So knowing what was at stake, I spent a week watching, looking, seeing. And the more I focused on the need to leave this village, the more things subtly changed.
An Elder, claiming his cart horse had turned vicious and had deliberately knocked him down into a pile of manure, had taken to leaving the poor animal tied up to the hitching rail behind the Elders’ Hall, still harnessed to the cart without a handful of grain or a sip of water. Anyone who looked could see the horse was mistreated, but everyone averted their eyes and didn’t disagree with the Elder’s right to discipline his own animal, even though I’d heard my father mutter that, most likely, the poor beast had been doing nothing more than trying to get to its feed bucket when it had knocked the Elder down.
The men muttered, the women made moody cakes, and everyone pretended they couldn’t see the horse and, therefore, couldn’t see its misery.
I saw the misery. I also saw a horse and cart that would be easy to steal.
Then there was the blank marker stone that suddenly appeared behind The Voice’s house, far enough from the kitchen door not to be a nuisance and close enough that it could be used as a step up into the cart.
Every day I watched the village and the people. Every day I tucked a few more things into the traveling bag that looked like a small trunk made of cloth stretched over a wooden frame. I had bought it at the bazaar, using my purchases as the excuse to acquire it. Dariden laughed at me when he saw it, saying the cloth could be torn so easily, I might as well not use anything at all. True, the cloth wasn’t as sturdy as a wooden trunk, but it had one important advantage: I could carry it by myself.
By the time everything was ready, my biggest worry was Tahnee. She tried to act as if nothing had changed, but I could tell by the leashed desperation in her eyes that everything had changed—and I realized that she, too, had been waiting for something to happen and had been growing more and more anxious with each passing day.
I could not wish her scheme to fail because, like me, she was no longer in harmony with the village and staying would only do her harm. But I did wish with all my heart that her scheme was delayed just a few days longer, even though I knew my own disappearance would make her escape all but impossible.
Which is when things began going wrong. Just little things. Just enough things for me to realize how easy it had been for me to move forward with this plan.
“Nalah, what are you doing with that skirt?” Mother asked, catching me as I tried to sneak out of the storage cupboard that held our out-of-season clothes.
“I—” My father’s mother had made it for me two years ago, before she got funny in the head and died in her sleep one night. The dark green material was of good quality, which Mother had declared a waste, since it couldn’t be worn in decent company, and the needlework was exquisite. My grandmother had kept all the beads, spangles, and tiny mirrors that had decorated her own wedding dress and had gifted them to me on a skirt.
When Mother protested, my father’s only comment was that it was more practical to have the beads on the front of the skirt than on the part I sat on. Which proved that the male part of my father’s brain had been asleep when he looked at the skirt, because the beaded vines and mirrored flowers were intended to draw the eye to the untouched flower between my thighs. It was a skirt a girl wore when she was ready to attract a husband.
I had been too young to wear it when my grandmother had made it for me, and there was no one in this village whose attention I wanted to attract. But I wanted to take the skirt with me. I wanted the hope that I would wear it someday.
“I was going to take it over to Tahnee’s tonight, along with a few other things,” I said, suddenly inspired. “We’re going to try on clothes, see what we still like. Maybe trade.” I said this last bit in a low mumble, which made Mother sigh but also made her shoulders relax.
“The three of you used to trade so often, half the time I wasn’t sure if I was washing your clothes or theirs,” she said.
I nodded, then looked around to be sure I wouldn’t be overheard, even though I knew Mother and I were alone in the house. “Tahnee’s a little unhappy about the way Kobbi has been acting lately. I guess married life changes a girl?”
Mother’s face softened with understanding as she put an arm around my shoulders. “It can be a difficult adjustment for some girls.” She hesitated, then added, “Maybe you should make a moody cake.”
I shivered and knew she felt that shiver, but I wrinkled my nose and said, “I’d rather try on clothes.”
“You’re my daughter, Nalah, and I do care about you. You know that?”
I looked into her eyes and felt the pain of love. She did care. And that was why she couldn’t afford to see. And why I would stop looking if I stayed. If I held a little daughter in my arms, would I let her flesh carry the weight of sorrow? Would I let the Black Pustules form and listen to her scream in pain when they were lanced—and see the scars that would mark her when the hard cores were extracted? Or would I make a moody cake and teach that little girl the proper way to present it to the person whose sole purpose in our village was to swallow such offerings?
I kissed her cheek. “I don’t need a moody cake.”
I hurried to my room to pack the skirt, then hurried out to find Tahnee and let her know my mother thought I would be at her house tonight. But when I found her sitting under the big tree where she, Kobbi, and I used to play on hot summer days, everything changed again.
“Kobbi’s father denounced her,” Tahnee said in a hushed, tearful voice. “She tried to tell her mother that Chayne was doing something bad to her, something that made her head feel funny. Her father overheard her and dragged her to the Elders’ Hall. He denounced her and demanded that her name be struck from the family record.”
My chest felt so tight, I could hardly breathe. “She’s an orphan?”
Tahnee nodded. “And I heard that Chayne is so shamed because she’s an orphan by unnatural means that he may denounce her as his wife, since he’ll no longer receive the other two parts of the dowry.”
“She can’t inherit because she no longer exists in the eyes of her family.” And I could see Kobbi’s fate if I went ahead with my plan—because an orphan’s life is one of sorrow.
“Listen,” I said, grabbing hold of Tahnee’s arm. “I’m coming over to your house with a bag of clothes. That’s what I told my mother.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“You’re going to pack a bag of clothes—basics and the things too dear to leave behind. But don’t pack a bag that’s so heavy you can’t carry it. You’re going to tell your mother that you and I are going over to Kobbi’s house. We’re going to try on clothes like we used to do when we were girls, and we’re going to make moody cakes to help Kobbi feel better because she’s our friend. After a denouncement, a man has three days to change his mind if he spoke in haste or out of anger, so if Kobbi comes to her senses, her father might restore her to the family. That’s what you’re going to tell your mother.”
Tahnee wiped the tears off her face and gave me a long look. “What are we really going to be doing?”
“Escaping. We’re going back to Vision.”
Her breath caught, and for a moment I wondered if I had been wrong to tell her. Then the fire of hope filled her eyes.
“The three of us?” she asked.
I hesitated, and felt as if the world itself waited for my answer. “Four of us.”
At dinner that night, even Dariden was subdued, although he rallied once when he heard I was going over to Kobbi’s house with Tahnee.
“You shouldn’t be friends with the likes of her,” he told me, glancing at our father for approval of such a manly opinion.