Trapped

by E J Pay

  After we finished the wall, Dom pulled out several corn kernels from his satchel. Together we coaxed the kernels into the ground and asked the ground to share its water and nutrients with the little seeds. We worked for twenty minutes or more, both of us talking to the elements around us, encouraging, thanking, and asking. When we finished, we had a tall, grown corn stalk with four or five ears of corn, full and ripe and ready to be picked.

  Once we pulled the ears from the stock and shucked several of them clean, the stock withered into a dried heap. Then I reached out to the air to work with the dried stalk to create a fire. Once we had a small blaze going, we roasted our corn near the flames in their husks and let the cleaned ears rest in the heat. As we ate the roasted corn, the ears in the fire began to pop. We laughed and talked and ate before we finally headed back home.

  I have started learning the mind control Dom says Pearl is so natural with. But I don’t have many opportunities to practice it. I won’t practice on Dom’s Mama. She is too kind and I cannot bring myself to disturb her in any way. A few times I have made Dom think his pants are wet, but that is only when he is tired and his defenses are down. He is the only one who can keep me from influencing him.

  Once at the market, I persuaded a vendor to give bread and cheese to some homeless children near his stall. That felt good. If I can use mind manipulation to help others, I will feel successful.

  I cannot help but wonder if some of these skills will stay with me when I am able to return to Atlantis. I feel like I am on the edge of discovering something that will take me home and free me from Pearl’s body. I have to work hard to remember things from my life, my real life. Dom hasn’t called me Evelyn in so long. I wonder if he has completely forgotten who I really am. I wonder if I will forget.

  I ponder these things as I stand at the kitchen counter, preparing some of Acacia’s cheese to be fried. I hear her bleating coming from the animal pen. The sound is so loud and frightening, I drop what I am doing and run out to see what the matter is. When I arrive at her pen, I start screaming for help and run to my little goat.

  Acacia is standing near her trough, bleating like mad, blood pouring from her mouth. I kneel by her side to see how she has hurt herself, but with all of the blood, I cannot see where a cut might be. I dip the end of my robe into her water so I can clean her mouth, but when my fingers touch the water, they burn. Acacia’s water is rancid. No wonder she is bleeding.

  I jump up and scream for Dom and Mama. Soon, they are by my side with Grandfather storming from the house to see what the problem is.

  “Dom! Her water is bad!” I shout as Dom hurries through the gate. But Mama is right behind him and pulls his arm toward her.

  “Dom!” she yells, “Run as fast as you can to the house. Get the last container of the kitchen water and bring it here with rags. QUICKLY!”

  Dom runs into the house faster than I’ve ever seen him run before. Grandfather arrives at the animal pen, his expression softening when he sees me cradling Acacia in my arms. Her bleating is still loud and she will hardly let me hold her. She tries to kick and butt her head into me, but I hold on tight.

  Pearl’s mama is with me, on the ground, kneeling by Acacia and wiping at the goat’s face with her beautiful scarf. The fine, creamy linen is easily stained by the bright blood from Acacia. Dom arrives in an instant with the clean water and rags.

  “That’s a good boy, Dom,” Mama says. “Now go stand by Grandfather and let Pearl and me work.” Dom obeys and walks to the outside of the pen with Grandfather.

  Tears stream down my face as Mama dips the rags into the clean water from the house. This time there is no burning. Our water is safe. She squeezes the fresh water into Acacia’s open mouth and the goat’s bleating pauses for a moment. More and more water from our pot makes its way into the mouth of my precious goat. Her bleating quiets as the poison is rinsed away.

  “We need to get her to eat, Pearl,” Mama whispers. “The bad water is still in her stomach.”

  “Don’t we want to make her throw it up?” I ask. “She needs to get it out.”

  “No, Pearl,” she whispers again. “If it comes up again, it will burn her throat again.” She turns her face to Dom whose eyes are pouring tears almost as much as my own. “Dom, please go and fetch some of the cornmeal from the house. Bring the small honey pot as well.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Dom says and he runs into the house. Grandfather is still standing by the pen. His expression is hard and he sighs heavily.

