MARKS - Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Blair and her brother have nothing in common other than their hair.

I think this for about the fifth time today as she hands me a bowl of stew. Blair is sweet and gentle, like a spring wind perfumed with the scent of a hundred flowers. She showed me where she and her family live: a little slice of the big rock room where bedrolls spread across the rocky floor are covered with quilts made of a thousand colors. No furniture sits in the room. Stumps and logs dot the perimeters of fires in lieu of chairs.

Blair dug out bedding for me before she led me around the room, introducing me to people. I was wrong earlier about their being thirty people here. There are forty-seven. Women and children. Babies. Men have spilled into the room now that it’s time for the evening meal. There are nineteen of them. Not counting Ward, who I haven’t seen since he stormed off and returned to the city.

I spoon stew into my mouth, trying to remain civilized, though I’m so hungry I want to tip the bowl up and eat it in one swallow. Meals are shared here. As is everything else evidently, even children. I have yet to determine who are whose, other than Liddy, who alternates between clinging to her mother’s skirts and inching closer and closer to me.

From the corner of my eye, I see her sit down on the end of the log I’m on, her own bowl of stew resting in her lap.

“This is good,” I tell her. “Did you help make it?”

Her wide, solemn eyes take up most of her face. She shakes her head, her pigtails skimming the collar of her dress. “Mama made it.”

“It’s very good.”

She continues starting as I take another bite. A minute later she scoots two inches closer to me, and I take another bite of stew to keep from grinning. After gazing at me for a minute, she picks up her own spoon.

Around the room, everyone else is settling down for their meal. Several fires dance from their places around the room, where different families and groups gather. The rock ceiling hangs high above us. Nothing but cold slabs of rock for walls, and yet this is the coziest place I’ve been in years. The room is large, tall and open. Each family seems to have their own little section they occupy and call their own.

I count five tunnels that branch off this room. One leads to the springs. One to the entrance. The others I haven’t asked about yet.

Nolan sits beside me and points to one. “Take that one if they come.”

I pause mid-chew and stare at the tunnel. Then I swallow and turn to him. “If who comes?”

“Guards or Blackfeet. Anyone, really.”

My spoonful of stew gets stuck in my throat. If the King’s men come here, I’ll be discovered. “Who all knows you’re here?”

“Everyone who needs to.” He spoons stew into his mouth and swallows. “There’s much I cannot tell you yet, Gretta. But I can tell you the King would kill us all if he knew we were here.”

He puts emphasis on the word ‘all.’ Not just the men. The women and children. Something not beneath our King to do.

Nolan finishes his bowl and places it on the floor. Then he scoops Liddy into his lap and kisses her cheek. A sweet pang goes through me. My father used to hold me like that. I look out across the room. “Blair says you have a son?”

“Two,” Nolan says. He points across the room at a blond-haired boy of about ten. “That’s Reid. And the brown-haired boy who will appear shortly with a scowl and a sour disposition is Mason.”

I grin. “The one who got to clean my clothes of sewage?”

“The very one.” Nolan turns to me and smiles. “We all sleep in this room at night, with the men on the perimeter. You’ll be safe, but I want you to stay close to Blair and my children.”

I nod, warmth oozing from somewhere inside me I’ve had locked far too long. I never had an older brother to look out for me. I was the oldest, the one who was supposed to look after my sister and brothers. The thought pushes on me, an unrelenting pressure I wish I could write away and be done with.

Dinner is finished, and I ache for Houghman’s. For cloth and color and something that helps the hours tick by. I stand and walk over to Blair. “Can I clean up?”

Blair is only too eager to let me help. My hands find solace in the soapy water. I scrub at plates and cups, all the while chipping away at the questions in my head. Whatever will Mera think when I don’t show up at home? I have no idea how Ward intends to get word to her, or when. And what about Scarlett? Mr. Houghman will have a fit when I don’t show up to work. And the scowl Scarlett will wear when she’s left to fill orders by herself will surely split her face in two. I almost wish I was there to see it.

I plunge a plate into the soapy water and study the room. Most of the others are ignoring me. Which is fine. I feel as though they can read my secrets just by looking at me. Water sloshes up from the dish pail onto my sleeves, but I don’t dare roll them up past my wrists. Here I am again, in a place where covering who I am will have to be at the forefront of my mind. And Nolan’s words have drawn my stomach up in a knot ever since he spoke them. If guards invade, I need to get out or hide before they find me. If I get taken to the King’s dungeon, I won’t leave it alive.

I pile the clean dishes in a crate, and immediately wish they were dirty again. I need something to do. I’ve not seen any books here, so I have nothing to read. Most everyone else is gathering around one of the fires in the middle of the room. I hover outside the edge of the group. If this is some group meeting, I’m not sure I’m welcome or if they want me privy to more than I already know. But the man who stands up doesn’t give an update.

He starts telling a story.

He’s two sentences in when the story connects to a memory. I’ve heard this tale. It’s an old folktale, one I haven’t heard since I was a little girl. Silence falls over the group, even the children, as all faces tilt toward the storyteller. The man speaking sounds as if he’s told this story a million times. His hair is tinged with grey, and firelight dances off his face as he speaks. Within minutes, I’m lost in the words.

I sink to the ground and lean my back against the cool rock wall, as though my body needs to sit to be transported along with the tale. The words explode in my mind, a picture painted in my head to match his story. When he’s done, I want to both sigh and clap. A voice rings up from the crowd. “Do the bear one, Clive!”

And so our storyteller begins again. I curl my legs to my chest and rest my chin on my knees. My eyes never leave Clive. His face paints the picture of the story as he speaks it. Each furrow of his forehead or pull of his skin, and the story swings through my veins. Everyone is drawn in, from the men to the children. No one speaks; we all listen as Clive weaves us into his tale. I’ve heard this one before, too, but still my heart picks up speed and then crashes in joy when the ending comes.

A thought pricks my brain: stories.

A way with words.

I think back to Nolan’s words: the King would kill them all. Great skies above. Are these people all Lyran?