Marie's Journey (Ginecean Chronicles)

by La Porta, Monica

  “To the branding.” One of the two fathered women had spoken, but the fog in Marie’s mind held fast. She looked to Rane for guidance and saw she looked as lost as Marie felt.

  She turned her head forward, but a veil of water altered her vision. Maybe it was raining; her addled brain was slow in deciphering input from the outside. She stumbled a few steps ahead, then stopped when the guards passed through the smaller gate without looking back. She knew deep down resistance was futile—her imprisonment was going to happen with or without her consent, but her legs refused to cross that final threshold. Rane grabbed her by the elbow and gently pushed her along.

  “Welcome to Vasura.” The guard who hadn’t spoken yet smiled at Marie and Rane.

  Marie was shocked to see the woman had meant it. That was even more unsettling than a barked command.

  “The branding will be over soon. Don’t worry.” The woman stepped closer to her and laid a hand on her free arm. “I’m sorry, but it’s the law. I didn’t make it. Every woman sent here has to go through it.”

  When the guard retracted her arm, the sleeve of her uniform slightly rode up and showed part of her forearm. A string of numbers. Slowly, the word “branding” acquired a whole new meaning. Horror struck her when she finally understood the woman didn’t sport a normal tattoo on her arm. She opened her mouth, but not a single syllable came out of it.

  “It’ll be fast. I assure you of that.” The guard was looking at her with concern. “I can provide you with something to lessen the pain if you want.” Personal knowledge etched her expression.

  Then something snapped inside of her, a fury so intense it took Marie by surprise. “No, I want to feel everything. I want to remember.”

  Rane looked startled at her words, but then nodded.

  “Okay. Then let’s get it over with so you can start a new life at Vasura.” The woman seemed pleased by Marie’s answer and walked ahead toward a small building just a few yards on the right.

  Marie looked around. Now that her senses were slowly coming back to her, she started noticing the world behind the second wall. A whole city lay before her eyes. Gray, low buildings dotted the paved roads while bustling activity was undergoing. Even that late at night, people moved around with purpose, mostly on foot, but also on small carts pulled by horses. A second, more careful look revealed a detail that shocked her. A paramount feature of Vasura, it seemed. She blinked, once, twice, then faced Rane to be sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

  “Yes, I did hear of it… but witnessing it is another thing altogether.” Rane’s eyes were wide, darting right and left.

  Women and men were moving around, some of them even working together. And there were kids of both genders playing in the streets.

  “It happens every single time,” the other guard—the older brunette—commented; she had feigned disinterest since ordering them out of the bus but was now looking at them with mirth in her eyes. “This way.” She knocked at the door of the small building and entered without waiting for a response.

  Oppressing heat bathed them once inside. It took a moment to get used to the dim light from the dozens of candles scattered on the tiled floor. The effect was hypnotic; the wavering light was enough to look where she put her feet, but not enough to see what was hidden in the darkness. Combined with the warm air, she struggled to inhale. It lulled her into a sudden stupor. The brazier came into view at the end of the hallway they had just crossed. Sudden fear gripped Marie, and with it, a painful sharpness of the mind. Only the expecting look from the brunette steeled her resolve not to make a scene in front of her.

  “I’ll go first.” Marie spoke slowly, trying to hide the panic rising in her chest. She hoped the doctor would understand her silent plea. She needed to finish this quickly.

  Rane nodded again. “Sure, go ahead.” Her tone was flippant, but she gave Marie a small caress on her back to let her know she understood.

  An older woman, her hair cropped so close to her skull she resembled a man, beckoned them to come closer with a gesture of her bony arm. She raised an eyebrow when Marie approached her. “I see,” she said after a few seconds of unblinking stare. “Remove your shirt.” The woman sat by the brazier and tilted her head in wait.

  Marie hesitated; she wasn’t wearing an undershirt, just her bra. The idea of undressing before everyone almost undid her prior resolve, tears threatening to spill. Madame Carla had impressed upon her pupils that a fathered girl first and foremost must defend her honor. Showing skin wasn’t proper.

