“What is Ferris up to out there?”
I don’t know how to explain to her without it starting a fight, and I can’t bear another fight right now. Not after this day.
“I do not know. I already asked him if he needs something. He does not. Let us just ignore him, please, and have our dinner.”
Mother stares at me a little too long, with that careful, scrutinizing way of hers. I stare back, hoping the uneasiness I feel does not show in my eyes.
The meal is not my best. I had to leave the market without all the spices I needed for it. But Mother does not seem to notice. She keeps one eye on the window all evening, and on Ferris pacing back and forth past it.
****
The next day is punishingly hot. The sun beats its way into the house, even with the curtains drawn. Ferris is still out there when I wake, and he doesn’t budge all day. I consider putting out some water for him, but that would be like feeding a stray cat; it would only keep him here longer. Eventually he will grow too thirsty, and he will go home, and things will settle back to their normal ways again.
He has to.
I do not dare go into the village again. I decide to wait a few days until things have calmed down. Then everything will go back to normal, and the town will forget.
By nightfall, a few more men have joined Ferris outside in the yard—Danit, who used to be a hand on Mother’s fields before he started his own, and Efraim, a boy I used to help watch when he was younger. They both stand there restless and tense, the same blank hungry stare on their faces as Ferris. When I pass the window, they call out and run for me, so I learn to duck when I go past them. I begin to feel like a hostage in my own home.
But if I ignore them, they will go away. Surely.
The heat does not let up. It only becomes muggier, the thick air making it harder to breathe. Mother comes home hungry and cranky from a rough day in the fields, and the men collecting outside her home do nothing to lift her mood.
“It is Calipher,” I stutter, grasping for something to explain them. The sound of his name causes the emerald to flutter waves of his aura through me. “They are convinced he will return, and that when he does, he will come here.”
It is partially true.
Mother grumbles, but she leaves it at that. She takes her second-day stew and falls asleep in her chair shortly after, too exhausted from a long day of fighting the heat to question it.
We are going to run out of food soon. I have to find a way to get rid of these men.
****
It is mid-morning of the third day when Ferris finally collapses from the heat.
I only realize it when the growing crowd of men start to grumble and shout.
When I peek out the window, Ferris is on the ground unconscious and some of the others are kicking at him, hard. And they are laughing.
I panic—these are not men anymore, they are monsters.
I race out before I know what I am doing, and then realize I am helpless to stop it—what can I do against a mob of angry, dazed men?
I kick at the dust and it cakes to my face, beads of sweat already forming under the sun’s glare. Blood covers Ferris’ face, though I cannot tell where it is coming from.
The anger and fear simmers up in me and I shout at them, “Get away! Stop it!” A helpless plea that comes out in a shrill, shaky tone I have never heard from my own throat before.
But the men stop immediately. They turn away from Ferris and look to me.
I run to him without thinking.
He is limp and unconscious, welts and bruises already forming across his face, and also his arms and legs. My heart pounds in distress.
“Ebraim, water.”
He does it. He grabs the jug we keep in the house and runs back to us. I try to tilt some water into Ferris, but it splatters all around, and I cannot tell if it is working or not. He remains unconscious. The others leer around me, a garble of desperate pleas for my affections and grumbles about finishing the boy. I cannot leave him here. But I do not dare bring him into the house, and oh gods, I do not have the strength to take him back to the village.
Not by myself, at least.
I stand abruptly, knocking into some to the men hovering over us, a thought growing in my mind. But will it work? The warm pulse of the necklace tells me it is right.
“Carry Ferris to his home. Do not harm him,” I order.
The men rush around, eager to be the first to follow my command. When they have gathered and lifted Ferris carefully from the ground, I smile and nod. I can see in their hungry blank eyes that this is reward enough for them.
“Very good. Now go.”
As I watch the men disappear into the woods, an aura of sweet relief and satisfaction fills me to the brim. They are gone. With this weight from my shoulders, I feel free to grieve the loss of Calipher in peace for the first time since he left. I sigh, tilt my head back to the sun—so like Calipher’s own golden hair—and let it fill me. It feels bottomless, all-consuming.
But it is a relief to simply feel it, finally.
“They will all be back again, you know.”
I spin around toward the voice. It is Bastus, of course.
Guilt puddles in my chest, spoiling my moment of indulgence, and I resent him for it. He is so persistent, always an opinion ready about what I should do, who I should be with. As if his feelings for me give him the right to tell me what to do, when really all he’s done is break our friendship.
“What happened?” he asks. His voice is soft, but his expression is hard.
But why should I feel guilty? I did not do anything to Ferris. I stopped it—I saved him.
“He collapsed from the heat, and the others…I didn’t see it at first.”
Bastus rolls his lips into a thin line and shuts his eyes against me.
“These men, they—” I stutter over my words, searching for the right ones to explain.
He cuts me off. “You know it is not them, Nia. Take the necklace off.”
