by Casey Hays
Diana crosses her arms and stares at the boy before her eyes drift over to plant themselves on Claudia’s face.
“Why, Claudia? Why bring them here to die?”
“There’s no room in the clinic.”
“That’s not it.” Diana pins her. “Penelope isn’t letting you bring any more there, is she?”
I purse my lips. Claudia keeps her green eyes targeted on Diana’s blue ones. But Diana isn’t wrong, and she holds her gaze until Claudia looks away.
It is true. Penelope had to make a decision, as torn as she was over it. She tried . . . she truly did try in the beginning to accommodate all the wounded, but her resources are too limited here in Gaza. Medical supplies are low, equipment is not available, even bedding is scarce. And in order to save even a handful, there came a point when she had no choice but to turn the hopeless cases away.
Claudia doesn’t blame her. She’s worked at Penelope’s side long enough to know that Penelope doesn’t make these kinds of decisions lightly. She doesn’t count one life more worthy than another. But she is only one person—and the only doctor. She can do only so much.
“I don’t understand, Claudia,” Diana raises her hands in resignation. “After all these people have done, you keep trying to save them.”
Claudia simply nods. “That’s right.”
“These men killed your brother. They tormented your village and who knows how many others. Why are you being so kind?”
Claudia doesn’t answer at first. She looks over the boy, letting her eyes roam from head to toe. They settle again on his face—a young face, barely beginning to understand the meaning of life. A boy who—if he survives by some miracle—will have to learn to adjust to too many things. She touches his head lightly and bites her lip, her eyes glistening with sudden tears.
“This boy did not kill my brother,” she whispers. “He did not hurt me. What would I be if I didn’t try to help him simply because he’s wearing the wrong uniform?”
John doesn’t move from his place near the door, and Diana grows quiet, starkly humbled by Claudia’s answer, but I am not surprised. If Claudia is nothing else, she is forgiving—probably the most forgiving person I have ever known. I study the boy’s pain-tinged face, listen to his raspy, restless breathing.
“Will this one live?” I ask.
“He might.” The doubt is heavy in her voice. “We’ll know in a few hours.”
She stands abruptly, wiping her hands across her pants as if in this way she will wipe the doubt away with the blood.
“I’ve got to get back.” She nods toward the pallet. “I was supposed to be on a five minute break when I stumbled across this one. He’ll be out for a while. The pain alone will keep him under.”
Fran’s next pain, coupled with her strangled scream stops all conversation. Diana hurries to her side.
“I can’t feel my legs,” Fran wheezes. “I can’t–” She grapples with Diana’s hand. “Can you feel my legs? Are they there? Did the Great Dragon cut them off?”
Diana straightens, desperation flooding into her face.
“Something doesn’t seem right.”
“Oh, it’s exactly right,” Claudia moves closer and bends, checking the woman’s progress. “This is how it is in Gaza.”
Another pain trembles through Fran, and she screams out again. Claudia straightens. John tosses me a nervous glance and presses closer to the door.
“Her time is close.” Claudia wipes her hands on the edge of the blanket. “I guess I’m not going anywhere just yet.” She tugs on Fran’s hand. “Listen to me. You’re going to be fine. You can do this.”
“No, no. I can’t.”
Claudia moves around the bed to lean into the woman’s face. “Yes, you can. How many babies have you had?”
“I don’t know.” Her dark eyes fall on Claudia’s face in a rare moment of clarity.
“More than this one?”
Fran nods rapidly, taking deep breaths in and out as another build-up of pain contorts her face.
“Okay. See? You’ve done this before. You can do it again.”
“But I need brew.” The woman’s eyes go wild. “Please. Just give me some.”
“No, Fran. No Cricket.”
Another pain racks her body, but the agony is more than physical. She grabs Diana’s hand, her eyes pleading.
“Don’t let the dragons come,” she wheezes. “Don’t let them come for my baby.”
“Shhh….” Diana rubs her forehead with a wet cloth. “No one is coming for your baby.”
