by David Estes
“They weren’t ready,” her father said. “Perhaps tomorrow they will be.”
“What do we do now?”
“Run home. Get rope. Bring my axe.”
“What do I tell Mother?”
“Tell her I sent you.”
Aliyah was already asleep when Shanti burst through the hut door. Shanti expected her mother to be angry, to scold her for sneaking out and returning in the dark, sweaty and filthy.
But she wasn’t. She helped Shanti find the rope and axe, as if she’d expected her all along.
“Come home safe,” she said, watching Shanti race back out into the night. “And bring your father with you.”
Shanti sped through the empty streets, wondering what the other Terans were dreaming of. Were they dreaming of a world without Absence, a world without meaning? She longed to see their faces when they awoke the next morning to find the hole reopened.
When she arrived back at the center of temple, her father used the rope to secure them both to a metal loop pounded into the ground beside the hole. Despite how late it was, Shanti felt energized. She hadn’t expected her father to include her in the next part of the task.
Hand over hand, they lowered themselves back into the hole, their feet thudding on the wooden platform at the bottom.
“Do you want to take a swing?” he asked her.
It took all her restraint to not scream Yes! She nodded, accepting the axe by the handle. He motioned her toward the side of the hole. “Try to cut as close to the wall as possible,” he instructed.
She held the axe with both hands, one much closer to the blade than the other. She swung.
Whack!
It took her several tries to yank the blade back out of the wood, but when she did she found a satisfying slice in it. She looked back at her father and he smiled. “Keep going. Just like that.”
When she tired, he took over. They switched back and forth, moving around the perimeter, hacking through the wooden boards, which began to fall away, clattering into a darkness so complete it was like the absence of light.
A satisfying darkness.
Instead of fear, Shanti felt only warmth, a sensation of comfort. Her skin tingled, not unlike the feeling after a bath, when her mother had scrubbed her clean. “Father…” she said, staring at her arms.
“I know, my Sha-flower,” he said. “I feel it, too. Absence is very much alive.”
Shanti also felt alive, more alive than ever before. She wondered if this was how the priests and priestesses felt during their initiation ritual, when they were lowered into the hole, communing with Absence in darkness for an entire day and night. If so, she suddenly wanted to become a priestess.
While she hung, enjoying the sensation shivering through her, Shanti’s father finished the job, cutting away the rest of the boards, until only open air remained.
Beside each other, they hung from their ropes, dangling over the nothingness beneath them.
“It’s time to go,” her father said.
“I don’t want to.”
“Neither do I,” her father admitted. “But we must. This isn’t our place.”
“Just a little bit longer. Please.”
He relented, and they hung there for what felt like an eternity if it was a second. Just existing. Living. Feeling. Being.
“We have to go, before we can’t bring ourselves to leave,” her father said, more insistently this time.
Shanti took a deep breath, grabbing hold of one of the steps they’d carved into the wall. Started climbing.
When she emerged from the hole, rolling into the dirt, she felt as if she’d lost a part of her soul.
The next day she awoke invigorated, despite having slept only half as long as usual. She threw back her sheets and burst from bed, racing past her mother and shoving open the door.
She stared out expectantly, waiting to see the smiles, the laughs, the looks of wonder and excitement and hope and reinvigorated Faith.
Instead she saw only misery. Those who walked past stared at their feet, their heads hanging. People were going about their daily business, but in a heavy, trudging manner, like they were carrying sacks of stones on their backs.
Confused, Shanti poked her head back inside, searching for her father. “He’s gone,” her mother said, focused on breakfast.
Aliyah said, “Where were you last night anyway?” Her older sister was frowning at her, helping to wash the rice and beans that would soon become their traditional morning meal. Her hair had grown dangerously long, and was on the verge of being disgraceful.
And yet Shanti thought it made her look utterly beautiful.
“Didn’t Father tell you?”
“He wouldn’t say anything.”
Though Shanti was practically bursting to tell someone about what she’d experienced the night before, to shout the truth from the rooftop of the marketplace, she clamped her lips shut. Something about it didn’t feel right, not anymore. Not when the entire city seemed to be swimming in an ocean of sadness.
“We were at temple,” she said.
“Sad, isn’t it?” Aliyah said, her turquoise eyes blinking rapidly. “What will we do without Absence? Will we still visit temple? Will we still seek the virtues?”
“I don’t know!” Shanti snapped, shoving back outside and leaving her sister stunned and her mother halfway through a rebuke.
She ran, anger coursing through her. She was angry at her sister’s questions, angry at her father for leaving without her, angry at the people of the city for acting the same way as yesterday even when everything—everything—had changed. Her father and she had changed it.
Most of all, she was angry at herself for the sinking feeling she felt in her gut, because she felt sad too.
I communed with Absence! I should be happy!
She skidded around a corner and galloped between temple’s huts, screeching to a halt before the very place she’d spent half the night, toiling under the stars.
Her mouth gaped open.
Her father stood arguing with one of the priests, gesturing at the center of temple.
