Vessel

by Lisa T. Cresswell

  ***

  Out on the street later, I searched for a building Recks could get to—somewhere not too far to walk but far enough to make it worth moving. It was going to be risky, so it needed to be a hidden, out-of-the-way place if possible. And a real bed would be nice, I thought as I peeked in empty rooms and shops.

  This part of town seemed deserted, probably why the Tribe lived here. No one to get in their way. I decided we should be closer to the edge of the city so I focused my search in that direction, keeping to the shadows in case of trouble. Most of the buildings were warehouses like the one the Tribe camped in, but at the end of a narrow alley, behind a thick curtain of ivy, I finally found a perfect cottage.

  The rooms were small and narrow, but the kitchen had dishes and the bedrooms had mattresses. I’d have to fill the water jug again before we moved, but that was easy enough. My mind should’ve been tired, yet it buzzed with a thousand thoughts like a hive of bees.

  Recks was sleeping when I got back, and I couldn’t bring myself to wake him. He was finally resting easy, his face smooth with no trace of pain. Perhaps the tea had helped after all. We could wait here one more day. The cottage wasn’t going anywhere, although I wished for the teacups.

  I lay on the musty pillow bed on the floor next to Recks. His good arm lay over the edge of the cot, pale in the moonlight through the flimsy curtain. I wondered what would become of us, how long we could get by like this, living day to day. When winter came, we’d have nothing then. I shoved the fear to the back of my mind.

  I studied Recks’s silhouette, blacker than the darkness in the surrounding room. He was marriageable, like Tow, and yet he had no wife. With this life, he never would. It was a shame someone so beautiful would have no mate, but perhaps that was his wish.

  When I opened my eyes the next morning, Recks was already up. My neck was numb from sleeping on the floor again. Without the ability to feel anything, I was almost comfortable. I stayed perfectly still, enjoying the sensation. I knew when I moved it’d change.

  “You couldn’t find a place we could move?” asked Recks.

  “I did, but you were sleeping when I got back. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  Recks peeked out of a slit between the curtain and the wall to see the street below the apartment.

  “You didn’t have to come back, you know. You could leave me. You’re free now.”

  “I know.” Had Recks been thinking the same things I had about our precarious situation? I dragged myself up, my neck painfully stiff. “How’s your arm?” I asked as I rubbed my own neck.

  “Better. See?” Recks made an attempt to move his arm, but I didn’t see much change. I broke a piece of willow bark in half and gave him part of it, shoving the rest in my own mouth.

  “This’ll help. I’ll get some water. Be back soon,” I told him as I left with the plastic jug.

  As the sun dawned, the air was still cool from the night. The colors of Mother’s aurora shimmered across the sky, all green and gold like a tree in early fall. I took it as a good sign for the day. “Mother’s Loving Gaze” they used to call it back in Roma. Her colors gave the broken, gray city an unearthly look, much prettier than it really was. I thought about what Recks said about me leaving. Perhaps I should? Recks couldn’t support me, not like Dine had. I didn’t want to be a burden, but now he needed me more than I needed him. I could leave when he was better, but where would I go?

  I felt myself growing more at ease with this place. Strangers weren’t unusual here, and no one paid me any mind as I joined the other women filling jugs at the river steps. Hope took hold in me, somewhere deep, and I quickly filled my water jug, eager to return to Recks. I wasn’t even that concerned when the familiar jingle of Reticent harness bells broke the morning stillness. No Reticent had ever looked upon my face. I could thank Dine for that. The other water gatherers looked up at the sound and hurried up the steps to the street.

  “What is it?” I whispered to the nearest woman.

  “Charity day. If you’re lucky, you get a whole loaf of sour bread,” she said, not waiting around for me.

  In the past, I would’ve laughed. I made sour bread all the time in Roma. We used it to thicken our broth when meat was scarce. But today, as hungry as I was, it sounded like a banquet. When I reached the top of the stairs, I saw a small crowd gathering around a scarlet-clad Reticent with a jute sack across his lap, sitting on the back of an enormous black stallion.

