The August 5

by Jenna Helland

  “Good afternoon, sir,” Navid said. He pulled off his cap to be polite. “I would like to buy a deer. A purple deer. I will name her Anna.”

  Mr. Abel nodded. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and disappeared into the storage room behind the carved door.

  While Navid was waiting, another Zunftwoman with two young girls came into the toy shop. She impatiently rang the bell on the front counter while her children poked at the stuffed animals, knocking over a display of fuzzy mice.

  Mr. Abel returned with a brown package, which he thrust at Navid. “Tell Mr. Smith to place his order earlier,” he said grumpily. “I’m not made of time.”

  “Yes, sir,” Navid said, tucking the lumpy package under his arm. He cringed as one of the girls tipped over a blue horse while her mother ignored her entirely. Then the door shut behind him, and Navid was off running again. He took side streets until he reached the Lyone, darted up the quay and crossed Seventh Stone Bridge. When he was finally back on safe ground in South Sevenna, he narrowly dodged a wagon, waved as the driver cursed at him, and sprinted toward Ash Street Garden.

  Navid was approaching the large flour mill at the corner of Ash Street when he heard shouting. A group of people, most of them holding empty flour sacks, were yelling at a woman standing on the steps of the open doorway, her hands on her hips defiantly.

  “You’re a foul-mouthed bastard!” she shouted at one of the people in the street.

  Navid sidled up beside a boy of about seven, who looked worried as he watched the adults arguing in front of the mill. An Aeren seashell hung from a piece of twine around his neck, a sure sign that his family was political. Navid had seen him with his parents at the Plough and Sun, but he couldn’t remember his name.

  “What’s going on?” Navid asked the boy.

  “They don’t have flour to sell, and the man is saying they sold it to the Zunft instead,” the boy said.

  Several men shouted at the woman, who turned a deep shade of red. Navid assumed they were insulting her, but he didn’t know what the words meant.

  “Why do they think she did that?” he asked the boy.

  “You’re a traitor!” a blond man yelled. His fists were balled up at his sides. Someone else—Navid couldn’t see who—threw a rock that barely missed the woman’s head.

  “Bastards!” she yelled again. She quickly ducked inside and slammed the door and the sound of a metal lock sliding shut rang across the cobblestones.

  “Now we’re turning on each other?” yelled another woman in the crowd.

  There was a scuffle, and the blond man punched another man in the face. The victim stumbled back, regained his footing, and charged at the blond man. As soon as the two tumbled down into the gravel, more men started brawling in front of the flour mill. Navid and the other boy glanced at each other in alarm. A fight was no place to be if you were shorter than everyone else. It seemed like more people were arriving every moment and the street corner was getting crowded. Navid tapped the boy on the shoulder and jerked his head to indicate it was time to leave. The boys ran together until they reached the end of the street, then the seven-year-old veered off on McCall Street, waving goodbye to Navid.

  “See you!” Navid called to the boy. He looked back at the fight, which had grown to a dozen people scuffling as the crowd around them jeered and shouted. Navid wondered how big it would get before the Zunft arrived, but he wasn’t stupid enough to wait around and find out.

  He was out of breath by the time he reached Ash Street Garden, a communal garden available to anyone who would put the hours into helping it grow. It was the only reliable source of vegetables for most cottagers who lived in the city, and Navid spent at least ten hours a week doing chores for the head gardener, a tiny, white-haired woman named Nova James. The garden was the size of a city block and completely walled in. Nova told him it had once been a prison, but they’d taken down everything but the walls.

  Navid ducked in the little gate on the north side, which was the only gate that was ever unlocked, even during the day. He loved crossing from the gray, bustling streets into the quiet of the garden. Real glass houses lined the perimeter, and inside them summer plants thrived in the hot, moist air. In the growing seasons, the beds outside were planted in a spiral pattern with circular paths that wound toward a raised tier of earth. An elaborately carved wooden pillar marked the heart of the garden, which was now a lonely sentinel among the brown leaves and untilled soil.

