Naomi Grim (4 page)

The men who had brought me from
Litropolis split off into separate directions. I stood there feeling lost.
Nigel turned to me. "Come." I followed.

We walked through a lane of small
cottages. They almost reminded me of gingerbread houses from children's books. Nigel
stopped and knocked on one on of the doors. The door opened after a few
seconds. Nigel motioned for me to go inside.

Skeptically I stepped inside. A woman
with a mane of gray curly hair raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Who's
this?" she asked Nigel as he came in behind me.

"This is Naomi. She needs some
help. I thought maybe she could stay with us for a while."

The woman frowned. "Nigel, are you
crazy? She can't stay here."

"Oh, come on, Mother. She's just a
girl."

I was sick of people talking about me as
if I wasn't there.

"I'll leave if this is going to be
a problem," I said, turning for the door.

Nigel put his hand on my shoulder. "No."

His mother stepped closer to me,
examining every inch of my face. "You're from Farrington. What are you
doing here? What kind of trouble are you in?"

"I defied the Grim Covenant,"
I mumbled, wondering how many more times I'd have to repeat my offense.

"By?" the woman pressed.

"I prevented deaths from happening.
Many deaths."

The woman whistled. "You pretty
much sentenced yourself to death, didn't you?"

I shrugged, and she continued to stare
at me. "Fine, you can stay for a few days. That's it."

"Thank you," I said, placing
my duffle bag on the floor of their cottage.

"Have a seat there," the woman
said, pointing to a small round table. "I'll get you some tea."

I sat at the table, happy to finally be
off my feet. My feet were hot in my leather boots. I surveyed the cottage—
small, but warm and cozy. On one side of the room were three pallets where I
assumed Nigel, his mother, and someone else—maybe her husband—
slept.
A pot-bellied stove sat in the corner. A cupboard and several covered buckets
made up the kitchen. Nigel plopped down on one of the pallets as his mother
started on the tea. I watched her shakily pour water from a pitcher into a
small pot. I felt bad, remembering the men had mentioned a drought.

"My name is Merna, by the
way."

"Oh," I answered because I
didn't know what else to say.

Merna sat at the table with me while the
tea boiled. She rubbed the sweat off her forehead. It was very warm here. I
longed for the coolness of Farrington. "So, what's your plan?" she
asked me.

I had no plan. "I guess to stay as
far away from Dunningham as I possibly can for as long as I can."

Merna nodded. "I know most Grims
will not think so, but it was a very admirable thing you did."

"Thank you."

Just then the door flew open. A boy,
maybe seventeen or eighteen, came in and dropped a pile of wood on the ground.
"Hey, Nigel, how'd it go?"

"Fine," Nigel muttered. He
sounded half-asleep.

"Good. Next time—" He paused
and closed the door as his eyes fell on me. "Who's this?"

"Naomi," Nigel answered.

"What is she doing here?"

"Colden—" Merna began.

"What are you doing here?"
Colden demanded. Colden was a younger, more handsome version of Nigel with
curly dark hair and noticeable golden highlights.

"I'm just passing through. They're
looking for me, and I'm in hiding, that's all."

Nigel told Colden my story and Colden
turned and glared at me. "You know Dunningham will find you. Somehow,
someway, he will. He'll come here with his men and see that we're harboring you
and destroy our entire village. You can't stay here."

"It's just for a few days,"
Merna said.

"No. For all we know Dunningham
could be on her scent right now. She has to leave," Colden replied.

Merna went to the stove to cater to the
tea.

"And you're making her tea, from
our limited water supply. Come on!"

"Colden!" Merna snapped.
"Enough! This is my home and I'll do as I please. I say she stays, and
that's final."
Colden scowled at me and then bolted from the cottage, slamming the door behind
him.

I drank the tea, which tasted like
chamomile and
made
me sleepy.  Merna offered me her pallet to
take a nap. Because I was struggling to keep my eyes opened and exhausted from
the walk, I took her up on her offer. I nuzzled my face into her soft pillow
and covered myself with the blanket. I thought about home and my family. I wondered
what Mother was doing at that moment. She was probably the most worried about
me.

"You'll have to excuse my
brother," Nigel said. "He's an arrogant ass."

I covered my mouth to yawn. "It's
okay. I have one of those too," I assured him. Then sleep took over.

* * *

I woke up to the lovely aroma of
something cooking. Before I opened my eyes, I made a wish that this had all
just been a dream. When I opened my eyes, I hoped I would be in my own bed, in
my own home, and the lovely smell was my mother's cooking.

