“This boy was just a child, not yet a man. Children are a commodity just like any other. Sometimes an asset to be treasured, sometimes a nuisance and a liability to be eliminated. Remember that.”
Mark is the only one waiting for Kyle to walk back to the barracks.
A crow loudly cawed, looking down on him from the ridgepole of the roof. A brisk wind knocked loose a pane of glass barely hanging on. The shattering glass behind him startled Kyle. In his ears it sounded like the crack of the boy’s nose under his knuckles the day General Drape made him a lieutenant over his fellow recruits. Sometimes an asset, sometimes a nuisance. Now all he had to do was get back to Gemma and hope he could distract her away from children for a little longer.
* * * * *
The room was dark except for a tiny candle swimming in a day’s spent wax and the dying light of the fire that played on Bridget’s face where she lay on her pallet on the floor of her bedroom. Sophie wanted to keep her as warm as possible on the cold night. Through the window, the moon hung in a murky puddle of gray, an eerie halo crowning the night. People look different by firelight. A softness descends with the evening, forgiving flaws, inviting closeness. Sophie sat in her rocking chair, just staring at Bridget. She tried to hold on to every piece of her, every blonde curl on her head, her soft cheeks, still like a baby’s. Bridget no longer opened her eyes. She couldn’t give her mother the pleading look that Sophie loved and dreaded. But her chest was still rising and falling with each labored breath. Sophie held a panicky hope that medicine would arrive from the Watch, that a miracle would come with the sunrise. Her ears ached, straining to hear someone walking up to the house or a knock on the door that didn’t come. But she had never felt so alone or afraid. Even on the lonely nights in the woods as a child when the only voice she had heard for days was her own crying, she wasn’t this afraid. It was as if she was watching her own life fall away before her.
The child trembled, and Sophie was immediately at her side. She lay down next to her and wrapped her daughter in her arms, stroking her hair, trying to comfort her. She spoke softly to her, “It’s alright, my love. Mommy’s here. I won’t leave you.”
Sophie gazed at the candle in the corner where it flickered and sputtered. She wrapped Bridget in the gentle lullaby that was a comfort to them both. “So when my thoughts begin to stray, I know you’re not far away. I’ll see you always near me, or so it seems. For you will always be here somewhere in my dreams.”
The melted wax formed a puddle in the candleholder. The tiny flame shuddered with a final glimmer, then slowly faded into darkness.
* * * * *
“They’ve started putting barbed wire fences along the Border. Miles of the stuff.” Sam drew his finger along the map Zacharias had laid across the kitchen table. Ethan sat in the corner of the room, working on the alphabet Sam had given him to copy with chalk on a broken piece of slate.
In the week since returning from Boswell, Sam had tried to make a couple of trips across the Border but found his way barred with new guards unable to be bribed or circumvented and high barbed wire fences unable to be scaled.
“What could they be worried about keeping out?” Sam continued. “There haven’t been border raids for years. Not even a hint of anyone trying to get in from the cities. And I’ve seen those cities. They are desolate graveyards.”
“Or maybe what are they trying to keep in?” Zacharias mused to himself.
“You think this is to keep us in?”
“Maybe.”
“What messages are coming from the Corsairs?”
“You’ll be able to hear for yourself. There’s to be a mandatory town meeting two days from now. Show me again where you saw the fences.”
Sam looked down at the map full of pencil marks, shadings, crossed out sections. The map from Before bore the scars of a land changed through natural disaster and governmental borders. Z had painted the ocean in blue, miles inland from where it used to be, drawn mountains where there once were valleys, new rivers flowing through woods and fields. “They started here at the fork in the river, going southwest along the mountainside. But when I was in Boswell, I could see where they started at the oceanside and were building a fence along the Southern Border. And it looks as if they might even be starting one along the water’s edge, as well.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. There have to be other villages and survivors outside those borders. Why would they want to separate us?”
“We can’t be sure there are other villages. Maybe we’re it.” Sam didn’t like to think of it, how many people would have died leaving only the few villages within the Border. But he’d seen and buried plenty of remains. Too many to count.
“You told me yourself you saw where there were new trees cut outside the Border when you were heading back from the lumber camp.”
“They could have just been scavengers like me.”
“Maybe. But maybe not.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Z.”
“I don’t know yet, I just . . .”
The front door crashed open, spilling Gemma into the room. Sam, Zacharias, and Ethan all turned to face her. She gulped air into her lungs, having run all the way from town. Gemma’s eyes caught Sam’s. They both registered fear from the other, seeking comfort in their silent exchange as they used to.
“Gemma, what on earth?” Z’s question brought her back.
“There’s been a public flogging. Today. In the square in Boswell.”
“It can’t be. They promised us.” Sam sat down under the weight of the news. His thoughts turned to the woman he had met. Sophie had admitted to the Government Office that her child was illegal. Could they have flogged her for that?
“Then it’s beginning already.” Z’s voice was as sharp as a razor, but calm.
“Who was it? Do you know?”
Zacharias noted the tightness in Sam’s voice, full of anxiety.
