Was it wrong to lust after your aunt? Isaiah knew the answer to that one—yes. And disgusting too, but what could he do when she paraded around naked in his dreams? Uncle Barrett and Aunt Feenie hadn’t seen him yet, so he pressed his back against the wall, trying not to look at her half-exposed breasts.
“Of course you love Red,” Isaiah heard Feenie say, “but that has nothing to do with it. For Christ’s sake—he says God is talking to him through that damn sinkhole. Galatia can’t afford to have a mentally unstable man like that in power.”
“If it wasn’t for Red,” Barrett said, “there would be no Galatia.”
“If it wasn’t for Red, someone else would have taken the reins, and we would have settled somewhere else and done it a lot sooner. Look around, could he have picked a worse spot? Smack between the Regalans and the Slivens. This land has been coveted by every nation for centuries. Now we’re sitting on it like idiots waiting to get our heads knocked off.”
“But…”
“Barrett, my sweet.” She reached out to place a hand on his cheek. “Haven’t you heard the whispers around the city? Even you’ve made snide remarks about how he spends so much time at the mouth, talking to it like an imaginary friend. Being a psychologist doesn’t make him immune to insanity. Brotherly love has blinded you to the harsh truth. If you care about Galatia, you will remove your brother from office.”
“I can’t do that.”
“As sheriff of this town, it’s your duty to protect the people from danger, and I’m not the only one who thinks Red is as dangerous as the Alliance.”
“Who else thinks so?”
“Professor Sweet, Lucinda Moon, Nathan Steelsun—just to name a few.”
“I can see Sweet and Moon saying that—but not Nathan—that man has nothing good to say about anyone, except Blanche, of course.”
“Well, he hasn’t come out and said it directly, but I sense he would support a shift of power.”
Isaiah heard a zipper sliding down and noticed the reflection in the mirror at the corner of the room’s open door. “Whoa—not here.” Barrett took hold of her wrists. “I would never go against Red.”
“I’m not asking you to,” she said, going for his pants once again. “All I want you to do is prepare, just in case it becomes inevitable.”
As soon as Barrett let go of her wrists, she knelt in front of him on the floor. Isaiah couldn’t see everything, but a guy would have to be pretty naïve to not know what she was doing. And right there in front of comatose Grandma.
That was just so wrong.
Having heard enough, and seen enough, Isaiah barged into the room.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said, narrowing his eyes accusingly. Feenie’s head shot up, startled. Uncle Barrett looked up like a man caught with his pants down. Well, because they were down part way.
“Uh, nothing,” Uncle Barrett said. “We were just…uh.”
“I was sucking your uncle’s cock,” Feenie said, rubbing the tip of her index finger seductively over her lower lip. “Has a girl ever done that for you before, sweetie?”
Isaiah was too shocked to reply and just stood there with his mouth gaping open.
“Feenie!” Barrett said sharply. “I don’t want you talk like that in front of my nephew.”
“He’s a grown man. I was just teasing.”
“Please, Isaiah,” Uncle Barrett said apologetically. “You have to understand, my wife was sold into slavery as a...well, you know. It’s going to take her a while to—”
“To act like a Galatian prude?” Feenie said, tears welling up in her eyes, chin quivering. “Is that what you want me to be? I was just trying to make you feel good. I wanted to show how much I love you. I’m sorry I don’t know how to express it in a prim and proper way anymore.”
“Feenie, please don’t cry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Uh,” Isaiah wished he hadn’t opened such a sensitive topic. “I’m here for my shift with Grandma. I can wait out in the lobby until you’re, uh...through.”
“I was forced into prostitution against my will!” Feenie blurted out to Isaiah.
That was news to Isaiah, but perhaps it explained why she acted so...well, slutty. As he tried to decide how to reply to that, Feenie covered her face with her palms and began to sob.
“I can admit what happened to me, but your uncle can’t.” She sniffled. “He’s forbidden me from telling anyone.”
“Feenie...” Uncle Barrett pleaded. “Please, don’t twist my words.”
“Then why can’t I speak of it, Barrett? Is it because you’re the sheriff now and you think having a former sex slave for a wife will make you look bad?”
“No, no, it’s not like that it at all.”
“I want to believe you.” Her lower lip trembled as tears spilled down her cheeks. “But I feel like you’re ashamed of me. If you don’t want me anymore and prefer that I return to the grave, I will, Barrett. That is how much I love you.”l
“No, Feenie, I love you more than life itself—nothing can change that. Please, don’t talk like that. I never want to lose you again.”
Isaiah kept edging toward the door.
“You don’t have to do that,” Feenie said, her whole body shuddering. “We’re leaving now.”
Barrett wrapped her in the hospital’s blanket, and held her close as he helped her out into the hallway, leaving Isaiah staring after them. Geez, what a mess. He felt sorry for his aunt, his uncle too, but part of him was pissed at the both of them.
The things Feenie had said about Dad weren’t true, but if respected members of the community felt the same way, that meant trouble up ahead. Isaiah settled into the chair next to Grandma’s bed with a sour feeling in his stomach.
