by Casey Hays
“Three days ago, when I came here, it was my birthday.”
Ian’s head cocks in surprise. “Really? Why didn’t you say anything?”
I stare at the floor. ”It’s not a birthday I cared to mention.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m sixteen now.”
“Sweet Sixteen?” He raises a brow that arcs over his blue eye curiously, and he smiles. I relax a bit. “That’s not supposed to be a birthday you dread. I turned sixteen last year. No big deal.”
No big deal. Of course. I examine my fingernails. It occurs to me that I should trim them. They’re far too long. I pick at my thumb nail nervously. My hands are calloused over from dishwashing, and I have a sudden urge to hide them from view.
“In our village, sixteen is a very big deal.” I shrug. “It’s the day . . . we become women. And things are . . . expected.”
“Yeah?” Curiosity dances in his eyes. “What kind of things?”
“I came to the Pit for the first time.”
“You’re expected to come to the Pit?” His face crinkles incredulously. “Mmmhhhh. That’s an interesting gift.”
My eyes flicker away, and I’m studying my nails again. I want this to be finished in the same way I wanted Madam Belle’s discomforting lessons to be over. In fact, I long for it even more so. Because this time, I am the teacher, caressing my knowledge into the ignorant mind.
I had sworn to myself on my first day in the Pit—before I knew Ian at all—before I saw his face or heard his voice—that I would never teach him our ways. And I still won’t . . . at least, not with my body. My eyes graze his face, and I look away.
“The Pit isn’t the gift, Ian.”
He knits his brows in confusion. “So what are you getting at?”
“You.” I face him and raise my brows slightly. “You were my gift. In a manner of speaking.”
“What?” He leans back, slightly shocked. And he laughs. “And all this time I thought they’d given you to me.” His voice is full of sarcasm. He shakes his head, sucking his lower lip between his teeth. “Wow! Talk about absurd. Nobody can give people as gifts.”
“I know it seems crazy.” I say. “And I already told you, I didn’t want to come. I fought them, tried my best to keep them from bringing me here. But in the end, we really have no choice.” I rub a finger into the dirt of the rough floor, leaving a small indention. “People have died for refusing.”
Ian shakes his head in disbelief and stands to pace the floor in his usual erratic manner. I watch him, wishing I could signal the jailer to open the gate before I have to tell him the rest. I’ve barely touched on what he wants to know, and my insides are struggling with whether or not to finish my story. I feel sick, and his pacing only adds to my nausea. He stops abruptly and faces me.
“Why me?”
This is a fair question, and one I’ve pondered ever since I was dumped into the Pit. If Ian is not from our nursery, as he claims, why did Mona go to such trouble to bring him here? Why did she not choose from the stock? What does she gain from taking a boy from his own village? I have only one answer—the only answer Mona has ever given me.
“I’m considered to be one of the more attractive bree—I mean—women in the Village,” I correct myself quickly. “The Council leader decided she needed to find the perfect match. Apparently, if you truly are from Eden, then none of our males suited her in my case.”
He stands still, absorbing my words, and I detect the beginnings of slight flashes of understanding in his eyes. I swallow and force myself to continue before he can respond.
“And so if everything you have said is true, she must have gone outside the Village to find you.” I look at him and smile weakly. ”I didn’t even know there was another village. All of us thought we were the only ones left on Earth. But here you are.”
I laugh nervously. His expression is less than amused.
“Back up a minute.” He brushes his hand through his hair. The motion is agitated, and my nerves fire up again. “What did you say about a match? A perfect match, you said?”
My insides tighten. I would rather crawl under my hogan and never come out than explain myself further. Until now, he’s accepted my information well, if not hesitantly. But here is where things might become uncomfortable. I move forward with caution.
“Um, Mona? The one who came to get me last night? She’s our leader, and she believes that certain people with a certain look about them will, well, produce quality offspring.”
