by J. Naomi Ay
I wanted to ask him of our mothers, but took his silence as the response. Surely, if they would join us, he would have announced this before. Instead, I began to plan our journey, our trek to the river and our voyage to the sea, hoping the wind and tides would take us where we needed to go.
“If the wind is kind to us, I think we should arrive in the motherland in less than a week.”
“I agree,” Dov said. “The winds will push us all the way there. Maybe, a giant wave will come and we will ride it like a great, galloping horse.”
“What do you think, Amyr? What does the future tell of our voyage?” I looked again to my cousin, whose opinion I trusted above all.
Amyr closed his eyes. He yawned and stretched, his fists balled.
“The winds will be kind,” he said after a bit. “But, the sea is always cruel. We have no choice, though. If we stay here, we will surely die.”
We ate a handful of wild berries, tiny blue ones that would have been better if they ripened another week. Pellen apologized as if it was his fault we were without food. Lifting Amyr into his arms, he bid us follow the other villagers further into the woodlands.
Although they tried to keep their voices low, our neighbors argued incessantly. If any of the Korelesk army had been about, surely they would have found us by the loud hissing of their voices.
Eventually, before nightfall, a shouting match ensued, whereupon our group broke into two camps. Those that wanted to walk to the sea, and those that wanted to turn and fight, decided they were better off without each other.
It was then that we ducked away.
“They won’t notice us now,” Pellen hissed, pulling my arm. In turn, I grabbed Dov’s hand and we scrambled into the brush, our neighbors argument following us for quite a distance.
We walked slowly since it was already dusk and we were exhausted after a sleepless night, as well as a day spent stumbling over branches and logs with little food in our bellies. My arms and legs were scratched in a million places and where they weren’t, mosquitos had sought to bite. But, as bad a condition as I was in, poor Pellen looked as if he would soon collapse.
“Let me carry Amyr for a while,” I offered, but Pellen refused, shifting my cousin onto his back. Amyr’s head lay upon his father’s shoulder, but his eyes were open as if watching all we passed. Every once in a while, they seemed to flicker, a tiny flame igniting deep inside. Every once in a while, he would lift his head and smile, prompting Dov to giggle as if the two shared a secret.
We emerged from the forest up river of the village when the mother moon was still chasing the child moon from the early morning sky. There was just enough light reflecting off the water to send ghostly shadows across our path. They teased our tired eyes and fooled our overwrought minds into thinking they were more than just tricks of light.
“What’s that?” Dov cried, when a night bird rustled in the trees behind us.
“Is someone there?” Pellen whispered, when a cat leapt from a doorway into our path.
We made our way to the wharf in our own ghostly procession where my boat waited patiently, bobbing lazily against the dock.
“Go aboard,” I told Pellen. “You can take Amyr into the cabin. There is a bunk for him to sleep. It will be much more comfortable than these hard benches.
“I’ll help you,” Dov insisted, anxiously jumping for the dock lines, when suddenly, behind us, we heard a man’s voice.
“Halt!” he cried, illuminating the night with his torch. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot you! Stay where you are!”
“Who are you?” another voice demanded.
“Go quickly, Jan,” Pellen hissed, as I climbed upon the foredeck and made to hoist my sail.
In the meantime, Dov had released all the lines and gave the boat a push with his foot. After which, he leapt into the air, landing squarely in the center of the boat. We rocked violently for a moment, as shots followed us from the shore.
“Go, Jan!” Pellen called again, grabbing the tiller and swinging it to and fro. Had I not been so busy trying to set the sail, I would have told him the rudder was not an oar and no amount of swaying would propel us any further.
“I can’t,” I cried instead, pulling the sail up as quickly as I could, but there was no wind to catch us, only the river’s current to carry us out to sea.
“Stop!” the men yelled, their guns flashing brightly with yellow light. Something pinged against the mast, followed by a scream from Pellen.
“He’s hit!” Dov called.
