Scavenger Girl: Season of Toridia

by Jennifer Arntson

  Does he think he’s going to impale someone in there?

  While his intentions may be good, he looked foolish doing it. No one would get beyond that mess. Father spent a lifetime building it.

  The combination of the gulch and the berm had always protected our family well. Times were different since then, of course, and people more desperate. Maybe I was foolish for being too comfortable. I let him continue his routine, keeping my unhelpful criticism to myself.

  Wrestling politics and missions out of my mind, I walked between the children as they slept. Their innocence returned in their slumber. They were not criminals, nor were they victims. They were tired innocents lying in full view of the gods above. How could anyone look down from the heavens and judge such precious lives with any more conviction than what they’d already suffered? Each of them deserved better. The Great One knew their suffering and their heart.

  Maybe Nik is right; maybe before I testify what I believe to be true, I should make sure my theories were correct. Although I can’t come up with any other reasonable explanation.

  The Citizens and children, like the ones lying at my feet, depended on us. I didn’t need to understand why the information was important. It was important to Nik.

  Maybe I should try.

  Ergh, maybe I should think of something else!

  I pulled blankets over the shoulders of a few of the children. They had a good day running around in the sun and the shade of the trees growing in Rebel’s pasture. I didn’t know how long they’d been strung up by the Woodsmen; still, they were cooped up at the house for two days. The day’s activity might have been the most exercise they’d had in quite a while to wear them out so completely.

  At the edge of the group, the little girl in the yellow dress reached out and touched my ankle as I passed. I squatted and whispered, “Are you having trouble sleeping?”

  She nodded.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked her if she was uncomfortable, hot, cold, sick, or scared, and she answered no to it all.

  Maybe she just doesn’t want to be alone.

  I sat next to her, and she smiled. I thought back to the first few days after I got home from the prison. I didn’t want to be by myself, at least not at first. Once the depression set in, I didn’t want to be around anyone at all. Hopefully the children would be able to adjust better than I did. I preferred to think they hadn’t experienced anything close to what I had. Considering how I found them, I doubted that was the case.

  “You know what?” I whispered. “I don’t have a place of my own for the night. Can I bring my blanket over here and sleep next to you?”

  The little girl smiled and nodded.

  “All right.” I pushed myself up. “I’ll be right back.”

  It didn’t take me long to collect my things. I laid everything out next to her and kicked off my sandals. As soon as I sat on my blanket, she reached out to fix a wrinkle in my bedding. She wanted to help me make everything perfect.

  “May I show you something?” I asked. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.”

  The little girl nodded hesitantly.

  “My mother used to do this when I was a little girl.” I opened her hand so her palm faced me. “Now, it’s important you do exactly what I tell you, or it won’t work.” I kissed the center of her hand. “Now hold it quickly!”

  With my help, she made a tight fist.

  “Now, press it into your heart so you can keep it forever and ever.”

  She held it tightly as if it might escape and pressed her hand flat into her chest.

  “There, you feel my love in your heart?”

  Her smiling eyes sparkled in the dark. Before I knew what happened, the girl threw her little body into my chest and flung her arms around me as far as they let her reach. I held her tight and rested my head on top of hers. If she needed a hug that lasted all night, I was prepared to provide one.

  Of all the things I’d learned from Nik about my gift, there was one I’d forgotten completely. “Children are an easy read.” The first time I saw him assess a child, I didn’t know it was happening. “Assessing a child is much easier than assessing an adult. Children didn’t guard their memories like adults, and since they are so young, there is not as much history to examine.”

  Because I’d never assessed a child before, I didn’t understand what he meant…

  Until now.

  A flood of memories crashed into me like the river at its heaviest flow. Her life was tragic and painful before the devastation. They named her Aria after the goddess of fertility because her parents intended to have many more children after her. During her birth, her mother’s womb tore, making it impossible to sustain additional pregnancies thereafter. Sadly, the damage didn’t prevent the initial conception of future pregnancies, and they suffered miscarriage after miscarriage. They blamed Aria for their misfortune, even accused her of trying to kill her own mother, especially when another occurred.

  Aria’s silence was not her choice but an affliction after her birth. Both her parents were convinced she was a punishment by the gods. Hoping to cure her with prayer and incantations, they dragged her to every Priest and Priestess granting them an audience. Nothing worked. Her mother wouldn’t give up. “If they cured her, maybe the gods would heal me, too.” Eventually, her father cursed the gods for denying him a son. They focused on the day Aria would marry and introduced her to family after family to make a profitable arrangement.

  When Aria’s mother went missing in the landslide, her father blamed the girl’s curse for his wife’s death and abandoned his only daughter in the chaos of the aftermath.

  People every now and then took pity on her and gave her something to eat, but her small stature, and having no advocate or protector, left her vulnerable. As food got harder to come by, the charity of others ended, and Aria became the sad victim of larger children suffering the same fate. Her lack of voice made her an easy target. Citizens, both young and old, took from her without fear, knowing she lacked the ability to make accusations.