Chapter Sixteen
(Josephine Rose Albright)
When Josie was a little girl, riding the rope swing in Biodome Two was the essence of freedom. The wide arcing up and down through the air, the rhythm of her legs pumping beneath the seat, the creaking of the prickly rope in her hands, and at the highest point, her bare feet would plunge into the canopy of maple leaves above her head—could life get any sweeter? Sometimes she imagined sailing through the dome’s glass ceiling and exploding out onto the surface of the Earth. Who knew what grand adventure waited up there? Oh, how she loved the way the swing transported her body and spirit to a different realm. But today the rocking motion made her queasy.
“Let me off,” she moaned. “I gotta get off.”
“Miss,” a voice came from far away, speaking in a strange, but familiar language. “Miss—are you all right?”
Slowly, she opened one eye. A freckled face attached to a pair of unfamiliar blue eyes looked down at her with concern—a petite brunette—maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. One front tooth was broken in half, but other than that, she was pretty. Another girl’s face came into view. Her eyes were wide set and brown—also pretty. She wore her blondish hair in a braid that wound over the top of her head like a crown; pieces of straw and dried leaves were caught in the strands.
Rubbing her temples, and feeling a wide band of metal around her neck, Josie winced.
“You all right?” the girl asked again.
“What are you all doing up here in my tree?” Josie demanded to know.
“What language is she speaking?” the girl asked someone sitting across from her. “Where did you say you two are from?”
“A place about as far away from here as you can imagine,” a familiar male voice explained, in Commoner.
Lars.
In a flash, everything that had happened to her since the day of the earthquake and resultant fire came back to her—the evacuation, the wumper attack, the illness spreading through camp, the Sliven raid, the reunion, the mission, sliding down the mountainside, the wild ride down the Kalida, and of course, the Seeker of the Four Winds. Her hand flew to her wrist— he Seeker was still strapped down to her arm and straining on its leash.
“I’m alive,” she groa
ned, wishing she could return to the carefree days she had been dreaming about, take the elevator back to her family pod, and curl up in bed with the likes of Harry, Ron and Hermione.
“How are you feeling—nausea, headache, any sharp pains?” she heard Lars ask. He was speaking English now, which they hadn’t done for a while. “You’ve been out for two days.”
Taking inventory of her body, she felt okay other than being stiff all over. The floor she was lying on was covered with a layer of dry mud, potato peels, and grain husks. She sat up quickly at the sight of a pink-nosed rat sniffling around the corner. Nasty critters had been a problem in the bunker, but she had to hand it to them for surviving throughout the ages and having changed very little.
The narrow room was made of wooden planks from top to bottom. The smell of dirty arm pits mingled with the even stronger scent of hot apple cider. A dim lantern swayed gently back and forth from the ceiling.
The two girls were wearing old-fashioned ankle-length dresses. They were sitting on a long bench that lined one side of the room. Since they had four fingers on each hand, they must be Commoners. Each of them had a metal collar around their necks lined to chains affixed to the wall. Josie’s fingers went to her own neck.
“What the hell!” She was chained, too. “Who put this frickin’ thing on me?”
“Shhh,” the brunette pleaded. “Don’t make a fuss or Captain Tolbit will send someone down with a whip. Trust me, you don’t want that.”
“A whip!”
“Shhh!” both girls admonished.
Josie’s eyes traveled up a ladder leading to a square of light on the ceiling. The the sun was shining through its metal grate, illuminating a square patch on the floor of the otherwise dingy and narrow room.
“Don’t even think about it,” Lars warned from a few feet away.
She turned to see him sitting on a bench along the opposite wall with three young male Commoners. They were chained in the same manner as the girls, except their wrists and ankles were cuffed as well. Each captive held something that looked like a potato peeler.
That’s when she noticed that Lars held a wet white lump in his left hand.
“What are you doing?” she demanded to know.
“Peeling potatoes,” Lars said flatly.
“Well, you certainly seem nonchalant for a guy chained to the wall.”
“Crying and complaining won’t help, so what would you have me do?”
“What is this place?”
“I thought it was our lucky day when a ship plucked us out of the Kalida. Should have known better. It’s a slave ship.”
“We can’t just sit here.” Struggling to her feet, the weight of the clanking chains instantly became heavier. “We gotta escape!”
“There are ten armed Commoners up there, six Gargantuans, two dudes that look like werewolves, and one that defies description,” Lars said. “Say we do break out of our chains—how do you suppose we get past them without any weapons?”
“We’ll charisma their asses.”
“Josie,” Lars raised an eyebrow, sounding annoyingly like her father, “even charisma has its limits. There are simply too many of them.”
Pulling herself onto the bench, nursing a raging headache, Josie groaned. Every bone ached. Her head felt like cotton.
“What about Bolt and Buckwheat?”
“I think they made it to shore.”
“A slave ship, huh,” she said. “Well, at least they don’t intend to kill us.”
“Not right away, anyway,” Lars said cynically in English. “I’ve been talking to the other prisoners. You girls will be sold into domestic service or prostitution, while the men will go to the labor houses or mines and be worked ‘til they drop. The average life expectancy is about six months for the males, about two years for the women.”