I was immensely disappointed to find
myself still in Merna’s cottage.

Nigel and Colden sat at the table while
Merna scooped something into bowls. "Come on, Sleeping Beauty," she
said.

My body ached, but I forced myself up
and over to the table. I was starving.

Dinner was some kind of soup. There was
no meat in it, but an assortment of herbs, vegetables, and spices. It was
delicious. We ate in silence until the last person I wanted to hear decided to
open his mouth.

"My mother's been very kind to you,
hasn't she?" Colden asked.

I nodded. "Yes. Yes, she has. I'm
very grateful."

"That's the kind of person my
mother is—good and kind-hearted. Too bad she only has sixty-seven years and
she's lived sixty-five of them."

I looked down at my soup, because I didn't
know what to say to that and it didn’t seem appropriate to keep eating.

"How many years do you have, I mean
did
you have?" Colden asked.

"Four-hundred-and-seventeen,"
I said, almost whispering.

Colden nodded. "Isn't that nice.
And the assholes in the Upper Estates have even more. Do you know how many
years I have, Naomi? Thirty-two. That's it. And I only have that much because
of the lifestones we've stolen. If not for that, we'd all be dead."

"It's not her fault," Nigel
said.

But Colden wasn't about to let up.
"Your people, you act like we're some kind of bloodsucking insects. That
we're thieves because we attempt to raid the Mill and get to the lifestones
before you do. You call us Foragers. We just want to live. We don't want our
people to die out. That doesn't make us bad. We need those lives much more than
you. We just want what rightly belongs to us. We're Grims too. We're supposed
to be collecting lives too, but can’t because of that damn Dunningham—he's
going to get his."

Colden's comments hit me like a truck.
Nigel had said that this wasn't my fault, but I felt ashamed of myself and my
people. I'd always looked at Foragers as the enemies, or as Bram would say, the
ones who kept food from our mouths. They weren't the enemy, we were. Grims had
no right to look down on them. They were only doing what they did to survive,
and any of us would do the same. As Colden pointed out, they should be able to
collect lives themselves.

"I'm sorry. I'm really, really
sorry." But I knew that apology wasn't worth much.

Colden wasn't moved. He narrowed his
eyes at me. "This assignment that you botched up, a group of our kids went
there. If they had collected the lifestones, that would have given as all a
chance at longer lives, so you kind of screwed the Grim side of us over. But
one of our girls didn't return. Do you know what happened to her?"

She was probably the girl whose neck
Doyle had snapped like a twig. "No. I don't."

Colden went back to his soup.
"You're leaving tomorrow."

I had a long, restless night. Maybe it
hadn't been a great idea for me to sleep during the day. I was nestled in
between Nigel and Merna. I reminded myself not to move so much so I wouldn't
disturb them. I wanted morning to come so I could get up and move about, but I
didn't want it to come because Colden would make me leave and I had nowhere to
go.

When I awakened, Nigel was gone. Merna
gave me a small bowl of water to wash up. We had leftover soup for breakfast.

"I hope this is okay," Colden
said bitterly. "I know it's not the steak and quail eggs you're used to
having for breakfast."

I had never once had either of those
things for breakfast. "This is fine," I muttered. We ate our
breakfasts silently.

"When are you leaving?" Colden
asked as I helped Merna clear the dishes after breakfast.

"She's not going anywhere,"
Merna argued.

"Yeah, she is. I'll tell Dunstan
you're harboring one of his brother's Grims."

Merna looked sharply at her son, but
said nothing. I wondered if Colden would really do it, snitch on his mother.

After the dishes were done, Colden
handed me my duffle bag. "Let's go." I took the bag and hoisted it on
my shoulder once again. I decided that I hated Colden.

Unexpectedly, Merna wrapped me in a hug.
"You're a sweet girl, whatever happens, stay strong." I suspected
Merna thought I would die soon. I agreed with her.

I followed Colden out of the cottage.
"Where are we going?" I asked him.

"To see Dunstan."

"Why? I don't want to cause any
trouble. I'll just be on my way."

"On your way to where? We're in the
outskirts of Nowhere, sweetheart. There's nowhere else to go."

He was right. I walked behind him,
contemplating my options. I spotted two women kneeling, washing clothes in a
tub filled with a thin layer of water. They looked at me strangely as we
passed. "Then I'll go back the way I came."

