What Can't Be Hidden

by Brandon Andress

  Thura eventually answered so as not to attract any more suspicion.

  “I needed to clear my head,” she said. “Yesterday was so crazy that I went for a long walk after the town meeting at Sanctuary.”

  Velos and Ochi both sat in an uneasy silence. Her mother seemed unsure of her answer as if her motherly intuition told her something did not feel right. But after a brief pause, she stood up and left the room without saying another word.

  “What is going on this morning?” Thura whispered to her father.

  “It’s a long story,” he said, “but I went back over to Father Prodido’s this morning and met with him and Tyran. I told them there was not going to be an execution. We will interrogate the prisoner, but that’s it. When you walked in the room, I had told your mother my decision. As you can see, she’s not at all happy with it.”

  With an indiscernible sigh of relief, Thura was thankful the conversation between her parents had not been about her. As far as she could tell, neither her mother nor father were suspicious of her meeting with Odigo and Sophia the night before. However, her mother still appeared to be off. Thura decided it must have been her father’s abrupt decision to stay the execution. While she was still unsure who was with her in the alley the previous night, she was confident it was not her parents.

  As Thura turned away from the table, she caught an unusual movement out of the corner of her eye. People were beginning to assemble in front of their house. As early as it was, the street’s noise was louder than any ordinary day in Patrida. Within seconds, the riotous rumble was unmistakable. A growing mob surrounded the front of their house. Thura looked out the window petrified and then turned back to Ochi.

  “Father!” she screamed. “Everyone is outside our door!”

  Ochi jumped up and opened the door to a zealous mob that began to riotously chant his name. In front of them, standing arrogantly on the porch facing Ochi with a giant smile underneath his black handlebar mustache, was the man Father Prodido called for only a few minutes earlier.

  Fovos had been quietly gaining notoriety in certain circles in Patrida for some time but had grown more influential as of late because of Father Prodido. People knew him for his comedic posture and his reputation for getting what he wanted through intimidation. He was a tall and slender man with a black, receding hairline. With a wild look always in his eyes, Fovos knew how to evoke fear in others. It was for that reason alone why Father Prodido had been working covertly through him since the previous summer.

  The crowd quieted in anticipation of the confrontation.

  “Good morning, leader,” Fovos said but then turned to the crowd.

  “Should I call him a leader if he’s not really a leader?” he asked, looking out the corner of his eye and smiling.

  The crowd roared with laughter and jeers.

  “How about instead of leader, I call you Mr. Ochi?” Fovos quipped. “How’s that sound to you, Mr. Ochi?”

  The howling of the crowd grew louder.

  “You see, you haven’t been doing that much leadin’ lately. In fact, we kinda feel like you’re gettin’ a little soft and the people are afraid, Mr. Ochi.”

  Ochi stepped through the doorway onto the porch a couple of feet away from Fovos. As he stepped out, Thura attempted to grab his shirt and hold him back but was unsuccessful. With the increasing commotion in front of their house, Velos ran from the back room and joined Thura at the door just in time to hear Ochi respond to his accuser.

  “What can I do for you this morning, Fovos?” the leader asked calmly, although there was some history between the two men.

  Putting his hands on his hips and smiling at Ochi, Fovos slowly turned again toward the crowd and smiled in manufactured astonishment before turning back to face him.

  “We’re here to bring you with us, Mr. Ochi,” Fovos barked. “You know, so we can have a conversation if you know what I mean. The fine people of Patrida were cheerin’ for you last night, ya know. But it didn’t seem like your heart was in it too much, Mr. Ochi. At least not like Father Prodido. I’m guessin’ maybe your son’s heart might be into it more than yours. I don’t know. Maybe we can help you get your heart into it? You know, give it a kickstart, if you know what I mean.”

  Fovos turned toward the crowd.

  “Whaddya say?” Fovos shouted. “Can we help Mr. Ochi find his little heart?”

