The Button Girl

by Sally Apokedak

  Father thanked the man, telling him, loudly. "I'm so thankful that Goodwoman Marsh lives and she will heal. I wanted to tell my daughter about that, and also I wanted to tell her that her mother and I love her. But, of course, I don't want to do anything that breaks the rules, so if I can't talk to my daughter, I'll just go back home. Thank you very much."

  Tears welled in her eyes as her father walked away slowly, his shoulders hunched.

  The village lay muffled under its thick cloak of fog and Repentance sat in the cart bed, hugging herself and rocking and wondering and worrying.

  She jerked awake when they moved out the following morning with two overlords up front and Sober, sleeping still, in the bed of the cart.

  Sitting up, she looked to see where they were.

  Still inside the fence.

  Ahead, people lined the cart trail, as they always did when the slavers pulled out. Only her neighbors hadn't gathered to proclaim their undying love and to encourage her. They usually talked about how brave the poor unbuttoned girls were. Even when they weren't brave. Even when their eyes were red and their noses were swollen from crying all night. Still, the sorrowful villagers called the girls brave.

  They wouldn't speak that way about Repentance.

  They'd come to curse her.

  Women spat as the cart rolled past the first of the onlookers. Children stood ready, balls of mud in their grubby hands.

  Sober's father stood in front, straining for sight of his son.

  Repentance looked at Sober, asleep in the cart. He wasn't even going to have a chance to tell his father goodbye. She nudged him with her toe, thinking to wake him so he could see his father one last time. Nothing. She pushed harder against him, jerking against the heavy iron shackles clasped onto her ankles.

  "She's kicking him, now," the newly buttoned Sovereign Mossybank shouted. "Did you see her kicking at him as he lies injured in the cart?"

  Repentance shook her head. "I didn't—" A gob of mud smacked into her chin and splattered into her mouth.

  When you've made a bad choice, there's but one thing to do. Welcome the consequences without whining. Mayhap some good will come eventually, but if you're stooping and drooping, looking at your boots and moping in your soup, you won't see the good if it does decide to show up.

  ~Meticulous Mudslide, An Old Man Remembers

  Chapter 4

  With a wild cry, all the boys let loose with their mud. Repentance dodged and ducked, trying to keep from being hit herself and also batting blobs away before they could land on Sober.

  A dragon stick exploded from the front of the cart and the mud attack ended immediately. "The next one to throw mud at this cart will come along for a ride," the overlord driver said.

  Repentance wiped her muddy hands on her button blouse and scanned the crowd looking for the faces she loved. Her gaze crossed over Goodman Marsh, taking in the pain that was clearly etched into the deep frown lines in his face. He was broken more than angry, and that cut her deeply.

  Moving on, Repentance searched for her family

  The whispers she'd heard all her life were louder than ever, and they had a new insistence to them.

  "Cursed."

  "Wicked, selfish, child!"

  "May Providence look upon all your days with scorn."

  Her gaze flitted past the midwife, who shook her head sadly; skipped over Comfort's scarf boy, Aggravation Mossybank; and finally, she found her sister, in the very back, all alone, sagging against an oak tree. On seeing Comfort with her dark eyes full of anguish and tears, Repentance forgot why it had been so important for her to refuse to button. She wanted to bury her face in her hands and cry, to hide from the reproach and hurt in her sister's look, but she wouldn't. She couldn't turn away. She gazed at Comfort, willing her to forgive. Willing her to be strong and well and happy.

  She twisted as the cart went along, keeping her sister in sight as long as she could.

  The angry shouts died down as her neighbors fell behind.

  Comfort, too, was finally swallowed up in fog.

  Numbly, Repentance kept staring toward where she'd last seen her sister, hoping for one more glimpse.

  They followed the familiar road down past the healing house at the hot springs where the overlords went when they were ill.

  And then came the poisoned river that surrounded the village.

  Repentance took a deep breath as the cart pulled onto the barge. A thrill of fear ran through her. She'd finally see what the world looked like on the other side of the river.

