“Remember me?” she asked him.
He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“We met about five years ago behind the capital building. You were covered in flour.”
“You!” he yelled as the unpleasant memory returned to him. She laughed out loud as she ran to the back of the dead end with everyone right on her heels. She went straight for a pipe that ran to the roof of the building on their right and started to scramble up it. Gillio and Aenin followed her and found the attachments at the back of the pipe were close enough to make climbing it easy. They were just out of reach by the time the officers made it to the foot of the pipe. Rheen waved quickly to the officers below before they all disappeared over the top of the roof.
“We’ll track them from the ground; go to the other side!” yelled an officer. They all started to run to the other side of the building. Suddenly, one of them stopped.
“Wait, look!” he yelled. They turned to see Rheen jump over the narrow alley and just make it to the next roof. She hit the flat roof, rolled out of her jump, and sprinted the short distance to the other side. The adjoined roof sloped upwards and she scrambled to the top and looked back to be sure Gillio and Aenin were following. They were close behind her.
The three stood for a moment when they were all at the peak of the roof and she pointed ahead. The city was laid out before them and they could just see a river cutting through it a few blocks over.
“The river is too shallow to jump into at the sides, but we’re not far from one of the two bridges in town that goes over it,” said Rheen. “If we can get out to the middle, we can jump in. The water flows fast and it will carry us away quickly. Stay close and watch your step.”
“What do we do?” asked Gillio behind her back when she’d slid down the other side of the roof.
“We can’t afford to get mixed up with the authorities here for any reason,” said Aenin quickly. “You know how corrupt the government is here and how long it would take to get things ironed out. We’ll just have to follow her and hope for the best.”
They followed her path down the roof and found her waiting on a balcony below. She led the way from street to street and house to house. Gillio focused intently on where Rheen was putting her feet and was sure to place his own in exactly the same spots to avoid falling. Aenin had an easy time of it, but he was amazed at how well Rheen knew what path to take. Just when he thought they were at a dead end, there would be another pipeline to climb or a ladder or balcony. Far below them, the officers were spread out and scrambling from street to street, shouting to one another whenever they caught a glimpse of their quarry.
Rheen stopped on a roof that happened to be behind the capital building. She swung over the edge of the roof, hanging on to the gutter by her hands and then dropped a short distance to a balcony.
“That story about the flour,” she said to Gillio when he dropped beside her, “I’ll have to tell it to you sometime.” She smiled and nodded to a wall behind him where a door stood open. He looked and saw that it was the storage room for a bakery. Bags of flour stood near the door. He had to laugh at the picture of Rheen dropping one onto the officers below on a day much like today. When he turned back, she had disappeared. Aenin dropped down from the roof above and landed next to him, and they looked over the railings to find Rheen climbing down towards the ground using the ivy that grew on the side of the building to hold onto.
When she reached the ground, Gillio and Aenin were still on the ivy, and she yelled at them to jump. It was still a fair distance to the ground, but they let go nonetheless.
“Sorry,” she said, breaking again into a run. “They were getting too close.”
They looked back and saw that the officers were not far behind, but the bridge was just ahead.
**********
Two old fishermen sat in their boat talking to one another. The waves lapped peacefully up against the side of their boat as they trolled along the river.
“You know, there was a friend of mine who said he caught a fish in this very river that weighed over one hundred pounds,” said one of the men. “I don’t believe him.”
“I wouldn’t either,” said the second. “I’ve been fishing this river longer than you have, and nothing exciting ever happens out here. That’s what I like about it. I can come out here and enjoy a nice peaceful day of… what is it?”
The first speaker’s eyes had grown quite large and he pointed up behind the other’s head who turned just in time to see three figures hurtle themselves off of the bridge. A crowd of people gathered at the rail and watched them fly towards the water and splash in. The men looked at each other in bewilderment and then the second man continued.
“As I was saying, Vree is the place for stories. Always something happening on this river.”
**********
“After them, soldiers!” shouted the commanding officer, pointing at the water. The others looked at each other uncertainly.
“After you, sir,” one of them said.
The commanding officer looked at each of his men, and none of them made a move towards the rail. He looked forlornly down at the water where the ripples that the fugitives had left were just now disappearing.
Chapter 8
Under the surface of the water, Rheen, Gillio, and Aenin let the river pull them along as far as it could before they had to surface for air. They came up gasping and treaded water for several more minutes. The current was fast, and they were far from where they started when they finally pulled themselves onto a little bank. It smelled terrible and was muddy and slimy, but they collapsed to the ground nevertheless. They were breathless but in high spirits.
“We made it,” said Rheen.
“Yes, we did. You certainly knew what you were doing,” Aenin said with a hint of sadness in his voice.
She looked at the ground, not knowing what to say. The adrenaline from their flight was wearing off and the excitement was behind them, so she was starting to realize the impact of their discovery. Regardless of whether or not they’d figured it out already, the fact was now in the open: she was from Vree. She was a northerner. And she’d kept it a secret.
