A Time to Die

by Nadine Brandes

  Willow links her arms around the trunk of the dogwood and swings back and forth, pivoting on her small feet. Her splinted fingers are unable to curve around the bark with the others. She leans her head back so she’s looking at me upside-down.

  I reach out with my palm, allowing the tips of her woven hair to tickle my fingers. “Do your fingers hurt?”

  “Not anymore. Ash gave me white pills for the hurt at first.” She sucks on her bottom lip for a moment. “I cracked some branches on a new tree. It was my first accident since I hit bloom. I was afraid, so I ran away. Then I found you.” Her voice turns soft and hesitant. “Were you afraid?”

  I close my eyes. “More terrified than any other time in my life.”

  “Do you hate us?”

  My anger boils at the instant mental flash of Alder and Black, but then I look at Willow. Her upside-down purple eyes watch my face. I don’t hate her. I thought I hated the boys who called me “Empty Numbers” during my childhood, but the feeling I have toward Alder is so much stronger. Is this hate?

  “I don’t know.”

  Willow straightens, reaches around to the opposite side of the tree, and produces my pack of belongings. “Here you go.”

  “Oh, um, thanks.” Did she go into my hut to get this? Why did she bring it to me?

  “Welks.”

  “Welks?”

  She skips down the knoll. “It’s what Jude-man says.” And she’s gone, traipsing through the rest of the village and out of sight. I stare after her for a while—she was raised here and seems so opposite from Alder. Will his crooked beliefs turn her into an angry axe-swinger?

  I use my teeth and fingers to undo the ties on my pack. My left arm aches with sickening pulses. I take a deep breath, keeping my eyes away from seeing the wound. The first item I pull out is my NAB. I’ve neglected it and Skelley Chase must believe me dead.

  Sure enough, no less than twelve messages blink on his bubble. Hawke’s bubble has three. I open Skelley Chase’s, but don’t read any of the messages; instead, I send him my own.

  ~I’m alive in a village full of albino people who cut off my hand. I’ll send you a journal entry soon.

  Hawke is a different story. I open the earliest message. It’s sent the same time my hand was chopped.

  ~Parvin, did Jude reach you? Are you okay? Please answer me.

  The next one is timed twenty minutes later.

  ~I am so . . . so sorry I didn’t read your message sooner. I could have prevented this. I thought Jude would reach you in time. Thank God, you’re not dead, but I doubt this brings you much comfort. I asked Jude to stay with you and protect you until you are well enough to leave.

  His next message is shorter, but brightens my morning more than any other words could.

  ~Jude says you are faring well. I have taken the liberty to inform your family of the little I know regarding your survival. They miss you.

  My family. What did Mother and Father think when an Enforcer came to their door? Did Mother think Hawke would take Reid away? How did she react when he told her my arm was cut off? What did she say when she heard I’m still alive?

  ~Thank you, I type while resting the NAB on the ground. ~You’ve brought me more comfort than I’ve received from anyone else here. I’ll admit, I’m uneasy about Jude. How did you send him to me? How did he know where I was? Do others know where I am?

  I sit up straighter, lean against the trunk of the dogwood, and then record a new journal entry. It’s the longest one yet and I go into as much detail as I can remember—the feeling of Alder coming with his axe, the muscular albino holding me down, the shock that I wasn’t saved in time, the sound of Jude’s desperate shout a moment too late.

  A thin stream of emotional poison seeps out of my heart as I write, leaving me hollow, but a quarter-inch closer to healing. I finish the entry with my recent interactions with Alder and Willow and then take an emotigraph of the village. It can’t capture the mixture of emotions inside me when I look over its beauty. I also take one of the shackle stone. I hesitate over the send button.

  I ache. Skelley Chase is to blame. He sent me here. How can I confide this to him? I want to send it to Hawke instead. My heart feels safer with this mysterious Enforcer.

  But others need to know about my story. My hurt can’t be for nothing. They will see my bravery. My pain. People will feel for me, with me. I can’t hold this all myself.