“Offspring?” His eyes fill with the shock of complete realization, and I think of a rabbit, newly-killed, eyes glaring in deadened disbelief that it’s been shot down. He staggers backwards, like some of the women I’ve seen who like to drink the fermented juice until they can’t stand up straight. “You mean, like . . . a stud?”
I squint up at him.
“A what?”
“A stud! I can’t believe this! What’s the matter with you people?”
Another fair question that I cannot answer. On an impulse, I rise—reach for him—wanting to connect with him and make him see that I am in no way involved in his imprisonment, but he backs away from me until he’s pressed flat against the bamboo gate, his eyes wide.
“Listen to me, Ian.” I plead with him, hoping he will see my truth. “I have no intention of breeding with you. I never did. I would die first.”
He looks confused for a minute, and his eyes wander over the walls wildly before he refocuses on my face.
“Then why are you here, Kate?” he whispers, pressing into the gate even more. “If you had nothing to do with my capture, why did you come back in the middle of the night? Why are you playing along with them?”
I desperately shake my head, reaching for him again, longing for him to see into my eyes and know that I am not like them. I will never be like them. “I’m not. And I—I—don’t know why I came back. I guess I just—” I sigh, and my shoulders sink. “I thought you should know.”
His face is a cold, hard slate, a mixture of anger and disappointment and utter disbelief. “Oh. You thought I should know. It’s that simple, is it? I should know, but there’s nothing I can do about it, right?”
His words tear at my core, because they’re true. Every last one of them is true, and when I say nothing, he knows it.
“I won’t breed with anyone,” he says, and his eyes are empty. They shift toward me, deliberate and sure. “I’m not an animal!”
His voice is so quiet, a screaming whisper. Anger burns through his words, and the softness in them intensifies his emotions. His lip quivers, and tears gather in his eyes in a tide of hopelessness, but I feel their sting in my own eyes.
“I never meant to tell you,” I whisper, searching him, hoping to see a glimpse of camaraderie; hoping that we might be able to stand our ground together. To resist Mona side by side. He only stares back at me in horror.
“What did you mean then? To keep me in the dark? To keep me locked in this living hell for the rest of my life? To visit me every day like I was your favorite pet? What, Kate? If your plan was not to—to—breed with me, then what? What!”
I have no answer, but the question stabs my conscience painfully. And anger rides in with it. Not anger at Ian, but at Mona, at the Council, for placing me in this position. For forcing me into an obligation for which I was not ready. For bringing me to a boy who knows nothing about us. How could they be so insensitive?
The tears standing in both our eyes, race downward in unison. My lip quivers, and we stand in a silent face-off until breakfast arrives: two bowls of steaming porridge, dripping with molasses. But I have no appetite. The second the door opens, I dart past the jailer and set off at a run as fast and as hard as I can. It feels good to run in the open space—a sharp contrast to the cramped, throbbing misery of the cave with its stinging words, lingering still.
By the time I’ve climbed the ladder and heaved it up after me, my side aches excruciatingly, but I run all the way back to the Village any
way.
And the aching spreads . . . invading my heart.
Chapter 9
“With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.” Psalm 91:16
I don’t leave the Village for three days. It rains twice during this time, and the ground grows thick with slick mud. During the second storm, the rains are so heavy none of us can leave our hogans without becoming soaked through to our very cores. The clouds blacken into rolling monsters aiming bolts of white lightening straight at the Village. I tremble with the rumbling thunder, certain that the Archer is angry with me. These storms have come upon us because of my insubordination.
I’m nearly convinced of this before I quickly remind myself that I’ve vowed never to bend to the Archer’s power. I don’t believe in Fate. This has become my mantra, and so the storms cannot be my doing.
Another fierce crash of thunder almost changes my mind, but I hold fast to my resolve. The weather, however, is fitting. It closely matches the black mood that hangs over my spirit.
