by Megan Hart
The small fire burned low, and there’d be no more fuel allowed until Shabbat ended the next evening. The lanterns had been dimmed to next to nothing. The social hall was nearly empty. They were the last two in the leisure room. Even the teeners had given up their silly flirtations and gone to bed.
“Tired?” Elanna asked when she caught Tobin yawning.
He grinned at her. “Yeah. And my legs hurt from all that climbing.”
She’d taken him to the rooftop gardens today. If he’d been anyone else, particularly someone she wanted an appointment with, she’d have offered to rub his legs. But she couldn’t offer him that. He’d think she was trying to seduce him.
“The climb down wasn’t so bad, was it?” She leaned back into the softness of the sofa cushions. She wasn’t tired at all. Being around Tobin made her skin feel like it was crawling with ants.
They’d spent nearly every waking moment together for the past four days. She’d never spent so much time with one man in her life. She’d thought he would bore her. He didn’t. Or worse, irritate her and make her angry. He didn’t do that, either. Tobin had a gentle sense of humor she wasn’t used to with the men she’d known. He made her laugh. And he listened to her.
“It wasn’t so bad,” he agreed. He yawned again, stretched.
“Can you find your way back to your room?” she asked finally. “It’s easy to get lost when the lights are dimmed. If you don’t know where you’re going, I mean.”
He stretched again, reaching his long arms up behind his head until his shirt pulled up and exposed the tautness of his stomach. Elanna looked away as though she’d never seen a male torso before, and cursed herself silently for being ridiculous.
“Maybe you can walk me there,” Tobin said, but made no move to get off the sofa.
They’d commandeered one of the more comfortable ones from the teeners, who grumbled but got up when Elanna ordered them to. Orna had been one of the grumblers. At eleven, she was one of the youngest in the group. Soon they’d know if she was going to be a hopemother like Elanna. Though Orna hadn’t been hers for ten years, Elanna found herself squeezing the girl’s hand as she went by.
She thought of that touch now, sad because Orna had twisted away from it. Politely, but firmly. Elanna knew that was part of growing up, part of changing from child to teener and then adult. It didn’t stop the sting.
Now she watched Tobin relax against the cushions not so recently vacated by her first-born daughter. What would a child of his be like? Dark haired and dark eyed? She’d likely never know.
“When are you going to leave?” she asked.
The question seemed to surprise him, but he recovered quickly. “You mean with the gatherers?”
“Sure,” Elanna said. She realized something quickly, something he thought she didn’t catch. He was thinking of leaving, all right, and not with the gatherers.
Tobin shifted in his seat, stretching out his impossibly long legs as though looking for a way to answer her. “I don’t know when they’re going to be ready. Soon, I guess. They must have some work to do on the trucks. I hear they’re going to take them as far as the edge of the city, then they’ll go forward on bikes after that.”
“I guess so.” Elanna watched the firelight, golden and red, reflected in his eyes. Why couldn’t she forget the revulsion she’d seen there before?
She’d never been afraid before, to ask a man to her bed. If she’d had to do the asking at all. Until Tobin, she’d never been rejected.
“Thanks for taking me up there today. Tobin looked around the room, empty now. “I feel like…I mean, do you want to…”
“What?” She sounded too eager, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Go for a walk.”
“Now? Outside? It’s dark.”
“Oh, sorry. Is it because it’s your Shabbat? I know you can’t light the lights but I thought that’s why it would be good to take a walk instead of you know, just sitting here in the dark.”
She shook her head, confused. “No. It’s not that. But you don’t want to take a walk now. Not at night. It’s dangerous.”
“I thought there wasn’t any crime here. The Bridgers and the Savages stay far away.”
“Not from them,” Elanna said. “From the trolls and gobblings.”
Tobin stared at her for a long, silent moment. “The what?”
“Trolls. Gobblings. They hunt at night. They eat people.”
Tobin shook his head. “You’re kidding, right? I mean, is this a joke? It has to be. Right?”
“Why would it be a joke?” She studied him, not understanding. “Surely you’ve seen them.”
“We didn’t have them where I came from.”
She shivered. “You’re lucky.”
Tobin gave her an odd look. “Yeah. I guess so. What do they look like? These…trolls. And gobblings.”
“I’ve never seen one. And I don’t want to,” she added hastily. “When one’s spotted, we all have to go inside. They bar the doors. For our protection. We haven’t had any attacks in years. But they’re still out there.”
“How do you know?”
“The Gatherers find signs of them,” she said.
“And you trust them? You trust the Beit Din.” He said the second not like a question.
