After five minutes of news from the home front, Dad gets on. I listen to him talk about work. The company he works for is in trouble, and he sounds beaten down and broken.
“When are you coming home?”
“Not sure. I can do a visit when my contract is up, but I’m planning to stay out here. I might move to the city for the next go around, though. They need teachers there, too.”
“They need teachers here. I talked to Frank Filichikia. He says there will be an opening for an English teacher at George Washington next year.”
Ah yes, George Washington High School. No, not that George Washington High School, the other one. The one where I went to school, where my sister Demeter goes to school (it’s my mother. My mother is insane for Greek mythology), and the one where my parents met, and their parents met. (Well, mostly. My mom’s father was from Indiana.)
I glance back through the flaps. The sun is beginning its slow descent and painting the world out there red and gold. When I’m not thinking about what could have been and how far I want to get from my life, I could see myself here. At least for a while.
Mom took the phone back while I wasn’t paying attention.
“Have you met any boys?”
I sigh. It stings me every time she asks. No, I haven’t met any boys. I didn’t sign up for this to get laid. After what I dealt with last year, I don’t really want to worry about that for a good long while, if ever again. Mom is Mom, though. I feel a little sick with myself at how I seize up, shaking with anger at her question.
She only wants me to be happy, I know.
“There’s a guy here that’s interested in me but I’m iffy on him. His name’s Brad. I think my roommate or tent-mate or whatever likes him more. I think they should get together.”
“Why don’t you ask him out?”
“Mom, we’re in the middle of nowhere. There is no ‘out’ to ask him to. Besides, I’d be screwing over my friend. She really likes him. That’s like a no-no. I can’t do that to her.”
My mother sighs. “Honey, I think you need to move on.”
“I did move on, Mom. I moved six thousand miles on.”
“Penny, I had to sow my wild oats, too, but you’re almost twenty-six years old. It’s time to start really building a future. You can’t minister to the heathens in a dust bowl forever.”
I wonder, why not? There are some volunteers who have been out in places like this for decades. The camp doctor has been with the group for forty years, and served in Africa, India, a dozen places in Southeast Asia.
All the things I could see and do. The world is so huge and open.
“I know, Mom. I’ll think about it.”
We say our good-byes. Dad gets back on. We chat until my timer dings, and then he grunts and says he’ll talk to me next week.
Then I hang up and walk back to our tent.
It’s getting dark.
It gets really dark out here at night. The camp and the construction zones are well lit, but that only makes it worse. It’s like walking on the bottom of the ocean. I feel floaty, like the current is trying to pull me up. I could float up and up and drown.
When divers spend too long under the surface, too far, they have to decompress to come back out. If they don’t, the nitrogen in their blood bubbles out under the lowered pressure. They call it the bends, but it’s more like bursting from the inside, like a soda bottle someone shook up until it’s ready to pop.
I’d be like that if I went home. Too much of a shock. I don’t know if I could cope with Philadelphia again, or even the suburb where I grew up. Maybe I should just stay out here, or go farther east. When my term is up I’ll be able to sign on again and go somewhere else. Some of the options are a little dangerous.
When I look out into that great, deep darkness that surrounds this tiny island of light, it feels pretty dangerous here.
I duck into the tent and grab my bag, head to the shower stall, and scour the dirt off my skin. The dust is everywhere when the wind picks up. It gets in everything. I keep my hair short for ease of maintenance and just run my fingers through it to dry it out after I’m done.
I grab an MRE from the supply tent and head back to join Melissa. Every meal pack has a cooker in it. You pour water in the pouch; the food is all sealed up so it doesn’t get wet. The cooker reacts with the water and gets hot, and heats up the food.
Or you can use the microwave, which we do. It’s as big as a regular oven and covered in scratches. It probably leaks radiation, but at this point I don’t care.
I lucked out and drew the veggie bean burrito. I should hate it but there’s something about the crust that reminds me of a pot pie. It doesn’t taste very burrito-y at all, but that’s fine with me. I munch it down in big bites, gulping bottled water in between to cool my throat before the superheated burrito can sear it like a steak on a griddle.
Steak, it’s been so long since I had a steak. Some things from the real world I do miss, I suppose. A nice rib eye would go well tonight.
I’m so hungry I eat the burrito and the nasty crackers (that always taste rotten, and are usually fairly soft) and the jelly and the chocolate. That one will make me regret it in the morning. I even mix up the coffee powder and drink it cold.
Melissa eyes her “chicken and noodles” and frowns at my precious burrito, or the few tiny crumbs that are left of it when I finish. She looks like she might lick the crumbs off my paper plate.
“I hate this stuff,” she confesses. “I know we should eat the same food as the people we’re helping, but I can’t stop myself from wishing for something better.”
She bites her lip, probably trying to figure out which sin that is. Gluttony? Avarice? Pride? One of them. It’s not Wrath, I know that.
I leave her to it. I want to sleep. I turn off my little lamp and lie out on the cot. Melissa doesn’t like it that I strip down to my skivvies in the heat, but she can stuff it if she thinks I’m sleeping in a damned nightshirt like her. It’s going to be in the upper eighties tonight. At least the humidity drops rapidly when the sun goes down.
