by J L Park
Paige bristled next to me. “Unlike yourself, Father. You started this, you don’t get to tell me what to do anymore, not since I’m dead to you. Believe me, the feeling is mutual.” She glanced at me, realising what she had said, looking guilty until I smiled and shook my head.
“Paige, the laws state that those who are gay are against the Creator of all things, and should be turned from their unnatural lusts, or if they cannot, then they should be removed from the family, shunned. You were removed, you did not change your unnatural ways. The law also states that those who are Taken and return to the section of their birth or selection are at fault for what occurred to them whilst Taken, and should they mention it, they should be punished. Should they try to place blame on those who took them, then they are to be shunned. We did what we had to do.”
I glanced at Paige before I spoke up. “Mr. Raeburn, Mrs. Raeburn," I addressed him first to keep things in a fashion they were accustomed to, “My apologies for interrupting, but do you have any idea what happens to those who are Taken? Mrs. Raeburn, I apologise if I am incorrect in assuming you have not been Taken, but do you know what often happens?”
Paige shuddered next to me, her hand moving to rest on my shoulder.
They shook their heads. “It is told that it is not to be spoken of, and we take the Law at the letter,” Mrs. Raeburn murmured.
“Mrs. Raeburn, the law also states that females should not speak before those who are male, but…” She flushed. “We aren’t here to talk about that. So, you don’t know what happens then? Shall we enlighten you?”
Paige looked at me, panicked, “Reed… You… I…”
I smiled and made to stand up. “I should have asked, love, but you don’t have to. Let me do this, I started it,” I murmured as I turned around, pulling my Ferox jacket off and pulling out my shirt.
Paige took a deep breath, and shook her head, moving off the bed and doing the same.
“No… I can… they are my parents, after all.” She glanced at me, and nodded, “Ready?”
“This is just some of it.” I glanced back over my shoulder and pulled my shirt up at the back, exposing the multitude of scars that crisscrossed my back and shoulders. Paige doing the same. A stifled gasp letting us know they’d seen. I pulled my shirt back down, and turned around, turning in the direction that would show the scar running up my jaw on purpose. Paige’s mother held her hand over her mouth, her Father stood stony faced.
“That's just some of it?” Her mother murmured, removing her hand.
I nodded. “Mrs. Raeburn. We were taken by the same person. Those who take others are usually male. Those who are Taken are usually female, usually approaching the end of puberty, approaching Selection. But not always. Please put two and two together regarding what else a male who thinks it’s okay to abduct a female and take them to a place of his choosing, keep them there, and inflict these types of scars over their backs would do to the captive female?” I couldn’t tell them outright, it seemed cruel, “And, just to help you along, what would cause flashbacks even years later.”
Paige and I watched as all the information I had given her came together and made horrifying sense. Watched as her confusion turned to horror, as she looked up, hand over her mouth at the scared but angry face of her eldest daughter, the realisation they had punished her for something as horrifying as what she was coming up with in her imagination. I glanced at her father, who had the decency to at least look uncomfortable.
“So, Mother, Father, forgive me if I cannot find it in my heart to forgive you for 'killing me off', and shunning me instead of trying to understand, and leaving me to deal with it alone.” She allowed a sad smile to crinkle her face, as she reached for my hand, squeezing it before speaking again, “Though, not as alone now. I don’t need you anymore. Regardless of what the law said, I was your daughter. Your flesh and blood."
“Paige… I… we…” her mother stammered, looking to her husband for guidance.
“We had heard you were here. We wanted to check you were all right before we tried to explain the sudden appearance of our deceased daughter at the home of the Taylors and pay our respects to the great man that was Jeff Taylor. May he rest in peace,” her father announced matter of fact, “We see you are healthy, cared for, and fending for yourself. That is all.”
Paige squeezed my hand extra hard as if to stop me from launching myself forward and strangling her father, her own hand trembling with either rage or sadness. Her parents moved to leave the room, Paige stood silent as they left, her mother giving her a pained glance as she dutifully followed her husband. I nudged the door shut behind them with my foot as Paige sat heavily on the edge of the bed.
