Secret Worlds (540 page)

I slide under the red-tinged leaves in the cave garden and wait. Try not to flinch as their warm, scalloped fronds brush my cheeks.

A streak of yellow flits across the edge of my vision, and is followed by a tiny fin. When I see the mottled tail my hand darts out and pinches it tight. The Dragon Lizard arches back and hisses at me. Its golden-ringed eyes glare fear and hatred.

“Save your venom, little one,” I whisper as I throw a cloth bag over its head and gingerly pack in the rest of its tail.

Sliding back from under leaf cover, I try not to catch my hair on any Fireagar thorns. Instead, one snags the bag’s drawstring. I curse as I unhitch it. This lizard’s a fighter, flipping the bag left to right on my hip as I rise. “I’ll take you back as soon as I extract your medicine. Promise.”

A whoosh of scorched air catches me as I near the cave front. I slide my burn mask over my face and inch out into the searing air toward the compound. Today, it’s hot as ever—a rousing 165 degrees, yet life is timidly returning. It’s only been a few years since these Dragon Lizards peered out from the caves. “A sign from Fireseed that the desert is slowly coming alive again,” pronounce the elders. Fireseed is the mythical red crop that Professor Teitur planted all those years ago to feed the desert folks. The flower with a five-pointed star, and a five-foot stalk. The flower we never found, except as a god in the sky.

Everything is a supposed sign from Fireseed.

For me, Dragons Lizards are for one thing—sleep.

I’ve learned how to squeeze the golden elixir from their cheeks and mix it with flakes from the sand caves. Leave it to dry and then pound it into powder. This Oblivion Powder is how I attack my sleepless nights and the waking nightmares that come—always the same. A dark man comes for me under the new moon, the same moon that will creep up the walls of the sky tonight.

I need to make extra strong powder and bring it along.

For someone’s long, long sleep.

Tonight the moon is a blood orange that oozed over the horizon even before the setting sun. All day I dreaded its rise, because tonight is my initiation into the Founders’ Ceremony.

Three young ladies every month.

I see the man who will lead me away with him from the Fireseed alter to our gazebo. He’s the head of the Initiation committee. Stiles. He has a bristly beard and a back like a dried, curled up beetle. His eyes are sunken yet glinting out with an oily sheen as if he’s peering into my private pool of emotions. He’s hideously old—forty-one—a full twenty-three years older than me. I won’t survive his spongy lips on mine, or his bony arms pinning me down.

But I didn’t come unarmed.

The men tip their torches to the fire columns, and it explodes upward, crackling and popping from three giant pillars in the shape of Fireseed stalks. I sneak a peek at the two other girls down the row, friends of mine—tall, lovely Freeblossom who tirelessly reads to the young ones, and chubby, rosy Petal who always has a kind word. Like mine, their crimson cloaks have been freshly pressed. Under their hoods, their long hair has been freed of their braids and washed. Under their heat masks, their eyes are wild and fearful. I press three fingers of my good hand to my heart in a secret message of support. They do the same to me and then quickly look away.

The head of the ceremony clears his throat and speaks through the amplifiers set in his heat mask. “The Founders will take their maidens to their private gazebos now, while the chorus sings the Founding song. It is a sacred duty and gift that we bestow on our Fireseed God.

Not my Fireseed God.
My god would shelter me, wrap me up in its winding, red branches and hide me from Stiles.

As if Stiles can sense my silent criticism, he lurches for my hand and grips with fingers that are cold paper and flint.

The group begins the song about the original planting day, and how Professor Teitur, the founding saint, planted the first crop to save the world. Never mind that we still don’t have Fireseed. At least we have a hybrid to feed us—the red-tinged Fireagar sent from up north that now grows in our caves. My own pounding heart, and Stiles’ low, husky voice drown out the rest of the song.

“Move along, sweet Ruby,” he urges as he tugs me along the path freshly raked for us. I imagine drool sliding down his lower lip as he says it.

Since I was little, I’ve seen his sneaky side-glances at me as if he was picturing what I was wearing under my red tunic, even before my flat chest blossomed into buds. I shudder. Over the years, Stiles wasn’t the only man to do that. I’ve often cursed my huge brown eyes and soft skin. Beauty’s a liability. I’ve even tried to chop off my hair that flies around me like an electric halo and the frizz of curlicue bangs that float above my forehead. The elders gave me the third degree for cutting it.