  Nova was coming out of one of the houses, sweat beading her age-lined face. Navid knew lots of people who were good with their hands, but Nova was a true master. She could make anything grow anywhere, and always seemed to find an extra bunch of carrots or bag of potatoes for a family in need. Nova smiled at him and handed him a basket filled with leeks and carrots.

  “How’d you know?” he asked.

  “Magic.” She smiled. “Now run home. Your mother is expecting you.”

  “There’s no magic, Nova,” he told her. It was a running discussion between the two of them. She insisted that she could cast spells. He told her there was no such thing as witches.

  “What about my glass houses?” she said. “I make things grow even when it’s cold.”

  “Glass isn’t magic,” he said.

  “No, but it’s very expensive,” she said, laughing and tousling his hair.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he shouted as he darted back to the north gate.

  Before he plunged into the teeming streets of Sevenna, he glanced back at the garden and imagined a purple deer leaping through the lengthening shadows.

  At dawn, Tamsin finished scrubbing the sticky filth off the tables at the Estoria and headed back to the Leahys’ row house at the end of her shift. She was a bartender rather than a dishwasher, so the money was better. But now she worked constantly, often for days on end without a day off. Forget about writing anything for Gavin, there was no time left between shifts. Her father used to say that the Zunft made the cottagers work long hours so they wouldn’t have time to rebel, and she believed him. The more she worked, the more money she had to send home, but increasingly her life felt like a hangman’s noose with a knot she was tying herself.

  Ever since the riot in Mast Square, there had been patrols along the Shadow and Seventh Stone Bridges. She hoped to avoid the soldiers if she crossed the butchers’ district and took the quay to Hanged Bridge instead. She hated that she couldn’t go where she wanted without fear of being arrested. She was exhausted, and the thought of having to go nearly a mile out of her way made her furious. Lately, she’d been angry so often that it felt like a poison she alone was drinking. Something had to change. She couldn’t spend her life serving Zunftmen in the Estoria, but she couldn’t stop either—money had to be sent to Aeren or her sisters would suffer. “Trapped. I’m trapped,” Tamsin whispered to herself with every step through the butchers’ district.

  The area was a maze of small shops and slaughterhouses, and the air always seemed thick like broth. Tamsin wondered if the blood of the animals somehow hung in the air. As she turned a corner, she caught a glimpse of herself reflected in a shop window. She hadn’t looked in a mirror since she moved to Sevenna, and she almost didn’t recognize herself. She was thinner than when she was back on Aeren, probably because she didn’t have any milk here. Her mother kept goats, and Tamsin and her sisters drank milk at every meal. As she stared at her reflection, she realized that her fifteenth birthday had come and gone. She’d been so busy serving drinks to the Zunft that it had never occurred to her that she was a year older.

  She reached up and loosed her long hair from its braid. She still wore the long hair of her childhood—at least that hadn’t changed. She thought of her sister Eliza, and how they used to braid each other’s hair before bedtime. What was Eliza doing right now? How were the little ones holding up without her? And her father, what was he thinking about as he sat in some dark cell in the compound? Tamsin felt like an outcast from the warmth and safety of her mother’s
house. She was furious with Anna for that. But if she was honest with herself, Tamsin knew it wasn’t her mother who had put the match in her hand in Port Kenney. Tamsin had done that all by herself.

  When she reached the Leahys’ row house, she found it was empty for the first time since she’d moved to Sevenna. Tamsin stood in the foyer, breathing in the silence. In her new life, she was never alone. She was surrounded by people at the cabaret, at the pub, and even at the row house. Tamsin hung her coat on a peg, and went to the kitchen. Usually, she did the cleanup when she got home, but today the kitchen was spotless. There was a note from Mrs. Leahy: No chores for you today. Get some rest. There’s a package on your bed.