"Dunstan has to know you're here. I
should have brought you to him yesterday."

Any way I looked at this, I was out of
luck, so I followed him. Dunstan lived in a large cottage a little ways off
from the others. It was a far cry from his brother's mansion, but still much
better than the other cottages. Colden knocked on the wooden door and a young
boy with sandy-blond hair answered.

"Yes?" asked the boy.

"I need to speak with Mr. Dunstan,
please."

"Concerning?"

"We have a trespasser here. A refugee
from Farrington."

Refugee? I hadn't considered myself to
be one of those, but I guessed I was. The boy closed the door. Colden and I
stared at the chocolate-colored door in silence. After a few moments, the boy
opened it back up and told us to come inside.

Unlike Colden's cottage, this one was
separated into different rooms. We followed the boy into a small office in the
back room. A man with a bald head sat at a desk with his back to us.

"Have a seat," he said
gruffly.

Colden and I sat in two armchairs
against the wall across from the desk. The boy continued to stand by the door.
Dunstan sat still and silent. I guessed he was reading. Finally, he turned to
us.

I drew in a breath. It startled me how
much he looked like Dunningham, although it shouldn't have, seeing as though
they were identical twins. The only difference was that Dunstan had aged a lot
more. He was a forty-years-into-the-future version of Dunningham.

"Colden," he said, nodding
toward him.

"G'morning, Mr. Dunstan."

Dunstan eyed me. "What are you
doing here?"

"I'm in trouble. I'm just passing
through, really."

"What kind of trouble?"

I repeated the story for what felt like
the one-hundredth time. Colden sat beside me, huffing during the whole
recollection.

Dunstan breathed deeply, sat back, and
stroked his gray beard—just like his brother. "So, it was you who cost us
those lifestones. Why in all creation would you do a thing like that?"

"I don't know. I just felt I had
to."

Dunstan looked me up and down for what
seemed like forever. "Stand up!" he ordered sharply.

I looked at Colden. He pointed his head
toward Dunstan, indicating that I'd better do what I'd been told. I stood.

"Come closer," Dunstan said,
sounding like a wicked witch trying to lure a small child in the woods.

I realized I was moving, but not on my
own. Colden was pushing me toward the middle of the room. Dunstan left his
seat. Standing in front of me with his arms folded across his chest, he studied
my face for a long time. I focused on his nose, trying to avoid eye-contact.

Then he began to circle me, sniffing
life a hungry predator. A chill ran down my back. I'd never been sniffed
before. The air from his nostrils hitting my face caused me to flinch.

"W-what are you doing?" I
managed to say as he held my hair under his nose. He was just as creepy as his
brother, if not more. At least Dunningham had never tried to inhale me.

Dunstan stood in front of me once more.
This time I did make eye-contact. I wanted him to answer my question.

"You're one of us." The way he
talked—if serpents could speak, they'd probably sound that way.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, your people callously call
us Foragers, but we like to refer to ourselves as hybrids. But yes, you're a
hybrid."

I shook my head. "No, I'm not part
human. Both my mother and father are full-blooded Grims."

Dunstan narrowed his eyes at me.
"How long have you been here?"

"I came yesterday in the early
afternoon."

Dunstan laughed, "Dear, I know this
is not what you want to hear, but it's this truth. You're not a full-blooded
Grim. You're a lowly hybrid like us."

"I just told you that's
impossible."

"If you weren't one of us, you'd be
dead by now," Dunstan said. "The temperatures here are much too high
for a full-blooded Grim who’s used to the coolness of Nowhere. They would
survive here, a few hours tops. See, it's different when you're on assignment
and you have your scythe—"

"I know. The scythe regulates our
body temperature so we're okay, but that doesn't mean anything." My scythe
charm still hung around my neck, tucked inside my shirt. That's why my body
temperature was regulated. Something told me not to tell Dunstan about the
charm. I turned to look at Colden. There was a small trace of surprise on his
face. "Why would Nigel and the other men help me get over the wall if they
thought I would die?"

"They didn't know. They're not
full-blooded Grims. It's not something they have to concern themselves
with."
Dunstan was lying, I didn't know for what purpose, but he was. "What about
you?" I asked. "You're a full-blooded Grim."

"Was. When I procreated with a
human that was taken away."

"Listen, I have to get going—"

Before I could finish my sentence,
Dunstan grabbed my left arm, pulled a knife from his back pocket, and sliced me
from elbow to wrist.