Scar

by Alice Broadway

  “We all do,” says Tanya. “But false hope is no hope at all.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  We eat bread and foraged salad leaves as darkness falls. Summer is not far off and the nights are shorter. But still, it is cold. After we finish, Tanya takes Mel off to wash, and Solomon prepares our sleeping area, leaving Oscar and me alone by the fire.

  “Isn’t it risky, having this fire?” I ask him.

  “We need it. Besides, the people of Featherstone know where we are.” I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “They wanted us gone from the settlement and they didn’t really care where we went, as long as we’re not with them. If they wanted to attack us, they’ve had time.”

  I lower my voice. “Why don’t you come back? You have a home in Saintstone – you have the crows. You would be safe.”

  He is silent for a moment and then he looks at me. My heart races when he reaches out to hold my hand.

  “I have a home here.” Oscar’s jaw tightens. “This is where I need to be – where I choose to be. They need help. I can’t just leave.”

  His words hurt. I want him to say he is desperate to be wherever I am; foolishly, I want to matter more to him than anyone else – even the hungry people of Featherstone.

  He brushes his thumb on my palm and my whole body feels like the fire.

  “All my life Dad has raised me to think of the blanks first,” Oscar says quietly. “Being part of the crows was, is, everything to him – especially after Mum died – and by joining the group myself I knew I would at least be linked to the thing he cared about most. He cares about destroying Longsight and uniting blank and marked, and that’s it.”

  “Your father cares about you,” I tell him. “I’ve seen him, read his marks – he’s in the jail with Obel, he’s in good spirits. You are the most important thing to him, not the crows.”

  Oscar forces a smile. “And he cares, does he? So how often did he ask about me, Leora? Did he mention my name?”

  I pause and think back. I realize all the talk was about Obel and Mayor Longsight’s plans. Oscar sees the expression on my face and nods.

  “It was… He was trying to help Obel,” I say uselessly. Oscar just shakes his head.

  “It’s OK, I’m used to it.” He shrugs. “It’s how it’s always been.”

  I take his other hand in mine and make him look at me.

  “You are wanted,” I say. “Your father wants you, and I…” I tail off, feeling shaky and lost under his calm gaze. “And you?” His voice is low and close.

  “I assume everyone sees what I see … and everyone feels how I feel.” My head swims and my ears ring and I am only tethered by his hands holding on to mine.

  “And how do you feel, Leora?” Oscar’s eyes are searchlights, reading my face – I feel like he could read my mind too.

  “I—”

  “Our beds are all ready.” Mel comes back towards the fire. I’m sure she sees Oscar and I drop hands and shift apart, but she makes no comment. I’m not sure whether I am glad or cross that we were interrupted, but when I look at him from the corner of my eye I catch him looking back at me, a little smile playing at his lips.

  Solomon and Tanya join us, and we sit in a friendly silence. The fire throws sparks into the gaps between our conversation.

  “I suppose they’ll be at the fireside in Featherstone too right now,” I say. “Ready for a meeting or a story or some food.” I think back to those times we were all together in Featherstone. Some nights those meetings felt like one soul in many bodies; other times, it felt like the tension crackled louder than the flames.

  “I don’t know what stories they tell these days, what lies Sana shares.” Solomon looks so sad and I remember that it was him I first heard tell a story around the fire – a story that was at once so familiar and so different it left me stunned. We ease back into the comfortable dream state that happens when you’re around a fire – the hypnotic beauty, the feeling that nothing beyond your circle of light exists.

  “Will you tell a story, Solomon?” I ask, and he smiles.

  “Not I, Leora.” The firelight brings out the smile lines on his face, and the worry lines. “I know you are here for a reason. If I want to hear any story tonight, it is the story of what brought you back – and what brought you out, storyteller.” His dark eyes meet Mel’s. “I have always wanted to hear a tale told by a true storyteller.”