Elanna gave him another curious look. “Of course. We have to. The Tribe couldn’t survive very well if we didn’t trust the Beit Din.”
“I didn’t have a council to help me,” Tobin said after a pause. “And I turned out all right.”
“It’s what we know, Tobin.”
“Is that why none of you leave your territory? Why you all stay here?”
“Where would we go?” She said this as though the idea of running away had never crossed her mind.
“Anywhere you wanted?” Tobin gave a small laugh. “Where nobody told you who you had to love.”
At this, she frowned. “You’re talking about this. Us. About what Reb Ephraim said I have to do.”
He wouldn’t look at her.
Elanna was tired of biting her tongue and holding her temper. She’d spent years doing it with the Tribe, but Tobin wasn’t from the Tribe. She owed him nothing. “What are afraid of? Do you think I’m going to try to force you into bed with me? Is that it?”
“Yes, maybe,” he said. “Yes.”
He rubbed his hands up and down along his thighs. The motion annoyed her; she grabbed his hands until he stopped. She forced him to look at her.
“What’s the matter with you, Tobin? I thought…I thought you wanted to be my friend.”
“I do.” He didn’t pull his hands away from hers.
“Then what?” Elanna asked, dismayed to hear the sound of tears in her voice. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want this to matter. She didn’t know why it did.
“I don’t know much about women,” Tobin began.
“Obviously,” Elanna said, but not as bitterly as she might have a few moments before.
That earned a hint of a smile. It made her bite her lip, that smile. In the firelight, with the light gleaming red in his dark hair, Tobin’s smile made a flame curl in her belly.
“Elanna,” Tobin said.
She waited for him to say more, but he seemed to be at a loss for words. The fire crackled and popped, growing dimmer. Soon they’d be sitting in the dark.
“Elanna,” he tried again. “I used to dream about a woman like you.”
“You did?” She was confused, didn’t quite know what to say.
“It’s why I left Eastport, and came here,” he continued softly. He still hadn’t let go of her hands. “The peddler said I’d find people here. And I did. I met you. I just…I just didn’t know that people…”
“Yes?”
She had no idea what he was trying to tell her. For all the time they’d spent together, he was a complete mystery. They didn’t have the same frames of reference; he didn’t understand life in the Tribe and she didn’t understand how he’d lived before co
ming here.
“I always thought about finding one woman, that’s all. Getting...married.”
She laughed, wishing she could call it back once it was out of her mouth but knowing it was too late. The laugh was harsh. “Hopemothers don’t get married, Tobin. We have to be available to any man who could get a child on us.”
And yet, didn’t she feel as wistful as he sounded? Hadn’t she too dreamed of finding one person to be with? It was an impossible dream, but he didn’t know that. How could he? He hadn’t lived here all his life, as she had. He didn’t know that there was no defying the rules of the Tribe.
The fire was even lower now. The lanterns were too high up on the walls to shed any light. Even in the pitch black she would have known he was there.
“I know it’s your duty,” Tobin’s voice thickened. “To be with all the men, I mean. I know that. And I know why. I know that to you, there’s nothing wrong about it…”
“There is nothing wrong with it,” Elanna said.
“I know I should be honored that Reb Ephraim tied you to me,” Tobin said. “I know that there are men here who would pay a high price to be in my position.”
“Yes, that’s true.” What was his point?
“But Elanna…” He sighed again. “I can’t make love to you. Not knowing that it’s only a duty for you. I want more than that.”
Now she really didn’t understand. She’d never heard a man say anything like that. They made appointments with her and she kept them, simple as that.
“You mean like a child?” she asked.
“Yes, I’d like to have a child,” Tobin said. “It’s why I want to go to California. But that’s not what I meant.”
Now it was her turn to sigh. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t want to be just one more appointment, Elanna. Without feelings, it wouldn’t be any good for me.”
She turned this over in her mind. “You mean you don’t want to make love with me because…” and now came the stretch, the leap of faith to a concept she’d never considered, “because you don’t love me?”
“Elanna, no! I don’t want to make love to you because you don’t love me.”
“Love?” The laugh came out before she could stop it. “I don’t think I’d know how.”
She didn’
t need a light to know when he got up and left.
−16-
Elanna hadn’t looked at him, really at him, since two nights before when he’d left her. She hadn’t said anything to him about that night. She hadn’t avoided his company. She’d only stopped looking at him, not stopped talking to him; but although she did everything she was supposed to, it was different. Tobin wanted to apologize but thought that would probably only make matters worse. He’d only known her for two weeks, and he’d hurt her twice. Badly.