“Our girls should take pride in their hair,” Stiles said to me then. As though he already had dibs on my every breath. He did, sad to say. One of the powerful elders, he claimed me early, when I was a child. If only I could choose my own partner I might choose Sage, who I built sandcastles with and who teaches me math. He’s too loud and always has a strong opinion but at least he’s eighteen, my own age. I look over to where Sage is standing with the other eighteens, in the crowd pressed into a five-pronged star shape. Each prong stands for an oath: faith, family, fire-in-the-heart, fidelity and ferocity. Sage is talking to his friend, Dusty. They look over at me with a mixed expression of pride yet sadness—I’m not sure if they wish they were in Stiles’ shoes, or it’s more they feel bad for me. Either way, even Dusty would be a better partner than Stiles. He has a fetching smile and he’s good with running games, which is how he got his nickname. He left everyone in the sandy dust when he ran.

I have no choice in the matter though. Not as long as I remain here. And where would I go in this vast desert? The elders always told us there is little but chaos and death outside of our compound. They swear that roaming nomads would eat me if they were hungry enough. That desert nomads have no god and live only by their thieving, bloodthirsty hands.

Besides, I could never leave my brother Thorn here. They used to think my brother was a saint, because his birth was auspicious. He was born two years to the day that the raging sandstorm blew in Professor Teitur’s son, Varik. The elders at first thought Varik was the second coming, but when they realized that he was a false prophet who only wanted to escape, they decided to make my own infant brother a saint instead.

To mark the day.

They worshipped Thorn until he reached four and he still wasn’t speaking. The elders scratched their heads at that, and called him slow. Two years later, they were beating him and searching the skies for the next saint that never came. Even yesterday, they gave him a fresh burn on his already-scarred forehead for being too slow at numbers.

They’d surely kill my brother if I left without him.

“Daydreamer, hurry up,” Stiles grumbles as he tugs on my arm. I’ve heard stories of what happens to young women on Founder’s day. I’d keep him waiting forever if it were up to me.

Reluctantly, I shadow him as we wind past the torches, to the dark sandy dunes behind the podiums, and further, into the warm desert blackness. To keep from shaking I focus on the steadying thrum of beetles, as they settle into their creviced hideaways for the night. My hand goes to the bulk on my hip, under my red cloak. I take a deep breath inside my steely mask.

“Want a little drink?” I ask, as I move close to Stiles. Pat my hip to show him I have a hidden treat. “To get you in a celebratory mood,” I add, swallowing my repulsion at the idea.

“Oh?” His greedy eyes follow my hand down. “What is it?”

I giggle. “Only the best of my father’s elixir for my … partner.”

At the word partner he grins, raises his mask and licks his lips.

We are almost to our gazebo, shrouded by red heat fabric, to allow us privacy.

Privacy that I dread.

He pauses at the curtained doorway. “Show it to me,” he says greedily.

With my good hand, I swill the liquid around. Before my father passed on, he brewed many bottles of hard liquor from beetles and sea-barley pellets he bought from a black marketeer trekking south. Called it the Cure. His secret recipe was burned along with his body. My mother saw to that; no elders would copy it. Since it’s so rare, the liquor is still prized among them. My mother doles it out slowly, only on special days to stay in good graces with the leaders of the camp. Even so, she’s not been able to loosen Stiles’ claim on me for a precious carton.

I imagine the Oblivion Powder swimming in the Cure as I place my hand on Stile’s chin and tip it up suggestively. To make sure he swallows it all.

“You clever tart.” He sticks out his tongue, allowing the foul mix to slide so fast down his gullet that my job is made easy.

But not so easy after all! Once we’re behind the curtains, he grabs my arms and pins them behind my back so swiftly I have no ability to fend him off. “I’ve waited so long for this,” he murmurs and plants his lips on mine. They’re every bit as horrid as I imagined them—like gluey, smelly dish sponges.

Fear seeps through me. Will the Oblivion mix work fast enough? Maybe I didn’t put enough in to knock him out. Will it work at all? I clench my jaw to swallow a scream. Forcing a smile of devious warmth I whisper, “Let my arms free and I’ll stroke your head.”

He ignores my obvious ploy. Instead, he again presses his disgusting sponge lips to mine. A second shriek presses against my throat, and I break away from the kiss. “Not so fast,” I coo. “Let’s take some time.”

