The Book of Kell

by Amy Briant

  “Say, Alma—have you ever been on a treasure hunt?”

  She smiled and nodded, which was her go-to conversational staple. I was never quite sure how much she understood in English or in Spanish, as she talked even less than her sister. But she was game, even more so after I shared my pudding with her.

  Licking the spoon, which she insisted on bringing, she followed me to the first of the small unmarked structures on the inner loop.

  “¡Hola, Alma! Hey, Kell!” We passed the carpentry crew who were headed toward the meadow. Alma waved her spoon at everyone, caught up in the festival-related excitement which had slowly been building all day.

  There were a few people coming and going on the main thoroughfare, but when we surreptitiously ducked around the back of a building, all was quiet. It was little more than a shack, but it had windows. I peeked in, which Alma immediately copied. Stacks of boxes, shelves of jars and bottles—it was all food, neatly organized. Didn’t seem like a likely place to store our dirty gear. The one and only door was in the front, right on the street. I paused there to shake out an imaginary pebble from my boot, Alma watching me avidly. When I looked around to make sure no one was watching us, she copied that too. Not the most covert of companions, but what could I do? With no one else in sight, I tried the front door. Locked.

  Alma tried the knob too and rattled it mightily.

  “Come on,” I hissed, already moving toward the next unmarked building.

  With an ear to ear grin, she galloped after me. Again, we casually cruised around the back. This was one of their military-style tents erected on a wooden platform. The plastic windows were cloudy with age and tough to see through, but it appeared this was more storage, this time of clothing, shoes and bedding.

  “Ropas,” I said to Alma, who nodded emphatically as if she already knew that.

  Come to think of it, she probably knew what was inside every building. She’d practically grown up at Tres Hermanas. I tried asking her in two languages if she knew where my stuff was, but either I wasn’t getting through or she genuinely didn’t know.

  On to the next building, which was a little larger, and, to my disappointment, mostly empty. When I casually tried the front door, it opened to my surprise. Alma peered over my shoulder with interest, then sneezed on the dusty air within. There was nothing much in there—a few small tables and chairs, one larger table and a cabinet which held a few papers and some pencils.

  I looked a question at Alma, who was carefully and affectionately touching each chair, each table. She said proudly, “Mi escuela.” My school.

  I guess I’d put school right out of my mind after I (sort of) graduated. There were a few kids here, although I’d seen them in the fields with their mothers during the day. Probably all hands on deck during harvest season, with classes to resume afterward.

  I grabbed Alma and ducked beneath the window at the sound of horses coming up the street.

  “So let’s be extra careful tonight, all right, ladies?” Pinto’s voice carried. “This guy may still be out there and we don’t want him crashing the party.”

  We waited a minute and then exited the school. There was no one on the street as we followed the loop back toward the dining area. I was running out of places to look. I tried to remember which way Marta had gone when she took our gear that first day, but it was a blur. All I could say for sure was that she hadn’t been gone long. It made sense that our things were somewhere here in town. But where?

  There were two places left between us and the back of the dining area. One was a locked and windowless shed, the other Simone’s office trailer. If my backpack was in the trailer, I was sunk. People were in and out of there all day, I’d observed. At the moment, I could see Simone’s fluffy white hair through the rear window. Looked like she was alone, but I couldn’t think how to flush her out. And where were her constant companions, Violet and Rain Cloud? I’d never seen her without them before. Maybe they were off somewhere working on festival preparations like everybody else.

  I turned my attention to the locked shed. There was one door and it was secured with a padlock. I put my eye to a knothole in the wooden door, but was rewarded only with the darkness inside. Alma tried out the knothole herself and seemed as disappointed as I was at the view. I checked out the lock, the hinges, the exterior of the shed, searching for any weakness that might allow me to get in, but to no avail. I’d read stories where locks were picked, but that was not one of my skills. Bashing it with a rock seemed likely to draw unwanted attention. Frustrated, I sighed and sat down, my back to the shed. I was out of ideas.

  Alma touched my sleeve and gestured with her right fist, a twisting movement. She did it again, more insistently.