The fan oscillates between us. Melissa reads for a while then shuts off her light.
When it’s finally fully dark in the tent I roll over, facing away from the flap, and stuff my thin pillow up under my head as much as I can.
It’s moments like this when my resolve starts to weaken. What the fuck am I doing this for? I’m completely overreacting, like a spoiled little girl. People would kill to take my place in the world. Like the people here. Ask any one of those girls out there to trade places with me and go home to a cushy teaching job where they can get fat eating bonbons and teaching the Odyssey to bored ninth-graders and they’d cut off their own arm for the chance.
A restless, dreamless sleep falls over me. It’s never really quiet in the camp. Melissa may be so straightedge she cuts herself, but somebody out there is fucking. I hear giggles in the distance. It’s like summer camp, some nights. Last month one of the girls went home after she turned up pregnant by one of the men.
It’s sometime past midnight when I hear the tent flap open. A hot breeze blows up my back, and light cuts in a thin line across the tent wall.
I freeze. Very, very slowly, I turn and look back over my shoulder. Brad just walked into our tent. Melissa is already up, sitting up in bed. She’s dumping a dress over her head. Brad just got a view of the full monty, or as close as one can get with Melissa. He saw her ankles, how scandalous.
I’m a little mad at him for so obviously checking me out if he’s with her, for her sake. I’m happy for her, though. If anyone in the world needs to get laid, it’s Melissa. She yawns, and Brad’s voice hisses in the dark.
“Quiet, we can’t wake your roommate.”
“Tent-mate.”
Brad lets out an exasperated sigh. “Come on, we don’t have much time. We’ll miss the truck if we don’t hurry.”
Truck? What truck?
As Melissa follows him out of the tent, I sit up, yank on a
pair of shorts and a shirt, and tug on my boots. Something isn’t right. What truck? They can’t leave the camp. It’s against the rules.
Following after them, I hang back and hope they don’t notice my shadow from the harsh lights. They weave between the tents, making a circuitous route toward the back of the camp. When they reach the fence, Brad peels back the chain link from one of the posts and holds it for Melissa while she slips through, then heads through himself.
Frowning, I start to turn back. If they want to go fuck in the bushes, I’m not going to stop them. I just hope he’s not pressuring her into something she’s not ready for.
In the distance I hear the distinctive rattle-chug-chug of a diesel engine. It’s not one of the generators either. I find the loose section of chain link and pull it back, scratching up my hands in the process.
It makes a hell of a racket once I’m through, but I don’t think that matters now. Quickly I make my way down the hill. Behind the camp the ground slopes away sharply toward a creek where we’ve been drawing water to filter for bathing.
Down at the bottom I spot Brad and Melissa, lifting big wooden crates into a truck together. It’s a military vehicle, painted a drab brown.
As I move closer I make out the markings on the side of the crates. It’s food from our camp, food for the orphans and villagers. Why would they be stealing food?
I move closer, crouching in the tall grass along the creek bank. The water burbles softly, almost drowned out by the diesel rattle. It glows like a strip of silver in the dark. No moon tonight.
That must be deliberate.
Brad grabs Melissa around the waist and hoists her into the back of the truck.
I step out. “Where the hell are you going?”
They both look at me, and freeze.
A man I can’t see speaks in a low voice. I barely recognize the words. It’s a harsher, more guttural version of the Solkovian tongue. A different dialect.
Then it hits me. He’s speaking Kosztylan.
“Penny, what are you doing here?” Brad booms.
He looks around, like he expects someone to jump out.
More Kosztylan commands shout from behind me. I swallow hard and turn around to find a thin man with dark circles under his eyes and an assault rifle in his hands, gesturing toward me with the barrel of his gun.
A thousand scenarios run through the back of my head, all of them bad. Very bad.
“Get in the truck, Penny.”
I have a gun pointed at me. I don’t have much of a choice.
Brad offers me a hand. I take it. I flop down on one of the crates while the truck starts to move, and yank my hand away from his.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“No shit, Brad. Start talking.”
“We’re helping take some food across the border into Kosztyla,” Melissa pipes up. “It’s for the resistance. Also medical supplies.”
“You stole them from camp?”
“No,” she says, her voice wavering.
“The Church has been using our missions in Solkovia to funnel supplies to the Kosztylan resistance. They’re hard-pressed and almost wiped out. The oppression of the—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snap. “If the army catches you doing this, they’ll arrest you and you’ll end up in prison in Solkovia. That doesn’t sound like fun. For any of us. If the Kosztylans catch us, we could be executed.”
“We won’t be caught. I’ve been doing this for years.”
I look at them both.
“Fine, you can be crazy. Melissa, I can’t believe you involved yourself in something like this.”
“They need our help.”
“You talked her into this, didn’t you?” I say to Brad, ignoring her.
“She asked me what I was doing. I told her the truth.”
I let out a long, heavy sigh. “How far is it to the border?”
“About an hour, then half an hour to the camp. They’re in the mountains, in a pass.”
