The point of her shovel chips the ground where she drops it down. She presses her foot on the blade’s flat rim and pushes. Clods of dirt break free, tossed aside to tumble and slide down the slope. Rimma presses her lips behind her teeth and digs into our bone wall alone. Her shovel has gouged a well nearly a foot deep when she hits something hard. She widens the hole’s edges, digging around the thing until she can lever it up. On her knees, she reaches in and pulls from the soil, the first long, pitted, ivory bone.
More shovels join in the excavation, the exhumed grave widening and deepening, until shovels aren’t required, the bones resting on bones like loose gravel, bones nestled in bones in pockets of air, a tomb built of millions upon millions of bones. They rise from the top of the wall one at a time, in handfuls, in bouquets of rib bones, the thick-clubbed remains of arms and legs, blades of the back and hips, butterfly bones of the spine, hollow-eyed grinning skulls, the delicate twigs of fingers and toes.
The People watch with sober faces as we unearth their past, our past. I wonder if they’ve clawed into these walls
before, if this vision is as fresh and tormenting to them as it is to us. The bone wall extends for miles. How far and how long will Rimma dig? I don’t believe she can stop.
“That’s enough, Rimma,” I say, squatting beside her. “Peace, Sister.”
She sits back on her heels, eyes closed, a tiny skull in her lap, no larger than her clasped hands, an unborn child perhaps. She raises it over the open pit, and when her fingers open, it drops clattering back in, the toothless jaw snapping off. I believe that if I didn’t stand there, at the rim of her experience, at the edge of the gaping hole in the bone wall, she would have leaned forward and fallen into the grave herself. Without a word or glance, she rises to her feet and with the shovel over her shoulder, trudges
back up the spoke from our wall.
**
Now that some time has passed, I’m certain Rimma left a part of her interred among the skeletons. She broods, completes her tasks in stony silence, an angry ghost of my twin plotting vengeance against a whole world. At the bone wall, the last threads of our old identity frayed and snapped. We’re not who we thought we were.
Semi-darkness resides in our giant barn despite solid spears of sunlight piercing the gaps in the wood walls and stabbing at the straw littering the floor. Under Rune’s watchful eye, I milk goats with two other doves, fingers curling, my forearms aching as they pump, muscles sore with the unrelenting pace. Milk squirt-squirt-squirts into the bucket with a lacing of goat hair that I’ll need to strain out when I cart my bounty to the kitchen.
There’s plenty of time to think as the goat chomps and the bucket fills. I’ve found in my solitary musings, a slow stripping away of complex illusions. Were the builders of Heaven wrong to do so in a broken world? Wrong to ensure their own survival? Were they cruel to bar the gate and leave the vastness of humanity to suffer? The destruction of Heaven would have saved no one in the long run. Shy says a
third
of the world
perished by fire and sword, a third by plague and famine, the remaining
third
scattered to the winds in a broken land.
In my troubled wonderings, I roll back the years and decades and centuries to the beginning of the breaking. To the deceivers who first spoiled the land, raised a hand in violence, and turned a callous eye to suffering. Why did they start? Why didn’t they stop? How could they be so blinded by righteousness? What was the irresistible allure worth sacrificing the world? I’m not the descendant of God but the offspring of ancient murderers. I hold no moral upper hand, no God-granted authority, no sacred privilege to claim among the remnants of humanity. I’m simply one of the People now. My home burned, my father dead, my mother another soul scattered to the winds in a broken land.
“Eh, Rune?” The male voice startles me. Tomis stands in the doorway, beckoning Rune from where he shovels out the lambs’ pen. “Greeb wants you to deliver Reann to the mill.” Reann shares a worried glance with me and stands up from her milking stool, ready to obey.
“Why doesn’t he come for her himself?” Rune complains as he pitches a shovel-full of manure into a cart.
“Ask him.” Tomis shrugs.
“You take her.”
A smile dimples Tomis’s cheek. “I’m off for more wood with Dooly. You’re on your own.” At Dooly’s shout from the yard, Tomis disappears from the doorway.
“You can walk from here to there without me then,” Rune mutters at the dark-haired woman. He shoos a squawking chicken from the pen and takes a break on a bale of hay.
