by Amy Richie
Chapter 23
“Although Rani is willing to take full blame for the things that happened that night,” Avery's voice made the moisture return to my eyes, “I don't believe there are any amongst us who can, in good conscience, allow that blame to rest solely on her young shoulders. It was a terrible thing that happened to her, and we would be in poor form to make it more terrible by turning her away when she needs us the most.”
I had always been undecided when it came to the character of Avery, leader of Ortec, but in that moment I knew he was completely good.
“She will remain in her home,” he repeated with force, “this is my decision as leader of Ortec. Are there any here who oppose me and my decisions?”
The room went so silent, I was sure they would hear my heart hammering away. However, no one would oppose him, so we could stay on Ortec.
Gratitude that I would never be able to express poured through me for the doctor. I had been so sure before that he didn't like me very much; that he was annoyed to be stuck with me. Here, today, he had risked a lot to defend me against Constantina and the fate she would have had for me.
He was the first to leave the throne room. I stayed where I was sitting until Avery finally remembered me and told me I could go back to the maternity ward.
My cramping stomach prevented me from running back, but my steps were so much lighter as I went this time. It was all over; the day I had spent months dreading had finally come, and I was still okay.
Sasha's was the first face I saw when I finally reached the maternity ward. She held a small bundle close to her chest.
She pounced before I even had time to catch my breath. “How did it go?”
“It was Avery,” I gasped, “he said I could stay.”
The breath she let out might have been one she had been holding for most of the day. Even my own breathing was coming easier than it had for months. “He said I could stay,” I repeated, just to be sure.
She grinned. “I knew it would turn out all right.”
“I wasn't quite so sure,” I admitted. “Constantina wanted to send me away.”
“That's expected.”
My eyes narrowed at her words. I ran my tongue over the frayed part of my lip that had received too much attention from my teeth that day.
“It was the doctor,” I blurted out.
“What was the doctor?”
“He was there.”
“Yeah?” She shifted the bundle in her arms.
“Yes, and he told Constantina I should be forgiven for lying.”
“Well, why shouldn't he say that?” She playfully scowled. “He sees how hard it was for you, even before you had this baby.” Her chin jerked down to indicate the bundle of blankets.
“Is that him?” My eyes widened at the thought.
“Of course it is. Who else would it be?” She shook her head with a grin. “Here.” Sasha held the baby out to me. “Rani, meet your son.”
“Are you sure it's safe?” I whispered. After everything I had been through to save him, I didn't want to hurt him now. “Maybe you should keep him.”
“Don't be silly,” she chided with a click of her tongue. “You won't hurt him.”
“I've never held a baby ...”
“Well, you've never given birth to a baby, either, but you managed that.”
“I know.” I bit down on my lip.
“I think you'll find, Rani, servant of Ortec, that from now on you'll be doing a lot of things you've never done before.”
“What if I'm afraid?”
“We're all afraid sometimes. You just have to keep moving forward.”
When I still didn't move, she took one hand away from the baby—nearly giving me a heart attack in the process—and pulled my arms away from my body. When she placed the baby there, I had no choice but to tighten my arms around him.
“There,” she crooned, “that wasn't so hard, hmm?”
“He's not very heavy,” I commented wondrously.
“Just give him a few months.” She pulled the blanket away from his face so I could get my first look at him.
He was sleeping peacefully, still blissfully unaware that he was an unwanted child. Full cheeks and the tiniest nose I had ever seen. I let my fingers glide gently over the patch of white-blond hair that rested against the redness of his forehead.
He was absolutely perfect. It was almost beyond my comprehension that this small boy was the same thing that had been inside my stomach for so many months. How could they call him a pirate?
“He's really ...” My throat became tight. “He’s really clean,” I squeezed out.
“He didn't look like that a few hours ago.” Sasha chuckled.
Flashes of memory assaulted my senses, not enough to wipe the smile from my face, but enough just the same. Flashes of blood-stained sheets and a small boy who had died so mine could live. I would never forget. Not ever.
“What are you going to name him?” Sasha brushed her hand gently across the patch of shockingly white hair.
My eyebrows knitted closer together. “It's not time to name him yet.”
“Oh,” she clicked her tongue, “they only wait so husbands can be reunited with their wives. You don't have a husband.”
I cocked my shoulder slightly. “True enough,” I murmured, careful not to wake him.
“Have you thought of a name?”
I had been thinking for weeks on what I would call him. I grinned. “Dais.”
“Dais?” I nodded. “I don't think he needs to be any more different. Why not name him something normal?”
“It's Dais,” I insisted stubbornly.
“Why Dais?”
“Before the great wave, there was an artist called Dais.”
“Still ...”
I cocked my head, regarding the still sleeping boy. “An artist brings color to the world, so I think that name suits him just perfectly.”
My lips turned up into a wide smile as I watched my tiny Dais sleep on, content in the crook of his mother's arms.
