by Mark Tufo
“You’re so pretty.” A tear slid down her cheek, I watched it sparkle in a beam of early sunlight as it ran lower and then dropped off her chin. “You have to be strong. Can you do that for me?”
I nodded, not really knowing what she was asking. We’d been taught about life outside these buildings, but sitting in a classroom and learning something through the abstract is much different from actually living it firsthand.
“I don’t have much time. I just thought that you should know who I am. The man who fathered you wanted me to run away with him to start over, to find a way out…and maybe I should have. He gave me this before he left; then I realized I’d been given a bigger gift. It was you, my sweet Winter.” She was stroking my hair. “I knew then I couldn’t leave, that it would be too harsh out there; we would be fugitives on the run and that you might not survive. I couldn’t let that happen. You, though, you can. You can get out of here. Do you understand me, Winter? That is what I want for you, to find something different, something that the Powers have not ruined.”
She placed a silver chain around my neck; a small cylindrical locket hung from it. She held it up between our faces and spoke earnestly. “You can never let anybody know you have this. You have to promise me that no matter how hungry you get or how desperate you become that you will never trade this away because it is much too valuable. This is your way out of this life, Winter, forever.”
I was staring at the locket; I'd never seen an ornament of any kind. “What is it?”
She quickly looked back at the door, knowing she couldn't linger. She shook me once, hard. “Promise me, Winter,” she said harshly.
She’d startled me to the point where I almost began to cry.
“I...I promise,” I stammered.
She hugged me fiercely, her lips pressed against the top of my head. I felt her tears soaking into my hair. “I love you, Winter. I will always love you. Now go, be brave my little warrior, find a new life for yourself.” She quickly got up and walked back into the ward.
I watched her and thought about following, but then I turned away from the doors that signified the end to everything I’d ever known. I held the locket for a moment more, then tucked it inside my shirt where it fell midway down my chest; the metal was cool on my skin.
I looked up at the harsh July sun. It made no sense back then, though I knew what she was telling me sounded like lunacy or heresy–or maybe both. We were taught that the Powers were all that was right with the world and that they stood for equality among all. The War was being fought to bring about their values so that one day we could all live in harmony. I was trying to justify what I’d been taught since I was old enough to read with what this strange woman who had called herself my mother had said. Her kiss had stirred something in me; I understood there were things I did not understand.
I felt so alone standing there, looking out onto a large dirt field. There were some older kids off to the side and at first I thought they were playing. As I walked closer, I realized they were fighting over a piece of bread one of them had skimmed from a rations cart. The boy on the ground would not let go of it no matter how much they punched and kicked him. I had not gone hungry in the Ward, but I would soon learn the pain of hunger; a punch was nothing in comparison. Afraid of the violence in front of me, I involuntarily grabbed at the locket.
“What are you looking at?” one of the older kids yelled when he noticed me staring.
“Leave her be,” a blonde boy who had been standing to the side of the struggle said as he noticed the look of pure terror on my face. “She’s new and doesn’t know what it’s like out here.”
“I don’t give her six months,” the first boy said before kicking the fallen one in the leg. The boy with the bread grunted but he held fast.
“My name is Tallow,” the one who had stuck up for me said as he approached. I recognized him from our time in the Wards, but we were strictly age segregated and we’d never talked before.
“My name is Winter.” I spoke to him, but I could not take my eyes off the scene in front of me.
“Come on, Winter. I know where we can find some blueberries.”
“Blueberries?” I didn’t know what they were.
“Shh, I don’t want these idiots to know,” he said, pointing over his shoulder as we walked away.
We walked farther that day than I had walked my entire life. I had no idea the world was so big. More than once, I had to stop and take a break, but never did Tallow say anything disparaging. He’d slow up or we’d stop completely when he knew I was exhausted. A few years later I asked him why’d he even befriended me. Now, seven years later, I looked at him tending a fire and cooking a meal for us. I thought about his answer, which was still etched in my mind.
He'd said: “You just looked so scared and alone and I remembered that feeling. I thought if I could spare you some of it, I would. Plus, I figured you’d be good for carrying more of the berries.”
I’d punched him in the arm after he said that.
If I’d had the words, I'd have said I'd fallen in love with him that first day. He’d reached out and helped when he did not have to; and here he was, still at my side. What was there not to love?
Now, though, I strained as I pulled, mad that Tal had stopped helping, and had stopped touching me, then glad that he had. Occasionally he would look up at me from his comfortable, dry place by the fire. “Having fun watching me struggle?” I grunted at him.
It was a long, measured time before he spoke. “No Win, I’m not.”
I didn’t know what he meant. Why was he being like this? There was a loud slurping pop as my leg finally came free. I was soaked through and I was thankful we were heading into spring as opposed to autumn; the warming sun felt good against my wet pants. I looked down at the hole that had held me captive. That's when I saw it. I caught a glint of something below me that reflected the light just before the ground could reclaim it. I nearly didn’t tell Tal because, in this world and at this time, sharing was not often done. Survival came down to the most meager of meals and splitting that with someone only diminished one’s chances. Yet here he was, about to give me half. Then again, this was Tallow; we’d been sharing since before we knew better.