  “Helena, we cannot waste our good food on the goat.” Grandfather’s gruff voice is harsh against my heart. Mama remains silent as she continues to wipe Acacia’s face.

  Acacia is laying in the dirt beside me now, her head resting in my lap. Her breathing is labored and rough. I stroke her neck and cry quietly over her. Dom is by our side in a moment.

  “Dom,” Mama says, “please make a little cake of the cornmeal and honey.” Grandfather huffs angrily and storms away from us, back to the fortress of his rooms and his failing estate. The air is calmer and quieter with him gone. I can focus on my animal. My mind is too harried to speak to Acacia’s mind directly, so I do the next best thing and hum songs to her as she quiets.

  Dom makes a little ball of the cornmeal and honey then hands it to Mama.

  “Thank you my son,” she says quietly as she accepts the ball. She flattens it in her fingers then puts a tiny piece on Acacia’s tongue. Acacia isn’t aware that the food is in her mouth. Mama pours in a little more water to get Acacia to swallow. Acacia moves her tongue around in her mouth like she wants to get the food in, but she is weak and tired. Mama sets the remainder of the cake on the ground and joins me in stroking Acacia’s neck. Soon Dom is petting her belly.

  We sit like that, the three of us with my little goat, singing to her and petting her as her breathing becomes more labored. She finally makes a choking sound, kicks her hooves twice, and lies still.

  We sit with her and give her our love until the sun is gone and the air grows cold. There is no one else to take care of my little goat. The three of us will have to bury her ourselves. Mama lifts the goat in her arms as Dom helps her to her feet. I follow numbly behind as Dom leads us through the gate, up the hill, and to our olive tree. He grabs a small shovel along the way and digs near the base of the tree. Mama rests Acacia’s lifeless body on the ground and makes a small wreath from the tall grass around us. I lie down next to my Acacia and cry into her rough fur.

  When the grave is ready, I help Mama ease my goat into it. Mama lays her beautiful scarf across the body of my goat. Dom commences covering the tiny opening with the shovel. Dom’s hands have grown strong and calloused from his work in the orchards, but he is working so feverishly on Acacia’s grave that cracks are opening up in his hands. A few drops of his blood and tears drip into the soil, a small offering that the earth takes quietly down to my Acacia.

  We place Mama’s wreath on top of the little grave and walk quietly back to our dark house, our hearts too broken to speak.

  Chapter 10

  Mama has made dinner for the past several nights. I try to help, but until Acacia’s milk and cheese are gone, I don’t think I can make anything decent. I have taken over some of Mama’s duties instead. The days are long and difficult and they are beginning to blend into each other. I am afraid I will never make it out of this place. Acacia’s loss has made me more homesick than ever. I want to cry to my own mother, not Pearl’s. I want to hold my friends and sleep in my bed and go to school and forget the craziness that is my life.

  I have some time this evening to sit alone under our olive tree. The mound of Acacia’s grave has little blades of grass sprouting all over the top of it. She would have liked to eat the grass and lay in the dirt beside me. I wrap my arms around my knees and cry hot and angry tears onto my robes. I hit the ground with my fists and let out a scream into the evening air.

  Dom comes running up the tiny hill, yelling something I cannot hear. Nothing is wrong with me. I am
fine. I just want time to be alone. But it doesn’t take long for me to see that Dom is waving his arms frantically in the air while he runs toward me. I stand and race to him straining to hear.

  “Pearl! Pearl!” he shouts to me. I feel anger flaring up at Pearl’s twin for not calling me Evelyn. I just want to be Evelyn! But I can’t be. Not anymore. “Pearl! He’s after me again! The man in the purple robe!”

  I freeze where I stand. The man in the purple robe has been here many times to see Grandfather and occasionally takes a moment to speak to Mama, but he hasn’t come anywhere near Dom or me. We knew he would make a move eventually, but I am still on edge as Dom tells me the time is finally here.