  “I don’t have the key, Alma. We can’t get in.”

  A door slammed nearby, claiming our attention. Simone was out of her office, heading away from us and toward the latrines, moving with a purpose. Alma smiled down upon me beatifically and held up one index finger, perfectly copying her sister’s peremptory gesture.

  I watched, eyebrows raised, as she walked to the office, up the stairs and inside. Simone had disappeared from sight. There was no one else around. I held my breath as Alma emerged and started back toward me. I could not get her to accelerate, despite my urgent gestures and hissed “Alma! Hurry up!”

  Still smiling, she deposited a ring of keys in my hand. A few high-speed minutes later, what seemed like the forty-second key finally worked and we were inside a nearly empty shed. East’s backpack lay on top of mine in a corner. Moving quickly, I retrieved both bags, relocked the door, sent Alma to restore the keys to the office and huddled behind the shed with my treasure trying to figure out where to hide it. In front of me was a line of trees, separating the inner loop from the next ring. With no one else in sight, I ran to the trees, found the most easily climbed one and stashed the bags up and out of sight in its branches.

  To my dismay, Alma was right there waiting for me when I returned to earth. I had hoped to hide them without her seeing. Owlishly, she peered upward into the leafy boughs, then back at me, puzzled by my actions.

  I put my finger to my lips and said, “It’s a secret, okay, Alma? ¿Secreto?”

  She grinned and put her finger to her lips, copying me again. Did she understand? But then she leaned close, her forehead against mine and whispered one word to confirm our arrangement.

  “Secreto.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Party Time

  I spent the rest of that afternoon unsuccessfully searching for East, with Alma happily tagging along after me. Everywhere I went, East was nowhere to be found. She was “around here somewhere” or “I think she just left.” Was it simply bad luck that I kept missing her? It was a busy day for the kitchen crew and they were all over the place, with frenzied preparations at the cooking tent and in the meadow. It looked like it was going to be one rager of a party.

  I couldn’t repress an uneasy whisper of paranoia. I tried to ignore it, but where was East? Surely, they couldn’t be purposely keeping us apart.

  Could they?

  It was close to sundown when Alma and I finally returned to our tent. My stomach was rumbling, partly from hunger and partly from tension. I was curious to see what the big harvest feast was going to be like—every meal at Tres Hermanas had seemed like a feast to me. But I was also keenly aware that, if my plan worked, this would be my last meal there.

  Marta, with her knee wrapped, was slow but ambulatory. She clucked at and scolded Alma in rapid-fire Spanish, hurrying to get them both ready for the party. Matching cotton dresses with embroidered flowers and birds were laid out on the lower bunk for the sisters—orange for Alma, yellow for Marta.

  My wardrobe choice was easy. I decided to go with what I was already wearing. We’d seen other women on the path, some dressed up (either formally or outlandishly), some dressed down—and I mean way, way down, like body paint only. Good thing it was a warm night.

  “Hey, Marta, where’s Nancy? Is
she feeling better?” I’d noticed her bed was neatly made.

  The festive mood must have infected even Marta, who deigned to answer me while rebraiding Alma’s pigtail.

  “She’s good. She’s riding with Pinto tonight.”

  It made sense that not everyone could go to the party. Some crews would have to have women working, like Security and Kitchen. Marta and Alma, it transpired, were off to the childcare tent after the opening ceremony in the amphitheater to help out with the kiddy version of the festival.

  Which meant I was on my own. Perfect.

  In the distance, I heard the drum circle start up in the meadow, signaling the commencement of the celebration. The drummers had been practicing all week with more enthusiasm than talent, but it did look like fun.

  “Vámonos,” Marta said. She held out her hand to Alma, who took it and then grabbed mine too. I was grateful for the gathering darkness as we walked down the trail. I was going to miss these sisters and Nancy. What the hell was I thinking, making friends?

  The tantalizing food smells wafting over from the meadow distracted me from the lump in my throat. There was music in the air too, some sort of intoxicating, primeval, thumping rhythm that already had a few of the ladies dancing in the aisles of the amphitheater. I hoped the speeches would be short. We found three seats in an upper row. The place was packed.