Chapter 2
Paper Dreams
SO, YES, A selfish part of me wanted to keep my discovery hidden, at least until I had fully explored it myself. Then, once I knew exactly what I’d found, I could decide what I wanted to share, if anything. But...this was the boy I owed everything. I owed him my life. I don’t think I would have made it that first year without his help. Although, if I never eat another blueberry again I’ll be fine with that. My lips were stained blue for almost the entirety of that year; just thinking of them makes my stomach cramp up.
“You want some of this?” Tallow was still avoiding my eyes, but he’d thrust the cooked rabbit under my nose as I came close; memories of blueberry cramps turned instantly to hunger.
I didn’t answer him as I pulled a piece of the charred flesh from his spit. The meat was sweet and delicious; I hadn’t eaten anything since midday yesterday. We finished off the meager meal in silence, simultaneously enjoying the food and each other’s company, something we hadn’t been able to do recently. I suspected the awkwardness between us grew along with the excitement I felt at his touch, and his reluctance to admit he was affected by me, too. I just wished we could somehow find a way around it.
When he was done and the rabbit had been reduced to a small pile of bones and fur, he stood up. “I should go now,” he said, although he didn’t move.
He was waiting for some sort of response from me; I didn’t want him to go. I threw out the first thought I had: “Could you help me with something first?” I got up and walked back toward my earthen prison, hoping he would follow, then worried that he would.
“You planning on getting stuck again?” he smiled as he asked.
If you'll hold me again, I will, I thought, but aloud I said, “No! I saw something at
the bottom of that hole.”
“Probably your shoe.”
I lifted my leg and swiveled my ankle around, showing him my boot was still there, covered in muck.
“What was it?” he asked.
I was careful not to get too close as I knelt down in the muddy grass, and fought a nervous urgency as the area was quickly filling over. “Well, if I knew what it was, I would have just told you, wouldn’t I?”
“No reason to be testy about it.” He got down next to me.
“Sorry.” Sorry? That's all I could think to say? Lame. Lame, and possibly mean, too. I wanted to tell him so much more. I wanted to hold his hand, to brush back the hair that fell over his eyes, to maybe.... My breath caught as I imagined gently licking the tiny bit of shiny rabbit grease from his bottom lip...how could I tell him I felt this way when it would ruin us both, but how could I go on without speaking my heart? I had to; so I let the “sorry” stand on its own.
Tallow had his stick and was busy prying large clods of turf away. I was busy watching his muscular arms work. “You going to help?” he asked, looking up. “And why do you have that weird look on your face?”
“Sorry,” I answered pathetically, again. I shook myself free of my ridiculous thoughts and started digging furiously to hide my embarrassment.
“What is that?” he asked after a few moments. We were both staring at the edge of a window. That was strange enough, but as we cleared the glass and peered beyond, it was what we could kind of make out that was really shocking.
“Looks like...a room,” I said as I put my head and shoulders in the hole and pressed my face against the glass.
“You’d better be careful or you’re going to get your big melon stuck, too.” He grabbed my arm and tugged.
I was blocking out the sunlight and couldn’t see anything that way anyway so I allowed myself to be pulled up. I stuck my tongue out at Tallow and wet dirt fell from my hair to my exposed tongue. I spat furiously.
“Serves you right!” he laughed, but then focused back on the window. He moved his head to gain the best sunlight. “It looks huge;” he said. “Do you think there’s food in there?”
I didn’t think anything that had been underground for as long as this place had obviously been would be worth eating. I shrugged.
“We going in?” He looked more animated than I had seen him in years.
“It doesn’t look safe...” I answered back.
“You did not just say that. You spend more time in the wild than I do! You're fearless; I’ve watched you steal food from a cart while a Broker’s back was turned.”
“Yeah, but I was hungry then!” I said as I nervously bit at my lip.
“You look cute when you do that,” he said, then blushed. There was that awkward moment of silence between us, then Tallow picked up a rock as if to smash the glass.
“Hold on there Brute-Force!” I grabbed his wrist. “Maybe we should clear some more dirt away and see if we can just open it.”
We spent another fifteen minutes exposing the entire window, discovering what had to be the roof and even part of a much larger structure. It was made from some sort of small, hard clay blocks. All of the buildings in Dystance were made from wood. I grabbed a small stick and cleaned out as much dirt as I could from around the window’s sash before I tried to push it open.
“I don’t think that’s how it works.” Tallow had squatted back directly behind me and was looking over my shoulder. He was so close I could smell the essence of him co-mingled with the sweat of our work.
I felt light headed and lashed out the only way I knew how. “Okay, genius, you show me.”
He didn’t even notice; he held his chin, completely fixated on the window. He absently helped me climb out of the hole and I stood back while he climbed in, careful not to knock any dirt back over our growing crater. Bracing one foot above the window on hard, gray slate, and the other below on the red, clay block, he bent down and grabbed the metal lip of the window. The cords in his neck bulged as he strained and grunted; I was amazed at his strength. At first there was nothing, then came the tiniest squeal, like a mouse yanked by its tail. Then came a loud scraping noise, and with one final heave he pulled it all the way open. I grabbed the back of his shirt just before he fell through.