“Well… fuck.” I muttered, no other words able to convey the emotion I wanted.
Paige looked up, eyes filled with unshed tears, a defeated angle to her shoulders, but a fragile smile on her face. “Pretty much.” Her voice cracked, “I got the answer I needed to move on entirely though, love. There had to be a positive to it.” She let a couple of tears roll over her cheeks, not reaching up to wipe them away, “Stupid fucking laws. Stupid parents so fucking rigid in abiding by them.” She muttered to herself, not a whiff of guilt for speaking aloud against the Laws. We’d talked about how she felt about what her parents had done while she was recovering, and knew she felt they were dead to her anyway, but to have it confirmed in such a blunt way by her father, after being so vulnerable, had to hurt.
Sitting next to her, quiet, I let her rage under her breath, getting it all out before we tried to venture back down stairs.
A set of footsteps climbing the stairs startled her. It had been too long for her parents to have reconsidered and come back. We both looked up as my mother opened the door.
“You girls okay?” she murmured, as she walked through the door, shutting it behind her, catching herself and chuckling sadly under her breath, “Oh, who the hell am I trying to hide this from? He’s…” She waved her arms and sighed, looking at the two of us sitting on the bed. Noticing Paige’s red-rimmed eyes, she glanced at me, frowning. "The Raeburns left in a hurry. Everything okay?”
“Um…” I started.
“No,” Paige murmured, “but, it’s nothing new. It just hurts to have it so blunt and out in the open. I’ll be fine soon.”
Mother sat down beside on the opposite side of Paige. “Love, why did they declare you dead? Was it because of the… um…” She glanced at me, “the gay thing?”
“That was only part. I knew they would shun me because they found out before I was Taken,” Mother looked at me, the shock visible on her face, “Add that in, and… well, death was the better option than explaining a shunning.”
“Well… Fuck,” Mother breathed.
I choked on a giggle as I’d rarely heard her swear, let alone use my trade mark statement of the day. Paige also looked suitably shocked at the language from a woman who had only spoken formally in the short time she’d known her. Mother looked at me, searching for what to say now, coming up empty. The longer she took to think about it, looking between the two of us, the more her face betrayed her emotions - switching from anger to sadness, to rage to sadness, and back to anger. If no one spoke, she was about to pace the room, I could see it in her body language.
“By the same guy, Mum,” I murmured, “We figured it out… early on after I arrived at Ferox.”
Paige looked at me, sadness in her eyes. “Why couldn’t I get your family? Jesus, your mother knows you were Taken, and accepted me into this house, knowing who I was to you, and mine can’t even stand to look at me.”
Mother swallowed.
“Paige, I don’t know. Father doesn’t, ah, didn’t know either of those things. Judging by today, it’s much like the rest of Pius - your Father rules the roost.” I smiled at my mother, “Mine did too - though, your mother isn’t as stroppy as mine.”
Mother allowed herself a grin before she spoke. “From what I can gather, your mother also didn’t have something in common
with you,” Paige frowned, looking between the two of us now, as Mother continued, “Reed and I do. Though I didn’t know she’d been Taken until she was found and came back to get her stuff before choosing Ferox. The little terror will not tell me who by though,” she muttered.
“’Cause you’ll do something that’ll get you in trouble, Ma!” Paige glanced at me, smirking. “Oh, damn you.” I muttered, knowing I had no right to stop her, even though had it been anyone else she would have been reported and expelled.
“Walker Barlow.”
Mother’s head shot up, her eyes flicking between Paige and I, the shock changing to indescribable anger, with a weird undercurrent of another emotion I couldn’t figure out.
“You’ve got to be … fucking … joking.” she grunted through clenched teeth.
I shook my head. “She’s not.”
“And the girl? The one you mentioned the other day?” Still through clenched teeth, Paige looking confused now.
“Yup.”
