly snapped on. Questions he had not been able to answer suddenly had answers that were clear. "Yes it is," he said wonderingly. "At least after the first time, when I traveled blind with no idea where I would find myself. That was hard and scary because the chances were very good that I'd arrive in the middle of a rock or a tree, but now that I have locations memorized it's easy to travel here, only sometimes I'm not sure if I can return there at all."
She nodded understanding. "That makes sense. Over here Talent is common and natural but the means to use it is rare. Over there, I think the opposite holds true. I think Talent is rare but the means to use it is plentiful."
"Aaron," Cathy said, "I've suspected there was something different about you for months, and then when I was in the lower cellar while you were sick--"
Resigned, Aaron sighed. "So what are you going to do with me? What do you do with traitors?"
Sarah shook her head slowly. "You are no traitor. You were a boy pulled into something without your say. Aaron, those people are not your family. They cared for you only so they could use you. You owe them nothing, and if what you have told me is true, you have actually given them nothing."
Emotion welled up in him. His stomach clenched, and his head was about to shatter. "But I betrayed you," he whispered. "I betrayed you and I betrayed them and I betrayed myself. I told them of you, plotted against you, except in lying that I could have brought people over to harm you. I didn't let them know I could do that, and so I betrayed the people who gave me back use of my body. After I almost died they spent a fortune putting me back together and now I can't do anything to repay them." He slammed his fist down. "GODS DAMN IT! I can't do anything. All I can do is wait and look and hate myself for not acting."
Exuding sympathy, Cathy put her hands on his shoulders. "You told them we existed? They knew that from the other man. You plotted against us? How? By caring for us? By helping our poor, carrying their debt when you knew they could not pay? Yes, you could have brought people over and caused us harm, but did you? No. You lied to them about our government. To us you did not lie. To us you said nothing. You did not know us. Now you do. You had no home. Now you do." Reaching up, she grasped his face between her hands, and she kissed him lightly on the lips. "I claim you as ours." She released him and stepped back. Sarah moved in.
"Aaron, you were a child when they took you in. Children owe nothing for the care they receive. We owe nothing to the people who raise us, but we do owe a debt when we become adults. We owe a debt to society. We owe the next generation of children. We do not owe people who take us in only because they see a later use for us. Those people are the users, Aaron. They have used you to do something against your nature, and that using is tearing you apart."
She grasped his face between her hands. "A little while ago Cathy claimed you as one of ours. She did not need to do that because you made yourself one of us a long time ago. You decided what was right, and you acted on that decision even if your acting was to do nothing more than sit still. In this case, doing nothing was the right thing. Aaron, I don't claim you for us. However, I do claim you for yourself. I also give you the right, again, to use my given name at any time." Lowering her head, she placed her lips against his for a short kiss.
"As do I," Cathy added. "We both give you public use of our names without reservation, and Aaron, we ask the same boon of you."
Aaron nodded numbly. "Of course you can use my given name. You have always had that right. This formality of names doesn't exist where I come from, so I'm not as touchy about the matter as most of the people are over here."
Sarah nodded her understanding. "Now I have to ask you a question, Aaron. Were there many women at this place where you were raised?"
"No," Aaron said. "Not really. No permanent ones anyway. Sometimes a few of the militia members snuck women onto the base, but I seldom saw them. Usually, I only heard the rumors. The only contact I ever had with women or children happened either before I turned eleven, in a hospital, or after I came here."
Cathy looked knowingly at Sarah. "I told you."
"You did," Sarah admitted. "Aaron, another question. Do you know what it means when a man and a woman, or two women, grant one another the full use of their names in public?"
"Friendship and trust?"
"It does. It can also mean a vow of caring one for another. Among women it can state an appreciation for each other, a willingness to share and mutual affection. Between a man and a wo
man it is often a declaration of affection, a statement of a mutual courtship with marriage as a possible result."
"It does!" Aaron gulped and felt his face grow hot as the implications sank in.
"Yes. With that understanding Cathy and I still give you public use of our names." Sarah seemed unnaturally tense. Cathy gripped her arm.
"I--I--I never th--thought a woman could care for me in that way," Aaron stammered. "I thought you were teasing me."
"I was." Sarah smiled slightly. "I was also being honest with my intentions."
Aaron looked at them, one older by half a decade, the other young enough to be illegal back home even if she was a year past marriageable age here. Sarah, tall, independent, stronger than he in all the ways that mattered and Cathy, brown haired, brown eyed, a waif, but a waif who had held her family together for two years, fighting starvation and cold and winning her battle by the rules she imposed upon herself.
Belatedly, he realized that it did not matter what he wanted or said. Individually, the two of them could out-stubborn him hands down. Together, they were a force to surrender to.
"Yes," he finally said. "You can use my name. I already care for you both. I trust you both. Might even love you. Only I don't know for sure because I've never loved anyone before, but I think I do. Love you. Gods, this is all new to me."
"And to us," Sarah said. "The thing is, Aaron, I always knew I'd share a man if I ever wed, but I never thought I'd share my courtship too. Cathy and I, we have to work a few things out, but that is for later. Right now, I want a gift from you." She gestured at the revolver with her free hand. "I want you to gift me with this and some lessons in its use."
"Of course," Aaron said. "Anything you want."
"Good. One more thing. During this rather one sided courtship I have kissed you several times. You have never kissed me back, not even once. Cathy?"
"He never kissed me either." Cathy looked affronted. "And after all the hints I gave him too. He didn't follow up on any of them."
"I don't know how," Aaron confessed, doubting his face could feel any hotter. "I never had anyone to kiss before."
"Me neither," Cathy said. "No men anyway. Why don't we all learn together?"
The subsequent lesson took over an hour. Aaron practiced enthusiastically, and so did Cathy, but Sarah insisted they were only beginning to get the hang of it by the time the hour was over. Obviously, much more practice was needed. Sighing resignation, Aaron admitted that she was correct. He agreed to regular practice sessions and complained about the horrible things the two of them forced him to do.
They both hit him.
That somehow made him feel good. It felt like he had scored a secret point.
Later, while lying in his loft, he wondered if it was proper to start a romance when he still had blood staining his soul. As much as he wanted to, he could not convince himself that it was right. He made a silent vow that in the morning he would visit the Lady's temple and the Lord's parish, and he would ask forgiveness from them both. When that was done he would go back to his youth, and he would pray to Jesus to forgive him his sins.