I drew out the last note of the song, using the full length of the bow on the violin’s string. It echoed around the forest, the damp air lending a pleasing haunting quality to the melody that refracted some of the pain I was feeling. Before the note died, Aurora clapped her hands together with enthusiasm. She always did. For a moment again, her melancholy was a memory. The youthful exuberance of her applause was a warm welcome.
As the note was drowned by insect chirrups of the woods, her face segued back to her usual downturned cadence, her eyes straying to the skirts of the trees.
“Shall I play for you again, Pet?” I asked.
She smiled, her hands clasped together near her bared throat. “Oh, yes please!”
“Only if you promise not to run into the forest again. It took me most of an hour to find you, honest.” My fingers strayed to a lock of her hair. “I’d die if something happened to you.”
She froze, her little lip threatening to purse, her eyebrows lilting upwards. She was sorry, and that was really all that mattered now. I hated to see her trapped. I’d hate more to see her in pieces.
“Alright, one more time,” I said, taking up the bow and violin.
But instead, my hand drew down in a harsh line as a quiet howl reached gnarled fingers across the forest. Atta’s call was almost entirely silent, but I heard it like nails scratching at my rib cage, clawing at my heart.
Aurora heard it too and dropped down, clutching her hands to her chest, tears of fright rising in her eyes. Was it really any wonder that she kept trying to run away? I put down the violin and knelt next to her, embracing her.
“Shh, she’s calling for me, Pet,” I said. “Go back in and get cleaned up. I’ll hear what she wants; then I’ll give you a treat.”
Aurora settled after a long moment in my embrace. “Will you play for me again?”
I smiled. It warmed my heart that my modest playing could bring joy to her.
“Anything your heart desires,” I said, stroking her cheek.
I slipped towards the plantation house with haste. Whatever Atta wanted was not going to get more reasonable with delay. I sent Aurora to her room with my violin, lest Atta destroy this one as she had the last.
The door to her study was open, and the tinny wail of the phonograph wound down, drawing out the melody into a dreary sound. She had one elegant hand on the plaque, small and engraved with the name Morgan. She reeled in the little winding arm, making the music play a few beats too fast. I was not sure whether I preferred the phonograph dreary or manic. She’d listened to that machine’s song enough to weaken its mechanism to the point that it required almost constant winding. Whoever had gifted her this nearly magical device had known her heart.
Marie was on the floor near Atta’s feet, playing with Lapinou. She smiled a gummy grin up at me. She had two new milk teeth coming through.
Atta turned to me, the hollow dips of her eyes almost as vacant as the black irises themselves. She moved deliberately, like a chameleon, testing each movement until she was certain, that it was what she wanted to do.
I flinched, guessing what came next. Atta had her full attention on her ledger, tapping her long fingers next to entries here and there. Most entries were crossed out; others had little marks next to them.
She drew me over to her with a crook of her long, too long, finger. I couldn’t resist. I moved closer, following the point down to the ledger open on its last page. Two new entries marked only by the lines of gender. No names yet, no numbers assigned to the subjects. It meant only one thing.
“What happened to the last ones I brought in?” I asked, more of myself than of her.
She moved that roving finger to two names, both crossed out. They hadn’t made it. Then she moved her finger down to the new entries, no names, and no numbers. A space for a male and a female entry in her book. She tapped the entries, like a spider feeling its way up a wall.
Atta looked at me until I was sucked into the soullessness of her eyes. She nodded.
I looked down at the page. I hated to go. The lights of the city were that much dimmer under the caul of kidnapping. Because that was what she wanted me to do. We were out of males, at the least. We’d need two more, one in a pinch. It went unsaid, as everything with Atta did, but she would only be pleased if I came back with the ideal breeding pair.
“Maybe my brother can go this time,” I said. “Vail’s been-”
Before I saw her move, her long, bony fingers were wrapped around my arm in a painful grip. I gritted my teeth, my fang biting my lip until I tasted blood on my tongue. The intensity on her face took my breath away. She opened her mouth. For an instant, I thought she’d speak. I braced myself, fear whipping my heart to beating.
“Forgive me,” I said through my clenched jaw. She didn’t let up her grip. If anything, it tightened. Her lips were pursed now, her eyes wide, her unspoken words ringing around my head. I knew what she wanted to hear. “I know that Vail is needed downstairs. The stock needs tending. As your heart desires, Atta.”
The grip lessened. I waited until she was done with me before I moved my hand slowly away from her. It hurt to curl my fingers into a fist. But it would heal.
Atta was still watching me. She was waiting for more. I was not off of her hook just yet.
I smiled, hoping to appease her. “I’ll not dither in the city this time. I know that you need me here. I know that the family needs me.”
She lifted Marie onto her hip, and the child giggled, playing with Atta’s long hair. Her soft heartbeat thudded loudly almost enough to unhinge me. I was hungry. I was always hungry. We had abundance here, just not for us. It was unfair. Perhaps if I could delay, I could get a little more from Aurora, just to take the edge off. I could take no more tonight, but tomorrow…
Atta tilted her head.
I was defeated. I could not fight her on this anymore. “I will go tomorrow night, honest, when I have the whole-”
Atta only had to cast that same look at me. I would go tonight. This was no man’s land. The lightless wilds beyond the city, where vagabonds and the exiled would run, looking for freedom. Finding instead, us. I wondered again who was truly imprisoned, them or us. We, by our hunger. Them, by us. In no man’s land, he who conquered starvation was King.