  “Think of her as a doctor and that you’re here to get vaccinated.” Rane was behind her, her hand on Marie’s arm, gently squeezing it. “Will you hold my hand when it’s my turn?”

  Marie knew the doctor didn’t need her help to get through the ordeal, but was glad for her lie. She tossed her shirt over her head and then covered her chest with it, clutching the cotton.

  “Sit on the stool and give me your left arm.” The order was given with a tired tone. The old woman must have gone through myriads of brandings. She turned to her right to open a big tome lying on a low table.

  Marie sat as told, but before completing the task and raising her arm, she asked, “What’s your name?”

  The older woman raised her eyes from the book and looked over the brazier. Surprise was soon replaced by interest in her wary gaze. “Why do you want to know? Nobody’s ever asked before.”

  “So you won’t forget about me.” Marie kept her eyes on her.

  The older woman tilted her head to the side, the orange-red coals illuminating the lower part of her face, and her uneven teeth shone unexpectedly white when a grin spread through her face. “They call me Mala.”

  “Marie.” She raised her arm then and watched as Mala chose between several branding tools neatly arranged on a second low table on her left. She then turned to check a board hanging on the wall behind her. The white surface was filled with a string of numbers. The first half was crossed off with a marker. She double-checked the first unused digit and then turned to face Marie. “Ready for the branding irons?” Her lips mouthing the numbers, she leaned over the tome, grabbed a pen from the table and scribbled them on a yellowed page already half full with writing.

  “I don’t have a choice.” Marie looked at the tools. Dipped in the fiery coal, their extremities were slowly changing color until they reached the same shade of orange and red as the coal. There were too many of the branding irons, more than she wanted to count.

  “No, you don’t. But remember, I don’t have a choice either.” Mala raised her eyes toward the guards behind Marie. “Hold her still.”

  “It’s for your safety,” the gentler guard whispered in her ear.

  She braced for the pain she thought she knew was coming, but when the first iron touched her skin, she screamed. By the time the fourth had left its sickly message on her forearm, she could barely breathe, but the torture continued way after she had reached her limit. She didn’t faint though. Finally, Mala raised the last iron from her sizzling skin; the familiar smell of seared chicken filled the air, and she felt her stomach contracting. She retched. Someone helped her stand and led her to sit in a corner. There she sat, frozen. The screaming started again, but this time she wasn’t the one losing her mind. Soon, too soon, she was hauled up and forced to walk when her legs barely felt like they could support her.

  “I’ll see you both later.” Through the pain and the haziness, Mala’s words reached her ears and she recoiled at the thought of having to visit that place again.

  Once outside, the cooler temperature felt freezing cold over her drenched body. Her hair hung lifeless and heavy on her shoulders and she wished she didn’t have hair at all. The pain propagated from her arm to the rest of her body in sharp, pulsating spikes that made her sweat despite the cold. Not daring to look at the mangled arm, she kept it at an angle, away from her waist.

  “The pain will lessen.” The fair-skinned guard was still holding her intact arm.

  “I know.” She
wanted to be alone to be free to cry, scream, and curse all the pure breed women to oblivion.

  “You’ll be free from duty until tomorrow morning. Rest and report to the barracks at six o’clock sharp.” The brunette pointed at a low building composed by several cargo containers put together. “Tonight, you’ll have your beauty sleep at the novice quarters.” She steered them toward another cluster of giant metal boxes. Someone had taken the time to paint the corrugated surfaces in white. As they neared the only visible entrance, Marie saw that a few flowers had been planted around the perimeter. “You’ll be taken care of in case there’re complications.”

  A woman was already at the door, waiting for them. She looked in her mid-thirties, muscular, short hair, but not as short as Mala’s, and had an olive complexion. “How did it go?” Her lilting accent betrayed her marine origins, but she infused it with a no-nonsense attitude.

  “They didn’t faint.” The gentler guard motioned for Marie and Rane to go inside; her hand squeezed Marie’s arm with intention and so she looked at her. “I’m Cata.” After introducing herself, she left.

