by V. K. Ludwig
Adair huffed. “I’ll do it then.” He peeked through his dot scope.
His words set off a wave of shivers which ran down my spine. He was right. Born this late in the year this little sucker, who’s gangly legs wobbled with each step, might not make it. He put his stiff finger on the trigger. Tendrils of guilt crawled through my ribcage. This isn’t our call…
“I got it,” I said.
Swaying my bow to the side, I released the arrow into a tree next to the doe and her fawn. She hurdled sideways at first as if she expected a cougar to leap at her from behind the shrubs. Then she ran off in alarm together with her young one, dodging trees along their way as they fled deep into the brush.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Oops!”
Adair rubbed his index and middle finger down his forehead. He huffed even harder now, and his breath rose through the understory layer of the forest.
“You did that on purpose.”
“What can I say?” I stood up and extended my arm toward him. “I’m just a terrible shot!”
For a moment, Adair bored his eyes into me like a bear who woke from hibernation. His fists clenched. Did he want to punch me, or pull me down into the compost of leaves and moss?
“Come on, man. I’ll give you one of my rabbits,” I said.
“Rabbit,” he spat the word out through gritted teeth.
“Better than nothing.” I extended my arm some more. “Now get up so you can hang your balls by the fire.”
Incoherent muttering sounded from his beard as he took my hand and got up. Most likely a million curses. Each one condemning me to eternal suffering. He swung his crossbow onto his back, and I did the same with my bow.
“Let’s go, Monk!” I waved at the pile of soil caked fur beside me. He had lain there for hours as motionless as a statue. He knew damn well his wolf-like coat would betray him on this carpet of pine needles.
Walking down the boulder-strewn trail for three miles, thorny twigs clung to our pants and poked through the fabric. At my cabin, I grabbed the rabbit from the ice room in the root cellar and flung it at Adair. The rich scents of dark crusted meat and burnt honey made my mouth water. My stomach growled. Stupid me. Shouldn’t have skipped breakfast.
“How ‘bout those?” He pointed at the dried bear flanks which dangled from a support beam, layered with a smoky hue of cinnamon. I threw him one of those too and gave the other to Monk who took off in a trot.
“You’re too soft,” Adair said, climbing up the stairs. “Won’t ever get a wife like that. They want men who will do whatever it takes to —”
“Oh… like you?” I laughed and waved off his bullshit.
“Yeah, like me.”
We ducked and climbed the stairs which squeaked underneath our weight.
“If you are such a woman expert, growing up with a sister and all… How come you’re not married?” I asked.
Adair glanced at me from a tight face. “I’m working on it.”
No kidding! By now, everyone knew just how hard he worked on it. If Rowan found out how he sneaked around the ladies on dreary days, he would have his back against the wall within seconds.
“You got room for all this?” I asked and pointed at the hunter green cooler pack of his ATV.
Brittle leaves landed on the ground with a crunch whenever a gust blew through the branches. Above us, a symphony of red and gold, like on that calendar I once found in a ruin out west. Fall in Maine. That’s what it said underneath the picture of the weathered red cabin. The surface of the lake in front of it drowned in a reflection of scarlet, mocha, and cider. What I would give to see it in person one day…
“Is Maine at the East or the West coast?” I asked.
Adair jerked his head in my direction. “I guess sneaking off during geography to go hunting didn’t pay off for you, did it? You can’t hunt for shit, and now you’re asking me if Maine is at the East or West coast?”
“What can I say, man.” I slouched off a lame shrug. “Not everyone is cut out to be a teacher’s pet like you.”
He didn’t turn to look at me. Instead, he put his hand behind his back and flipped me off.
“Hold up a moment.” I wiggled the jacket sleeve off my wrist. “Activate call!”
In the flickers of artificial light, Rowan’s holographic image appeared in front of us, and birds pushed themselves into the sky. He raked his fingers through his hair with a stern look on his face, like he does before virtual meetings with the council of the Districts. Or when scouts came back with a suspicious piece of fabric.
