Vessel

by Lisa T. Cresswell

  I was close, so close. It wouldn’t be long now. I smiled to myself just before strong arms grabbed me from behind.

  I struggled to pull free of the stranger’s hold on me. Already on the ground, I was at a disadvantage, my balance compromised. I let myself fall back toward the earth, hoping my attacker wouldn’t anticipate the move. My weight wasn’t much, but the sudden shift loosened his grip for the one second I needed. I rolled away and kicked at him. The toe of my boot connected with his jaw and knocked him backwards. I was up before he was, shot through with adrenalin, and went to kick him again since I had no weapons but my hands and feet.

  His hood fell off his head, and I saw the face I’d been searching for.

  “Recks?” I gasped.

  He looked up at me. “What are you—”

  I cut him off with my kiss, kneeling on the ground beside him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I cried between kisses, his face in my hands.

  “Sorry for what?” he managed to say.

  “I kicked you.” I was unable to stop my tears, but Recks only laughed and pulled me close to his chest. The thud of his heart against mine calmed me.

  “You can kick me every day as long as you promise you’ll never leave my side again,” Recks teased. I laughed through my tears.

  “How’d you get away?” he asked when I’d settled down. “I saw the smoke. What happened?”

  “When you didn’t come back, Kinder decided it was time to leave. He set the fires as a distraction. I was so worried about you. He said you were probably dead.”

  “Yes, he would. Where is the old bastard anyway?”

  I told him about the truck and the accident, how I woke up alone and set out to find him.

  “The men at the Boar’s Head said you were thrown out by the Reticents, but how could that be?” I asked.

  “Oh, I think Anders meant to have me killed. He just didn’t see to it himself. Weevil got sloppy. Or Mother Sun interfered with his baton perhaps? Soren took me in for the night.”

  I hugged him tighter, afraid he might disappear again. “What happened? Did they find the pin?”

  “No. I think Anders finally got sick of my mouth. I have a hard time keeping it shut.”

  “And Stef? Were you able to … ”

  “Yes, it worked. I’m pretty sure anyway. Miserable wretches.”

  The smile faded from Recks’s face remembering it. I ran my fingers through the dark hair hanging over his eyes, pushing it out of his face. His eyes, like mine, were tired and rimmed with dark circles. A fresh red scab crusted the corner of his swollen lips.

  “How much did you sleep? You don’t look so good.”

  “I don’t feel so good either. Weevil’s baton hit me pretty hard. I’m sure I looked dead.”

  “We should rest awhile, but perhaps not so close to the road. Can you climb the hill? There’s a place we can stay.”

  “Might take me awhile, but yes, I think so.”

  I stood up and offered him my hand to help him up. He stood and swayed. I steadied him with my arm around his body, such welcome warmth he was to me.

  “I could’ve killed you, you know. What were you thinking sneaking up on me?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want to call out, but I was afraid if you left, I’d never catch you. You’ll see I’m not moving too fast.”

  “I don’t think there’s any rush.”

  We took our time climbing the hillside into the thicker trees where no one would see us. The rain was lighter now, or maybe the trees protected us here. I’d been running on the energy of my fear for the last two days. Now that I’d found Recks, I was suddenly exhausted.

  As we neared the crest of the hill, the pines thinned and a castle came into view. Unlike the ruins in Roma, this castle stood intact. Its walls were unblemished by time; its roof still held. Vines covered its white marble in dark, dusty green, even in winter. Mother Sun broke through the clouds, casting a buttery, late-afternoon glow. I’d seen pictures of such beautiful ancient places in my downloads, but this was far more than I’d expected. We stared in open awe at the sight.

  “How did you know this was here?” asked Recks.

  “It’s on the map,” I said, tapping my temple. “I didn’t know what it looked like though.”

  “Is it empty?”

  “The map doesn’t tell me that.”

  “Then we should be careful until we know.”

  Recks drew his small knife and held it ready as we silently approached the massive structure. I kept my eyes wide for any movement in the windows but saw nothing. Creeping around, we found all the doors sealed. There were no windows on this level, only smooth polished stone. After we circled the building and saw no one, Recks slowly climbed one of the ropey vines up to a window high above the ground. He broke a small pane of glass and reached in to unlatch the window.

  I waited below while he disappeared inside. The sun dropped lower in the sky as her aurora grew brighter. Dusky purples and blues painted the castle like the twilight sky of a far-off land. It wasn’t as expansive as the Gora compound, but it was the most beautiful building I’d ever seen, like something out of one of Recks’s fairy tales.

  This day seemed so unreal with Kinder gone and Recks and I free to go where we pleased. What would we do with our lives? I felt dizzy thinking about it. I never really let myself believe it was possible we could be free together.

  Recks’s face reappeared at the window, a light breeze ruffling his hair as he beckoned to me.

  “It looks all right. C’mon up.”

  I adjusted the satchel on my back and climbed the vine. He waited for me at the window, his gentle hands ready to help me inside. Once in, my eyes adjusted to the late afternoon shadows as I looked around the room.

  “I haven’t been through the entire place yet, but it seems deserted,” he said.

