Acolytes (The Enclaves Book 1)

by Nel Franks

I FELT TRAPPED OVER the next few days. I desperately wanted to talk to Gaia and Rosie about the boy’s request, but I knew Rosie at least would be scandalised. So perhaps I could talk to Gaia? Over the next week, I tried to seek her out, but it was difficult. At meals Rosie was there, or Gaia was at the Craft House, or I was away in the pastures.

  Leto and I took the sheep down the road, herding them around a horse and dray making its way between the grain fields, and then making our way up to the hilly pasture where I could see over the Wall, one direction into the Expelled and the other down into the Male Enclave. I had spent many hours there looking at the Wall. I had examined its huge stone blocks, wondering where they’d been sourced and how they were transported, because we didn’t have any quarries. And how had they cut stone so smooth? I tried to calculate in my head how many blocks were in the section of Wall I could see, but I just couldn’t work out how much stone would have been necessary to build a wall all the way around the Enclave. I realised I didn’t know how far the Female Enclave extended. I knew this little section between the Core and the Wall, and a bit out to each side where the orchards and vegetable fields were. But I didn’t know how far our enclosure extended. There were forests somewhere inside our boundaries, I knew. And I knew we couldn’t see the Wall from the Core, in any direction; you had to come down the road to see the Gate. Surely a wall as big as this couldn’t be built all the way round. There would be just too much stone required. Perhaps our outer perimeter, where the Squad patrolled, was just a fence, not a wall? So, which was the greater threat – the men we sometimes danced with and got pregnant by, who required an enormous stone wall to keep them out, or the Outcasts who wanted to kill or abduct us, but could apparently be kept in check by a mere fence?

  I gave up trying to work it out as it made my head hurt. I went to the highest part of the hill and looked over the Wall again. The first time I had done this, I was a bit disappointed; I always thought the outside that was so mysterious must look completely different. But it didn’t. The hills and pastures looked just like ours, and the woods had the same types of trees. The same river Nerthus ran through our Core and through a tunnel under the Wall, and into the Male Enclave. One great difference though, was at the most distant point on the horizon. There was a small patch of blue, which I guessed was the sea. I had read about oceans, but never seen one. Wishing I could go there made me itch with frustration.

  Once when I was looking into the Male Enclave, I saw a team of foresters take a span of oxen into the trees, and late that afternoon they returned dragging an enormous tree trunk. They must have wanted the timber for something big – otherwise surely, they would have cut it up where it lay to make it easier to transport. Perhaps they were erecting a new hall? A barn? Or, as I stared at that tantalising patch of ocean, the keel of a ship? Did that mean that the men could travel away from their Enclave? Go on adventures to the land of the Expelled? How daring! And how dangerous. I couldn’t wait to tell Gaia about this. Her interest was growing in all things that came from outside our Enclave. She would be so excited to know we could see the ocean, and she’d love thinking about shipbuilding and ocean adventures.

  One morning, taking the sheep to the higher pastures, I saw a small figure standing at the edge of the woods in the Male Enclave. He faced me for a long time, and then I thought he waved—It was the sort of wave that might have been just brushing away flies, if someone didn’t respond. I was caught in a dilemma—was this the boy I had danced with, or a stranger taking a risk? I waved back, a small wave, perhaps also clearing away little flies. The effect was instantaneous and dramatic. He leapt in the air, waved both hands over his head, and I could hear his distant shouting. Then he pounded down the hill, heading for the Gate. Now I really was stuck. Should I go down too? I spent quite some time, scanning the hills, woods and valley on both sides of the Wall looking for anyone who might see what we were doing. Both sides appeared deserted, except for us.

  Giving Leto the command to stay and guard the sheep, I ran down the hill. Breathless, I listened through the enormous solid Gate and could hear a faint tapping. Tentatively I tapped back. He exclaimed quietly in excitement.

  ‘Is that you? The girl I danced with at Festival?’

  I found that really funny—how could I know who he had danced with, when I didn’t know if he was the boy I had danced with?

  ‘I don’t know!’ I said, giggling. ‘Who did you dance with?’

