“Meriall are you coming?” Jey shouts to me. Her voice is high and unusual; excited.
“Coming where?” I ask in confusion, pulled out of my thoughts. “What’s so important?”
I stab the metal fork into the earth and look up towards her voice. The thin autumn light is bright and I only see a silhouette of my sister. I shield my eyes from the sun, the skin of my work-worn fingers rough on my brow through the black soil sticking to my hands. I see her now. She stands at the front corner of the cottage holding two long branches, beckoning me to come with their gnarled and claw-like twigs. A woollen hat is pulled low over the auburn plaits that frame her pale face, her cheeks flushed with the cold air. Her eyes sparkle and dance inside dark lashes and her lips are full and finely drawn—brushed pink. She is a doll. A perfectly sculpted and beautiful porcelain doll; delicate, unblemished and fragile.
She is insistent. “Meriall! Come on.”
“What is it?”
“We’re on The Green. Building the fire,” she answers, and I recall that today is the one day of the year we are allowed to celebrate; the fifth of November, the remembrance of a traitor executed. She stands watching me—impatient.
“Leave the digging. It’ll still be there tomorrow. Today we can have fun.”
“Fun?”
She has my attention now but not my understanding.
“Yes, fun.”
My heart misses a beat as the Watcher’s unmistakable voice sounds out behind my sister.
He stands large and still, the black collar of his heavy woollen cloak pulled high round his neck, a stark backdrop to the sallowness of his face. He towers above Jey, a monolith of black spite, and places his hand with its long determined fingers down onto her shoulder. She flinches but he doesn’t notice. She looks even smaller now; a sparrow guarded by a hawk. I grip the wooden shaft of the spade to stop the tremble of fear rushing through me and push down the urge to raise it up and throw it at him like a spear. I look at him unable to speak and his eyes take me in. They are sharp and unwavering and certain—cold—a cold grey ringed by black lashes. He strokes his marked cheek as he looks down at me, a frown of a memory perhaps flickering behind his eyes.
“Yes, Meriall. We can have fun.”
He squeezes Jey’s thin shoulder as he pulls her slightly back towards him.
Threatened.
I feel threatened and the lurch of it crashes in my belly. I hold his gaze and put out my hand as if to reach for Jey and pull her to me.
“Yes, fun. It ... let’s go … let’s go and find wood … let’s help to build the bonfire.”
“Good girls. I like to see my girls doing as they should.”
A satisfied, ugly smile creeps into the corner of his mouth, skewed by the scar reaching across his cheek. The certainty of his ownership leaks from every pore in his body as he turns and walks back to the front of the house. The door shuts hard as I run to Jey and grab her arm. Too tight.
“Ow! Meriall that hurts.”
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” I force out in a rushed and strained whisper.
“Let’s go Meriall … to The Green.”
I can’t move. My mind is whirring. What is he doing here? And why has he gone into our house?
“Jey, wait. He’s gone in,” and I point to the closed door of our cottage.
“He said to go. We have to go to The Green. He said so.”
“Yes, but … he’s with Mother!”
I look at the shut door and then to the kitchen window. A flicker—Mother is moving about the kitchen.
“She’s making tea! Talking to him?”
“And he will be angry if we don’t go to The Green. There’s nothing we can do. Let them talk,” she insists and starts to walk up the stone path towards the lane.
I can’t take my eyes off the dark glass of the kitchen window and stand motionless.
“Meriall!” Jey hisses and grabs at my sleeve. “We must go! Mother will tell us later.”
“Yes, later.”
And I turn and walk up the path away from the house, away from Mother and the Watcher and their unheard talk.
As we get closer to The Green, I hear the jarring sound of laughter and shouting. Jey tugs at my sleeve and begins to run. There is a strange excitement in her voice as she turns the corner past the last grey house of the lane and shouts back at me, “Look! Look how big it is.”