He needed to leave this place. Soon, before thegatherers finished their preparations and he could no longer put off the invitation to join them. But not before he’d made things right with her.
Why did he have to keep dreaming of California, when he could find everything he’d dreamed of right here? Because he didn’t want to live in a place where stories about trolls and goblins were used to keep people from leaving, he thought fiercely.
“Thanks for meeting me,” he said when Elanna pushed through the front doors to the Main Hall and onto the street.
She shrugged, still looking through and not at him. Tobin tugged Elanna’s elbow, leading onto the street. She followed without eagerness, but she didn’t balk, either. He was aware of the looks and the whispers that surrounded them as people went about their business, but he ignored them.
He wanted to find a place where they could be alone. No easy task, since even the buildings were still teeming with people who’d come out to see the parade. They’d have to go further.
“Where are we going?” Elanna hesitated when they reached the end of the block and Tobin showed no sign of stopping.
“C’mon,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. Nobody seemed inclined to follow them. “Let’s just go a little further.”
Her face was a mask of stone, but she did as he requested. Even unsmiling she was so lovely, Tobin thought as he scanned the street and buildings for a spot to stop and talk to her. Just ahead and around the corner was a cluster of tall buildings around a sunken spot. Stairs led down to a sheltered concrete patio, with plenty of benches to sit on. Weeds and impoverished looking grass grew in patches among the ruins.
Magnificently, the sunken area had an even lower pit filled with water. A huge statue of a reclining man, once golden but now faded a motley green and gray, watched over the huge fish swimming lazily in the artificial pond. Tobin led Elanna down the steps to sit next to the water.
“Here,” he said. “Sit down. Please.”
She did as he asked with stiff dignity. The late afternoon sun, broken up by the taller buildings, fell in dappled patterns across her face. She smoothed her fingers over the rough concrete, pulling away her hand when it became dark with grit.
“What do you want, Tobin?”
He sat beside her, not touching her but close enough that he could if he wanted to. “Will you look at me, please?”
Her lower lip trembled, and with shame he realized she was close to tears. He had done that, made her cry. He was the monster, not some made-up troll or gobbling.
“Elanna, I’m sorry.”
She looked at him then with tear-bright eyes. She lifted her chin almost defiantly, as though daring him to notice the wetness. Her gaze was steady, and it pierced him.
“It’s easy to say you’re sorry, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be better and easier just not to hurt people?”
“Yes,” he answered. “But I did hurt you, and I’m sorry.”
She waved her hand back and forth. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” he contradicted. “I’m an idiot.”
She let the barest hint of a smile tug at her lips. “Yes, you are.”
“I shouldn’t have left like I did.”
She sighed. “I know what I said must have been…abrupt. And I’m sorry.”
He smiled at her. “It’s easy to say, isn’t it?”
She played with the gravel some more, watching her fingers make patterns in the dirt. When she looked at him again, her eyes were dry. “You don’t know anything about people. I don’t know anything about love. I don’t know what you want, Tobin. I only know how to be the way I am. I’m sorry it isn’t enough for you.”
She could have been stabbing him, so sharp was the pain he felt at her words. “I never said --”
She waved him to silence. “You didn’t have to. I offered you my body because that’s all I know how to give. You didn’t want it. Did you bring me here to talk about this?”
“No,” Tobin replied, though he wanted to talk about it now. He just didn’t know what to say.
“Then what?”
He gathered his thoughts quickly. “I wanted to talk to you about monsters.”
That seemed to startle her. “What about them?”
“How do you think I got here, Elanna?”
“The gatherers brought you.” Her brow creased. “Right?”
“But how did they find me?” Tobin asked. “How did I get into the city?”
“I don’t know,” Elanna said. “I never thought about it.”
“I rode a bicycle,” Tobin said, remembering he hadn’t seen the bike since he’d been here. Or his pack. “From Eastport, Maine.”
Now she frowned. “Maine?”
“It’s a state,” Tobin told her.
“State?”
He thought about the maps that showed the city and little else. “It’s part of the whole country. Like New York or California. It took me six weeks to get here from there. It’s where I lived my whole life. And I didn’t see any monsters along the way, Elanna. Not one.”
She sat back, still frowning. “I don’t understand.”
“T
here aren’t any trolls or gobblings,” Tobin said gently. “At least, I didn’t see any. If there were such things out there, don’t you think they would have tried to get me? How did you think I got here without getting caught by them?”
She stood up agitatedly and began pacing along the edge of the pond. It made him nervous to see her so close to the water’s edge, but he knew better than to try and pull her back.