When it isn’t raining, I pass my time completing my assigned chores, among other things. I gather food, sweep out my hogan, make soap, avoid Mona, try to forget Ian . . . try to forget Ian . . . try to forget Ian. This, however, is hopeless. I can’t stop thinking about him.
Our disagreement is fresh—a raw, stinking abscess lying deep within. I try my best to put it behind me, doing all I can to convince myself that Ian isn’t supposed to affect me in this way. When I’m not in the Pit, he should be the furthest thing from my mind. He is only one of the stock, nothing more.
Nothing more.
The morning of the third day, the clouds clear completely, and sunlight bursts over the land, bright and strong. It lifts all of our spirits as if they’ve been raised from the depths of the mud, and the gray pall disappears. I can almost feel the Village itself sigh in relief.
Mia and I help some of the older women gather clothes and take them to the river for a long overdue washing. Several pieces need mending, which always falls to the younger women. So we pull long needles and spools of dyed thread from the sewing basket and sit down on the wet bank of the river to work, a pile of skirts and tops between us. I’ve never minded sewing, so this is a welcome distraction to take my mind off of Ian. And spending the afternoon with Mia makes it worthwhile.
“I hate this,” Mia mutters. She picks up a tattered skirt and spreads it across her lap. “Why are we always given this chore?”
I smile, bending over my work. She plunges a needle through the cloth.
“Ouch!” Dropping her work, she peers at her finger. A small trickle of blood sprouts. “Did I mention that I hate this?”
“Be careful.” I lean forward to examine her finger. “You’ll live.”
“It hurts.” She sucks on the end of her finger, pouting.
I sigh. Mending is a fairly easy process for me. I’d learned in a book how to sew a cross-stitch that lasts longer. Because of this, the clothes I handle rarely need mending again when I’m done with them. I cannot deny I carry a sense of pride about it. I finish one garment quickly and pick up the next.
“Maybe you should mend all of these yourself,” Mia says, still examining her insignificant injury. ”You know you’ll be finished with half of them before I finish this one.”
“Come now, Mia. Do your part. You don’t want to be labeled as lazy again, do you?”
Mia sighs and picks up her needle. “No. I don’t. That wasn’t a very enjoyable week.”
I laugh, remembering Mia’s punishment for being “slothful” as Mona calls it. It was shortly after she’d been assigned to dish duty in the dining hall. The one chore Mia hates worse than mending is dish duty. And she will do absolutely anything to avoid it, even stoop to bribing one of the younger girls to do the chore for her—which is exactly what she did. When Mona found her lounging under a tree eating fruit before the dishes were clean, she was furious. And Mia was punished in what seemed to be the most appropriate way to break her of her habit. She was not allowed to get off her mat for a whole week, except to use the bathroom. Even her food was delivered.
At first, she loved it, but that was short-lived. After two days, boredom set in. By the time the week came to a close, she vowed never to shirk on her duties again. And all she needed was a quick reminder to put her back on task.
I watch her now as she clumsily pokes the needle through the fabric more slowly and carefully this time. It’s very true that I’ll have stitched most of these clothes before Mia’s finished one. Still, if I can keep her here, occupied even with one garment all afternoon, I can spare her the punishment.
I peek at her inconspicuously. Questions have been burning me for some time. Now is the perfect opportunity to ask them.
“Mia?”
“Mm-huh.” Mia keeps her eyes on her needlework.
“What’s—your mate like?”
Her head shoots up, surprised—first because the question is from me, and second: it’s not a topic normally discussed around the fire pit, so to speak. I know this, of course, but we are alone, and the rushing waters of the river galloping over the rocks stifles any chance of being overheard. Still, she tosses a stealthy glance at two women sitting a few yards from us.
“What are you doing?” Her voice is low. “You know the mandate as well as I: No talking about the Pit in the open.”
I smirk indifferently. “And since when have I been concerned with mandates?”
She frowns. She knows it to be true, and if she didn’t before my birthday celebration, she’s been enlightened. Even in our nursery days, I was always the curious one with my questions.