She stood now, pacing between the bed and the window, her fists clenched at her sides, trembling with rage, breathing ragged. I couldn’t tell if she was trying not to cry, or was trying not to punch something. She paused, leaning on the windowsill, staring out the window. Paige and I sat silent, not sure what to do. I heard a small sniff, then she punched the windowsill repeatedly. Paige frowned at me. It was unlike a Pius woman to show anger, let alone in front of others when they'd had decades of experience in hiding their emotions. I watched her for a while before I noticed she had made herself bleed and was still punching. I stood, walked over to her, Paige close behind me. Grabbing her hand as she went to punch the windowsill again with her blood soaked knuckles, I held it in the air, tugging to make her face me. As she turned, I could see the tear marks running down her face, the drops on the windowsill mixed with the blood from her hand.
“Mum?” I asked. The look on her face took my breath away - the guilt, sadness, and rage all at once - the hurt radiating from her.
She glanced at me, then Paige, then fixed eyes with me. “If I had done something, you would have been safe. Both of you.”
“How, Mum? We’re female, in GreyBrook. Fuck, we’re both gay, and female, therefore we are scum. How would you have stopped anything?” I prompted, not sure why she seemed to blame herself.
“If I had spoken about me being Taken. Taken the blame, the punishment that comes with that, maybe it wouldn’t have continued,” she murmured, trying to look away.
I glanced at Paige who shrugged. “Mum?”
She locked eyes with me again, her bloodied hand still in the air, held up by mine. “I was Taken, a little older than you, by …” she swallowed, running the name around in her mouth like it tasted awful, “Walker’s father, Tait.”
After I had dropped her hand in shock, Mother explained what had happened when she had been taken by Tait Barlow. She didn’t need to go into much detail, as it appeared Tait’s son had taken tips and added his own finishing touches, such as the whipping. I tended to her bleeding knuckles as she spoke, applying a dressing that wouldn’t be too noticeable at the funeral tomorrow, or to Jameson. Mother seemed to drift off into memories as she described what had happened when she was taken, and when she returned. Even though it was years before Jameson and I were born, it seemed to be as fresh to her as the day it happened. I couldn’t say I didn’t understand. It hurt to watch her relive it, but we couldn’t ask her to stop, as it was almost as though she had forgotten we were there. As though she had never spoken any of it out loud, and had finally found an audience who would listen, who would understand, and who wouldn’t judge her. When she found the end of her memories, she blinked, looking at Paige and me as though she was surprised we were there.
“Oh.” She tried to lower her head, ashamed, just as a Pius woman was supposed to, but I caught her chin with my finger.
“No, you don’t need to do that. Not here, not with us.” My face felt wet all of a sudden, as I realised I’d been crying listening to her remember, looking at Paige who had done the same thing, “Don’t you dare apologise, either. None of it was your fault, not what happened to you, not what happened to us. NONE of it.”
She looked a little surprised at how forceful I sounded, not expecting it of the meek, submissive daughter her husband had moulded me into whilst I lived at home.
“She’s right, you know, Kahu. I know you don’t believe her, I can see it on your face. You still blame yourself for it, and now you’re trying to blame yourself for us. For the girl you spoke of earlier. But you shouldn’t. We don’t blame you,” Paige murmured, handing Mother a tissue. Mother sat, looking at the both of us, looking exhausted, tired, red rimmed eyes giving away the fact she was fighting with herself to try and believe us. She looked defeated.
“I… I’ll try not to,.” she murmured, as I smiled. A sudden compulsion came over me that I had to share what I had been thinking all these months. That these two were the right people to share it with.
