Fierce Happening

Trent Jamieson’s spectacular story this week brings us weathers and monsters, alongside talented callers and the houses they protect ~ Julian and Fran, May 28, 2023

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Fierce Happening

By Trent Jamieson

The houses were restless again.

Three storms had rolled in, one after the other.

Oh, such storms they had been!

Dark and dreadful. Rain furious. Light to crease the sky. Thunder to shake you in your deepest meat and bones.

“This is not good,” Whisp said, but Whisp said that most times. He was a ball of light, a Whispering that darted about my head, a mumbler of negatives. It was Whisp’s job. I’d grown up with him flitting and worrying about me. Whisp chose you and then you were stuck with him.

Listen to him, Sister had said when I was smaller than I was now, watch him close so you’ll know when the worries are considered ones.

Sister knew the world, taught me my place in it. She’d taught me calling, too, and the deep listening demanded of soundings. All I knew of the great outside, of the curves and flats of the earth, of the houses, and their motions, and (not least of all) their predators, I’d learned from her. Her voice was my first sounding. Her stories the shaping of my world. I could still feel her steady gaze, her smiles, and admonishments. But she was gone.

I’d been a misery since Sister died on the rooftop, two months back, struck by fire while she’d been calling the distances.

Those lightnings found you out, sentient, godly, cruel, but you never expected it. They said it was a good death, a holy one, but far as I saw it, death was death. Only good in it was that it was sudden.

Sister had been the best of this household’s callers. Now there was just me, until someone in the family came up with the true and great knack for it. The other houses had their callers of course, but they weren’t Sister: they had no generosity for me, they feared my ill luck.

Every rumble set the houses bunching together, long legs jostling for the center, as though a swallow might be coming over the rise eastward, or a beater had been sighted rolling along the flats.

But these were just storms. No predators about.

We had buckets catching drips everywhere, and that thunder wasn’t just panicking the house.

“Calm, Pet, calm,” Mama Bel said, laying a hand on my shoulder.

“Not my name,” I bristled. “Not a child anymore.”

Mama Bel smiled her leaderly smile. “Everyone’s a child in this black-sky-rage. World’s set on reminding us that.”

Just like it had reminded Sister with sudden deadly force.

There was more thunder, and I jumped, so did Mama Bel. We both laughed as Whisp flittered, incandescent, around us shrill-shouting, “This is not good.”

The house moaned and there was more than fear in that sound; enough distress that even Mama Bel tipped her head, eyes widening.

“See to the distances,” Mama Bel said, jabbing a thumb ceilingward.

Whisp corkscrewed around me, muttering, muttering, “This is not good. This is not good.”

We clambered into the roof and the fulsome stinking warmth of the house, Whisp shining light so I could see. I pushed myself through the narrow ways, studying the two types of rumination as I passed: thinking and digesting. Guts and brain. It was a frenzied sort of locomotion that went on here in the mind and belly of the house.

Laid a hand on the rungs to the rooftop just as the house shook. A shudder big enough that I lost my grip. Things crashed in the rooms below. Children cried. I landed hard, pulled myself up.

“Patient,” Whisp said. When the shuddering had stopped, I belted up the ladder, Whisp at my shoulder.

The roof opened for me, slick with rust and mucal crust. All at once I was in the storm entire.

Such a shock, it put a jump in my heart. Rain, cold dark and soaking. Then crackling light. I wanted to hide, wanted it to take me so I could be with Sister again. I froze. Too many impulses. Too much storm.

But I thought of Sister, shaking her head, giving me a smile. Get up, girl.

Ah, I missed her! Missed that smile. Missed that headshake, missed the confidence of her soundings.

Overhead, and to the north, a mighty thunder! I wanted to crawl back inside, curl into a ball, and pretend it was nothing.

World gets hard and furious, Sister said once. Well, you get fierce. Be a fierce happening so the house might find calm.

She’d been fierce enough for the both of us.

I had a job to do.

I crawled myself out. I laid my head against my hands, because this was a different kind of seeing, and I called into the dark.

The calling’s a song. Comes from the deep low place in the gut and the chest. It rolls out, and flows back, not all at once. Bits and pieces. Hear the houses crowded ’round and near us. Hear a ridge. Hear the flats. Hear the brittle scraping of trees, lost to the seasons. Hear stone. Hear pond and creek and mud. So much to hear, bit after bit, and me at its center.

I listened and I saw. I called, and the echo was the shape of the land. I put the fragments together, and all at once I knew why our houses were so juddery.

“This is not good,” said Whisp, who could listen as well as me, who’d taught us in the first place.

No, it was not!

Down the ladder I went. House jolted when I was just four rungs from the bottom, and I fell into a heap. Lay there stunned, but I didn’t have time to be. I slid on my belly past guts and brains to the hole in the ceiling, dropped down, out of breath, cold and wet.

“That bad?” Mama Bel said, color gone from her face—did I look that frantic?

“Beater to the west. A swallow coming up from the east.”

“Bad weather for running.”

I glanced at the children. “What’s else to be doing? Can’t fight with these ones.”

