Northshore by Sheri S. Tepper Page A

A longing for comforting arms. That was why she was thinking of Delia today, when she had not thought of her for a season.
    Groaning, Pamra rolled herself half upright, huddled at the edge of the bed, hugging herself as the weak tears runneled her face. Oh, it was hard enough to waken oneself after bleeding without thinking of Awakening the workers. She should have known better than to have angered Betchery with her comment about the woman’s appetite. Betchery was well known as a glutton, but she hated beingreminded of it. Bleeders had ways to retaliate; unconscionable, but predictable.
    She mouthed the furred, foggy taste of sick depression; only the result of weakness, true, but enough to make one doubt one’s strength. For a moment, predictably, she regretted being an Awakener. Why keep on when it meant submitting to Betchery and all the other necessary unpleasantness?
    She responded to both regret and question as she always had. ‘Because of what my mother did.’ Muttering, the words coming out in a single connected string, as though they were all one word, an incantation uttered from habit.
    It was years since she had actually heard herself saying those words. At one time they had stirred her anger, renewed her resolution. Now they were only part of the morning litany, the childhood humiliation buried beneath ten years of ritual and acceptance. She slumped away from the bed, aching, sagging, knowing her face must be pale as ice. What a lot to go through. And yet she was so close to senior grade.
    Senior grade. Senior retreat first, learning the mysteries that juniors were not privy to. Danger there, carefully avoided in thought. Not all those who went on senior retreat returned afterward. Skip over that. Senior retreat, then senior vows, then a luxurious room of her own on the upper floors. Meals cooked to order, not ladled out of the common pot. Respected by everyone, without exception. Even Papa wouldn’t be able to think of her as a failure when she was senior grade.
    She leaned against the window, letting the glass cool her skin, remembering Grandma Don’s sarcastic voice: ‘Pamra’s mother was a coward and a heretic. Pamra herself shows no sign of expiating that sin. She will never make an artist.’
    And her own words in response, unplanned, unintended, raggedly defiant in the subdued gathering. ‘I can be an Awakener. That’s better than artist anytime.’
    Silence had opened to receive that statement, an embarrassed silence that grew into coolness, into distaste, into disaffection. There had been no way to back down, no way to change her mind. They had rejected her when the words were said; she could only go on after that.
    Once in the Tower, she had not seen Prender or Musley or Papa or Grandma again. Someday she would see her half sisters and Papa, perhaps. After she was senior, not before. And not Grandma Don, of course. Grandma would have been taken to the Holy Sorters long ago, though Pamra doubted she had been Sorted Out.
    Disgusted at the memory, she pushed herself away from the window. Nothing was real this morning. Propelling her weakness through the day would be like swimming through mirage. Stripping off her gown, she began the morning ritual which got her dressed, her hair braided in the distinctive Awakeners pattern. Robed and sandaled at last, she left the cubicle to pause at the top of the women’s stairs for the Utterance.
    ‘Rejoice! I go to Awaken those whose labors sustain us. Thanks be to the Tears of Viranel, to the Servants of Abricor, to the Promise of Potipur, and amen.’
Though her shaking hand upon the banister belied her voice, the statement was made firmly aloud, requiring response.
    ‘Rejoice and amen!’
chanted a voice from down the corridor, echoing and anonymous.
    So released, she stumbled down to the women’s refectory and a deserted table. The smell of the morning grain ration sickened her, but she held her breath and forced the porridge down. Her body would not