“Uncle?” I scrambled across the deck into the cockpit where Pellen was clutching his arm, blood running through his fingers like a sieve.
“Do something,” Dov begged.
“I’m trying!” I pulled the tiller from Pellen’s hand, and pushed him onto the cockpit floor where he lay stunned, watching the blood pool around him. His face had gone deathly white and his body began to shake.
“Take the boys to the motherland, Jan,” he murmured. “No matter what happens to me.”
Pointing the boat down river, I did my best to fill the sail, although it merely luffed and rippled, flapping like a useless wing. A shot pierced the sail and another hissed by my ear. “Get down!” I yelled to Dov and Amyr, who stood clutching the cabin door.
“Do something!” Dov demanded and for the second time, I thought he was speaking to me.
“I am! I am steering the boat. Get on the floor before you are hit, too. Take Amyr with you,” I shouted, but neither boy paid any attention to my voice.
Dov was pulling Amyr forward, instead of down into the safety of the boat.
“What are you waiting for? Stop this now.”
My cousin raised a hand, his palm outstretched as if to catch an unseen ball, and then, I saw a flash of bright white light.
From the shoreline, I heard an explosion, a thunderous boom followed by another, and accompanied by the rancid scent of burning flesh. At the same moment, my sails filled, a ferocious wind erupting from behind my back, catching us and propelling us forward at a rapid clip.
We raced down river as if we were flying. The sounds and scents from the explosion at the wharf receded into the past. With them, disappeared my mother and my auntie and all of my life in that tiny village.
Instead, I was embarking upon an adventure, a journey to a new life in the motherland across the sea with Pellen, Dov, and my cousin, Amyr, whose eyes shone like a million stars.
Just as we passed the mouth of the river, bursting out to the open sea, Amyr placed a hand upon my uncle’s wound and healed it with his touch.
Chapter 9
Ailana
When I was eighteen years old, I was admitted to a university across the continent, surprising everyone, except for myself. It was in the outskirts of the Capitol City, a prestigious and well known institution, and I was very proud to have attained the rights to study there amongst the most learned professors and smartest students in the land.
“How will you pay?” Grandmother demanded, barely glancing up from the needlework in her lap. “I certainly can’t afford it.”
“I will find a way,” I insisted. “I know I will.”
“Better take your needle and thimble. You can always sew.”
I would never sew. I would wait tables in a restaurant, or sweep the floors and polish the silver in the house of a great lady, long before I would submit again to hemming, darning, and tatting.
“Suit yourself,” Grandmother said with a self-important sniff. “But, take this letter with a copy of my old royal commission. It will admit you into the service gates of the Imperial Palace where, at least, you’ll be paid well for your toils. Now, thank me, you ungrateful child and give your old grandmother a kiss goodbye.”
I did both, somewhat insolently and with little gratitude, although in hindsight, I have realized it was Grandmother and her insistence that I take a needle, which brought the most cherished days of my life. Instead, at that moment, I left with anger in my heart for not once did she cong
ratulate me on my acceptance. Not once did she say, ‘Good work, Ailana.’
Neither did Embo, who was preoccupied with her little family and never cared much for me anyway. The feeling was mutual, although for Grandmother, we faked affection. Since the arrival of Embo’s husband and baby, Taul, our precious space seemed overly cramped, as well as overly noisy.
Taul was a difficult infant, prone to screaming throughout the night, making it impossible for anyone to sleep. Neither could we work, or study during the day. We snapped at each other incessantly, blaming one another for our bad humor, which made an already difficult situation simply unbearable.
“One less person in this house is a good thing,” Embo remarked, as the two of us air kissed and mumbled false words about how we might miss one another.
I took a bus across the continent, the cheapest means of travel I could afford, having saved coins from every bit of sewing in the last year. I rented a room in a boarding house adjacent to the university’s campus, which included a shared bath, a well-worn cot, and access to a communal kitchen.
