“I thought you would. You know, I gave Vi her name. Better for the stage than what they used to call her. It was my mother’s name. Violetta the aerialist. She used to fly around the circus tent on a red sash. You know what that is, the circus?”
Eban shakes his head.
“People would come from miles around to sit in a big tent and see people who could do remarkable things. Dance on a wire as thin as your finger. Stick their head in the mouth of a lion. That’s what my grandfather did.” He pauses. “You know what a lion is? Well, about four hundred pounds of muscle and fur and just about as many teeth. You had to be born to that kind of fearlessness. You couldn’t be taught it. My father never learned it. He added up numbers for a living. My mother left him when I was ten years old and tried to go back to kicking sawdust, that’s what they called it. But by then nobody wanted to come to the circus anymore.”
“You don’t know anything about it,” Vi says.
“Don’t I?” Tristan turns back to Eban and Judy and doesn’t appear troubled. “Vi’s mother was a dancer, a proper one, from before. I saw Vi and her mother dance in one of those slummy outland shows they had back then, and I had the idea to tell them I was from a dance school in the cities. You could smell the stink on Vi, how bad she wanted that. I could have led her anywhere. So I led her here. To be a sideshow act in the back of beyond for retreaters like you and your girl.” He laughs heartily.
“Judy.” She has finished cleaning her hands and lays the greasy cloth she wiped them with beside her. “Judy.”
“All you lot up here in these woods, trying to outrun your own shadows. I knew you’d pay for a thrill. And I knew it wouldn’t take much. A second-rate circus in the hills.” He gives a sour look to the other members of his family. None of them raise their eyes to meet his. “But Vi didn’t want to be in the circus. She was at me every waking hour, and sobbing half the night to boot. I got one of those sashes for her and she was dead useless at it, or pretended to be. I couldn’t make her. And I tried.” He throws up his hands. “So we have this, this shabby little show and a one-horn band. But still, people pay to see it. Like you will.” He points to what remains of the deer, still smoking over the fire. “We’ll take the rest of that with us when we go.”
Only Inge is still eating, digging with her teeth and fingers at a lump of meat. As she tears a piece away, Eban realizes it is the deer heart she is consuming, still raw and running with blood.
“She always does that,” Tristan says. “Inge has some screwy ideas. She heard something about eating heartmeat. Doesn’t even put it over the fire. Tell them why you do it, girl. She thinks it gives her power. Something like that. Just as easy to let her do what she wants. Doesn’t bother me any.”
He stares at Judy, who is perfectly still, watching him. She seems to sense it is better to wait for him to tell her what she wants to know than to ask. “It really is something that you found that deer. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. We’d come into these woods to hunt some when I was a boy, and back then you’d still hope to see one, maybe. But we never did. Didn’t bother me any. Things always change. My grandfather told me there used to be caribou in the northernmost peaks of these hills.”
“That’s true,” says Judy. “My father told me that too.”
“But not for a hundred years or more. Two hundred.”
“There was a parasite,” Judy says slowly, as if she’s reading the words from a dimly lit book. “Something in the hooves of the deer. There weren’t always deer here, but people brought them, and the deer brought the parasite with them. It didn’t hurt them any, but it made the caribou brainsick. They lost their fear of people or stumbled in circles until they died. They all died.”
“And then there were deer,” Tristan says, looking pleased. “And then there weren’t. That’s what they get wrong down in the cities, worrying about these things. Only someone with too much time or not enough in their heads worries about weather. The world turns, that’s how it is. It rains, it snows, things change, deer die and some of us survive.”
Judy is drawn tight and taut like a bow string, crouched in the snow, watching Tristan with wide eyes. “So you have been there, down in the cities.”
Tristan has begun to sink lower on the ground, spreading like a puddle over the snow while his head still rests against the tree trunk. His eyes, under heavy lids, are vague, and Eban wonders if he’s drunk. The clay jug is turned over beside him.
“Ask me that again,” he says, the pleasant tone gone from his voice.
Judy rises to her knees. “Tell me about the cities. Tell me when you were down there and what you saw.”
“Are you telling me what to do?”
“No. No.” Judy lowers her voice and speaks as softly as if she were addressing a lover. “I wanted to ask you if you would tell me. I would like to hear what you know, if you will tell me. Please.”
He lifts the jug to his mouth and upends it. A few drops spill to the ground. Without warning, he swings the arm that holds it and the jug shatters against the tree. Judy gasps and the women only cover their faces, without making a sound.
“We should be getting to bed,” he says. “Early start in the morning.”
“Please,” Judy says again, her voice strained.
“You girls clean up this mess. And you.” He stands and points a finger down at Judy. “You find a better question if you want me to answer.”
“But you told me. You promised. You told me you would tell me about the cities.”
He stands with one hand supporting himself against the tree, his back to Judy and Eban. “I’ve never been to the cities. I can’t tell you a thing.”