“No, Rune,” Reann cries worriedly. “He’ll be angry.”
“Fuck him,” Rune says, grinning at me.
With a sigh, I finish with my goat and wipe my forehead with my sleeve. “Take her please. Xavia and I will finish milking.”
Rune’s shovel clatters into the cart. He scrubs his hands under the pump and strolls out with Reann
hurrying behind him.
My bucket set aside, I clean the teats, pen my milked goat, and prepare to start another one. Three more to go and then we have to haul our buckets to the kitchen. The goats crowd the pen’s gate, and it’s no easy task to let just one out without a few escaping and going on a romp through the barn. Finally, I corner one onto the stand, wipe her down and go for my bucket.
Around us the barn creaks, groans, and whistles
, especially when the wind whips up. Xavia and I exchange worried glances, the only ones left out here, hurrying and trying not to frighten ourselves. Guard duty that once felt so menacing now helps me feel safe, and I miss Rune’s presence.
“Rune?” Xavia calls. “Rune? Is that you?”
Noises at the back of the barn send prickles over my skin.
“I’m going to find Rune,” Xavia squeaks, escaping out the door before I have a chance to protest. My blanket around my shoulders, I creep toward the horses’ stalls. The huge beasts blow clouds of damp breath, snorting and stamping their hooves, sending me stumbling backwards. At the guttural sound of a laugh, I spin to find Greeb standing by my bucket, grinning at me beneath his matted beard. His black hair shadows his face, but there’s a glint in his iron eyes, a sliver of ice. Sloot lounges in the doorway, gnawing on a length of straw, eyes flitting from me to the yard outside and back again.
“Which one are you?” Greeb asks.
“Angel.” My body shakes, unwilling to budge. My bucket sits at his feet and I don’t dare retrieve it. He’s tall and sleekly menacing, his body exuding the coiled power of a predator waiting for me to flee. “I have to finish milk—” With a lunge, he’s on me, bulling into me, knocking me backwards into the baled hay, his body over me, backhanding me as I scream and try to crawl away.
Then Rimma’s there, her knife glinting, her body silhouetted in the slanted light, barn dust floating around her in a golden halo. “Looking for me, Greeb?” she snarls. Greeb turns to her as I vanish into the dusky shadows of piled hay, weeping and watching. I should dart for the door, push by Sloot and run for help, but my body refuses to move. Sloot licks his lips, eager gaze peering from the doorway into the dim light, riveted on my sister.
“Rimma?” Greeb asks, hungry eyes narrowed on Rimma as she nods. “I see you found yourself a knife, Dove.”
“I found it for you,” she threatens, the knife shaking in her fist.
“Mag’ll light you up like a torch for that.” Greeb laughs. “So it don’t really matter if you’re a dove. Think I’ll fuck you first; get you out of my blood.”
“Not if I kill you.” Rimma holds the blade up by her shoulder. Every inch of her radiates cold fury, a rage so absolute she dares death.
“Rimma, no,” I whimper.
“Break her arms,” Sloot urges him. “Can’t fight ya with her arms broke.”
“Shut your mouth,” Greeb snaps as he advances on Rimma. She sidles to her left, the knife poised to stab him. He snarls, herding her into a corner. “I’m gonna fuck you, and then I’m gonna dig out your twin and fuck her
while you watch,
” he threatens. “Then after Mag burns you, she’ll be free for the taking, my own angel. Pale as milk, steel eyes looking up at me while I pump her up with my seed and grow little Greebs in her belly.”
With a wild growl, Rimma runs at Greeb, slashing down with her knife. He raises his forearm, taking the blade as if he meant for her to cut him, a red slice opening in his sleeve. With teeth clenched, he grabs her wrist with his other hand, the knife vibrating in her fist. The wounded arm swings, his hand flying across her face, snapping her head to the side. He grabs her by the hair, forcing her to the ground. The muscles in his arms harden, his hand squeezing her wrist, forcing her fingers open like claws until the knife drops. He picks up the knife, his blood running down his arm, trickling over his hands and fingers, sliding along the steel to gather and drip from the point.
As I cover my face and scream, my sister digs at the fist in her hair, her body twisting to break free. Greeb touches the knife to the side of my sister’s throat just below her ear. He presses until she sags, panting, her face warped with rage and pain, dark blood smeared on her neck and seeping from swollen lips.
