“No, Meriall. I’m not an Elect. I belong to the Elect.”
“But you’re the Watcher’s Wife!”
“I didn’t choose to be his Wife.” There is the glint of a tear in her eye. “I was forced to be his Wife.”
“I don’t understand. How can you be forced to be a Wife?”
“I was bought by him.”
She looks at me quietly, waiting for my response and rubs her fingers across the blue circle on her chin.
“Bought!” My thoughts struggle in confusion. “But how? Who sold you?”
She looks at me with pity and dread begins to creep over me.
“What do you know about Collection Day?”
“I know that there will be one soon. My mother lives in worry that they’ll come for us. They took my brother Nathaniel and Pascha’s sister Edie; they never came back.”
“Yes, there will be another soon,” she agrees. “Do you know where they took him after Collection?” she asks, trying to discover how much I know.
“No. They never told us where he was taken to, only that he was taken as a payment for their protection—that it was our turn to give something to them. We think he’s working for them or been trained as a fighter to help protect their territory.”
My mind is whirring. Collection Day will be soon! When? Tomorrow? Next week?
“Meriall, Collection Day is when they pick their produce and take it to market.”
“I don’t understand. Take what to market?”
“You Meriall. Your brother and your sister and your friends. You are what they call an Outlier and Bale is a stock farm. They will come to the village and take you with them to the town. That is where you will be sold to the highest bidder. It is a slave market Meriall.”
The shock reels through me. “Sold!”
“Yes, just as I was sold, only I wasn’t kept in an Outlier village like this. I lived with my family on a farm. They were sheep farmers further north.” Her voice cracks and she stops talking.
“Please—go on—tell me what happened.”
“We’d never heard of the Primitives before they came. We were like everyone else, struggling after the wars, but we had more than most. We could trade for what we needed with the sheep—their meat and the fleece. We knew there were problems in the towns and heard about the gangs trying to take control, but we were high up in the hills so the fighting didn’t reach us.”
“We escaped from the towns when they got too dangerous—to this village, before the Primitives came,” I add, remembering how we’d arrived starving, bedraggled yet giddy with relief.
“It became dangerous for us too. The Primitives discovered where we were and a group of fighters came to the farm. They were led by Blaylock. It was the early days and he wasn’t a Captain then, just one of their Enforcers. He was polite to my mother and father, charming even, but what they didn’t realise was that he was on a scouting mission looking for anything of use or value. Our farm was too rich a prize for them and so were me and my sister. They came for us the next day.” She stops.
“You don’t have to tell me if it is too painful for you,” I say gently.
“No. I want to speak of it. I haven’t been able to tell anyone before today. It was early in the morning, first light because it was still grey. Banging and thudding from downstairs woke me up. Father always woke early to work on the farm, but I knew it couldn’t be him, the noise was too loud and it was angry. I heard a man shout, ‘Upstairs. They’re upstairs’ and my father shouting back. I jumped out of bed as footsteps crashed on the stairs and ran to my wardrobe to hide, but just as I stepped through the doors arms grabbed around my chest, pulled me back, then dragged me across the floor. Another man grabbed my legs and they carried me down to the kitchen. It was all so quick. I kicked and screamed, but nothing stopped them. Nothing. I could see that they had my sister too and that my father was lying on the floor. He didn’t move. I didn’t see my mother. I haven’t seen them since.”
Tears run freely down her face.
“When they had stripped the farm of everything they wanted they took me and my sister to the town—to the market.”
She stops, struggling with her memories. After a moment she continues.
“When we got to market they made us ready for sale.”
A flush of pink creeps into her cheeks and she seems to sink a little within herself.
“Ready? How?”
“Kannis wanted the highest price for us so he had us washed and checked for purity.” She flinches as she speaks, but I have to know what she means. “Purity?”