Mama Bel nodded. “We’ll send an older house as a distraction. Maybe draw them off.”

“Maybe make a nice feast,” I said.

“One house lost, one neighborhood saved,” Mama Bel said.

I had no argument against that. A house would go, there’d be one less caller needed.

“I’ll take her,” I said.

Mama Bel looked stricken, but she knew I was right. None of those other houses required another caller, I was expendable.

“Things could settle,” Mama Bel said.

I shook my head.

Sister would have ridden a house right up to those monsters, and beaten them, come back with bruises and a tale to tell of victory!

“Right, then,” she said. We hugged. I was teary and so was Mama Bel.

“Whisp will stay with you,” she said.

“Really?” the little light peeped.

“Really,” Mama Bel said right back.

“This is not good.”

“He might just save your life,” she said to me.

“Might just end mine,” Whisp shrilled.

Mama Bel laughed. “You’re Whisp, you’re older than the oldest house. Older than the plains. Made of light and the breaths of ancient science. You’ll live, and you’ll find us and tell us what happened should the worst occur.”

“It will,” Whisp said.

* * *

We got those children off the oldest house. That took long. Too long. Slender walkways laid down, people running through the storm, carrying those who needed to be carried, pushing those who needed to be pushed. I wanted to be running, but I had to wait until the last was across, and the walkways pulled with them. Mama Bel waved at me to go, go, run.

Free of all that babbling and suckling weight, the house was swift, she loped, sad as she was, and I moped for all of us. Me and Whisp and that empty house. I couldn’t stand it, being inside, so I went roof-wise and sat, peering at those houses sidling east. Sending out my soundings and waiting longer and longer for those echoings back.

Hear the houses, farther and farther from me, running quiet as, until I couldn’t hear a thing. Just me, and the old dear house in which I’d done my growing. I made another call into the dark, made it loud enough that the beater and swallow turned and loped after us. Fast.

But we were running, too.

Weren’t nothing to do but go down and throw out the furniture. Chairs and stuff, all the heavy things that I could drag free or break down and hurl out.

My limbs ached, but house was stepping lighter, and I clambered roof-wise to get some perspective.

“This is not good,” Whisp said.

That beater was gaining, the swallow, too, but they followed me now. There was victory in that, my houses were streaking fast across the flats, past the broken places. Heading to safety.

I looked at my knuckles, dark. I felt my gums, and my body for lumps. I flexed my limbs. All hale and hearty. I was a fierce happening, for sure. I was still all life, not even at its middle. Seemed a rough thing to be faced with this.

But all lives can be cut off, cut short, smeared out with a dusty thumb, like the early makings of a sketch that didn’t work.

Was a time when houses stayed put. We all know that. But it wasn’t this time. That was before the Years of Heat and Sadness. That thumb smeared more than lives. The world’s not still now. The world’s fast and cruel.

“Could outrun it yet,” I said.

Whisp said nothing. That worried me more than any lamentation.

I crawled back inside and down.

Whisp flipped and flickered around me.

“Tell me a story,” I said, while I ate a bit of bread and sipped a bit of beer, warm as the house’s guts.

“I am a story,” Whisp said. “I’m all flight and fire. I remember the first breath when the earth was still shaking, I remember when it quietened and when it grew loud. I slept in between. White Coats made me wake again.”

I finished my meal, then I packed weatheralls, beer, and food into a satchel. I put it by the dreadful door, the one in the floor, that would be my way out.

The house shook then, and Whisp darted ceiling-wise.

“Not good, not good!”

So, we stopped our chitter-chatter and we climbed up roof again.

If you’ve never seen a beater in full churn, then count yourself lucky, and hope that you never do. They’ve a thousand thrashing limbs, and gnashing teeth uncounted. All they do is scurry and gnaw, four times the size of my house, but built for speed.

The swallow was leaner, its beak big and sharp, but there was terror in it, too.

Its wings, not good for flight, trailed it, a hundred feet or so. Its three great eyes blazed. Scritch went its beak, scratch went its claws. Both were very, very close.

“This is not good,” Whisp said.

I looked at him.

“This is not good at all.”

“Say something I don’t know.”

“There’s a blunderbuss in the cabinet, just beneath.”

“A blunder what?”

“It’s a big banging thing, old, called Stingwidget, it might bloody a monster’s nose.”

“I’ve never seen a cabinet there.”

“That’s because it’s not meant to be seen. But I can make you see it. Hurry.”

I clambered down into the ceiling.

“Where is it?” I looked around me, there was just brain and guts.

“Hmm. Hmm, there.” Whisp lit the wall. “See it. See it.”

There, jutting out of that wall was a lump that I had never seen before. A handle that I pulled upon, the cabinet rolled open, inside was a trumpet stick.

“Blunderbuss,” I said.

“Stingwidget, girlboything,” the trumpet stick said, speaking direct, as such things did, into my skull.

“You want to bloody noses?” I asked it.

“I’ll blow them right off,” Stingwidget said.

I picked it up, and it was heavy. We climbed up.

The storms had broken, the sky was clear. There were horrors near, I didn’t need to call to see them.

