Degrees of Freedom
Book 2–The Patua’ Heresy
© 2025 Mary C. Simmons
The Captain
The Captain heard a woman singing in the early hours before dawn as he prepared to leave for MacKenzie for a couple of days. It was an old Scottish love song his mother used to sing when he was a young boy on the family farm in MacKenzie.
“That’s MizCharlit,” Sugarbabe had informed him.
The Captain smiled—as if it could have been anyone else. He left for MacKenzie before he could find out what Charlotte was doing on the cliffs above the river before the sun came up. But he wondered where Jayzu was.
None of the resident crows or ravens seemed upset at her presence on the cliffs—Charlotte had only been on the island for a few days, not long enough for her to establish any noticeable routines. All seemed well enough. And, she was singing. All seemed well enough.
The Captain pushed off from the river bank and into the strong, wily current of the river, whistling the melody of the song his mother used to sing. Her sweet clear voice sang along inside his head.
And we’ ll all go together
To pick wild mountain thyme
All around the purple heather,
Will you go, Lassie, go?
The Captain’s mother had been Patua’—and had helped his father grow an astonishing array of crops that kept the family well fed, with enough money for things like tractors, cars, clothes. His mother, Moira MacKenzie, belonged to the family for whom the town was named. She married Walter Shepard, whose family had farmed the area since the first days of the 1862 Homestead Act.
As a boy, Andy—as he was known to his friends and family, loved only the river. Whenever he was relieved of farm duties, he spent the rest of his waking hours on or at the river. He’d set up a little camp for himself along the small stream that ran next to the family farm on its way to the river.
“Andy!” he would hear his mother call him home for dinner. As soon as he had eaten, he would be out the door on his way back to his private encampment. In the summer, when it wasn’t raining, his mother allowed him to sleep at his camp. He’d outfitted it with an old sleeping bag and tent of his father’s, and a pillow from his own bed.
He wasn’t exactly alone, which is why his mother allowed him, as a small boy, to sleep in a tent down by Spring Creek. Andy’s near-constant companion was a crow named Rascal, who looked after him when he was away from the farm.
Andy’s father noticed the crow frequently on his son’s shoulder, but never mentioned it—as if it were as normal as having a dog at his heel. Father was not Patua’—it was something that was never mentioned, never discussed as if it just did not exist. But surely he knew both his wife and son could speak the language of the crows, though Andy knew without anyone saying that he was never to speak the Patua’ around his father, at school, or anywhere else except when he was alone or with his mother. They spoke frequently while he helped her harvest the fruits and berries she grew.
Sam.
As much a brother to the Captain as is possible for one man to be to another, Sam had never let on to anyone that he knew anything about the man, other than he ferried people up and down the river. Though Andy was the Captain’s given name, Sam never called him that when anyone was around, but always did when they were alone together.
Only Sam knew anything about his past.
Andy had met Sam through his sister, Sarah. They were high school sweethearts, and had planned get married when she became pregnant. Her father beat him up. Afterwards, Sarah hung herself from a tree in the family’s back yard.
After Sarah’s father’s thugs beat Andy senseless and tossed him into the river, Sam dragged his limp body into the Captain’s boat, paddled it through the swamp and tied it to a Bass tree.
Andy briefly opened his eyes as Sam washed the blood from Andy’s face. He groaned; the blood and swelling allowed him to see nothing, and his mouth hurt.
“Other than your teeth,” Sam said, “you don’t seem to have any serious injuries. I’ll row into town and get some food and water for you.”
Andy fell in and out of unconscious while Sam was gone. He awoke when Same returned. He sat up—grimacing, but not uttering a sound. After he had eaten the food Sam had brought, he said: “I reckon I ought to sleep on dry land tonight.”
Sam helped Andy off the boat, into the calf deep water, and up onto the bank. Though he ached from the tip of his toes to the top of his head, he had not suffered any broken bones. He peed blood for many weeks, however.
Sam brought Andy’s sleeping bag from the boat, and his bag of miscellaneous gear, plus a canteen of water. After unrolling the sleeping bag, he said: “It isn’t going to rain tonight, so you’ll be fine sleeping under the stars. I’ll be back in the morning with your boat. We’ll play it by ear from there—”
“I’ll be fine,” Andy grunted.