  Mel looks at me and I nod. She sits cross-legged, her back tall and straight. Looking each of us in the eye as though sewing our souls together, she draws our attention tight, until all we see is her. Only then, does she begin.

  They say that when you reach the heights the only way you can go is down. And so it seemed for Mayor Longsight. A young leader, cut from the same cloth as Saintstone’s heroes. Mayor Longsight had gained the love and trust of his people and, it seemed, even his enemies respected him.

  Until one morning when the community gathered to watch as the mayor shared his latest success – a spy mission. He stood high on a podium – seen by all his people. They saw a woman in black scale the platform. They saw her plunge a blade beneath his ribs. They saw the flood of blood that spilled from their leader and they saw him fall.

  When Mayor Longsight died, so too did his people’s hope.

  While their enemies rejoiced, the people of Saintstone mourned. The townspeople wore black and honoured their leader’s memory by paying homage when his body was on display. They were held back by attendants, kept at a respectful distance, but many longed to run to him and wash his skin with their tears.

  At the apportioned time, his skin was prepared and the mayor was ready to be taken to the flayers’ for the next stage of his journey into eternity. But, then, it happened. His chest began to rise and fall, his fingers twitched, and his mouth moved – declaring all that he had learned from the ancestors while he was in the depths. Our leader, who had been dead, was now alive.

  His advisor, Jack Minnow, instructed him to wait a few days until he was strong and then the miracle was announced. The frenzied joy of impossible wishes granted filled the town. This beloved leader was man no longer – he was something more – a victor, beater of the final enemy, lord over death.

  Tanya – appalled and astonished – tries to speak, but Mel holds up a hand. This is her story and she will tell it to its end. We are transfixed; our storyteller’s eyes reflect the flames of the fire and the heat in our hearts.

  One miracle was not enough, however. It’s funny how quickly things once hailed as wonders lose their shine. And acceptance is never satisfactory when what you really desire is worship. A stage was set, and the town’s finest inker was summoned to mark the mayor. In a public ceremony the mayor was given a punishment mark in another man’s place. The criminal’s debt paid by the miracle man. But this work of humble sacrifice was not enough; one week later, the mayor appeared again before the people and he revealed his latest feat. The mark that was made – that was inked into his skin on behalf of another – that mark had completely disappeared.

  Oscar draws in a breath – the air hissing through his teeth breaks the magic. Mel looks around at us and she is Mel again, not our storyteller. The rest of her words sound like a friend explaining to friends.

  “His next sacrifice was to be on Leora’s behalf. I can only imagine that he was intending to take on the crow – the mark of the forgotten. But he never got a chance because the meeting was interrupted. A most terrible thing occurred. A house was broken into and the skin books stolen.

  “A skin book is the symbol of a soul that lives for ever – to steal one of these books is akin to a kidnapping; to destroy it would be murder. No one in Saintstone would commit such a heinous crime. But there are others who might.” Her gaze rakes over them. “We know that Sana is behind this and we have come to stop her.”

  “She must be stopped,” I say. My voice sounds tired. “Longsight’s new teachings have, for the first time in years, distracted the people from their hatred of the blanks.
If ever we were to broker for peace, it is now.” I look to Mel, because there is more to the story – her dreams, the prophecy of the sisters, my rapidly cohering mark. But she shakes her head, ever so slightly. “Tomorrow we will visit Featherstone and we will be heard. Whether Sana will listen is another matter.”

  They are silent for a while, thinking. And then, at last, Tanya nods.

  “If there is a chance for peace, then we must take it. But Sana is very far gone with her hatred. We know what she is capable of.”

  Mel nods. “And yet, we can but try.” She rubs her eyes. “Leora, we must sleep – we have much work ahead of us.”

  “I’ll take you to her myself, in the morning,” Oscar says and stands. Mel raises an eyebrow and smiles at me.

  “He’s brave, your Oscar,” she murmurs as we walk together towards our sleeping area.