A jagged pyramid of branches and wood sits at the centre of The Green. The grass is wilted and browning, trampled by the countless men and women moving back and forth. The pile is already taller than me and villagers are coming with arms full of branches and twigs scavenged from the woods and throwing it on top.
A man streaked grey and lined with age, walks in front of me carrying a long cupboard door under each arm. They are made of a honey-coloured wood and carved at the centre with swirls of leaves and flower heads. We have a similar cupboard which stands proud and tall in the kitchen and holds our small collection of plates, bowls and Mother’s favourite embroidered table cloth, the one she brings out when me or Jey have a birthday. He nods as he passes and I notice the doors are rotting, dusty and full of small black holes where the wriggling larvae of wood beetles have burrowed through.
The air is charged with a tension and excitement that I can taste; bitter like the sap of the dandelion smeared across my hands. Men and women walk backwards and forwards - away from the pile to collect the wood - towards the pile to throw on what they have scavenged. Some are smiling, chatting together as they walk with their finds to the centre of the grass. Others talk in huddled groups and laugh together. And then there are those who seem agitated and scurry about looking for anything that will burn to throw on the heap.
The scene in the garden is crashing in my head. The Watcher has had his grasping hand on my sister and is at this moment in my home, yet these people are laughing and joking as if nothing is wrong. Burning bites at the pit of my stomach as I imagine him in our kitchen, drinking from our cups, talking with my mother. It is a place that is ours. A sanctuary from it all. A place that he should never be.
“Meriall! Come on. Let’s find some more wood,” Jey calls to me as she throws her branches onto the pile.
I can’t stand around like this, staring and doing nothing, so I agree and walk with her between the two stone cottages that lead to a dirt path and the woods behind. Ahead of us are some older kids. I recognise them instantly: Gabrial, Jarrad and his sister Judythe. They’re walking into the woods and Pascha is with them.
Jey calls out to them, “Wait up! Hey, Judythe, wait up.”
She breaks away from me and runs to her friend. Gabrial, Jarrad and Pascha turn to look.
“Hey, it’s Scarface!” Gabrial’s words are a punch to the stomach.
Jarrad stares at my scarred cheek for a second and then turns away. Pascha has become rigid and I watch as he grabs Gabrial by the collar of his blue jacket and shove him hard. He topples, his arms wheeling as he falls to the ground with a thud. He is winded, shock twisted on his face, but pushes himself up until Pascha steps forward and stands strong over him, his brows pulled into a frown, his jaw clenched. Gabrial isn’t cowed and stands, his hands muddied, his black jeans smeared with forest dirt, and scowls back. Pascha’s green eyes have narrowed to slits.
“Say sorry!” Pascha growls at him.
“Back off Pascha!” Gabrial is defiant.
“Then say you’re sorry,” his voice is rasped, “to her!” and he stabs his finger at me. Gabrial stands firm, his fists clenched.
“It was just a joke!”
“Say it!” Pascha shouts and lurches forward.
Gabrial steps back.
“Ok, ok.” His voice is harsh but then softens a little. “I am sorry, Meriall. It was crass of me.”
“It’s ok Gabrial.”
I don’t want this to escalate and I can hear in his voice that he means it.
“It’s a big scar that’s all. I’m stupid. I’m sorry.”
He h
angs his head low and a flush of red shame spreads across his face. He turns away and walks over to Jarrad and both leave us to go further into the wood.
“Are you ok Merry?” Jey asks concerned.
“Yes, I’m ok but I wish Pascha hadn’t gotten so angry. I could have handled Gabrial.”
Although I sound convincing I’m not sure I believe myself.
“Gabrial shouldn’t have called you … called you that name.”
My own sister can’t even bring herself to say it.
“Scarface. He called me Scarface.” My voice is terse as I spit out the words and Jey looks away.
“Merry, don’t,” she pleads. “Pascha was only trying to protect you.”
“And especially because it’s you,” Judythe adds with a lilt to her voice.