Claudia tips her eyes up to meet mine and sweeps them toward John. “I need you two to go to the clinic. Bring water and blankets.” She raises a brow at Diana. “You should go next door with Sophia.”
Diana shakes her head. “I want to help.”
Claudia takes the water bottle from her and douses her dirty hands with the rest of it.
“Okay. But remember . . . Gaza babies . . . they’re born addicted to Cricket. It’s not always pretty.”
“I understand,” Diana nods.
I exchange a wary glance with Diana. Claudia presses the cloth to the woman’s head again. I watch her. After a moment, John opens the door, and I’m pulled back on task.
Outside, the mid-morning sun glares down on the crumbled streets, illuminating the rank stench of sweat and urine that defines Gaza. I hold my breath and follow John along the path that leads to the center of the dilapidated village.
A few hoppers—dressed in rags and in severe need of baths—wander the streets aimlessly, oblivious to . . . everything. They’ve barely registered that war has come to the land at all. Vortex soldiers did come in the beginning, but they didn’t stay long. And who could blame them? There is nothing of value in Gaza. It is a sad and destitute place where nobody in his right mind would settle for good.
Only the wounded return—Vortex soldiers that trickle in from the south and throw themselves on the mercy of Penelope. Fortunately for them, she is merciful. For myself, hope is renewed with each arrival. Hope that perhaps Eden still stands strong, and Ian and the others will defeat this enemy regardless of the odds.
John takes hold of my elbow and cautiously steers me through the narrow streets and around hoppers huddled against the buildings. Simmering pots hang over small fires, and they wait for the liquid to boil. The wisps of a nightmare swarm around in the heat. Only this is no nightmare; it’s life.
In the short time we’ve been here, we’ve received a full education on the effects of Cricket. In some cases, it causes severe hallucinations, agitation, even violent behavior. In others, complete listlessness and a lack of caring for anything but another dose of “brew.”
The smell of the sickly sweet nectar rises up in the fumes. I meet the eyes of a young girl, roughly my age. Her dark hair is a ratted mess, matted against her cheeks. She’s pregnant, and she fidgets with a pipe in her shaking hands, drops it, goes to her knees in search of it. She becomes frantic, whimpering in panic until I reach down and pluck up the pipe, planting it in her palm.
She raises her head, stares at me with eyes of ice, but I see something of myself in her. And through my repulsion, I feel a tiny, pulsing ache begin to grow. I chance a smile before she looks away.
I scan the eyes of the others, read the depths of their pain right there in greens and blues and browns. They don’t even know that they exist, and I bite my lip as compassion for their plight floods me. They need the peace of Yeshua more desperately than anyone I’ve ever seen.
A three room shack in the middle of the village serves as the clinic. The less severely injured are laid out along the ground outside waiting to see Penelope. Some of them rest against piles of rubble or tree trunks; others sleep, curled on their sides on dirty blankets or sleeping bags. A few tents pop up here and there. It’s a menagerie of brokenness and bleeding and my heart cramps. I don’t like Gaza. There are too many different kinds of pain in this place.
Several members of Jeb’s team guard the perimeter
of the clinic. Luke and Liza are among them. She grips her sword, and she watches the wounded, eyes ever alert. But she tosses a quick smile my way when she sees me.
John climbs the steps and opens the door. I peer around him into the dank, muggy, front room hesitantly. The shack is full of more injured soldiers, lined up wall to wall on cots and pallets. The smell of blood and urine and imminent death soars back at me through the opening, and I pull back out into the fresh air. I cast my eyes toward John.
“I can’t go in there.”
He shrugs, as if to say, “What choice do you have?” I take in a deep breath, hold it, step one foot over the threshold.
“Penelope?” I choke on her name as nausea consumes me.
“You need to wait your turn, missy.”
I lift my head, looking for the man who owns the voice. It’s a Set Typhon sitting close to the entrance. His black tattoo squirms at me from his bulging bicep. He holds a bloody cloth against his head, and his dark eyes never leave my face. Uneasiness consumes me. I don’t answer him. With a scowl, John plants himself protectively between us. I gather myself, take a deep breath, and disappear inside.
“Penelope?”