  I sighed deep. All I wanted to do was rest. He pulled me by the hand with a smile.

  “Come see this. You’ll love it.”

  I followed him past the dusty furniture and down a hallway to an open door with the sunset pouring through. Golden light filled the room, streaming through a row of high-arched windows. All the furniture sat under sheets of clear plastic, coated with a thick layer of dust. The castle perched on the edge of a snowy valley surrounded by jagged, purple peaks with a view that went on forever. I walked to the window to look out across the world.

  “It’ll be dark soon,” I said.

  “There’s a fireplace here. I can find some wood and make us a fire.”

  “That would be nice. Too bad there’s no dinner to cook on your fire.”

  “What do you mean? Soren supplied me plenty well.” Recks smiled as he went to his pack on the floor and opened it.

  “Really?” I shuffled over to see what he had. From the depths of his bag appeared a dense loaf of brown bread and some apples, making my mouth water. Recks handed me an apple which I immediately bit into, the juice sweet on my parched tongue. He found a small bag inside the pack.

  “He said this could be boiled to make soup.”

  I opened the bag and smelled the contents. “Must be some kind of bullion,” I said. “Smells delicious, like mushrooms.”

  “Let me get this fire going. It’s getting dark in here.”

  I felt like I should help, but I was so tired all I could do was chew the apple. He disappeared for a while and eventually returned with some wood and a copper pot he’d found somewhere.

  “There’s an amazing kitchen downstairs.”

  I yawned and drew my robes closer around myself.

  “Better feed you. Looks like you’ll be asleep soon,” teased Recks. He dumped the bullion into the pot, poured water in it, and set it in the tiny fire.

  “I’d eat it cold,” I offered.

  “No, I mean to feed you a proper meal. Have some bread.”

  He tore off a hunk of the loaf and put it in my hand. The touch of his hand was so gentle and
warm, I was sorry when he pulled away.

  “Do you think it’s safe here?” I asked.

  “For now. The house is certainly locked up tight,” said Recks as he fed the little fire more fuel.

  “House? This?” I ran my fingers along the granite mantel and brushed the dust from my fingers off on my leggings.

  “It’s more like a castle, isn’t it?”

  “It’s strange, like they left on a trip and never came back.”

  “What’s strange is it’s not looted. Most every place has been.”

  “It’s hidden well,” I said, looking out across the snowy landscape outside the window. There was nothing but trees around us.

  “We should be able to rest up here for a few days,” said Recks, bringing me a hot earthenware cup of bullion. It warmed my stiff fingers as I wrapped them around the mug.

  “Days? But the Reticents?”

  “By the looks of things, they’ve got their hands full for a while. I think we can relax.”

  “And then what?” It suddenly seemed very important for me to know.

  “Have your supper, and we’ll get some rest. We can talk about it in the morning.”

  I wanted to argue, to demand a decision be made now, but the rich barley beef stock smelled too good to my grumbling tummy to put up a fight. I slurped it, feeling it warm me all the way down to my belly.

  The fire burned brighter as Recks added more wood, lighting up the darkness and throwing shadows around the room. He went to inspect the furniture and pulled the plastic sheeting off a large wooden bed.

  “It still has sheets,” he said.

  I set down my empty cup and went to see.

  “Climb in,” he said, helping me take off my outer robes and boots.

  The mattress was soft, but the blanket was cold and I shivered in the covers.

  “Let me help.” He pulled off his own jacket and pants, quickly sliding in next to me. He felt warm and safe around me. I found myself wanting him even closer as I tucked my head beneath his chin to rest on his collarbone. I felt the muscles of his chest and his arms around me. I lifted my face to rub the stubble of his chin with my lips.

  “Alana?”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you be my mate?”

  At first I didn’t answer. I was overcome with such a strange sensation of joy and sorrow; I couldn’t speak.

  “Alana?” His voice was uneasy.

  “I would be a terrible first wife for you.” Recks looked into my eyes, his nose against my nose, so close his breath brushed against my own lips.

  “I don’t want a first wife. I want you.”

  “But, I’m hideous.”

  “That’s a lie, and you know it.”

  Recks pulled something off his little finger and showed it to me—a ring with an emerald buried in the gold band.

  “See this? How beautiful the stone is? That’s only because the craftsman looked inside an ordinary rock to find it. The outside means nothing.” He slipped the ring on my finger and tangled his fingers with mine, kissing my face.

  “Say you will?” he whispered.

  I couldn’t feel my breath. “I am yours. I’ve always been yours.”

  “Then it’s done. I’ll be yours till the end of my days. Mother, make it so.”

  “Yes,” I managed to say breathlessly.

  I’d long since lost any sense of reality as my happiness overwhelmed me. In this dream, he loved me. I no longer felt afraid, and the walls around my heart melted. I knew he’d keep his word. His lips on mine eliminated the need for anything else to be said. His touch said the things that couldn’t be expressed in words. I thought my heart might shatter into a million tiny pieces. I’d been here before with a man this way many times, but it had never felt like this. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t hurt. I didn’t need to separate myself from my body to survive this. It was good and right, like the way a warm blanket comforts on a cold night.