  And, as I lie there, I let those words swirl deliciously in my mind. My Oscar.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The early morning in a forest is a strange time to be human. It is the time at which you are most aware that you don’t belong – this territory is owned by the others. Birds trill and caw in a cloud of sound and squirrels are at their most brave. A fox waits us out along a path, standing its ground while we step by, all big feet and noise. A pheasant ignores us and a magpie flutters over our heads, the beats of its wings making my heart race.

  Mel has been collecting twigs and sticks, putting them into her satchel as she walks. When we cross the stream, Mel passes the horse’s reins to Oscar and, paying no attention to our confused faces, dips a bucket she brought from the camp to collect water. Oscar and I lead the horses while Mel walks, swaying with the weight of the bucket. We are close now, so very close.

  Featherstone is still asleep when we arrive.

  The sky is pink and scarlet when Mel walks up the slope towards the ever-burning fire. The bucket of water laps as she walks. When she reaches the top, she turns and looks down towards the village. With her feet planted, the pail of water in her hand and the fire raging behind her, she is the silhouette of a goddess: a flaming deity of warning and judgement.

  The man who has been tending the fire through the night goes to Mel, but when he sees her skin he runs towards the settlement. Her marks are extraordinary in the firelight – the burnished tales of Saintstone. Her ink is like molten metal, like weapons being forged, like silver in the crucible. Like war, like peace.

  Instead of the rallying, raging crowd I expect, there is a slow drip of curious souls that come and stand at the base of the hill, all the time watching Mel, Oscar and me warily.

  The children are first.

  Mel has not paused – she does not play for an audience; she has been busy. All the time since she placed the bucket on the ground, she has been taking twigs from her bag and setting them in pyramids. Soon the patch of ground where she stands is littered with these tiny structures, standing in pairs, carefully waiting.

  The children draw near, hungry and curious. They have grown somewhat accustomed to marked faces, but this is something new – this is entertainment and they hold their breaths waiting to see what will happen next.

  Still not speaking, not looking at any of the young faces gazing at her, Mel takes a stick from the fire and with her other hand she fills her water flask from the bucket. She walks around her creations and stops at each pair. One twig construction she lights with fire from the torch in her hand and the other she drenches with water. Each structure tumbles down and every time the children call out in amusement, frustration and distress at her studious destruction.

  The parents have drawn closer by now, mistrustful of this marked stranger who plays with fire – entranced too by her methodical dance of fire and water.

  Mel walks around once more, stamping out what remains of the tiny blazes, kicking at the muddy puddles of fallen twigs. The children don’t know whether to join her or tell on her and their parents purse their lips in disapproval – and yet, no one interferes, nobody dares stop her.

  The rest of the town are trudging up the hill now. And then I see that Sana is here, standing at the back of the crowd, arms crossed, head inclined, shoulders back – she is leader enough to allow this intrusion, her body says. But I know she is also leader enough to call for Mel’s destruction. Seeing Sana chills me with fear and I hope that Mel is as certain of her actions as she seems.

  Mel has placed the flaming branch back next to the fire and this time she takes sticks out of her bag – marginally longer than the twigs she has already used – and again, she builds. This time just two structures, side by side, and finally, she looks up as though noticing her audience for the first time and she straightens her shoulders, lifts her chin, shaking her red curls out of her face, and her story begins.

  “Once there were two friends and the two friends built their houses next to each other.” Mel puts the finishing touches to the two stick houses she has built. “‘Now we are neighbours!’ the friends said, and they were happy and glad.”

  The children look at each other and smile, already enjoying the story, feeling tickled to attend this surprise performance.

