by Kristen Pike
Tomman would cry with him.
Tomman stood outside the door, his fingers brushing the wood, lingering above the handle, holding his breath, turning the knob, letting the door slide open silently, exhaling.
It was so clean, everything in its place. Her dresses hung by color in the wardrobe. Her jewelry in a little music box on a black table. A small window that overlooked the yard where she would garden flowers in a small box, all gone now, of course. Tomman stepped into the room. A single picture of her sat on a tall narrow table in the center of the room, set in an oval frame. His mother had been beautiful, painfully so. It’s no surprise his father had never gotten over her; it was no wonder his father hated him for taking her out of the world.
Tomman had her eyes. And her hair. Tomman had her willowy figure and soft lips. Tomman had her small nose and although Tomman had never laughed, he imagined that he had her laugh too.
Tomman placed the picture he hadn’t realized he had picked up back on the table.
He went over to the jewelry box, opening the lid and soft music notes fluttered out, it was as if his mother was trying to hug him from beyond the grave, caressing him softly with her favorite song, forgiving him for murdering her.
But Tomman knew better. He would never forgive himself, how could she?
Tomman turned around and his heart stopped. He froze, his fingers twitched, he started crying. “I’m sorry.” He whispered.
His father’s face was contorted in rage, his body trembled with anger. “What did you hope to accomplish by coming in here?” Tomman shook his head, his tears falling onto the floor. He would have to clean that up later. “You don’t get to be close to her!” His father yelled spit flying from his mouth. Tomman nodded his head, staring at the floor.
His father strode over to him, mumbling curse words under his breath. He grabbed Tomman by his stingy shirt, hauling him from the room.
“YOU MURDERED HER!” his father screamed at him. Tomman nodded.
Murderer. Thief.
His father pushed him out the front door, Tomman fell to his knees as his father hauled him down the front steps, but refused to stop. He brought Tomman into the alley that ran between their house and the empty one next door.
His father never hit him in the house; he did not want his dead wife to see what he did to Tomman.
The first hit rang through his head, dizzying him. The second and third sent stars shooting across his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” Tomman gasped. He didn’t know if he was still crying or not. He didn’t think so. His head hurt too much to notice.
“You’re sorry?” His father seethed, punching him in the chest, sucking all the air from Tomman’s throat, leaving him gaping open mouthed.
“STOP!” Tomman heard a girl yell out, but he couldn’t see her, he could only see his father’s rage, his astonishment. He couldn’t breathe. He hurt. He hurt so bad. His stomach rumbled. “Let him go!” The girl demanded. Maybe it was an angel. Maybe he was dead. He wondered if he would see his mother in heaven, or if she hated him too much to see him, even in the afterlife.
His father blustered, releasing Tomman and he fell to the ground, he sucked in air, keeling over, he wretched nothing, his stomach contracting painfully, he couldn’t even afford to lose the air that had filled it. He cried.
“Miss, you don’t understand, the boy-“
“Stop.” The girl said, her voice sounded like music, like his mothers favorite song.
“I think you should just go back where you came from, this is of no concern to you.” His father said. Please don’t leave me here with him. Tomman pleaded, Tomman begged. Tomman wiped his tears, his head pounding between his eyes.
“Stop talking.” The music voice. It was beautiful. “Leave. Start walking and never stop. Never come back for the boy, never think about him again, live out your days in agony and shame. Go! Never stop!” the girl screamed. Tomman smiled, or he tried to smile, it might have been a grimace.
His father turned and walked away, not sparing a glance at Tomman, his son, the boy who murdered his wife.
Tomman looked at the girl. She was almost as beautiful as his mother with black hair and luminescent green eyes. She took Tommans breath away. She smiled and fell to the ground beside him, pulling him into a hug. Tommans body went stiff, expecting to be hit. Never before had he been touched like this, held, and he was surprised to find that she was crying to. He wanted to tell her to stop, that he didn’t deserve her tears, but he could not force the words past his lips, he couldn’t make himself say it.
