The Child Goddess by Louise Marley

you like coffee.”
    Isabel Burke laughed, a warm sound even through the little comm system. “I love it! It’s my weakness. But how did you know?”
    Jin-Li shrugged. “Oh—we talk, you know. In the cafeteria. In the Rec Fac.”
    “What a kindness! I’ve really missed my little vice. I hope you didn’t go to any trouble.”
    “Not at all. I’ll send these in with your dinner trays.”
    “Thank you for being so thoughtful.” She hesitated, and then said. softly, “Jin-Li—I don’t mean to take advantage of you when you’ve already been so helpful—”
    “Yes?” Jin-Li encouraged.
    The priest glanced to her right, to the closed door of the infirmary. Jin-Li gave a slight nod. Jay was on the other side of the sterile bubble.
    “I’m quite cut off here,” the priest murmured. “This is my fourth day, and I haven’t been able to speak to anyone. I could really use a wavephone.”
    Jin-Li glanced at the wavephone mounted on the wall.
    The priest made a wry face. “It’s not working,” she said. “Disabled, actually.”
    Jin-Li eyed the spare furnishings of the infirmary, the guarded bubble. It was a risk. But the infirmary had been turned into a virtual prison. It was worth taking the chance. “See what I can do,” Jin-Li said. “I’ll be back soon. Mother Burke.”
    “Thank you,” the priest said again, and she smiled in farewell. She had a wonderful smile, which made her eyes seem to light from within. People probably did favors for Isabel Burke often, just to see her smile. Jin-Li smiled back, touched the control to restore the mirror, and went off in search of a wavephone.

8
    DOCTOR’S EYES BLAZED with fury over the broken spider machine.
    Oa trembled, but Isabel faced Doctor through the not-mirror without fear. Her slight shoulders were squared. She even smiled, not her lovely, lamplight smile, but a cool curving of the lips.
    Oa had started to tell Isabel things, things she remembered. Then Isabel told Oa things, about her home, about her prayers, about her work. It was a trading of memories, like the trading of mats and pots and blankets among the three islands, or of cutting stones and baskets among the anchens.
    It started when Oa knelt beside Isabel’s bed in the night. The faint light shone softly on Isabel’s bare scalp, and her clear gray eyes were bright in the darkness, reflective, like the shimmery flanks of fish in Mother Ocean. Her hand was warm, and strong, though it was so slender. Oa clung to it, so grateful for the touch of skin that tears burned in her eyes, and she tried not to worry that it was a person’s skin, and not an anchen’s.
    She started with “parents.”
    “Parents live on people’s island,” she whispered. She could feel Isabel listening. “Papi is making shahto.” It was a relief to speak of Papi again. The anchens had always spoken of their papis and mamahs, sitting at night around their fire. “Papi is taking nuchi vines to Mamah. Mamah soaks vines in Mother Ocean and stretches them on sand—so.” Oa stretched out her free arm to demonstrate. “Then Papi—” Again she demonstrated, weaving her hand back and forth to show the braiding, though she didn’t have a word in English to express it. “Is making vines together. Is making big knots. Knots is against forest spiders.” She sighed. “Anchens are not making shahto.”
    Isabel lay quietly for long moments. Oa let her eyes drift up to her face, to see if perhaps she had fallen asleep, as the anchens so often did while they were remembering. But Isabel’s eyes were open, glistening with reflected light. Finally, she said, “Why, Oa? Why do the anchens not make shahto?” She didn’t sound angry, or shocked, or anything other than curious.
    Oa sighed. “Hands too small,” she said. “Vines too hard. And—” She swallowed, the memory making her shiver. “Forest spiders are coming,” she finished in a whisper.
    “Oh,” Isabel said, as if she understood.
    But could she? These