“I don’t have a name yet. But he was a member of the Watch, so I’m told,” Gemma replied, but still looked at Zacharias, trying not to meet Sam’s eyes again.
“He . . .”
“That’s not all,” Gemma continued.
“Here, drink some water and sit down and tell us calmly.” Zacharias maneuvered her to the table while Ethan jumped in to provide the water.
“I don’t have all the information. Just a short message from the Watch.” Gemma paused to take the drink from Ethan. She gave him a smile that reassured him despite the fearful events she was talking about.
Sam walked over to her, giving her a look that asked her to wait to go on. “Ethan, could you take your writing upstairs?”
“There’s no reason he shouldn’t hear,” Gemma protested. “After all, we may need to recruit him soon enough.”
“Run along, son.”
Ethan bristled at being treated like a child but didn’t want to go against Sam. Once he was upstairs, Sam spoke sharply, “Gemma, I don’t want him involved in Watch activities. I’ll not have his childhood ruined. It’s no place for a boy his age.”
“You can’t be so naive, Sam. Do you seriously think you can keep him out of all this?”
“I’m going to do my best to try.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ll help where I can, but I won’t be involved in any killing.”
“Well, that’s what I came here to tell you and Zacharias. That’s what started all of this. The message I received said a government official, Griffyth Credell, was found strangled last night in the G.O. in Boswell. Then this morning, one of our members was dragged into the square and flogged.”
“Is he the one who killed the man, or do we even know it was a member of the Watch who did it?” Zacharias was skeptical that it wasn’t all a trick played out by the Triumvirate and the Corsairs.
“The leaders of the Watch seem to think so. They’ve tasked me with finding the murderer or murderers and removing them from the Watch. I’m to send them beyond the Border.”
&
nbsp; “I’m still not sure it was someone . . .”
“We tried to be so careful to protect ourselves and the cause,” Gemma talked over Zacharias, unable to stop her racing thoughts. “And now some over-excited, unthinking hot-head has brought suspicion and punishment down on us. Everything’s at stake here. With the public floggings, it’s only a matter of time before the executions will follow. All our care and planning has gone to hell!”
Zacharias tried to maintain an air of control. He knew how easy it was to let speculation run away with people, which always led to rash acts, maybe even what had led to this killing. “It may just be an isolated event. You said yourself we don’t have all the information. Maybe they had no choice. I suppose they have the right to follow their own conscience . . .”
“Right? We have no rights! The Corsairs and the Triumvirate have all the rights, laws, and power. We are the ones left with nothing. Even still, we’re losing what little ground we had gained. We can’t resort to the methods of the Corsairs or we’re no better than they are. This is not how we do things. There are rules for a reason. If everyone just goes out for revenge hunting, this will all turn into anarchy. I don’t care what the motives were. This is not the way things are done. But now it doesn’t even matter if one of ours did it or not. We’re guilty by association. So now we’re left with a choice. We can either publicly denounce the act and the perpetrator, or we can change our tactics, start fighting real battles.”
“I’m not sure that’s the right move,” Sam spoke softly.
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Gemma, this is how it always starts. We’re just reliving the same pattern over and over and over again. Aren’t you tired of it yet?”
“You can’t imagine I want violence. You know me better than that. I just don’t see how we will have any other choice. Real battles fought out in the open may be our only recourse.”
“One killing leads to another, then ten, then a hundred. And before you know it, a whole generation is wiped out. Honestly, we just don’t have enough lives to give to the cause this time. It’s already exacted too high a payment.”
“The Corsairs dragged him out of his house in front of his wife and son,” Gemma whispered, observing Sam’s reaction as he visibly flinched at her words. His jaw tightened and he gripped the back of the chair. “They were on horses and dragged him between them into the square. Then they strung him up as if he were an animal to be skinned. They’re not fighting fair. At least if we start real battles, they won’t be murdering us one by one without any opposition. At least we’ll have a fighting chance!”
“Will we?”
Gemma knew what he was thinking, who he was thinking of. She always knew. They shared a past, the same memories, nightmares, fears. She knew he had watched his own parents dragged out of their house after the First Revolution when their comrades had betrayed them to the Corsairs for their involvement in the war. Just as she had watched her own parents suffer the same fate. She knew she’d pushed him too far. But now was not the time for people to be burying their heads in the sand; that only ever led to burying more dead.
“I’ll go up and see if Ethan needs any help,” Zacharias offered, thinking he would leave them alone to work it out between them.
An eavesdropping Ethan scurried upstairs before anyone could find him crouched and listening.
“No, I’ll go.” Sam was up the stairs before anyone could protest.
Gemma looked pleadingly at Zacharias. “Z, bring him to the town meeting in a couple of days.”
“We don’t really have a choice now, do we?”
“You know what I mean. Maybe if he hears the propaganda and dictates the Corsairs are throwing around, he’ll see they aren’t giving us a choice.”
“I suppose we’re past the point of keeping up appearances.”