The way he looks at me. He looks wounded. No—disappointed, most deeply. The necklace throbs through me with waves of sweet quiet, shielding me from him. You will not stand here and be chastised like a child.
I straighten up and hold my head high. “Thank you for coming by, Bastus. But it was not necessary.”
And then I turn away and walk back into the house, my mind crowding with anxieties.
Is Bastus right? Is it my fault?
My fingers drift to the necklace and wrap around it. Calipher made me this necklace. The shadow of his presence, that intoxicating peaceful aura, pulses through me, and it is enough.
CHAPTER 12
FERRIS IS BACK again the very next day, his face black and swollen, his pacing now clipped with a limp. The others return, too.
They all seem to be tolerating each other peacefully enough for now, but the heat continues to mount, and so does their restlessness. They pace between the house and the woods endlessly.
Exhaustion from long days in the fields in the hot sun has kept my mother from investigating it too carefully so far. But it will not last. And then what will I say? How long will they keep it up? The questions torture me for days.
The herd outside our house is sluggish and weary, but they keep it up anyway. Instead of shrinking as men give up and go home, it grows. Half the village must be out there by now. I have not left this heat trap of a house for just as long, not since Ferris collapsed.
We’re running out of food.
So they continue to pace outside my house, and I pace within it. I have to do something.
They listened to me when I commanded them before, so maybe they will listen to me again. It’s been rolling through my mind ever since the last time, but I have been afraid to leave the house.
I take a deep breath and wrap my hand around the emerald to collect my nerves. Then I storm out the door.
“Boys.” Some of them are older than my mother. But ‘boys’ feels right. As if I am the one in charge. “Co
me here.”
They stop their pacing and perk up at my voice. And then they listen—they come to me, all of them.
Thank the gods.
No, thank the necklace.
They watch me with intent. With adoration. The way Calipher used to. It satisfies something buried deep within me that I did not even know was there.
It gives me the courage to keep going.
“Boys, go away.”
I try to muster the authority and urgency of last time, when I ordered them to take Ferris home. Despite the uncertainty that shakes my chest, I think I succeed.
But the men do not turn to leave. The adoration on their faces darkens into frowns. They grumble and murmur.
“No, my lady.” I cannot see who the voice comes from, somewhere near the back. “I will never leave, my love.”
“Nor I!”
“Never!”
A cacophony of resistance rises. I step back, toward the house.
“You must! This cannot go on!” Already the strength in my voice is faltering.
“I pledge my love to Riamne, and I will never leave her.”
They are restless and uneasy like a storm cloud, thick and electric and about to burst. But they listened to me before. They listened to me now, until I tried to send them away. What is different?
“Please, Nia, be mine. I cannot bear to be without you.” One of them steps forward and tries to take my hand. I jump back to get away.
Another edges closer, boxing out the first. It hardly matters which is which anymore; they are an endless mob of the same blank stare.
I edge back a little more. Think, I command myself. Think. Something is different. I just wish I knew what.
“Why! Why will you not do as I command!” I stomp the ground in helpless rage.
“I will do anything my love commands!” one cries, reaching for my hand. I pull back again. “My Nia, just tell me what would please you.”
It hits me like a lightning bolt. Last time I asked them to do something. Now I am asking them not to do something.
It is worth trying.
I straighten up and try to feel commanding.
“Men, I command you: Go to your homes. Eat your dinners. Drink from your jugs. Love your families. Rest.”
For a dead pause that sends a chill down my spine, they stare at me with those haunting blank expressions. And then they turn and trail back toward the village. Every last one of them.
They will be back, I am sure of it. But for now, they are gone.
Once they have enough of a lead, I run to get my basket and head into the village myself.
As I make my trades and stock up on the foods we will need, it dawns on me: It’s almost all women. Women trading, women vending, women’s crops available for trade. I could not bear to study the men lurking outside my home carefully, but now I realize that more than half the village’s men must be under the necklace’s pull. The women cast dark glares my way, and I can hear their murmurs to each other—the judgments and assumptions, the rumors.
They say the gods punished my family once for meddling with things we should not, and that They will do it again.
The mention of my father burns, and it pains me to consider what he might think of me now. Shame simmers all the way down into my fingertips, but I wrap a hand around the emerald and remember that Calipher is with me. It soothes me with its aura, curling up inside me and numbing the anger away.
Each time a stray new man comes at me pledging his love, I order him home.
A pulse of warmth flows into me from the necklace, filling me with Calipher’s aura. Under the rush of pleasure it gives me, there is a bittersweet pang, like a homesickness.
But I get what I need from the village without further trouble, and return home. When Mother comes home her eyes flit immediately out the window to the front of the house. When she finds it empty, her mood shifts. She takes her seat, I place a full hot meal before her, and we have a pleasant, quiet evening for once.
See? Bastus was wrong, the necklace whispers to me. Everything is under control. We are in control.