  Far from the usual haughtiness, this Reticent distributed small round loaves of sour bread to the peasants’ outstretched hands. Something drew me in, the promise of fresh bread, yes, but more than that. Something about his face, his shock of white hair, was familiar. Could I know this man? Could he be … ?

  “Mother bless you,” he uttered to each person as he gave him or her a loaf. Finally he reached me. I looked up into his grim, blue eyes and I knew, but I couldn’t believe it. He put a loaf in my hand with another “Mother bless you.”

  “Kinder?”

  He stopped what he was doing and looked at me hard, searching my scarred face.

  “Do I know you?” he demanded, grabbing my wrist.

  It was him, no doubt, but what was he dressed as a Reticent for? Too late, I realized my mistake. He was one of them. I tried to pull away, but his bony fingers had a better grip on me than I thought and he wouldn’t let me go.

  “Recks?” he asked in a hushed, angry voice, as if he didn’t want the others to hear.

  I twisted my arm, squirming out of his grasp and pinching the horse’s flank to make him balk. Kinder released me to keep from tumbling off the prancing stallion. I ran without looking back, sloshing water all over my pants from the jug I carried. I almost threw it down, but we needed the water.

  I made up my mind to tell Recks it was time to leave the city. Now. Today. It wasn’t safe. Not with so many Reticents here and especially not with Kinder being one of them. What other lies had he told Recks? I couldn’t even think about it now. My breath came in panicked gasps as I ran to the hidden apartment.

  When I saw the door open, the door I knew I had shut behind me, I dropped the jug, the water spilling into the street. My legs refused to work and I stood there, not knowing what to do. Finally, my fear for Recks overcame any other thoughts in my mind. I raced to the open door and up the stairs.

  “Recks?”

  The apartment had never been tidy, but now the cot and the table were overturned. It only took two blinks to know Recks was gone, and it hadn’t been his own choice.

  Oh no … Oh no …

  The only person in the whole world who cared a whit about me, and I’d lost him. I was alone, truly alone. I felt my mind coming apart at the seams, unraveling like frayed cloth. The only sound was my ragged breath. What now?

  A shadow moved in the corner of the room faster than my eyes could adjust. Someone was still here. Someone other than Recks. I turned to run again, but found my escape blocked. A pack of boys rushed up the stairwell below me. I saw Tiber’s crooked, snarling grin among them, and I threw the first thing I could grab—the rickety little table that had held our tiny dinner the night before. It snapped against the wall, and they tromped right over it. I grabbed the cot and shoved it toward them, but hard hands grabbed my arms from behind, and I screamed. The sound startled everyone.

  “You scream like a girl,” said Tiber. His hands groped my chest for the breasts beneath my heavy shirt. His face changed at his sly discovery, and I wished I’d wrapped them tighter. He pulled off my hood and my long hair spilled out. Before he could react, I spit in his mud-colored eyes and kicked at him with both feet.

  The boys holding my arms dug into me with their fingers as Tiber lashed out at me. I don’t remember the sting of his hand across my cheek. I know I heard it—a loud, clear-smacking crack—but I was too busy thrashing to get away to notice. I did as much damage with my feet as I could, kicking until they grabbed them out from under me and knocked me to the gr
ound. They righted the cot and threw me onto it so Tiber could tug off my pants. Too big for me, they slipped off too easily. The back of my head throbbed where I hit the floor in the fall, and I felt my mind losing the fight. I felt it retreat, bit by bit, to that place it always went when Dine had me. A dark, safe place no one knew but me. I used to be able to go there and emerge hours later when it was long over. This time, I didn’t know if I was coming back.

  “What’s going on here?” a deep voice demanded. I felt the grip of the hands holding me loosen and then release me. My eyes no longer saw anything but sounds and smells still reached me. I heard a struggle, the scuffle of many feet in the room, the curious spicy scent of incense, and then someone silently dressing me. My mind refused to come back to complete consciousness until I felt my body being carried out of the apartment. The day heated up, and Mother Sun bathed the world in white, hot light that burned my eyes when I opened them.

