by Liahona West
As Bannack leaned over the metal railing, he thought back to coming face to face with the old woman. Alma. He never knew her name before. She was just another empty face. A victim of his own sins.
You must atone for pain. I hand you mine forgiveness.
Those words quickly became daggers to his sour gut. The way she spoke, the issues with aphasia—her way of speech—twisted the knives in more. Eloise believed Alma had a stroke, which was true, but the reason she suffered from one was completely the fault of the weak serum Alma had been subject to in Joy’s lab. The lab Bannack had brought her to after stealing her from her bed. He doomed Alma and she forgave him?
“Why?” Bannack yelled to the heavens. Shaking, he slammed his palm into the rusted metal. Then again. And again, until his hands grew as raw as his throat. Tears burned his eyes.
The anger dissipated, and a heavy pain settled in his chest. All the lives I destroyed are on me. One person forgiving me for what I did to her doesn’t change anything.
Unable to remain in the house, Bannack ran from it. He had to get away from any source of pain.
Eloise, covered in twilight, sat on the mossy rock wall outside, the djembe drum between her legs.
“What are you doing?” Bannack picked up a twig as he sat, snapped it in half and tossed it on the driveway.
“Waiting for you. It’s boring in the house.” Eloise adjusted her body on the moss-covered wall. “Besides, this moss is way comfier than your couch.”
“No.” He chuckled. “I meant, what are you doing with the drum?”
“Oh.” Eloise shrugged. “I figured you’d want it close.”
Her finger tapped against the tight skin, releasing nostalgic notes. It was definitely out of tune, but the noise carried precious memories and he struggled to listen to the music.
“Did I ever tell you what happened to Agya?” Bannack asked and when Eloise shook her head, he said, “He died from the flu—well, sepsis really, but the flu came first.”
“That must have been traumatizing. I’m glad you told me.” Eloise knit her eyebrows together. “And what about your mom and sister? What happened to them?”
That he couldn’t talk about. He rarely even thought about it, choosing to avoid the memory altogether, but hoping he could ignore it had done him no good in the past. Still, he changed the subject. “I should apologize.”
Eloise rubbed her palms together and sat in silence as if waiting for his apology.
“What I said back there, about never having anything taken away from you, was not considerate. We all have had things taken from us because of the war.” Bannack inhaled, and his chest swelled, then relaxed. “I am sorry. You were trying to help, and I repaid your kindness by yelling.”
“Thank you.” Her face softened, and she smiled. “Why have you never come back here?”
Bannack looked at the house. “I was going to, but I was scared of what I would find. Then I got busy.”
“Hmm,” Eloise scooted closer. “And what you found didn’t help alleviate the fear.”
He shook his head.
“What are you going to do about the house now?”
“Not sure.” Bannack said and shrugged. “Leave it as is. Try to work up the courage to visit once in a while.”
“You know, we could get some people together to fix it up. Make it kinda like it was.”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged his shoulders. The offer was tempting, and he realized, as he looked back at the house he grew up in, that he missed it. Would it be so bad to fix it up?
“Well, you have time to think about it.”
“How are you doing?” Bannack asked.
“What?” Eloise’s voice sounded far off, as if lost in her thoughts.
“With Joy’s intentions.”
“I’m…doing okay. You know she agreed to leave me alone and be with Seth, right?”
He didn’t. He cocked his head. “You seem unsure.”
“I’m nervous she’ll come back.”
“Yeah.” Bannack tossed the final stick. “I would be as well.”
They sat together in silence with only the beach down the hill as their companion. It lulled back and forth over the rocky sand, water shushing in the night as if it were a mother up late feeding her baby.
“Actually,” Eloise said and squared her shoulders. “No. I’m not doing okay. I don’t want to sit here and pretend everything is okay when it’s not. Being stagnant is awful.”
Bannack grunted, unsure how to respond.
Eloise remained quiet for a while, chewed her bottom lip, and kept her head bowed. Their eyes didn’t meet as Eloise whispered, “When Ada died…it was horrible and…”
“You lost her,” Bannack said. His stomach clenched.
Tears trailed down Eloise’s cheek. “I was there…I watched it happen. It’s why—” her voice cracked, “Why I struggle with things.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. He knew what he would find in them if she did; unbearable pain of losing a loved one. The kind of pain that creates a deep emptiness and longing to have them back, even if they are only a shadow.
Bannack knew the pain intimately. He had lived with it for seven years.
For the first time since they'd met, Eloise hugged him and he tensed, petrified by her embrace. Warmth radiated into him and ever so slowly, Bannack enclosed her in his arms.
“I am so sorry, Eloise,” Bannack said, stray hairs flicking away from his breath. A crisp scent of fresh air and pine filled his nose, making his head spin. His heart quickened. Her arms were around his waist. He could feel the slight movement of her back muscles and they were strong, defined.
Once Eloise recovered and sat up, she pushed her hair behind her ear.