“Mum. It’s gonna change. It HAS to change. We can’t keep living like this.” They both looked confused, “No one should have to live like this. Being blamed for being abducted, and tortured by sadistic bastards who think it’s their right to do with us as they wish. Being blamed for being sexually assaulted. Being blamed for questioning the authority of a male, hell for having an opinion of our own. Blaming ourselves for the things that happen to us, when there is no one at fault but those who have done those things to us. Punished for making a decision that solved the issue at hand, but happened to trigger the bad feelings of a leader.” Paige looked guilt stricken as we both recalled the beating after that, I pulled myself straighter and continued, “Paige, you shouldn’t have to blame yourself for that, and neither should I. We should never have been forced to do that, given that the action I took solved the issue without any loss of face or life. It was my mistake, I should have been the only one punished - IF I was punished at all. I’m sorry you were forced to partake in that, but I don’t blame you, nor do I hold it against you.” I paused for breath. “But, I also cannot tell you how you should feel about what I did to you. Thats over to you, and I accept any feelings you have regarding that. But fuck it, I’m going to change it. Even if it kills me, I’m going to drag GreyBrook kicking and screaming out of the dark ages. Do what those women tried to do before GreyBrook, take back the power.”
Mother looked confused, but Paige was grinning.
“The book,” she murmured, “The Prophecies.”
My turn to look bewildered, as both mother and I looked at her. She smiled, rummaging in her bag on the floor, pulling out the black note book I had shown her. Mother gasped at the sight of the contraband colour, instinctively moving away to distance herself from it should we be discovered. Paige flicked through it to find the prophecy she was thinking of.
“She will wear black, defiant, strong, a born leader, yet, in the beginning she will not realise. An army, small but powerful, will stand behind her, ready to fight for what is right, what is just, what is fair. She will not realise it, but she would be the best thing they could hope for, the best thing that could have happened. She would be small, but she would be mighty.”
I frowned at her, still not understanding what she meant, Mother still looking worried by the presence of contraband in her home.
“Reed - this is going to sound ridiculous, but something you said reminded me of it. I think they had something. That it’s not just words, hopes for the future from those in the past, but that they actually knew something what going to happen, and that a small, but fiery young woman would lead the way. You, Reed.”
Mother’s head lifted up, her eyes on the book, as I quietly considered Paige’s comments. I had never thought of it being anyone I knew, the girl in black, let alone myself. It seemed arrogant to even consider it now, but I couldn’t help see myself in some of the comments it made later. I looked up at Paige, her belief in me more than I had in myself, a pleading look to her tired eyes, that I at
least consider it. A slight nod from me, that I’d consider it, made her smile until Mother spoke.
“I do not know what you speak of, and I gather it is contained in the contraband book in your hand, Paige.” Paige moved to hand it to her, but she waved it away, “No, I don’t need to touch it or read it. I’m sorry, it’s a habit I can’t break.” She paused, looking at me with a strange look on her face, her eyes roaming over my face, a smile tickling the corners of her mouth, “But, the fire has come back to your eyes, Reed. Just now. So, if I can help, I will support you in any way I can. I hated seeing the darkness taking over my daughter all these years. I want to help kindle that fire.”
I thanked her for the vote of confidence, talking again about how it had to change when guilt suddenly overcame me, today wasn’t supposed to be about me, or us. It was supposed to be about him. About Father.
“Mum, it can wait. This week is about Father.”
She nodded, distant again. Glancing around the room, she shuffled her feet, biting her lip. “Girls, I’m sorry it’s turned out the way it did. But, thank you. I’ve never actually said anything out loud about what actually happened, not even to your father, Reed. Thanks for just listening. I’d better get downstairs and get organised.” She rubbed her bandaged knuckles as she left the room.
“What did she mean earlier, about the other girl?” Paige asked after I sat back down on the bed, trying to gather my thoughts back to my father, “Do you know of more that he took?”
I blushed, I hadn’t told her because Jorja, Alyx, and Maria had decided it was to remain a secret, my brother and mother only knew because of the flashback I had had that night. I nodded.
“That duty I did for Rudy when I first got here?” She nodded. “I had to head out to the Fence, to see the people in the Non-Sel camp out there. On my way back, I noticed that the forests and trees had obviously been planted similarly in the sections originally, ‘cause everything looked similar to what I remember of Arator’s, where Walker had taken me. I got curious to see if there was a shed in the middle Pius’ forest too, so went in for a look.” Paige’s eyes widened, “I found it in use, and managed to get the locks undone, to find a Perdoctus girl inside. I managed to get her out, and away from the shed before anyone came back. He’d whipped her back raw, just like us.”