“Yes, if you haven’t been with a man you are ‘pure’ and so can be sold for a higher price. I was proved ‘pure’ and put aside with some other girls for The Elect to bid on first. The Watcher bought me,” and she smudges her chin again with her thumb as if trying to rub the blue circle away.
I wait for her to continue.
There’s a noise on the path outside and she stands abruptly.
“I can hear someone coming up the path,” she says, anxiety rising in her voice.
I look to the window. Pascha and Jey are walking towards the front door.
“It’s ok. It’s just my friend and my sister come to find me.”
“Don’t let them see me. I shouldn’t be here.”
There is nowhere in the small kitchen for her to hide.
“Look. I’ll go out. You stay here. It’s dark and they won’t see you if you just sit still until I’ve gone out the front door. You can let yourself out and no one will know that you were here,” she agrees, just as Pascha opens the front door and shouts for me.
“Meriall. Meriall. Where are you?”
“I’m here. I’m coming,” I call out and hope it’s enough to stop him coming into the cottage.
“They’ve lit the fire. They’ll be bringing him soon. We’ll miss it if we don’t hurry,” he shouts back.
“I can hear you, no need to shout,” I reply with mock anger as I step towards him out of the dark hallway and feign excitement, “let’s go watch the traitor burn.”
Chapter Twelve
At The Green the fire is beginning to really take and plumes of grey smoke disappear up into the black sky. I stand holding onto Pascha and Jey and watch the people move about. They have become dancing silhouettes before the orange and yellow flames at the heart of the fire. Their chatter is nervous, their voices strangely high. Close by a woman shrieks with laughter. Her head tipped back, her mouth a black hole stretching across her face, framed by the grey hair that straggles from beneath the huge fur hat pulled low on her head. Pascha pulls me through the crowd past the woman, her breath is hot and sour on my face and I dip my head to get away from the stench.
As we move forward, we’re knocked by a man trying to get through the crowd and Jey’s hand slips out of mine. I look back and grab for her, not wanting to lose her in this strange night. The atmosphere is odd. It feels tense and excited yet dangerous. A man next to me laughs, a deep, guttural laugh, that booms in my ear as I pass him. Others chatter nervously with high voices. My senses are bombarded with the noise and the jostling and I can think of nothing but the awful truth the Watcher’s Wife shared with me.
I flinch when Jey squeezes my hand excitedly.
“They’re coming. Listen!”
The noise and clamour begins to lull and a quiet anticipation spreads through the men and women standing in The Green. In the distance, coming up the lane, I hear the clacking of hooves, something rumbling and what may be feet stamping. I turn to face the noise and, from the blindness of the night, a glow of light pushes back the dark and creeps around the stone corner of the last house before The Green. The glow seems to float mid-air, a cloud of burning light, carrying disembodied hands and faces.
The hack and crunch of boots on tarmac gets louder and a murmur from the crowd rises to a babble of excitement as the Enforcers turn into The Green. Tension flies into the air like sparks and suddenly the crowd cheers. Nearby a teenag
e girl shrieks. “He’s here! He’s here!”
I see him too—a figure in rough clothes, blue jeans, a shirt and workmen’s boots typical of the village men. He even has the knotted scarf at his throat similar to the ones they wear against the cold. Tied to a pole, he is dragged behind the Watcher’s stallion. The horse is tall, sixteen hands at least, and its black coat glistens over the contours of its muscles in the burning light of the bonfire. It is beautiful but terrifying. Seated on the horse is the Watcher. Captivated, I take in every step forward that the horse and his rider make. The Watcher has complete mastery over the horse and holds its bridle in a steadfast grip. A clack of metal and the horse moves forward, instantly spurred by the cruel metal strapped to the Watcher’s black leather boots.