She bends over a bed, working stitches into the arm of a soldier. But she looks up as I enter the room, pinching the large needle between the thumb and forefinger of her gloved hand.
“Kate. I thought you might be Aaron.”
She finishes the final stitch and leaves the soldier, making her way down the middle of the room between the rows of sleeping men.
“I sent him on a supply run to Gath. They may have nothing, but what could it hurt?” She smiles, pausing to stand in front of me. “What brings you here?”
“Fran is in labor. Claudia is with her. I think she may need you to come.”
Penelope lifts her shoulders with a shake of her head. “Clearly, my hands are full here. She’s delivered a baby without me before. She’ll have to make due.”
“But . . . it’s a Gaza baby.”
“She’s delivered a Gaza baby before, too.” She wipes her hands on a towel slung over one shoulder. “As a matter of fact, women of Gaza often deliver babies alone. Fran is lucky this time.”
I nod, scan the mumbling men around us. A few of them moan in pain. One calls out in agony for more pain relief. I turn away, set my eyes on Penelope.
“I need blankets. And water?”
She moves to a closet, pulls out three thin, tattered rags to serve as blankets, and holds them out along with an empty bucket.
“This is all I can spare. You’ll have to fill water from the stream.”
I take the items. She moves to the bedside of another soldier and is soon lost again to her work. And I leave that place of blood and sorrow as quickly as my feet will take me.
A fresh stream flows behind the clinic—the only thing of worth in Gaza. John fills the bucket. The clear liquid ripples over the rocks. I stand on the bank and lose myself in the motion. It’s so peaceful, so clean and clear, and in the sudden quiet, I find myself thinking of Ian for the first time today.
I wish there was word from Eden. It’s been four days, and even though I haven’t shown it, the waiting drives me to the brink of madness. Mostly because I can’t forget the fear in Ian’s eyes when I left him in that forest. He tried to be brave for me. But his eyes couldn’t lie like his words, and I knew. He was afraid he’d never see me again.
What if he was right?
I’ve tried not to think about the war, but now, a chill captures me, and I wrap my arms around myself. There is a very good chance he won’t come back.
Fran’s bellowing agony hits our ears the moment we turn onto her street. Sophia opens the door, gesturing us inside.
“The baby is almost here,” she beams.
The wounded soldier tosses on his mat, whimpering in his sleep, and the tiny first squawk of a baby pierces the cramped room. Diana takes the ragged blankets from me. Fran falls back against the pillows, all of her exhaustion spent. John moves into the room, sets the bucket of water at the end of the bed, and steps back, his eyes pinned on the baby. The first baby he’s ever seen.
Claudia wraps the baby in a blanket, huddles him close to her chest, and rubs gently to warm him.
“There, there, little one,” she soothes. “Welcome to the world.”
His tiny, weak voice struggles to make its first statement. I steal a peek at his little, puffy face; it brings tears to my eyes. For the first time, I understand the delicacy of this situation, and it takes on a new significance. With his first breath, the countdown begins. Victim . . . or survivor?
Claudia sits, uses the water to clean his sticky, red body. She works to clear out his mouth, massaging his back until his cry bursts from his lungs strong and clear, and I’m filled with awe at the first glimpse of a tiny, breathing human. She spreads the blanket open across her knees and runs her hands over his arms, his legs, turning him, examining every inch of him while he squawks out in protest. Finally, with a smile, she sighs.
“This baby will live.”
The announcement takes all of us by surprise. Diana pauses in tending to Fran and looks up, her hand fluttering to rest against her belly.
“How do you know this?” she asks.
Claudia leans back, props the baby’s little foot up on her knee.
“It’s the birthmark,” Sophia announces, pointing.
“Yes,” Claudia smiles. “The mark of the mutated gene.”
“I have one.” Sophia lifts her blonde curls from the back of her neck to reveal the same mark. I stare at it in disbelief before my eyes land on the baby.
His baby eyes, blurred and watery, are bloodshot, and with the blood cleaned away from his skin, the color takes on a grotesque yellow hue. The texture is scaly due to his exposure to Cricket—scaly, like a dragon. I squat, take hold of his little ankle, and lift his foot, and there it is—stamped in the middle of his arch. A strawberry birthmark.