After settling in, I walked about the campus, relishing my new found freedom in this grand atmosphere of higher learning. My eyes soaked in the ancient stately buildings, the green swept lawns bordered by blossoming cherry trees and the beautiful, intelligent students congregating beneath them. I felt blessed to be here amongst them, although I considered myself just as worthy and smart. Unfortunately, neither my blessings, nor brains were sufficient to keep me there.
Within six months’ time, I had run out of funds. Within six months’ time, I was expelled from the university. In our tiny ghetto back in our little corner of Farku, my scholastic abilities were impressive. In this great university, in this once great Imperial city, my intelligence was only slightly above average, while my study habits were exceedingly poor.
It was my own fault. Never before had I been so far from my grandmother’s protective wings with so much excitement at my disposal and the freedom to take advantage of it all. And, I did, for in my six months at the university, those learned professors taught me only one thing. I was part of the generation that would see our hopes dashed. We had lost both our parents and siblings to the Disease. We had watched the once brilliant Empire crumble around us, and with it, the promise of our future. The precipice was directly ahead, with a path guaranteed to be steep, so there was nothing to do but celebrate; drink, dance, and make love.
I took this lesson to heart and I partied with the best of them. I lived for the moment because they convinced me that was all I would have. The future was bleak, the learned men said. There was only now, and now would be gone by tomorrow, so live for today and never look back.
Six months later, I was alone, unable to pay for my room, with no classes to attend. My so-called friends had no use for me anymore either. Without my university admittance, I was no longer one of them. Instead, I became one of the many nobodies who lived upon the street.
It was spring then, and fortunately, a warm one, for without anywhere else, I found myself spending each night on a city park bench. That was if I could find an empty bench. Otherwise, a tree or patch of scraggly grass would do. Once or twice, I tried to sleep on cement.
During the day, I went in search of employment, something that was becoming more difficult to obtain, especially for a young Karut woman from Farku. At night, I lay wherever I might, my coat and small bindle bag as a blanket and pillow, staring at the sky and wondering where I would end up.
Sometimes, I would imagine myself in the motherland, a place I had never been to, nor ever desired to be. Yet, it gave me comfort in a way, imagining myself sleeping upon the forest floor, beneath these same stars, as my ancestors had done for centuries before. If they could survive as this, certainly, so could I. If they could brave the wild animals of the night, I could brave the creatures who roamed these city streets.
Although, I quickly became adept at defending both my person and place for the night, with Grandmother’s needles and shears at the ready in my pocket, my homeless adventure ended quickly when the brief spate of warm spring weather turned into a deluge of torrential spring rain. The few shelters in the city quickly filled, as well as all doorways and abandoned buildings, thus increasing the urgency for me to find a place out of the storm.
I could return to Farku, but I was determined to avoid that at all costs. I would not go back and admit my failure, especially so soon. I resolved to keep trying, even if it meant I would take up the needle and thread again, and so with my grandmother’s letter, I approached the Palace gates.
The guard took pity on me. That could be the only explanation for his generosity. I sincerely doubted that the recommendation of an elderly Karut woman, who had once sewn for the King’s mother, held any weight. Neither was it my appearance, for I was wet and ragged, my hair knotted and filthy, my clothing dirty and torn. Still, I landed inside at the behest of the Royal Seamstress.
Living in the palace was little different from the university boarding house. In fact, the university was better, in that my bed was entirely mine. At the palace, I shared a bunk with two other girls, who I never saw awake, nor ever learned their names, although I knew one was a housemaid and the other, a cook.
The housemaid was tidy and after her, the sheets were always pulled tight and the bed nicely made. When her schedule briefly changed and the cook became the one who preceded me, she left a tiny mountain of crumbs, as fine as grains of sand, scattered throughout the sheets.
In our room, there were eleven other bunks with thirty-six girls overall to share the bathroom and showers. Our meals were taken in the servants’ cafeteria and our two sets of uniforms were washed every week.