  I send the entry and emotigraphs to Skelley Chase. He responds several minutes later with a single sentence.

  ~It’s about time.

  I hear his bored warble in my mind. The scent of lemon wafts from my NAB. I clench the cover so hard my fingernails leave crescent moon imprints in its leather. My story, my life, is just a deadline to him.

  When did this thrum of hatred turn so solid?

  A pop from the NAB steals my attention. It’s Hawke.

  ~Parvin, Jude is no threat to you. He has been to the albino village several times. We keep close contact. He is the only person I know in the West. To my knowledge, no one knows where you are and no one else is in the West. I’ll have to leave any other questions to Jude’s discretion. His story is his to tell.

  I don’t know what to reply. Instead of calm, his message prods my anxiety deeper. Hawke avoided direct answers to my questions. Can I even trust him?

  God, I’m afraid. I fold up the NAB. I’m among strangers—dangerous strangers. I don’t know who to turn to besides You. Are You still protecting me?

  I return to the cluster of huts. A small fire burns in front of Ash’s and she sets an iron box with a long handle over the flame. In the breath I take to shout, “Hypocrite!” I spy the pile of coal feeding the flame.

  I built a fire with wood and lost an arm. Ash builds a fire with coal and the world is her dinner table. Unjust.

  “Did the Newtons have to atone for anything when they came through here?”

  She glances up from the fire. “They did not stay long. I helped heal them of small injuries, but they left with the Ivanhoe traders.”

  “Ivanhoe?”

  She hands me three white pills from a pouch on the ground. “Yes. We trade with cities for medicine, technology, or resources. The larger cities are far from the Wall, across the Dregs. Ivanhoe is the largest city in the West.”

  Ivanhoe. The name latches like a wood clamp to my mind. She opens the iron box, revealing a dinner of pheasant meat and a pile of strange blackened stalks.

  “Cattails,” she says.

  I scrunch my nose and lean away, imagining choking on hairballs of cattail fluff. My family lived off the land, but we never thought to eat the cattails clogging our ponds. Even Harman, the Master Gardener, never included cattails in his wares. No, thank you.

  I pick the pheasant off the breastbone and drink a small mug of cold soup. “The cattails are good with butter and salt.” Ash holds one out.

  “No thank you.” I still visualize white fluff in my throat. “What do you trade with Ivanhoe?”

  Ash sets a stripped cattail stalk beside the cooking box. “Feathers and animal furs mostly. Because we are the keepers of this stretch of forest, we also grant permission to gather dead-standing.”

  I discover what dead-standing means the next morning because it’s the first sentence shouted at sunrise. “Awake! Dead-standing gathering!”

  It’s shouted once, but once is enough to rouse the entire village. Everyone leaves his or her hut with packs on their backs, boots on their feet, and an axe over one shoulder. Willow is among them. Her axe is short with a silver head like the rest. She bounces up and down on her tiptoes and looks up at a woman next to her who is dressed in similar fashion. She squeezes Willow’s shoulder and plants a kiss on her forehead.

  The albinos gather for a few minutes, dispersing different belongings and counting heads. Alder takes the lead and they leave the village
in single file. At the rear, Black looks back at me every few steps. His eyes narrow, but his emotion behind the mask of anger is concern.

  Not a word is said to me or Jude, who leans against Alder’s hut, tapping his fingers on the stones like a drum. I look around. Are they leaving us alone in their village? Do they trust us to stay here? They continue walking, with Black glancing backward, until they’re out of sight.

  Ash steps out of the hut, drying her hands on her brown tunic. “Are you staying behind?” Jude asks her at the same time I ask, “Where did they go?”

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “Obviously she’s staying behind—she’s pregnant.”

  Jude folds his arms. “Obviously they’re going to gather the dead-standing.”

  Ash clears her throat. “Dead-standing are the trees that died from beetles, age, winter, and such. We gather dead-standing on the first of every month and float them down river to our village to trade or use. This keeps the forest from growing too dense or at high risk for fire.”

