one
“What are you dressed as?” I ask with a grin, lowering myself onto the hot shingles beside him.
Tam doesn’t smile. “I have something for you,” he says quietly, squinting up at the sun instead of meeting my eyes. I nudge him, and he takes something from the satchel slumped beside him and thrusts it into my hands. I watch him for a minute, my confusion growing.
He’s early; there’s no way he’s done making deliveries for the grocer yet. “Tam, what—”
“Look at it,” he prompts, strangely shy. I begin to unwrap the tiny paper package, which is heavy for its size. “It’s nothing too great, really,” he starts as I uncover a chain, delicate and a little tangled, with a small brass heart at the end.
My eyes widen. “Where did you get it?”
Tam’s smile is proud. “I bought it.” It must have cost a fortune, I think. He must have gone to one of the antiques shops downtown.
“Was it terribly expensive?”
He just shrugs, and I force myself to breathe, waiting for the explanation. The silence seems to last forever. “Oh! I’ve got the other piece, see?” he says eventually, holding up a similar chain that hangs about his neck. This one has a tiny key at the end.
“What’s all of this for?” I ask finally. “My birthday isn’t till winter and I’ve—”
“I might not be here.” He’s quiet, avoiding my eyes suddenly. A whole minute passes, my heart thudding in my temples.
“Tam…”
“That’s why I came,” he explains, talking very fast. “I—a man came to our house. A recruiter. He said that if I joined the army, then my family wouldn’t be hungry through the winter, and with my pa not able to work what with his lungs getting so weak, and the kids … anyway, I registered.” He takes a breath, and the silence is heavy on my chest, suffocating me.
All I can say is, “The … the army?” The sounds of the city fade in and out like a slow pulse. I feel like I’ve been struck. I can finally place the clothes—the crisp shirt and the boots with all their buttons—I’ve seen them in photographs, though I never knew what color they were. Pa always frowned and called the flyers propaganda, told me not to believe what they said about the borders starting trouble. “They can’t make you—” I finally manage.
“They didn’t, Isla. I decided. Good way to see the world, right?” Tam can’t lie to me—he’s scared. He had a dozen plans of his own: joining the crew of a pirate steamer, building his own aeroplane, or stowing away on an expedition that would take him far beyond the stifling city walls to the wilds outside.… Joining Nicholas Carr’s infamously brutal army was never on his list.
“Wait here,” I command, choking back a sob. He’s the strong one, the one who risks everything, endures everything.
I slip through the window behind us into my tiny room and rifle through the chest by my bed until I find the spyglass. “I meant to give this to you months ago,” I tell him as I climb back onto the roof. “But I was afraid that if you could see far-off places, you wouldn’t want to stay here, with me. Maybe … maybe now you can use it to look back home.”
Hesitantly, I place it in his hands. I don’t tell him about the day I got it, wandering about the flea markets with my pa. I felt guilty for letting Pa spend the money when I only wanted the spyglass for Tam, but he had insisted when he saw how I lingered at the table. He wouldn’t tell me how much he paid, but I knew it was a lot. “I want you to keep it with you,” I tell Tam.
Tam’s arms envelop me. “You were supposed to come with me,” he murmurs, but his voice is unfamiliar, strained, like he’s going to cry. His arms tighten and I sink against him, my tears soaking his crisp, new shirt. Tam runs his fingers through my hair; they snag on the tangles, but he doesn’t seem to notice, he just goes on about writing letters to me and coming home as soon as he’s allowed, and I try to process every moment with him so I can keep them forever in my memory.
Finally he pulls away. I run my hands over my dress, smooth my hair, blink to clear my vision. “I have to go now,” he says, his voice a little choked, his eyes a little swollen.
