Whisper (7 page)

“Stop,” I said.

Belen pointed a finger at me and muttered, “Don't you ever touch me, girl.” He glared and then yelled, “Celso, enough.”

Celso twitched his head, but his eyes never left Nathanael, and with a powerful lunge he lurched toward him, pushing him hard with both hands and slicing the top of his arm with the knife. Nathanael sat heavily on the log and held his hand over the cut. Blood seeped between his fingers, and I ran to him, pulling his hand away, examining the wound. It didn't appear deep, but it would leave a scar, no doubt. Jeremia stood beside me, his hand out to the side, his jaw set with an anger that went into his neck. We were not used to such blatant cheating. We were not used to people who didn't stop fighting when we'd already surrendered.

Nathanael accepted Ranita in his bloody hands when I handed her to him. My fingers, as they laid Ranita in his lap, shook and fluttered. Nathanael gripped my wrist, pulled me down and spoke into my ear.

“Come back, Whisper. As soon as you can. You, of all the rejects, were never meant for the life out there.” While he spoke, he slipped something around my neck. I looked down and saw the violin that Jeremia had carved for me—the miniature instrument. Nathanael had fitted it with a string through a tiny hole at the end of the long neck—a little piece of warmth and wood with smears of Nathanael's blood on the edge. I slipped it under my shirt, where it soothed my skin.

I stood, held my head high once more and bit down on my tongue. I would not cry in front of these men. I would not let them have that power over me. I reached into myself and pulled on a small thread of anger. I held on to it, squeezed it, felt how delicate it was.

My belongings were quickly collected; I had very little. Everything my mother had given me fit into a scarf she had worn around her neck. I held the scarf up to my nose and breathed deeply. It still smelled of baking bread and molasses. I wrapped my cloth doll, a silver spoon and three ribbons for my hair inside the material. The violin fit against my back. I left the blankets, pillows, Jeremia's life-size carving that reminded me of waterfalls, and my books—the three encyclopedia volumes I'd read from cover to cover, learning about the world. I pulled on my sweater, flipped aside the deerskin door and walked out of the hut. I wished I could pack Jeremia, Eva, Ranita and Nathanael into the violin case.

When I emerged, Jeremia stood by the fire pit, holding Eva. The two of them watched me with big, glassy eyes. I wanted to run to them, feel Eva's arms around my neck, feel the tingling that started when Jeremia's body was pressed against mine. Instead, I jerked my head away and tried to hold on to my thread of anger.

Celso and Belen stood by the path into the woods, and my brothers peered out at me from behind Belen. I turned to look at our camp—the log huts, the fire pit, the sitting logs surrounded by huge trees that stretched and strained toward the sun—and I thought of how small my world had been for sixteen years. How small and yet how huge.

When we walked into the woods, I did not look back, but as we moved away I heard nothing from the world behind me as the two men and two boys in my company lumbered through the trees, drowning out any sign of beauty that might have been there.

My mother was dead. And with that thought, my thread of anger disintegrated and I felt my lower lip begin to shake. I bit down on it until I couldn't tell if the tears in my eyes were from my mother's death or the pain in my lip.

Five

The two boys looked at me as we walked. The farther we got from the camp, the braver they became, as if distance gave them strength. The younger one, who looked to be about eight years old, had sturdy legs and a protruding stomach. He waited for me to pass and then followed me. I walked between the tromping men, my feet so silent it was as if I wasn't there. We trod beneath the oak trees with their majestic branches, and I listened to every move the boy behind me made. The other brother walked in front of me but glanced back often, looking at my face, examining my features. Belen led the way along the narrow path through the woods. Tree branches and bushes almost covered the slim trail we followed. Celso brought up the rear. No one smiled at me, attempted to talk to me, softened their gaze when they looked at me. I had no friends among these men and boys with their unblemished faces. There was no one to trust here.

About three hours into our march, I felt the first acorn hit the back of my neck. If Jeremia had taken out his slingshot and pelted me, I would have slipped away, run on silent feet through the woods, sneaked up behind him and thrown a handful of nuts at him, bombarding him with multiples in return for his individual missiles. I glanced at the man behind my brother and understood that if I slipped away, he would come and find me and perhaps return to the camp to take out his anger on Jeremia or old Nathanael.

As I continued to walk, I felt heat from my chest creep up my neck and into my face. The helplessness of fear and anger stung my eyes. I would not give in to this feeling.

Zing! An acorn flew by me.

Zing! Another hit me on the back of the head.

The littlest brother giggled, and the man behind me started to laugh. The brother in front of me looked around, as if trying to understand what was so funny.

I slowed down just a bit. Littlest brother sneaked closer, became braver and hit me on the cheek. It stung, but I said nothing.
Try it again, little brother, try it again
.

Zing! Another hit the back of my neck.

He was very close, and as we crept along, prey and aggressor, I thought of my mother's description of Mateo: loving but mischievous. This little boy was about as sweet as an unripe lemon.

Celso's laughter encouraged him, and he became braver. He stepped up right behind me, and I felt how close he was by the sharp sting on my shoulder blade. When the acorn hit the violin case, Mateo laughed at the hollow sound it made and then forgot to watch where he was going.

I stopped, whirled around and snatched the slingshot out of his hand before he'd noticed how close we were.

“Hey,” he said, “give that back.”

“Stop hitting me or I'll snap this in half.” I held the slingshot over his head.

