The bounty of deep summer would soon be replaced by the fading time. Always, the little death that was winter marched forward, faster than they could prepare for it. Even with enough food for the body to survive, they still faced the strain of the fear that wore away at the mind year after year.
After the first hard freeze, when the plants had been well and truly laid low and would not return, there was a moment when one felt relief. After the frenzy of the gathering season, there were no more preparations to make. All there was left to do was sit in your hut and know you had done all you could.
This relief would last only for a little while. As you stayed inside day after day, the snow piling up outside, inevitably it gave way to uncertainty then fear. With nothing to do but obsess, or make nervous calculations in your mind about your food stores and how long they would last, worry became your constant companion. Hunger would come more and more frequently and last longer. People thinned, and you began to hope with desperation that none would thin past the point of survival.
You hunted then, trudging through the deep snow, burning valuable energy and usually coming back with nothing. There was no other choice after all. “Try or die,” Benja liked to say.
The thought of his cousin made Illya frown. He remembered the scowl on Benja’s face that morning, when he had made his announcement, and pushed the thought aside.
This year would not be like that. When the fading time started, they would harvest. That was a new word.
Harvest. When you had so much food that you had to devote an entire season to picking it all. This year, when the snows swirled deep, there would still be food. He tried to think about what that would be like, a winter with no thinning time.
He wondered what they would do with all of their time. They would make songs, or poetry, or tell stories. Maybe Ban would invent new things.
The gatherers descended from the slopes, hauling baskets heavily laden with berries. Illya followed with his basket, keeping a little distance from the rest of the people, still lost in thought. When they re-entered the village, he took the path leading back to the Enforcers’ camp and his new hut.
It would be good to read them something from the book after they had feasted. It would remind them of how happy they were and why. Inside, the light was dim compared with the brightness of the afternoon sun. Illya fumbled under his pile of furs, where he had hidden the book, feeling rather than looking for it as his eyes adjusted.
He felt only the softness of the furs and reached farther, irritated. His fingers brushed against the rough dirt of the floor.
He kicked over the whole pile of furs and started picking them up, one by one, his heart racing.
He knew he had left it here, carefully stowed in its plastic box, safe from any danger.
He rubbed his fingers across his face and through his hair and growled. He sat on the floor of the hut with his heart thumping and tried to think if he could have left it anywhere else. But there was no way; he had always kept the book nearby.
Without the book, he was nothing. He knew that the people’s fragile trust would crumble if it were shaken at all, especially after this morning.
He heard a soft sound on the other side of the room and jerked his head up.
Someone was in the hut with him.
In the shadowy corner behind the door, two figures crouched. The light was dim, but Illya’s eyes had adjusted, and he saw one of them clutching the straight lines of the box. He lurched forward and pulled the figure into the light.
“What’s going on here? You…” His mouth fell open, and he felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room.
“Benja?”
He gaped at the sight of his cousin’s miserable face and the book that he was holding. His chest felt tight, and he swayed on his feet as he stared, disbelieving. Benja had taken his book. He had been about to leave with it when Illya had come in. A second figure crouched in the shadows behind Benja. Illya blinked at it, slow to register what he was seeing. It was Impiri.
He staggered backward, looking wildly from Benja to Impiri, Impiri to Benja, and to the book, undeniably clasped in Benja’s hands.
Benja straightened his back and stared Illya down. A beast inside Illya’s chest had woken and was roaring, setting his head on fire and his entire body to shaking with the sound of it.
The roar built up in his chest and tore out of him. He ran at Benja, hot tears streaming down his face, and tackled him to the ground, throwing all of his pain at his oldest friend.
The tears dripped off his nose and ran into the corners of his mouth. Illya tasted salt. He sucked in air, gasping because his throat was tight. He couldn’t get any more sound to come out, but he pulled back his fist and hit his cousin in the face over and over again. Benja didn’t fight back; he tucked his head into his chest and brought up an arm to protect his nose and eyes, one arm still around the book.
The door swung open, and light rushed into the dim room, blocked quickly by Conna’s entry. He pulled Illya off his cousin. Benja was lying on the floor, curled around the book. His nose was bleeding, and bruises were already forming on his face.
“What happened?” Conna demanded. Illya couldn’t speak. He wiped his face with his shirt and spat a glob of bile-tasting spit on the ground. Benja groaned.
“You have to stop this,” Benja said, gasping. He sat up and staggered to his feet, glaring at Illya, and said, “This book is turning you into someone you aren’t. Locking people up, naming people’s kids for them. Look at yourself! What are you doing?
“I said before that we should look at it, but not that we should do everything it says. You aren’t this guy. Maybe this jerk is, but not you.” He lurched toward Conna with a wild swing of his fist. Conna stepped out of range coolly.
Impiri chuckled in the corner. “I told you this would happen,” she said.
“Shut up,” Conna snapped at her.
“You were going to steal the book?” Conna said and picked up Benja by the fabric at the front of his shirt. “Betray your own cousin?”
Illya still said nothing. He gasped, unable to find his breath. He watched a stream of blood running from Benja’s nose down his chin and did not feel sorry.
Benja had been his best friend for as long as he could remember. He had been there through everything, when Illya had lost his father, when he had learned to read, through every dream and sorrow and joy of his life.
The idea that Benja could align himself with some scheme of Impiri’s was incomprehensible. It felt like Benja had stabbed him with a knife. He wrenched the book from his cousin’s hands.
“You don’t know me at all,” he sputtered.
“Treason,” Conna said. “That’s what it is to steal from the Leader. No matter who you are, family or not, it’s treason. You should be thrown out of the village for this.”
Illya stared down at the cover of the book, shaking with relief that it was in his hands again. He ran his fingertips across the smooth paper, barely listening to Conna.
“But prison instead, I think,” Conna said. He tied Benja’s wrists together. Benja glared but didn’t struggle.
“Not banishment. We haven’t banished anyone, and we won’t start now. We will show everyone that their Leader is merciful, even for the greatest crime,” Conna said and turned to Impiri. “You too. You’ve been nothing but trouble since the beginning. We should have known you were planning something like this.” He pulled her to her feet and tied her wrists similarly.
She grinned at him, showing all her teeth. There were black gaps where some of them had fallen out, reminding Illya of the jagged boulders that stuck up into the sky at the top of the mountain above the berry slope.