  “But one day – a terrible day – there was a storm.” Mel’s eyes flash and the children squirm in delight at the promise of peril. “And on that terrible day the storm sent a fork of lightning and it struck one of the houses.” At this, Mel reaches again for the flaming branch and touches it to the house on her right – each time making her voice rumble and crackle like thunder and lightning. One child cries out “No!” when he sees the house begin to burn. Flames lick at the twigs and already it begins to teeter. “And on that terrible day the storm sent rain and a flood swept up to the other house.” Mel lifts the bucket and pours what is left of the water around the second twig house. The house falls immediately, and the water runs its way downward – the children shift to let the torrent pass and watch as the sticks that formed the house float down the hill, getting caught up in leaves and grass. One child catches a stick and returns it to Mel as though it might make the whole house come back again.

  Mel looks down at her feet and every eye follows. On one side is a pile of charred wood and on the other is a pool with one lone stick lying in it. The children look at Mel with anger and suspicion. Where is the happy ending of the story? Surely there is more to come. Their agitated chatter halts as soon as Mel begins again.

  “On this terrible day, fire destroyed one man’s house and water destroyed the other. From that day on, each man made an oath. The man whose house was struck by lightning and burned to the ground vowed that he would never again let fire come close to him or his home. The man whose house was caught in the rain and swept away by a flood swore that he would never again let water come close to him or his home. Each man was determined.

  “‘Fire destroys,’ the one man said. ‘Water is deadly,’ said the other. Each one said, ‘Now I am safe.’”

  The children start to raise their hands, whimpering with the urge to fix this tale, but Mel carries on.

  “It was not long before each man became ill. One man wept because of his thirst but insisted, ‘I will not allow water near me,’ even though his tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth. The other man wept from hunger. He had meat and potatoes – indeed his table was laden with food, but he shouted, ‘I will not allow fire near me,’ and so the meat went rancid and the potatoes rotted, and he ate nothing.”

  I’m reminded of a dream I once had, a dream where the sisters were in separate cottages and each had what the other needed. I know how this story should end.

  Mel picks up the stick that has been left in the deluge and prods at the mud and ash, making a mud-pie mush of the two houses. Making a mess.

  “And so, both men dropped down dead.” Mel releases the stick and shrugs.

  The crowd are silent, even the children simply gape at Mel. But I see it in their eyes – she got it wrong. That’s not how a story like this should end.

  Chapter Twenty-six

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nbsp; A slow clap breaks the stunned, cold calm.

  “Oh, very good.” Sana paces slowly towards Mel, still with the sarcastic applause, each one sounding like a slap in the face. The sea of people parts before her. “A majestic performance – terribly moving.” She treads over the mutilated parts of the houses Mel built, not caring to look down at the mess beneath her feet. “This is where we weep, where we cry out that if only the friends had shared, if only they weren’t so stubborn…” Sana is small next to Mel, but she is like that fox we saw on our way – standing her ground, knowing this is her space and that we are merely trespassing. She is wiry and wily; we underestimate her at our peril.

  The rest of the community press in on us now. Mel no longer holds the fort. Hers was a momentary dominion, and now the power has been reclaimed; children return to their parents and eye Mel with suspicion.

  “That’s what you’re saying, yes?” Sana continues. “If only the blanks and the marked weren’t so obstinate. If they could just see that the one way for them both to survive was to work together.” She raises an eyebrow. “You’ll tell me if I’ve got it wrong?” Mel says nothing. “Message received, storyteller.”

  I risk a look at Oscar and see the tension in his face too. We are both poised to run. Mel however is stately and utterly fearless. She looks at Sana without pity or hatred and I can hardly believe it when I see that, shining from her face, is love.

  “Sana, we got your message,” Mel says. “Loud and clear. You know how to hit us where it will cause us the most pain. To have a skin book taken away is like losing a lover. Clever girl.” Sana shrugs. “But your attack was futile. It came at a time when the people’s antagonism towards your community is at its lowest. The citizens of Saintstone have moved on – they have passed on the opportunity to fight. Now is time for something else, something new. There is a chance for hope here. Have mercy on your people. Call for peace.”