OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
Fledgling
BOOKS BY OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
Fledgling*
Parable of the Talents*
Parable of the Sower*
LilithàBrood*
Dawn
Adulthood Rites
Imago
Seed to Harvest*
Wild Seed
Mind of My Mind
ClayàArk
Patternmaster
Kindred
Survivor
Bloodchild and Other Stories
*available from Warner Books
To Frances Louis for listening
one
I awoke to darkness. I was hungryôarving!nd I was in pain. There was
nothing in my world but
hunger and pain, no other people, no other time, no other feelings.
I was lying on something hard and uneven, and it hurt me. One side of me
was hot, burning. I tried to
drag myself away from the heat source, whatever it was, moving slowly,
feeling my way until I found
coolness, smoothness, less pain.
It hurt to move. It hurt even to breathe. My head pounded and throbbed,
and I held it between my
hands, whimpering. The sound of my voice, even the touch of my hands
seemed to make the pain worse.
In two places my head felt crusty and lumpy and . . . almost soft.
And I was so hungry.
The hunger was a violent twisting inside me. I curled my empty, wounded
body tightly, knees against
chest, and whimpered in pain. I clutched at whatever I was lying on.
After a time, I came to understand,
to remember, that what I was lying on should have been a bed. I
remembered little by little what a bed
was. My hands were grasping not at a mattress, not at pillows, sheets, or
blankets, but at things that I
didn recognize, at first. Hardness, powder, something light and
brittle. Gradually, I understood that I
must be lying on the groundî stone, earth, and perhaps dry leaves.
The worst was, no matter where I looked, there was no hint of light. I
couldn see my own hands as I
held them up in front of me. Was it so dark, then? Or was there something
wrong with my eyes? Was I
blind?
I lay in the dark, trembling. What if I were blind?
Then I heard something coming toward me, something large and noisy, some
animal. I couldn see it, but
after a moment, I could smell it. It smelled . . . not exactly good, but
at least edible. Starved as I was, I
was in no condition to hunt. I lay trembling and whimpering as the pain
of my hunger grew and eclipsed
everything.
It seemed that I should be able to locate the creature by the noise it
was making. Then, if it wasn
frightened off by the noise I was making, maybe I could catch it and kill
it and eat it.
Or maybe not. I tried to get up, fell back, groaning, discovering all
over again how badly every part of
my body hurt. I lay still, trying to keep quiet, trying to relax my body
and not tremble. And the creature
wandered closer.
I waited. I knew I couldn chase it, but if it came close enough, I
might really be able to get my hands on
it.
After what seemed a long time, it found me. It came to me like a tame
thing, and I lay almost out of
control, trembling and gasping, and thinking only, food! So much food. It
touched my face, my wrist, my
throat, causing me pain somehow each time it touched me and making noises
of its own.
The pain of my hunger won over all my other pain. I discovered that I was
strong in spite of all the things
that were wrong with me. I seized the animal. It fought me, tore at me,
struggled to escape, but I had it. I
clung to it, rode it, found its throat, tasted its blood, smelled its
terror. I tore at its throat with my teeth
until it collapsed. Then, at last, I fed, gorged myself on the fresh meat
that I needed.
I ate as much meat as I could. Then, my hunger sated and my pain dulled,
I slept alongside what
remained of my prey.
When I awoke, my darkness had begun to give way. I could see light again,
and I could see blurred
shadowy shapes that blocked the light. I didn know what the shapes
were, but I could see them. I
began to believe then that my eyes had been injured somehow, but that
they were healing. After a while
there was too much light. It burned not only my eyes, but my skin.
I turned away from the light, dragged myself and my prey farther into the
cool dimness that seemed to be
so close to me, but took so much effort to reach. When I had gone far
enough to escape the light, I fed
again, slept again, awoke, and fed. I lost count of the number of times I
did this. But after a while,
something went wrong with the meat. It began to smell so bad that, even
though I was still hungry, I
couldn make myself touch it again. In fact, the smell of it was making
me sick. I needed to get away
from it. I remembered enough to understand that it was rotting. Meat
rotted after a while, it stank and the
insects got into it.
I needed fresh meat.