  My plan was to leave Tres Hermanas that night. I wanted to leave. I had to leave. But an unexpected rush of sentiment had me seeing the assemblage as if for the first time. A joyous and excited crowd of hundreds of women, laughing, talking, calling to their friends. Black, white, Asian, Hispanic and more. Every kind of queer I could think of and others I hadn’t had time to ponder yet. Maybe it was all the marijuana smoke drifting up from the rows below us, but in that moment, I felt only love for Tres Hermanas and its residents.

  “Sisters!”

  The music and the lights cut out abruptly. A single spot bore down dramatically on Simone at center stage, flanked by Violet and Rain Cloud. All three wore matching loose-fitting tunics and trousers with rainbow sashes. The minions’ outfits were cream-colored, while Simone’s was black, providing contrast to the fluffy white hair. Her speech was the usual bombast laden with platitudes. I could have written her script myself—blah blah bountiful harvest, blah blah sisterhood, teamwork, gratitude. There were gaps between her phrases in which the excited crowd was supposed to clap and stomp and hooray. They readily complied.

  There was only one item of interest for me.

  “One last thing before we sit down to our feast.”

  The crowd again screamed its approval, either at the proposed cessation of the oratory or in anticipation of the food, or maybe both.

  “Pinto asked me to remind you all to be safe in your revelry, my sisters. Stay within the meadow and the first two rings and you’ll be fine. Both Pinto and Sarge are leading patrol squads tonight to ensure our security and our right to…PARTY!”

  That must have been the signal, because the music and lights came back up. The crowd rose as one and started streaming toward the meadow. I was swept along by the momentum, all the while scanning the women around me for a glimpse of East. I caught hold of a post at the top of the stairs and paused to get my bearings. Marta and Alma appeared, with Marta telling me they were off to their dinner at the childcare tent.

  “But you go to the meadow, Kell,” Marta told me. “Have some fun, but cuidado, okay? Mira—la fiesta va a ser muy loca.”

  Fun was the last thing on my mind, especially when I realized this was my final farewell to the two of them. I hadn’t noticed before that moment that Alma still had the spoon from lunch and was waving goodbye with it. Somehow, that nearly undid me. I forced back tears, doing my best to appear nonchalant. Marta would normally have picked up on my emotion, but between her knee and her sister, and with the manic crowd surging around us, her antennae were down. We exchanged quick hasta mañanas and then they were gone into the darkness. I felt even shittier that I would soon be sneaking off without saying goodbye to Nancy. But if anyone would understand, Nancy would.

  The amphitheater was empty. I could see a few stragglers headed in the direction of the meadow. I couldn’t decide whether to go eat or continue my search for East. Before I could make up my mind, a voice hailed me from the dark road.

  “Ah, there you are, mon petit Kell. Nancy asked me to escort you to the party as we are both on our own tonight.”

  It was the French doctor, Pinto’s girlfriend, cheerfully accosting me. “You are going to dinner, oui?”

  I didn’t see how I could say no without raising suspicion. And I was hungry.

  “Oui,” I responded, which made her smile. She looped her arm through mine and marched me down to the meadow, all the while regaling me with tales of festivals past and painting a mouthwatering picture of the feast that awaited us. She also gave me a few tips.

  “Tonight is all about having fun, Kell, and letting loose. This will be some party, I promise you. You might even find it a little scary. You have nothing to fear, however, from anyone at Tres Hermanas. If it gets to be too much, you can always go to your sleeping tent. No one will bother you there.”

  “Bother me?”

  “Well,” she said, considering me while somehow managing to look very French. “There will be a lot of drinking tonight, you know? Drinking and dancing and making love. Do you know what I mean?”

  One of Gran’s phrases came to mind.

  “Sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll?” I asked her.

  She grinned. “Exactement. And you are welcome to participate as much or as little as you want to. Since this is your first festival, I encourage you to take it easy. And…”

  “Yes?”