  “What happened?!” I ask him. He reaches me, out of breath and grabs my shoulders to steady himself while he speaks.

  “I was coming home from school today and passing by the field where we fixed the wall. Cook was there and jumped out in front of me!”

  “Cook?!” I yell. “What was she doing there?” I haven’t seen Cook since she convinced the staff we were cursed and left the estate. I’d like to curse her.

  “She is working for the man in the purple robe,” he replies, “She was wearing a servant’s ring on her pinky. There was a purple stone set in its center. That’s HIS ring, Pearl!”

  I feel a chill run up my heated neck and I shiver. Cook is now working for the man in the purple robe. This is bad. This is very, very bad.

  “What did she say to you, Dom?” I ask as we head back to the safety of our tree.

  “She said she knew all about us, Pearl. She said she watched us that day we fixed the wall.”

  My heart stops beating for a moment. Cook was there? I feel the color draining from my face as I remember what we did that day. We fixed the wall without our hands and we grew corn and roasted it with fire and ate it. Cook saw all of it. Despite my speechlessness, Dom continues to tell me the horrid details of his encounter with Cook.

  “She stood with her fists on her hips,” he says, “and she said, ‘I wet myself I had to stay so long watching you two. I got a backhand to my cheek when I finally made it home to my new kitchen estate because I was so late. But that just added to the pleasure I’m a gonna get from watching you and your sister get what you deserve.’”

  “What did she mean, Dom? What did she mean?!” I ask him.

  Dom looks me in the eyes, his brows furrowed above his nose. He whispers to me, “She said she went straight to her new master and told him everything she saw. He sent her to watch over us ever since. She saw Acacia die and she said she knows who did it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘who did it?’ Do you mean that someone poisoned her water?” I ask. “I thought it just went bad. I thought we did something wrong that spoiled it.”

  Dom shakes his head. “No, Pearl. Mama and I knew from the start that someone put something in her water. It wasn’t you or me or Mama or Grandfather. Someone was trying to send us a message.”

  Bile rises in my throat. I think of my goat, poisoned by someone who wanted to get at Pearl. At ME. Why would they harm a defenseless animal? Why would they hurt Acacia? She didn’t deserve to die.

  “Pearl,” Dom continues, “Cook slapped me after she told me about Acacia. She slapped me and said, ‘Boy, you better be watchful of yourself. I thought it was just your sister. But now I know you are just as bad a seed as she is.’ She slapped me again and laughed then turned and went back down the road where she came from.”

  Tears sting my eyes and it is all I can do to keep from throwing up. I am so sick inside. Dom and I are being watched. We are being hunted.

  “What do we do?” I ask him.

  “We leave,” Dom tells me.

  “Leave? What do you mean? Where would we go?” I ask him. “We are just kids. How will we survive on our own? What about Mama and Grandfather?”

  “I think I can follow the trade routes and get us to the coast. We can change our names. We will have to find work, Pearl. I can be a field hand anywhere and you can cook.”

  “But why Dom?” I ask. “What are we working for? What is our plan? Where do we end up?”

  “We just have to survive for a while,” he answers, “and keep Mama safe. In a few years, we can act normal again. I mean we won’t be able to come back here, but we can find our lives and our futures somewhere else.”

  I feel hot blood rising into my face. “Somewhere else?” I ask. “How could we leave Mama? She will be devastated if we run away. Besides, the man in the purple robe will ask questions. Once he knows we have run away, he will start looking for us again.”

  Dom sighs, frustrated that I am not embracing his plan.

  “I agree,” he says. “But the less Mama and Grandfather know the safer it will be for them and for us. We have to either make them forget us or make them think we have died. They don’t know about our powers, Pearl. It’s like the pact we made before we were born. They can’t know and we need to look out for them and for each other.”

  “But you FORCED me to not tell Mama anything!” I scream at Dom. I am scared and I want to go home, but I know I have to save Pearl and her brother to make that happen. “I am NOT PEARL!!!!!” I grab him by the shoulders and shake him while I yell. He has to know who I am! He has to remember!