“Great. We’re going to die.”
“We’re not going to die. I’ve done this before.”
“Right, sure you have, Rambo. I’ve seen this movie. I know how it ends. They’ll burn a tire around your neck and pass us around the camp.”
Melissa tenses up.
“They’re not like that. They’re freedom fighters opposing a brutal totalitarian regime. Every man and woman in that camp is risking their lives for freedom. We have a sacred duty support them however we can.”
“You do. I didn’t sign up to be a soldier. I’m a teacher. I’m not helping anyone fight a war.”
“You’re going to have to keep quiet about this.”
“I’m going to talk to the elders.”
“The elders know. The church is using the missions to funnel supplies, I told you.”
“Then I’m calling the State Department. If the Kosztylans find out what you’re doing, they’ll wipe the camp off the map and no one will lift a finger to stop them. You’re putting all of those women and children in danger, Brad. You may have volunteered yourself for suicide missions, but you have no right to involve everyone else without their knowledge or consent.”
Brad snorts. “Half the people in the village are refugees, or have family across the border. What, do you think me and Melissa do all this ourselves?”
“How many times have you done this?” I say, turning to her.
“Um, once,” she chirps. “This being the one time.”
“You trust him to take you over the border into one of the most totalitarian regimes on the planet? Are you that horny?”
“It’s not like that!” She grabs his arm. “We have a real connection. When Brad’s term is up he’s coming back to America with me and we’re getting married. I was going to invite you.”
She turns up her nose, like the invite is withdrawn.
Idiots.
I hold on to the crates as the truck bounces and jounces along, maybe twenty miles an hour. Slow enough that I’m tempted to jump and make a run back to camp, fast enough that I don’t dare, knowing I’ll break a leg or worse. Ending up out here in the middle of the night, crippled, would be a bad time.
There are wolves out here, and the followers of the Old Way talk about worse things I’d rather not believe in, but riding in the open back of a pickup truck through the dead of night toward the Carpathian Mountains, it’s easy to believe the dead walk and feast on the essence of the living. They have some creepy legends in their folklore.
I guess you get really creative when you’re imagining the things that can eat you out here.
The mountains get closer and closer, filling up the sky. The ground just juts upward all at once, and the truck swerves onto a track that cuts a gentler path up the slope, sawing back and forth to level out a bit. The driver is aggressive, and I have to hold on hard. Brad holds Melissa tight against him and grips the rail on the side of the bed with white knuckles.
The truck slows to a crawl as it ascends, for another hour at least. I could definitely jump off and run now, but then I’d be trapped in these mountains with no food, no water, and no way to call for help or contact anyone. The border is somewhere in the mountains and while I don’t think we’ve passed it, it must be close. I can feel its presence, like an invisible breeze gusting over my shoulders.
Chapter Two
By the time we draw close to the camp, I’ve settled between two crates. A couple of times I look over my shoulder and see a thin line of dirt, some rocks, and a sheer drop of about five hundred feet and growing. They picked a good place to set up their camp. It’s too small to be accessible by air, and can only be reached by one narrow road. If they’re well supplied they could withstand an extended siege.
Or get blown to hell by missiles and bombs. I can’t believe this is happening. Penny, you stupid, stupid girl, of course you’d end up like this.
I’m never going home. When my parents don’t get their pho
ne call next week they’ll call the church and demand an explanation, and a sincere, warm pastor with a buttery voice and a calm manner will tell them that the Lord works in mysterious ways and if they pray hard enough, he will see fit to guide me back to safety.
My mom will sit in the kitchen and tear towels apart with her hands and my dad will soldier on and keep going to work, like if he sticks to his routine hard enough, it will force the world to make sense again.
I’ve seen it before.
At five or six miles an hour, barely above idling, it takes hours to ascend the mountain slope. The road is cleverly concealed from below. You’d have no idea it was there if you didn’t know where it was. It saws from north to south up the steep grade. The truck groans and leans at the sharp hairpin turns before leveling out again, working its way up an almost vertical ascent.
Melissa holds Brad’s hand while we ride up. He smiles at her reassuringly and pats her hand, which for her is probably like a hand down her shirt. I can see her just melting under his gaze, and I half believe he’s completely sincere and thinks this is a great idea and doesn’t realize the danger he’s put us all in.
We’re all going to die.
The road levels out again. Ahead there’s a pair of men smoking cigarettes, milling around a wooden gate. The truck driver waves and they pull the big rickety gates open, and we slow. The truck drives very slowly over a little wooden bridge that’s clearly designed to collapse if something heavier rolls over it, so whatever it is will get stuck in a trench. On the other side of the gate, machine guns that look like they came off the set of a World War II movie sit on tripods, aimed at the gate. Bored-looking soldiers in a mishmash of military garb, sweat clothes, and rags shiver behind them.
It’s maybe fifteen degrees cooler in the mountains. I’ve started to shiver and goose bumps have raised up on my legs. Melissa is fine in her long dress. Brad doesn’t seem the worse for wear at all. She leans in under his arm and strokes his chest, forgetting herself as he toys with her hair.
Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance) Page 29