Andy’s injuries were not severe, and he was able to row his boat the next morning to take Sam back home. In the weeks that followed, he and Sam built the boat that looked for all the world like a tiny forest island that floated.
Sam had never told anyone that he had wrought the fantastic forest structure for the Captain’s boat in his art studio home that overlooked the river. He didn’t need to—it was completely obvious to anyone who had ever seen Sam’s sculptures.
The Captain’s boat was powered by wind, constructed so that the Captain could move the branches and limbs of tree-like canopy around as if they were sails. The Captain steered the boat through and across the river with a long wooden oar, only rarely did he turn on the outboard motor below the deck; and only when the river was too rough to handle with his oar and the winds too strong for his sails.
It had been the Captain’s job to make it float, and he drew up a plan for Sam to follow. The forest canopy Sam had constructed in his shop would be welded to a metal frame that housed three pontoons—two smaller ones flanking a large one in the center that kept the boat lower in the water.
Not only did it float, it was the only craft that could navigate the rugged and unpredictable currents around the island. The people of Ledford thought both he and the boat had magical powers.
The raised helm sat five inches above the deck which was lined all around with wooden seats covered with thick foam pads. At one end, the Captain stood on a small platform that extended out from the front of the boat, which terminated in a point just below his feet. In front of him was a console with a compass, a wind speed thingy.
The Captain lived on the boat—he slept on the benches, cooked on a small propane stove he stowed beneath them, along with cooking gear, tools, and a few, very few, personal items. During storms or cold weather, he unrolled the shades that otherwise stayed tucked up along the edges of canopy. Constructed of a very thin fabric that Sam had scrounged from a surplus store in Ledford, the shades were designed to keep the wind and much of the cold out, but let all the light in.
Rarely did the Captain leave his boat. He traded transportation with some of his daily passengers for shopping and bringing him groceries., hardware items, rain gear—as he needed them.
Lost in TimE
I like to sit on the very edge of the cliffs and look across the river at the city, cut in half by the river. Charlie pointed a wing toward the right side and told me that is Downtown. Tall buildings sparkle like diamonds. The other side of the city—to my left—is mostly trees and a few buildings and Charlie says a lot of houses. A bridge ties the two sides of the city together.
Where the city ends, trees and cornfields grow—all among the rolling hills and small streams that join the river. I remember this city is called Ledford. It is upriver from where I grew up, in MacKenzie.
I don’t know how I got here or even where ‘here’ is. Charlie tells me we are on an island, but it’s much, much bigger than the little island in the stream that ran through our property in MacKenzie. And there were no cliffs or ravens.
Just crows. Mostly Charlie and me. And JoEd.
We looked down at the boats on the river together. I came to this island on a boat, Charlie had told me, but I don’t remember that. I like to watch the boats, wondering which one brought me here.
“Oh, look!” I said to Charlie and JoEd, who were pecking at the cracks in the rocks under their feet. “A little floating island!”
Charlie peered over the edge and said, “That is the boat you came in on.”
I didn’t take my eyes off the boat as it got closer and closer to the island.
“When was that?” I asked.
“Just a week or so ago,” Charlie said. “You stayed in the Treehouse with Rika and me and JoEd and the other kreegans.”
“The Treehouse?” I frowned and shook my head. “I don’t remember that.”
We watched the small boat somehow ride through the large waves of the river and make its way to the bank.
“The Captain ties off the boat where the water is not so rough,” Charlie said. “He spends nights on the island, and leaves at dawn. He spends his whole days on the river.”
The Captain returned from his trip to MacKenzie and pulled his boat into the Sanctuary. As he tied off, Sugarbabe squawked and flapped her wings.
“Grawky, JoEd!” she hollered and flew off her perch. “What up?”
“Grawky, Sugarbabe,” JoEd said and extended a wing from his perch on a rock.
Sugarbabe brushed her wing against JoEd’s.
“I gotta talk to the Captain,” he said. “We’ve got a situation.”
“Yeah?” Sugarbabe said. “Hey, Cap’n—they gots a situation!” she hollered as he approached the two crows.