“Dad and Uncle Celso will make you give it back. You can't feel those hits—look at you. You're a monster.”

I weighed that comment, considered taking offense and then laughed. I was still laughing when his face contorted, and his eyes stretched wide as he screamed. He screamed again and again, backing away from me, his hands in front of him. Belen ran back, pushed past me through the thick leaves of the trees and held Mateo against him.

“What did she do to you, son?” He kneeled at Mateo's side, his arm around him. “Did she hurt you?”

I no longer laughed. I lowered the slingshot and held it at my side.

“She made a face at me. She snarled at me. Sh…Sh…She was going to hurt me.”

And then I remembered Nathanael's warning.
Never
smile
, he had said.
Never laugh or grin at someone who isn't
used to your face. When you smile, your teeth are bared, your
face splits open, and you become an animal, with teeth and gums
exposed.
I was careful not to smile as my father looked at me. His face became a burnt red color, the underside of a cardinal's wing, and he spoke low, his lips tight.

“If you ever threaten this boy again, I will finish the job I began when you were born.”

I clenched my jaw. When I felt a tug, I looked down and saw my other brother, David, pulling the slingshot out of my hand. Even though he looked like the other two, his eyes were gentler, more searching, more willing to crinkle and laugh. He held the slingshot up for his father to see.

“Mateo shot seeds at her.”

Belen yanked the slingshot out of David's hand and gave it back to Mateo.

“He may do what he likes to her. She's not like us.”

David narrowed his eyes. Mateo gloated and fit another acorn into his slingshot, but rather than walking behind me, he joined his father and the two marched on, leading the way.

David walked between me and his father as we continued our passage through the woods. I pushed fern leaves aside, felt the scratch of thorny branches against my legs, tugged my feet through vines. As we walked, I wrapped a shield around myself and prepared for my new life.

On the first day of our journey, we met no other people, and I marveled that my mother had walked this distance all by herself for fifteen years. I understood the dedication she'd shown, the sacrifice she'd made. She truly had loved me. We slept in the vines and bushes, under the arching trees. My stomach rumbled with hunger. I tried to silence the sound by sleeping on my side, but the noise of emptiness reverberated against the ground. Because we had left the camp in such a hurry, I'd packed no food, and they offered me none during our travels. As my stomach continued to groan, I felt something pressed into my hand. My fingers closed around the object, and I brought it up to my nose. It was a piece of flatbread. I ate it in three bites.

On the second day, we passed a small village. About ten huts were grouped together in a rough circle, and children, barking dogs and smiling villagers appeared and disappeared between the huts. I hoped that this village was ours, because I could feel the acceptance.

Children ran out of the woods to greet us. They looked at my face curiously but were not afraid of me. They took our hands and pulled us into the center of the village, where sitting logs circled the fire pit. We were given bowls of rice, cooked vegetables and bits of meat. I ate the food while turned to the side so they could not see me placing the food at the back of my throat, away from my mouth, away from the openings that would make it spill out again.

When I looked around the village, I saw another woman like me, with slits in her face, openings between her nose and mouth, but also with one eye that looked always down. She smiled at me and raised her hand. I raised my hand in response, but Belen moved in front of me, blocking my view. While I ate my dinner, I saw two boys playing together by the fire pit. One of the boys had only one arm, and the other had a sore at the back of his head.

I wanted to stay in this little village where the disfigured children played around the fire pit with the other children and where the parents could watch them. But after we ate the meal in the early evening, we continued on our way.

The path we followed started to widen, and I noticed now the difference in the trees. My legs and hands were no longer stung by the thorns and brambles, and spaces appeared over our heads. More and more people passed us, people with markings and symbols on their arms and faces, people with their hair cut into strips on their heads or braided in long lines down their backs. They looked at me with the same curiosity with which I looked at them. Sometimes Belen and Celso stopped to talk with these people and sometimes we passed them without a word.

On the third day, we stopped in another village and were given a meal, but I did not want to stay in this village. The children hid behind the huts or trees when they saw my face, and one little boy stood in front of me, pointing and screaming.

I was offered rice here, but there were no vegetables and there was no meat, although I could smell something roasted coming from Belen's bowl. I did not sit on the log beside my little brothers but on the ground at their feet, dipping my fingers into the rice, eating as fast as I could in case they decided to take away what little food I had. Here I felt like an animal, squatting, skulking, shoveling, while they watched me as though I might eat their children.

The night before we reached our village, Belen and Celso built a fire in a small clearing. They sat near the warmth with the two boys while I sat behind them, just beyond the fire's reach, trying to see clues to my mother in the shapes of the boys' heads. They said little, but I did hear my name and saw Belen glance back at me.

Celso stood from his place by the fire and walked to me. I kept my chin on my knees, my arms wrapped around my legs.

“Your place is with us now,” he said. I looked at his brown boots, thick and durable, perfect for the walk through the woods. “You'll not go back.”

I barely felt the edge of the fire's warmth. My place might have been with them, but it was not equal to them.

“And if you run, I'll hunt you down. Your father may be weak, but I'm not.”

I looked up. The sky was dark, the trees shadowed and black around the outside of the fire. I could see nothing of his face.

He returned to the campfire and sat down beside Belen. The boys glanced back at me. I turned on my side, lay down on the ground and rested my cheek on my hands. Hot tears dampened the fingers under my cheek, but the tears made no more sound than snowflakes might.

This was my life now.