  Tiber’s tribe was confined in a coach with bars, some of them glowering at me. My head lolled away from their stares as I was put into another coach. I stared at the dirty floor I lay on, vaguely aware I moved but not knowing where nor caring why. Recks was gone, and I’d be a slave again. A slave or dead.

  My stomach growled. I wanted to be strong, but I felt beaten, hungry, and so incredibly tired. Could I live in this world anymore? If I ran, I might escape, or they could kill me. I decided to try. If I had to die, I only hoped for a quick, neck-snapping death, not a burning. I wasn’t a heretic, so I figured my chances were good.

  When the coach finally stopped, I looked up for the first time in an hour. I felt my mind return once more, my thoughts more coherent. Peering out the window, I saw the last of Tiber’s gang being hustled into another large building made of smooth gray stone with no seams, like a solid mountain of rock. I tried the door of my cage in case it was unlocked and I could escape, but it didn’t budge. I had no intention of following Tiber. I looked around me for anything that might serve as a weapon. The carriage had nothing but a bit of dirt and straw. If only I had my knife … wait!

  Feeling in my pockets, I knew it was gone, probably lost when my pants were pulled off.

  “Looking for something?” asked a man’s voice outside.

  It was a voice I knew: Weevil.

  I pulled my hood over my head and hunched over, hoping to hide my face while Weevil unlocked the door. I didn’t move.

  “C’mon out here before I come in after you.”

  I watched my own feet as I stepped out of the carriage, keeping my face hidden. Looking to my right, I saw the great, green wall of the woods maybe fifty steps away. The tart smell of the pines lured me, and I ran for them as soon as my feet touched the dirt. Weevil had no time to react. I didn’t look back as I pumped my arms and legs hard, willing myself to live and unafraid to die in the same breath.

  It wasn’t long before I heard his panting and his angry growl behind me, and then he tackled me. The force of his blow on my back cleared the air from my lungs, and I went down hard, gasping like a fish on the riverbank. He flipped me over, his club raised to strike me again, when he caught sight of my face, my mouth working hard to suck in a breath, and he stopped.

  “Chit?” His voice was unusually soft. I flailed around unable to really fight him without my breath. I kicked at him as best I could.

  Hit me! Be done with it! Done with me …

  But as before, Weevil never did what I wanted him to do. He pinned my arms behind me and dragged me to my feet somehow. I may have imagined it, but he seemed to pause and let me breathe, a kindness I didn’t expect from him. His hot breath hit my neck as he spoke in my ear.

  “I never thought I’d see you again. Lovely, as always,” he whispered, inhaling deeply as if to collect my scent should I run again. I struggled against him, but his grip was a vice I couldn’t break.

  “You shouldn’t have come here, chit. No, no, no,” he murmured as he pushed me back toward the giant building. “Might mean the death of you.” His voice almost sounded sorry for me.

  More Reticent guards waited at the doorway of the place with the high, gray, windowless walls. I saw the giant stack looming over us now. It was the place with the unnatural light I’d seen from the forest, a place I knew I didn’t want to be. I locked my knees, refusing to move forward, my heels digging into the soft dirt. Weevil bent and slung me over his shoulder, unwilling to take no for an answer. My hands free again, I beat his back, screaming my frustration.

  I heard the guards laugh as Weevil lost his balance with me, and I slipped to the ground. I scrambled away, but he had me by the ankle. His tone was less forgiving now.

  “Don’t make me hurt you. You know I will.”

  “Do it then!” I shrieked. I kicked at him with my free foot as he dragged me closer and hit his thigh.

  “That’s enough,” he bellowed. His gnarled brown hand smacked me hard across the face, and my world went dark.

  I smelled honeysuckle, so sweet I could taste it in my mouth. And then suddenly it was gone like the memory of a dream you try so hard to grasp but can’t.

  My eyes flickered open, and I remembered I wasn’t in the apartment anymore. The Reticents had come. I didn’t even have a chance to hide. Now I lay in a rickety bed in a small, square room with a high ceiling and no windows. The pain in my elbow had finally gone. Try as she might, Alana hadn’t been able to stop the pain.

