Free Northshore by Sheri S. Tepper

didn’t get along then and most likely never will. I’ve told Prender a hundred times, “We eat the crops the workers grow! Why should we turn our backs on the Awakeners?” Ah, well, but you know your oldest sister.’
    ‘I know her well enough.’ Pamra was grimly certain about this. ‘The whole family. Rejecting me because of what I chose to do.’
    ‘Oh, child. They just doubt sometimes, that’s all. Don’t you ever doubt? Are you always sure Awakening is for the best?’
    ‘Delia! What do you expect me to say? That’s the kind of question Mother would have asked! And you know how everyone felt about that! Of course Awakening is for the best.’
    ‘I know you believe so, child. But lots of people don’t, truly. It doesn’t make them bad. Perhaps you know something they don’t. It’s better when all the people know, Pamra. It’s better not to be alone.’ She sighed. ‘I wish you’d forgive your mama, Pammy. What she did wasn’t so bad.’
    ‘It was bad enough! Deserting me and Papa that way!’
    ‘She had her reasons, Pammy. She was pregnant, sick, frightened.’
    ‘That’s no excuse! How could she give up an eternity of blessedness in Potipur’s arms for no more reason than that!’
    ‘Perhaps … perhaps because she doubted she’d be Sorted Out, child. We all have our little sins.’
    ‘And Potipur is merciful,’ Pamra grated, teeth tight together. ‘Delia, stop this. I didn’t come here to argue with you!’ Remembering, suddenly, why it was she had not come more often. Delia always pressed her for forgiveness. And it always evoked this old guilt. This old pain.
    ‘All right, all right, child. We won’t fight over it. I wish you’d forgive her because you’d be happier so. But you won’t. And that’s that. It doesn’t change I-love-you.’
    ‘No,’ she said, softening enough to put her arm around the old woman. ‘No, Delia. It doesn’t change I-love-you.’
    They sat beneath the flowering puncon tree, the sky beginning to flush with sunset. ‘I’m glad you’ve come, Pamra. I prayed you would, because your old Delia wants your help to break a rule. Just a little bit.’
    Pamra’s mouth twitched. Because she could not imagine Delia breaking any rule at all, it took a moment for the enormity of the woman’s request to sink in. ‘You want to
what?’
    ‘I want to go back east, to the village I was born in, to see my sister. She’s old. I want to see her.’
    For a moment she did not believe she had heard. Then she believed and was appalled at the fury of anger that took her. Anger. At Delia. She choked on it. ‘By the three, Delia! You want to get us both whipped? Or used? That’s no small rule breaking. That’s a major infraction –
the
major infraction. No one crosses town lines eastward. No one!’
    ‘Oh, well, child, sometimes people do, you know. They just lie about it a lot. I heard that someone on the other side of Baristown went to Wilforn and stayed for the Conjunction festival and then came back, all in one piece and in his right mind.’
    ‘Don’t tell me!’ she demanded, feeling her face growwhite and stiff. ‘Honestly, Delia. Of all the things I’m sworn to uphold, the direction of life is one of – is
the
most important.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘What do you mean, why? Because it’s Potipur’s commandment, that’s why. The World River moves west, the moons move west, the sun moves west, we move – all west, in the direction of life. To go east is antilife, against the Three. It’s evil, in and of itself! Blasphemous! It’s like those foul same-sex lovers who refuse to propagate in accordance with Potipur’s will, like those rotten celibates the Laughers keep rooting out. If you want to visit your sister, you’ll have to go west to Shabber, and keep on going until you come to it.’
    ‘But it’s only to Wilforn,’ Delia whispered forlornly. ‘Not more than a day or so walk east from here, even for an old woman like me. If I go west, love, I