My injuries seemed to be healing, and it was easier for me to move
around. I could see much better,
especially when there wasn so much light. I had come to remember
sometime during one of my meals
that the time of less light was called night and that I preferred it to
the day. I wasn only healing, I was
remembering things. And now, at least during the night, I could hunt.
My head still hurt, throbbed dully most of the time, but the pain was
bearable. It was not the agony it had
been.
I got wet as soon as I crawled out of my shelter where the remains of my
prey lay rotting. I sat still for a
while, feeling the wetnessáter falling on my head, my back, and into my
lap. After a while, I
understood that it was raining¡ining very hard. I could not recall
feeling rain on my skin beforeáter
falling from the sky, gently pounding my skin.
I decided I liked it. I climbed to my feet slowly, my knees protesting
the movement with individual
outbursts of pain. Once I was up, I stood still for a while, trying to
get used to balancing on my legs. I
held on to the rocks that happened to be next to me and stood looking
around, trying to understand
where I was. I was standing on the side of a hill, from which rose a
solid, vertical mass of rock. I had to
look at these things, let the sight of them remind me what they were
called(e hillside, the rock face,
the trees)ne?(at grew on the hill as far as the sheer wall of rock. I
saw all this, but still, I had no
idea where I was or where I should be or how I had come to be there or
even why I was there(ere
was so much that I didn know.
The rain came down harder. It still seemed good to me. I let it wash away
my preyàblood and my own,
let it clean off the crust of dirt that I had picked up from where I had
lain. When I was a little cleaner, I
cupped my hands together, caught water in them, and drank it. That was so
good that I spent a long time
just catching rain and drinking it.
After a while, the rain lessened, and I decided that it was time for me
to go. I began to walk down the
hill. It wasn an easy walk at first. My knees still hurt, and it was
hard for me to keep my balance. I
stopped once and looked back. I could see then that I had come from a
shallow hill-side cave. It was
almost invisible to me now, concealed behind a screen of trees. It had
been a good place to hide and
heal. It had kept me safe, that small hidden place. But how had I come to
be in it? Where had I come
from? How had I been hurt and left alone, starving? And now that I was
better, where should I go?
I wandered, not aware of going anywhere in particular, except down the
hill. I knew no other people,
could remember no other people. I frowned, picking my way among the
trees, bushes, and rocks over
the wet ground. I was recognizing things now, at least by category¢ushes, rocks, mud . . . I tried to
remember something more about myselfnything that had happened to me
before I awoke in the cave.
Nothing at all occurred to me.
As I walked, it suddenly occurred to me that my feet were bare. I was
walking carefully, not stepping on
anything that would hurt me, but I could see and understand now that my
feet and legs were bare. I knew
I should have shoes on. In fact, I knew I should be dressed. But I was
bare all over. I was naked.
I stopped and looked at myself. My skin was scarred, badly scarred over
every part of my body that I
could see. The scars were broad, creased, shiny patches of mottled redbrown skin. Had I always been
scarred? Was my face scarred? I touched one of the broad scars across my
abdomen, then touched my
face. It felt the same. My face might be scarred. I wondered how I
looked. I felt my head and
discovered that I had almost no hair. I had touched my head, expecting
hair. There should have been
hair. But I was bald except for a small patch of hair on the back of my
head. And higher up on my head
there was a misshapen place, an indentation that hurt when I touched it
and seemed even more wrong
than my hairlessness or my scars. I remembered discovering, as I lay in
the cave, that my head felt lumpy
and soft in two places, as though the flesh had been damaged and the
skull broken. There was no
softness now. My head, like the rest of me, was healing.
Somehow, I had been hurt very badly, and yet I couldn remember how.
I needed to remember and I needed to cover myself. Being naked had seemed
completely normal until I
became aware of it. Then it seemed intolerable. But most important, I
needed to eat again.
I resumed my downhill walk. Eventually I came to flatter, open land¦armland with something growing in
some of the fields and other fields, already harvested or empty for some
other reason. Again, I was
remembering things²agmentsnderstanding a little of what I saw,
perhaps just because I saw it.
