by Donald Brown
***
I must try to be happy, he now told himself, echoing his mother.
There was always still the possibility that he might be picked for a service during his Initiation.
At least things aren’t as bad as what happened to Zion, he thought.
And with that, he stood up and headed back to his house.
13
The morning after George had hit her in the tavern, Dorothy woke up and at first thought it had all been a bad dream. Then realization slowly dawned on her and she suppressed a sob. Just wanting to keep herself occupied, she decided to pay a visit to Doctor Ron, to get her monthly medical examination. It wasn’t quite time yet, but she wanted to make sure the baby hadn’t been hurt when she’d fallen over the tables in the Roasting Boar the previous evening.
When she walked out into a crisp autumn morning, George had still not returned to their house. She thought he must have slept somewhere else, perhaps at Tom’s place. After George had assaulted her in the pub, Dorothy had returned home and cleaned up her bloodied face before crying herself to sleep. When she had woken up six hours later and George wasn’t in bed beside her, she’d made the assumption that he was most likely feeling terrible about what he’d done and had found another bed for the night.
Now, walking down the street, towards Doctor Ron’s house, Dorothy’s head was spinning.
Why did he hit me like that? her subconscious asked, somewhat confused. George had never been a violent man. What is wrong with him? He is getting worse by the day.
She briefly interrupted her thoughts to greet some of the merchants at the market in Zion’s town square, although it wasn’t accompanied by her usual smile. Then she turned left and started walking up the hill where the doctor lived, while resuming the silent conversation with herself.
Maybe it was just the alcohol that made him so angry. Or, perhaps George is right: maybe it’s all the war’s fault…
Then she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
Wait. What if it was the witch’s curse that made him do it? But that was all confusing, she spoke about ripples in the water… No, that was just nonsense. It had to be! But there has to be some explanation for his violence!
By the time she reached Doctor Ron’s front door, Dorothy was worried sick. She was starting to convince herself that the man she had once loved so much was going to murder her.
After taking a moment to straighten the creases out of her skirt with slender fingers, she took a deep breath and knocked on the door. Doctor Ron opened promptly and welcomed her with a smile, a soothing relief from the terrible thoughts that were running around inside her head.
“Please, come in,” he told Dorothy, making way for her to step through the doorway.
Once inside, she anxiously pressed her hands together and said, “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Doc. I really appreciate it.”
“You can never be too careful with a pregnancy,” Ron replied. “Besides, it’s not like there are a million patients queuing in front of my door.” He had seen Dorothy fall after the hit from George in the tavern, but he was actually more concerned about her emotional state than any physical injuries. If the unborn child had been injured in any way, she would have consulted him much earlier, he believed. It was already past ten in the morning.
Dorothy gave a nervous laugh and then she followed the doctor to his makeshift consulting office in one of the back rooms of his house. Like always, the windows were closed and the scent of Iodine and antiseptic solutions filled the air.
Doctor Ron pulled on a pair of sterilized cotton gloves, while gesturing for her to sit on the bench where so many patients had been cured and consulted before. Dorothy took a seat, while saying, “Doc, what do you make of these soldiers?” She shifted around uncomfortably on the bench, then added, “They are acting stranger and stranger by the day.”
“Well, I don’t know, Dorothy,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ve examined plenty of them and I have to tell you, I could not find any medical reason for their odd and erratic behaviour. Something is wrong with their minds… It must have been hell on that battlefield, to influence the heads of so many men so profoundly. They need something to keep their minds occupied, I think… otherwise this might not end well. Perhaps you should consider yourself lucky that George settled on liquor… there are far darker things to keep yourself busy with.”
He didn’t volunteer any more information. Shaking her head in dismay, Dorothy didn’t offer a reply. Instead, she lifted her blouse halfway up, in order for the doctor to examine her stomach. Because she’d known Ron since their school years, she wasn’t hung up on him seeing or touching her body, as long as it was in his capacity as a medical doctor.
