Everyone stands and embraces each other. I stay on the ground. I feel confused. I barely understand what’s going on here. Is this okay with me? It seems like it is, and I want to go on this trip more than I want to go home and back to school. I think I trust these people.
This is my one chance to be here. Mom would want me to stay, to figure something out before I gave up.
Cadah helps me up, and I’m pulled into an embrace with each of the other council members. Everyone hugs everyone, although Ziru is the only one who is not reserved in his hug with Ore. I’m reserved in my hugs to everyone, though I feel like I’m on an emotional roller coaster as I touch each person. Maybe the heat is getting to me.
How am I going to break the news to Karl?
✽✽✽
The sunset in the mountains is majestic. The jagged peaks let some light stream in, creating silhouettes surrounded by the color of the setting sun. Should I have grown up here, surrounded by color and mountains? Would I trade the beauty here for the time playing soccer with Mom?
I’m on the edge of town walking with Cadah. The walk was my idea; I was tired of Karl trying to catch my eye during dinner.
I don’t want to talk to him right now. I don’t know what I would say that won’t make him angry again. And I don’t want him to be angry and yell at me. I’ll take care of him. Later. I will.
He’s probably figured out I’m avoiding him. In just another day I’m going to leave for Keeper. I’m leaving, but I’m not abandoning him. I’ll be back, and we’ll go home.
He’s not going to like it. I wish I had come through the portal with someone cool, someone who could speak the language, someone everyone liked. But that’s not what happened.
At least the night is beautiful. If only it was enough to lift my spirits. Would I be happier if we just went home tonight? Called this an adventure and got me to a doctor?
I look over at Cadah and try to think of something to say that will distract me from my thoughts.
“Cadah,” I ask. “Who is Arujan?”
“Why do you ask? I know that you have met him.”
“Yes, I’ve met him. Where is he from?” Crickets chirp. We slow and then stop. We need to head back before it gets too dark.
“He says he’s from the North.”
“Where is the North? What does that mean?”
Cadah gives me a puzzled look.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ve figured out that we are in a village called Watch. There is another village 100 miles away called Keeper, and we’ll be going there. I’m guessing there is another village called North?”
Cadah laughs. “No, of course not! The North is a series of villages, the Northern Alliance. People moved up there when Watch and Keeper got overcrowded. We were all united until recently when the alliance fell apart, probably because of Arujan. Now, with supplies dwindling, tensions are high and most of them have started fighting each other.”
“Was it Arujan’s doing?”
Cadah shrugs. “He’s trying to get people to go off the mountain.” She laughs at the idea. “Terrible, evil man!”
“I don’t understand why that would be so bad. It doesn’t seem to be too great up here.”
“Wynn.”
“It seems like he should be dead by now—didn’t you say that he’s had you stuck here for hundreds of years?”
“He’s an Azurean.”
What in the world is an Azurean?
Is it a real threat that keeps these people on this mountain? Trapped for hundreds of years, they have faced starvation, mutiny, and overcrowding. Through it all, they stayed on the mountain, not leaving no matter the cost. Are they trapped by myth? Or is there real threat in the valley?
A light off to the side of the trail catches my attention.
“What’s that over there?”
“Mara.”
“What?”
“She claims to be from the world off the mountain.”
Well, there you go! Maybe “Mara” can help me sort this all out. Maybe these mountain people are trapped in a lie.
“People live off the mountain? Besides Wynn?”
“Of course! Wynn’s people live down there.”
“So, you don’t go down there, but they come up here?”
“The border is blocked by hemazury,” Cadah says. I don’t understand half of what she says. “Only those who are descendants of the great King Togan’s closest friends can come up here. And they all did, hundreds of years ago.”
I stare at her, wishing the words she was saying could make more sense to me. All I hear is more myth and more fantasy. And, she’s not explaining Mara’s presence here.
“You’re saying that you can cross the border to go back? But they can’t follow you here?”
“Right,” Cadah says. “Except for Sapphiri. They can cross the border, and many have come to help Wynn. That is why we kill every one that we find. Well, every one until Karu.”
“Sapphiri are the people who have the glowing eyes.”
Cadah nods.
“Why didn’t you kill Mara? Doesn’t she have blue eyes?”
“No, she doesn’t. No one knows why she could cross the border. Hattak wanted to kill her, but he made the mistake of taking her to Ziru first. Ziru opens his heart too wide, which is why so many people are listening to Arujan. If Ziru had killed Mara and her baby, I don’t think they would listen to Aurjan.”
She has a baby?
As if on cue, a soft cry fills the darkening sky. I turn away from Cadah and follow the trail to the small hut. I need to get away from Cadah, her cold words are making me sick. You don’t kill babies. That’s just not right.
“Where are you going?” Cadah calls after me.
I ignore her, my eyes focused on the path in front of me so I don’t hurt my leg. How can she be so ruthless? Kill, kill, kill. This society kills anyone that isn’t like them. No wonder there is unrest.
I slow my steps as I approach the light at the end of the trail. Three sticks are propped up with a ragged cloth barely attached, blowing in the wind. Cadah didn’t follow me.