“What do you mean?” I ask, although I know what she’s inferring.
“It’s obvious to everyone Meriall,” she says, and leans in to whispers, “he likes you,” she teases. “You can see it in the way he looks at you. And he just went overboard with Gabrial.”
The heat in my cheeks rises and I look about to check that Pascha isn’t listening. He’s walking towards us and there’s no sign on his face that he’s heard. I whisper back to her quickly before he reaches us, trying to deflect her,
“That doesn’t mean anything—he just hates it when people get called out like that.” She simply smiles at me and nods towards Pascha as he reaches us.
He still looks agitated and isn’t meeting our gaze. I want to reassure him I’m ok, but Judythe’s revelation has flustered me. Does he really like me? The way I like him?
“You didn’t need to do that. I’m ok,” I blurt out.
He looks up at me, taken aback,
“I just mean that you didn’t need to worry about me. I could have taken care of Gabrial.”
I sound ungrateful, yet I don’t want him to see me as weak, a burden. My voice sounds assured. My words lie. It has been a few weeks since I got burned and the scar is an ugly red welt from my jaw to the top of my cheekbone. I know people look at it when they see me. Who wouldn’t? It just sits there angry and red on my face.
“He shouldn’t have said it.” His voice is gruff, defensive.
Perhaps I should tell him he shouldn’t have pushed Gabrial but the truth is I’m glad he did. Just having him next to me makes me feel safer and feeling safe is something I haven’t felt for a long time. I pull myself together,
“Pascha, what I meant to say was thank you.”
He looks up at me and his eyes, harsh only moments ago, are gentle and the hint of a smile sits on his lips.
“Shall we carry on? Into the woods to get some wood for that fire?” he asks, brushing an invisible hair from my arm.
He slips his arm across my shoulders and pulls me to him a little as we walk. My back is alive with pinpricks of electric shocks that spark deep and low within me and I am conscious that Judythe and Jey are watching us. I lift my shoulders a little as if to shrug him off; my tiny and pathetic attempt to show them that I’m not comfortable with his arm across my shoulder. He doesn’t seem to notice.
“It will fade Meriall—over time,” he says gently, but my heart sinks a little.
I just want to forget what happened. Not talk about it. “Yes, but I’ll never look the same.”
He pulls me round to face him. “You’re still you Meriall. A scar doesn’t change that.”
I know he’s trying to help but it does make a difference; I’m self-conscious now in a way I never was before and I know that having a track of red scorched across my face changes the way people see me. I’ll be ‘the one with the scarred face’ forever.
“When people look at me, it’s what they see—the scar first—they can’t help but see it. What Gabrial said was dumb but he just blurted out what everyone is thinking.”
“Yeh, it was dumb, but they look because it’s new. It’ll fade and then they won’t notice anymore. And you’re still you Meriall,” he repeats and looks at me intently with insistence in his eyes.
I pull my gaze away.
I want to stop talking about it now but he carries on. “Don’t let what other people think bother you,” he repeats.
“I know. It’s ok Pascha. I’m ok. Let’s get the wood for the fire.”
We walk deeper into the forest to look for fallen branches, the ones that are not too damp and covered with the white and orange spots of rot, the ones dry enough to burn.
Chapter Eleven
The day is coming to an end when we get back to The Green and make our contribution to the pile. The houses are darkening, but there is enough light left to see the huddles of men and women circled around the stack of wood, branches and sticks that make up the bonfire in the centre. I stand with Pascha, Jey and the others in the growing darkness. Collecting the wood and running through the forest made me hot, too hot, but now, as I stand still waiting for the macabre spectacle to begin, I notice the seeping cold that clings to the wet leather of my moccasins and has snaked its way up my arms and across my back. I shiver and realise the pain in my bladder. “Jey, I need to pee!”
“Go then. I’ll wait here with Judythe and Pascha. I’ll be ok.”
I prod Pascha. “I have to go back to the house. Jey will stay with you. Ok?”