  Tamsin built a fire in the woodstove and lit a candle to take to her dark room. She dragged herself up the stairs, so tired that she felt dizzy. The tiny room was frigid, although heat was steadily rising through the grate in the floor. In the glow of the candlelight, she saw a brown paper package on her pillow. She tore off the paper and found a finely crafted purple deer from Abel’s Toys. Her mother made stuffed animals for Abel’s, and Tamsin knew right away that this was her mother’s handiwork. She felt her heart pounding faster at the prospect of a note from her family. Particularly a note carried in secret and not through the censored post. Maybe her mother had forgiven her and wanted her to come home.

  Tamsin yanked her sewing basket from under the bed. Using a needle, she gently broke the seam under the deer’s chin. A tiny roll of paper had been stashed inside the head. Then she eagerly unrolled the note: Prison visit. October 5, 9 a.m. Mary Henry. Mary Henry was an aunt who had died a few years earlier. Tamsin pushed the stuffing around and found her deceased aunt’s identification card. Now she had the paperwork to be a dead woman.

  She pressed on every corner of the purple deer to see if she had missed anything, but that was it. Angrily, she threw the purple deer against the wall. Her mother could have written her a letter and given her news about her sisters. She could easily have said more, but she chose not to. Tamsin set the note alight with the candle, nearly burning her fingers. She swept the ashes into the candle holder. She unfastened her worn ankle boots and threw the quilt over herself.

  But after a few seconds, she climbed out of bed and picked the deer off the floor. She sewed the seam closed under its chin and placed it on her bedside table. Then she blew out the candle and curled up under the quilt again. She was going to see her father, and that’s all her mother had to say.

  15

  LABOR SHORTAGES IN WAKE OF ANCESTRAL HOMES ACT

  With rumors about deportations swirling around Sevenna, have some residents chosen to return to their ancestral islands rather than risk detention in the Zunft Compound? The owner of a paper mill in the Sevenna southlands reports a labor shortage from the loss of workers who disappeared soon after the passage of the act.

  Labor activist Beth Harl doubts that the shortages are truly from people leaving the capital voluntarily. She believes that Zunft are behind their disappearances and has been seeking information about her missing brother, Devon. “We talked to my neighbors up and down the row,” Miss Harl said. “Everyone knows someone who’s gone missing. My brother would never have left Sevenna by choice. He doesn’t know any other island.”

  —JFA Bulletin, October 4

  On a bleak day in early October, Tamsin climbed the steep road that led to the Zunft Compound. It had taken her an hour to cross Sevenna as she dodged the crowds and traffic. Now she was a solitary figure approaching the Zunft’s seat of military power, and she felt an unexpected surge of confidence. In her pocket, she carried a dead woman’s name. No one would know that Tamsin was the one who blew up the warehouse in Port Kenney. All they were going to see was a scrawny cottager girl with a bag of apples, not a defiant rebel.

  Constructed on a windswept plateau above the northern edge of the city, the compound was surrounded by high stone walls with spikes embedded in the top. Two austere towers rose above the wall and into the rainy sky. She couldn’t yet see the main building where her father was imprisoned. Her boots made crunching noises on the gravel as she approached, and the two guards watched her with their hands on their chatter-guns. The iron blast doors were wide open and the teeth of the portcullis showed above them. Inside the courtyard, lines of guards marched in formation, while an officer shouted commands in time with their steps.

  “Name?” asked a guard with a notebook.

  “Mary Henry,” Tamsin said.

  “Here to see?” the guard asked.

  “Michael Henry,” she said.

  They checked her identification, peered into the bag of apples that she carried and confirmed her appointment in the ledger. To her surprise, the guard waved her through with no more trouble. Tamsin was relieved until she realized that was only the pre-checkpoint to get to the main checkpoint. Once inside the prison, she was shown to a windowless room, told to undress completely, except her shift, and to lay everything out on the table. Her confidence evaporated as she stood in the corner, half-naked, while a burly guard inspected her clothing, especially the seams. He slammed the apples around until they were covered with mushy bruises, and inspected her fake identification card several times.