  The crowd lapped up everything Fovos fed them and exploded in approval.

  Ochi didn’t respond. Part of him wanted to punch Fovos in his mustached mouth. But another part of him, which was much more rational and controlled at the moment, realized the angry crowd significantly outnumbered him.

  “You see, there’s a lot of fear floatin’ around here, Mr. Ochi, and we don’t see you takin’ it very seriously. Who’s in those woods anyway? And what’s their plan with us? And what are they gonna do to these fine people you’re supposed to be protectin’?”

  The mob pushed closer to the front porch, with several more imposing goons jumping up next to Fovos on each side. Taking a well-chewed toothpick out of his mouth and staring at the ground for a few seconds, as if thinking about something important, Fovos gave his men the command.

  “Why don’t you boys help Mr. Ochi down from the porch?” Fovos said as he flicked his toothpick at the leader.

  Ochi did his best to resist the men, but he was easily overwhelmed and then escorted forcefully toward the Monon. The crowd followed in a mix of uproarious cheering and maniacal laughter. While the group that had surrounded Ochi’s house was only a tiny fraction of the town, more and more people began to emerge onto the street. Furiously screaming for Tyran and Father Prodido, Velos ran through the crowd to find them. But neither were anywhere to be found.

  As terrified as Thura was for her father, she had also been impatiently waiting for her parents to leave the house since early morning. She had tossed and turned throughout the night, thinking about how to get them out at the same time. As bizarre and unexpected as the morning turned out to be, Thura was finally home alone and needed to act quickly.

  With a quick peek out the window to make sure no one was lingering around the house, Thura ran into her parent’s bedroom. As she approached her father’s closet, she remembered the games she used to play as a child with her close friend. While her parents would sit on the front porch every late afternoon, the children would run aimlessly throughout the house, playing hide and seek with each other.

  The images cycled over in her mind as she thought about the first time she hid in her father’s closet. Thura remembered how dark the closet used to be when the door closed, but how the light would creep in through the crack at its base. She remembered how she would see the shadow of her friend and hear her soft footfall, knowing she was seconds from being found. Then, there was the smell of her father’s clothes and how they would hang down and surround her. When she would close her eyes, she imagined they were closer. While their relationship had always been good, a distance always separated them.

  Throughout Thura’s childhood, there had been moments when she felt close to her father. However, there were even more times when she felt far away from him. Of course, there had always been the subtle smiles and the squeezing of her hand throughout her childhood. But no matter how intimate those moments appeared, there always seemed to be a distance with him.

  Despite hints of her father’s goodness, they were eclipsed by moments when a darker part of him emerged. Thura could never reconcile these two people she saw in him. She often wondered how he could have moments of such goodness yet feel no remorse for lying to everyone in Patrida or killing and imprisoning good people.

  On the other hand, she wondered why he stopped the execution and what his motivation could have possibly been. Could it have been his goodness breaking through, or was it something else? Thura honestly did not know what to believe about her father. All she knew was the kind of relationship she wanted with him, but that he could never reciprocate for some reason. Despite hi
s stark inconsistencies as a father and a human being, she loved him and felt empathy toward him.

  Thura opened her father’s closet door and got down on her hands and knees. She moved aside a pair of his old sandals and pushed down on one of the loose floorboards in the front corner, the same way she had when she was seven years old. As the floorboard moved out of place, it revealed a handcrafted and intricately designed cedar box with the Patridian flag carved into the top.

  Thura had only opened the box briefly one other time but had been too terrified of being caught to inspect everything in it thoroughly. She only remembered three items inside of it- her father’s weathered, leather journal, a curved hand-carved knife with the words Live By the Sword etched into it, and a large, unused, commemorative key Thura believed could be used for the prison door. While she knew one of the guards held the usage key, she deduced that her father had been given the commemorative key, along with the knife, as symbols of his leadership and Patrida’s values.