“But the mission...surely the squad will find us before that.”
“If there’s still a squad to find us.” Lars shook his head. “With the curse spreading through their bodies, they were weakening fast. If they haven’t found a slayer, Hogard might already be dead. And the rest of them won’t be in any position to conduct a search.”
“Curses of curses—we’re screwed.”
“Seems that way.”
“Well, at least we’re still breathing. As long as we’re alive, there’s hope for escape.”
“I’m John,” one of the male slaves, a nice looking guy with black hair and bright blue eyes, introduced himself. “If either of you find a way out of here, I will gladly follow.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, John,” Josie replied. “What part of the ship are we in?”
John pointed at the double doors. “The galley is straight through there. We’re in the holding tank, where they keep the prisoners they plan to sell. As we get closer to the bigger cities, like Faladore and Tectonia, there’s a chance the ship will be boarded for a surprise inspection. If we’re going to make a move, that will be the best time. If we ask for protection under the Anti-slavery Law 516, the inspectors are bound to give it, and hold the crew for questioning.”
“If we could be so lucky,” one of the other girls chimed in.
“I’ve already been to the deck twice,” Lars informed Josie, “where I was subject to a different kind of inspection—slavers looking for new merchandise. Apparently, young people with nice teeth are in demand.”
“You do have nice teeth, Lars,” Josie replied.
He smiled.
“When you were passed out,” Lars continued, reverting back to English, “the captain came down here to take a look at your pendant. He didn’t recognize the metal or the stone, which drove him crazy. He considered cutting off your hand, but a one-armed girl won’t fetch much at auction. With your general good health and appearance, he thinks you have the potential to make him a hefty profit. That’s the only thing saving your hand at the moment.”
The pendant and Seeker were floating, straining in the direction they were moving and slightly to the right. The other slaves, who had probably been watching it float since her arrival, had already lost interest in its unusual ability.
“Stupid Seeker,” Josie said, rubbing her bruised and cut-up wrist. “This thing is making my life miserable.”
Her eyes desperately fixed on the grate in the ceiling where a patch of blue sky beckoned, while Lars cut away a long curl of potato peel. John held up his peel next to Lars’s and they were arguing about whose was longest.
“Stop that!” She slapped the potatoes out of both of their hands, sending them rolling across the floor. “A potato peeling contest in a slave ship of death—seriously?”
“There’s nothing else to do,” John protested.
“There are seven of us rotting away down here—surely we can do something to help each other out of this mess.”
“I had a chance to escape,” Lars said. “But that would have meant leaving you here alone. So I stayed.” Josie looked at the ceiling to avoid his martyred gaze. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. No idea.”
“Show her,” John suggested.
Lars stood, turned his back to her, where she saw fiery red welts striping his skin.
“Are those whip marks?” she gasped.
“Yep.”
“I-I’m so sorry...hey, those barbarians took your chain mail.” She felt her own chest. “Mine, too! Those fuck heads!”
“You really need to quit cussing so much. Fuck is such a foul word, especially out of the mouth of a girl.”
“We’re on a slave ship and you’re worried about my language?”
Josie sat down in frustration, grabbed an unpeeled potato out of the bucket, and bit into it.
“You can’t eat that!” John warned. “Captain’s orders.”
“The captain can take his orders and shove them up his ass,” she sent Lars a withering look, “Excuse me, I mean anal cavity. Is that better?”
Lars rolled his eyes and retrieved his potato from the floor.
Josie too
k another bite. So juicy and moist, and surprisingly sweet, she didn’t care that the other prisoners were casting judgmental looks in her direction.
“Josie,” Lars explained. “If the captain finds out you’re eating the rations, we all pay the price.”
“Fine.” Tossing the half-eaten potato back in the bucket, Josie leaned against the wall, hugging herself, muttering angrily, “I hate Future Earth.”
Chapter Seventeen
(Josephine Rose Albright)
Spending a week in the belly of the slave ship wasn’t Josie’s idea of a good time. The dim light was depressing. The stale air grew muggier every day. Her skin hadn’t touched water since hitting the Kalida. Boredom was so bad that she actually welcomed the odd jobs they were able to perform while chained to the wall. Peeling potatoes, tearing lettuce, sewing strips of cloth together—at least it was better than staring at the same old faces, the same old walls, while wondering how long it would take for their muscles to atrophy.
Later that evening, while the other slaves slept, Lars and Josie discussed their options. If they were going to save Galatia, and themselves, they couldn’t afford to wait any longer. They had no choice but to risk a confrontation with the thugs on deck.
“We’ll do it at night,” she said. “If we’re lucky, we’ll slip away unnoticed.”
“A fight is inevitable,” Lars warned. “Some of the sailors stay up until dawn playing cards and getting drunk. Guards are always posted. And there’s always someone in the crow’s nest.”
“How do you know that?”
“I have my ways.” He gave a cocky grin. “Just know that our odds of escaping are slim. Most likely, we’ll be caught, and tossed back down here on our heads.”
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