  “How can I put this? You may be offered things tonight.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “All manner of things, chérie, but I am thinking of alcohol, marijuana, other drugs. Sex too.”

  I was a little shocked but did my best to hide it.

  “I don’t do those things,” I told her, sounding primmer than I liked. Even if I did, that was not the night to indulge. I needed to stay sharp for the big escape.

  “Très bien,” she replied, slapping me on the back. “As your doctor, I commend you. Anyhow, if anyone offers you something or asks you something, just remember you can simply say no. This night always gets out of hand, but no one will force you to have more fun than you want. And you can always stay with me in the first aid tent—it’s the one over there with the red cross on it.”

  Dinner was all that I had hoped for, gastronomically speaking. What I remember most from that meal, however, is not the food, which was as divine as it was varied, and in sumptuous portions. No, what I remember best was the kindness of the women around me. Maybe it was because I knew I was leaving, but it struck me afresh that night. There I was, without my crew, without East and yet I was hailed as a friend. Family. And I knew their names, their faces, their jobs, where they lived and with whom. I’d only been there a few weeks and they could have still viewed me as the stranger, the outsider.

  But instead, it was “Kell, how are you doing? You’re gonna love the festival!”

  “Kell, have you tried the roast potatoes? They’re fantastic! Here, try these.”

  And “I’m saving a dance for you, Kell, don’t forget!”

  Their affectionate, guileless welcome was in jarring juxtaposition to the thoughts racing through my brain.

  Find East.

  Get our stuff.

  Escape!

  But I smiled and nodded and ate my fill. As the evening progressed, the wine and what Gran called “shine” were flowing freely. The Tres Hermanans were celebrating with wild abandon. Voices got louder, laughter grew harsher. The doctor excused herself early to take command of the medical tent. I looked around at all the long tables set up under the stars in the meadow, the darkness held at bay by torches, and saw more than one accident just waiting to happen.

  The foo
d was served buffet-style that night, with some of the kitchen workers on hand to help. Others came and went with trays heaped high to restock the serving tables. But East was not among them.

  Like everyone else, I made multiple trips to the buffet. I made a point of circulating through different sections of tables each time I returned to my seat, casually glancing at all the diners.

  No East—where the hell was the woman?

  If anyone noticed I was stashing extra food in my pockets, they were too polite to say so.

  Dinner turned to dessert turned to the party itself. I strolled alone through the assorted entertainments, frustrated by my inability to find East and all too conscious that the clock was ticking. I was convinced that that night was our best chance to leave Tres Hermanas on our own terms.

  I was a realist. I knew my chances of finding my sister were slim. I knew I could make a life at Tres Hermanas if I wanted to. I would have friends there, people to talk to. I’d be a valued citizen and worker, no longer the freak, the other. The shunned and reviled. Different is dead, Gran had warned me. But not at Tres Hermanas. My differences were welcome there.

  But…Gabriel. My flesh and blood. My only true family. I had to find Segundo and Gabriel. And if I died trying, well, then all my problems would be over.

  If I did reach Segundo, maybe I could establish a connection between the two communities. Nancy had said they traded with other groups. So perhaps, someday…

  I shivered in the warm night air. I was dreaming about second chances and that was dumb. The world I lived in wasn’t big on second chances.

  I found I had wandered to the center of the meadow, where the deejay was blasting and the dancers writhed and leaped. I stood and watched from the shadows for a time. East was definitely not among them. Her hair, her height, her lithe gracefulness would have stood out.

  Dancing was far from the only amusement that night. The drum circle was still pounding away. And there were booths in the meadow—a fortune teller, massage tables, games of skill and chance, exhibits of arts and crafts, and an incredible (to me), and aptly named, creation called a “slip and slide”—a pathway of slick black plastic doused with running water. Shrieking naked women ran full tilt and launched themselves down it for a wild ride of short duration, but high velocity. I would have liked to try that one, except for the naked part. Crowds lined each side of the slide, laughing and yelling at the participants, and passing judgments on distance and style. I heard one woman say it was better in the old days with “gel-oh.” Whatever that was.