Chapter 24
I watched the wrinkled face from across the table, studying it for any signs of disapproval, but finding none. Nanny Grace ran one crooked finger through the white-blond hair on Dais' head. Despite Constantina's hope, his hair had not darkened very much at all.
It was still blonder, by far, than any other person on Ortec. His eyes had remained green. His appearance alone would have been enough to make him an outcast. Having me for a mother sealed his fate for him.
“It's really blond, isn't it?” Nanny Grace remarked with a grin.
“Shockingly so,” I conceded.
“Do you and Sasha still share a room?” She turned her wise eyes to me. “Does she help you with the baby?”
It had been just over two months since the council had decided to let me and my son stay on Ortec. The first few weeks had brought about many changes.
The first thing they did was move me to a room on the ground floor, just off the kitchens. I knew it was just so no one else had to be bothered with seeing Dais every day, but I couldn't help but be a little grateful. This new room had a small bathroom attached to it, and even a door that led directly outside. It had been built for one of the elders who had spent her life working in the kitchen. The women who worked in the kitchen were kinder than others in the council building, too, often giving me extra food and offering to watch Dais if I needed to go anywhere.
“His life will be hard, won't it?” I watched Dais, fast asleep and worry free.
“Undoubtedly.”
“Will the others ever like him?”
“I don't think so,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“What place will he have here, then?” Dais wouldn't stay working like his parents, the way so many other children of Ortec did. He only had me and males wouldn't be allowed to work as OB assistants. What would become of him?
“Now isn't the time to worry about that,” she replied quietly.
“Sasha does help me,”
I answered her earlier question. “We don't share the room anymore, but she visits often.”
“You're still working for the doctor?”
I nodded. “Shona has already returned home, so I don't have anything to do right now.”
Doctor Gourini had told me not to come back until the new set of women came to the council building. Sasha was convinced he was only using that as an excuse to let me rest, but I wasn't sure that his kindness could be stretched that far.
“It won't be long now,” I said, “and more women will become pregnant. Then things will return to normal.”
“Normal?” she scoffed. “I'm not so sure your life has ever been normal, and it surely won't be. Especially not now.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Maybe normal hadn't been the right word to use. I only meant that I would have work to do like everyone else. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so worthless.
Harvest season was still another month away, this was the time when life grew strong again. It had been almost one year since my own life had been forever altered by a pair of green eyes.
Those same green eyes stared up at me day after day, now; trusting me even when I didn't really know what I was doing most of the time. What kind of life would I be able to give him?
Nanny Grace was right. This wasn't the time to worry about it, but it was hard for me not to. If we had been allowed to return to Four, I could have taught him to tend the gardens—given him a skill that others would see as useful.
On Ortec, everyone had a job to do. Each person was good at something and they taught their children, or their neighbor’s children, the same skills. It was how we had survived all of these years. There wasn't even one person who didn't have a job.
What would Dais do? Where would he fit in?
“I can see your worry,” Nanny Grace scolded.
“I worry about Dais.”
“As a mother, I don't suppose you can just shut that off.” She nodded knowingly.
“Have you ever been a mother, Nanny Grace?” I asked suddenly, having never given it much thought before.
“When the wave hit, I was eighteen years old with a one-year-old daughter. No husband.”
“Like me?” I gasped. Only I had a son, not a daughter.
“Things were different then. Barely turned a head, even when I walked the halls of my high school big as a barn.”
“What happened to her?” She didn't answer—she didn't have to.
“It's time for you to become strong now, Rani,” Nanny Grace said in her raspy voice.
“What do you mean?” Did she think me and Dais would be sent to live in one of the villages? I was used to hard work, I could do whatever they asked me. “Avery said we had to stay in the council building.” I shook my head slightly.
“I mean strong on the inside,” she said solemnly.
“Health?” Doctor Gourini said women had to remain strong to stay healthy.
“Rani,” she reached across the table to grab tight onto my hand, “I mean that you have to be brave.”
“Brave?” The word rolled off my tongue, getting lost in the air around me. I wasn't brave.
“You are brave,” she responded to my unspoken doubt. “Braver than anyone I've ever known … even myself.”
I looked down at Dais, unsure what to say to that.
“Having a baby in high school,” she clicked her tongue, “I thought that made me brave. Everyone told me to get an abortion, but I refused.”
I wasn't even sure what an abortion was ...
“Things will get harder as he grows,” she promised, “but I think you've just faced the worst, so you'll be able to handle anything now.”
Chapter 25
The sun was shining brightly just outside Nanny Grace's cabin, making me squint and raise my chin to feel it's warmth on my skin. In just a few weeks they would send the mothers back home with their babies, then bring new women in to start all over again.
Despite my worries, life would continue to move forward. I wasn't brave like Nanny Grace said I was, but maybe that wouldn't matter so very much. Perhaps Dais would be able to find his place in a future that refused to be stopped.