“Stupid fucking dove.” He laughs and slides the bloody knife into his belt. “You don’t even know what you just done.” His fist in her hair, he yanks her to her feet, her body hunched over, both hands trying to pry open his fingers. She winces, crying out as he shakes her.
“Fuck!” Rune stands silhouetted in the doorway to the barn, Sloot’s shirt in his fist, the thin man twitching. “What the fuck?”
“Get Ram,” Greeb sneers, raising his gashed arm for Rune to see, blood soaking his shirt. Sloot shakes himself free of Rune’s grip and darts off.
“Shit, Rimma.” Rune hesitates and follows Sloot into the daylight. Greeb hauls Rimma by the hair, her hands clutching his wrist as she stumbles after him.
My face stings as I stagger from the shadows, catch the door’s edge and whip around into a run, my blanket flapping against my legs. Cold air adds to my trembling as I scream for Mag, unsure what to expect. She’ll kill my sister or save her, I don’t know which, but she’s my only hope.
Across the courtyard, Rune bangs on the weaver’s door for Ram. The People begin poking heads from doorways, rising to their feet beside the cook-fires and wandering to the courtyard. Greeb strides like a giant, head up, massive chest thrust out, his bloody arm up for all to see, my sister captive, bent, crying, dragged stumbling at his waist. “Judgment!” he roars. “I demand a judgment. Ram!”
On the terrace of the women’s residence, Mag shuffles toward the stairs, back twisted, hand gripping her stick, her lips fury-pinched, eye so sharp they could cut. I run toward her, screaming and begging, “Mag, help her. Mag. Please.”
The old woman’s eyes snap to mine and I’m blind, missing the step, plunging to the stone stair, slamming my hands and shins, and scraping my forearms. I’m hot, burning, tumbling down the few steps, screaming for her to stop.
Ram’s voice thunders over my wails, over Greeb’s shouts for judgment, Rimma’s crying threats, Sloot’s sniggering, the excited clamor of spectators. “Enough!” The heat relents as my vision returns. I lie at the bottom of the steps, aching, bloodied, and panting. Mag hobbles past me as I push myself up and follow on her heels, my own body racked, tears wet on my cheeks, afraid to speak.
“I demand judgment,” Greeb bellows into the silence. He flings Rimma forward to the courtyard where she lands on her hands and knees at Ram’s feet, pale hair falling forward, covering her face and brushing the stones.
In a black robe once worn by Deacon Abrum, Ram towers over her, a half head taller than Greeb, his braided beard splitting his chin, great arms folded over his chest. “The offense?” Ram asks, loud enough for all those gathered in a circle around Rimma and Greeb to hear.
The answer is clear. “Mag’s claim stole a knife and cut me,” Greeb shouts, brandishing his gashed arm.
“Your claim?” Ram frowns at Mag and she grunts her assent.
“Was the knife stolen?”
“Unless someone else give it to her,” Mag replies, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“He meant to rape her,” I cry, but no one other than Mag even glances at me, and her eyes are pitiless.
Slowly, Greeb slides the blooded knife from his belt and tosses it to Mag’s feet. Then he unsheathes his own, holding it up, a smug sneer on his lips. “I claim the dove as Mag’s debt,” he declares.
“Fucking Greeb been sniffing after my doves since the start.” Mag rattles her staff at him. “Eh, Greeb? Wouldn’t surprise me you give her the knife. What you sniffing for in the barn?”
“Doesn’t make a whit of difference, Mag. Dove cut me, and I claim her.” He nods to Ram. “Judgment, Ram.”
“Tomis came to the barn,” Rune speaks up as he steps to the front of the crowd. “Told me Greeb wanted his dove at the mill and I was to bring her. Didn’t make sense, but I did. Left Angel and Xavia alone in the barn to finish milking. Couldn’t find Greeb, so left his dove, and then Xavia come running to say Greeb’s in the barn. And, well, what do you know?”
Greeb’s eyes turn dark as he glares at Rune from beneath his black brows. “Went looking for my doves,” Greeb snarls.
With a shrug, Rune faces Ram. “Just saying.”