The Long Lost

by Rebecca Woods

  I heard a faint muttering, then silence.

  I waited a minute, then two…nothing. He was obviously still there, waiting for me to make my move for safety.

  I heard noises behind me. The big house was set quite far back from the lane but my superior hearing caught the sound of a shutter opening and muttered male voices…they’d obviously noticed me hiding there. I had to go, but to which enemy?

  I took a deep breath and made my decision. I’d sooner hang for the deliverance I had given Herena, which the cloaked man had evidently seen than for simply being a woman and being caught alone outside my home. I felt a strange savage anger I had never felt before at the thought.

  Fear knotted inside me that I tried to suppress. It was time to leave and potentially face the consequences. Fear would do me no good now. Goodbye Father.

  I stepped out from behind the wall, prepared to face my pursuer and do whatever it took to get away.

  There was no one there. Nothing existed in the narrow lane except me and a small tendril of smoke that reached up towards the dark sky. I didn’t have time to be surprised or relieved; I walked on quickly and soon lost myself in another alleyway.

  Home at Last

  Walking home was always a frightening experience but I felt as if my senses had become even more alive that night as I walked the final lane that led to home. I allowed myself a glance at the stars again; never before had they looked more luminescent and more of a contrast to the inky black sky they seemed to be embedded in.

  I did not know what stars were but I knew they were beautiful and I knew that they were beyond the iron-clad order brutally maintained in the New World. They had always fascinated me and haunted my dreams at night. Well, the good dreams anyway.

  There it was. Rising up like a gnarled hand to grasp the stars was home; what was left of it. Time and lack of maintenance meant that all bar a small portion of the three-storey townhouse was uninhabitable due to the burning rain. However, it was home – and relative safety from the burnt grime and danger of the city. It was the only home I had ever known.

  I reached the house and climbed up the ivy that led to my bedroom window. My father would be in his study and he had never entered my bedroom. Male and female quarters were strictly segregated for obvious reasons except in the case of married couples.

  Luckily, the side of the house I was climbing was at an angle that was not immediately noticeable from the street. The road was a glorified lane and didn’t see much activity at this time of night.

  I reached the grimy wooden shutters; flickering candlelight could be seen through the crack where - even closed – the shutters did not quite meet. The safety of my bedroom was just through the shutters, my little world of relative comfort and security. I felt my heart beat quicker as I climbed; yearning to feel safe again in it.

  I opened the shutters by hooking my fingers behind the gap between them and pulling them out. I climbed in; tumbling onto the stone floor and cursing at the cut this gave me on my knee.

  Peeling off my cloak, I allowed myself to breathe; I had had a very lucky escape.

  I prised off the hobnail boots, wincing at the pain this caused my already burned and blistered feet. It was not long after moonrise, not long from now I would be expected to welcome my father home from work by visiting his study.

  After carefully taking the boots off, I quickly tipped the water in them out of the window.

  I closed the shutters quickly, feeling my racing heartbeat start to return to normal.

  Undressing, I stashed the men’s clothes inside a window seat along with the boots. I would tend to them when I next got a free moment. My father had three or four pairs of identical boots and would hopefully not miss them.

  I dressed quickly in my usual fare, a simple tunic and skirt with soft leather slippers to keep my feet warm. I liked the way the leather flapped against the stone floor as I padded through the house, I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because I could scarcely be heard this way, and because the slippers were comfortable. I liked the freedom that being able to creep about like a housecat gave me.

  I went to my bedroom door and opened it, listening for the familiar sound of my father working. I heard his usual moving of papers and rustling of important documents and went to the study.

  I paused outside the wooden door and quickly checked myself. Yes, I was decent. I knocked, disliking as I always did, the way that the only way to be heard through the thick material was to knock in a way that hurt my knuckles.

  “Come,” said the deep voice of my father.

  Auro Raincatcher sat at his massive oak desk working.

  “Child, how have you fared today?” He nodded across at me and beckoned me to come further into the room.

  I entered the grand study and waited to be granted permission to sit. This was given with the flick of a hand and I sat down on a wooden bench beside my father. Looking at his desk I could see that he was working on some accounts for the local council of Defenders. The seal of the Defenders was the giveaway. I looked away. I had seen that seal far too many times and in too painful circumstances to be anywhere near comfortable with it.

  “Well, how did you fare at the library?”

  “Well father, I thank you for asking” I said softly. “Henry is polite and treats me well.”

  “Master Broadfell, not Henry” said Father sternly, “That is to be seen, but I’m happy for now that he’s doing his best”.

  Silence fell and Father carried on writing, first dipping his quill into a large swirling pot of ink then scratching out indecipherable figures on the parchment. I knew his slight rebuke at my seeming overfamiliarity with Henry because of the use of his first name was out of concern for my welfare.