“When you’re on the chessboard, you can’t just play your pawns or sit back and make no move at all. Eventually, you have to engage the enemy. We didn’t make the rules, we just have to live by them.”
“The rules seem to always be changing, don’t they?”
* * * * *
That evening, Gemma went to the cabin to see Daisy before returning home. She felt an overwhelming need to check on her charge and the other children with her. She thought about what Sam had said about not letting Ethan help with the Watch. Maybe she was wrong for letting Daisy be involved. Maybe she was putting her in danger. But then she thought of herself at Daisy’s age, not even twelve years old. She knew she would have done anything to help fight the Corsairs with her parents if she’d been given the chance. She didn’t force Daisy to do anything. The child wanted to help. Besides, she mostly just delivered messages, which seemed safe enough.
The cabin was dark and cold when she arrived. She lit a lantern and stirred the waning fire. Each of the children living there had created their own space in different corners of the large main room with bedrolls, knickknacks, and their own personal treasures stashed among what few things they possessed. Young Hughie had built a fort for himself and his twin sister made out of mismatched pillows, cushions, and boxes completely surrounding their blankets. Seth, one of the older boys, had collected bottles of all different shapes and sizes. Jake, as a semi-leader, had staked out the back room as his own. No one was allowed to trespass there, not even Gemma.
In Daisy’s space, Gemma found several paintings she’d created on long pieces of bark, the paint derived from berries and plants found in the woods. The child was really quite talented. Gemma held a sunset in her hands that made her think of an entire world existing inside that piece of bark. She found herself wondering what other talents were hidden under the survival the citizens were forced to eke out. Sam used to talk to her about all the things he wanted to do, professions he’d read about in books. None of that was possible now. How many artists were toiling in the fields or working in government camps just for the privilege of survival? How had this type of life become normal?
Excited whooping outside the door broke into Gemma’s thoughts. Five children came tromping into the cabin. They were each congratulating each other on their fine hunting skills. There would be a feast this night of two rabbits. The oldest two boys, Seth and Jake, walked into the kitchen to begin preparing their kill for the fire.
“Gemma!” Daisy ran to her friend, surprised by the unplanned visit. Gemma held the child’s cold cheeks in her hands, noticing how chapped and red they were. This winter had been hard on her.
Gemma greeted all the children warmly. “I’ve brought you all some bread and apples to go with your feast. Daisy, will you do the honors?”
Daisy passed out pieces of bread and one apple to each of the other children. Little Hughie and Petal took their food and walked to their beds without a word. The twins would never speak when Gemma was around or allow her to touch them or come near. But they clutched the food gratefully in their hands and ate hungrily enough to let her know her gifts were appreciated. They both crunched into the cool apples, juice dripping down their tiny chins. Hughie reached his arm around his sister to help warm her after their sojourn in the cold night. Gemma often pondered about what horrors the little ones could have seen to make them so distrustful of adults.
“What made you come tonight?” Daisy asked, settling into the rocking chair with Gemma in front of the fire.
“I came to tell you that you must all be extra careful from now on. There’s been an attack in another village. I don’t know if the soldiers will be searching out children specifically, but they may be in these woods looking for members of the Watch. So try to avoid them if you can. None of the normal tricks or pranks, alright?”
Seth and Jake moaned at this, not wanting to give up one of their favorite pastimes.
“Have you seen the fences at the borders?” Gemma asked.
Daisy nodded.
“You’ll want to steer clear of those as well.”
“What’s going on, Gemma? Why are things changing?”
&nbs
p; Gemma ran her fingers through Daisy’s hair as she talked to her. She wanted to make sure she warned her enough to keep the child safe. But how much fear was it necessary to instill in her? She wished again that she could bring them all back to her own house and keep them safe under her protection. “I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, sweetheart. All I know is that it might get worse before it gets better. So it’s best for you to all lay low.”
“You mean no more messages, either?”
“Only when it’s absolutely necessary.”
Daisy put her head down on Gemma’s shoulder. She tried to soak in the feeling of comfort and safety she felt in Gemma’s presence, treasuring it like a special treat to be enjoyed later. Gemma always seemed to have an earthy scent about her mixed with the sweet smell of the tiny white fairy bell flowers, even in the winter. Daisy tried to remember what it was like when her own mother had held her this way, but Gemma had been the prevailing figure in her life for so long that her face had begun to blend into her mother’s face, almost blurring into the same entity. She leaned her face into Gemma’s neck. She didn’t care if the boys saw her or called her a baby.
“I’ll come to check on you as often as I can. I promise.”
Daisy didn’t respond.
Gemma held her more tightly. “And you can help me keep the little ones safe, right? I’m counting on you, honey.”
Daisy nodded.
Gemma tried to glance unnoticed at the twins in their corner, wishing they too would let her in. And though they stared unashamedly at her and Daisy, they merely clutched each other tighter as Petal played with her own hair.
“Now, would you like a game or a story?”
Daisy followed Gemma’s gaze toward the twins and gave the answer that would bring joy to them as well. “Story.”
A Light From the Ashes Page 11