* * *
—
Eban begged Judy to sleep while he sat watch, but hours after the others have all disappeared into their tents, she lies with her back to him beneath the blankets, her eyes open, staring out at nothing.
“Please, Judy,” he says once again to her back. “Please take this chance to sleep. He was never going to tell us anything. He has nothing to tell. We don’t need him. All we need to do is wait until they leave and let him put some miles between us. He doesn’t seem to want any trouble, but I don’t trust him.”
Some time later, Judy’s eyes close at last, and Eban fights to keep his own open.
“You’re right to set watch,” says a woman’s voice, which seems to come from only a few steps away in the dark. “And you are right not to trust him.”
Without a sound, the woman moves closer, and a flash of moonlight illuminates her face just enough for him to recognize Inge’s features.
“Most of everything he says is a lie,” she continues, crouching in the snow beside him. “We do the same route through these hills, five times a year, and then we go back to the cities with whatever we managed to lay our hands on. There’s no good reason why he lied about that except he’d finally gotten tired of talking.”
Eban feels no more inclined to believe this woman than her father. “But how do you keep hidden from them…the other ones?”
“The other ones!” She strikes a match and draws deep on a pipe. “Haven’t heard those words in a while. What do you know about that? About them?”
“The same as anyone knows. What do you mean?”
“I mean…well, who am I? One of them or one of you?”
“Well, you’re…”
“Like you? What makes you sure? And for that matter, what makes you sure about yourself?”
“My mother gave me the tests.”
Inge laughs. “The tests!”
“Are you saying,” asks Eban slowly, “that people in the cities aren’t…different?”
She shapes an o with her lips and releases a ribbon of smoke. “I’m saying that it isn’t the way you imagine it. People didn’t just change. Everything changed around them. That’s what my mother told me. It
happened slowly, but it took a long time for people to see and understand it. And then because they weren’t ready, they thought it had happened suddenly.”
“Little by little, and then all at once.”
She nods. “Like that. More and more babies had it. And then the babies were grown. And then the weather changed. And the government changed. And the rules changed. And by the end you couldn’t tell. Did the rules change because the government changed because the weather changed? Or because the people changed? Or was there no connection between any of it?”
“But are you like us, then?”
“Why does it matter? The only difference between you and the ones you call the other ones is some ancient reflex. Plenty of people think what those other ones did was right. It was the world that went wrong. And your people just didn’t like that they didn’t want to sit around weeping over it. But all that matters is what you do, and who cares what you feel doing it?”
“But they turned against people…like us. Didn’t they? Drove us out…”
An image—a memory—takes form in Eban’s mind as if it has always been there. His brother standing with his back to the front door, after pulling closed its heavy wooden bolt. He was five years old, and Eban was surprised he could lift something so heavy. “Safe,” the little boy said. And Eban smiled at his brother, wondering who he imagined he was keeping out. And then Eban stopped smiling. He went to the window and stood there for some time, peering out into the dark through the open shutters. “Safe,” his brother said again, firmly, and left the room.
Inge shrugs, and wears her father’s expression as she dismisses the comment and, with it, the conversation. “There was less to eat, less to drink, less of everything. Some people got moved around. Why? Because the people in charge thought it would be better that way. Were they right? Maybe not, but they were in charge. And that’s how it always is when someone else makes the rules, and that’s why I live here and not there.”
“But you’re saying it’s safe now? That we could—”
“I’m not saying anything. What you do is your own business. But here’s what I came to tell you.” She peers into the bowl of her pipe. “Lousy tinker tobacco. Don’t burn right. Never did.” She dumps the bowl’s contents into the snow and looks intently at him. “My father told you he’d take the rest of the deer meat and let you go in the morning.”
“Yes.”
“I told you he’s a liar.”
“What do you mean? He won’t let us go?”
“Won’t let you go for that price.” She shakes her head, and the gesture has a quality of theatre about it, like a movement from her mother’s dance. “He would never let anyone go for a few paltry cuts of meat. Food we can get, easy. He wants something we can take back to the cities and sell.” She leans closer, eyes bright. “You got anything like that?”
“We have nothing. Nothing of value.”
“You sure of that?”
“Inge,” says Eban, “he told us he’d take the deer as payment.”
“It was a lie. He takes everything.”
“But if we have nothing to take?”
“Find something. Find something worth more than the two of you.”
“What do you mean—he would make us go with you?”
She nods. “It’s why Dean is here. Don’t you think he’d rather be anywhere else? My mother’s different, though. She likes strong people. When he first came for her, I think she probably thought he’d keep her safe. She knows now she was never in more danger than she is with him. All of us are.”
Her expression has turned soft, and Eban finds he is moved by her. How tough she has been made by years at the side of this tyrant. He knows Judy believes that she and Eban are prisoners of a kind, as if a thousand miles of hill and wood could be a jail. But he knows with certainty, watching this hard, clever girl lower her gaze from him, that they are free.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I truly am.”