“Hello?”
“Come,” a timid voice responds. She speaks differently than the other people I’ve talked to, but it’s the same language, I think. In any case, I understand her the same way.
I peak around the cloth and discover a topless woman reclined against a rock nursing a small baby. The woman’s face is gaunt, her hair matted, and her eyes drooping. A tattered dress droops around her hips, different from the clothes the mountain people wear. The dress is covered in blood. Red blood, like mine. She sits in the light of a single candle, tear marks wet on her face.
“How old is that baby?” A small, naked baby sucks on the woman’s breast. The scene is like something you’d see in a refugee movie.
“Just a few days,” Mara says softly. “Just a few days.”
“Do you have food?” I try to make my voice sweet, trying to cover my disgust at the situation. The nights are cold! This lean-to isn’t a place for a new baby.
“The man they call Tran brings food every third day. I seem to have enough for Jarra.”
“Will you come with me?”
“I’m happy to be alive.” Mara lets me help her up stand, which makes my knee ache. Traitor or no traitor, she won’t die out here with a newborn. If they don’t let me help her, I’m leaving. This is wrong.
Mara moans as she leans against me as we walk up the trail, which puts another strain on my knee. Having her lean on me makes me feel strangely depressed, and my courage falters.
I see Cadah shift in the light of the rising moon up ahead. “Mara is going to move in with us,” I say. “She will die out here otherwise.”
“She will betray us to Wynn.” Cadah’s voice is soft, hesitant.
“It isn’t right to leave her to die out here.”
Take us to the village, Cadah. Don’t kill this woman! How can you think that she will betray you? Just look at her.
Cadah do
esn’t move.
I don’t move, either. I stare Cadah down like I would a forward moving up the field toward me.
The baby starts to cry.
Cadah turns.
I take a deep breath and follow her back toward the village.
26 Reckless
Karl
I sit at the table, nibbling the food, if you can call it that.
Lydia disappeared. She was sitting just across the way a few minutes ago and now she’s gone. Both her and the girl that she’s always with.
She didn’t say anything to me. Not a word all day.
Was this her plan all along? To use me to get here and then to abandon me while she lives the life of a princess?
I gag on the food and spit out whatever I was chewing. No, that can’t be it. The food is too awful, and she’s injured. It’s only a matter of time before we go back. The real question is how much more I can endure before we do.
A woman passing by the table stops abruptly. I give her a feeble smile—the look on her face isn’t friendly, but I have only seen one friendly face the entire time I’ve been here, and that’s Ler.
She draws a knife and points it at me.
“Hey,” I put my hands up. “I never did anything to you.”
She speaks harsh words, coming closer, her eyes threatening.
“Ler!” I call out, only slightly embarrassed that my voice squeaks when I do.
He turns and talks to the woman. She shakes her head, argues with him for a moment, and then leaves.
Maybe the question shouldn’t be how much more I can endure, but rather how much longer I can stay alive. That’s at least the fifth knife that someone’s pulled on me since I got here.
I stop nibbling the food and move closer to Ler. He’s happily engaged in conversation. Conversation is something I haven’t had all day. I yearn for it, strangely. To say words, to hear my thoughts formed into speech, to see others understand those thoughts. Speech is the power to take another’s mind down the same track as your own. Words change, just for a moment, what the person is thinking about; words put your thoughts into another’s head. In graduate school, I may have not had much verbal communication, but I could always write and read. Now, my brain is in a vacuum. The only person in this world who can understand the words I speak is avoiding me.
If only Lydia would talk to me. I would be nice, just to hear myself talk.
✽✽✽
The next day proceeds as the day before. We wake up at the crack of dawn—once again I’m strangely refreshed and alert in the early morning—and we’re off. We push the same rickety old carts.
Instead of going on the road away from the portal, this time we go on a trail that heads in a perpendicular direction, straight to the tall mountain peaks that tower over and surround the village. As we approach, a small pass between the towering rock faces comes into view.
Through the pass, a panorama of a huge valley opens in front of us. A valley. It’s close, just a few miles away. Valleys have always been better sources of food than mountains. It doesn’t make sense why the people stay up here if they live this close to a valley. Mountains aren’t paradise. Dangerous drop-offs, wild animals, lots of winter snow.
These people are either stupid, or there is something dangerous down there.
Danger seems to be far from Ler’s mind right now, though. He whistles as we walk along the mountain face for an hour. Just when I’m about to collapse from exhaustion, we stop in another flowered meadow. I sit down and sink my shovel into the ground. Nothing like another long day sitting in the hot sun and digging up unpalatable roots.
I’m more alone that I ever was in Pittsburgh, even after Tara dumped me.
I pull up a plant. This one has green flowers and a very strong scent. It is a strange anomaly, something that evolution should have eliminated a long time ago. Green flowers don’t belong—they don’t have the visual cues needed for making it to the next generation. Ironically, this flower is thriving, and I’m the one whose genes will be eliminated—a fat guy with eyes that everyone hates, and no hope for a future in a world I don’t belong in.