  It took a half an hour to cross the river. There was no current in the wicked, poisoned water, but it was wide.

  Too wide. Repentance had heard tales about villagers who had tried to cross. Their wooden rafts were eaten by the acid in the water long before they could reach the other side.

  The barge the slave cart pulled up onto wasn't touching the water. It was hanging over it. And the overlords who ran the barge didn't dip any paddles into the water. They pulled the barge across with pulleys and ropes.

  The cart bumped off the barge and Repentance looked around with a sense of disappointment. For some reason she had thought that things would look different on the far side of the river. Maybe it had been the pictures she'd seen in her schoolbooks. She'd imagined that all the world outside her village would be sunny, but even after the river was an hour behind them, all that lay on either side of the road was foggy swamp.

  Mud and marsh.

  The cart swished along the sandy track, harness leather creaked, and the foggy, fuzzy world slipped by. Exhausted, sorrowful, and lulled by the swaying and swishing, Repentance lay down next to Sober and slept.

  Some time later the sun woke her. She groaned and stretched. Every bony place ached from being bumped arou—

  The sun! The sky!

  Repentance lay still and gazed at the huge blue dome above her. She got dizzy staring at it. Not a wisp of fog. And cool air. She breathed deeply. The pictures of blue skies and sunshine in her schoolbooks didn't come close to the real thing. She sat up, threw her head back, and stretched her arms to embrace the sky.

  "Is it worth it?" Sober, sitting behind her, sounded bitter.

  She turned. One side of his face was swollen and purple. She dropped her hands and bowed her head. He couldn't understand. She didn't really understand it herself, but she somehow felt as if she'd been made for the sunshine and the crisp, cool air. "I think I might have died if I'd stayed in the swamp," she whispered.

  "Well, how nice that you have escaped then. How nice for you."

  Anger flared, making her cheeks hot. "I didn't do this so I could escape that Providence-forsaken swamp. I would have stayed forever under those drizzling trees if I could have. Do you think I would have hurt my sister, simply because I wanted to see the sun?"

  "I didn't think it yesterday, obviously. But today? Yes, I think you're capable of the most harsh and unfeeling acts."

  Her anger melted into a messy puddle of shame under his reproach. "I'm sorry, Sober. I never wanted to hurt you. I didn't know my father was negotiating with you. If I'd known I would have told him I was never going to button and breed. By the time I found out it was too late for you. All the other button girls were taken." She looked him steadily in the eye. She owed him an explanation. "Since the day the overlords took my brother, Tribulation, I've been glad to know that all the boys in the village thought I was cursed. I was sure none of them would button me, and that was fine with me. I couldn't bear to button and breed sons to be given to the overlords. How was I to know you would pay over beads for me? I never expected any such thing."

  "You have destroyed my family and yours. You've—" he choked on his words. "You've killed my mother, probably." He turned sideways, leaned back, and closed his eyes as if the sight of her was more than he was willing to bear.

  He didn't want to talk to her? Fine! Then she wouldn't bother telling him what she knew about his mother.

  But no. He wasn't to blame any more
than she was. They were both trapped by the overlords. She looked at Sober's swollen face and winced. He should hate the overlords, not her. They were the ones who hit his mother. They were the ones who ran the slave carts. But she didn't blame him for his anger. "Your mother lives," she said.

  Sober twitched but didn't open his eyes.

  "My father came in the night and told me she would heal."

  No answer.

  While she'd slept the sandy track they'd set out on had been replaced by a hard-packed roadway, which wound up a mountain.

  As sick and sorrowful as Repentance was, she couldn't keep herself from looking at the world she'd so long wondered about.

  Meadows full of wildflowers, in vivid reds and blues and purples, lined both sides of the road. Repentance had never seen so much color at one time. Here and there trees gathered in small clumps, splashing puddles of shadow across the grassy slopes. Oh, Providence was good after all. He had not made an ugly world. He had made beauty and light. In such a world, even Repentance might learn to be content.