“Now? Right now?” I feel like I’ll be sick. “Why didn’t—”
“I came as soon as I could.” Time is running out right in front of me, I think, starting to panic. I’ve always had time. Tam is looking at his feet again, and he trails his hand down the side of my arm, sending a shiver through me, even in the stifling heat. “We’re leaving any minute; I can’t stay or else they’ll come looking. We’ve got to sign in at the train and all that.” I try to breathe. He’ll be here again tomorrow, a voice in my head insists. But suddenly the heat is unbearable, and I can feel everything unraveling.
“Good-bye, my dear,” he whispers, his fingers brushing the side of my face and then lifting my chin a little. He leans in again, but this time he kisses me, his lips soft and cool in the heat of the day. My stomach flips and my eyes droop closed, and when he pulls back, I feel disoriented.
The rooftop seems dizzyingly high as I stare at him, not speaking. Tam smiles a little, like he’s unsure again, and touches the little key around his neck. Then he disappears over the ledge, swinging down the rusty iron bars. A moment later, he’s on the cobbled street, jogging backward, looking up at me. Then he’s around the corner and gone.
My hand hovers at my mouth. He’s gone. Tam is gone. Everything is in chaos. The locket and the kiss are at war with the longing and the pain, and suddenly all I can think is that I never told him I love him.
* * *
I’m frantically buttoning my boots when Pa comes in, covered in the same gray dust as always.
“So hot today,” he sighs, slumping into his usual chair in a cloud of what looks a little like smoke. Even his mustache is covered in it. “They told us that people up the line were passing out.” He pauses and I realize he’s studying me. “And what’s your rush today, love?”
“Tam’s leaving,” I say hurriedly, starting on the second boot.
“Where to? Found a band of ruffians to see the world with at last?” Pa chuckles, shaking his head.
“Sort of,” I mumble, and he looks at me sharply.
“Do you mean he’s really going, darling?”
“He’s joining the army, Pa.” I tug viciously at the last hook on my boot, which won’t button.
After a minute he says softly, “Did Ezra make him go?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And you’re going now to see him off?”
I nod, sniffling loudly.
“All alone?”
“Please let me go, Pa. I’d ask you to come, but I know you’re so tired.”
“Don’t be late, my love. If they’re shipping out, the crowds’ll be fierce.” I don’t want to cry again, so I kiss his cheek quickly.
“Hurry! Don’t let him leave without a pretty girl to wave to him from the platform!”
“I’ll be right back,” I say, slipping out the door.
It’s three flights of stairs down, but today it feels like a hundred. I shove open the door at the bottom and a wall of sunlight hits me; heat wobbles up off the cobblestones and burns my skin.
Even before I can see, I’m running. The clacking of my boots echoes between the buildings of our complex until I reach open streets, where everything is strangely quiet except for a couple of buggies roaming here and there, looking for passengers. It never takes them long to realize that there’s nothing in Industria except the struggling families of a couple of thousand miners. For a really good school or any capable medical treatment, it’s an hour in any direction, and a full day’s investment to visit a museum, posh shopping plaza, or playhouse in Verity.
There are rows upon rows of rectangular buildings housing the workers’ families, but I know the short way through the maze. The sun bounces off bright buildings and glaring windows, and by the time I start to see the crowds, my dress is clinging to my skin with sweat. Pa was right about the madness; people swarm like ants to the station and the air is full of good-byes and demands for caution and letters.
I keep thinking about the family crowded into the flat next door to Pa’s and mine whose eldest son joined the army. They tell me that he writes when he can, but even still, it’s only once every month or two, and it’s never good news: more skirmishes with what the government calls the restless, ungrateful people in the border villages.
I stretch on my toes to try to see above the crowd; I’ve always counted on Tam for his height, but the heat makes my head ache.
I don’t see the soldiers themselves until I worm my way closer to the platform, and then they’re everywhere: dressed in the same brick brown as Tam, shoulders straight, boots shining in the sun. I scan the rows: young men, mostly, with different faces and expressions. I don’t see Tam. I can’t have already missed him, I tell myself.