This particular flower is doomed, too. Wrong place, wrong time. I snap the green off the plant and throw the root into the bag at my side. Maybe I can kill them all. Just another ten thousand to go. We’ll see what evolution thinks of that.
Ler starts to sing. His voice is a strong bass, and it fills the air with sweet melody. For some reason, I smile. Ler can’t be enjoying this either. I would never admit it to Lydia, but maybe if I could understand Ler, I might like him.
✽✽✽
By the end of the day my head is pounding and my entire body aches.
What I need is to take some Tylenol and go to bed. Instead, I get to stay out with the village socialite, and tonight is a party. The music makes my head hurt, the headache pounding behind my ears with each strike of the drums.
I haven’t seen Lydia all night. I can’t even begin to guess where she might be. Maybe she’s already been killed. This may be my last meal, and I’m in too much pain to enjoy it.
The evening slowly cools; the fire turns to embers. My head continues to throb as people retire for the night. I hear a baby crying. A woman is carrying the baby away from the party. Two other women accompany her. I sit up straight. One of them is Lydia.
Ler isn’t paying attention to me. He raises a glass of wine and several others raise theirs as well. The dim light of the fire shows the large smiles on their flushed faces.
This is my chance. I have to talk to her.
I sneak away and follow the three women through the village until they reach a small house near the village center. The go in and moments later I see the dim light of a fire.
I’m going in to get Lydia. Crickets chirp, but otherwise the night is silent as I approach the door. I’m not sure how it will all work, but I need to talk to Lydia. We need to get out of here before we’re both dead. Surely she understands that now.
The moon rises above an ominous peak to my right, casting long shadows all around me.
I take a deep breath and raise my hand to knock on the door. Hopefully she’ll talk to me after what I said the other day. But, if she won’t, I’ll apologize. Surely, she misses speaking English. We need to be smart.
A large hand catches mine before it contacts the wood.
Ziru.
“Karu.” His whisper is stern. I can’t see his face.
Before I can say anything, he drags me off the porch and away from the house. I don’t have a chance to fight him—not that it would do any good if I could. It was dark when I followed the women here. I’m positive if he takes me away that I will not find my way back.
Using what must be superhuman strength, Ziru drags me all the way back to the house I share with Ler, who stands waiting in the doorway. Ziru starts shouting before we get to the threshold of the house. Ler bows his head and nods as Ziru gives him a verbal lashing. It isn’t Ler’s fault, of course. I was the one who tried to run away.
Not that I want Ziru to start yelling at me.
Eventually, he stops his rant and leaves. Ler motions to the fuma skin, and reluctantly I get ready for bed. Maybe I can stay awake and sneak out again after Ler is asleep.
No hope of that. I’m asleep the second I’m wrapped in the skin.
✽✽✽
I’m alert the moment the light streams through the window the next morning.
Something weird is going on with this fuma skin. I’ve never fallen asleep or woken up so fast in my life. But that’s what’s happening. Every day.
But something else isn’t right.
Screams. People are screaming.
I roll out of the skin.
Ler, still as naked as I am, throws my clothes at me.
“Karu!” His voice is urgent. The screaming gets louder.
My fingers fumble as I put the unfamiliar tights and tunic on. We run out into the dim morning light moments later.
A crowd is gathered
near our house. It isn’t a quiet crowd. Shouts and screams fill the air as we run.
The people are gathered around the body of a woman—I recognize her as the woman who was with Lydia last night. Her body is mangled, naked, and covered in blood and bruises. She’s dead.
I try to look away, but I can’t—my eyes stay riveted to the body. Who could do such a thing? Ler runs over and falls next to it. The minute the people see Ler, they look at me. I stand awkwardly, gawking at the body, feeling the heat of their stares.
Arujan, the man with the wild eyes, steps out of the crowd. He shouts, pointing his finger at me and yelling. Others start to yell. Arujan’s face turns bright red.
I’m frozen, my heart rate increasing like I just realized I have a paper due tomorrow. Sweat beads on my forehead. Should I call out for Ler?
Someone grabs my arm, and I jump. It’s Lydia, suddenly at my side. Her hair is wild, and she looks as angry as the rest of the crowd.
“Karl,” she says, in a whisper so intense I can hear it clearly over the raucous crowd. “What have you done?”
What have I done?
I don’t have a chance to answer her. Ler leaps away from the corpse and sprints to us. He says something to Lydia, and she nods.
Then she screams. “Run!”
I don’t need to be told twice. I run.
I’m not a sprinter or a distance runner. I hate running and I’m an overweight graduate student. But I have never run faster in my life. I hear people behind me, and I push myself as hard as I can. A few knives whistle past my head. Ler says something under his breath. He’s right beside me.
This is it. This is the end of us. I’m frantic as I stumble over the rocks and tree stumps. Any minute hands are going to pull me down. I’m going to be slaughtered.
The mob is getting closer.
Ler’s hand finds a place on my back and pushes me forward. With his hand there, each of my strides becomes longer than before, and each step is faster. I watch as each foot contacts the ground only to lift off again. Ler is fast, and he knows these woods. We run away from the village, zigging and zagging through the forest.
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