She jiggled the tray slightly.
“Bored. And my arms hurt. You look handsome.”
Samuel bit into his lip. “Need help?”
“You can’t do everything for me.”
She lifted the tray up with one hand, showing off the cooked meats with the other.
“Free sample? The mayor paid for extra meat so we could serve it to everyone at the festival.”
Samuel picked a meat that appeared to be some sort of sausage. He bit into it, and his taste buds instantly took a liking to the flavor, but he was nervous about chewing funny, so he used his hand to cover his mouth. He swallowed without fully masticating, and the lump of meat nearly stuck in his throat.
“It’s really good.”
The people that had been chatting with Laura and her husband left the shop, and Laura glided out from behind the counter. Her hair was tucked back in her usual bun, but she was wearing a nice dress instead of a bloody apron.
“I heard what you did for my daughter,” Laura said with a slight bow. “Thank you.”
Samuel went stiff and bowed lower.
“It was nothing.”
“Kindness must run in your bloodline.”
Laura’s face was nearly as hard as Zei’s, but unlike Zei, he could feel warmth in her words. The law was broken that night when the old butcher touched his father, but Laura never reported the incident. A wave of silent gratitude was exchanged between them, and it had nothing to do with killing a pig. His father had helped her father pass peacefully. Unlike most, she seemed grateful for what his father had done. He was thankful for that.
Claudette sashayed in place while keeping the tray balanced.
“Can I get my break now?”
“Ask your father,” Laura said.
Claudette went to the counter, laying the tray down on top of it. Samuel knew her father was a skilled laborer. His experiences with antique technology were enough to earn himself a job for the mayor. He was the personal handyman for the estate, whose main job was to help keep the electricity running smoothly. The man rubbed his hairless chin as his daughter made her request, his nose wrinkling as she spoke. He nodded, reached into his pocket, and retrieved a handful of silver coins. The amount seemed larger than Samuel’s weekly allowance.
“Don’t spend it all on candy.”
“I’m not a child, Dad.”
“Harold,” Laura said in a low voice. “We have to be frugal. The shop isn’t taking in the profit it should and … ”
“Forget the shop, Laura. The mayor gave me another bonus for my hard work. I told you that overtime would pay off.”
“You didn’t tell me this.”
“Sorry,” he stammered out. His face reddened. “I’ve been busy. Working. Providing for my family. And now, I’m trying to do something nice for my daughter, if you don’t mind.”
Laura frowned but kept silent.
Claudette bent her head and took the money.
“Thanks, Father.”
Her father forced a grin, his teeth showing a bit of yellow.
“Go on. Buy yourself something pretty.”
Claudette took hold of Samuel’s arm and pulled him outside.
“Sorry about that,” she said as she guided them away from the shop. “He’s been acting weird lately. Now he and my mom argue all the time about money.”
“Please. Don’t apologize.” He paused. “I know what it’s like to have no money and a weird dad.”
Claudette smiled.
First, they went to one of the boutique booths. Claudette bought a fancy lace hairband and several hairpins. After, they visited the candy station and purchased a packet of licorice. Once they’d eaten their fill of sweets, they made their way to the center of the square and watched the greenlands band perform more songs. Claudette didn’t seem to have any shyness around him and kept the conversation going by talking about the weather and funny stories about things that had happened at the shop. She also asked him a lot of questions. That was something Samuel wasn’t used to. What was his favorite color? Did he like living in Haid? What did he like to do for fun? He had to lie a bit when she asked him what he did as a patrolman.
“I just guard the jailhouse. That and watch the sheriff drink.”
He somehow found the courage to ask her about her hair braids.
“How did you do that? It looks pretty. Complicated, I mean.”
Claudette smiled. She turned her back toward him.
“Want me to show you how I do it?”