Where, once again, the hole was gone, filled in with hard-packed dirt.
“I don’t understand,” Shanti said, once they were back home again. Her mother and sister where gone, off to the marketplace. “Why can’t we just dig it up again? Show everyone it’s a lie.”
“The people have lost their Faith,” her father said.
“But the priest—”
“The holies, too. They wouldn’t even listen. If they cannot believe without proof, then they don’t deserve to know.”
“But if you show them….”
Before Shanti could finish her thought, a cry rose up from without their hut. Her mother and sister rushed in a moment later, dresses swirling around their ankles.
“Phanecians,” her mother wheezed, her chest heaving.
Shanti hissed in a sharp breath. Their neighbors across the Burning Sea to the north had rarely set foot in Teragon, only appearing once a year during the summer harvest to trade for coffee beans, golden wheat, sugar, and other native goods.
They were too early. Recently, travelers had been telling disconcerting stories of Phanecian slave ships sailing further and further…
“They’ve come for us,” Shanti’s father said. His voice sounded hollow, like part of it had been scooped out and tossed aside.
“The people will fight,” her mother said. “We will fight.” She reached over and snatched their largest knife from the table. Her mouth was pulled into a straight line of determination.
Her father shook his head. “No,” he said. “They won’t fight. They think Absence has abandoned them. They will submit like lambs to wolves.”
Her mother’s face was ashen. “We have to hide the children.”
Her father nodded. “Hurry.”
“No!” Shanti said. “We want to stay with you.” Beside her, Aliyah started crying.
“I know, my Sha-flower, my Ali-bird
,” her father said, cupping each of his daughter’s cheeks. “I know.” And then he grabbed Shanti and forced her toward the bed. She kicked and struggled, but he was too strong. He forced her beneath the bed, into a narrow crawlspace. Aliyah crawled in next, sobbing, her too-long hair getting in Shanti’s mouth.
Shanti tried to shove past her sister, but there wasn’t enough room to maneuver. “Aliyah! Move!”
Her sister only cried harder.
Helpless, Shanti watched her parents’ feet as they crossed the room together. Then she saw the base of a heavy wooden chest as it was slid along the floorboards and shoved against the side of the bed, blocking all light.
Her parents’ footsteps receded away and the door creaked open and then banged shut. Shouts arose once more.
“Sha, I’m scared,” Aliyah said.
Shanti sometimes wished her older sister acted like the older sister. But Aliyah had never been as adventurous as she was, always scared of interesting things like worms and critters and the dark. Still, she was her sister. She put her hand on Aliyah’s shoulder and said, “We’re safe now.” But Mother and Father are not.
More shouts, the sound of slamming doors. Someone crying.
Another door banged open. Ours, Shanti thought.
“Oh Absence,” Aliyah whispered, her voice choked with a sob.
“Shhh,” Shanti murmured in her ear.
Neither of them breathed as footsteps stomped across the room.
Shanti’s father’s voice rose up. “This is our home. How dare you—”
The crack of knuckles hitting flesh rang out, cutting off his protest. “Answer my questions only. Do you and your woman live here?”
“My wife. Yes.”
“Just you?”
“Yes.”
“No children?”
“We have not yet been blessed by Absen—”
Crack! The sound of someone spitting. Her father? “Don’t speak to me of your false god. Your false god is dead!”
Despite her fear, Shanti couldn’t help but think: How does he know that already?
“You filled in the hole, didn’t you?” her father asked.
What? Shanti thought. Why would the Phanecians…
The man laughed. “Very clever. Good thing the rest of your people aren’t so smart. Not me personally, but yes, we are responsible for the death of your god. Someone tried to ruin our plans, but failed.
Shanti wanted to cry, “It was us! We did it!” but she managed to hold her tongue, listening intently for whatever came next.
There was a creak as the man sat down on the chest, moving it slightly with his weight. Shanti could see a sliver now. Her father’s boot, his thick leg. Someone was standing behind him. Holding him perhaps? Is that why he’s not fighting back?
She remembered the knife, the fierce gleam in her mother’s eyes. She wanted her mother to stab this man, to kill him, to break him and end him and—
She realized her fists were clenched so tightly her own fingernails were digging into her palms, hurting her. Slowly, she released them. She’d never felt so angry in her life. Never had thoughts of violence. But now…
She hated the man sitting on the chest. The one holding her father, hurting him. The Phanecians.
“Did this chest used to be over there, against that wall?” the man asked. “I see an outline, a discoloration on the floor.”
Her father said, “Yes. We moved it only recently.” He kept his voice remarkably even.
“Why?”
“We kept tripping over it.”
“Hmm. You have two beds. You and your woman sleep in separate beds?”
“My wife,” he corrected with a growl. “Yes. I am a restless sleeper.”
“You are a good liar,” the man said. “Why do you not submit to us the way the rest of your people do? Why must you make my life difficult?”
“Because I have Faith and Hope and Courage, and all of the other virtues. I am a Seven.”
“Words will not change your fate. Nor your woman’s. Nor your children’s.”
“I have no children.”