The Captain sat on the sand next to rock and raised his eyebrows.
“It’s Charlotte,” JoEd said. “She doesn’t know where she is. Or Jayzu—she forgot she knows him. And she’s afraid of him because she thinks he’s going to take her away somewhere.”
The Captain frowned. “Where is she now?”
JoEd jerked his head in the direction of the cliffs. “Charlie took her there—so she would be safe from her brother who is not here.”
“I see,” the Captain said, stroking the stubble of gray on his chin. “What would Charlie want me to do?”
“Food,” JoEd said. “She needs food.”
“I can do that,” the Captain said. “Is Charlie with her?”
“Yep,” JoEd said. “He hardly leaves her.”
The Captain stood up, with Sugarbabe on his shoulder and JoEd flying overhead, and headed back to his boat. Both crows perched on the railing as the Captain filled a small backpack with dried fish, bread, cheese, apples, and water.
After slinging the pack over a shoulder he said to JoEd: “Lead the way.”
Up on the second ledge of the cliffs, the Captain found Charlie and an assortment of crows and ravens. “Grawky,” he greeted them.
The birds flapped their wings in the return greeting.
“Good to see you,” Charlie said as he eyed the backpack, “and the food you carry. Charlotte’s nearby. She likes to watch the river from these cliffs. She feels safe from her brother there.”
The Captain squatted on the ground. “The brother who isn’t here?” he said, gruffly. “As in the Fat Penguin from the east?”
The crows all cracked with laughter.
“The same,” Charlie said. “Jayzu calls him Thomas—the trouble is, this brother is Jayzu’s OverFather.”
The Captain laughed at the way Charlie described Jayzu’s boss. Having a superior was an alien concept to the crows and ravens. “Well, I’m taking Jayzu into the city tomorrow. He’s to say a few words over the dead body of the Bunya, and—”
“Praise the Orb!” Some of the crows said—those who had hung around St Sophia’s Cathedral in Downtown Ledford. “The Bunya’s gone!”
“Yes, Jayzu praised his god too,” Charlie said. “He also told me that Thomas is pressuring him to come here, to the island, which he says would be a disaster for them both.”
Charlie explained the entire story to the Captain as he knew it—from the pieces he had gleaned from Charlotte, about seeing Jade in the forest, and the not exactly truthful explanations that Jayzu offered—who was nervous that Thomas, and perhaps the police knew about his involvement with Charlotte’s escape from Rosencranz.
The Captain was a man of few words, but not much got past him. He remembered the day he had boated Jayzu back to the island some months ago. He had purchased a painting—a portrait he had purchased at an art gallery Downtown.
“My friend Jade painted this,” Jayzu had said to the Captain as he unwrapped it. “I do not know how, but this…this is Charlotte.”
The Captain remembered the painting. He felt at the time the woman’s face seemed vaguely familiar, and had forgotten the moment even after he had boated Charlotte to the island on the day she left Rosencranz. But his back had been turned the entire trip to the island as he managed the turbulence of the wily river; he’d had no time to study her face.
“And Charlotte saw it,” JoEd said, unable to contain himself. “She saw it in Jayzu’s cottage And she ran off and ate mild—”
Charlie held up a wing to silence his son.
“We think after Charlotte ran off, she got hungry and mistook the mildornia for edible fruit,” Charlie said. “It tastes horrible raw like that, and she barely ate any. But when we found her, even that small amount of mildornia affected her memory. I have convinced her she is not on her family’s property in MacKenzie, but she doesn’t know how she got here or who Jayzu is.”
“And she’s afraid of him because she thinks he is Thomas,” JoEd said.
The Captain raised both eyebrows and started to speak, but instead he stood up and watched Charlotte approach. She stopped the moment she saw him and stared at his many tattoos of birds and fish and water waves. He stared at her face. Not just vaguely familiar anymore. The painting—yes, it was her, the Captain thought.
“Charlotte,” Charlie said as he flew quickly to Charlotte’s shoulder. “This is the Captain—he brought you here on the boat we watched come to the island this afternoon.”
“Andy,” I whispered after my eyes finally found his face.
