“It’s not a problem. Would you like me to show you around our town?” he asked, his white hair creating a stark contrast to his dark skin.
I nodded.
“This is our kitchen. Like all kitchens, it is the gathering place for our community. We prepare and eat our meals here, but most of us prefer to do our other tasks here as well. The only thing we can’t do here is teach our children in their academic lessons. They are easily distracted and need more quiet than some of our chattier citizens allow,” he said as a loud burst of laughter erupted from a group of women sitting near the fire.
“Do you have more children than those three?” I asked as we passed the two toddlers and baby painting the house.
“Yes. We are blessed with nineteen below the age of fourteen. Those three are our youngest citizens. Their father passed away, but their mother, Marjorie, is with them and of course they are loved by each of us.” He said this with a proud twinkle that I used to see in Pops’s eyes when talking about his grandkids.
“Did he die from the illness?” I asked, my fear for Faith and Sage building.
“No,” he said, “he was shot for not joining the regime. Apparently, he was someone high-ranking before all of this, and after it happened, those in charge asked him to join their efforts. He saw what they wanted to create and declined.”
“And they shot him?” I asked, my heart racing.
He nodded. “In the back. He managed to help his wife and kids get out of the city, but he died soon after.”
“She continued on by herself, with three little kids?” I said, my mouth falling open.
“Never underestimate a mother’s love—or a father’s, for that matter. I suppose any of us would do whatever it took to keep our kids safe if we had the chance,” he said as a tear traced the deep crevices on his face.
A desire to hug my father and tell him I was okay rose within me.
My guide led me past the homes. “This is my favorite part of town,” he said, gesturing to children sitting on logs and using larger logs as desks, or, in some cases, writing tablets.
“Paper is in short supply. We can’t allow the children to use it, so they practice their writing and math either in the dirt or on the logs. Once the log is covered with too much writing, we saw the writing away and use it for fuel. The older children help the younger children learn the basics, and then the rest of us take turns teaching the older children whatever knowledge we might possess.”
“What do you teach them when it is your turn?” I asked.
“Before the attack, I taught American history and I dabbled a bit in philosophy. They were important subjects before. Now they are imperative, so my lectures are attended by the entire community. Though I only quiz the children,” he said, with the hint of laughter.
“Why does everyone attend?” I asked, remembering sleeping through as much of American history as I could and not understanding even the most basic concepts of my freshman philosophy class.
He cleared his throat, commanding my attention. “As Edmund Burke the Irish philosopher once said, ‘Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.’ ”
The man’s piercing dark eyes were replaced by Trent’s. I understood then that the atrocities of Trent’s so-called progress were not inventions of Trent’s or even unique to this period of humanity. Others throughout history had believed the same, and millions upon millions of lives had been lost when their orders were carried out.
The man continued, “And it is philosophy that grants us a way of understanding the world and our place in it, in a way nothing else can.”
“Yes.” I nodded, blinking Trent’s eyes from mine. “You’re right.”
“You have been in the city, then, and you witnessed what they are doing?” the man asked, staring at me so intensely it felt as though he was reading my soul and seeing my memories.
I stepped back, needing distance. “Yes,” I answered. “We came from there, but I am hopeful their beliefs will be contained within the wall.”
“I suppose that is what everyone hopes, at the start of the end,” he said gravely.
Fear engulfed me.
“Where are the puppies?” I asked, turning from him and moving my body forward. I wanted to find the girl and know she was okay. I wanted to stop talking to this man who would not forget the past.
“This way,” he said, gesturing toward the side of the last house. “Jasper and HoneyBee came with Gus and his son. We built a pen onto their house to keep the dogs safe and contained at night.”
“Do you have many predators here?” I asked, relieved for the change of topic.
“Not many, but we didn’t want to take a chance. The dogs are valuable to us. They help protect us, and Gus—he’s the one teaching the others how to tan the hide over there—he will work with the puppies, when they are old enough, and teach them how to hunt. If he can teach them, they will more than earn their keep, and might be valuable in trade in the future.”
“Trade?” I asked, as a misshapen stone-and-wood wall about four feet tall came into sight.
“Trade is the currency now. Money, gold, oil, none of that matters anymore. We simply need to survive and having things to trade improves our chances. Or it will, once there are others to trade with.”
As we approached the wall I heard a voice. I placed a finger on my lips, telling the man to be silent. I leaned against the wooden door, watching through the cracks as the girl sat surrounded by four puppies, a fifth one in her lap.
“I will call you Astrea,” a young voice said.
My heart leapt when I realized it was the girl’s.
“It means, from the stars, and it suits you perfectly. I know you are little and they pick on you, but I am here now and I will protect you. Before long, you will be just as strong as your brother and sisters and they will never hurt you again.” She held the dog tight to her, rocking it gently. “No one will ever hurt you again.”
Nine
“They have a school and everything. It’s impressive, especially for a group of strangers,” I said as I rejoined Jonah and the others at what I feared was becoming a war table.
“We realized even on the way out of the city that our chances of survival increased if we worked together,” Ash said. “It helps that several of us knew one another before the attack.”
“Did you live near each other?” I asked.