“Remove him,” the man ordered. Shanti’s father finally struggled against the man holding him, but it was fruitless, his boots dragging across the wood and out the door.
“Where would I find two little red-skinned heathens hiding?” the man said. There was a tapping sound, perhaps his fingernails against his teeth.
Aliyah’s breaths were coming too fast now, getting louder. Shanti pressed her lips to her sister’s ear and said, “Shhhh.” Her sister quieted and they both held their breath as the man stood up from the chest. His foot was right in front of the narrow gap, facing away. It turned.
With a suddenness that took Shanti’s breath away, he roared, the chest tumbling away, crashing open, spilling its contents—clay pots and dishes, which shattered into thousands of sharp shards.
“Two little heathens, hiding under a bed,” the man sang. His hands flew underneath, dragging Aliyah out by the hair as she screamed.
Shanti tried to grab her sister’s foot, but she was already gone, passed to someone else, who took her away.
Next he came for her.
But she was ready.
The moment his hands appeared, reaching for her, she lunged forward, clamping her teeth down on his wrist. She bit down as hard as she could, tearing at the skin like a piece of meat, growling like an animal. She poured all the hatred and anger and fear she’d felt over the last few moments into that bite.
The man howled, wrenching his hand away, which only caused more of his skin to tear off. Drips of blood pooled on the floorboard in front of Shanti.
She kicked hard, wriggling like a worm, trying to escape. She slid through the blood, fighting to her feet. “You little animal!” the man—who looked more like a woman with his short-cropped hair—screamed, grabbing her shoulders.
She shoved her fingers into his eye, as hard as she could.
He dropped her, releasing another howl, and she tumbled to the floor, banging her knee. Ignoring the pain, she rolled back to her feet and raced for the door, which stood wide open. She galloped into the light, blinking back tears as she scanned her familiar city filled with unfamiliar people.
People who, now, stared at her. The Terans were dead-eyed, looking lost, their hands and feet tied with thick rope. They were being marched along, toward the sea, their feet shuffling lifelessly.
They almost look dead, Shanti thought.
“Shanti!” a voice cried and she spun to the left to locate it. Her father, also bound, twisting his head around to look at her. Three men surrounded him, shoving him away.
“Father!” Shanti took off toward him, slamming into the back of one of the captors, knocking him into her father. They went down in a sprawl of human flesh and ropes, and for one stolen moment, she found herself face to face with the man who’d raised her.
“Don’t fight them,” her father said. “Not now.”
And then strong arms ripped her away from him, lifting her high into the air. No matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t escape.
The stench of human filth seemed to permeate everything. The only sounds were groans and moans and the creak of the wooden ship as it swayed from side to side.
Shanti had lost count of the days and nights at sea, each one blending into the next. In the dim lighting, she stared at her bent legs. They didn’t hurt anymore, so long as she didn’t move them too much.
The man she had hurt back in their hut had broken them both as punishment. They promised her the bones would heal before it was time for her to work.
Her father had collected enough scraps of clothing to wrap them up, stabilizing them for the journey across the sea.
She wondered whether she would ever walk again.
It doesn’t matter, does it? she thought bitterly. We are slaves now. We are nothing.
It was true, the slave masters treated them like sheep, herding them hither and thither, forcing the able to walk for
exercise, to keep them healthy enough to work when they arrived in Phanes. Shanti, however, was forced to stay with the youngest of the children and the oldest of the elders, like some kind of cripple. I am a cripple, she thought.
Aliyah cried every time she was forced to move. It broke Shanti’s heart, but there was nothing she could do for her sister now. At least they hadn’t hurt her—not physically, at least.
Her parents tried to comfort them from time to time, but even they had grown quieter in recent days.
The women were not allowed to cut their hair anymore, and many of them were beginning to look like men. Her own hair felt hot on her shoulders, and she longed to pull it out.
She remembered the last conversation she’d had with her father, whose hair was short now, a coppery dome atop his head. If not for his familiar eyes, he might be a stranger. “Sha-flower,” he’d said. “How do your legs feel?”
“Broken,” she’d said.
She hadn’t meant it as a jape, but he’d laughed anyway. “They will mend. Give them time.”
“Why is this happening?” she’d asked. “It is because the people lost Faith?” She’d been thinking about this a lot.
“Only Absence knows.”
“But Absence has abandoned us, right? Everyone says so.”
Her father shook his head. “No. Absence will never abandon us if we keep space in our hearts for something more than ourselves.
“Father?”
“Yes?”
“We communed with Absence, right?”
“I believe so,” he said.
“But I don’t feel any different. What did the darkness do to us?”
He licked his dry lips, seeming to consider whether to answer such a direct question. Then he nodded. “You deserve to know the truth. Absence grants us our deepest desires.”
Shanti frowned, thinking. “What is yours?”
“To protect my family,” he said.
Shanti glanced over at her mother and sister, both of whom seemed to be sleeping. Even so, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Why?”
Her father laughed. “Absence told me I should. Apparently Absence needs us. Needs you.”