Illya watched him go. His stomach felt hollow. When Benja was out of sight, Illya edged out from behind the tree. He hesitated, not sure that he wanted to go inside at all. Still, he could hardly sleep out on the ground.
Taking a breath, he pushed open the door.
Molly was not there. His mother was squinting over some mending at the table. She looked up when he entered, with a strained smile, but said nothing. Illya licked his lips, which suddenly felt parched. He tried to return the smile, pretending that he had not heard anything. He stood over his pile of furs, contemplating them intently, trying to think of something to say to break the strangled silence, perhaps to head off what he knew was coming. His mother sighed.
“Are you sure you know what you are doing?” she said. He turned and saw that she had shoved aside her mending. She did not look angry after all. She looked worried. He didn’t know which was worse.
“Yes,” he said, mustering as much confidence as he could to put into his words.
She turned away and picked up the mending again. She looked down at it but didn’t resume her work. He watched her, and the moments stretched out in silence.
“Just say what you think,” he said, the words bursting out when he could no longer contain them.
“These Enforcers… Elias was one thing, but arresting people just because they don’t agree with you?” Her eyes looked watery. “And people… people are saying that some of those men had nothing to do with it.”
“If they destroyed the wheel, it would kill the plants. How could I let them do that?”
“You didn’t even give them a chance to give their side of the story.”
“What could they possibly have to say? Those men have been trouble since the first day,” he said.
Sometimes the wind blew, whistling through the cracks for hours without stopping. It pushed you until you felt like screaming. The concern on her face had been grating on him for days, and it made him feel the same. She didn’t think he knew how to do anything.
But he wasn’t a weak little boy anymore. He was the Leader. They chose him. Why couldn’t she trust him to know what he was doing?
“I don’t think that you believe that,” she said.
“Of course I do.”
“If you let them talk, then maybe people would agree with them. You are afraid. That’s why you are letting Conna push you into this,” she said.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said. Boiling against her pity, her worry, he spat the words at her. “I thought you were behind me, I thought you of all people would understand how important this is.”
“This isn’t you. My kind, thoughtful boy would never do something like this,” she said. Illya hardened his jaw. She continued.
“I don’t know what’s happening to you, Illya. Telling everyone what to do, arresting people who haven’t done anything, it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“It does. You just can’t see.”
“I’m worried about you.”
Illya turned away. His insides had turned to stone.
“You shouldn’t be. I know what I’m doing,” he said.
“You can’t control everything.”
“I’m doing what needs to be done! You don’t know anything about it,” he said, his face flaring hot. Grenya pressed her lips together.
“I don’t need this, and I don’t need you.” Illya turned his back to her, shaking as he scraped together his belongings.
He shoved the book into the middle of the haphazard pile of bedding and clothes and hoisted it all up under his arm. Without looking at his mother again, he kicked the door open and left the hut. Molly was running along the path toward home.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Away,” he said and walked into the night without looking back.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ILLYA SET HIMSELF up alone in one of the north-side huts, beside the Enforcers and Conna. This was accomplished by bursting through the door and tossing the pile in the corner before flopping down on it and falling into an exhausted sleep. It was not a peaceful rest. He was wrung out, drained by too much worry and too many feelings.
His anger seeped into his dreams as a strange montage, involving the image of a rock smashing against the wheel over and over then the realization that he was the one wielding it, trying to destroy the wheel. The vision of the wheel was replaced by Benja, then Impiri, then Jimmer, but he felt like he was hitting them with a cloud, so soft that it made no difference. All of his efforts were pointless.
He woke grumpy, with only a vague memory of why. Squinting at the unfamiliar walls, he was confused. He blinked a few times; then it all come flooding back and, with it, the nauseated, hollow feeling. He had never woken without his family around him. For a moment he felt like he would crumble under the weight of what he had done. But he couldn’t take it back now.
He scowled at the cracked mud on his new wall. Benja and his ma could think whatever they wanted. He didn’t need them anymore. He was the Leader; he had the whole village now.
The new hut was in a bad repair. Light shone through the roof where the thatch had fallen in, illuminating the fact that the floor was littered in a thick layer of leaves and dirt. Illya didn’t care. It had a door. That was all that mattered.
It was a long time before Illya ventured out past the safety of that door. He spent a little time arranging his things and a lot of time staring at the places where the mud had flaked off the walls, thinking.
The Enforcers, who were sitting around outside in the sun, looked at him with mild surprise when he did emerge. He wished that he had thought of bringing water for washing in with him the night before. He was sure that his eyes were red from crying, but if they noticed, none said anything about it.
He spent a good part of the remaining day fixing the roof of his new hut. He re-mudded the walls and swept out the collected debris, grateful for the excuse to stay away from everyone. He saw his mother and Molly from a distance when they went out with the other gatherers. They didn’t see him.
He wondered if they had thought it as strange to wake to a hut without him in it as he had felt to wake in a room without them. He decided that he didn’t care about that either and returned to weaving fresh grass through the lattice of branches on the roof. He didn’t see Benja at all that day and thought that he was glad about that too.
Illya sat alone at dinner but was joined by Conna before long. Illya felt an unexpected surge of fondness for his Second as he walked up with an easy grin on his face. They sat in companionable silence, eating fish, greens, and the first of the summer berries. It was not quite the same as friendship, but it was the closest thing he had. Of everyone in the village, Conna knew how hard it was to be a Leader. No one else understood.
Illya got swept away by these thoughts and, without meaning to, sighed out loud.
“What?” Conna said. Illya shook his head and shrugged.
“Everything is so different now, you know,” he said.
Conna laughed out loud.
“You’re telling me. One day we are just nobodies. Me and Aaro living under that…” His jaw tightened. “You hanging around with that old coot and his plants. The next day, here we are, running the whole village.”
“Samuel isn’t an old coot,” Illya said.
Conna grinned at him and shrugged, softening the words. “He’s kind of an old coot.” Illya eyed him then smiled back.
“Alright, I guess you could say that. He is kind of a coot. He’s definitely old.”
“You got to give a guy respect for being old,” Conna said. “Doesn’t happen much.” He frowned and was silent for a while.