But then I catch sight of a head of familiar blond hair tossed about by the hot wind that’s picking up. My heart jumps and I bob up and down on my toes, grinning. “Tam!” I shout. His head jerks up a little and he scans the crowd, still walking in line with the others. I wave, waiting for him to spot me, as they reach the steps of the train and the officers usher them inside. “Tam!” I try again, frantic.
He sees me.
His eyes catch mine and his face lights up in a grin that I know I’ll be forever replaying until he comes back. I open my mouth to shout something—that I’ll miss him, that I’ll write to him, that I love him—and a hand slaps over my mouth. Someone grabs me around my waist, pinning my arms down, and I’m dragged backward, backward as I try to scream and kick and bite.
In a slow second I lose track of Tam’s eyes; I see him stretch to find me again through the crowd, see the officer shove him toward the door of the train car. I thrash and fight, I try to writhe away, but I’m too small, too weak. I lose sight of Tam and the crowd pushes in around me, and still the arms are pulling me backward.
I throw my head back, wrenching it free, and try to scream, and something strikes my temple. My head explodes with pain, my ears ring, blackness clouds my vision.
two
I wake to a steady sense of motion beneath me and my head jostling against a wall, but when I open my eyes, it’s still dark. Sharp pain bites at my hands; I try to move them and realize that my wrists are bound with something that cuts my skin when I struggle. No, no. I tell myself to breathe, to think, not to panic. But my heart is pounding. The air is stale and thick with something that tastes like mildew on my tongue.
I can’t be calm. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. Questions crowd my head: Where am I? Who was it that took me, and why? Where am I going? I try the cords again, despite the sting, but in a moment I feel sticky blood between my hands, and I give up. Before I know it, I’m sobbing.
It’s impossible to tell how much time has passed in the darkness, how long I sit curled against the corner of the wall, fear stripping me of my senses. Finally, I clamber painfully to my knees, then my feet. My boots squeak on the slippery floor, but I feel my way up the wall and run my fingers along it. Metal plates, it feels like, welded together in an overlapping pattern with thick rivets at the corners. We must be on a train. Probably in a cargo crate, like I see on the cars lined up at the station. Those hold coal and copper, grain and animals. Not people. Never people.
The only light comes from a rectangle on a far wall, an air vent, probably.
When I stumble toward it, I trip over something and go sprawling. My elbows burn and the cord cuts into my wrists again. I grope about to see what I tripped over and touch what feels like a shoe. It jerks away and someone exclaims.
I’m not alone. Of course I’m not.
I stand again, less steadily now, muttering an apology and straining my ears. Above the hum and screech of the train, I hear them: people all about me, girls, probably, crying and whimpering.
How many are there? My imagination snakes away with ideas about brothels and dark alleys. Everyone knows the stories of the girls who end up being found: the ones who had wandered off or gotten lost, or run away with a lover and then returned in shame. But there’s not much to know about the girls who are taken, the ones who just disappear.
They don’t tell stories.
They don’t come back.
Is that my fate?
I blink again and again, as if that will help my eyes adjust to the darkness, and slowly pick my way toward the vent on the opposite side of the car. I count at least a dozen other figures, but there are probably more.
The vent, when I reach it, is pitiful: a hand’s breadth tall and wide, made of warped and rusted metal that lets in only enough fresh air to tease me. I hold my wrists up to the light to see how they’re tied, but my fingers can’t reach the knots and my teeth are no good. I give up again, holding my hands together to relieve pressure and lessen the pain. For a while I stand there with my head against the grate, trying to will fresh air inside.
Then movement catches my attention; someone else appears, slowly entering the faint circle of light. A girl, a little taller than me, and a little stronger, too, I’d guess. She approaches me cautiously, her movements subtle, catlike.
She comes closer, keeping her balance perfectly in the moving car, and stops at the grate as I did. Now I can see her eyes: quick, light, maybe green. She watches me for a moment and then begins to work at the vent with her fingertips, her hands bound like mine.
