Whisper (14 page)

“Calen.” A call came from the house. I bent my knees and put my hands against the ground. Calen dropped beside me in a similar stance and bit his bottom lip. I smiled at him, held a finger to my lips and then slipped into the trees the way I had seen the badger go. When I looked back, Calen was still crouched by the badger cage, looking into the trees where I had disappeared. I ran quietly, hunched over, skirting the edge of Jun's property, and came again to the back of the chicken shed. As I turned the corner to head through the woods and back to where I'd come from, a hand grabbed my shoulder, and I gasped.

I spun around, ready to lunge at whoever had grabbed me, but instead a whimper came from my mouth, and I threw my arms around my attacker's neck. Jeremia had come for me.

He held me tightly, his arm wrapped around my back, and I pushed my face against his neck. I shook against him, but he held me still and close until my hot tears stopped dripping and my whimper finally stilled.

“Have they hurt you?” he whispered into my ear.

Of course they had—kicked me, pushed me, slapped me, humiliated me. How could I tell Jeremia that and then watch him be pulled apart in this town? I shook my head.

“Come home with me.”

The heat from his body seeped into mine. He lowered his arm on my back so that his hand pressed into the small of my back and our bodies fit together. I breathed in his deep scent—earth and sweat that masked the smells from the shed behind us. His lips kissed the side of my head, and I turned my face so our mouths could meet. He pushed his mouth against my lips, his tongue searching for mine. Everything tingled—my lips, my hands, my insides—but suddenly the image of Jun came into my head, his eyes narrow and his fists tight. He could not find Jeremia here. I pushed away.

“You have to leave,” I said.

Jeremia held my hand, and I tried to look away from the confusion on his face.

“He wants you dead,” I said.

“Who?”

“Your father.” I knew I should run, force Jeremia to leave, but instead I threw my arms around his neck one more time, breathed his scent in deep so that it would cling to me, my clothing, the inside of my mouth, and then I turned to go. “You mustn't come back, Jeremia. They will hurt you.” I ran into the woods without looking back.

By the time I returned to the house, it was dark, and Belen stood in front of my lean-to, his arms across his chest, his face a red so dark it looked blackened.

He opened the door when he saw me. I untied the veil and slipped it over my head. When I walked past and into the lean-to, he took a step back and I thought he might shove me inside, but instead he slammed the door shut after I'd entered. Then I heard a lock clicking into place, and I was once again a prisoner.

But this time I had Jeremia's scent on my hands, and even though I felt alone in this place, I wasn't. My family would always be with me, watching me through the secret windows between the leaves.

Ten

The next day I heard the lock unclick on the outside of the door, and a fist pounded on the wood.

“Breakfast,” Belen said.

I made breakfast, washed the dirty clothes and returned to the house for my next attempt at baking the bread. The batch of yogurt culture I'd made after my failed attempt and after buying fresh milk warmed at the back of the stove. I checked and double-checked the ingredients, kneaded the dough until it stretched and bounced, placed the bowl in a sheltered, sunny area and waited.

I scrubbed the plastic kitchen floor on my hands and knees, weeks of grime dirtying my pail of water, the floor almost as filthy as the packed-dirt floor of our hut. I checked on the bread. I wiped down the walls in the kitchen where greasy splatters and drips of milk had obscured the color—dark blue, I discovered, not gray. I checked on the bread, then washed the living room floor again. By the time I was finished, the bread had risen into a rounded mound that pushed at the towel draped over the top of the bowl. A stirring began in my chest, a tingling sensation that pulled up the corners of my lips and made me giddy.

I punched the rounded mound of dough so it sank back into the bowl and then divided it into four, placing the handfuls of dough into greased bread pans and setting them back in the sun to rise. It was then that I dared believe it was working. I finished the floor in the living room while the dough rose in the pans, pushing against the towel much more quickly this time, as though it had perfected the art of rising. I warmed the oven and put the pans inside. The dough matched the description in the book, and I bit at my finger, a squeak escaping my mouth.

While the bread baked, I moved to the boys' bedroom and scrubbed until a warm glow rose from the wood floor, giving the room an aura of health and naturalness. I checked the door, looked out the front window, determined that no one was watching and then lay down on one of the beds, my head on a pillow. These boys had probably never experienced an earache in their lives.

I could hear the laughter of children, the sound of Eva dancing in the sun, and I slid off the bed, adjusting the veil over my face. I looked out into the street from the doorway. The bread was baking, the children were laughing, my smile reached my eyes—until I saw what the children were laughing about.

A group of kids had gathered in a tight circle, and I assumed they would kick the can and run as they had earlier, but this time their excitement was focused on something other than a tin object.

One of the boys I'd met at the tree house stood in the center of the circle—the boy with crutches, who had sped away in the grasses as though he'd been chased often. Fabio. I could see his face just above the children's heads, his lips pulled tight and his eyes wary. A red gash on the right side of his forehead dripped blood down into one eye, yet none of the children helped him. Instead, they laughed and jostled him. It was like my first day in this town, when I'd been chained to the doghouse and put on display.

I glanced to my right, at Djala's chair. She sat watching, rocking, the gun across her knees. She cackled and rocked, cackled and rocked. I crept down the few front steps and walked carefully, quietly, a silent wolf observing the enemy, making my way to the back of the circle. David stood on the other side of the street. We looked at each other, but he did not come to stand beside me, and I did not ask him to.

Mateo stood in front of Fabio and held the boy's crutches in his hand. He held them close to Fabio's outstretched hand and then quickly pulled them away when Fabio reached for them. He laughed like a hyena, a cackle of ill will, a carrion eater waiting for the prey to show weakness and run.