“Stella,” the Captain said.
“Stella?” JoEd said, looking back and forth between Charlotte and the Captain. “Andy? What the—?”
“Stella,” I said, looking at the ground. “Yes, they used to call me that. Except for Charlie.”
“We went to the same schools in Mackenzie,” the Captain said. “I had no idea, that I —it was Stella—that is Charlotte that I brought here.”
“Do you know Jayzu?” I asked. “I don’t know Jayzu, I know Charlie, and now you, but they keep talking about Jayzu—and Rosencranz and I don’t know what they mean.”
“I know Jayzu,” Andy said. “Rosencranz is a hospital for those who are thought to be mentally ill.”
I sat down on a rock and Andy joined me. Charlie never left my side, and JoEd flitted between me and Andy.
“Am I mentally ill?”
“Some people thought so,” Charlie said. “Tommy your brother. Your mother.”
“Estelle,” I said, making an ugly face. “That’s why they called me Stella. After her. That’s why I hate that name.”
“Lot of folks who spoke the crow’s language wound up in mental hospitals,” Andy said. “Or worse. That’s why we keep it hidden…even from each other sometimes.”
“But who is Jayzu?” I asked. “Did I know him before Rosencranz?”
“No,” Charlie said. “He found you at Rosencranz.”
I watched Andy open his pack. Suddenly I was more interested in the food he was handing me than who Jayzu was.
“Charlie thinks—I thought my brother Tommy—” I said between mouthfuls of ham sandwich and cookies. “—was chasing me—couldn’t let him find me so—kept running til I couldn’t hear him calling my—” I frowned for a moment. “—name.”
My sandwich froze midway to my mouth.
“I was running. He was coming after me. He was calling…CHARLOTTE!”
I dropped the sandwich into my lap. The world seems to tip upside down for a moment. “No one ever called me that but you, Charlie. I was always Stella. Until—” I gazed back and forth into my spotty memory.
“Tommy never called me Charlotte.”
Mildornia Research
At the rocky point, Jayzu shared his breakfast with Charlie, tossing the crow a chunk of toast and a bit of bacon every now and then. Charlie caught each tidbit deftly and swallowed each whole, to be chewed by the tiny rocks and snail shells in his gizzard. The priest tossed him another chunk of bread, with orange marmalade, and he swallowed that whole as well.
“I love your bread, Jayzu,” Charlie said.
“That is high praise indeed, knowing how much you prefer bacon.” He tore off a bit of meat and flipped it to Charlie.
“That goes without saying,” he said, after swallowing. “But your bread is truly remarkable.”
Jayzu took a drink from his water bottle and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “One of my life’s most serene pleasures, baking bread.” He tossed Charlie the last bit of crust of bread.
He looked out over the river, towards the bridge that connected the two halves of Ledford. The small island upstream obscured his view of most of it, but he could see the cables as they arced gracefully upward to the first tower of the suspension bridge.
“Charlie,” he said, suddenly turning toward the crow. “I understand Charlotte is having a hard time with her memory, but it is so difficult for me to understand how she could have forgotten me. How could she? I rescued her from Rosencranz!”
“Well, it isn’t deliberate,” Charlie said as he hopped up onto the rock next to Jayzu. “She ate a small amount of mildornia—which can disturb the memory lattice. It seems to have affected hers—as if the past 22 or so years had not taken place.”
“How can I help her?” Jayzu asked. “Can I see her?”
“Bring food to the cliffs,” Charlie said. “I wouldn’t recommend that Charlotte sees you right now—she is terrified that you—as her brother Thomas—are here to harm her.”
“But,” Jayzu said in anger, “I would never harm her! I took her away from all that harms her!” He raked his hands through his hair. “How could she think that?”
“Maybe because you are both priests?” Charlie said. “We all know you are not the bad brother, laying a wing on Jayzu’s thigh. “This isn’t about you at all. It’s about Charlotte’s terrible years at Rosencranz and how much that harmed her. Remember it was Thomas who led the white coats to take her away. We will try to heal that in a mildornia trance, and return her to the present.”