“Sort of,” Jael answered. “Ash, and my husband and I were visiting Momma. Some others lived near her.”
“Momma?” I asked.
“Mrs. Pryce,” Jael clarified.
“Oh, we didn’t know she was your mom,” Jonah said.
“Technically, she was our foster mother,” Jael said.
“But she was the only real mother either of us had,” Ash added.
“Are you brother and sister?” East asked.
They both laughed. “No,” Jael answered.
Ash said, “Truth is, we didn’t even live with Momma at the same time. We got to know each other when Jael would come back and visit, and I was living with Momma. And then we kept on visiting on the holidays, so we have sort of become brother and sister.”
East said, “You were visiting when the light struck?”
They nodded.
“Isaiah and I had been there since Wednesday morning, and Ash arrived in time for dinner,” Jael said.
“Isaiah was your husband?” I asked softly.
“He is my husband. Always will be. Death can’t stop that,” Jael asserted.
Ash squeezed her shoulder.
Jael continued, “After the light we couldn’t stay where we were. Momma had brought me here a few times when she wanted to have a nice long talk,” Jael said, grinning at Ash.
“She always has had a heart for the most difficult of kids.” Ash winked at Jael.
Jael laughed. “Yes, she does.”
“When we realized we needed to get out of the city, we thought of this place,” Jael said.
“We invite
d everyone we could,” Ash said solemnly. “Most had lived their whole lives in that neighborhood and never went beyond it. Only a few would leave. I guess the rest probably died there.”
“Maybe not,” East offered, only slightly more convincing than I would have been if I had told that lie.
“We’re not much for sugar coating,” Jael reproached. “It does no good.”
“Anyway, on our way out we met Faith, Sage, and Becca.” Ash motioned toward the fire and the woman who had begun crying when she heard of Faith being sick.
“There were a few others with them and then we met more along the way, like Marjorie and her kids,” Jael added. “And Gus and his son Thomas lived at the farm east of here.”
“The one you dismantled?” Jonah asked.
Ash nodded. “It was Gus’s idea. He said he’d rather be alive in a shack than a sitting duck in a well-built house. The material from his house, along with the natural stones and some random car pieces, built our town. More importantly, he knew a lot of things the rest of us didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Gus was a farmer,” Ash said. “He was used to growing things. He brought a lot of seeds with us. He also knows how to fish and hunt and tan hides. He has been integral to our survival.”
I thought of how much Nonie had helped us and Pops before his death.
At that moment Haz opened the door of the central hut, his face tired and worn. His eyes connected first with mine and then with East’s. He offered her a faint smile and turned away, walking swiftly out of the town. Mrs. Pryce limped from her home, coming toward us.
“How is Sage?” she asked, leaning against the table.
Her face, like Haz’s, was fatigued. I wondered how long they had been in there. I wondered what she knew of him and he of her.
“The same,” Jonah answered.
“Faith is sick,” Jael said solemnly.
“Faith is sick?” Mrs. Pryce repeated, an expression of concern and distress on her worn face.
Jonah and I nodded.
“Can I get you a chair, Momma?” Ash asked.
“Yes, dear,” she said. A moment later she sat on a metal folding chair positioned at the center of the table. Her hands grasped the crook of her cane and her eyes focused somewhere in the past.
“When did she get sick?” Mrs. Pryce asked, after the silence.
“Last night, after we got there,” I answered. “She told Sara she needed to rest, and when Sara kissed her forehead, it felt like it was on fire. She hasn’t woken up since.”
“Her body must have been fighting it off for days,” Mrs. Pryce said. “Fever is never the first symptom, unbearable fatigue is. She must have fought through that to care for Sage.”
“Nothing is as strong as a mother’s love,” Jael said, as I glanced at Marjorie following her two oldest children as they ran toward the kitchen, saying they were hungry.
“No, no, there isn’t,” Mrs. Pryce said, blinking a tear from her left eye.
East and I peered down at the table.
“Is Haz okay?” Jonah asked from beside me. “Not to pry, but he didn’t look good.”
“We had a lot to talk about. The detective and I have known each other for quite some time. And it was … a complicated relationship.”
Jael said, “Wait! Was he the one who—”
“He was,” Mrs. Pryce said.
“Seriously?” Ash asked, following their exchange. “That’s him? He looks so different. I had no idea that’s who he was.”
“He does look different.” Mrs. Pryce chuckled. “That is certain.” Her expression softened. “When Jazmyne left, she took a bit from each of us. It turns out the detective was no exception.”
“It’s because of Jazmyne?” Jael asked. “Why he looks that way? Why he grew his hair and beard?”
“He didn’t come out and say it, but yes. He has carried a lot of guilt, guilt that was never his to carry. I told him that, but I don’t know if he heard me. After you tell yourself something for long enough, it is hard to hear anything else, even if it’s the truth.”
The wisdom of her words was undeniable.
“Do you mind—I don’t mean to be nosey—but we are his friends,” East said, her voice soft in a way I had only ever heard her use with her grandmother. “Do you mind telling us what you are talking about? Who is Jazmyne? A woman he loved?”