I am so filled with its peaceful presence that it prickles along my neck. Finally, all is well.
CHAPTER 13
THE MEN BEGIN to recollect outside our home again the next day.
I stare at them from the window, my hair sticking to the sweat that gathers along my brow and neck. How are there not any clouds? How long can this unbearable heat keep up?
Along with the heat, a shaky disquiet mounts inside me. But the necklace pulses its aura over me, and my anxieties wash away.
It assures me the men are of no consequence. Not now that I know how to deal with them. I will let them gather throughout the day, and send them all home again at once before Mother comes home.
For now, I let the necklace drown out the anxiety with more pleasant feelings as I complete my other chores. I have not felt this good since the day Calipher took me up on the mountain, by the river, and the full power of his aura came over me for the first time as we pressed into each other. It floats me through the rest of the day.
Until the back door slams open abruptly mid-afternoon, jolting me back to myself. My mother storms in, a wobbly mess.
“You’re early!” I scramble to my feet.
The men are still out front. I inch over to block her view out the window, my mind scrambling for an excuse to go out front so I can order them away.
“Such heat,” she replies, slumping into her chair.
I bring her water. She takes it wordlessly, a terrible scowl on her face. I stare out the window and watch the men. If only I could will them away from inside the house. I have never once seen my mother leave the fields early before. Her mood has spoiled like milk, out in that piercing heat.
As she drinks and rests, my mind races—I must find an excuse to go out front. One that will not draw her attention to what is out there. But my thoughts are blank.
What does it matter? the necklace urges. What is she to us?
But she is something, is she not? She is my mother. And yet, what has she ever done for you? Scolded and ignored and held you back.
I am grasping for an answer when Mother speaks.
“What are you staring at?”
She stands and turns toward the window, and a black dread swallows my heart.
“Back again!” she snarls. Her hands ball into fists and her temper ignites behind her eyes. “Enough!”
“Mother, wait—”
I reach for her, but he is already past me and to the door. I fly to the window, too afraid to be near mother when she realizes all these men are here for me. She flings the door open and storms outside.
“Enough is enough!” she growls. “Taavi! Ferris! All of you! Leave!”
“I will never leave,” Taavi declares. “Not while this is where my Nia resides.”
The others join in with rumblings of agreement. My heartbeat rushes into my ears, and the windowsill creaks under the pressure of my tightening grip.
“Nia?” Mother blinks at them. “You are here for Nia? Come off it,” Mother says with a hard, short laugh.
“No one laughs at my Nia,” Taavi declares. His face no longer holds the slack blankness it did before. Now his heavy brows are folded forward in rage, and his jaw clenched, teeth bared.
He rushes forward and shoves mother backwards, and her head crashes into my window so hard the glass cracks. I jump away with a gasp.
The others swell to Taavi’s sides, surrounding Mother. Their expressions are similarly dark.
Mother gathers herself, pushing away from the house. “I speak of my daughter any way I choose. But you have no claim to her, or the land you stand on,” Mother snaps back. “Leave. Now.”
What happens next is so overwhelming, so strange, so terrible, I cannot believe my senses. Through the window I see Taavi’s expression harden. I am gripped by fear and think to run out to Mother, to order the men away, but before I can a powerful pulse from the necklace overco
mes me, and I am immobilized.
A twitch at the edge of his mouth, and then Taavi’s arm rushes forward and slams Mother flying backwards again, but this time there is no space behind her to stumble through. She slams back against the house with a terrible crack, and her head slams through the window. I duck just in time to avoid the flying glass, and a scream escapes me.
“Step back! Leave her alone!”
They do as I command. I eye Taavi and the others a moment before daring to go out to check Mother’s wounds.
I kneel to her side and call to her, but her body is limp and her eyes stare blankly at nothing.
Heat rushes to my face as if I were drowning in it, and suddenly everything around me feels very, very far away.
“Go away!” I shriek into the house wall. I whip around at Taavi. “Go! Go home!”
As I sink into hysterical sobs, one by one they trail off toward their homes.
CHAPTER 14
“RIAMNE.”
It is Bastus. Who else?
I am not sure how much time has passed, or how long he has been standing there, but it is dark now.
I slipped away to somewhere else, sitting here with my mother’s body. I have stared at her grimaced face so long that my shock has given way to numbness.
I thought I was in control, that I could keep the men in order. But it all happened in a blink, before I could even see she was in any real danger.
Bastus places a hand on my shoulder and I take in the restless eagerness that swims through him.
When he speaks, his voice is gentle, as if to swathe me up like a small child. “Would you like me to send her off to Shael at the river for you? Or we could….” he clears his throat. “We could bury her, if you like.”
My heart swells. It is kind of him to offer to perform Theia’s rites for me, in the absence of an angel to do it. But it would only make my heart ache for Calipher.
“No. If she considered herself a follower of anyone, it was Gloros. We should burn her.”
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