“So, how are you feeling today?” he asked, pressing his hands gently onto the round, bulging shape of her abdomen.
She nodded and replied distractedly, “Not too bad, Doc.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that knock you took last night,” he said in a friendly tone. “The only impact was when your back and shoulders hit those tables.” Then his voice turned sombre again. “As for George, I have asked Father Dennis to have a word with him. Nobody just attacks his wife like that. It’s unheard of.”
Dorothy’s chin fell to her chest in shame. “Thank you, Doc.”
Afterwards she would wonder why she felt ashamed in that moment. George should be the one feeling embarrassed by his foolish actions. He was the guilty party in all of this, not her.
After Ron had listened to the baby’s heartbeat and performed a few other routine checks, he stood back and removed his gloves. “Well, everything looks pretty fine here.” He peered at her over the rim of his glasses. “You look after yourself now, Dorothy, and don’t worry too much about the other soldiers… it won’t be good for the child. Father Dennis will straighten George out, I promise. He’ll be his old self sooner rather than later.”
“All right, thank you so much,” Dorothy replied, pushing her blouse down with shaking hands.
Dorothy thanked him and headed out, not noticing how the doctor was standing still, staring at her for a while with a slightly worried expression on his face.
When she walked through the front door, she almost tumbled over something. At the last second, she jumped over and while taking a second look, Dorothy noticed that a black soldier had taken up residence outside the doctor’s door while she had been inside. He looked a mess. His clothes were torn and he had scratch marks all over his face and arms.
The soldier noticed her staring at him and turned his beady red eyes to face her. “What you looking at woman?!” he snapped, his words barely intelligible.
“Nothing,” she said, walking away from the confrontation while shaking her head from side to side. Things had definitely changed around Zion.
On her way back home, Dorothy quickly stopped at the food market to buy a gallon of milk and two fresh cabbage heads.
She was about to pay the merchant when Mr. Meyers appeared beside her, seemingly out of the blue. “Everything going alright Dorothy?” he asked.
“Mr Meyers! What a surprize. I’m doing good, thank you. Doctor Ron examined me just now and he says the baby is fine as well.”
“Very well then. And how is George doing?”
Dorothy paused for a second, deep in thought. The she realized she just couldn’t hold it in anymore, tears came streaming from her eyes and a sob escaped from her.
“The situation is absolutely horrible, Mr. Meyers,” she snivelled. “He is not the man he used to be. Not at all. He has changed into some kind of a stranger.” Then she started sobbing. “He hit me in the face last night. I’m afraid of what he will do next.”
Mr. Meyers took a step forward to hug her and there they stood there for a few moments, Dorothy crying profusely.
“Don’t worry,” Mr. Meyers whispered in her ear after a while. “It will all be right.”
It was the second time someone had told her this today an
d she still didn’t believe anything was going to change. Judged by the way George was deteriorating, she figured he would never become his old self again.
She disengaged from the hug and wiped away her tears with the back of her hands. “I am sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you with this. I have to get going,” she said abruptly and left a perplexed Mr. Meyers behind.
Dorothy returned to her house to find George sitting by the kitchen table, staring sullenly at the wall with droopy eyes.
“Hello, George,” she greeted, faking her best pleasant voice.
Her husband didn’t even turn his head.
She put the groceries down on the table and then looked at him for a while, waiting for an apology. When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to talk to her, she decided to leave him in peace and then she went out into the garden.
What am I going to do? she wondered, admiring a colourful butterfly playing around in the trees.
Then the tears came again.
14
On his way back home, Storm passed the wall that separated the boys from the girls.
He had never seen a girl before, except for his mom, of course, whom he only had very vague memories of. The two genders got separated from each other at a young age in Sanctuarian, but he knew that the girls lived on the other side of the high wall. He could hear their soft spoken voices and high-pitched shrieks coming from the other side. Storm had always imagined them as creatures similar quite to boys, but with bigger mouths and blondish long hair.