“But why does Atropos cut the thread? Wouldn’t it be easier for Lachesis to simply cut it while she measures?”
“Why can’t we go beyond the wall? What hides behind it?”
“What happened to Nathan? He was here just yesterday.”
Inquisitive to the last, I still have questions. But they have taken a new form, and they bubble out of me like boiling water in a cauldron.
Why has the Archer chosen me to be a breeder instead of a cook, a musician, a jailer, even? Why are so many babies found unworthy? Why did Meg have to die? Why does Mia blindly follow the ways of the Village without question? And Diana? And Layla? Who is Ian? Why is he different? Why are his eyes so blue? So blue? Blue . . . .
What magic has he concocted to make my heart heave with anger, with pity . . . with happiness at the sight of him? And why don’t I know the answers?
And now, I repeat my question
“What is your mate like, Mia? You’ve spent much time with him. So?”
Mia’s eyes are a mixture of concern and pleasure at being asked. She straightens, brushing at a loose piece of hair tickling her cheek. She’s thoughtful, as if she’s organizing mental notes to aid her in a grand speech. After several seconds, she looks straight into my eyes.
“Why are you asking? You’ve never wanted to hear me speak of it before. Why now?”
I push my needle through the piece of clothing I still hold and pull it from the other side, shrugging.
“Things are different now. I guess now that I’ve experienced the Pit, I’m curious.”
She nods, and her eyes tease me along with her words. “Oh. So now, you’re curious.”
I sigh, not interested in her foolery. “Answer the question, please.”
“Well,” she resigns tossing her mending aside and leaning back in the grass. “I’ve already told you what he looks like.”
“Tell me again. I’m sure I wasn’t listening before.”
She rolls her eyes, feigning exasperation. “Of course you weren’t. And now would be the time to because I’m only describing him once more.”
I laugh, and drop my own mending into my lap. Elbows propped on my knees, chin resting on my hands, I give her my undivided attention.
“I’m ready.”
Satisfied, she delves in, not the least bit aware of the irony in our common duty—this tragically
beautiful drudgery designed precisely for us, which gives life in one hand at the expense of the other. I try to listen, but my mind dwells on this reality until I don’t hear her at all. Life is beautiful—all life.
I straighten. So why does mine feel so ugly?
Mia rambles.
“. . . brown hair, and he’s probably two heads taller than I, and I guess he—do you really want me to go into detail about our—”
This, I hear. Eyes wide, I raise a hand to stop her.
“No! That’s not what I mean.” She stares, thrown by my sudden forcefulness. I sigh. “What I mean is . . . what is he like? His personality? His humor? What do you talk about? What do you argue about?”
Mia’s puzzled look suggests she has no experience from which to draw. She furrows her brows.
“We don’t talk, Kate. I go to do my part, and I leave. There is no time for talking. I’ve got a mission to complete.” She flashes a determined glance. “And I’m running out of time. Bruce is just around the corner for me.”
I nod, full of understanding. But I see clearly that Mia has no answers to my questions, and the reality saddens me. To her, visits to the Pit are as habitual as daily changing clothes. There’s no depth, no real meaning in her trips.
Then again, what do I know? I’ve had no experience myself. Not real experience as a breeder.
For a fleeting moment, I think of Meg. I could always talk to Meg. She understood the meaning of things better than anyone I’ve ever known. If you needed an answer, Meg had it buried in the folds of her unusual wisdom. She always seemed so much older than the rest of us at her young age. And she would know exactly what to do about Ian.
Of course, this is probably why she’s dead.
I push Meg out of my mind. Mia’s all I have for now. She says something, but I miss it, and she nudges me.
“Kate?”
“Sorry. What?”
“I said, why are you asking all these questions? You’ve been with your mate. Don’t you know the answers?”
No!
“Um, sure.” I busy myself with my mending and try to seem indifferent. “But I suppose every mate is different, isn’t he?”