  Finally, a guard threw her clothing on the floor at her feet and stared at her for a long moment. First, she felt like a cow on an auction block, but the longer he considered her, the more his interest began to feel more sinister.

  “Can I get dressed?” she asked.

  “Did I tell you to speak?” he barked.

  When he moved toward her, she flinched. He had the authority of the Zunft behind him. The circumstances of her birth afforded her no rights. From the moment she was born, men like this soldier felt like they deserved power over her. She clenched her hands into fists but before he reached her, the door swung open and another soldier stood in the threshold. He frowned at the sight of her. “Get dressed, girl,” he said. “Your brother is in the visitors’ room.”

  The burly guard loomed over her for a moment longer. He was standing on her clothes with his filthy boots. Tamsin knew she shouldn’t, but she tipped her head up and met his gaze. He despised her, she could tell by his eyes. Hurting her wouldn’t trouble his conscience at all. The other soldier had moved into the corridor, but he was still in hearing range. Finally, the first guard spun on his heel and marched out, giving her privacy to put on her now-muddy clothes.

  The visitors’ room was a long, low-ceilinged space that reminded her of a stable. Instead of stalls, there were rough-cut wood tables along the walls. The room was abnormally bright from the numerous volt-cell lights attached to the walls and Tamsin felt disoriented under their harsh glare. The tables were empty except for the one in the center where her father sat with his hands chained to a metal loop. At thirty-five years old, her father was bald headed and muscular. He’d always looked more like a boxer than the journalist he actually was. Tamsin had seen him speak before, and he dominated people’s attention. Hundreds turned out for his speeches, and it was like he knew what to say to get people screaming for action, for change.

  But two months in prison hadn’t been kind to him. He looked like a faded version of himself. His complexion was sallow and his strong jawline had begun to sag. The guard led her to the table, indicated that she should sit across from her father, and dropped the apples unceremoniously on the table. He marched back to the door where he stood at silent attention. Tamsin peered closely at her father, who disarmed her with a boyish grin. Despite the grim conditions, he still exuded powerfulness. As a child, she’d always felt safest around him. She’d hide behind him during their play fights against imaginary bears. Tamsin and her sisters would squeal with mock terror as their father swung the broom valiantly against the shadows on the wall of the cottage. Nothing could hurt her when her father was around.

  “You brought apples.” Michael smiled. The chain around his wrists was long enough that he could pick one up. He took an enthusiastic bite. “My favorite.”

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sp; “They’re mush,” Tamsin said, remembering how she and her father used to pick apples together from the orchard off Miller’s Road. Even though she had promised herself that she wouldn’t, tears pricked her eyes. She tried to blink them back, but they leaked down her face.

  “Ah, my love, I think they’re perfect,” he said happily. “It tastes like Aeren on a windswept autumn day.”

  “I miss you so much,” she whispered.

  “Let’s cry for one more minute,” he said gently. “And then let’s put our tears away and get down to business.”

  Tamsin wiped her face on her sleeve. “A minute is too long to bother with weeping.”

  “That’s my girl,” he said. “How is my family?”

  “I get letters from Eliza and she says they are doing well. Iris turned seven last week, and Eliza said she’s as strong as a horse.”

  “And your mother?” Henry asked.

  “I don’t know, Papa,” Tamsin admitted. “Mama hasn’t written me.”

  “Your mother is a woman of few words,” Michael said. “And she’s had to stay very strong.”

  “I think she’s angry with me,” Tamsin said.

  “If she’s angry at anyone, it’s me,” Henry said. “She would never blame you. She loves you immensely. I know she is doing what she can to help us.”

  “Maybe,” Tamsin said.

  “And how are you?” Henry asked.

  “I am … angry,” Tamsin said. “At the world,” she added in case he thought she meant she was angry at him.

  “I have heard of the charges against me and I am angry at the world as well.”

  “At first they said it was extremist factions,” Tamsin said. “That’s what we all thought.”

  “Love, there are no extremist factions. There are only angry and confused cottagers who hate being slaves. None of them are responsible for what has happened to Hywel.”