He hugged her back, fiercely, gripping onto her shirt as though she was going to float away and they stood there for hours, for days, maybe they stood there for years, maybe he had died after all.
“I’m so sorry,” she said after an eternity, pulling away from him and he felt so sad, his first hug, and it was gone, like it never happened, whisked away into the sun. He felt like crying again. Tomman shook his head.
The girl placed her fingers under his chin, tilting his head so he looked at her. “You’re safe now.” She said to him gently, “you never have to see him again. You’re safe now.” She repeated and he shook his head, he didn’t know what safe was.
“Safe?” He asked, and she nodded but he wasn’t asking IF he was safe, he was asking what safety WAS.
“My name is Rowan; would you like to come with me?” She asked.
A choice? He had never had a choice before.
Tomman nodded.
They walked in silence, his hand in hers as though he were a child that would get lost. Maybe he was. He saw the distrusting stares people threw at her, but she walked with her head up. He trusted her.
They left behind the glaring, angry people, and into the woods. The air felt fresh, clean, freeing. He did not deserve such air.
Rowan led him to a group of people sitting on piles of blankets, the sun was going down and the stood up at her approach. One in particular, with blonde hair, looked anxious at her return.
“Rowan,” the man said, looking at her, as he knew his father looked at his mother’s picture. “I see we have a friend.”
“Jace this is- I’m so sorry, I don’t know your name!” Rowan exclaimed.
His name? He searched his memory for one, he was sure his father called him something other than thief, murderer. Tomman? Was that his name? He thought so. “Tomman.” He told them, unsure of all the faces peering down at him.
“Tomman.” Rowan smiled warmly, kindly. Rowan introduced him to the people around him, but he barely remembered their names. Except one. Chev. Chev he remembered. He looked terrifying, but he smiled softly at Tomman, his eyes a little sad.
Tomman smiled back at him. At least he thought it was a smile. He wasn’t sure if his face knew how to smile. He just hoped he didn’t grimace. The rest of the day was a blur, he was given blankets, and he started crying again. His father had never given him a blanket, maybe hoping he would freeze to death in the frigid winter seasons, and now he had several. Several blankets, all for him.
When Chev and Rowan had handed them to him Rowan had apologized, she said she knew it wasn’t much. Tomman had hugged her again, overwhelmed with gratitude. He was given a bowl of thick stew, and he gobbled it down, eying the leftovers, not daring to ask for more, he had already taken too much.
He felt like a thief again. Chev had ladled more into his bowl, another soft, sad smile.
He settled into the night in a pallet beside Chev’s and for the first time in his life, he fell asleep content…
“You don’t deserve happiness!” His father yelled at him, “you deserve to be dead, like your mother!”
Tomman nodded.
“Say it!” His father screeched, “say you deserve to be dead.”
“I deserve to be dead.” Tomman said automatically, his motto.
“Say it like you mean it.” His father snarled, shoving him into the closet, Tomman fell forward, falling into the back of the shallow closet face first, his nose
bursting open with blood.
“No please, don’t leave me in here. Please!” Tomman begged, pounding on the inside of the closet doors. “I deserve to be dead! I’m so sorry, Father please, I deserve to be dead!” he collapsed on the floor, “please, just don’t leave me in here.” He begged, “please don’t leave me in here…”
Tomman woke with a start; his breathing labored his memory nightmares still swirling in his mind. His father may be gone, but he would never escape him. Tomman heard talking near him, soft voices whispering secrets through the trees.
He could tell right away that it was Rowan, but it took him a few minutes, and until she said his name, that she was talking to Jace. Tomman listened to them for several hours until exhaustion finally tugged him back into sleep. They were telling each other stories. About each other, about their pasts, about their dreams.
Tomman would stay up late over the next few weeks, listening to them after everyone else had gone to sleep, just talking to each other, endless hours. It was as if they could not get enough information about the other person. They wanted to know everything.