Before he could answer, Claudette undid the hair ties and pulled out the braids with her fingers. Once she’d straightened out the hair, she sectioned off two pieces near the top of her head. Several people pushed by them, but she worked as if the masses didn’t bother her. Her fingers moved quickly yet delicately as she folded strips of hair in and out of each other.
“I work on this right section first. When I get about halfway, I stop and move to the left side. Like this. Then, I bring them together. After a while, my fingers memorize the pattern. I’ve had a lot of practice.”
Samuel watched her movements intently, and he was so close to her he could smell the sweetness of her hair. It made him wish he could grow his hair as long. He found himself grinning. He felt like she liked him, and the thought of her being attracted to him made his mouth go dry. A few months prior, he was resigned to a life of isolation and celibacy. But now, if the mayor stayed happy with his handlings of Zei, perhaps he really could live a normal life.
Claudette fastened her hair back and smiled.
Samuel clutched his coat shyly, pulling it tighter around his ribs. He wished it was a bit slimmer so it would feel more natural.
“Get away from me!” a stranger’s voice screamed from behind them.
“It’s your fault I lost my job! All because you’re a lazy piece of deershit, and our whole crew had to pay the price for missing quota. Six guys with no job, Berkley! Six fucking guys!”
The crowd around Samuel and Claudette spread out, clearing out of range from the impending skirmish. The shifting bodies allowed Samuel to see where the commotion was coming from. A tall, middle-aged man with large muscles and a neck like a pine trunk cornered one young man who couldn’t have been much older than he was. The young man was dressed in thick winter boots and a flannel shirt similar to what most of the loggers wore on a daily basis. His hands were raised up to his shoulders.
“Don’t be stupid. You think I wanted this to happen?”
Samuel’s muscles tightened. He remembered the sheriff’s words and scanned around the perimeter, looking to see if he could spot any patrolmen. They were supposed to be scattered around the square. He saw none.
Claudette wrapped her arm around his, her face showing concern.
“Shouldn’t you do something?”
Whispers and concerned chatter erupted around him, but no one seemed like they were going to make any sort of intervention. He didn’t want to make himself a fool in front of Claudette, or anyone for that matter. But maybe he could stall until the other patrolmen arrived.
“Get the sheriff,” he told Claudette. “Or another patrolman. Anyone else. Tell them to hurry.”
Claudette squeezed his arm before moving around the large crowd forming. She ran in the direction of the tavern. Samuel took a long breath before stepping forward, his feet feeling like lead. His shoulder bumped into person after person as he forced his way closer and closer to the two men. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his hunting knife.
“Hey.”
Samuel knew his voice wasn’t loud enough. He had to try harder.
“Hey!”
The young man in duress backed himself into one of the game booths, his eyes frantically searching for the new voice. The angry attacker shifted his enormous body, his words mushed together and slurred. He squinted in Samuel’s direction.
“Who are you?”
Samuel fought to keep his legs fro
m shaking as he anchored the blade near his thigh. “I’m a patrolman. I am a patrolman commissioned by the mayor and the sheriff. I am ordering this fight to stop.”
“You’re doing what?”
Samuel paused. “Others will be coming.”
The attacker reached a hand out and grabbed onto the young man’s shirt, pointing the other at Samuel.
“Wait a minute. I know you. You’re the cleric’s bastard, aren’t you? He’s not a patrolman. He’s a cleric. Look at him, boys! Not wearing a uniform either. What is that, a suit? The cleric’s bastard is wearing a suit? He looks like a little bitch if you ask me.”
Samuel swallowed. “Sir. I’m asking you to stop—”
“Hold on, now. Tell me this, little bitch. And be honest. Is it even legal for someone like you to be a patrolman? Aren’t there laws about stuff like that?”
A crew of about five patrolmen came rushing to the scene. Their uniforms were neatly pressed, and their faces were hard as ice. Their weapons were readied. Half of them held firearms, the others, hatchets and machetes. The music coming from the stage stopped, the commotion too much for the band to ignore.
The angry man waved at the patrolmen.