  The sweet, musky scent of his skin—so different from Dine’s stink—filled my nose. I drank him in, and yet I wanted more. The desire surprised me. Craving to be as close as I could, I held him tight, as if he could become another part of me, a part I hadn’t known was missing until now. He pulled me into his chest just as strong, his lips crushing mine.

  “Are you okay?” he asked next to my ear, his breath hot on my neck. He waited motionless for my answer. At first, I could only nod, my eyes still closed, but he wasn’t satisfied with that.

  “Alana, don’t ever say yes to me just because you think you have to. I don’t want it to ever be like that.” I looked into his clear green eyes filled with love for me. I touched his temple, pushed the black hair from his eyes, felt the rough stubble on his chin, and brushed my thumb across his perfect lips.

  “It could never be like that with you, Recks. I want you always.” I pulled him back into me. He surrendered to my kisses and I to his.

  I didn’t know how much I slept that night, how much was a dream, or how much was real. I only knew that I was changed forever. I could never be happy if I awoke without his arms around me again. But I did wake in his arms, his body keeping me toasty warm even though the fire had long since gone out. The angle of light coming in the windows told me Mother Sun was high in the sky. My tummy grumbled, but I didn’t move. I wanted to lie there and soak it up as long as I could—the sound of his gentle breath, his skin on my skin, the feel of the downy hairs on the back of his arms. I wished I could download it to my chip and save it forever.

  The thought of the chip in the back of my head brought a thousand new thoughts flooding back to me. Were we safe? Could they find us? Were they even looking for us? Recks took a deep breath, the sound a soothing ripple in my ear.

  “You awake?” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “Hungry?”

  “A little.” I pulled his arms tighter around me, snuggling into him, unwilling to get up.

  “I’m starving. I wonder if there’s anything in the kitchen downstairs.”

  I opened my eyes. Was Recks telling me to make breakfast? If he was hungry, it was now my job to feed him. That’s what wives did. I moved to sit up, but he held me down.

  “Where are you going?”

  “You said you were hungry.”

  “I’ll live. Be still.” I relaxed in his embrace again, confused and happy at once, thrilled by his breath tickling my neck. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “The day I met you; you said, ‘May Mother Sun shine on you.’”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, to a slave even. I couldn’t believe it. And now she has. She brought me you.”

  “Mother Sun has nothing to do with it. I love you because you’re kind. It was only ever you.”

  When we got tired of lounging in bed, Recks showed me the kitchen, and we cooked Soren’s oats for breakfast. Every day I liked Soren more. With little else to do, we wandered the castle, curious what else it might hold. Almost every room was enormous and dusty, untouched by humans for a long time. Beautiful paintings adorned the walls of fancy-colored, peeling paper.

  After an hour, it seemed we’d seen all there was to see, but Recks opened one more door and proved me wrong. Inside, the walls of the high-ceilinged room were completely covered in books. A spiral staircase led to a second level with even more volumes high above us. There were books of every size, shape, and color. There may have been fewer books than the Reticent library held, but the effect was so much greater because they could all be seen at once.

  “Whoa,” murmured Recks, looking up at the walls of shelves.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I said, touching the ornate wood of the stair railing.

  “I can’t believe the Reticents never ransacked it.”

  “Maybe they didn’t think they needed it. A lot of these look like fiction.”

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” asked Recks.

  “What?”


  “If this is still here, there could be more untouched libraries out there. They haven’t been able to destroy every book.”

  “I don’t think they could even if they wanted to.”

  Recks and I scanned the shelves for a while, opening a book here and there. I found a poetry book and became engrossed for a while until I noticed Recks was gone. Turning to look for him, I saw him staring out the window at the valley. I joined him, my hand low on his back.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “People should know about this.”

  “This castle?”

  “No, books. Knowledge. Stories. They should know it all.” I didn’t like where his thoughts seemed to be heading.

  “Yes, I suppose they should but how? None of them can read.”

  “But we could teach them, and they could teach others.”

  “And we could get killed doing it too.” I moved away from him. I didn’t want to hear this talk anymore, but he kept on.

  “It’d have to be a secret of course. We could find people, like Soren, who could be trusted.”

  “But you can’t teach them by download. It’d take a lot more time.”

  “I know, but it could be done.”

  “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” I breathed on the glass to fog it up and drew stars with my finger.

  “You don’t want to,” he said. It was more of a statement than a question.

  “You’re my husband. I go where you go.”

  He pulled me into his arms. “If I weren’t here, what would you do?” His eyes peered deep into mine, as if he could somehow read the thoughts in my soul.

  “I would die.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t die, Alana. You were doing just fine when you found me.”

  “I’d search for you until I died then.”

  Recks laughed and kissed my forehead. “Let me put it another way. If you could do anything you wanted, anything at all, what would it be?”

  I thought of all that was on my chip, of everything I’d seen in Kinder’s downloads. “I’d like to live by the ocean, some place that was warm all the time. And I’d learn to swim.”

  “I promise you, you shall.”