Favorite color. Tomman didn’t know someone could have a favorite color. Rowan said hers was blue. Jace’s was a shade of yellow. Tomman decided his would be green, the color of Rowan’s eyes, the color of his freedom.
They wanted to know each other’s worst memory, happiest memory. They talked about anything and everything, for hours on end and Tomman felt like he knew them better than he knew himself. He wondered if he would talk with someone like they talked to each other. He hoped so; he thought maybe he deserved that.
EIGHT
THREE MONTHS AGO- MAY
Rowan loved being in the woods. She loved the fresh smell of trees and animals, their scent prickling her nose and making her think of long ago memories with Elias and her father on summer days, laughing and playing as though their world was made of sunshine and green leaves and the tip of a butterfly’s wing along her cheek as she pranced by it. She liked the sounds streams made as they babbled over rocks and took bends, following the forest floor like a map, tinkling softly as it chattered about its destination. She liked the feel of the soft grass beneath her toes when they came to a clearing and the crunch of pine needles and twigs when they walked through the forest. She liked to look up at night and see the millions of stars winking down at her. Some nights when she couldn’t sleep, she hoped the moon would be saying sorry, for keeping her mother’s secrets all those years.
It was a quiet night like that; with an owl hooting in the distance, calling its babes in for bed perhaps, and a small stream talking to itself a dozen feet away that Rowan contentedly found herself watching the fire crack in its pit, the embers sparking into the sky, as if they hoped to catch on a cloud and float away, to become something better than heat and destruction.
Rowan could hear the sounds of Mashanna, the large town they were perched on the borders of, people shouting goodnight to one another as they retired for the evening. Horses by the dozen were clomping and neighing their way through the dark streets as their owners wandered home drunk, or exhausted from a hard day’s work, or a pair of teenagers sneaking out to be together without their parents’ watchful eye following their every move.
There was soft, slow music playing on an instrument she could not name, though she closed her eyes and swayed to the high-pitched sound. Every now and then loud laughter would float out to them from a bar, caught on a breeze and carried through the forest. Tomman was dancing a little ways away from her, his arms out to the side as he turned in circles, prancing about the forest as though that was what he had done all his life.
Rowan had sent Jonquil, who always insisted that he be the one to go into the towns they crossed, and Pickard into Mashanna to get food. Even though they had little money, they were the best hagglers, and had returned with what was practically a feast: venison, a multitude of vegetables, and a still warm loaf of wheat bread, though one end was slightly blackened. Jace told them that was because the baker had left it to close to the fire for to long.
Rowan took a bite of the stew that Chev had made, it consisted of potatoes, carrots, barley, venison, and some sage Vordis kept in his medical bag for making tinctures. The thick, aromatic, stews smell surrounded them all as they sat around the fire Barton had started.
“This is the best stew you’ve made yet Two Fingered Chev!” Barton laughed to him across the fire, a chorus of agreement fluttered through the group and Barton slurped the gravy of the stew from his bowl as if to prove just how good the meal was. Chev looked at Barton, not saying a word, though he tipped his head in acknowledgment to the compliment.
“You did not?” Mills shouted at Pickard, an incredulous look plastered to his face, drawing Rowan’s attention toward the pair, who sat directly across from her, talking animatedly.
“The honest truth,” Pickard assured him, his eyes large and serious, “saved six children and the fire was growing large around me, the whole building about to collapse, they all would have died in there if not for my bravery!” Pickard boasted and Mills nodded his head, Pickard holding his rapt attention.
Rowan looked fondly around the fire at her group, her eyes coming to rest on Mills, who was chuckling again at something Pickard had said. He was in his mid-twenties if she had to venture a guess, with small lines at the corner of his mouth and eyes. He had thick, curly, brown hair the color of mud and it tumbled nearly to his collar. His darker brown eyes were always darting around, observing, taking in his surroundings and filing the information in the back of his mind. Rowan knew he was much smarter than he let on, locking his observations away in his head to be used later. Though, to what end Rowan did not know.