  I looked at him hard at work; his greying dark hair curled tightly and was slightly too long for his liking. He worked so hard to keep bread on the table that he often forgot to look after his own needs. This had been the case since we had been living alone together.

  He was a thin and wiry, and very small man but his enemies underestimated him at their peril, he was a hard taskmaster and strived for perfection in his work and home. It was hard meeting those standards but I wanted to please him more than anything.

  He looked up from his accounts and took a deep breath, seemingly rousing himself from the trance he seemed to go into when he worked. Red ringed his eyes and I noticed dark shadows underneath them.

  He cleared his throat and fixed me with his usual stern glance.

  “How fared you when patrons came in. I hope you were suitably respectful as befitting your position Auriana.”

  I had started working for the ancient library recently to try and contribute to the household, this was illegal of course but something my father had worked out with Henry. I had struggled to hold in my fear and nerves when talking to the patrons – male of course – that enquired after books, stamps and subscriptions but had withstood their surprised and (I knew) scandalised glances well according to Henry.

  My job was to check the signatures of the patrons against the signatures provided on the parchment they carried that distinguished them from others as being entitled to use the ancient library. Part of my role was also to put all misplaced books back into their right places. The books and sections were colour coded which helped with this.

  I realised I had not answered my father’s question.

  “I fared well father, may the Lord be praised”.

  “Good because I worked hard to get you in there. I’d hate you to repay me by making a spectacle of yourself.”

  He looked me in the eye, his soft brown eyes meeting my green ones.

  “Remember that you are to direct any enquiries about your position to Master Broadfell who will explain that you are performing labour to repay a debt".

  That was true, but not in the way that the defenders knew.

  “Yes father” I said. I had done this today, not daring to look the exulted and highly feared official in the eye. Instead I had bowe
d as low as I could and politely told him that he needed to speak to Henry who would be able to explain the situation. The Defender had looked at me with narrowed eyes and turned and left suddenly. Would he be back the next day?

  I knew that Henry had spoken to the Defenders about the situation and that they had agreed to look away. This was because they were keen to witness the humiliation Father would undoubtedly feel at his daughter working to provide income we used to have before he fell low.

  My father’s voice cut into my thoughts and it was a struggle to tear myself away from the memory of the fear I had felt that day, but I managed it and looked at him politely, smiling.

  “You are…not hating the library as much as you feared?”

  I knew that my father had just – by asking this question – hereby given me freedom to relax and speak more freely.

  It was usually at this point that my father’s language became far less like the formal speech he had to employ while conducting his business with the Defenders and more like the natural speech I preferred. This gave me unspoken permission to relax my vocabulary as well; which I usually did happily.

  This was my favourite time of the day, a time where my father and I would converse almost as equals. I knew I was lucky to have him, lucky to have a father who trusted me with responsibilities beyond cooking and cleaning. I loved him so much.

  I felt my body relax into my seat and smiled my first real smile of the day. Whatever faced me outside this house could wait. For now, I was safe. I was happy.

  “Surprisingly no”, I said quickly. “I like the work and we need the remuneration we receive for the work. It’s been very helpful”.

  “Are you…careful?” said my father suddenly, looking me straight in the eye.

  I knew what he meant. If I was seen doing anything else unbefitting of my sex then I would be in danger and so would he.

  “I’m always very careful Father. I have not been looking at the books”. This was a lie and I sensed that Father knew it and was struggling with himself with regards to how to handle it.

  He said nothing for another minute, just looked at me until I felt distinctly uncomfortable.

  “If that is how it is daughter, then you and we are in no more danger. Let’s keep it that way eh?”

  He smiled for the first time, but I could read the question behind his dark eyes.

  With a flick of his hand he dismissed me.

  I had often thought that my relationship with my father most likely appeared far different to an outsider than it actually was. This suited us both fine, as it would do no good if he were discovered being too friendly or relaxed with me if his employers were to come to our home; which they sometimes did. This would place him – and me – under suspicion and we had endured enough of that to last us a lifetime.

  Women were for private use and never to be conversed with as equals.

  Father and I went to great lengths to show the outside world that ours was a relationship akin to that of servant and master as befitting the status of females and my father’s once lofty position in the council of the New World Faith.

  In reality, we were very close and always had been. However the sheer effort needed to maintain the charade meant that we often kept it up in private if only to ensure we could jump into it in public when needed. We had got closer since the death of my mother and my subsequent humiliation. It was like he had received a unique perspective on what it was like to be the inferior sex in Zafiya.

  I kissed my father on the cheek and left his study to return to my room.

  Upon closing the heavy engraved wooden door, I was suddenly seized by a strong desire to check the lane below my window. It was as if I sensed something, or someone there bathed in the adolescent moonlight.

  In an instant, I crossed the stone floor and opened the shutters; not knowing why I suddenly felt a prickling on the back of my neck.