  “My name is Zena and I’m a nurse.” The woman stood with her back straight, her legs wide open, and her arms crossed behind her back, resembling more a soldier than a nurse. “You must be Marie, and you Rane. Do you need anything?”

  Marie stared at the woman, pain blinding her. Rane croaked something about being a doctor.

  Zena’s expression changed, her eyes looking at Rane with renewed respect. “A doctor—” She reached for Rane’s unhurt arm and shook her hand. “About time we got a doctor.”

  “I’ll do my best to help.” Rane grimaced and Zena released her hand.

  “I’ll go get the salve for you.” Zena beckoned them inside, keeping the metal screen opened with her booted foot. “It will help you sleep.” Her arm outstretched, she pointed at a corridor opening to the antechamber. “Your beds are that way.”

  Marie heard the doctor and the nurse talking; mostly Zena did the talking while Rane grunted monosyllabic answers. She concentrated on the pain, thinking it would go away. Inadvertently, her branded arm touched her body. She screamed and then sank to the floor, sobbing. Why me?

  “You didn’t do anything to deserve this.” Zena was at her side, carefully cradling her to her chest, making sure she wasn’t touching Marie’s wounded arm. Her voice had softened. “It wasn’t your fault.” Her big hand stroked Marie’s back with a gentleness Marie hadn’t expected from the woman.

  “No, it’s mine.” Rane dropped on the floor too, sitting on her knees, her face marked by tears.

  Marie realized she had talked out loud, and tried to extricate herself from the nurse’s embrace.

  Zena relaxed her arms and let her go. “It’s okay to be scared. You’re in a lot of pain.”

  “I’m not a crier.” She shook her head. “I’m not a coward.” But in declaring so, she felt she was being exactly that.

  A small smile appeared on the nurse’s severe face. “Women double your age faint the moment the first iron touches their skin. You’re a young, courageous woman and we need people like you here.”

  Marie accepted her proffered hand and let the woman help her to stand on wobbly legs. “I feel lightheaded.” She actually felt she couldn’t walk at all.

  “Shock.” Rane was trembling too. “Normal.”

  She leaned on the nurse’s strong frame, unable to combat the shaking and the chills that accompanied the searing pain anymore. They passed other women, but none of them stopped the slow procession.

  Zena addressed them, asking for the salve and a pack of gauze, and the women scattered around, leaving them alone in a big room with no apparent windows and a claustrophobic, low ceiling. She accompanied Marie to one of the beds placed in two rows facing each other and looked at Rane from over her shoulder. “Doctor, pick one. You’re the only visitors tonight.” She helped Marie to a bed and then lowered what looked like a hook hanging over the head of the bed. “We’ll keep your arm raised, so you don’t accidentally sleep on it.”

  She looked at the woman, vision blurred, and then at the hook. “Okay.” Marie started laughing. A terrible sound, interwoven with sobs and muscle spasms. She closed her eyes, hoping to wake back up at the Institute. Fever came, and then chills. Someone applied something pleasant over her arm, a cream with a minty scent. Her eyes watered from the vapors, but it was a nice change from the throbbing pain.

  Heat from above like a blanket over her body woke her the next day. She slowly opened her eyes to see her arm had been bandaged and was now resting over a pillow by her side. Sweat covered her from head to toe, her tongue felt like sandpaper inside her mouth, and she could barely swallow. The sound of a chair being dragged closer echoed inside her head as if her skull was an empty room. Her eyes moved looking for the source of the loud noise.

  “How do you feel?” Zena was sitting mere inches from her bed.

  “Confused.” She tried to raise her uninjured arm and it fell on the bed, lifeless.

  “We had to drug you. You were thrashing around and the doctor was worried you’d go too deep in shock.” Zena looked at Marie as if assessing her for a few seconds and then her face relaxed.

  “Thank you.” Had her body responded to the command, she would have hugged the woman. “Can I have some water?” Her words sounded like they came from under a pillow and she wasn’t sure the nurse had understood, but then she saw her walking out of sight and coming back a few seconds later with a pitcher and a glass. “Thank you.”