“Hah! Yeh. Do what you have to do,” he says with a smile, turns back to the others laughing and squints through the growing dark at the unlit mound.
The sun has almost completely disappeared although, through the twilight, I can still make out the way to our cottage. The lane seems deserted, but I hear the clack of footsteps. As they get louder a figure walks into view and up the sloped lane towards me. I recognise the cloaked woman instantly from the stiffness of her walk. She is rigid, stiffly held in place by the deeply frilled ruff clamped around her neck—an iron bracket of one thousand pleats. I stop and move onto the verge next to the stone wall of a neighbour’s house, hugging the shadows as far as I can. It’s her, the Watcher’s Wife, and I have to speak to her.
“It was you!”
She looks up startled.
“Who is it?” she asks, pulling her cloak around her as if for protection.
“It was you who came to my room!” I reply, and step out from the dark shadow of the wall.
“Shh! Be quiet girl.” There’s a warning edge to her voice, but it sounds more like fear than anger. “We can’t talk freely here.” Her low voice carries the warning to me.
She stands rigid and unreactive as she always does. Anyone seeing us would think only that she was carrying out one of her duties, perhaps enquiring after the health of a villager to report back to the Watcher.
She steps closer. “Come. We’ll walk to your house. We can talk there,” and she nods almost imperceptibly towards the cottage.
We walk quickly, quietly, up the path and I carefully unlatch the door. The house sits in darkness and there is not one whisper of sound from the rooms.
“Mother must be at the Bonfire. We can talk in the kitchen.”
As we enter through the inner door the warmth of the kitchen plays soft on my skin. I beckon for her to sit at the scrubbed table and open the door of the stove, letting warming light out into the room. I sit opposite her, waiting for her to speak and in the privacy of the kitchen she relaxes a little. The sternness smooths from her face and her prettiness is framed by the whiteness of the frills and the stiffness of her grey headdress. She’s young, younger than I thought, not more than twenty-five years, although the signs of ageing are beginning to creep around her eyes, delicate lines barely etched on her skin. She holds her hands, rubbing at her fingers, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then looks straight into my eyes. “I can’t stay here long. Just sitting here talking to you is enough for them to punish me,” she frowns, closing her eyes again for a moment.
I recall the yellowing bruises on her face.
“You know that it is one of my duties to check on those that have reported in as sick. Everyone has to
be accounted for.”
“Yes, I understand. But you talked to me didn’t you. You warned me, you said, ‘He’s watching’. You did say that didn’t you!”
She frowns then nods as she bows her head a little. “Yes, I couldn’t help myself. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have kept my mouth shut, it would be better for us both, but I felt … I know that we are the same, you and I.”
“What do you mean ‘we are the same’? How can we be the same?”
“You reminded me of myself before I came here. You’re young and free as I was. I had to warn you that he has taken an interest in you and your family. He’s suspicious of you.”
“We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“You were friends with the Haslow’s and he saw you in the garden when they were arrested. That is enough.”
My stomach lurches.
“They’re my friends. I had to see what was happening to them.”
“I understand, but Meriall, everyone here has to follow the Rule. You know the consequences if you don’t. Dissent won’t be tolerated,” and an edge appears again in her voice.
“We do follow the Rule,” I say hurriedly, not wanting to give her a hint that we ignore it in any way.
“Yes, I’m sure you do. Meriall, I haven’t come here to spy on you,” she adds quickly. “You wanted to talk to me remember—asked me here. I warned you because I don’t want to see you or your family hurt because you’re not being careful enough. He’s suspicious—always looking out for people struggling to conform. They’re ruthless with anyone who rebels against them.”
“Hah! The people here are too afraid to rebel and there’s no one here strong enough—only old men and women,” I say, agitated. “They’ve taken all the strong ones,” I snap. “Why should I trust you anyway. You’re one of them—an Elect.”
Primitive (Dark Powers Rising Book 2) Page 7