I pushed my way between a girl and a boy, both of whom stood on tiptoe, trying to see into the center of the circle. Sliding between those in the next row, I found myself with only one child between me and Mateo. I stopped, considered a moment and evaluated whether I would become the next target if I disrupted their game. Here in the sun, Fabio looked thin, pale, with hair so black it made his skin seem translucent. His surliness was gone, but a determination remained that I could see in the set of his jaw. The wound on his head was beginning to form a hard crust, and on the other side of his forehead I saw a thin line, a raised scar, from injuries past. Maybe life was better for those rejected and sent to the camp in the woods than for those who remained.

I calculated the distance between me and Mateo and pushed aside the child in front of me. I reached out, grabbed Mateo under the arms, hoisted him into the air, turned him and slung him over my shoulder. Many times I had done this with Eva. Mateo was a bit heavier but not unbearably so, and he wasn't as muscled as Eva. He felt soft, malleable and puffy around the waist, as though he were made of rising dough. He did not kick as I walked with him back to the house, but he grunted when his stomach pushed into my shoulder. He dropped the crutches.

The children's laughter changed. Now, instead of laughing at Fabio and his futile efforts to regain his crutches, they laughed at Mateo. When he heard their laughter, Mateo became furious and then began to kick, pounding his fists into my back and pulling at the veil over my head. I held his feet together and endured the fists that pummeled my back like acorns shot from a slingshot.

The veil was off now, but I kept my steady pace. I walked across the lumpy ground of our front yard, glanced at Djala, who raised the rifle at me and offered a gummy smile, and climbed the steps to the house, pushing open the door. The smell in the air had changed from the nutty aroma of baking bread to the slightly smoking smell of bread that had been baking too long.

I was angry as I had never been before.

Mateo continued to pound me with his fists, and now I increased my pace and kicked open the door to his room. I walked to his bed and threw him down on it. He landed on his back, grunting, and looked up at me with startled and fearful eyes. His hands were closed into fists, his face was red and puffy, his breath fast and hard.

“I'm telling Dad,” he screamed. “He'll chain you up to the doghouse again and pound you until you bleed.”

The heat of anger crept up my neck and into my cheeks. I bit my teeth together hard and swallowed.

“Those kids play with you only because they fear you,” I said.

“I have lots of friends and you don't have any. I hate you and wish you'd died.”

I walked out of his room, slamming the door behind me, and went into the kitchen. I opened the door to the oven and, with towels over my hands, pulled out the loaves of bread. They had baked too long and were more dense and hard than need be. I sat down on the floor right there and put my face against my knees. Tears softened the material of my brown pants, and I could feel the wet fabric rubbing against my cheek, but I couldn't stop. Someone came in the house, propped open the door and opened the windows in the kitchen and living room. He closed the door to the oven and draped the veil over my head and knees.

Mateo screamed from his bedroom.

“David, don't you be nice to her. You saw what she did to me.”

David opened and closed the door to the bedroom. I could hear murmuring in there, a soft conversation that became momentarily loud.

“I won't do it,” came Mateo's voice, high and whiny now. “I hate you. Why do you side with her?” Something hard and solid hit the wall, and David emerged from the bedroom. He closed the door behind him and sat in the living room, where he picked up one of the books on baking bread and began to turn its pages.

I lifted my head and wiped my face with the veil. I stood up and washed my hands at the sink. I peeled potatoes, cut up vegetables, prepared a pot of water on the stove and began to add ingredients. Nathanael's favorite stew would be our dinner tonight, accompanied by bread that was a bit hard.

As the stew began to cook and I added salt, strips of gingerroot and chunks of turnip, I also warmed a pan of milk at the back of the stove and began to gently cook the yogurt culture for my next attempt.

As soon as Belen arrived home, Mateo yelled from his room and began to sob loudly, which made me wonder for just a minute if perhaps I'd hurt him more than I'd thought. David followed his father into the bedroom and closed the door behind them. The loud sobs quieted and stilled, and then I heard only murmuring. When Belen came out of the bedroom, I stiffened my shoulders and waited. He spoke to my back.

“You will not discipline these children. That is my job, not yours.”

The veil rustled slightly from the breeze through the open windows. I stirred the warm milk in the pan and thought about my life in this village so far. Even though I had cooked, cleaned, washed the clothing and made their lives easier, we hadn't had a single day without conflict. My shoulders were tight and sore from the constant tension, and I'd become hesitant in my actions. Around Belen, I felt like the wolf—not wanting to be touched, wary of his presence and as cautious of his movements as I was of fire.

“You will look at me when I speak to you,” he said and grabbed my shoulder, his fingers digging in. I stared at the floor because I could, because he did not know where I was looking and couldn't control that, at least.

“Don't touch him again, hear me? Ever.” His voice was low and deep and his hands twitched at his sides, wanting to swing and slap at me. “Tomorrow Celso returns, and we will discuss the next step you will take. You've been troublesome and meddlesome. You are more work than your cleaning is worth.”

He pushed me aside and sniffed the stew on the stove. He dipped the spoon into the pot, lifted it to his mouth and tasted. He dipped again, tasted once more, then dropped the spoon onto the stove beside the over-baked loaves of bread and strode out the door. David sat down on the couch in the living room and continued to read the book, or pretended to read the book, but Mateo never did come out of his room, even when we sat down to dinner. I sat in Mateo's place, ate at the table with my brother and father and almost felt like I was part of the family. When the bread was dipped into the stew, it tasted quite good and softened nicely. Both David and Belen ate great chunks of it, but neither looked at me and not a word was said.