  The sun was not quite at the top of the sky when buildings came into view. Barns made of tan and red stone squatted behind a low stone wall. In corrals outside the barns, horses nodded and snorted as the cart rolled past. One, a comical, knob-kneed colt, shied and tripped over his own gangly legs. Repentance couldn't stop smiling. How her little brothers would laugh at the baby horses wobbling about. And Comfort ... oh, how Comfort, with her artist's soul, would love to see sun on satiny flanks. She would so enjoy the lights and the shadows in this mountain world.

  At the thought of Comfort, her heart clenched as if a dried hook briar was twisting into the middle of her chest.

  Repentance swallowed hard, and prayed.

  When the cart came to a breach in the wall, they turned into a wide drive, which circled around in front of a big building also made of red and tan stone. The driver halted the horse at the front steps where two uniformed men waited.

  "Hancock from Hot Springs," the driver said to the men, as he and the slaver jumped from the cart.

  One man nodded. "Yes sir. Will you need your wagon now, or will you be stopping for lunch?"

  "Lunch." The driver took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a kerchief. Repentance stared. In the fog, overlord hair always looked dull and had a grayish cast, but in the sunlight it looked golden.

  "Transfer the slaves and guard them," the slaver said, dropping several beads into the servant's hand before following the driver into the building.

  Repentance turned her attention to the servants. They wore hats, but she could see black hair underneath. And their eyes were brown.

  The shorter of the two headed toward the barns.

  The cart lurched forward as the other man led the horse to a water trough, which stood on the side of the drive. The horse drank while the man rubbed his neck and whispered to him in a soothing voice. After a minute the man threw Repentance an uncomfortable glance. "What you looking at? I've grown horns atop my handsome head?"

  He was handsome and Repentance blushed at being caught staring. "It's just that ... just that ... you're not an overlord," she stammered.

  "What's it to you?"

  "But you're not a slave. I saw the overlord pay you."

  "Even slaves can earn beads if they work hard."

  "Really?" That was hopeful news. "Can a slave earn enough to buy his freedom? How long have you worked here?"

  "Buy his freedom!" The man laughed. The horse finished drinking and nuzzled him with a sloppy, wet face. "We've lived here all our days prior, and we'll live here forever after, won't we Bargess, old man?" he said patting the animal. "There's never freedom for a slave. But we can't complain, can we old man? For we've a kind master as compared with some." Looking back at Repentance, he added, "Leastways, I'd much rather be down here than in the ice city where some are headed, and that's speaking straight."

  At mention of the ice city, the collar of her button blouse suddenly felt too tight. Repentance tugged at it. "What's an ice city?"

  "A city made of ice. What else?"

  Repentance had never seen ice. She'd read about it in school. Frozen water. It was said to be very cold.

  "What's wrong with the ice city?"

  "I'll give you a trickle of advice, young babbler, 'cause I hate to see any living thing suffer no matter how ignorant it is. Talk a lot less, and you'll do a lot better in the ice city. Or anywhere else, for that matter." He turned his attention back to Bargess, the horse, rubbing his nose and crooning to him, obviously done with Repentance, the babbler.

  "There's a good, old, tired fellow," he said. "Don't you fret. I'll fix you up with a bag of hot oats." The horse whickered, and the man purred. "That's right. I give you my word, old man, and you know when Rebuke says a thing, his word is as strong as a steel bit."

  Sober, who had appeared to be ignoring everyone, gave a small gasp. "Rebuke? What's your back name?"

  "None of your concern."

  "I have a brother named Rebuke. Rebuke Marsh."

  Repentance caught the man's look of surprise, but he quickly pulled down a mask of indifference. "That can't be me, can it?" he said. "I've lived here since I were a wee colt. I've never had me a Mam, nor a Pap, nor any brothers or sisters."

  Looking from Rebuke to Sober, Repentance saw that both men had the same chin—square and dimpled. Rebuke's eyes were round while Sober's tilted up slightly at the outer corners, but Repentance remembered that Goodman Marsh had round eyes, too. The noses clinched it. They were identical, leaning a little to the left as they did. She finished studying them and gasped. This was Sober's brother. And ... what about her brothers? If Sober's brother was here— "Do you know any boys named Tribulation or Devastation?" she blurted out.