“What’s up chieftain?” I nodded.
“Did you leave yet?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I just got back from hunting and —”
“That fucker let a doe get away,” Adair shouted.
Rowan furrowed his brows, and a shadow came over his face.
“Anyway,” I said. “I will have a soak now, then I’ll get the food ready and pop smoke. I want to reach the interstate by the time it’s dark.”
“You won’t,” Rowan let his deep-toned voice roll over my plans like the tire of an ancient Ford F150. “I need you to come by the longhouse. Now.”
I shifted from one foot to the other. Shit! If I didn’t make it out in time, I’d have to postpone the entire thing for another day. After twenty-eight years of asking myself the same question repeatedly, each additional second away from the truth made my chest burn up.
I gazed over the tree trunks as if they could tell me what I had to expect.
My voice couldn’t hide the strain. “Uh, yeah ok. We’ll be there in ten.”
“You better,” Rowan trailed off, and the light beams disappeared.
I punched my fist into Adair’s shoulder. He stumbled back, his hands flailing. The jerk tripped over a pair of intertwined roots but saved his balance just as a “Fucking asshole” escaped him through bared teeth.
Hyped by the turmoil, squirrels shot over the forest floor and raced up the trunks under squeaks and barks. Once safely on a branch, they scolded us like I imagined a mother would do after you poked your sibling in the eye with a stick.
“Look who’s talking,” I snarled and stood up tall. “What is it with you today? Did something rub you the wrong way?”
He shot me a furious glance. “Just back the fuck up and stay out of my business. You concern yourself with whatever Rowan wants with you.”
Blood tingled inside my clenched fists. Nothing a good old bitch-slap couldn’t solve. But that last part got to me. What would Rowan do if we showed up with bruised faces? The last thing I needed: more delays.
“Whatever, man,” I said and flung myself on the back of his ATV. “Let’s get going before he calls again.”
We took the ATV down to the village, and people bustled about as we arrived and parked by the longhouse. It stood in the village's center with an enormous fire pit in front.
Two massive white oaks flanked the mud-walled building, and their branches scratched the glaring metal roof. Pillars made of carved wood framed it all and told long-forgotten stories of scaly dragons.
Rowan sat on the stairs of the longhouse with a book in his hands. The elements had worn the leather binding, and traces of ash clung between the grain.
“Feeling nostalgic?” Adair said and pointed at him.
Rowan’s stare remained on the letters in front of him. “Books make you smarter. You should try it some time.”
“Ha!” Adair placed his hands onto his hips. “I’m the smartest of this bunch. That’s why the women in the Districts can’t get enough of me.”
“Not to mention the most humble one,” Rowan said and fixed his eyes on Adair. For a moment, they wrestled each other with their stares. Eventually, Adair's eyes trailed off to a boy who tied a goat to a tree.
Wise choice! Nobody should mess with a muscle-packed giant, who has the reputation to squeeze a man’s eyes out right after breakfast.
“Let’s get inside,” Rowan said. “We have to talk.”
; He rose to his full height and made Adair and me look like two boys who didn’t hit their final growth spurt yet. Damn! Did I step in goat shit or why do my feet feel so hot? What does he want with me?
We trailed behind him as we walked into the longhouse. When I first met Rowan, the sides of his head were shaved and his top hair put into formidable braids. One week after he became our new chieftain, he grabbed an ax from a nearby splitter and chopped it off with one strike.
“Shut the door,” he said and lay down on a wooden bench, one leg resting on it, the other hanging on the ground. “It’s getting fucking cold in here. Whoever planned this building was a fool. If there’s a fire in the pit, I sweat my ass off. Without fire, I swear my cock shrinks three inches.”
Adair sat on the pedestal and ran his palm along the sanded driftwood of the high seat. Adorned with cream-brown antlers and pieces of pink and purple seashells, the ugly thing screamed back pain at me.
I pulled a wooden bench closer to Rowan, and its legs let a screech shrill across the room. Just a few more steps. Both men stared at me from raised brows. There! Done!