Mills had joined her troupe in the first village she had come across. Half of it had been burnt to the ground and Mills was wandering around the center of it drunk and shirtless. He was raving about how Elias had killed his wife, his beautiful wife Delilah. Mills had blubbered to her the day they had met that Elias had slashed his wife over and over in a mindless rage, screaming and crying incoherently. Mills had told her that after Elias had killed his wife he had then barricaded himself in a building, sobbing hysterically. He had tried to kill himself by setting the building on fire, but had fled the last minute to leave the uncontrollable fire to be culled by the townspeople.
Rowan had tried to imagine Elias hanging himself like their father but the image made her sick, and she shoved the thoughts from her head.
Rowan had stopped a stray horse that had been frightened by all the fires from trampling Mills on a dirt road and he had followed her ever since, claiming he had nowhere else to be, and nothing else to do. Rowan suspected he had a more nefarious purpose for joining her, but figured that would come out when they finally caught up to her brother. In the meantime, he kept to himself and did as she asked without complaint, so she kept him around. He was an excellent hunter, and even better cook- though Chev did most of both- so he had his uses.
Rowan eyed Pickard across the fire, laughing as stew gravy dribbled down his chin. He wiped it on his sleeve and vaulted into another story about a time he once wrestled a bear. Rowan suspected he just liked to hear himself talk, as he was most of the time, his gruff voice flinging out over all other conversations and drowning them out until you had to stop and listen to what he was saying. He was always telling outrages stories; only few could actually be believed. His eyes always sparkled with an unknown secret, as if the world were a joke and he was in on it, but that just might be how people looked when they were perpetually drunk.
Pickard always picked up a flask or two of some kind of spirit whenever they were near a town, sneaking away with darting eyes as though he was the picture of stealth. In fact, Rowan had never seen him sober in all their months of travel together. Pickard could often be seen ducking behind a tree to take a swig from a flask, as if his habit was unknown and the others hadn’t caught on to his dirty secret.
All the men sat around the fire talking, sharin
g meat, having formed a strong bond though they were but a group of misfits thrown together in poor circumstances. There was Barton, and sweet Tomman, still dancing, swaying like grass in the wind. Old Vordis who talked so slowly Rowan could feel years slipping by when she had a conversation with him, minutes trickling like sand into water, washing away never to be seen again, and there was despiteful Galamee, who refused to leave though Rowan had told him many times she didn’t want him there. Galamee had been pleasant the first few days after she had found him in the words, but he quickly turned bitter, demanding, and entitled. She looked at each of the men assembled around her, feeling proud –mostly, there was an exception in Galamee- of the men that she had assembled around her.
Her eyes came to rest on Jace, her gaze always drawn to him, searching for him, and she always felt her mouth pull up in a smile when she caught sight of him, her heart beating faster as though she had started sprinting, though she could not say why.
Maybe it was his wavy blond hair that always seemed unruly and unkempt no matter how many times he tried to smooth it down, and Rowan HAD seen him to try smooth it down. And although Rowan had never seen the green of the ocean, she imagined that was the color of Jace’s eyes; that unfathomably deep green that she could get lost, irrevocably and completely lost in, if she really wanted to.
Jace turned his head to look at her from across the fire, as if pulled by her gaze on him; a look crossed his face that Rowan could not name though she a kin’d it to desperation. It was replaced quickly by a smile that made Rowan’s knees shake and he jerked his head, indicating he wanted her to follow him and traipsed off into the darkness, oblivious to the reaction he was causing in her.
Rowan followed slowly, feeling completely comfortable with following Jace off into the dark woods. Once she would have said that the only person she knew better than herself was Elias, with his painted fingers and soft, reassuring words, his protective nature, determined to never let any harm come to his little sister. But she no longer knew Elias, could no longer guess what he was thinking by the look in his eyes, he was as much a mystery to her as her mother.