  Dom flings my arms from him and takes a step back. He stares at me with his nostrils flared for a moment before turning and running down the hill back to his home.

  What have I done?

  I run after him, shouting his name, but he is faster than I am and he makes it to the house before I do. Mama is in the kitchen, ready to feed us dinner. She sees me chasing after Dom and intervenes.

  “Let him go, Pearl,” she says as she holds me back. “Whatever you two have argued about, it will not get better if you push him to talk to you.” I push against her hands, but she is bigger and stronger than I am in this eleven-year-old body. Finally, she wraps her arms around me and holds me as more angry tears burn through my eyes.

  “Do you want to tell me what you two are fighting about?” she asks. But the remnants of Dom’s power keep me silent. It is killing me inside, but I know I cannot tell her what is going on. I have to let go of any ideas I have of leaving Pearl’s life. I have to let go of Evelyn if I am going to help Pearl and Dom. If I cannot get help from the adults in this place, then I’ll do all I can to help Dom. I am convinced that it is the only way to keep us both safe and for me to find my way back to my real home.

  “No,” I answer as I heave great sobs into her chest. “No, no, no, no, no.” I let myself cry, once again letting go of the old Evelyn, and becoming the new Pearl.

  Chapter 11

  My travel bag is packed and hidden beneath the bed in my room. Dom and I haven’t spoken or spent much time talking in the past few weeks, but I left him a note under his door, apologizing and reassuring him that I am Pearl. He left me a note last night, detailing the plan.

  Our cousin, Ananke, is traveling to her fiancé in the south. Dom and I will travel with her, putting as much distance between ourselves and the man in the purple robe as we can. The estate is in danger of total ruin and collapse. Any extra money we earn will be used by Grandfather. It is hard for Mama to let us go, but even she understands that the estate is failing and will not support our small family forever. Once we are away from the estate, Mama and Grandfather will be safer and Dom and I can find a safe place to live and work. Dom has traveled enough with the trade expeditions that he thinks he can get us all the way to the coast. He talks about Atlantis being the biggest, brightest city. If we can get there one day, we can be safe. The idea of being in Atlantis again is enough to make my head spin. I am convinced that the answers are there for Dom and me.

  I am working in the kitchen again, mincing the meat for tonight’s meal. Moussaka. The meat and tomato sauce are layered with eggplant. It’s the latest dish I have learned to make and I want to leave this new family on the good memory of a full stomach. I gather the stone and wood cookware and head outside to wash
it.

  I have finished washing the rest of the blood from the meat off my hands when I feel a small rock hit the side of my head. I whip around to see where it came from and I scratch the temple where it hit when I feel another small rock striking my neck. I whip back around in time to see a small, black rock flying through the air toward my face. My hand flies up to catch it before it can hit its mark. I grasp it in my fingers and open them to look at the missive that was about to hit me. I stop and my breath catches. It isn’t a rock. It is Dom’s black pearl.

  I look all around for Dom, wondering if he is ready to make up and that is why he is making his pearl whap my face. But my hand burns.

  I look down and see the pearl rolling in circles, my hand heating beneath her movements. She is reaching out to me with her mind.

  Pearl Evelyn, you must listen to me, she says.

  I am not Evelyn anymore, I tell her, just Pearl.

  I sense irritation from her over my interruption. She is fully aware of who I am and she doesn’t want to talk about it.

  Dom is in trouble! She shouts to my mind. I shake my head wildly.

  What happened?! I shout back.

  This morning as he was walking to school, he was grabbed by two large men, she tells me. They gagged his mouth and put a bag over his head so he could not see and tied his arms to his sides. They tossed him into the back of a wagon and covered him with sacks of flour. We traveled for over an hour that way. Dom spoke to me the entire time. He told me all of your plans and how to help you escape.

  Escape?! Me?! Why do I need to escape? Dom is the one who is trapped!

  I am not going anywhere without Dom! I yell at the pearl. A cold slap hits my mind and it freezes my thoughts. This is no ordinary pearl. She is powerful.