“What are you doing?” I ask, and the words come out raspy and dry. She looks me up and down and doesn’t answer. Then she goes back to what she’s doing, pulling at the corners of the grate and the rivets. “I don’t see what that will do,” I mutter, slumping against the wall again.
“I don’t care what you think,” says the girl, not looking at me this time. “If there’s a way out of here, I’ll find it.”
“Through a hole the size of your hand?” I ask. I regret the sarcasm instantly, even if she is wasting her energy. Neither of us wants to be in here, or wants to know what comes next.
She narrows her eyes at me and continues to work at the metal. “You can give up,” she says, just when I’ve stopped expecting her to speak again. “I never will. I’ll do whatever it takes to get out of here.” I sink to the ground, my back against the wall, which is warm from the sun.
Some time later, the cat-girl abandons her scheme and drops to the ground as well. She doesn’t speak to me, or weep, or move at all, as far as I can tell. In moments of near silence, I hear her measured breathing.
But there are other voices around me, crying or muttering to themselves. Someone sings under her breath, a hoarse, raspy song in a language I don’t know. Eventually the sound ceases. What happens when the movement stops? I don’t want to think about it, and nothing changes for what feels like a lifetime.
I start to wish I were braver, like the strange girl beside me. I don’t know what it is that allows her to keep cool, but it’s foreign to me, and I wish I weren’t weak and small. The realization that Tam has always been my courage is like a smack. Without him I have nothing to protect me, none of my own strength, no store of bravery to pull from. My helplessness frustrates me.
A year must pass in the darkness. When we stop, it’s sudden, and I’m thrown forward. Pain sears my wrists, and my elbows slam against the hard floor for the second time. I suck on the inside of my cheeks, trying to stop crying, trying not to think about what might be waiting. I press my eyes shut, wishing this were a dream that I could wake from.
Movement throws us again as the container rocks back and forth, is picked up, and then set down, adjusted and then adjusted some more. I take a slow breath in, and then out. With each breath, my chest shudders.
The moment that Tam kissed me replays behind my eyes when I close them. His eyes, nervous when he leaned in, my lips more nervous still … It was so right. What if I never see him again? What if that was the last time? At least I have the locket, tangible proof that he feels … something. That he cares. Gingerly, my hands bleeding and my wrists burning, I twist the chain about and unclasp it, holding on to it as if for my life.
* * *
The stillness is worse than the movement was. We wait and wait. It might be hours or days. It might only be minutes. My stomach is hollow; the air becomes even closer, and toxic smells—sweat, urine—overwhelm me. I want to hold my breath, but the heat is oppressive; as the walls gradually get warmer, it feels as if we’re being baked alive. My dress clings to me like a cobweb.
Time drags on, hot and damp and heavy.
I think back to the day Tam’s father let us ride the elevator box in the tower he had been contracted to build. When the grating locked in place and the doors slid closed and we began to climb up, up, up, I was sure I would be trapped inside forever. But Tam wrapped one arm around me and he whispered in his excited way a hundred things we’d do when we got out, and he made the operator take us back to the bottom level. I knew how excited he had been to ride it all the way to the top.
That box was nothing compared with this one.
This is the end of me.
The thought comes out of nowhere, heavy enough to crush me. Pa will have no way of knowing what’s happened to me. I’m weak and helpless. I’m done for.
But Tam … maybe he saw me, saw what happened. He might have broken away, come after me to help. For all I know, he’s finding a way to save me right now. Hope, no more than a spark, is kindled inside me. Every novel I’ve ever read tells me it’s possible, that the girl is always rescued from danger at the last minute.
I close my eyes and think of Tam. His kiss, his voice tight with emotion, his fingers running through my hair. His eyes when he talks about the sea, the way he nervously drums his fingers when he’s supposed to be staying still. There’s no one I’m more certain of. He’ll come for me. Of course he will.
There is a creaking sound, old metal being wrenched open, and then a loud crack from the far side of the container. I shrink back against the hot wall, and the girls around me do the same.