  ‘It is you! I recognise your voice. Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes, of course’ I said. ‘How can you be sure it’s me? Describe me.’

  ‘You were wearing a pale green dress, and you’ve got brown wavy hair, and really dark brown eyes.’

  That did describe me, but it could also have described at least a half dozen other girls that night.

  ‘Tell me something we talked about,’ I demanded, ‘to prove you really are the boy I danced with.’

  ‘Why? If you’re here talking to me, you must be the right one, and so must I,’ he said in a puzzled tone.

  ‘But you could be someone who saw me on the hill for the first time just now.’

  ‘Alright, but I don’t really understand why we’re doing this,’ he said. ‘The first thing you said to me was why did I pick you instead of your friends. And I said because I had already seen you playing with your dog in the hills here. Does that satisfy you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I grinned, ‘I just wanted to tease you a bit.’

  He laughed too, but then there was a long silence, which was really awkward. I couldn’t stand the tension, so I blurted out:

  ‘What are we going to talk about, now we’re talking?’

  ‘I don’t really know!’ he said with a little laugh that was both uncomfortable and relieved. ‘It seemed really easy to talk when we were dancing, didn’t it?’

  I nodded, and then realised I would have to say everything out loud.

  ‘Yes, it was good, too.’

  I could hear the smile in his voice as he said, ‘What were we talking about?’

  ‘About both herding sheep, and how it was because your father is a grazier, and how for me it’s something I’m doing for one of my rotations this year, but I won’t be doing it for long.’

  ‘Where will you go next?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. They pick for us in the first few years, and we’re supposed to get a broad education in each of the Houses. But when we get to Apprentices, we get a chance to specialise.’

  ‘Oh,’ he sighed. ‘I wish I got a chance to do different things.’

  ‘Does everybody there just do what their fathers do?’ I asked.

  ‘Mostly, but not always,’ he said, his voice coming from much lower down the Gate.

  ‘Have you fallen over?’ I asked.

  He snorted. ‘I don’t fall over. No, I just sat down.’

  It seemed he was settling in for a long talk, so I sat down too, in the corner of the Gate embrasure, and coughed in the dust I had raised.

  ‘Huh, I can actually hear you better here,’ he said, ‘There’s a little gap under the Gate.’ I could see a few puffs of dust as he apparently tested the depth of the space under the Gate.

  ‘So, how do boys get to do something different from what their fathers do?’ I asked.

  He explained about family businesses, and how hard they were to keep going. Only some young men, whose fathers didn’t own their own businesses, could choose their own type of work, and then they had to find someone else willing to take them on for training. And they had to stay for years. It was so rigid! And so different to our arrangement of Houses and yearly rotation.

  ‘What would you choose to do, if you weren’t going to be a grazier?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’ve spent some time with one of my father’s friends. He doesn’t have a son, and he said if I wanted to, I could learn his trade. He’s a shoemaker.’

  ‘Would you like to do that?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but it seems attractive just to get awa
y from the boring sheep.’

  ‘Aww, I like sheep.’

  He groaned.

  ‘What would you really like to do?’ I asked.

  ‘Maybe something else with wool.’

  ‘What about spinning, or weaving?’ I suggested.

  He snorted again. ‘No, definitely not. But maybe trading in wool and skins.’

  ‘What is trading?’ I asked, intrigued.

  He was silent for a moment, then whispered, ‘Someone’s coming up the road! I have to go!’ He muttered, ‘I’ll come again tomorrow.’

  I jumped up and ran back up the hill to the sheep. I was thrilled with this adventure.

  LATE THAT EVENING, I lay on my bed, thinking. I was trying to work out if it was really unlawful to be talking with this boy, when I realized I still didn’t know his name. Gaia had said women exchanged names to the men they lay with, so that if they gave birth to a boy, their sons could go to their biological fathers when they went through the Crawling Gate. But I hadn’t lain with him. Should I be telling him my name? Was it risky to have an outsider who knew my name and what I looked like? But then I realised, every woman did it at Summer Festival. I turned over; I couldn’t work it out myself; I needed to talk to someone.