My job as seamstress-apprentice was to repair those same uniforms, for the staff had a habit of acquiring holes and tears. When I proved I could darn well enough or reweave with the best of them, I advanced to new construction where I sewed together caps.
Six months later, instead of acquiring a university education, I was promoted to the title of Seamstress and placed on the King’s staff. Had there been a queen or even a princess, I might have preferred to design their beautiful gowns, but there was neither, both having been lost to the sickness several years prior.
Instead, I was given the King’s own trousers to hem, his cuffs to take up or let down, his buttons to replace, his aiguillettes and epaulettes to reweave. For this, I was also given a purse full of coins, which on my weekly day-off, I took into the city and deposited in a bank.
I spent a few coins on clothes for myself, for on that day-off, I chose not to look like a seamstress-servant, but rather a woman of means enjoying herself about town. Once a week, I treated myself to a nice meal in a restaurant, and once every two months, I went to a salon and had my hair styled. It pleased me inordinately to pretend I was someone else here in the Capitol City amongst the planet’s most well-to-do.
On one such day in the beginning of the autumn when the last of the sun’s warmth was turning the marble building into a million shades of pink, I was returning from my outing to the city, strolling lazily among the palace grounds. I was reluctant to retire to my shared bed and the work day that would commence in precious few hours. The grounds looked so pretty and inviting, encouraging me to waste my sleep-time amongst them.
The icicle fountain, made entirely of glass, was turned on, an exceedingly rare occurrence in those days. Spewing brilliant streams of water, in every color imaginable, the structure rose from the courtyard like a giant mountain. Surrounding it were roses in as many colors as the fountain’s streams. It was a magnificent sight to behold that night, made only more so by the rising of the two golden moons.
With a satisfied sigh, I sat down on a nearby bench, enjoying the music of the trickling waters and the emerging halo of the celestial lights overhead.
At that moment, I felt as if I was living in a world suddenly infused with magic. I did not regret any choice I had made then, despite having still a needle and a thread, ins
tead of a university book in my hand.
“Do you mind if I sit down?” a man asked, interrupting my silent reverie and stealing my eyes away from the color-filled pageant before me.
I waved my hand dismissively, while at the same time sidling over to the edge of the bench, even though there was plenty of room for him and more.
He settled in, his weight shifting the bench slightly in his direction. For half a minute, he sat prone, as if holding his breath, his body filled with tension, before he moved again, leaning back, relaxing into his seat.
He coughed. He shifted his weight. He lifted one knee and crossed one leg over another. He fumbled in his pockets until he produced a cigarette.
“Do you mind?” he asked politely, his accent clipped and highly refined. “Or, may I offer you one?”
I shook my head. I didn’t smoke, and neither did I care to have to breathe the exhalations of his.
“I would prefer that you did not contaminated the air which we much share,” I replied haughtily, feigning the accent of the high-born, who lived in the beautiful suites above us, surrounding us on either side.
He paused, clearly startled by my reprimand, the cigarette flicking nervously between his fingers. The tension upon this bench increased, but I had claimed it first and would not willingly relinquish it without a fight.
Now, lighting the cigarette with a match he drew across the bench seat, he took a long drag before exhaling over his shoulder, the one opposite to me.
“I shall breathe this way,” he remarked. “It shan’t affect you. It shall not stain those beautiful teeth that you obviously prefer to hide.”
I didn’t deign to respond and instead of smiling, I profoundly frowned. I may have also sniffed a little, or made some other noise, for on his next drag, I heard him chuckle.
I tried to ignore him, preferring to watch the sunset and the ascent of the moons. I sat this way, my back turned to him until he finished his cigarette and tossed it on the ground. Smashing it with his foot, he leaned forward on the bench, running a hand through his waves of dark, disheveled hair, whereupon a wayward lock fell directly in front of his left eye.