Off to one side there was a collection of what I gradually recognized as
the burned remains of several
houses and outbuildings. All of these had been burned so thoroughly that
as far as I could see, they
offered no real shelter. This had been a little village surrounded by
farmland and woods. There were
animal pens and the good smells of animals that could be eaten, but the
pens were empty. I thought the
place must once have provided comfortable homes for several people. That
felt right. It felt like
something I would want)ving together with other people instead of
wandering alone. The idea was a
little frightening, though. I didn know any other people. I knew they
existed, but thinking about them,
wondering about them scared me almost as much as it interested me.
People had lived in these houses sometime not long ago. Now plants had
begun to grow and to cover the
burned spaces. Where were the people who had lived here? Had I lived
here?
It occurred to me that I had come to this place hoping to kill an animal
and eat it. Somehow, I had
expected to find food here. And yet I remembered nothing about this
place. I recognized nothing except
in the most general waynimal pens, fields, burned remnants of
buildings. So why would I expect to
find food here? How had I known to come here? Either I had visited here
before or this place had been
my home. If it was my home, why didn I recognize it as home? Had my
injuries come from the fire that
destroyed this place? I had an endless stream of questions and no
answers.
I turned away, meaning to go back into the trees and hunt an animalJdeer, I thought suddenly. The
word came into my thoughts, and at once, I knew what a deer was. It was a
large animal. It would
provide meat for several meals.
Then I stopped. As hungry as I was, I wanted to go down and take a closer
look at the burned houses.
They must have something to do with me or they would not hold my interest
the way they did.
I walked down toward the burned buildings. I might at least be able to
find something to wear. I was not
cold. Even walking in the rain had not made me cold, but I wanted
clothing badly. I felt very vulnerable
without it. I did not want to be naked when I found other people, and I
thought I must, sooner or later,
find other people.
Eight of the buildings had been large houses. Their fireplaces, sinks,
and bathtubs told me that much. I
walked through each of them, hoping to see something familiar, something
that triggered a memory, a
memory about people. In one, at the bottom of a pile of charred rubble, I
found a pair of jeans that were
only burned a little at the bottoms of the legs, and I found three
slightly burned shirts that were wearable.
All of it was too large in every way/o broad, too long… Another
person my size would have fit easily
into the shirts with me. And there were no wearable underwear, no
wearable shoes. And, of course,
there was nothing to eat.
Feeding my hunger suddenly became more important than anything. I put on
the pants and two of the
shirts. I used the third shirt to keep the pants up, tying it around my
waist and turning the top of the pants
down over it. I rolled up the legs of the pants, then I went back into
the trees. After a time I scented a
doe. I stalked her, killed her, ate as much of her flesh as I could. I
took part of the carcass up a tree with
me to keep it safe from scavenging animals. I slept in the tree for a
while.
Then the sun rose, and it burned my skin and my eyes. I climbed down and
used a tree branch and my
hands to dig a shallow trench. When I finished it, I lay down in it and
covered myself with leaf litter and
earth. That and my clothing`folded one of my shirts over my face2oved
to be enough of a shield to
protect me from sunlight.
I lived that way for the next three days and nights, eating, hunting,
examining the ruin during the night, and
hiding myself in the earth during the day. Sometimes I slept. Sometimes I
lay awake, listening to the
sounds around me. I couldn identify most of them, but I listened.
On the fourth night curiosity and restlessness got the better of me. I
had begun to feel dissatisfied, hungry
for something other than deer flesh. I didn know what I wanted, but I
went exploring. That was how,
for the first time in my memory, I met another person.
two
It was raining again`steady, gentle rain that had been coming down for
some time.
I had discovered a paved road that led away from the burned houses. I had
walked on it for some time
before I remembered the word ¯ad,!nd that led to my remembering cars
and trucks, although I
hadn yet seen either. The road I was on led to a metal gate, which I
climbed over, then to another,
slightly wider road, and I had to choose a direction. I chose the
downslope direction and walked along
for a while in contentment until I came to a third still wider road.
Again, I chose to go down-hill. It was
easier to walk along the road than to pick my way through the rocks,
trees, underbrush, and creeks,
although the pavement was hard against my bare feet.