Beneath the scent of cold hickory ash lay a trace of something sweet. One gaze into Rowan’s droopy eyes offered the ultimate clue. Honey mead! I bet his pores reeked of it too.
Adair pointed at the high seat. “Are you ever gonna plant your ass in that thing?”
“Hell no,” he mumbled. “I swear it smells like a tiny room full with old people. I considered throwing it out, but the seashells are worth a fortune. The jewel makers in the Districts shell out hundreds for it.”
He turned his head towards me. “You know… I think your mother wore a seashell necklace when she came to us.”
“Unlikely,” I said. “Someone who can afford seashells doesn’t end up at the doorstep of another clan, all alone with a bastard child in her belly. Are you sure it was seashells? All I ever got was this thing here with her picture.”
My hand darted for the locket around my neck. I let my fingers glide over the rough surface of corroded metal. It sprung open, and the hinges crunched from all the dirt and grit between them. If I didn't get that cleaned up soon, it would crumble into orange specks of dust soon.
“Of course I’m not sure. That was like, what… thirty years ago?”
“Twenty-eight,” I said.
Rowan pushed himself up to sit. “Dude, you’re twenty-eight? Please reconsider the length of your beard. Makes you look like a shaggy middle-aged man who just went through his third divorce.”
“Speaking of it,” I tapped a quick beat with my heels. “Why are we here? I told you weeks ago I would leave tonight, but earlier you sounded like it’s not gonna happen.”
Rowan scrubbed his hands over his face, then leaned forward placing elbows onto thighs. Man, what now? The pit of my stomach growled once more, this time not only of hunger. My eyes narrowed to nothing but a pair of slits.
“Don’t give me that look man,” Rowan said. “The school needs running water, and I need you to get it done ASAP!”
I gripped the edge of the bench. After sixty-some years, the old shack suddenly needed running water?
“Wow,” I said. “That’s a massive project. There isn’t even a nearby water source, and the forest canopy is too thick for a cistern. I would have to tap the spring up North. It will take me… uh,” I flexed and bent my fingers as I went through the numbers. “A week. At least. Two weeks or more if the ground freezes early this year. But yeah, give me a couple of men, and I can get it done once I’m back.”
He crossed his arms in front of his chest, pushing a pebble over the mud-crusted floorboards with the edge of his boot. My throat closed up. Evidently, the project could wait until I got back, right? Or did he think he’d rather get it done now, in case I wouldn’t make it back? He gave a golden ring on his finger a spin. His knuckles the only thing which kept it on, or it would have rolled off and into a gap between the planks.
Adair pushed himself up and bounced on his toes. “I’m getting the vibe you won’t be going nowhere, man.”
“You’re kidding right?” I asked and gazed over to Rowan once more. He brushed off my question with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Look,” he said. “I was only ten when your mom showed up here and pushed you out less than two hours later. You want to go up there, raise hell and find out who you are. Fine. I get it. But this project has priority. I’m sorry River, but I can’t let you leave until you completed it.”
I jumped up and buried my face in my hands for a moment.
“We don’t even have a teacher, and I don’t remember you mentioning a replacement. Why can’t the water wait until I’m back? You think I will not make it… is that it? I’m one of our best scavengers in this village. I’ve been out there hundreds of times” My hand pointed westwards.
“Oh come on now,” Adair’s stupid smirk made my nostrils flare. “You’re not that good.”
“Shut up!” I shouted.
Rowan let his deep voice rumble through the longhouse. “The Districts will send us one of their teachers.”
What the… Every part of my body froze mid-movement, and for a moment I forgot how to breathe. Adair and I glanced at each other. Impossible. I looked back at Rowan with a raised eyebrow, my hands folded in front of my chest.
“What did you just say?” Adair asked and cocked his head.
“You heard me.” Rowan cleared his throat. “I negotiated with the Districts, and they will send us one of their teachers for one year. And because we all know the guy will be an asexual wuss who can’t wipe his own ass, I need you to install running water at the school. This is where you come in, Adair.”