  Thura closed the box and started to put it back below the floor- board when the front door opened. Immediately grabbing the piece of wood, Thura slid it back into place. As she stood up, Tyran walked into their parent’s room.

  “What are you doing in father’s closet?” Tyran demanded.

  Thura put her hands behind her back. Her brother’s sudden appearance shook her.

  “Are you hiding something from me, sister?” Tyran asked. “What do you have in your hands?”

  Thura, who had somewhat regained her composure, calmly responded to her brother.

  “It is just a shirt for father,” she said.

  “Then why is it behind your back?” he asked.

  Tyran stepped toward Thura and grabbed both of her arms, pulling them out from behind her back. Ripping away from her brother, Thura held out both hands to reveal one of her father’s shirts.

  “When the crowd seized father, they tore his shirt,” Thura explained. “I thought I would get another one for him before leaving the house.”

  Suspicious of his sister’s story but not having time to interrogate her at the moment, Tyran grabbed her arm, pulling her from the room and then out of the house onto the Monon.

  “You need to come immediately, Thura,” he yelled. “I’ve been told to bring you with me.”

  CHAPTER 6

  As the procession made its way down the Monon and approached the gallows, the spectacle attracted nearly every person in Patrida. The intense clamor of the evolving crowd drew even those who lived on the outskirts and edges of town. Children ran along each side of the street. They cheered and laughed without any idea what was transpiring. The sheer madness of the moment tore at the fabric of order in Patrida and left many staring in disbelief. While the number of detractors that opposed Ochi had slowly been growing at the behest of Fovos and his inner circle, there were still more citizens that supported their leader and had confidence in his leadership. So while many chanted in opposition, more people stood staring in shock.

  Fovos, stopping in front of the gallows, turned to face the crowd. Imitating the religious leader, who was still nowhere to be seen, he raised one hand to the sky to quiet the crowd and smiled. As Fovos surveyed the audience he had attracted, he nodded in the direction of Patrida’s leader. At once, the men surrounding Ochi forcibly strong-armed the fully resistant leader up thirteen steps to the wooden platform that was visible to everyone along the entire length of the Monon. The crowd grew deathly silent, except for the cries of Thura, who had finally pulled away from Tyran. She was attempting to push her way through the compactness of the crowd.

  “What is happening! Father! Please, someone!” Thura cried loudly, pushing through the people.

  Upon hearing his daughter’s voice, Ochi violently began to wrestle the men again to no avail. A mountainous, heavyset man, who looked to be twice Ochi’s size, put him in a bear hug from behind, while two men on each side grabbed his seizing arms. Ochi had been known for his brute, physical strength and endurance when he was younger, but he was no longer that strong, nor did he have the stamina he once did.

  The men wrestled him toward one of the square hatches on the wooden platform. Thura’s cries intensified. In an attempt to get closer to the gallows, the young woman began to forcefully push her way through the maze of people. She knocked both men and women to the side. At last close enough to catch a glimpse of her father’s face, Thura locked eyes with him. He was desperate.

  “What are you doing to my father!” Thura screamed. “What are you doing to him! Where is my mother? Where is Father Prodido? Please, someone! Pali! Machi! Anyone, help!”

  Amidst the chaos, no one had noticed the absence of the religious leader or the brothers. That is until they heard Thura’s desperate cries among them. The crowd’s deafening quiet transformed into an eruption of murmuring and chatter that echoed off the buildings on each side of the street, making it even louder than it really was.

  People could be heard asking about Father Prodido. Many of them speculated that he must be the one behind the stunt. Fovos, still standing with his hand raised, received the same speculation from those close to the front. With a nervous smile growing beneath his mustache, the opposition leader gently moved his arm up and down, trying to quiet the crowd.

  Not to be silenced, especially by Fovos, Thura shouted louder. Her voice was too distracting for anyone to pay attention to anything Fovos tried to say. Finally, toward the front of the crowd, Thura broke through the last few people and stood face to face with her father’s captor.