A blue car came along the road behind me, and I walked well to one side
so that I could look at it, and it
would pass me without hitting me. It couldn have been the first car I
had ever seen. I knew that because
I recognized it as a car and found nothing surprising about it. But it
was the first car I could remember
seeing.
I was surprised when the car stopped alongside me.
The person inside was, at first, just a face, shoulders, a pair of hands.
Then I understood that I was
seeing a young man, pale-skinned, brown-haired, broad, and tall. His hair
brushed against the top of the
inside of his car. His shoulders were so broad that even alone in the
car, he looked crowded. His car
seemed to fit him almost as badly as my clothing fitted me. He lowered
his window, looked out at me,
and asked, re you all right?‰ heard the words, but at first, they meant nothing at all. They were
noise. After a moment, though, they
seemed to click into place as language.
I understood them. It took me a moment longer before I realized that I
should answer. I couldn
remember ever speaking to another person, and at first, I wasn sure I
could do it.
I opened my mouth, cleared my throat, coughed, then finally managed to
say, `… am. Yes, I am all
right.
y voice sounded strange and hoarse to my own ears. It wasn
only that I couldn recall
speaking to anyone else. I couldn remember ever speaking at all. Yet it
seemed that I knew how.
¯, you¥ not,4he man said. ou¥ soaking wet and filthy, and …
God, how old are you?‰ opened my mouth, then closed it again. I didn have any idea how old I
was or why my age should
matter.
s that blood on your shirt?(e asked.
I looked down. `killed a deer, said. In all, I had killed two deer.
And I did have their blood on my
clothing. The rain hadn washed it away.
He stared at me for several seconds. /ok, is there someplace I can take
you? Do you have family or
friends somewhere around here?‰ shook my head. `don know. I don think so.“You shouldn be out here in the middle of the night in the rain!(e
said. ou can be any more than
ten or eleven. Where are you going?“Just walking, said because I didn know what else to say. Where was
I going? Where would he think
I should be going? Home, perhaps. /me, lied. Rm going home. hen
I wondered why I had lied.
Was it important for this stranger to think that I had a home and was
going there? Or was it only that I
didn want him to realize how little I knew about myself, about
anything?
Rll take you home,(e said. åt in.‰ surprised myself completely by instantly wanting to go with him. I went
around to the passenger side of
his car and opened the door. Then I stopped, confused. `don really
have a home, said. I closed the
door and stepped back.
He leaned over and opened the door. /ok,(e said, `can leave you
out here. You¥ a kid, for
Godsake. Come on, I, at least take you some-place dry. e reached into
the backseat and picked up
a big piece of thick cloth. %reàa blanket. Get in and wrap up.‰ wasn uncomfortable. Being wet didn bother me, and I wasn cold.
Yet I wanted to get into the car with him. I didn want him to drive
away without me. Now that I had
a few more moments to absorb his scent I realized he smelled … really
interesting. Also, I didn want to
stop talking to him. I felt almost as hungry for conversation as I was
for food. A taste of it had only
whetted my appetite.
I wrapped the blanket around me and got into the car.
)d someone hurt you?(e asked when he had gotten the car moving again.
åre you in someoneÊcar?“I was hurt, said. Rm all right now.ˆe glanced at me. re you sure? I can take you to a hospital.“I don need a hospital, said quickly, even though, at first, I
wasn sure what a hospital was. Then I
knew that it was a place where the sick and injured were taken for care.
There would be a lot of people
all around me at a hospital. That was enough to make it frightening. ¯
hospital.nother glance. ëay,(e said. èatàyour name?‰ opened my mouth to answer, then closed it. After a while, I admitted,
`don know what my name is. I
don remember.ˆe glanced at me several times before saying anything about that. After a
while he said, ëay, you
don want to tell me, then. Did you run away? Get tired of home and
strike out on your own?“I don think so, frowned. `don think I would do that. I don
remember, really, but that doesn
feel like something I would do.”here was another long silence. ou really don remember? You¥ not
kidding?“I`not. My . . . my injuries are healed now, but I still don remember
things.ˆe didn say anything for a while. Then, ou really don know what
your own name is?“Thatàright.“Then you do need a hospital.“No, I don. No!“Why? The doctors there might be able to help you.ight they? Then why did the idea of going among them scare me so? I knew
absolutely that I didn
want to put myself into the hands of strangers. I didn want to be even
near large numbers of strangers.