  She ended up at the Woodsmen’s gate by simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time. She was captured and accused of stealing twine, when all she did was search for bugs in the grasses to eat. The real thieves ran. There was no trial, no witnesses. The Woodsmen took her silence as defiance and added her to the gate to prove “A sad look and strong will is not rewarded with freedom.”

  She was not assaulted in the same way some of the more developed girls had been. Lucky for her, the average person tended to ignore her after a while. She didn’t draw attention to herself. The most pain inflicted on her came with the branding iron on her arm.

  I hurt her worse than the Woodsmen.

  There were so many times I questioned why I’d been gifted, and suddenly, the reason was clear. I survived to protect children like Aria. Kissing her hand and pressing it into her heart was the first crumb of affection she’d been given in seasons, if ever in her life.

  I held her tightly against me and encouraged her, “I’m so glad you’re here with me. I hope you’ll choose to stay.”

  After a bit, she lay down and snuggled into the middle of a folded-over blanket. She crumpled up the edge of it to make a softer place for her head to rest and yawned. I brushed back the hair from her face and kissed her forehead. Not wanting to be anywhere else, I lay down in my bedding next to her, and she reached out for my hand. I held it until she fell deep asleep, her tiny hand falling limp in mine.

  My whole life, I thought I was the daughter of Redena and Tawl Bartold, but I wasn’t. They found me, or my birth mother found them; either way, they accepted me as their own, loved me as their own, and made me one of their own. In my darkest moments since learning about the truth of my adoption, I questioned how it could be possible to love me like they loved Calish, their real child. How did my new mother feel about me when she first found me? Did she consider me a burden? It’s not as if I contributed to the family; children are dependent, impulsive, demanding, and a neve
r-ending responsibility.

  Lying next to Aria, a girl who I’d met only days before, I finally understood what I imagined Redena felt when she found me. Sure, my new mother was probably frightened, felt unprepared, and should have been guarded, but despite all reason, she chose to love me anyway. Did she ever feel equipped for the children she had? Did any mother?

  I’m pregnant, and I certainly don’t feel ready.

  Forget all the magical expectations of parenthood and giving birth to a growing family; having a child born of the womb didn’t make a woman any more qualified for motherhood than anyone else. It just meant she was fertile. There was no guarantee a pregnancy would result in an outstanding parenting ability; consider Aria’s parents. They were horrible by anyone’s standards. Like them, I had no test to pass or an achievement granting me the privilege to conceive. To be honest, the union with my partner would never have been celebrated by popular opinion. We kept it hidden in shameful secret. My pregnancy was a result of lust, poor timing, and lack of restraint. Rescuing these children, although unplanned, resulted from honorable, respectable beliefs. I believed in justice and mercy for these children. I believed they should be cared for, not strung across a dirt road as examples or warnings. It didn’t mean I would be a good parent, but accepting the branding for them as payment proved I would try.

  Eventually I drifted off to sleep, tired of thinking about Woodsmen, the Authority, and the uncertainty of our cumulative futures. While I would have preferred to dream about happier times, my mind took me elsewhere.

  The damp, putrid smell of the cell entered my lungs and swirled dark around my heart. Keys clanged against the iron as the guards unlocked the door. They dragged body after body out of the shadows, piling them up in the hallway under the center lights flickering above my head. One at a time, the officers stuffed the bloated corpses into a large soup pot. Arms and legs stuck up and out, some draped over the edge of the steaming black cauldron.

  A faceless man held a ladle of stew to my mouth. “The Lord of the Authority commands you eat!”

  “No, I won’t,” I said through pressed lips.

  A man in a black hooded robe entered through the wooden doors. The guards knelt in a deep sign of respect. The figure stood before me, forcing a spoon into my hand. “You will eat,” he said, raising his face into the dim light of the lanterns.

  Calish?

  I woke sweaty and confused, Aria’s hand still in mine. No one else seemed affected by my nightmare, not even the guards. Rolling onto my back, I tried to breathe deeply and remembered that sort of thing didn’t work for pregnant women. I rolled to my side, my arm folded under my head. As I held Aria’s hand, my thoughts turned to Calish.

  Thank the gods, that was a dream, not a vision.

  Calish would never be like Reinick, but that didn’t mean his impending promotion didn’t make me nervous. There were good things about Calish being so new to the Authority. He’d have to learn all the old ways of doing things and, as such, couldn’t be confined by them. Reinick, Noran, and the others seemed determined to keep things the way they used to be as if the old way had been perfected over the years. The best chance Ashlund had for rising anew was Calish.

  My husband was a good man, a righteous man. I could count on his principles no matter what the world would throw at him. He wouldn’t torture people, murder people, or feed the dead to starving people. That’s how I knew my dream was a nightmare, not a vision. That and the prison had been destroyed by the river.

  Good riddance.

  The sun lifted over the ridge, warning me to get up, so I eased my hand from Aria’s fingers. I propped myself up and scoped out the property for a place to empty my bladder. Marsh was right about digging a vault toilet; we would need that right away. Yawning, I shuffled my way to the back corner of the lot beneath the trees and took care of my needs.

  On my way back, I grabbed a roll from the bread sack to settle my upset stomach. With a full mouth, I greeted the Authority men standing guard with a wave and a nod, but they didn’t reply. Their uncomfortable stare slowed my pace. I looked down at my clothes, wondering if I’d dressed improperly after emptying my bladder, but everything was in place as it should be.