“Thanks,” he said standing up and wobbling slightly. “What is all that?” He was squinting into the darkness below.
I climbed down into the hole with him. We’d moved enough earth that, if the window was closed, we could have easily fit a third person down there with us. Our heads were together as we leaned in and looked through the window. I pulled back quickly when I realized just how close we were.
“Um, I’m not sure…it…that looks like paper,” I said, trying to hide my discomfort.
We both knew what paper was; we were taught that it was a rare and valuable material. When children start learning about the Powers and The War they are given small pamphlets made from the precious commodity and held together with hemp twine. It was something you kept your entire life, a symbol of your education. The pamphlets explained just how everything had come to be, our hopes for our society, and its expectations of us. We were told of the other sections, how evil they were, or how ignorant, and how they would take everything from us if we did not remain vigilant; if we did not contribute to The War. When I was in school I hated the Enemy for that; we all did. But when I got out and was living by any means possible, losing friends, barely surviving, I wondered how “the Enemy” could be so much worse off that they wanted what miserable little we had. And, though I never said it, I often thought the Enemy couldn’t be any worse than our own Powers. I didn’t hate them anymore, but I did feel sorry for them.
“You think that’s paper?” Tallow interrupted my thoughts, “Where could someone get that much of it. Winter?” he asked. Tallow’s head was down in the opening and his voice echoed in the large room beneath us.
“We have to go in.” The building was canted at a slight angle. From what we could tell, there were desks and chairs plus piles and piles of huge paper pamphlets lying against the far wall. The drop, unfortunately, had to have been close to forty feet.
“That’s too far to jump, maybe.” Tallow was trying to do the math in his head.
“Listen, Tallow, even if you hang from the sash you’re still looking at over thirty feet.”
“The furniture can break my fall.” He was smiling.
“That won’t be the only thing that breaks. We need a rope.”
“Where are we going to get a piece of rope that long? You know those are locked up in the Brokers’ barracks. You’ve seen that for yourself. It’d be safer to take our chances here.”
He was right. The Brokers, along with the Meddies and Breeders, were the only adults that lived in Dystance. The Brokers’ primary job seemed to be making sure we didn’t kill each other before we went to war. They handed out rations, but they were clearly uncaring of our plight and cruel with their judgment and dispensing of justice. I’d once watched them beat a boy with batons until they broke both of his legs, just because he had run into and knocked one of them over. It didn’t matter that he was trying to get away from a group who had threatened to steal food from him. He’d tried to explain, pleading his case to them, but their blows only grew worse until screams for mercy dominated the street, drawing silent, terrified spectators. They’d laughed and joked as they left him to his misery, sobbing in the dirt, and no one dared approach him until they were gone.
They had a barracks on the far side of town where they lived and kept anything useful or valuable locked up tight. Most people stayed as far away from it as possible. The smells, though, the heavenly smells that emanated from that building drew me towards it. That first time, against all of my better reasoning abilities, I’d crept close enough to stand on my tiptoes so that I could peek in the window. What I saw made me question our entire existence. They had a table full of fruits, fresh vegetables, and a hunk of meat the size of an eight
year-old kid. That food would have fed my entire quarter for a month. It was more than I had ever seen laid out, even in the breeder wards. But it wasn’t just their table spread. They had so much light; apparently as much as they wanted. They seemed so jovial; they were out of their blue-gray uniforms and in bright, comfortable clothing I’d never seen them wear before, or anyone wear before.
I wiped my mouth as drool involuntarily welled up while I watched them tear into their meal. I turned my attention away from the food; there were other strange objects all around the place. There were long, heavy looking sticks with what appeared to be metal attached to them hanging on the wall in some sort of rack. They looked too big and unwieldy to be clubs. There was also a large, round plate on the wall that had the numbers one through twelve all around the face of it, with a couple of arrows that pointed out from the center at the numbers. They also had thick coils of rope. I had no idea so much of it existed. I’d only seen strands of it, small ties securing gates and cartwheels, nothing like what they had hanging there. What possible use could they have for so much of it?
My stomach was protesting voraciously, so loud that I suddenly feared discovery. If I had not witnessed the joy with which they had delivered their punishment to that boy I might have knocked on the door and begged for just a bite. Even if they beat me it might have been worth it just to get a closer look and a good sniff.
We never saw them out after dark, so the next time I went, I felt a little bolder. It was late in the evening; the food was just being cleared from their table, leaving only a few bowls of Cahol chips, when I peered into their world. The night was warm and the window was open a few inches. I could smell something so sweet it enveloped my senses–warm fruit and bread? One of the men brought in round, steaming plates of something; and the brokers fell on it with spoons, filling their bowls with what looked like hot blueberries covered in glazed bread crusts. Whatever it was made me drool uncontrollably.