The procession stops as it reaches the bonfire. The traitor, and the pole he is tied to, are released from the ties that hitched them to the stallion. A long rope is knotted around the top of the wooden post and two Enforcers pull against it, digging their heels into the soil until it is raised and planted into a deep hole. The effigy stands, his blind eyes looking out at us, his head kept in place by the rope tied at his neck, his body steadied by a crossed bar over which his arms dangle. He waits as two villagers backfill the hole and whack the earth around the wooden post until it is straight and solid. Flashes of burning orange crackle and glow as sparks and specks from the fire whirl in the air. The fire brightens and casts a light on his face. It is grotesque; lumpy and mottled in the firelight like a macabre death mask.
The Watcher stills his horse next to the effigy and raises his hands. The crowd obeys and becomes silent until all that can be heard is the crackle from the fire.
He lowers his hand and speaks. “Step forward to be chosen.”
The crowd heaves forward as people push to the front. He rides slowly along the line and chooses five to come forward. I catch my breath; Gabrial and Jennet are first followed by three older villagers.
“This man” and he stabs his finger at the effigy dramatically, “is a traitor. He has been found guilty of disobeying the Rule.”
He looks across the crowd.
“He is a danger to us all and must be stopped. The Rule is clear. Dissent will not be tolerated. Subversion will be eradicated. Rebellion will be squashed. There is only one punishment for treason and that is death. Come forward and take your weapons.”
The five executioners pick up the blades laid out on the grass and circle the effigy.
The Watcher pulls his horse back and shouts, “By the order of the Primitive Elect kill the traitor!” A roar from the crowd and the five run forward, spikes held shoulder height, lethal javelins, ready to stab. Gabrial is the first to smash his spike into the effigy, his face screwed with hate. He pulls it out and again stabs it down into the body.
“Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!”
With each word, the body is gored and stabbed until the jeans and coat become ripped and then shredded until he bleeds out his stuffing of dried grass, his face a pulp of crushed and broken wax.
“Burn him!” a man shouts.
“Burn. Burn. Burn,” the crowd echoes back. A pack of starving dogs baying for blood.
A small group breaks away from the pack, grabs the post and what is left of the effigy, and throws it high up onto the bonfire. It stands upright for a moment, its ruined face looking up to the moon with a defiant, broken grin, before the fire licks at the shredded cloth and then swallows it whole. A cheer from the crowd fills the air as the body disappears into the flames.
The Watcher turns away from the pyre and disappears back into the darkness.
I stand and watch the spectacle, but it doesn’t touch me the way it does the others. I remember the earlier days, before the Primitives came, and the Wife’s warning sits in my mind like a dead weight.
The fire is dying now, the guy burned to ashes in its heat, and the crowds leave as a pack, slinking back into the dark of the lanes. Mesmerised by the flickering of the orange flames, my mind wanders back to another fire unbearable to watch, where I try to run to Tristan, but Nathaniel holds me back and I scream at the crowd for them to put out the fire.
Pascha’s voice breaks into my thoughts, hard and insistent, “Meriall! Meriall!”
“What? What is it?”
“Where were you? I’ve been talking to you for the past five minutes.”
“I’m sorry. I was just … looking at the fire.”
I know I have to talk to him. Tell him about the Wife and Collection Day.
“Pascha,” I pull on his sleeve and drag him to me, standing on my toes. “We have to leave Pascha! We have to leave here!”
“Meriall, calm down. Shh—calm it!”
I clutch at his arm—hysteria rising.
“We have to leave,” I insist.
“Ok, ok. Let’s go somewhere we can talk. Not here.”
“Get the others, they have to hear it too.” I have to warn them and save as many as I can.
“What others?”
“Jey, Gabrial- “
“No. Not Gabrial. We can’t trust him. Didn’t you see him tonight?”
I remember the chaos in his eyes as he beat and stabbed the effigy.
“Just Jey—only Jey.”
I look for my sister. She’s talking to Judythe. I get her attention and we all walk back to the house. The quietness in me has gone and I am consumed by the scratching need to save them from Collection, to grab them and run across the moors.
Back at the cottage I pace in agitation across the kitchen floor.