  Is there someone behind me?

  I turned around, but there was no one there.

  They’re staring at me, all right.

  I swallowed my bite, checking my roll for mold or maggots. “Would you like one?”

  The men shook their heads slowly as if in disbelief.

  “What is it?” I said, beginning to get concerned.

  “You don’t know, my Lady?”

  “Know what? What’s the matter?”

  “That, my Lady.” He pointed to where I slept.

  Around my bedding grew a thick patch of lush green grass. It extended well beyond my sleeping area, but I definitely had been in the center of it. It was like an emerald island in the middle of dead, brown lawn. The morning dew clung to tiny white flowers and wandering dark purple vines stretching farther than the imperfect circle.

  “When did this happen?” I asked.

  “Some time during the night, my Lady.”

  “Who did this? Who was here?” I demanded.

  “No one, my Lady! No one came in or out.”

  I ran over to Aria and forced her up. “Come on, sweetheart, you need to move quickly!” I pulled her away from the grassy area. I woke up everyone close to it and threatened them not to go near it.

  “What did that, Mother Una?” Lala asked.

  “I don’t know,” I confessed. “Just stay away from it for now. I’m going to get Marsh.”

  Little help he was.

  Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he offered no viable explanation for all the grass and ground flowers radiating from where we’d been sleeping. Toridia prevented anything from turning green. Grasses and mosses touched by sunlight were scorched by it. Wilted, if not completely crisp, anything unobstructed by the trees died. Even the tips of the evergreens showed struggle if you paid attention to them. Sacrificing themselves for the undergrowth, they stood proud. The vines and shrubs in their shadow rose up in a perpetual state of praise for their unearned blessing of protection. Nothing, not even the thistle begging at the edge of the wood, survived in the constant heat.

  But there it was. A lush green patch well beyond the reach of the tallest tree’s shade. On hands and knees, surrounded by the others, Marsh clawed at the grass to remove a sample. The dirt underneath didn’t have any advantages over the dry spot next to it. Dry, rocky soil clung to the tangled roots of the clump of grass in his hand.

  Marsh tossed it on the ground and stood. Brushing his hands against his pants, he gnawed on the inside of his lower lip. “Dig it up and add it to the berm.”

  The children tore the blades of grass and threw it at each other in jest.

  “I don’t know what it is, or how it got here, but the last thing we need is more attention.”

  I agreed, and soon after, all trace of the anomaly had been removed. An air of relief fell upon the homestead, although I would have felt better if I knew how it happened.

  Worries for another time.

  Converting land to a useful purpose required every able hand. Each child had a job assigned to them, not to keep them busy, but to be productive in the race against Talium. The two eldest boys helped Marsh dig the vaults for the outhouses, while the rest of us disassembled and sorted layer after layer of the house.

  Aria collected stones with a couple other younger children when they weren’t distributing water from the well. Her face glowed with sweat and a smile as their rock pile grew. Encouraging words broke the heavy sighs and occasional moments of defeat, but they didn’t come from me alone. Not able to speak, Aria clapped her hands together when passing a brother or sister in need of inspiration.

  We pushed ourselves through the heat of the day, and by sunset, we had no more to give. Scattered under the trees of Rebel’s pasture, the children sprawled out in the shade. I
remembered taking shelter under those same trees as a child. Some nights, when the house felt like a whistling teapot, our entire family would take refuge there. Eventually, Calish and I would wander out to see the stars, and thus our love affair with the heavens began.

  I hadn’t thought of him until then, and when I did, I wondered if he would return or be away another night. It didn’t matter, really.

  “Mother Una.” My thoughts were interrupted by Mace, a boy small in stature but big in energy. “I’m getting hungry.”

  Dinner!

  I could have smacked myself. How did I forget about food? Though the other children relaxed, their bellies would rouse them soon enough. “You rest. I’ll get something started.”

  We had been so busy getting things set up, we overlooked the need to eat. Seeing my preparations, Qarla came to assist me, apologizing for not paying better attention to her duties.

  “It’s not up to you alone, Qarla. They’re my children.”

  Out of guilt, social pressure, or a growling stomach, the others joined us, and I taught them how to make thistle soup from the starts we brought from the house.

  The bitter taste coated our tongues, and though the children weren’t fond of the dinner, they ate anyway without grumbling. A few of us waited to make sure the children had their fill before taking any ourselves. Trisk invited the guards to eat, and although they declined at first, their appetites got the better of them. Scattered around the property, everyone ate their fill. For a soup so undesirable, none remained when the sun left the sky.

  Wanting nothing more than to call it an early bedtime for everyone, I gave in to listening to another story embellished by Marsh. I never knew he had such a talent for storytelling. He loved the attention and had a flare for the dramatic. I shouldn’t have been surprised. When he finished, the children begged him for another. He declined, and they moaned their collective disappointment. Marsh stood firm in his decision…at first. Eventually, he gave in, although it was only after Trisk batted her eyes and asked him to do one more. He would do anything for her, and she knew it.