They scrambled up the side of the river bank and onto a deserted street. They weren’t very far from the inn, so they sloshed in that direction in an awkward silence.
“I wish Jekka could have been there,” said Gillio finally. “I would have loved to see her reaction to getting covered in this slime.”
Aenin and Rheen laughed half-heartedly and then fell into silence again. When they reached the inn, Gillio went to join the others who were sitting at a table eating an early dinner to avoid the crowds that night, but Aenin pulled Rheen aside.
“I can’t even imagine how difficult all of this is for you,” he said, “and I just want you to know that we all really do care about you. We didn’t come chasing after you like a fugitive; we came to find you because we were concerned and you’re our friend. I hope you’re able to see it in the same way.”
Rheen felt her stomach tighten as she waited for him to say more. What was he after?
“Thanks,” she said after he was silent a moment. She didn’t know what to make of it. She felt as if she was waiting for a storm to descend, but nothing happened. Not immediately anyway which only heightened her anxiety.
The conversation ended there and they went to hear the end of Bierno’s account of his findings that day. He and Jekka had gone with Davick and met several families that had lost loved ones recently, and the story was pretty much the same everywhere they went. The missing family member had disappeared in the night with no hint of what had happened.
“Rheen!” exclaimed Davick when she and Aenin walked up. “I’m so glad to see you’re alright.”
“Where have you been, anyway?” asked Jekka. “You all smell terrible.”
“And we’re starving!” said Gillio, inching over as close to Jekka as he possibly could so that he could rub some of the slime on his shoulder off onto he
rs. “What’s for dinner?”
“Ugh, why do you have to be so obnoxious?” Jekka asked, pushing him away and then wiping every inch of her hands and shoulder with a napkin.
“Because I’m hungry,” he said. “Bierno, pass me the bread!”
To Rheen’s astonishment, nothing more was said on the topic of her whereabouts that day while they ate. As soon as she had finished her food, Rheen excused herself to go up to her room and change clothes. She had barely made it to the door near the stairway when she heard her name in the conversation behind her. On the opposite side of the corridor, there was a door leading to the outside of the inn. She went through it and walked around the building to the back and found a window near the table where the others were sitting. Aenin was just finishing relaying the day’s events.
“Do you have any idea who the other three people were?” asked Bierno when he was done.
“I can’t say for certain,” said Aenin, “but they looked a lot like the same three we caught with the wagon.”
“Did it seem like they just met her today?”
“I wouldn’t say so,” said Aenin. “It would make sense to say they’re old friends of hers. We know for certain she’s from Vree now.”
“Like I’ve been telling you, we need to be careful. This is getting more and more complicated the longer it goes on,” said Jekka.
“I know,” said Bierno in a perplexed tone. “And like I said before, we brought her here because we were following orders. At this point I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. She doesn’t seem to want to share information with us, and she doesn’t seem to respond well to being questioned.”
“It sounds like they don’t want you around anymore,” said a slimy voice behind her.
Rheen spun around but saw nothing. Was the voice in her head?
“And that leaves no room to be able to help her sort through all of the problems she’s struggling with,” said Gillio.
“I wish there was more we could do,” said Aenin.
“Or maybe they’re going to try to change you,” said the voice.
She peeked through the window and saw that Davick was gone. Only the four warriors sat around the table talking.
“What other reason would they have for keeping you around?” the voice asked.
The voice seemed to speak inside of her: directly to her fears. She’d come to respect the warriors and couldn’t bear the thought of them expelling her from their group. Even if they allowed her to stay, they certainly wouldn’t accept who she was now that they knew more about her. The thought of them treating her like an outsider or trying to change her was even more dreadful than being expelled.
“You know there’s only one place you belong,” finished the voice.
She left the window and started walking down the street. The walk turned into a run. She knew right where she was going. Behind her, a huge, ugly sniw jumped up out of the shadows and flew off into the sky.
**********
Rheen walked down a street just northeast of the center of town. It was the middle of the night and she had left the inn a few hours earlier. She passed a large building on the right that had a rundown sign out front that read “Vree Orphanage.” The sign was outside of a tall fence that ran around the building. She peered through the bars at the playground in the south yard and up at the second window from the right on the third story. She sighed. The staff changed so often and the records were a terrible mess, so by the time she was old enough to understand that children normally grew up in a family with parents, no one was able to tell her what had happened to hers or how she’d come to be there. Living there wasn’t a terrible memory. She’d had friends come and go and had been through four different roommates that had been pleasant for the most part. She’d gotten a very basic education during the times that more ambitious people had come in to run things and had plenty of freedom when the headmistresses were people who didn’t care what she did with her time.