“Yes. Well.” She makes a twist of her mouth. “So it is.”
“Have you ever tried? To go? Alone?”
“Of course I have.”
“But he found you?”
“He’d see me dead before he’d let me go. You don’t know how he is. Obsessive. A single idea will fix itself in his head and then he’ll care for nothing else.”
He hesitates. “Could we help you? If you could leave with us…maybe we could keep you safe. We’ve lived for years in these hills. We know how to hide.”
“And yet we found you, didn’t we?”
“But that was an accident.”
“Do you really think that?”
He feels foolish suddenly. “I suppose…”
“We hunted you for four days. And watched you for one, to be sure of who you travelled with and what weapons you carried.”
He shakes his head, and she rises to her feet.
“I’d tell you to get some sleep,” she whispers, “but I don’t really think it’s a good idea. I should get to my tent. If you really have nothing to give him, I guess we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.”
He nods, distracted, trying to make up his mind. “Wait!” he cries. Judy stirs slightly at the sound and then her breathing slows once more. Lowering his voice, he calls again, “Inge, wait!”
He is surprised to hear her answer him from only a short distance away, and wonders if she waited for him, knowing he would ask her to return.
“Yes?”
“There is something.” He shakes his head, not quite believing what he is about to do, and then he rises and retrieves Judy’s pack. “It’s in here.” The yellow box is close to the top. She must have looked in it that day. He feels a tightness in his throat, which he ignores. It was the only way, he imagines telling her. They would never have let us go, he will say. “This.”
She takes the box from him, weighing it in her hand as if to assess its worth by poundage.
“See if something in there will satisfy him. Please.”
She smiles, keeping her eyes on him as she lifts the lid. He recognizes the sound of it cracking open. Sometimes it is the first thing Judy does in the morning, reaching her hand inside, touching one object and then another, or laying them out across the ground only to look at them. There was nothing else to give, he will tell her. Forgive me, he will say.
He cannot watch as Inge shoves her hand inside the box. There is a brutality in the way she roots through its contents.
“This,” she says, withdrawing her hand, and something glints between her thumb and finger.
“Is it the earring?” Eban asks, not wanting to look any closer.
She studies it, a smile crossing her face. “Is that what you call it?”
“That’s what Judy called it. She said it was her mother’s.”
“Did she?” Inge touches her finger to its sharp, hooked end. “They would put it in their ear, would they?”
“Through their ear. That’s what she told me. They had holes there just for that purpose.” He touches the lobes of his own ears. “I don’t know if it was true. People say these things.”
“Yes. Yes, they do. Well, in any case, that jewel is worth your passage, I’m sure of it. My father will be pleased.”
Eban nods, unable to say anything more.
“In fact, you can get some sleep if you want it. I don’t think he’ll bother you after all. If he does, I’ll show him this.”
He knows he should protest, but he feels suddenly, terribly tired.
“That’s it. Lie down beside your girl there. You’ve earned it.”
He lets himself obey her, easing himself onto his back, pulling the sleeping bag over him. “Inge,” he whispers, not sure if she is still there.
“Yes?”
“Don’t tell Judy.”
“She’ll notice it missing.”
“To the cities?”
“Please.”
She shakes her head, smiles briefly and then nods at him. “Good night, Eban.”
By the time she is gone, he is already asleep, but he dreams all night that he sits watch still, and that when they come for him, he’s ready.
* * *
—
Judy’s voice begins the day. “What did you do, Eban?” she asks.
He pushes aside the covers and tries to clear his head. He is guilty but can’t remember why.
“You slept,” Judy says, reproachfully. “You should have woken me for my turn to keep watch.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I should have. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I’m sorry.”
Judy has already begun packing up their things. The tents belonging to the others are as silent and inscrutable as two closed eyes.
“Should we leave before they wake?” Judy asks him as he listens for any sound that might indicate they are stirring.
“Better not,” says Dean, stepping out of the trees behind them, his own tent collapsed and bundled in his arms. “They wouldn’t like that.” He crouches over the fire without looking at them and pours water and something from a sack into the empty pot.
“We want to make some distance today,” Judy says carefully. “We shouldn’t linger too long.”
“Suit yourselves,” calls Inge from the second tent as she opens its door. “Doesn’t matter to any of us.” Half-dressed, she emerges, her legs bare in defiance of the cold morning, her feet encased in enormous fur boots.
“Do you think,” Judy asks her, “that there is any use in me asking him again? Do you think he might have more to tell me? Or is there anything you can say?” Her tone is soft, almost pleading, as if she believes Inge a friend.
Inge eyes Eban before answering, smiling slightly, and he notices something at her ear. A gleam. And then, with a quick intake of breath, he realizes what she has done, just as Judy, too, drops her hands and stares at the other woman.
The Second History Page 10