I should have—Stop! What’s wrong with you? Feeling will get you killed. But he wanted to feel. He wanted all the raw emotions Eloise brought up, but that terrified him. A fading calm allowed nausea to fester. He glanced to Eloise, inspecting the djembe drum, and then his hands. He knew what he had done with them, and he clenched them tight.
Feeling will get you killed. Never forget.
***
“Alright, today’s a busy day.”
Bannack stood in a small group of people, all faced toward a woman in a shawl. Her long blonde hair fell around her shoulders.
A man beside Bannack handed him a paper with a to-do list scrawled on it.
“Whatever jobs are written on the paper are yours to complete by today. Everyone should have different work.” She clapped once. “Alright. Get to work, now.”
Unsure what to do about people pushing past him and doing his best not to shrivel against the wall, Bannack looked at his paper. Before he could read it, someone bumped into his hands and the paper fluttered to the ground. He bent to pick it up. It wound around the person’s legs. Thankfully, they stopped, handed him back the paper, and apologized, then ran off. Bannack’s stomach tightened.
He read the paper. “Dust bookshelves in the library. Clean out horse stalls. Fix fence on north end of the field. Deliver eggs to kitchen.”
Simple enough.
He made his way to the library. The entrance was pushed to the back of a large alcove with stairs to the right. Books lined shelves, some even crossing overhead. Old and faded rugs, tasseled or woven with intricate patterns, covered the floor in a sea of regal whimsy. The shelves sagged, their paint peeling or mismatched.
As Bannack glanced around, no lanterns or torches touched the walls, like they did throughout the rest of the Compound, and the library relied solely on the natural light that filtered through large windows.
He closed his mouth. “Excuse me,” Bannack said as he caught the attention of a Compounder. “Where are the cleaning supplies?”
She glanced up at him and pointed to a metal shelving unit behind an old desk. “Look there first.”
Bannack thanked her and looked for something to dust with. He found a rag and an old feather du
ster so covered with dirt, it left a small pile behind when he grabbed it.
He returned to the woman. “Apologies, but,” Bannack held up the duster, “is there another one?”
“No,” she frowned, “it’s all we have. In storage, we have some cleaned feathers we stuff blankets and pillows with. There should be a bag of longer feathers there you can use, too.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
Exhaling, Bannack walked to the storage.
Feathers…Feathers…
Nothing was labeled. Bannack scratched his head. His first day on the job and already he was running into a snag.
“Ugh. This is going excellent.”
Bags were everywhere. He opted to feeling all twenty bags. By the fifteenth, he found one he could squish easily like a down pillow, and he opened it to find…short feathers.
More searching finally yielded results, and he gathered a large handful of them. He grabbed a piece of string hanging on the wall, then tied the feathers together.
There.
The new duster wasn’t pretty, but it had to do. Bannack rushed back to the library, already an hour into his day, and wiped the dust from the shelves.
For the rest of the day, Bannack worked on his tasks, each one breeding additional tasks to get the original one finished. He took a short break to eat with the Compounders, giving them a wide berth and wishing either Eloise or Sibyl, the only two people he knew so far, were eating with him. He struggled with the ambient noise inside and the energy Bannack possessed earlier waned. By dinner time, he retreated to his room, opting to find his food in the forest.
He relaxed, his body deflating, as he found a meal comfortable to him. Huckleberries were in season. He picked those first, standing by the bush for several minutes, crunching on the tart berries, and enjoying the clean scent of the trickling brook in the air. It wasn’t so stale or filled with noise. He found cattails and some seaweed in the bay below the Compound, then sat on the rocky beach, eating his dinner. Relieved to find peace.
The moon covered the world in a silvery light by the time Bannack closed his door. He grabbed the blanket and pillow, filled with the feathers he had searched for that morning, and settled on the floor.
What was I thinking, agreeing to stay at the Compound? I’m going to go crazy if I have to spend the rest of my life around humans.
Maybe I’ll get used to it?
The last question lingered in his mind until he fell asleep.
***
The days blended together. He spent much of his time working and although he became proficient and able to do more tasks as time passed, the ambient noise and growing to do lists got to him.
He awoke in a daze, still exhausted from the day prior, worked, ate alone in the forest, worked more, then went to bed. Dinner became a luxury and didn’t happen often. He struggled to eat.
Bannack sat on his bed, trying not to move to avoid the squeaking, with his head in his hands.
I just need to breathe, recoup, and figure out what I’m going to do.
He didn’t want to leave. Despite drowning in socialization, Bannack desperately wanted living at the Compound to work out because the alternative was a life alone. He’d be able to visit, sure, but the bliss the Compound offered was too tempting to pass up and his life whenever he left would pale in comparison.
“Okay,” Bannack scrubbed his head, struggling to breathe. “Alright. What did Maame say? Write it down. Yeah. Paper…paper…”
Bannack raided the old desks. No paper. Inside an old storage chest, Bannack found a small collection of items. Soap, first aid supplies, extra blanket, change of clothes, and Bannack’s akrafena were together, and he had to move everything from the bottoms to find the paper and charcoal. He sat at his bed and wrote a to-do list, recording the requirements to complete each task. He needed to prepare for more tasks. During the past few weeks, he had figured out how much time the tasks would take and then figured out how often they rotated back onto his schedule. He recorded the approximate time needed to perform his jobs, then he listed how often he’d had each one, and realized he did a lot more cleaning than anything else. Good. It gave him something to expect.