Rowan’s face lit up with a grin so wide, the corners of his mouth almost touched his ears.
Adair flung up his hands. “No way. I will not protect a guy from the Districts.”
A belly-deep laugh vibrated through Rowan’s body, and he slapped his thigh. Adair’s lips twitched as if he tried to find the right words to get himself out of this mess. No words came, and he kicked a leftover drinking horn into the dusty fire pit.
“This is not funny,” he shouted, and fury dripped from his tone.
Rowan held his stomach. “It is to me. What do you think, River?”
I gave a confused one-shoulder shrug. I got it. Someone coming to our clan after I don’t know how many years? A huge thing. But what if the ground froze, and the project would take too long? I had to get out before the first snowfall, or the white powdery blanket would give me away as soon as I stepped on it.
“You know what,” Rowan said. “You do this for me, and I’ll give you some rabbit jerky from my stash. It’s tasty, too! Rubbed with jalapeño powder and smoked over hickory. Nothing’s better to keep you warm up there in that freaking cold.”
“You’re making it sound like I have a choice here, old man,” I said.
“Old man my ass,” he winked. “Get it done. Fast. Then I’ll see how we can all help you find out more about your mother.”
Chapter 4
A plan
Ayanna
Give me all your chocolate and ignore my sobs when you walk by my room. Or don’t give me any chocolate and bang the wall to shut me up. Why this? Did a community circle ever solve anything? Thirty-something souls big, we barely fit in the meeting room and left the air sticky and depleted. Some had to squeeze closer together while others pulled the shape of the chain into an oval. Everyone stared at me and gifted me their smiles and positive energy. Ugh! I didn’t need positive energy. What I needed came in a shiny silver tube with a blue lid and a name tag that spelled Robert.
I linked my left hand with Isabelle’s, and my right one with Tamara’s. Samuel stretched his arms out of the soft yellow baby wrap and twinkled at the three-dimensional projection of earth at the center of the room. Why did I wait so long to have myself inseminated? If I would have skipped the additional coursework… who knows? Perhaps I would have slipped under the radar.
“Ev
eryone, take a deep breath,” Celeste said to the others. She pulled the wrinkled corners of her mouth closer to her ears. “Ayanna needs all the positive energy she can get. Everyone, breathe out with me on three. Let the vibration of our voices wander through our community chain so that Ayanna can face this small setback. One …”
Small setback? An easy thing to say for someone who had so many kids, she mixed up their names more often than not. Did she miss out on this awesome club called motherhood? Nope. That was me. The sweet scent of my daughter would never fill my nose, like freshly baked biscuits on a Monday morning, topped with way too much honey. I would never nurse her from my breast and mend the crack in my soul my parents had left behind.
“Two…”
The upside down pyramid of the Obsidian District stood at the horizon behind the wall of windows. How tiny it looked from here. Up close, it rose like a phoenix from the ashes of a failed society, set in the immortal concrete of rules we all had to follow.
“Three! Mmmmh.” Celeste nodded in encouragement.
A unified hum resonated the room, and my fingertips took in the vibrations which traveled along the chain. Isabelle squeezed my hand and gave me a wink. I guess most people ran out of positive energy after about forty-three seconds. Some gathered in the kitchen for coffee and a round of board games. Other disappeared into their rooms.
Finally! I grabbed Isabelle’s hand and pulled her behind me through the hallway and into her room. She carefully closed the door behind us and peeked into the bassinet.
“They mean well.” She walked over to the royal blue couch next to me and flung herself down.
“Uh-huh,” I said and clenched my jaw. Grief hollowed me out from the inside, like the constant drip of water on a limestone cave. Children. Outside harvesting orange and red bell peppers. In the kitchen, planning their next chess move. In my classroom, listening to stories about the split of society. Children everywhere… except in my belly. Despair dwelled between my ribs, hidden beneath polite smiles and easy shoulder shrugs. I couldn’t take it anymore!