¯ hospital, repeated.
Again, he didn say anything, but this time, there was something
different about his silence. I looked at
him and suddenly believed that he meant to deliver me to a hospital
anyway, and I panicked. I unfastened
the seat belt that he had insisted I buckle and pushed aside the blanket.
I turned to open the car door. He
grabbed my arm before I could figure out how to get it open. He had huge
hands that wrapped
completely around my arm. He pulled me back, pulled me hard against the
little low wall that divided his
legs from mine.
He scared me. I was less than half his size, and he meant to force me to
go where I didn want to go. I
pulled away from him, dodged his hand as he grasped at me, tried again to
open the door, only to be
caught again.
I caught his wrist, squeezed it, and yanked it away from my arm. He
yelped, said èit!!nd managed to
rub his wrist with the hand still holding the steering wheel. èat the
hellàwrong with you?(e
demanded.
I put my back against the door that I had been trying to open. re you
going to take me to the hospital
even though I don want to go? asked.
He nodded, still rubbing his wrist. (e hospital or the police station.
Your choice.“Neither! eing turned over to the police scared me even more than the
idea of going to the hospital did.
I turned to try again to get the door open.
And again, he grasped my left upper arm, pulling me back from the door.
His fingers wrapped all the way
around my upper arm and held me tightly, pulling me away from the door. I
understood him a little better
now that I had my hands on him. I thought I could break his wrist if I
wanted to. He was big but not
that strong. Or, at least, I was stronger. But I didn want to break his
bones. He seemed to want to help
me, although he didn know how. And he did smell good. I didn have the
words to say how good he
smelled. Breaking his bones would be wrong.
I bit himµst a quick bite and release on the meaty part of his hand
where his thumb was.
ïddamnit!(e shouted, jerking his hand away. Then he made another grab
for me before I could get
the door open. There were several buttons on the door, and I didn know
which of them would make it
open. None of them seemed to work. That gave him a chance to get his hand
on me a third time.
¥ still!(e ordered and gave me a hard shake. ou, kill yourself!
If you¥ crazy enough to try to
jump out of a moving car, you should be in mental hospital.‰ stared down at the bleeding marks I made on his hand, and suddenly I
was unable to think about
anything else. I ducked my head and licked away the blood, licked the
wound I had made. He tensed,
almost pulling his hand away. Then he stopped, seemed to relax. He let me
take his hand between my
own. I looked at him, saw him glancing at me, felt the car zigzag a
little on the road.
He frowned and pulled away from me, all the while looking uncertain,
unhappy. I caught his hand again
between mine and held it. I felt him try to pull away. He shook me,
actually lifting me into the air a little,
trying to get away from me, but I didn let go. I licked at the blood
welling up where my teeth had cut
him.
He made a noise, a kind of gasp. Abruptly, he drove completely across the
road to a spot where there
was room to stop the car without blocking other cars(e few other cars
that came along. He made a
huge fist of the hand that was no longer needed to steer the car. I
watched him draw it back to hit me. I
thought I should be afraid, should try to stop him, but I was calm.
Somehow, I couldn believe he would
hit me.
He frowned, shook his head. After a while he dropped his hand to his lap
and glared at me. èat are
you doing?(e demanded, watching me, not pulling away at all now, but
looking as though he wanted
toò as though he thought he should want to.
I didn answer. I wasn getting enough blood from his hand. I wanted to
bite him again, but I didn
want him afraid or angry. I didn know why I cared about that, but it
seemed important. Also, I knew
hands weren as good for getting blood as wrists and throats were. I
looked at him and saw that he was
looking intently at me.
t doesn hurt anymore,(e said. t feels good. Which is weird. How
do you do that?“I don know, told him. ou taste good.“Do I? e lifted me, squeezed past the division between the seats to my
side of the car, and put me on
his lap.
%t me bite you again, whispered.