“As your heart desires, Atta,” I said.
Atta set Marie down at the child’s insistence of her kicking feet. Those feet were never still. She clutched Lapinou to her chest and toddled over to the fireplace, playing with her wooden blocks, stacking them high until they fell down. I was so entranced by the child’s active play that I didn’t see Atta move. I never saw her move. But a cold hand that was too big, too long, laid on my back, along my spine. I shuddered.
She didn’t need to speak.
I clenched my teeth. “Yes, Atta.”
Atta took my chin and moved my head so that I had to tear my eyes from Marie and look into her dark eyes instead. Her finger pointed to the clock. My time was short.
“I will need money. For surety.”
She snatched her hand from my face, scraping her long nails across my cheek as she did. I held my face and watched as she moved with painful slowness to the nightstand and snatched up a purse, shaking loose two coins. The jingle of the bag sounded poor. She handed the two coins to me, folding my fingers closed over them, and dismissed me with a flick of her fingers, walking to Marie and slouching into the chair beside her.
I toyed with a matchbook on her desk before putting it in my pocket. The strangest of things could be of use.
Nothing more for it. I gathered what I thought would help, and went to the doors. I was trusting the ever-playing phonograph, sound amplified by the many empty rooms, to hide my footfalls as I made my way to the side door, to make my exit. If I were quiet enough, my Aurora would-
“Where are you going?” Aurora’s shrill voice echoed off the wooden-faced hallways of the plantation house, breaching the phonograph’s tune. I stopped and turned, placing a well-tuned smile on my face. She stepped from the shadows, brushing her blonde hair back with plump fingers, an accusing frown on her little face. I held my hand to her, and she took it with all the trusting of an animal seeking comfort.
I hushed her, itching to take a peek at the watch in my pocket.
Aurora buried her face in my chest. “Take me with you.”
“You know I can’t, my heart, honest.”
“Tristain, you swore!”
Her voice was too shrill, even for the jaunty tune blaring from the phonograph. I wound my hand around her to press over her lips. “Shhh.”
She squirmed a little back, but, it was in her eyes, she’d listen. Aurora always listened to me. She was a good girl. Most of the time.
I went through the door, bodily blocking her from doing the same. The moon was bright down here, and it shone on her yellow hair, making it beam like a lamp in the dark. “Go back inside,” I said, keeping my foot in the door to keep her from pushing through.
“I don’t want to,” she replied all petulance and pouts. It was what made her the sweet plum I kept by my bedside, to seed my days with something other than this nightmarish place. So I told myself, even when it was more, even when I dreamt of the day that we would run together, hand in hand, away from Atta and this kingdom of death.
“Atta will see you.”
Aurora’s small, soft features looked back at me with accusation. “And Fratris will see you.”
“I’ll be careful, honest.”
“Tristain, please!”
“Shhh!”
“Please take me with you!” She wound herself around my leg, snakelike and hungry. Her peach skin lips pressed to my knee, a flood of kisses. It tickled, I didn’t want to shove her off, but panic had me in its loving grip. She wanted me to stay. I couldn’t. For her and me.
She wanted me to take her with me.
I twisted to shake her off. “No. Go home,” I said. I pressed a little of myself into the command, bringing my will to bear, such as it was.
She stepped back, out of the warm circle of my embrace and stared at me as if I had done her harm.
“I’ll only be out a little while, honest,” I said. “And when I come back, I’ll bring you a treat. I promise. Anything your heart desires.”
Her eyebrows and lips turned down in a little frown.
“Pet, I cannot,” I said again, but I could hear my voice breaking.
Her voice issued out in a small hiccough of sound. Distress waged in my heart.
“You never bring me anything,” she murmured, taking small steps back until she was beyond my sight. I could hear the pattering of her slippered feet, the thrumming of her heart, and then the sound of a door closing somewhere within signalling her return to safety.
I walked the forest path towards the city. A low rumble vibrated the ground beneath my feet. Fratris was shaking at his chains and moaning low. I could feel his thrashing, even while heading well away. He must have been having another nightmare. Those chains had once moored warships at harbour. If he was unsettled, then I was glad for them.
I could see the lights in the distance. To Atta, the city bred weakness. In her mind, the noble house of Sult was here shrouded in darkness, in this empty wasteland, because we were strong.
But she was wrong. The Lords of Night resided in the city, and they were much stronger than us. We worked for them, not them for us. She thought that I didn’t know, but she was wrong.
The city was life. Sounds, colours, full and ripe. I could feel the hunger of the city mirroring my own. But there, there were feasts as well as famine, the natural order of things. Here, hunger permeated the walls. There must have been a time once when I had believed Atta. But I’d be damned if I could remember when that was.
She was wrong. We ruled nothing. The Lords came from time to time and took our finest for a pittance. All the while, we hungered.
There was no life beyond the city walls. There was only hunger, misery. And Aurora.
It hurt my heart.
Tonight, I’d drink. I’d revel. Perhaps I’d flout Atta’s will? Stay a while and bask in the glow of the lights, the music, and laughter.
But Aurora’s sad face would never allow such a selfish whim to overcome me. I wrapped my cloak around my shoulders, trying to keep out the cold that coiled around my heart.
“Aurora, come,” I said. “Let’s find you a new friend.”
She wasn’t far off, just as I’d thought. She peered out at me from the trees, full of excitable smiles and a wicked glint in her eyes. We walked to the walls of New Babylon, hand in hand.
Her hand was warm enough to warm my heart.