“Oh, look at them stars,” Stingwidget said. “Brings a tingle to my cogs. Look at dear moon, bright as silver, bright as a maiden’s tears.”

It was right, such beauty, as though the storm had polished everything to brightness. Couldn’t help but admire it.

“Stop with your poesies and distractions.” Whisp glimmered with annoyance. “You want this one dead before their time?”

“Not much to me but poetics,” Stingwidget said. “And a shot or two. I’ve been locked away for a long, long time.”

“What do I need to do?” I asked.

“Point me at the monstrosities and aim.”

I lifted him up and pointed at the nearest.

“Sight along my length.” I did, toward the head of the beater. “Pull my trigger bit. Just where your finger is.”

I did as told, and it was such a jolt, my whole arm stung. The beater paused in its fury and howled. All its limbs thrashed at the air, it swiped with claws at its sharp-tooth face.

“A hit! A hit!” Stingwidget said.

“Not enough,” Whisp said.

“I’ve one more shot. Fire again.”

I lifted up Stingwidget, pointed through the moonlight, and the swallow struck our side. House jolted, I fired into the air.

“Alas,” Stingwidget said, and the house shuddered. I lost my grip on the blunderbuss and watched it slide away, then drop over the edge.

Whisp darted around me.

“We must escape. Down. Down.”

I dropped through the roof as, at the farthest end, a darkness was driving in. A great hooked mouth. My old house screamed, but still she ran.

“Down, don’t look at it. Just down, or we are both perished.”

All around me the house fell in. I snatched my satchel, and I did what I daren’t, but must. I opened the dreadful door, the one that swung down, and into it I dropped. There were thin limbs to catch me and pass me down and down, but halfway there they slackened. I fell, hit the scrambling earth hard.

Knocked the wind from me, but I was all right.

All right? Ha!

I had to scurry as the house fell then lifted. Lucky that I wasn’t crushed beneath her. Lucky that I didn’t die, just then and there.

Whisp circled my head giving advice: “Hold this.” “Drop here.” “Roll.” “Run!”

All around me was the bulk and stomp of monsters and the shrill cries of my house, the last great breaths and moans. And the sounds of the beater’s teeth gnawing like a storm of wasps.

I did what I had to.

I ran. Fast, beneath these things too big to notice me unless they were of a mind to.

Sprinted north.

I turned to look back from time to time.

The beater chewed and grinded. The swallow stab, stab, stabbed, at house, and its opponent. Two beasts fighting over the ruin of my dear home. Not an easy thing to see.

But then the swallow stopped and turned its moon-round eyes in my direction and bounded toward me.

“This is not good,” Whisp said.

I stood my ground. There was nowhere to run. Soon enough I would be dead, but I would die facing this.

“You fly, Whisp,” I said. “I’ve doom here, but it need not be yours.”

But brave little Whisp did not. ’Round me he spun like a star. And then the swallow was upon us. It raised up its beak and howled, and fire fell from the sky.

Lightning, hard and pure, out of the clear night, and I saw that lightning for a moment, like it softened for my gaze, and I saw my sister in it. I swear! I swear! And she saw me, and smiled, and the swallow was struck dead.

“Well, I never,” Whisp said.

“Neither, have I,” I said, and we put our back to the monster, and ran.

* * *

We tracked back, following the path the house had run. A little way along it, we came across Stingwidget.

“Pick me up, pick me up,” Stingwidget cried.

I did.

“What can I do with you?” I said.

“I’m no shooter anymore, but I can bear your weight as a good walking stick, and I know how to club, and I’ve poetry, too. ’Tis a grand battle that we’ve seen, isn’t it?”

“A grand battle and the other houses safe and free,” I said, And my sister in the sky, a flame, I wanted to say. But I didn’t.

“Time,” Whisp said. “And this is as good as spot as any.”

I looked to him and nodded.

I stood there a moment and called, made that deep and silent sound north. I felt that call swing back to me, a while later. They were out there. They knew I was coming. And there were other things, too, but I was small and dauntless. It might take a while, but I would find them. We would find them. The three of us. Stingwidget, Whisp, and me.  My sister would not have done just what she had, if it had been a waste.

We had stars to guide us by, and my soundings. I had pockets full of food, and a bag with beer, and weatheralls.

“This is not good,” Whisp said, but I knew he meant otherwise.

We were alive and north were my houses. No matter what might lay before me, I smiled, like Sister might smile, like she had smiled in that flame, and I shook my head at my troubles. Not dead yet, and home ahead if I could manage it, and why not? I’d matched my fierceness with the world’s, and I was still standing.

“Long way to go,” Whisp said.

“Best start walking, then.” And, leaning on Stingwidget, Whisp gyring around my head, that’s what I did.

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Thank you for joining our journey this week.

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Trent Jamieson is the award-winning author of the novels Day Boy and The Stone Road, published by Erewhon Books in 2022. When not writing, he works as a bookseller in Brisbane, Australia. His next picture book, Mr Impoppable, is out in June.

“Fierce Happening,” © Trent Jamieson, 2023.