  With my heart in my mouth I looked down. The man in the strange cloak who had followed me from the marketplace stood in the shadows, the rising wind playing with his hood. I could not see his face, only that he was extremely tall and slender like I was, but with wider shoulders and a more confident stance.

  I did not know how I knew it was the same man, it was that tingling feeling inside me that confirmed it; that sixth sense that had mostly served me well on my night time missions.

  Many times I had almost been caught but had sensed the movements of the people behind me and hidden myself in response. I could not entirely explain how I had never been caught.

  This could be over now.

  I closed the shutters and walked over to my bed in a daze. I half expected the door to be broken in any moment by Defenders eager to cart me off for questioning. It would only take the say so of the stranger to incite such action by the Defenders of the New World Faith. Many women had been taken away, never to be seen again on far less.

  However, a man in Zafiya hell bent on accusing a woman would not need to bide his time and wait outside her house. He had the right to come in and seize me if he wished. This told me he could not be a Defender or be planning to hand me over to them.

  This feeling seemed to extinguish the fire inside my belly and I knew not why. By rights I should be terrified. Maybe I was desensitised after my evening’s exploits, maybe I was too tired; whatever the answer, I had the sudden urge to lie down on my hard bed and push my worries down into sleep.

  I sat down on the bed slowly, my head spinning. I had performed my acts of mercy many times over the past three twelvemonths, but Herena had affected me in particular.

  I blew out a candle that was on a side table next to the bed, the room was suddenly gripped by thick darkness. Feeling my way over to the window, I opened the shutter a crack and looked down again, knowing that I could not now be seen.

  The strange man was gone.

  It always fascinated me how the city looked at night whenever I looked out of my window, the streets seemed to be alive somehow; alive with dark spirits that whispered their secrets to me whilst trailing themselves over the stone ground.

  It was as if they only required my say so to become more than the frightening but insubstantial entities they were. This part of the day always frightened me but it was a ritual I stuck to religiously. I wondered once more about Herena and her death and sent a mental prayer to the sky for forgiveness. I was destined for Oblivion when my time to leave this world came, however I sometimes feared a much darker place waited for me after the many sins I had committed.

  I decided to try not to think about that most of the time, focusing on the fact that it was suffering that I was relieving. I killed not for personal gain but out of love; trying to save the women of Zafiya from a painful and prolonged death. There was no other hope for them; perhaps there was no further hope for me after this night.

  Looking out from my turret as the day died slowly made me feel a part of the world and connected to its workings – not the people in it but more the natural workings of the earth. I was excluded from the people but I was not excluded from the world.

  Tonight, the clouds were angry and threatened from above. There would be more burning rain in the night and possibly on the morrow. I was going to have to be very careful with my father’s boots. I would have to wear gloves as well as my hands had received the worst of the burning wrath.

  I did what I always did; I closed the shutters quickly to stop the spirits from getting in and got into my bed, which was lit slightly by the moonlight that entered from the gap between the shutters. I found that slit of light comforting tonight, it gave me an idea that the world was a much bigger than my situation and larger than the stranglehold the Defenders of the New World Faith held over the city and many parts of the world.

  My dreams that night were the familiar wisps of imagination, subconscious fears and memories I expected them to be; in one I was working my hours in the ancient library as a Defender watched over me, the harsh lines on his face accentuated by the bright sunlight from the s
tained glass windows that substituted for a conventional ceiling.

  In another dream I always had, I was standing on the edge of a muddy riverbank staring out across a river that was wider than even my superior eyesight could reach. I was holding myself up in the mud with a gnarled stick.

  I always felt compelled to find out what was on the other side of the river. If I listened carefully in the night calm I could hear singing low and solemn. Sometimes I could also decipher what was being sung but the words were foreign to me. I mostly heard just the tune and the voices as I tried to keep standing in the slippery mud by digging a small hole and ramming the end of the long stick into it to embed it.

  I then dreamt of Herena and the other women I’d tried to help that night. Herena was screaming at me because the poison hadn’t worked and she’d ended up in worse pain and degradation than before.

  This dream faded away and I then found myself in the library again but facing the strange hooded man who had followed me home.

  He just stood there, his legs apart, his shoulders set and his face hidden by the shadows cast from his hooded cloak.

  He suddenly went to lift up his hood and I found myself strangely intrigued as to what he looked like. However, I was jolted from the dream before I had a chance to see his face.

  I woke up feeling more unsettled than I had for a long time.

  Khalashaya

  Leaving for the library the next day, I let my father take my arm. He walked me to the library every day but I had to keep my hood up and my head down. So far we had only been stopped once by a small blonde Defender who had questioned where we were going, he did not seem to know I was a woman.

  After a lengthy conversation between the Defender and my father, we were permitted to go on our way. I felt a small stab of relief, glad for the millionth time that I stood over six feet tall.

  The morning was incredibly cold. The burning rain the night before had stopped, but the remnants of the previous night’s onslaught lay open to see like open wounds.