  The explanation is tamer than I expected. The word “dead”—and the way Alder walked out of the village with the axe over his shoulder—made me think of human beings, not trees. “How long are they gone?”

  Ash shrugs. “A week. Sometimes two.” I look at her bulging stomach. She pats it. “I’ll be okay.”

  Three days later, as she cooks a hearty dinner, her “okay” transforms into contractions.

  21

  000.155.16.05.30

  I’ve never delivered a baby. I’ve never had the desire to do so. The youngest newborn I’ve ever seen was a six-month-old with a scrunched face, and that only in passing at the Market one Saturday morning. I know nothing about birth! It sounds harsh, and looks complicated.

  Ash doesn’t ask for help, but guilt pressures me. I’ve slept in her house all this time. Where has she been sleeping? Why didn’t I think of her well being?

  “What can I do?” I watch her support herself on the side of the hut with one hand, holding her stomach with the other.

  She takes several deep breaths. They grow deeper and longer, more relaxed. She straightens and smiles. “You say you have a God, so why don’t you pray?”

  Her voice is genuine and innocent, like she welcomes my beliefs but doesn’t accept them. I chide myself. Prayer should have been my idea, but I’d expected something more from Ash. Something like, “Go make the bed,” “Run for help,” or “Give a shoulder massage.” But pray?

  Okay, God, I think, not feeling an ounce of His presence. I don’t know anything about babies or birth, but please let Ash live.

  Ash does a series of squat-stretches beside her hut.

  And please make things go smooth so I don’t have to help too much. I don’t have the stomach to deliver a baby. I don’t know what I’ll do if Ash starts screaming. Where is her husband anyway? Does she have a husband? Do the albinos even marry?

  Jude shows up as another contraction takes hold of Ash’s body. She sinks down to her hands and knees and adopts another series of loud long breaths.

  “Where have you been?” The moment Ash told us she was in labor, Jude ran off. I wanted to tackle him and scream, “Don’t make me do this alone!”

  “I’ve taken the liberty to boil some water.”

  My anger dissipates. “Good idea.”

  Ash chuckles from the ground and sits back on her heels. “Why?”

  We lapse into an embarrassed pause. “Don’t you need it?” Jude’s cheeks redden. “I’ve always read it’s important for births, though I haven’t studied the topic.”

  I can’t seem to remember why the water is important. For cleaning, maybe?

  “Maybe for a bath,” I suggest. “To help you relax.”

  Ash rises from the ground and walks around, hugging her middle. Jude and I watch her pace. After a minute, she puts her hands on her hips. “You don’t have to watch me. This will take hours. Get some rest so you can be useful when I do need you.”

  Jude bites his lip, then looks at me. I shrug, though I want to do the opposite of “get some rest.” I walk into Ash’s hut.

  From outside, Jude says, “I’ll go, uh, find something to use as a tub.”

  Once I’m in the shadows of Ash’s hut, I light more candles, using the one already burning as a starter. I glance at my left wrist, but then look away. There’s no watch there. No hand. I close my eyes and take a long breath through my nose. Now is not the time to mourn.

  I rummage in my pack for the watch. Two hours until midnight. I put it back inside my pack. Ash groans outside.

  I can’t go to sleep with her out there—the woman who provided the only true comfort I’ve received. I owe this to her. I will be the best imitation-midwife this mossy forest has ever seen.

  I make Ash’s bed and fluff the pillow. The marble, two-drawer dresser holds women’s and men’s clothing. I straighten, clutching a long nightgown that looks as if it’s been traded for rather than made. Ash steps into the hut, panting. “I need your help changing.”

  I hold up the nightgown. “Does this work?”

  “I just need to take these off.” She points at the loose pants hanging to her knees and her loose belted top.

  “Oh.” Even better—a naked birth. It makes sense, but still . . . awkward. “Jude’s out there, though.”

  Ash doesn’t respond. Doesn’t she care another man might see her naked? I untie the rope belt beneath her giant belly. Her boots are the most difficult to pull off. As we get her top off, she has another contraction. She slams her back against the wall of the hut and grimaces.