  Lenna came into the room. She still had flour smudged above her elbows. She smiled, and I smiled back, pointing to her arms. She brushed the flour off, grinning, and came over to sit on my bed.

  ‘Goo’ dah?’ she asked in her hoarse voice.

  ‘Yes, a really good day, Lenna.’ I sat up, cross legged on the bed to face her, and made gestures to illustrate what I was saying. ‘I was in the hills with the sheep. It’s so nice up there. I saw ...’ I stopped suddenly, realising my secret was about to come bubbling out.

  ‘Wha?’ She looked at me inquisitively. ‘Te’ meh.’

  Lenna doesn’t talk to anyone but her friends, I thought. And we three roommates are her only friends. She wouldn’t tell my secret to anyone. She seemed like the perfect person to confide in. I made her Say True that she would keep my secret. Her eyes grew very round and sparkled with excitement as she promised. I explained about meeting the boy at the Festival and then at the Gate.

  ‘Ni’e boi?’ she asked

  I nodded, excited again about how strange it was to have a nice boy to talk to.

  ‘But I don’t know what to do, Lenna. Should I keep on meeting him? Isn’t there a rule against it?’

  She shrugged, lifting both hands palm up.

  ‘Ark Gah,’ she said.

  I nodded; I should ask Gaia. I made Lenna promise again she would never tell anyone what I had said.

  She grimaced a little at the possibility of talking to anyone else.

  ‘Noh wung tork meh,’ she said.

  A little later Gaia came into the room, holding something little. She came straight across to my bed, cradling it in her hands and staring at it in a strange luminous way.

  ‘Look, Tomma, look what Ellina gave me.’

  ‘Who’s Ellina?’ I asked, peering over her hands. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a little pottery bird she made for me. She glazed it. She has worked it with such beauty, it’s perfect!’ she gushed.

  Gaia gushing?

  ‘Why did she make it for you, Gaia?’ I felt a bit taken aback.

  ‘Because... well, she wanted... we have...’

  Gaia stammering?

  ‘This is not like you, Gaia. Tell me what’s going on.’ I demanded.

  With sudden decision she sat on my bed.

  ‘I’ve been dying to tell someone, Tomma. Can you keep my secret? Say True.’

  I stared at her in amazement. ‘I’ve got a secret too, Gaia, and I’d love to tell you. True, I will keep your secret, if you will keep mine. Say True.’

  She grinned. ‘True, of course I will. Oh, Tomma, I’m so glad to be able to tell you.’

  She smiled at Lenna hovering nearby and gestured to her to join us. We sat together on my bed, while she told me about her growing fondness for Ellina, a novice in year four, who was working in the pottery. Gaia was fascinated by her looks, her skill, her warmth and friendliness.

  ‘And does she feel the same way about you?’ I asked, past a growing lump in my throat.

  ‘I didn’t know how she felt, really, except she always seemed pleased to see me, and welcomed me into the pottery. But I thought maybe she believed that I just wanted to learn about making stuff. But she made the little bird for me, Tomma! Do you know how long it takes to make such a thing? And how much skill it takes to make these little wings? And not have them fall off in the kiln? It’s such a work of beauty, so she must care about me.’

  She stared at the little figurine. I watched her face, as wonder, excitement, and tenderness moved across it.

  ‘Gaia, I don’t want to lose you! I thought we would be friends forever.’ It just came out of my mouth before I thought.

  She looked at me in amazement. ‘Of course we’ll be friends forever, Tomma.’ She reached over and pulled me into her shoulder. ‘You goose. I’ll always love you and Rosie, you’re my closest sisters. And you too, Lenna. Who else could I tell about this?’

  I sat up again, thinking about the ending, or the stretching, or the thinning of our friendship that would have to occur if she was in love with Ellina. Which made me think about the boy, too.

  ‘Gaia, my turn now.’

  She nodded, hitched herself closer and looked at me expectantly. I told her everything that had happened with the boy—‘I knew there was something special about him’ she murmured—and wanting to meet again, and whether I should tell him my name. She became more sober.

  ‘Goddess, that’s difficult, Tomma. I can’t see any reason against telling him your name. Women do it all the time at Festival. But should you see him again? I don’t know. Can’t you just wait to see him again at next year’s Festival?’