  Rebuke glared at her. "If you've lost boys, let it lie. If you didn't keep track of them when they were babies, you hardly have a right to ask after them now."

  Her cheeks burned as she remembered Tribulation calling out to her. She had done nothing to save him.

  Bargess shifted and the cart jerked forward, as the other servant returned, driving a wagon that was half the size of their long-bed slave cart. Repentance shifted her attention from Rebuke to the new wagon. There was nothing to drive in the smaller wagon—no horses—and no wheels. It skimmed along just above the ground. Repentance had never seen anything like it. She looked at Sober to see what he made of it.

  He seemed unaware of its arrival—his eyes were trained on Rebuke's face. "Our parents loved you," he said softly. "They didn't give you up easily. It's not like they set you down outside one day and forgot where they put you."

  Color flamed in Rebuke's cheeks, and a look of longing came and went, very quickly. Then he said loudly to the wagon driver. "You can always tell the ones fresh out of the swamp, eh, Woeful? So talkative."

  "Is that how you tell?" Woeful gave an exaggerated sniff and waved his hand in front of his nose. "I always thought it were the smell as gave them away." He laughed and added, "Calling them fresh out the swamp is not really speaking straight, is it?"

  "How can you make fun?" Repentance demanded. "We're slaves. Just like you."

  "I'm never like you." He gave her a hard look. "There's slaves," he gestured toward himself and Rebuke, "and then there's swamp scum." His glare traveled from Repentance to Sober and back again.

  Then his look went from angry to slimy. "Of course you may do well in the ice city, little girl. Once they scrub the stink from you. You'll not be sold as a seamstress or milkmaid, I'll judge."

  The greedy look on his face made Repentance feel like she'd fallen into the scummy end of the swamp.

  Woeful jumped down from the wagon and approached the slave cart. "Rich overlords will line up to exchange beads for an hour in your bed, or I'm a blind man."

  He climbed up on the wagon wheel and grabbed her by one wrist. "How about you come with me and let me teach you how to give them good value for the beads they put on your pillow?"

  Carefully ch
osen routes don't always bring one to the desired destination. Ruts, washouts, and armed men are but a few of the things that may waylay or divert the weary traveler. Worse still is to get to your map's end only to find that the promises of riches, far out-spoke the reality.

  ~Babbcocc the Cartographer, Journal of My Journeys

  Chapter 5

  Repentance yanked her wrist back, but the slave tightened his grip.

  "I'll break you in, little filly," he said.

  "I don't need to be broken in, thanks all the same." Her heart was beating like a herd of stampeding hogs.

  He laughed. "Already been ridden a time or two, eh? No matter. One hour with me and I'll break you of the bad habits the ill-bred swamp boys have taught you."

  Rebuke placed a friendly arm around the man's shoulders. "Hold yourself back, now. We've been paid good beads to guard these two."

  Repentance yanked on her wrist. Yes, she belonged to the overlords. Surely a slave wouldn't dare—

  "Right you are." Woeful shrugged off Rebuke's arm. "But I got a burning in my loins what's worth all the beads in your pocket."

  "Oh, I can give the beads back, I guess," Rebuke said. "You think that will satisfy the slavers? Or do you think they'll beat us and take us from our master, and sell us on the slave dock, if we damage their property?"

  "Damage her? Rebuke, my boy, I don't intend to damage her. I plan to educate her and increase her worth. It's likely the overlords will reward me for my services." He made to step into the cart.

  "Besides," he added, "the overlords need never know. Who's going to tell them? The girl? They won't listen to a word she says."

  He released his grip slightly as he spoke, and Repentance wrenched her wrist free. She scooted all the way back in the cart, bumping into Sober.

  He moved to the side, slipping out from behind her. "You chose this life, little filly," he said angrily.

  Rebuke grabbed Woeful from behind, taking hold of his collar and his belt. He hauled him to the water trough and dumped him in. "As payment for saving your life, I'll keep your share of the beads."