  Fovos, avoiding eye contact, glanced over the young woman’s shoulder to a few of his men in the crowd and nodded. As the men grabbed her, Thura went into a frenzy of screaming and shouting. She desperately tried to rip away from their restraint.

  In response, Ochi began to struggle more violently, this time from the platform. But with three men still holding him down, one the size of a small elephant, his rebellion was in vain. Receiving a final gasp of restrained profanities from Ochi, the opposition leader turned his attention toward his audience.

  “My good people!” Fovos called out. “You may be wonderin’ why your Excellency is here on stage this morning. Well, you’re in luck, because I’m gonna tell you. As you fine people know, we have savages marchin’ toward Patrida, aka toward your children and your homes.”

  A visible terror covered the face of every person along the Monon. If there had been any noise at all when Fovos first began to speak, silence and fear now gripped the entire town of Patrida. While everyone had been nervous and afraid at the first sight of the prisoner being led through town the evening prior, the words of Fovos were even more ominous and terrifying. Someone had at last admitted to them that a threat was truly imminent. But the gravity of the moment could not fully restrain the subtle comedic sarcasm of the opposition leader.

  “Your Excellency here wanted me to gather you fine folks together so that he could tell you why he’s not been taking this threat very seriously,” Fovos said, staring daggers through Ochi. As his smile faded, it was evident that Fovos’ comedic routine had run its course. Stern hostility erupted without warning.

  “We’re waiting! Speak!” Fovos screamed at Ochi.

  The guards picked up Patrida’s leader and shook him down as if their coercion would provoke him to speak.

  While Ochi was not afraid to play nice to save his neck, he would not be humiliated in front of the entire town. Although the odds appeared unevenly stacked against him, he would not be told by some idiotic lackey what he was going to do or how he was going to do it. He was still the leader of Patrida and would not be giving some no- name cartoon character the satisfaction of his compliance.

  But as Ochi attempted to piece together a response to the madness surrounding him on the gallows, he realized he had been abandoned by those closest to him. He could not find Velos, Father Prodido, Tyran, nor the brothers anywhere along the Monon. Bewildered and betrayed by their absence, Ochi was sure someone had set him up. However, he
could not understand what their motives could have been.

  His immediate impulse of anger quickly became anxiety and despair that moved from his neck and chest throughout his entire body. A profound sense of isolation and fear paralyzed him. His heart began to beat rapidly in his chest, which was immediately accompanied by a sharp ringing in his ears that only intensified by the second. Suddenly, Ochi became disoriented. His eyes manically surveyed the crowd, desperate to find anyone. His frantic searching ended with the only one who had not abandoned him. Although he knew his daughter had been there all along, he finally saw her.

  The quiet that lined the Monon became a low rumble as the people toward the back and those comprising the middle began moving their bodies intently to make a center aisle. At once, like the parting of the Red Sea, a direct route opened progressively through the masses. Pali and Machi forcefully moved those lingering in the center out of the way. Velos, Tyran, and Father Prodido followed closely behind. Not a single person on the Monon could make sense of their sudden appearance. Some wondered if they were arriving to formally condemn Ochi or if they had arrived just in time to save him from the subterfuge of Fovos and his mob.

  The brothers, lacking any visible emotion, marched resolutely up the steps and stood on each side of the platform facing the crowd. Velos walked over to where Thura was being held and stood beside them. Father Prodido calmly took center stage and stood right beside Fovos.

  This was the kind of melodrama the people of Patrida loved. It was a real-life soap opera of conflict and emotion. It was titillating, satisfying their every carnal craving because it was so easy to consume. But the great sadness of the people was that they could not see the forest for the trees. They could not comprehend that every leader was playing them.

  They were people easily blown from side to side by the ever-changing winds. They were consumers who devoured whatever someone put in front of them without discernment. They were inhabitants of houses built upon foundations of sinking sand. They were plants without roots, suffering from a significant lack of nourishment.