Charlie had told Jayzu about the massive database the corvids have kept over the ages, of Corvid and Patua’ genealogies, as well as the mildornia trance that facilitated the merging of data from the Keepers into the Archival Lattice.
Fascinating, for sure. Jayzu had pictured three-dimensional structures within the confines of the corvid brain. Clearly an hallucination, produced by the mildornia and the syncopation of the chants.
“You can do that with mildornia?” Jayzu asked. “It seems now that her memory has flipped on itself—she remembers everything before Rosencranz. And nothing since.”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “She seems to be lost in her own lattice, in a time prior to her stay at Rosencranz. We call this a ‘memory dislocation’. Starfire has found some texts that refer to the Patua’ of old using mildornia to repair these. We are quite hopeful.”
Jayzu put his head into his hands. “I have truly ruined her life.”
“Well, let’s not be hasty, Jayzu,” Charlie said. “Charlotte was quite happy to have escaped Rosencranz. Starfire believes we can use mildornia to fix her memory. We are researching the proper dosage to restore memory—which usually involves lattice repair. We aim to return her to the present, with memories intact.”
“How on Earth can you do that?” Jayzu said, a deep frown wrinkled his forehand.
“It is a rather uncomplicated procedure and we do it frequently,” Charlie said. “On crows, anyway. But we believe that within parameters, the effect on yoomuns is probably very similar to ours. And that our chants will work on the yoomun brain, the same as upon the corvid brain.”
“Within parameters? What parameters?”
“There are certain, ah—cultural differences between our species,” Charlie said. “Which could lead to Charlotte reacting to the mildornia in ways we cannot foresee.”
“What kinds of reactions?” Fear burst forth in his guts and began its ascent up his spine.
“She could lose her mind completely,” Charlie said. “And she could die.”
“No!” Jayzu said, surprised at his violent reaction. The mere mention of Charlotte dying was incomprehensible to his continued existence. “Mildornia is out of the question. It is too risky.”
They both turned their heads toward the sound of a barge blowing its horn on the river. Two short, three long. Old Ruby.
“No. She has no idea—the risks—I—we—how can we be sure—no—I cannot allow her—”
“I don’t know how else to help her,” Charlie said, ignoring Jayzu’s incoherence.
Over the years as Chief Archivist, Starfire had beaked the ferment and gone into deep trance many times. He had rooted around in the Archives for the ancient secrets of the Patua’, and had found the Portal—a grand discovery. The idea that Portals could be used between lattices tantalized him.
“I reckon we could access the oldest and hidden parts of the Archival Lattice,” Starfire had said to Hookbeak, Aviar of the Great Corvid Council before his death. “There are many secrets that lie in our ancient past.”
Starfire was eager to find a way to make contact between Lattices that are great distances apart. It had not been difficult to tether one Lattice to another when the bodies housing them are in close proximity to one another. The Keepers did that routinely. But what if a Portal could be evoked that allowed a Keeper to tether lattices that are not in close physical proximity?
Charlotte was another matter altogether. She was neither a crow, nor a Keeper. She had no training in the mildornia trance. Starfire had to find the correct dosage of the mildornia ferment, and the proper chants that would meld a Keeper with an un-trained yoomun. Even then, he was not entirely sure how to repair Charlotte’s memory dislocations.
JoEd volunteered to help search the Archives for the proper dosage and chants for the yoomun/corvid tether. He assumed the position of a single Shanshu to chant Starfire in and out of the oldest Archives, while Charlie kept the raven tethered. Five hundred years was time enough to get lost in.
Starfire emerged with the dosage and chants they needed to put Charlotte into a light mildornia trance—according to the ancient texts. The usual dangers existed for corvids and yoomuns alike—overdose was one; another was that one lattice might subsume the other.
Worse, if a trancee strayed too far or the tether broke, they would come to the boundary of physical existence, where one’s Earthly identity spreads out and becomes one with the All.
Most dangerous was the Grzhk, the Soul Eater, said to prowl these boundary zones. The existence of such an entity was mentioned only briefly in the Archives, but was feared to be hunting for the lost, the untethered, the comatose, the demented. Its purpose: to snuff the soul’s entire existence from the All forever.
Mary C Simmons ... Art and Word 