  Zena raised Marie’s head, then brought the glass to her mouth and let her swallow a few sips of water. “You okay?” When she saw that Marie was fine, she let her finish the glass. “I’m afraid you’ll have to report for duty later in the afternoon.”

  Marie looked around for Rane, wondering where she was.

  “The doctor was called to work first thing in the morning. I managed to convince the field boss you were in no shape to start your shift until later in the afternoon.” The nurse put the pitcher and the glass back. Her expression was mournful. “Listen, girl, you must toughen up and open your mind. This place can break people. You’ll see things you aren’t used to. And you look too frail and young for your own good.” Despite her words, her hand fell lightly on Marie’s head and patted it with slow strokes.

  Marie allowed the intimacy, finding a measure of solace in the stranger’s affection. The idea that she shouldn’t have felt comforted flickered among the chaos of her confused thoughts, but she needed that more than she needed to preserve her respectability. And then a question emerged—did being respectable mean anything out there? Did she care anymore? Her answer to that question was to lean against Zena’s caress. “I can be tough.” She wasn’t sure what the woman had meant with the open-minded bit.

  The woman’s chuckle reverberated through her hands. “Of course you can. But I had to say it. It made me feel better.”

  The nurse’s words reminded her of the harsh talk-downs Madame Carla gave her pupils when something bad would happen at the Institute. More than once, she had thought the rector had looked more scared for them than anything else. Maybe that was how adults coped with the fear of something happening to their loved ones. She missed the lashing-outs and the seemingly severe punishments. She had missed the Institute long enough. Redfarm hadn’t turn out to be the great place she had dreamed of. The feeling she was alone threatened to fill all her thoughts and she drew strength from the notion that a stranger could be worried for her. The sound of Grant’s voice came out of nowhere, dispersing that little of peace she had conquered.

  A hand squeezed her arm. “Hey, sleepyhead? Are you here?”

  The words brought Marie back. “Oh, yes, yes.” She shook her head and tried to move sit upright position, but her head swayed.

  “We had to give you strong painkillers. Just rest against my arm.” Zena helped her up again and then gave her some water. “Your head will clear in a few minutes. I need to apply some salve to your
burns. Brace for it. It won’t be pleasant.” She let her go for a moment and then replaced her support with two pillows she put under her head. “Better?”

  Marie nodded, warily looking at the nurse’s fingers working on the gauzes on her arm. “It smells terrible.” Cooked meat.

  “Look the other way.” Zena’s hands hovered above the last layers of bloody gauzes.

  Marie shook her head. “I need to look.” But she did brace for the worst. Nevertheless, a gasp escaped her mouth.

  “It’ll look better once it’s healed.” The woman raised her left sleeve to reveal her branding. The name “Vasura” was followed by three numbers and then a symbol Marie didn’t recognize. “After a while, you’ll come to like it and to be proud of it.”

  She raised her eyes from the branding to Zena, surprised by her last statement. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  “In time, you’ll see I’m right. Remember what I said about opening your mind.” The nurse applied a thick ointment on Marie’s arm. It wasn’t as minty as the one she had used the night before.

  Marie’s nose stung when the acrid scent reached it. “And that smells even worse.”

  Zena smiled at her childish complaint and then chuckled. “Deal with it. You’ll have to clean and take care of yourself coming this afternoon. I’ll give you a jar of this salve to take with you.”

  10

  The end of her stay at the novices’ barracks came too soon. In the following hours, Zena brought her three small meals, greased her arm with liberal amounts of the same pungent ointment, and told her to leave it un-bandaged for the time being. Finally, when it was evident there wasn’t anything else to be done, she hugged her and Marie hugged her back, her feelings running too wild to deny herself some human warmth.

  “I’ll walk you to the field manager.” Zena helped her, wearing a white shirt and loose pants. “Fortunately, you’re too young to end up at the recycling facility. But at eighteen, you’ll be asked to work a month a year there. Everybody does it.” Her face darkened.