He smiled. f I do, what will you let me do?‰ heard consent in his voice, and I hauled myself up and kissed the side
of his neck, searching with my
tongue and my nose for the largest blood source there. A moment later, I
bit hard into the side of his
neck. He convulsed and I held on to him. He writhed under me, not
struggling, but holding me as I took
more of his blood. I took enough blood to satisfy a hunger I hadn
realized I had until a few moments
before. I could have taken more, but I didn want to hurt him. He tasted
wonderful, and he had fed me
without trying to escape or to hurt me. I licked the bite until it
stopped bleeding. I wished I could make it
heal, wished I could repay him by healing him.
He sighed and held me, leaning back in his seat and letting me lean
against him. ï what was that?(e
asked after a while. /w did you do that? And why the hell did it feel
so fantastic?ˆe had enjoyed itaybe as much as I had. I felt pleased, felt myself
smile. That was right somehow.
I done it right. That meant I done it before, even though I couldn
remember.
åep me with you, said, and I knew I meant it the moment I said it.
He would have a place to live. If
I could go there with him, maybe the things I saw there would help me
begin to get my memory
backnd I would have a home.
/ you really not have anywhere to go or anyone looking for you?(e
asked.
`don think I have anyone, said. `don remember. I need to find
out who I am and what happened
to me and . . . and everything.“Do you always bite?‰ leaned back against him. `don know.“You¥ a vampire, you know.‰ thought about that. The word stirred no memories. èatàa vampire?ˆe laughed. ou. You bite. You drink blood. He grimaced and shook his
head. y God, you drink
blood.“I guess I do. licked at his neck.
nd you¥ way too young,(e said. ¡ilbait. Super jailbait.“ince I didn know what ¡ilbait7as and I had no idea how old I was,
I didn say anything.
/ you remember how you got that blood on your clothes? Who else have
you been chewing on?“I killed a deer. In fact, I killed two deer.“Sure you did.“Keep me with you.‰ was watching his face as I said it. He looked confused again, worried,
but he held me against his body
and nodded. eah,(e said. Rm not sure how I`going to do that, but
yeah. I want you with me. I
don think I should keep you. Hell, I know I shouldn. But I, do it
anyway.“I don think I`supposed to be alone, said. `don know who I
should be with, though, because I
can remember ever having been with anyone.“So you, be with me. e smiled and his confusion seemed to be gone.
Rll need to call you something.
What do you want to be called?“I don know.“Do you want me to give you a name?‰ smiled, liking him, feeling completely at ease with him. éve me a
name, said. I licked at his neck a
little more.
¥nee,(e said. `friend of mine told me it meant ¥born.(atàsort
of whatàhappened to you.
You¥ been reborn into a new life. You, probably remember your old
life pretty soon, but for now,
you¥ Renee. e shivered against me as I licked his neck. !mn that
feels good,(e said. Then, Jrent a cabin from my uncle. If I take you there, you, have to stay
inside during the day. If he and my aunt
see you, they, probably throw us both out.“I can sleep during the day. I won go out until dark.“Just right for a vampire,(e said. /w did you kill those deer?‰ shrugged. ¡n them down and broke their necks.“Uh-huh. Then what?“Ate some of their meat. Hid the rest in a tree until I was hungry again.
Ate it until the parts I wanted
were gone.“How did you cook it? Itàbeen raining like hell for the past few days.
How did you find dry wood for
your fire?“No fire. I didn need a fire.“You ate the deer raw?“Yes.“Oh God, no you didn. omething seemed to occur to him suddenly. èow
me your knife.‰ hesitated. îife?“To clean and skin the deer.“A thing? A tool?“A tool for cutting, yes.“I don have a knife.ˆe held me away from him and stared at me. èow me your teeth,(e said.
I bared my teeth for him.
ïod God,(e said. re those what you bit me with? e put his hand to
his neck. ou are a
damned vampire.“Didn hurt you, said. He looked afraid. He started to push me away,
then got that confused look
again and pulled me back to him. / vampires eat deer? asked. I
licked at his neck again.
He raised a hand to stop me, then dropped the hand to his side. èat are
you, then?(e whispered.
And I said the only thing I could: `don know. drew back, held his
face between my hands, liking
him, glad that I had found him. %lp me find out.´hree
On the drive to his cabin, the man told me that his name was Wright
Hamlin and that he was a
construction worker. He