“What? He’s one of you now? You’re on the bastard’s side? My father was a patrolman in Haid for thirty years, until he got laid off to make room for younger recruits. Did that stop him? No. He busted his ass for his family. Kept us fed and warm. For what? So his son could grow up scraping for crumbs and have some religious nut’s bastard telling him to play nice? This has nothing to do with him! It’s my personal business, citizen business, so he can get the hell away from me!”
The patrolmen held their position, whispering things to one another. They glanced at Samuel and to the patrolman standing in the center. The one who seemed to be in charge of the others had wiry hair and a bulbous nose, a rifle draped over his shoulder. Their indifferent faces betrayed them. Samuel might have been hired as a patrolman, but he wasn’t one of them. They weren’t about to intervene on his behalf, especially not when their integrity had been called into question.
“I’m a whitelander,” the drunk logger proclaimed. “Born and raised in this town. Like most of you.”
Samuel’s nerves caused his hand to tremble, but a new anger was festering. He hated being called a bastard, and he hated being called a cleric even more. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to be like Zei. She was strong. He had to be strong like her or else everyone in Haid would continue to think of him as the cleric’s weak bastard. Heat rose to his face as he gradually held up the knife.
He wasn’t a cleric. He’d never been a cleric. He wouldn’t become one now.
“This is your last warning. Sir. Leave him alone.”
The man took his massive fist and shoved it into the young logger’s face. He flailed back into the booth, knocking over several buckets and knickknacks in the process. The big man turned his back and reached after the young logger’s limp body, dragging him out from the booth.
“Curse you, bastard. You’re next.”
In that moment, everything slowed for Samuel: his breathing, his body, his mind. He needed to think. He wasn’t strong enough to stop the man, and it was clear he wasn’t going to be reasoned out of his tirade. And none of the patrolmen were going to help him. He needed to get the man to stop. No matter what.
Samuel shifted his weight and narrowed his vision. He stood eight paces away, a moderate distance for throwing. He drew the knife up and behind his head, his hand remaining steady as he gripped the handle. He closed his eyes, pretending there was a carved X on the back of the attacker. His sight from the distance was a bit hazy, but he’d struck targets much farther away before. Before another thought could stop him, he launched his leg forward and threw the knife.
The blade sang as it whizzed through the air and sank deep into the man’s left thigh. He dropped to his knees and grabbed at the knife, screaming and writhing in pain. His yells were deep and loud, the sound echoing across the entire square.
“What … the … ah!”
The crowd went ghostly silent. Samuel lowered his throwing hand down by his side. He’d missed the target. His nerves must’ve still gotten the better of him. That or he’d only been practicing with the throwing knives, and the added weight of the hunting knife messed with his trajectory. Still, striking the thigh was better than somewhere that could’ve caused real damage. At least he wouldn’t have to live with that guilt.
A loud boom erupted from behind.
“Damn animals!” the sheriff’s voice slurred out as he rushed through the crowds, pulling Samuel to the side.
“I was scared.”
Samuel fiddled with the pencil before writing down the word knife. He passed the sketchbook over to Zei. Her little hand took the pencil from his fingers and she scribbled the word over and over again.
Knife. Knife. Knife.
“You probably don’t get scared. But I did. And I still did it.”
He halfheartedly cocked his arm back and pretended to launch the blade. Feeling ridiculous for making the gesture, he folded his hands together. After the sheriff had put the burly man, whose name was Liam, in cuffs and hauled him off to the doctor, he gave Samuel an earful. “I told you to not be a damn hero. I said to let my guys handle it. Did you listen? No. It’s like you enjoy being a pain in my ass!”
Samuel shrugged, knowing he had no good explanation to give. He’d never done anything that brash before.
The sheriff grunted before snorting a laugh. His anger turned to amusement.
“Still. Never thought you’d have the balls to do that. Loggers will be talking about this for a while.”