There’s an explosion of blinding white light. I cover my eyes, my head splitting. There are grunts and sounds of movement from outside, followed by banging against the walls. A fraction at a time, I open my eyes. Figures, like shadows against the bright light, pull girls from the crate, dragging them by their hair and their clothes and their limbs. Most of the girls scream and wail. I want to curl in on myself and pretend that none of this is real.
I can’t press myself back any farther than I already am.
I can’t disappear.
The figures climb into the crate and haul more girls out into the light. My heart races; I can feel it thudding in my throat, choking me. This is it. Tam’s locket is still in my hand, my fingers clasped around it so tightly that it hurts. Somehow, I know they’ll take it if they see it. One of the dark silhouettes crawls through the opening and toward me. I suck in a breath and shove the necklace into my mouth, inside my cheek, and clamp my mouth shut. The figure reaches forward and grabs my wrists in his hands, then drags me along the crate’s rough floor.
The light is blinding. Coarse hands thrust me across a dirty floor, into a group of at least twenty other girls huddled on the ground. I can see the dried blood on my wrists and elbows, the dirt coating my skin and clothes.
I try to take in my surroundings. The room is giant and looks like a warehouse, square with a row of small windows lining a very high ceiling. There is little furniture: Stacks of boxes and crates sit here and there, a chimney and an enormous stove stand in one corner, and what looks like an automobile partially concealed by a tarp sits in another. The ground is covered in muddy tracks that might have come from a wagon; it reminds me of the storage yards where Tam’s father purchases building materials.
Standing outside the shipping crate are at least a dozen people; I look from face to face, but instead of humanity, cruelty is splayed across each. The men are burly with scowling mouths and scarred hands, the women are hard and sharp, wearing breeches or tight skirts and fitted jackets. Their eyes are hollow.
Movement draws my eyes. Tall doors on one wall slide open and several boys carrying water troughs between them enter, stumbling from the weight. They put the troughs on the ground and leave, casting smirks over their shoulders and elbowing each other in the ribs. Slowly, the men and women form a circle around us. Their dark eyes make my skin crawl as some move between us, untying or cutting the cords that bind our hands. I have no time to be glad of the release.
Out of nowhere, another woman joins the group. She’s different from the rest. She looks down at us the way bargain hunters at the market survey tables of cheap jewelry and half-rotten fruit. She is tall, with broad shoulders and a wide, red mouth, and her clothes are fine, elegant, and serious. A shudder runs through me.
She catches my eye, somehow.
Please, I mouth, as if it will do any good. Please seems like the only thing I have.
She just looks at me, her head cocked a little to the side, curiosity creeping into her expression. A long time passes, and I sit looking up at her, trembling. And then she blinks, and suddenly she smiles, a hateful and cruel smile.
“Start with that one,” she says, pointing at me.
I try to squirm away as two of the younger men come forward and take me by my arms. They drag me, kicking and wriggling, toward the water troughs. I can’t scream for fear of losing the locket in my cheek, and I’m sure screaming would do nothing anyway. A handful of women are gathered around the troughs and the men toss me onto the ground at their feet. My skin burns where I slide against the rough floor, and when I try to scramble back to get a look at the people around me, one of them grabs hold of me by the front of my dress and pulls me to my feet. With one jarring motion, she tears the fabric down the middle, sending buttons spraying in different directions. Then she yanks the dress off my shoulders, tugs it over my ribs, my hips, down my legs. Someone unhooks my boots and pulls them one by one from my feet, and then off come my petticoats.
I bite down, grinding my teeth, my face hot with tears. Someone starts on my corset and when I balk, a hand slaps my cheek, leaving my ears ringing. Don’t look around, I tell myself. They’re probably watching. Don’t find out for certain. I tell myself that I can bear this, because Tam will come.
But standing there, naked and alone, wishing my hair could cover me better, I feel finished.