Finally he eases his grip. My arms throb. I’m sure there are bruises wherever his palms have dug in. Why isn’t he sleeping? I gave him five times the dose I give myself when I need Oblivion. Stiles lowers me toward the mattress and one of his hands goes to untie the red curtain. It billows down around us, to the rhythm of the wind. I tense up, every muscle flexed to run. The powder’s not working!

But wait, Stiles sways on his knees as he turns. I attempt to sit up, but he flops down on me before I can. His weight is stifling. He fumbles with the ties on my cloak.

Reaching for his hands to stop him, I say, “Slowly please, I’m new at this, teach me slowly.” I
am
new to this, but the last thing I want is for him to be my teacher.

“Oh, Ruby, I’ve waited, and waited and I’m very impatient.” At this, he tears open my cloak and puts his paws on my breasts.

It’s not working fast enough. I have to get away from him some other way, but how? My breath seizes. The air is too thin. I wriggle out from under him.

His dark stare is furious. His mouth is open and pursed in a way that looks like he’s going to spit on me. “How dare you—” His eyelids flicker open, closed, and then his body slops over to the edge of the gazebo. Catching himself just before he falls off, he rolls back toward me at frightening speed. I swerve away. “You coldhearted bitch, you … tricked …” His eyes orbit up to their whites, and his head sags like a limp plant stalk. Frothy phlegm bubbles out of his mouth.

It worked! Holy fire, but for how long? I bolt to my feet. Peek out of the curtains, and cringe when I hear the high whimpers of my two unlucky friends. I wish I could save them too. But that would be an impossible task.

At least for now.

Tiptoeing out, I see the old Founders, even older than Stiles, the ones who can no longer be active participants. They are sitting in a row by the burning stage pyres, and closer to me, are the guards, each armed with a spear, whose handle is a carved Fireseed flower.

I decide that the only way out is to slither on the sand like a Dragon Lizard, use no light at all. My cloak makes a dragging sound, so I ditch it. All I have under it is my under-cami so the sand immediately scrapes and sears my flesh. Even at night, it holds in heat. It’s worth any amount of blisters to get away from here.

Back in the compound, I streak to my room and throw on a spare cloak. I toss my stash of Dragon Powder in my hip purse, a few bars of beetle loaf that I’ve been hoarding and some Cure Mead. A change of clothing too. Then I sneak to my brother’s room, on the boy’s wing, off limits to us girls. Luckily, the lazy night watchman is asleep, his head cranked to one side, eyeglasses dangling from his nose.

I was a child on the night that Professor Teitur’s son, Varik showed up, and talked the Founders out of seeing him as the Second Coming of Fireseed. But I’ll never forget the look on his face as he glanced over at me, and how his eyes moved over my three missing fingers as I waved. He looked pained, surely at wondering how I lost those fingers and at seeing how thin I was, how thin we all were. In contrast he filled out the space.

I wanted to tell him how I lost those fingers, but I was too loyal then to talk. It’s a strange world, with few answers. Maybe one day, I’ll figure out the why and where of things.

That night, ten years ago, when Varik took off, with his beautiful redheaded mistress, Marisa by his side, I was relieved for them. That’s why I waved. They brought me hope. Hope that Varik, and maybe his mistress from the north would tell people the story of the starving people down in the desert, and bring us help. Before then, and after, the elders taught us that people everywhere are mad heathens, who want to kill us, eat us for food. What am I to believe?

Varik called us a cult. He told Stiles this when he came that night and argued with him. I was small, but I’ll never forget it. Is that what we are?

So, two years later the elders crowned my newborn brother as the Second Coming, a sign that Fireseed had listened to us on that terrible night of destruction, when our compound was torn apart in the sandstorm like a child’s pile of twigs.

Thorn talks to no one. I understand him though. Once in a while he’ll say a word, but only to me. His eyes tell me entire sentences. His shudders convey fearful omens. I know he senses things, future things. He’s my weathervane.

“Thorn, we need to leave,” I whisper now in his ear as I gently shake him.

He stirs, scratches his head, and then looks at me, wide-eyed. His brown eyes scan my face, and then he’s up, fumbling for the dragon toy I made him from petrified sand. No crying, no one-word questions, as if he knows how unspeakable this really is—a choice between being devoured by Stiles or having our flesh eaten by nomads in the desert.