The festival had returned to its previous bustle, but Samuel felt as though everyone’s eyes were following his every move. If they hadn’t been talking about the cleric’s bastard before, they sure were now. Charles couldn’t stop ranting about how amazing it was that Samuel had thrown the knife, complaining that he hadn’t been there to witness it himself. The mayor praised Samuel’s courageous actions. Samuel had wanted to stay out of the mayor’s sight at the festival, but unfortunately the incident caught his notice. The mayor patted Samuel’s shoulders as he loudly praised his new patrolman’s courage in keeping the peace.
“A true northerner,” he declared before cuing the band to pick back up their instruments and finish their music set.
Something about the mayor’s hand on him made him uneasy. He made no mention of Zei, but he knew it was only a matter of time. And what would he say? Would he show him all of her sketches? Would he tell him that he was teaching her to read? Reason said his safest bet was to be completely open with the mayor about everything, but something about that didn’t seem right.
Knife. Knife. Knife.
Zei wrote the word more than fifty times before sketching a knife on the bottom of the page. She drew a dual-edged blade with a leather-style handle and then added some sort of dripping liquid to the edge of the blade. Blood.
Samuel smirked.
“That’s kind of gross. It wasn’t a bloody mess or anything. At least, I don’t think so. I mean, maybe when the doctor took it out.”
Zei rubbed the scarred area on her leg where the trap had ripped into her.
“That must’ve been really painful,” Samuel lamented.
Zei said nothing.
“I’m sorry about all of this. I don’t think it’s fair that you’re stuck here. I wish I could help. But I can’t. We’d both be in trouble.”
She lifted her head, cracking several bones in her neck with the motion. Her long red hair fell down her back in a wave of curls. She pulled her head back up and pressed the sketchbook and the pencil in her hand, using what was left of her left arm to help balance the materials.
“Want to keep going?”
She gave a curt nod as she turned to a fresh page.
Samuel studied the blank page, trying to think of what new words they could lear
n. He leaned over, gathered the pencil from her hand, and scribbled the word friend. He said the word aloud several times before returning the pencil.
“You know what a friend is, right? It’s someone you trust. Someone who cares about you. And you care about them. Like with family, only you’re not related by blood. You accept each other. I’m your friend, right?”
Zei stopped writing. She flipped back through the sketchbook and stopped. The page was covered with the word Sam, and near the top corner, she’d drawn a picture of his face. He raised the sketchbook farther up into the light, forcing the shadows to move. The details were impeccable. From the way his cheeks contoured to the way his shaggy bangs covered his forehead, it looked as close to any reflection of himself as he’d seen before. On the page, he appeared relaxed, and his eyes nearly glistened with a gentle brightness he never noticed they had. Her drawing of him was nothing like the one she’d done of Charles. It seemed endearing. He scooted closer to Zei and touched the page.
“Is this what I look like?”
He expected her to ignore him, to look away or to simply take the sketchbook back. But Zei’s green eyes glared at him unflinchingly, her stare petrifying. She took her hand and pressed it across Samuel’s blushing cheek. Her skin was cold and soft. She didn’t speak, but he knew she was trying to tell him something.
Before he could think of anything to say back, Zei pulled her hand away and reclined into the stone wall behind her as if nothing had happened.
The next morning, Samuel woke up to a harsh shaking on his shoulder.
“Get your ass up.”
Samuel wiped his eyes in an attempt to clear the sleep. The sheriff walked by the doormat and tossed Samuel’s boots onto his cot.
“One of my boys came in here to give me a message. There’s an issue with a logging crew near the western wood.”
Samuel’s hands fumbled for his mother’s dark frames. He slipped on his glasses and sat up. The wooden floors creaked as the sheriff gathered up the keys for the jeep and holstered his pistol. Samuel tried to shake off the sleep as he threw on one of his collared flannel shirts. He tucked the ends into his slacks and yawned. The sunlight was faintly refracting in the window. It must’ve only been morning for an hour or so.
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