More hands pick me up and plunge me into a trough. The water is like ice, filling my ears and mouth and every crevice in my body. I struggle, but the hands hold me under, until finally, finally, I break the surface and air fills my throat and my lungs. I’ve hardly sucked in a breath before I’m under again, and again. Every time I come up, I clamp down on the locket in my cheek. The metal chain bites into my gums, and I taste blood.
One of the women begins to scrub me clean, the rough cloth tearing at my skin until it’s raw and blotchy, like I’ve been burned. Her face is worn and uncaring, and I watch her and try to hate her and to be angry and strong, but nothing helps. I feel violated, stunned. They’re pulling other girls over for the same treatment, I realize. Relief washes over me, that I’m not the only one any longer, but it’s followed by guilt.
I’m yanked from the trough and another girl takes my place. Someone throws a blanket around my shoulders and I am hustled, along with half a dozen others, toward an empty corner of the building. I feel numb, standing still and staring at nothing, trembling even though it’s warm. More girls file in around me, huddled in blankets like me, eyes wide. A few crumple to the ground, sobbing.
We’re all close in age, as far as I can tell, and most of them look like city girls: skinny and strong, some pretty, all with serious faces. Most cry or, at the very least, shake. One girl, smaller than most, joins the group and clutches at me, weeping. I jerk away in surprise, but she holds on, her fingers white around my arm. She can’t be older than fourteen, I think, my heart breaking for her, for all of us. Slowly, holding my blanket together with one hand, I wrap the other arm around her and pull her closer. I don’t want to comfort her. I don’t want to comfort anyone. I want to be comforted. I want Pa, and Tam.
The girl’s sobs continue, and I recognize them from the journey here, in the train car. They grate on my nerves, loud and unharnessed, and I wish she would stop. My favorite memories of my mother are the way she smelled like bread even when we had none, and the times that she held me and traced spiderweb shapes on my back with her fingers when I needed comfort, telling me poems and stories to save up in my head for later. I close my eyes, wishing she were with me, and I trail my fingers along the girl’s back the way I remember my mother doing. She heaves a shuddering sigh and leans closer, growing quiet.
When I look again, a beautiful girl with big, brown eyes and messy hair like wildfire smiles lopsidedly in my direction, as if thanking me. She doesn’t cry, but her eyes are wide, and scared. This is no worse for me than for anyone else, I tell myself, and I try to believe it. And then I smell smoke.
A handful of men move toward us, and we shrink backward as one. The small girl who clings to my arm begins to weep more loudly than before, and her cries fill me with panic. I’m helpless. Whatever they intend to do to me, I can’t stop it. I clamp my mouth even more tightly around the necklace in my cheek, and I notice the woman in command conferring with one of the men. She says something I can’t hear and then nods toward me, her eyes glinting a little.
The man smiles crookedly and strides toward me; my muscles tense and I nearly open my mouth to plead with him. No. No, I can’t lose the locket. I can’t lose what I have left of Tam.
I’m shaking when he reaches me, but I don’t beg for mercy. My heart pounds as he takes hold of my wrists and pulls me forward, but I’m quiet. The younger girl grasps at me, sobbing, so I touch her cheek and try to smile, as if we’ll be all right. It’s not easy to believe.
Her grip loosens as the man yanks me away from the group, and I stumble to keep up so I won’t be dragged. When he finally stops and draws me up beside him, we’re on the opposite side of the building, by the stove.
Four men sit around a stone ring with a fire glowing hot and bright in the middle of it. There are metal rods resting around it, their ends among the embers. One of the men, wearing thick rawhide gloves, takes one of the rods from the fire and turns to me, his eyes full of something that looks like hunger. He wiggles the glowing end at me, grinning greasily. The iron makes the shape of the letter X, bright orange and twisted. Wake up, I tell myself. Wake up. This isn’t real.
“Hold out your hand,” the man says.
Copyright © 2017 by Lydia Albano