“BAD THOUGHT!”
Storm jumped in a fright, but it wasn’t he who’d had the bad thought this time. A man ambled past him and Storm realized that it had been this man who had reprimanded himself. He stared at the back of the rambling man for a few moments and then hurried on.
Further down the path, he passed a group of Peacekeepers, arguing amongst themselves. On the ground lay something that had clearly fallen and broken to pieces. It seemed as if they were bickering over who had the highest rank amongst them.
“We were appointed a Peacekeeper first,” one of them said, pointing at the other.
“No, no, that’s not true. We were first called out,” the second one said.
“Who, we?” the third Peacekeeper asked, confused.
“No, we,” the second responded, pointing at the first Peacekeeper.
“Oh.”
“Are we saying that we have bad intentions?” the first one snarled.
“No, no, of course not!”
Storm suspected each one wanted to deny superiority, as that person would have to accept culpability for the mishap, but he rushed away before they could see him and try to blame the accident on him. That was something that the Red Cloaks were known to do: blaming others. Once, when Storm and his brother had been forcing down the repulsive and meager food they received at the mess hall, a Peacekeeper had burst in. Storm had instantly noticed that this particular Peacekeeper was enraged.
The Peacekeeper had marched over to the closest Sanctuarian and grabbed him by the hair, pulling him to the center of the room. “It was we, wasn’t it?” he’d shouted into the man’s ear.
The Sanctuarian was faced with the choice of either agreeing and facing punishment for the crime, or denying the act, for which he would be punished in any event, because he would be insinuating that the Red Cloak was a liar. In this impossible situation, the Sanctuarian opted for the more tactical choice of acting guilty. “Yes, it was! Yes, it was!” he exclaimed with tears in his eyes, knowing full well what would come next. “It was we that killed the chicken!” he continued. “Yes, yes! We killed the chicken and ate it,” he added, perhaps believing that if he acted convincingly enough and confessed to everything, he would face a lighter sentence.
“No,” the Peacekeeper said, annoyed. He paused for a moment to tighten his grip on the man’s hair. “We didn’t eat it, we just left it there!” he then yelled, scanning around to watch the confused looks on the other Sanctuarians’ faces. They hastily averted their eyes.
“Oh, yes, we didn’t eat it,” the man corrected himself. “We left it there and then we tried to bury it under the snow.”
The Peacekeeper shook his head in exasperation. “No! It was never under the snow!” He was clearly regretting his choice of a scapegoat, whilst the rest of the Sanctuarians looked at each other in confusion, not sure as to what they were witnessing. To Storm it felt like a bad concert performance rehearsal.
“Peacekeeper-111!” an authoritative new voice rasped from the doorway.
Everyone in the hall spun around and lunged into upright positions.
It was the Servant Vladimir standing at the door. He was the leader of the council and second in command in Sanctuary. The Servant was tall and thin and with his black robe covering him completely, he almost had the appearance of a giant bat. His ugly black eyebrows were forming an angry V as he was eyeing the Peacekeeper up and down. He was accompanied by two Red Cloaks and a small drummer dwarf called Coco. Coco had a long pointy beard that almost touched his toes and wore a woollen hat that covered most of his hair. The only suitable profession in Sanctuary for Coco was to be Vladimir’s personal assistant, doing favors for his master and announcing his arrival with drums. Which Coco now did with gusto, until Vladimir waved for him to stop.
“Peacekeeper-111,” Vladimir repeated. Then he rubbed his hands together and said, “The trial has been concluded and the judgment is...” He snapped his fingers impatiently and Coco handed him a parchment. Coco’s head was barely matching Vladimir’s waist and he had to stretch his arm upwards to place the parchment in the Servant’s hands.
“The judgment is that we will be strangled until we confess our crime of murdering…” Vladimir’s voice trailed off, befuddled. Then he turned livid. “No, this isn’t it, imbecile!” he barked, whacking Coco over the head with the parchment. Coco, abashed, quickly delved into his bag and produced a new parchment, which he handed to his master.