“Yes, he did love her. We all did. But she was not a woman. She was a girl of fourteen and the detective dove into the depths of hell for her. In the end, it was too late, and she left this earth.” Mrs. Pryce pulled a small handkerchief from a pocket and wiped her eyes.
“Jazmyne was wild,” Jael said, in a tone meant to tell Mrs. Pryce that whatever happened to this girl wasn’t her fault.
“Jazmyne was beautiful inside and out,” said Mrs. Pryce, squeezing the cloth as she spoke. “She was no different than any of my other treasures and certainly no wilder than you, Ms. Jael. The difference was, she was targeted. By man or devil, I never was sure. But I couldn’t fight them and neither could the detective and his team. They saved others—so many others—but not Jaz. She wasn’t with the others, and no matter how many times they tried, they could never get to her. It’s as if the devil himself was hiding her from us. And the detective, God bless him, he tried so hard. I knew it then, but it wasn’t until he just talked to me that I understood all he had done, all he had sacrificed to try and save her.”
Mrs. Pryce dabbed at her eyes with the simple cotton handkerchief, and then said, “Her death saddens me terribly, but it haunts him. I told him she’s at peace, that I knew it even before he told me she’d passed. That the knowledge came as the smell of jasmine, her namesake, filled my tiny kitchen. You know my house. There’s nothing green around it. But I swear the smell of jasmine was so strong, it was her gift to me. She was telling me she was okay. A minute later, the detective was there at my door. Before he said a word, I knew she was gone from this world. Even though my heart was breaking, I knew hers was whole. At last, it was whole.”
Mrs. Pryce wiped her cheeks as Jael and Ash each placed an arm around her.
“You never told us that, Momma,” Jael whispered.
“It was between me and her,” Mrs. Pryce answered, forcing the tears back. “But that poor man.” She shook her head and sniffed. “I knew he was breaking, but what could I do? He wouldn’t let me see his grief. He told me today he felt he had no right to burden me, to allow me to see his tears. If he had, maybe I could have helped him. Maybe he wouldn’t have felt so alone in his grief.”
Jael said, “He came to the funeral. I remember him there.”
“He stayed in the back,” Ash added.
“It’s ’cause he blamed himself. This whole time, he’s been blaming himself,” Mrs. Pryce said in sorrow.
“Why?” Ash asked.
“That’s what people do when their hearts are pure. They seem to know how much God hates death, and they rail against it at a level I don’t think even they understand.”
“What ….” My voice faltered. I had no right to ask this question. “What happened to Jazmyne?”
Mrs. Pryce swallowed hard. “She was killed. By who, we don’t know.”
“Did the detective know?” Jael asked.
“He said he was close to the answer when the world turned upside down. But who knows for sure? She had experienced so much violence. Who could know which hand finally broke her?”
Mrs. Pryce stared into the past. “You know, the last time I saw her was two weeks before she died. She knew I had filed a report that said I thought she was being bought and sold. They were waiting for me by my car after the Wednesday night service.”
“They?” Ash said, leaning forward, his eyes wide with concern.
“Oh, yes, he was with her,” she said, nodding.
“Momma, you didn’t tell us that, either,” Jael said, taking her mother’s hand.
“He could have hurt you,” Ash said, seething.
“She was so thin and sickly and filthy. I doubt she’d bathed since she left my house the month before. And even then, she defended him and said he loved her and they were getting married. I told her, ‘Baby, he doesn’t know what love is, and if you think him selling your body is love, then neither do you.’ She said he didn’t do that, that it was her choice to help pay the rent. And I said, ‘And how many other girls does he have doing the same thing; and why would you do that when you could stay with me for free; and furthermore, a real man would get off his couch and get a job before he would ever allow someone he loved to misuse the beautiful body bestowed on her by God.’ Well, he flat out laughed at that, and said God wasn’t part of his life or hers.”
“What did you say?” Jael asked.
“I said that was his choice, I guessed, but it wasn’t because God didn’t love him. I said God was sticking with Jaz because I was praying all day, every day, for her, and so God wasn’t leaving her, no matter what may happen to her in this life. And then it was like her eyes cleared for a second and she said, ‘Oh, Momma, you know God doesn’t want me anymore.’ And I said, ‘He created you and he loves you and he ain’t never gonna stop,’ and that all she ever needed to do was turn to our Lord and he would be there.
“Then he opened the car door and told her to get in. That was the last time I ever saw her alive.”
Her words overwhelmed me. I had never known anyone who had known anyone who had been murdered—not before the light. Especially not a young girl who was abused so badly.
“Did he … did Haz ever arrest that guy?” East asked, clearing her throat to hide the emotion.
Mrs. Pryce smiled a weary smile. “The detective did arrest him, but he was smart. Much smarter than we realized, and charges had to be dropped.”
My mind spun in sorrow for the girl I had never known. Jonah’s hand moved to mine. The sound of children laughing filled the air around us—somehow making that moment even more difficult. Then the laughter faded, replaced with another sound. A sound that reminded me of something from long ago. At one time the sound had been comforting, but now, even before I fully understood what I was hearing, I knew it was not. It became louder and louder, until finally my mind remembered.
From the Shadows Page 6