  Alana … she’ll think I’ve left her.

  In truth I had, but not by my own accord. I hoped she might get away. I’d failed her, and I knew it.

  I wanted to get up and look around, but my legs wouldn’t move. I could sit up but nothing more. Twice now, a man had injected me with something that made me unbearably tired. Restful sleep was impossible. My body craved the rest, but it felt like betrayal to lie there when Alana needed me. I let the drug convince me she didn’t. Who could I help anyway? I couldn’t even help myself.

  Maybe Alana will go east, I consoled myself. Maybe she’ll take the story to heart. It’d be hard, but she might have a chance. The story wasn’t true, of course. It was a juicy turnip to a starving slave, the light of a distant star called Hope.

  The days and nights bled into one another. I was no longer certain of how many there’d been, until one day my mind was a clear, blue sky. I sat up easily and looked around me. The room was spare, the light low like afternoon before sunset.

  Feeling no pain, I examined my elbow first, then my knee. Apart from finding myself dressed in red shorts, everything seemed normal. I longed to see the sun, to know the true time of day, but the room had no windows. There was only a door and a light source hanging up by the ceiling.

  I stared at it. The light glowed like a tiny Mother Sun captured in a glass globe, and like Mother, it burned my eyes to look at it.

  What is this place?

  I got out of the bed and crossed the room to the door.

  Locked, of course. If I’m a prisoner, why heal me?

  No longer drugged, I took to pacing laps around the room. The muscles in my arms and legs were much weaker than before. I needed them back. I even tried push-ups. My arm held as good as ever. I pushed against the floor until the lock turned, and the door opened.

  A hooded figure in a red robe stepped in and handed me an identical garment.

  “Put this on,” he said. “Hurry.”

  I got up off the floor, my arms aching, and took the heavy woolen robe. “Where am I?”

  “You are safe in the Gora Compound among the Reticents. Get dressed.”

  “Reticents?” I murmured, trying to understand.

  “Come,” was all he said as he turned and left the room. I threw on the robe and hurried after him, glad to be out of my solitary confinement at least.

  Tubes of light like the glass ball in my room dimly lit the hall he disappeared down. The tubes snaked along the walls, glowing a faint blue. I ran after him, still barefoot, my feet slapping the slick floor.

&nbs
p; I caught up to him but stayed a step or two behind. The floor sloped downward as we walked, and I had the feeling we were going deeper into the fortress. No windows anywhere. No escape in sight.

  A familiar odor hit my nose when we reached a pair of heavy doors, and he pulled one open. My stomach suddenly ached from the smell of butter, warm bread, and rich, greasy meat drippings. After the dark hallway, the room nearly blinded me with the brightness of the light in the ceiling. I blinked, wanting to both open and close my eyes at the same time.

  Men and women, some old, some young, most dressed in red, sat at several long tables eating the food that smelled so good. I had to have some. I didn’t hesitate when my guide pointed me toward the food line. Someone handed me a bowl of meat stew, someone else, a hunk of bread. I followed the people ahead of me to a table. Oblivious to everyone else, I crammed the bread into my mouth, hardly chewing enough to savor the flavor of the creamy butter on it.

  In fact, I wolfed down everything I had and looked up for more. I studied the line wondering if seconds were allowed here. I didn’t really need more. My belly was full, but I was accustomed to stuffing myself when there was plenty, to make up for the times when there wasn’t.

  Glancing around, I noticed someone at the next table staring at me. His hair was different now, short and spiky, but it was clearly Tiber. The corners of his cracked lips curled when he saw me recognize him but otherwise he didn’t move. More questions sprang to mind, twice as bad as before.

  What’s he doing here? What am I doing here? Are all these people captive?

  “What is this place?” I asked the boy next to me. Silent stares were all I received from several people at my table.

  In fact, no one in the entire room spoke. They finished their meals and delivered their empty dishes to a hole in the wall as they filed out of the room. My guide, who’d disappeared, found me again and directed me to follow him along with two other boys, one older and one younger than me. Both looked as confused as I felt.