Vladimir took the second scroll with an angry jab, clearly expressing his belief that if he had been in charge of handing over parchments, he would have done a much better job.
“We find the Peacekeeper-111 guilty of stealing a chicken and we, the council, sentences him to death, by means of hanging,” Vladimir stated.
The Peacekeeper accepted his fate with no visible emotion, his hand still holding the innocent man’s hair. He eventually let go of him and the man collapsed in a whimper. The Peacekeeper marched out behind Vladimir as he had been trained. This left the Sanctuarian who had been accused to cry his eyes out. Whether it was out of relief, sadness or complete bewilderment, nobody exactly knew.
***
That had just been a typical day in Sanctuary, Storm now recalled as he reached the block of houses where he lived.
They all resembled each other, once again to enforce the need for conformity. Each house was built from stone, carved out of the mountain, and had the shape of a dome, containing one door, one window and one room. In fact, it was so confusing that Storm had to erect a stick in front of his house, so that he could recognize the place he lived in when he came home to the neighborhood.
While walking past the houses, he spotted the mark in front of his house.
Before he could enter, Storm’s attention was caught by his neighbor, Miner-110 – who Storm liked to call John – waving to him from where he was standing on his roof.
When he realized that he had caught Storm’s attention, John the Miner pointed to Storm’s house and beckoned for him to hide.
Storm quickly hid behind the nearest tree and sure enough, Jamie and the other boys came trampling from his house. They looked around in the street for a while and then disappeared. Storm gave a sigh of relief and when he thought it was clear, emerged from behind the tree and gave John a thumbs up.
John, who was still watching him, returned the thumbs up and then continued fixing his roof in frustration.
Storm extended his hand to open the door of his house, but
it was wrenched open from the other side and he found himself face to face with his brother, Hadrian, one of Sanctuary’s esteemed Peacekeepers.
“Where have we been?” Hadrian said loudly, his face contorted in fury. He was well-built and his blond hair was cut short – a proper example of a Sanctuarian. He shared no physical qualities with his brother and even in personality they were radically different. Hadrian had a quick temper whereas Storm rarely became angry with other people.
Storm began to reply, but Hadrian cut him off with a swipe of his hand. “The other boys have been back ages ago, Boy-150!” he said, but stepped aside so that Storm could get in.
Once he was on the inside, Storm performed a quick check of everything in the room, moving his eyes from the stone wall with the cracks, to the one portrait on the wall in likeness of the Guardian, to the few cupboards that were falling apart and then, finally, to the three ragged beds standing below the only window. Noticing that everything was still in place, he turned back towards Hadrian, who was still glowering at him with folded arms. When Hadrian was angry, his neck was always extended to its fullest, almost as if he was forcing his head to pop off. Storm assumed his posture of innocent seriousness, waiting for his brother to resume.
“We are tired of this happening, Boy-150,” Hadrian now told him. “It’s about time we started thinking about the rest of us… and stop being so damn selfish!” he added bitterly, as if that would deliver an emotional blow to Storm. Hadrian emphasized his statement by slamming the door shut, closing them off from the sound of the wailing wind outside and drawing a cry of outrage from John next door.
This left complete silence in the room and Storm nodded, outwardly calm in the face of the continuing fury from his brother, but trembling a bit on the inside. Hadrian glared at him, as if waiting for Storm to fall to his knees and beg for mercy. Storm expected his brother to continue the scolding, but what Hadrian did next, took him completely by surprise.
Hadrian sighed. “We just don’t know what to do about you anymore, Boy-150. We are so worried. We don’t take anything seriously and we honestly don’t think we will survive the Initiation,” he said, throwing his arms up in the air, as if he had said everything he needed to say and that he was now absolved. “Which would not be to the benefit of Sanctuary,” he added hastily.