Astonished, I focus on Claudia.
“Do we all have this mark?”
Claudia smiles, gathering the blanket up around the baby. “Yep. Somewhere. Inside. On an organ, possibly. Very few of us actually present it on the skin, but when we do, we know. It’s a sure sign of immunity.”
Diana shakes her head, struck silent by this revelation, and I know what she’s thinking. The Village was wrong. The reality of it punches at me relentlessly, and I stand, pressing a hand to my chest. How many babies with this mark did Mona dispose of because she didn’t know better?
“This one is going to have a rough time of it with withdrawals,” Claudia says, settling the baby against her shoulder. “But in time, he’ll be fine.” She runs a gentle hand across the baby’s head.
My surroundings begin to fade, and suddenly, in my mind’s eyes, I’m standing in the middle of the Village. I see Layla, a trail of blood drizzling from her sliced throat. I see a row of spindly bamboo smiles lining the Pit and housing one helpless life after another. I see Meg’s smiling face in our youth. I see Mia, and the countless other women of my village. They wander past me, oblivious to the things that I have learned—the things that make a difference in how I think, live, feel.
In how I value each beautiful life.
The dim room crowds in on me, and I spin and shove out the door. The sun blinds me a moment, and I squint against it until my eyes adjust to its brightness. My heart contracts, and dizziness moves in. I press my fingertips to my temples trying once again to shake the relentless feeling that has been plaguing my heart for days—a command I can’t escape.
And with the birth of this baby, it all comes flooding in.
When it first began to invade, it antagonized me like a slow ache deep in my bones. I tried to stifle it. Ignore it. Chase it away. But it continued to harass me, coaxing and prodding and whispering like an unscratched itch. I thought my sanity had burst from the top of my head to lay in shreds all around me. Why would I even think of it after what it took to get here? Late into the ni
ght, I tried to pray the feeling away, but it only enhanced the urge, laying the path of my heart out before me like a roadmap to the Village. I fought it.
The baby cries out, and in it, a still, small voice calls to the depths of my heart. And I recognize it.
It’s the voice of the Spirit.
I slump onto the steps, my head in my hands. My chest thuds with a solid, pulsing beat, and I swallow.
John sits down beside me, his dark eyes full of comfort. He smiles, and I tuck my hand through his elbow and lay my head against his arm.
“I think—I think I’m supposed—”
The urgency floods through me so profoundly that I can’t deny it. And I can’t bring myself to put it into words. So I simply stop speaking.
After a moment, John reaches into his pocket and produces a small pad of paper and a pencil Aaron gave him. He scribbles.
Y-O-U A-R-E G-O-I-N-G H-O-M-E
I stare at the block letters, and then I raise my eyes to him, rimmed with tears.
“Am I?” I whisper.
Y-O-U H-A-V-E K-N-O-W-N F-O-R A W-H-I-L-E N-O-W
I study him, confused. He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out my copy of the Scriptures. I lift a brow.
“You’ve been reading?”
He smiles. Y-O-U H-A-V-E T-O G-O Y-O-U H-A-V-E T-O L-E-A-D Y-O-U H-A-V-E T-O C-H-A-N-G-E T-H-I-N-G-S
He holds out the Scriptures, and I take them, squeezing them in my hand. He writes.
I A-M G-O-I-N-G W-I-T-H Y-O-U
Relief floods through me as I read the words, but I crease my brows, my fingers tightening on his arm.
“You don’t have to do that.”
With a shake of his head, he stands, hooks his thumb through his waistband and pulls downward. And there it is, just at the top of his hip and so faint I almost miss it.
The birthmark.
He sits.
T-H-E S-T-O-C-K M-A-T-T-E-R
I inhale a shaky breath and tangle my fingers with his.
“Yes, they do,” I whisper. “They matter very much.
He threads his arm around my shoulders, and together we turn our eyes toward the horizon where the setting sun paints the sky blood orange.