“Meriall, steady on! What on earth is wrong?” Jey asks, worry spread across her face.
“Lock the doors and close the curtains. I have to talk to you.”
A bang of the door and my mother is here too. I can’t protect her any more. She has to hear this. There’s silence in the room and Jey, Mother and Pascha are staring at me in confusion.
“Tonight The Watcher’s Wife told me about Collection Day.”
They say nothing.
“They’re coming for us soon, but it’s not so we can work for them, or help fight and protect everyone—they’re going to sell us!” I hear my voice rising in hysteria and my heart thumping hard in my chest, “they clean us and make sure we’re pure and then sell us!”
“What do you mean they sell us?” Jey sounds confused, frightened.
“This village is a stock farm. That’s what the Wife called it. They take us to a market and sell us.”
“You have to leave!” Mother’s voice is insistent. “You have to leave here and hide. They can’t have you. I won’t allow it. Pascha you must take them away, tonight!”
Pascha is silent.
“Pascha?” I prod.
He remains silent, turns and puts his hands on the high mantle above the stove, his head bent low, his knuckles squared as he clenches at the oak lintel.
“Pascha!” I say, irritation in my voice, wanting him to talk.
He turns to my mother,
“If we go, we all have to go. We can’t leave you or my mother here if we run—they’ll use you to punish us.”
I know he is right.
“We can’t leave Ish or Ria either,” Jey adds.
“No Jey, we can’t leave them either,” he agrees and I know, with absolute certainty, that we have to get them out of their prison.
Chapter Thirteen
In my sleep I hear clanging and knocking, as though someone in the distance is hammering at a tree; iron on wood. I wake suddenly and listen again for the noise. It doesn’t come, but the wind is strong outside and the trees whisper and creak. I lie still and close my eyes, but the clanging of my dream and thoughts of Ish and Ria locked in the Watcher’s house prick at me. Jey’s soft breath is deep and regular. She is sleeping fast and doesn’t seem to be struggling the way I am.
The dull clang again! Did I really hear it? I can’t tell if it is real or not yet the sound of metal and wood rings through my bones. I throw back my bedcovers and walk barefoot across
the cold floor to the window and look out as if the dark, swaying trees will give me the answer. The full moon is waning, but there is still enough light for it to push back the shadows in my room and cast light into the garden.
Nothing.
The clanging sounds again—calling me. What is it? What do you want? The urge to follow the noise is strong. Are you even real?
I dress in the kitchen, thankful to my mother for putting my jeans and top on the airer to warm, and step outside into the night. The lane is lit only by the moonlight and no other soul is to be seen. I zip up my jacket against the cold, pulling the slider tab right to the top and tuck my chin into the collar. My thoughts are not clear. It makes no sense for me to be here, leaving my home to follow this noise, yet I am compelled to find it and begin my walk to the edge of the village. The clang of wood on metal comes again and the wind sneaks in through the gaps in my clothes. I shiver and hurry towards the last houses in the lane. The entire village sits in darkness.
The clang comes again, louder this time and a shiver of dread runs through me. I pull my collar closer. Wintering trees sway and creak beyond the dark edges of the lane as the wind forces itself through their naked branches. A dense fog begins to shift about my feet. I take a breath to calm myself and it is there: Tristan’s tree.
The moon is shining down giving light to its night black form. The branch holding Tristan is being broken by the wind; the cage has dropped to an angle and swings and knocks against its trunk. The iron thud comes again. I stand fixed to the cold ground, arms locked and tight into my sides, and watch the cage swing back and forth with each gust of wind. Tristan’s body lays slumped in a blackened heap at the bottom of the cage and what remains of his arm points out between the bars. With each blow of the wind the branch creaks and moves, the cage sways and knocks, and his arm seems to shift as if with life. A gust of wind blows violently and I totter, uprooted by the force, closer to the tree. The fractured branch gives a final shriek and drops Tristan to the ground.
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