No matter what happened, there was no use in worrying about it now. I hitched the harness more securely to my chest and turned once more to Nanny Grace. She stood just outside her door, staring at me without a smile on her wrinkled face.
“I'll come visit when I can,” I promised with a final wave. I turned before she said anything else, back toward the path that would lead me home. My steps were more sure than they had ever been.
I had been known by many names in the nearly eighteen years I had been alive. Rani of Number Four, Rani, Wife of Sid, Rani, servant of Ortec. But now I was Rani, mother of Dais.
My smile grew as I walked.
***
A pair of green eyes that I hadn't thought of since a new pair had taken their place, flitted across my memory. I had been scared that night, more scared than I ever wanted to be.
He had changed me, but was it really for the worst? Before the pirate came I was Rani, wife of Sid. Now I was Rani, servant of Ortec, mother of Dais. He made me a mother.
A slow smile curved my lips and spread warmth in my chest. No, I wasn't worse off now that I knew that a man like that existed in this world.
He had smelled strongly of whisky; it could be that he didn't even remember what had happened. Or maybe he was sorry for it—changed because of that night. Was it possible that it had changed both of us?
It didn't matter, I realized. I wouldn't see the pirate again and I needed to focus on what was important. Through everything bad that had happened, I had found my own place on Ortec. And so would Dais.
I continued my solitary trek back to the council building with only my small son for company. I had a feeling this was how it would be for us now. I just needed to decide if that was going to bother me.
As we passed the bakers, a delicious waft of baking bread came out to greet me. I inhaled deeply, appreciating the effort they made to keep our tables well supplied in the council building.
Randolph, the baker, and his wife, Anne, stepped out of their shop and stood just outside the closed door. I nodded in greeting at the pair. I had seen them many times before and they were always friendly people.
That was why their glares shocked me. Looking around, all the faces that stared out at me were unfriendly.
“You’re supposed to stay in the council building,” Randolph accused angrily.
“I just came back from visiting Nanny Grace,” I explained quietly, dropping my eyes to the ground.
“We don't want that ... that child out here with decent people,” he continued harshly.
I kept my eyes on the ground, wondering for one fearful moment if they would keep their insults to only words.
“You shouldn't show your face around here anymore,” Chandler, the man who had shaved my head for Sid's funeral, seconded Randolph's hate-filled opinions.
“The council may have allowed you to stay, but don't think that means we'll be accepting that pirate boy of yours.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Oh well, I decided on that self-indulged sigh, I already knew it was going to be like that. I knew people wouldn't understand the things I had done to save the life that grew inside me.
He may have been created in a moment of hazy violence, but that wasn't his fault. And there wasn't any way I could possibly love him more than I did. He was mine and I didn't care that the people of Ortec glared at me as I passed them. If given the chance to go back and change things, I wouldn't have taken it.
Even if I spent my life with only Dais for company, I could handle that. I had always just barely been accepted in the city, unwilling to let them break me.
As for the future, let it come. Nanny Grace was right, I had already been through the worst, and nothing could hurt me now.
I shifted slightly as I walked so Dais could rest more comfortably against my chest. My small
son, who had managed to shake up an entire city, slept on peacefully in the warm sunshine.
His mother, just a simple girl from Ortec, smiled brightly.
THE END
The Girl From Ortec
Book Two
Black Dolphin
Chapter 1
I was standing in a sea of tall grass that grew waist high, spotted generously with splashes of white, yellow, and deep purple. The field stretched on and on, further even than I could see. I lowered my hand to let my fingers trail along the silky petals, knowing all the while that this was a dream.
Fields didn't grow like that on Ortec. Any land that large would have been put to good use, not as a place for wild flowers to grow. Still, while I was there anyway, I let the breeze play with the loose wisps of honey colored hair that escaped my braid and hung wildly by my ears.
It wouldn't be allowed to last long though.
A tiny shrill ringing in my ears brought me unwillingly back to the real world, where no fields awaited me. Instead, it was a room—a tiny, cramped room with too many bodies.
I reached my hand out blindly to tap the top of the wind up clock we had brought with us to the safe room―the only way we had to keep track of the passing days in a room with no windows.
“Are you awake?” a voice whispered from the darkness.
A defiant part of my heart didn't want to answer―the dream had been so much better. “I'm awake,” I dutifully acknowledged.
The words had barely escaped me when a small flicker of light burst to life, illuminating a familiar face. “It's your turn to make breakfast,” Sasha declared in the same whisper.
I scrambled to sit up from my flat bed on the floor, closest to the small stove we were barely permitted to use. “What will it be this morning, ma'am?” I tilted my head to one side. “We have oatmeal.”
Sasha grinned.
*****
“I think when we get out of here,” Sasha whispered loudly, “I'll never eat oatmeal again.” She made a face as the mushy meal clumped off her spoon.