***
Over the next week, Bannack put his list to use. He checked each box, waking in the early morning to practice fighting. If Joy were to come back, as Eloise suspected, he needed to keep his skill razor sharp.
For a few days, the process worked. Then the overwhelm crept up, he fell into a rut again, and he was back to square one.
What am I missing?
Bannack needed out. He needed to spend his time in the forest, the quiet, and avoid humans. He tried to stay, but the constant need for recharge and time away from the hustle and bustle wore him down.
One morning, after Bannack’s workout, he sat outside on a rock, watching the birds peck at the ground. Footsteps grew louder, and Bannack turned.
Mason smiled at him. “How are things going for you here?”
“It’s…” Bannack shrugged, “unexpected.”
“Mmm. I thought so.”
“Sir?”
“I’ve been watching you and your adjustment. I want to offer you an alternative.”
Bannack furrowed his eyebrows.
“Are you still interested in becoming a Sentinel?”
The offer, when originally spoken of, made Bannack hesitate, but now that he had learned the depth of difficulty in adjusting from being alone to being around people, becoming a Sentinel charmed him.
“What does a Sentinel do?”
“Patrolling, hunting, protection of the Compound. You keep watch over the Compounders here. Once you are assigned into a group, you spend your time with them for a month before I switch you out with other members. Some groups are strictly patrol, while others strictly hunt. If your skill is the same as when you took down Emille, I’d most likely start you off in my east group. They’re out hunting now, so I’ll introduce you later. What do you think?”
It sounded like heaven. Few people, little talking, and only the forest around them.
“When do I start?”
“Right now.” Mason clapped Bannack on the back then turned, rifled through his desk, and handed a red strip of fabric to Bannack. “Welcome to the team. All Sentinels, while on duty, are required to wear this.” He waited for Bannack to tie the cloth to his arm then opened the door. “Come with me and I’ll introduce you to a group about to head out on a hunt. I’d like you to go with them.”
Relief flooded him, and he sighed. Finally, some peace and quiet.
Bannack walked with Mason around the south side of the building and up a wooden trail to a clearing. Several individual groups between five and ten people gathered there, either sparring, packing gear, or caring for their weapons. As Mason passed them toward a group of five against the tree line, each person greeted Mason with a tap to their forehead.
As Bannack and Mason approached, Bannack got a better look at the group he assumed he was being paired with. They were sharing a meal, three of them crammed onto one log, and the last two members were sitting together, one laying on the ground. Bannack recognized Eloise immediately. She kept her head in the other woman’s lap, oblivious to Mason and Bannack’s approach. The women were chatting and smiling, while the woman with a shaved head twirled a lock of Eloise’s dark red hair in her fingers. Eloise turned her head away, and he saw a flush of color.
Mason cleared his throat.
Eloise noticed Bannack and Mason then and sat up. The other woman looked at Bannack, then whispered something in Eloise’s ear, and she lowered her eyelashes, smiling gently.
What shocked him the most was his stomach clenched. He wanted to be the one swirling Eloise’s hair and whispering things into her ear to make her smile. Who did this other woman think she was?
“Bannack.” Eloise pushed her hair high on her head, revealing her neck. Bannack swallowed, and his jealousy fluttered away.
“He’s your new member.”
She blinked several times. “What?”
Ignoring her, Mason called to the other Sentinels. “Hey, guys. I brought you a new friend.”
The three on the log jumped to their feet and stood around Eloise. One began chewing his nail. The tallest of the group and dressed in a leather jerkin, two leather vambraces, and a green kilt, looked at Bannack with bright eyes.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Mason said and walked away.
“Hey,” the tall man smiled. “I’m Mal. That’s Abe, Finch, Eloise—”
“We’ve met,” Eloise said, and looked at Bannack. Her eyes bored into him, dark and narrow, and he took a step toward her. Her gaze pulled him in. She didn’t back away, only watched him.
“Great! And this guy is Nails.”
“Dude!” The man chewing on his fingers rubbed them on his thighs. “Why is this a thing? My name’s Blake, you idiots.”
The group all looked at each other and smiled. Bannack shook Abe’s hand. He was a stout man with wild curly hair, patches of pale skin on his arms and face, a pierced nose, and he wore a cape lined with fur at the shoulders.
Finch, heavily tattooed on her arms, adjusted the crossbow slung to her back and extended her only hand, the other gone at the elbow. “Welcome,” she said.
“Where we going?” Abe asked.
“Up north,” Eloise said, and she picked her knives up from a stump, loading them individually onto her body. He counted seven. She put her hands on her hips. “The deer population there is getting a bit out of control because too many predators are being killed by humans, so we’ve been given permission to hunt there.” She turned to Bannack. “Do you have something to hunt with?”