Madame Tilette was the last headmistress she’d had, and she ran things very loosely. The one thing she was a stickler about was the orphanage’s financial state. She had been aghast when she first started the job at the disorganization of the accounting system. She spent her first year getting everything organized and then set up a strict budget. Part of following this budget was cutting down on the number of mouths to feed which meant enforcing the rule that children over the age of fourteen were no longer eligible to live at the orphanage. Rheen knew of around a dozen children who had been asked to leave at that time, and that was when Rheen started thinking about life outside of the orphanage and what she would do when it came her time to leave. She was twelve at the time, so she’d had less than two years.
Madame Tilette’s fixation with the budget had left the children with hardly any supervision. When Rheen wasn’t running and playing with friends, she was sitting outside and thinking, looking out past the fence bordering the orphanage grounds. One day, she saw Rove outside of the fence, and Rove saw her.
Now, years later, she stood outside of the fence in the same place he had stood so many years before. She looked through the fence at the place where her twelve-year-old self had stood.
“You look confused,” Rove had said, his voice cracking in adolescence.
“I’m not confused,” she’d said, “I’m just trying to figure out what to do. They’re going to kick me out of here in about a year and a half.”
“Tough luck,” replied Rove. “You know, I was watching earlier when you were playing some game with your friends. You’re pretty quick on your feet. I might have a job for you when you’re ready.”
She had talked with him at the fence many more times over the next year. When her fourteenth birthday was only a few months away, she finally made the decision to climb out of the fence that she’d lived inside as long as she could remember and join up with Rove, Kenn, and Jess.
She snapped out of the replay of events and turned her attention back to the present and the journey she was on. She moved quickly now and made it a few blocks away in just a quarter of an hour.
She was now in a part of town where most buildings were boarded up. She walked around to the back of one that used to be a store with apartments above it and found some stairs leading down to the stone basement. When she’d reached the bottom of them, she tried the door. It was locked, but she could see light streaming from the crack underneath.
“It’s me,” she called. “Can you let me in?”
Rove unlocked the door a moment later and stood in the doorway, looking past her into the night.
“You haven’t brought any of your friends with you, have you?” he asked.
“No, it’s just me,” she said. “And I’m not sure we’re going to be seeing any of them ever again. I’m ready for things to go back to normal now.”
“It’s about time,” said Rove. He stepped aside and let her walk in.
The basement was dimly lit by a few candles and lanterns scattered around the large open space. Blankets were strewn over two couches and piled in a few places on the floor, and an odd assortment of foodstuffs was stacked in one corner. The chaotic but familiar sight was a comfort to Rheen. She walked over to one of the couches and collapsed onto it. Jess and Kenn, who had been flipping through some old newspapers on the floor, came running over and sat on the other couch that was facing hers.
“You’re here!” exclaimed Jess. “That means Kenn owes me twenty coins.”
Kenn scowled at Jess. “I told you it wasn’t an actual bet,” he said. “I just said ‘I bet she’s not going to come,’ and then you said ‘it’s on! Twenty coins,’ but I never agreed.”
“At any rate, she’s here,” said Rove sitting on the couch next to Rheen and putting his arm around her shoulders. “And it seems like she’s finally come around.”
Both physically and emotionally exhausted, she sighed and put her head on his shoulder. He turned to kiss her forehead then drew back.
“You smell like the river,
” he said, wrinkling his nose.
She looked down at her dress which was still caked in mud. It had dried on which masked some of the smell, but it still wasn’t pleasant to be close to.
“I forgot,” she said. “We took a ride down the river earlier to escape from those officers. Is there anything else around here I can wear?”
Jess jumped up and fetched an extra set of her own clothing for Rheen to borrow, and Rheen took the brown dress and white blouse upstairs to change into. When she’d finished, she went out the back door and hung the green travelling dress on the fence in the backyard, hoping it would get rinsed off by rain soon. It seemed like the clouds were gathering.
By then it was the early hours of the morning and she was exhausted. She went back down to the basement and found the others settling in to sleep.
“We’ll have to talk more in the morning,” said Jess as she pulled a blanket up over herself on one of the couches. Rove was already sleeping on the other, and Kenn was making himself comfortable on a stack of blankets on the floor. Rheen found another pile and fell asleep as soon as she’d snuggled into it.
**********
The warriors all sat at a table in the inn, exhausted, in the early hours of the morning. When they’d found Rheen was missing again, they’d gone out looking for her for hours, having no luck.
“We have a responsibility here to find the missing girl from our vision,” said Bierno at last. “Let’s focus on that for the time being. There’s nothing we could have done or can do to help Rheen.”
“I certainly hope it wasn’t anything I said,” said Aenin. “I tried to tell her that we were just trying to look out for her, but perhaps she misunderstood.”
“Jekka could have been a little nicer to her, too,” added Gillio. She kicked him under the table.
“We can’t let this get in the way of our job,” said Bierno.
“Except there’s nothing we can do about that either,” Jekka pointed out. “We don’t have any leads.”
Eilinland- Through the Wall Page 9