  ‘But that’s a whole year away, Gaia!’ I could hear myself whining. ‘This is happening now. If I don’t go and meet him again soon, he’ll think I’m not interested, and he’ll forget me, and I am interested in him. It’s amazing to talk to someone who’s so different, who doesn’t come from here. What should I do?’

  We talked and talked about every conceivable action and interpretation.

  ‘You know,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘I’m not sure that it’s actually illegal to talk to him. I mean, I’ve never heard any rule about not talking to men. The only prohibitions I’ve heard are about not lying with them and getting pregnant, except at Festival or when you’re Serving in the Temple.’

  In a lower voice, she added, ‘That’s what happened to that woman, you know.’ I looked at her.

  ‘The one who was sterilised just after Transition. I don’t know how she got pregnant, but it wasn’t through Festival or in the Temple. She was punished when it became obvious, and the baby was too, and they were both expelled. It’s so horrible, Tomma. The baby was put over the Wall the same day, and he probably died. And she was put out about a week later after she had healed enough to walk, and nobody knows what happened to her.’ She was silent for a long time. ‘What do you think life is like, over the Wall?’

  ‘I have no idea, except for what I’ve seen outside.’

  ‘Outside? When?’ she said, her eyebrows shooting up.

  ‘There’s a place on the top of the hill, where you can see across into the Male Enclave, and down the river valley, and you can see a part of the ocean.’

  Gaia sighed. ‘Oh, the ocean! Ooh, I so want to see the ocean.’

  ‘Come with me up to the hills on your day off, and I’ll show you’ I said. ‘And, if you look the other way from the top of the hill, you can see across into the Expelled.’

  ‘What does it look like?’ She was fascinated.

  ‘Actually, just like here. I thought it would look strange, or scary somehow, but it doesn’t. It’s got the same hills, and flat lands, and trees and everything.’

  ‘Oh.’ She slumped a bit. ‘Oh, well, maybe it
’s not so different out there. I mean, they still have to grow their own food, don’t they?’

  ‘Except that they can’t have babies, so there can’t be any children there,’ I added. ‘Well, hardly any. Only the ones that get Expelled from here, and they probably die, so there can’t be very many.’ I had a sudden thought, remembering Rosie’s note at Perimeter training; ‘Do men get put out of the Male Enclave into the Expelled, too? Or can they choose to go? Do you know?’

  Gaia shook her head. ‘I have no idea. Perhaps there are some men expelled. I guess women and men live together there—how odd!’ She paused, then said, ‘I wonder if the sterilised women ever wish they could have children again?’

  Lenna nodded.

  That got me thinking. ‘Do you want children, Gaia?’

  She looked thoughtful. ‘It never crossed my mind, until just recently,’ she said. ‘But I’ve started thinking about Ellina, and living with her, and maybe us staying together a long time, and maybe we would have children ... but then it gets all too complicated, and I can’t think any more about which one of us would go to Festival to get pregnant, or both of us, or ...’

  She was shaking her head in confusion.

  ‘Whoa, Gaia! that’s way too fast! You’ve only just started!’

  ‘But don’t you think about those things with this boy, Tomma?’

  ‘No!’ I yelped, alarmed. ‘All I’m wondering about is whether I should meet with him at the Gate.’

  Rosie stepped through the door. ‘Tomma! Stop squawking, I heard you out in the corridor. And meet who down by the Gate?’ She jumped on the bed. With some concern, we swore her to secrecy and told her.

  Much later, after we had settled Rosie’s anxiety about breaking the rules as she saw it by meeting the boy, and her mixed delight and unease over Gaia finding a partner, she sat back and looked at us both appraisingly.

  ‘Well, it must be the time for secrets,’ she said. ‘I’ve been wondering about something too, and I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t know if I should.’

  Gaia looked at her encouragingly. ‘Come on, Rosie, tell. Say True.’

  ‘Well,’ Rosie paused, and got up from the bed to stand in front of us. Looking down at her hands, she said, ‘True. I’ve been thinking about Serving in the Temple.’