  “Keep breathing,” I whisper.

  Her breaths come out in gasps. I avert my eyes and spot the small cloth bag Alder laid on the dresser when he visited me. Inside are hundreds of the white pain pills. I grab three and hold them out to her once her breathing relaxes.

  “Take some of these, they’ll help with the pain.” I finally have something useful for her.

  She shakes her head. “Those will slow down the process.”

  I try a different tactic. “Shouldn’t you lie down?” I pat the bed, still looking at her as little as possible. “The covers will keep you warm.”

  “We have gravity for a reason. It helps transport the baby.” She steps forward and squeezes my shoulder. “You are sweet and very innocent, Parvin.” She reaches past me, grabs the nightgown, and pulls it over her head.

  Peeved at the way she called me innocent, I gesture to the gown. “You don’t have to wear that for me. Do what’s comfortable.”

  “This is fine.” We exit the hut and she walks around doing squats.

  The things Ash does are foreign to me. Walking around? Squatting? No medicine? Mother gave birth to triplets lying down. We turned out fine . . . well, two of us did, at least.

  Over the next hour, Ash’s contractions increase in intensity. She continues her odd habits of squatting and leaning against tree trunks. How does she remain so calm through it all?

  My heart beats faster when I think of the actual birth moment. I won’t know what to do. I don’t know when to yell, “Push!” I won’t know what to do with the baby. When do I cut the umbilical cord? Is there a certain length it needs to be? Isn’t there something important about the baby’s lungs?

  The entire camp is lit with fires in front of the huts. Each fire has a pot over it. I find Jude near Alder’s hut, peeking under the lid of a pot. Sweat keeps his short hair stuck to his forehead, but he still wears his black coat. He looks up when I approach.

  “Good midnight, Parvin. The bath is almost ready.” He leads me to the back of Alder’s hut where a one-man hollow boat sits like a giant walnut cut in half. “An unfinished coracle.”

  “It looks like a miniature boat.”

  Jude grins. “That’s what a coracle is. It takes the albinos a long time to make them because they have to wait for a Wi
llow tree to uproot or reach the verge of death before they can use its wood. Alder started this one a few days ago. I lined it with some animal skins to keep the water in.”

  “So are you almost done?”

  “Just waiting for the water.” He looks up with a start. “The water!” He rushes to the fire and pulls the pot off the coals as boiling water overflows.

  “Check the others,” he commands.

  Before I can move, Ash’s voice rushes through the night. “Parvin!”

  I break into a run. She is even paler than her albino-whiteness and sits on the ground, leaning against the base of one of the white dogwood trees. I fall to my knees beside her.

  “I can’t do this alone.” She gasps, covering her face with one hand.

  “I’m here.” My stomach gives a nasty twist. God, what am I supposed to do?

  “I’m afraid,” she mumbles. “Is it supposed to hurt this much?”

  As if on cue, another contraction steals her breath away. Her face contorts. I watch her chest for any rising or falling action. “Breathe, Ash.” She doesn’t. “Breathe!” She manages a small inhalation.

  God, give me insight! Her grip tightens and my fingers go numb. I stare at her twisted face. This is not how things are supposed to be.

  This is broken shalom.

  There’s His voice again. Or was it a sudden thought? Broken shalom . . . why did Adam and Eve have to ruin everything?

  Ash is crying. Her tears, her pain, this brokenness eats at my soul. I never want to witness this ever again. I never want to do this.

  “The bath is ready,” Jude yells from afar. I wait until Ash’s contraction ends and try pulling her to her feet.

  “No.” She waves me away. “I’ll sit here.”

  “The warm water might help.” Her body seems so tense. Relaxing in warm water ought to do something. Don’t some people have babies in water? I sling her arm around my shoulder. Lift with the legs, not the back, I chant as my muscles scream.

  “I don’t know,” Ash protests, but pushes herself up.

  “It’s not too far.” I pray she makes it to the bath before another contraction. We take shaky steps. Running footsteps reach my ears as my knees threaten to buckle. “Jude, get her other side!”