Page 9 of Finding Her Heart
"Dust is a vanguard of sin, a symbol of idle hands, and the evil loves employment for those,"Annabell remembered her mother singing the tune. It was loud now, with her heartbeat and the cold chill on the back of her neck, and the smell she would never be able to wash from her mouth and nostrils.
Annabell sang it back, her words a horse whisper. "Dust is a vanguard of sin, a symbol of idle hands, and the evil loves employment for those."
Digging graves as deep as she could. Covering them up without seeing or smelling anything. She scrubbed up the mess of their endings as if it was the butchering of a cow gone bad. She kept moving until there was nothing left to do.
In a daze, she went home, back to her house. Her mind numb.
Chapter 3
Into Woe
Head aching, disoriented, Annabell woke up in her own washroom. Her shoes were off, along with one long sock. She couldn't feel her feet, her arms and hands hurt, and a rhythmic squeezing pulsed around the top of her head. Cataloging her body, she lay still in the dark space, wondering where the lamp was, what time it was, what day it was. She moved her feet, willing sensation back into them. Her hands felt achy, swollen, like they did when she spent a day digging or chopping wood.
Her world bled the color of the curse, the Mother and Father moons fulfilling the prophecy of her childhood name. Everyone around her died, and then she was left to bury them.
Almost everyone. She found no body of her sister-by-marriage, Bess, or the orphan girl hired to help with the children. The remains of the younger Mrs. Johnson or their daughter and a third young woman from that household were also missing.
What had happened?
"These are the Peace Lands and the humble life. Nothing happens here but farming, fishing, and gossip."Mama said that many times to Annabell.
Fed on her papa's tales, Annabell longed for those adventures, much more interesting than putting up peaches or house tending. Mama would catch Annabell idle, dreaming, and remind her the humble life was the opposite of adventure. The humble life was good, safe living, and she should be thankful for it.
Bad things did not come into their village. Her father would have told her. That story would have rolled off his tongue in a weekly epic dinner time tale of death and sacrifice. He would have relished it. Righteous Way was a safe place. Traders came through, sometimes tours of people from the Steel Cities in the summer. But not bad things.
Big parties couldn't travel the mountains in winter. The snows, combined with hungry shaggy graybacks and a flying predator called an orma, a creature that loved the darker months, kept the mountain roads into the village closed. One man might make it, if he knew what he was doing. Two, if careful. But the buffer of the Orki Originals Peace law surrounded the valley. Righteous Way was safe.
The lands outside the civilized steel cities and the Peace River belonged to the Orki. The Originals carried a history of dominance on the planet based on their warlike capabilities. Built on a huge scale, armed with all kinds of barbarian weaponry, riding wolfish horse-sized creatures they called their war beasts, nothing escaped the Orki. They hunted and patrolled their land ruthlessly. A planet-wide agreement existed with every sentient humanoid creature, even the dangerous, greedy Ministers and Corporations in the Cities. The giants made sure there was no reason to break the law and trespass.
No one knew how they did it. But they apprehended and made an example of lawbreakers. In school she learned that the longest it took an Orki hunting party to catch a trespasser was three months. If the Orki did these murders and they were exacting punishment, everyone who broke their law would be dead.
The deaths surrounding her carried the mark of gratuitous dark energy. This was the violence of broken, selfish-mindless things and the very reason her family line removed itself from the big cities. The humble way escaped humanoid power plays. Wars. Greed.
Mama said,"Not in this place. Not in this life. Safe."
"This is not safe, not safe at all," Annabell murmured. Just like every tale of woe in her life, Annabell lived on to feel it while others died. The attack had missed her.
Annabell prided herself on wise decisions, but this—this horror—swallowed up all her ability to think clearly. Exhausted, she'd fallen asleep on the floor, half-dressed, filthy from cleaning up death's messes, eyes shut as soon as she sat down to wash.
Coming to life, sitting up, she took stock of herself. First to finish what she started hours ago, reset a fire, warm water, find clean clothes. The routine of living kept her moving, the way it had every time lonely and pain overwhelmed, and she wanted to give up. A habit of not thinking or feeling about anything except what was in front of her served her well.
Benjere. His children. The workers. Or that she had buried no women. "I won't think about it," she said to the empty house.
Her voice didn't echo. Mama had nothing to add.
Couldn't let it touch her. Don't think. Do. She would take action. Tell someone. Tell her brothers in town.
Her brothers, Kejere and Vejere, born eighteen months apart, lived close to the town center with their wives. Once as close as twins, Kejere's marriage to Lurann Ardensdotter caused a breach in the family that to this day boiled with accusations and unforgiveness. Lurann was older than Annabell by almost six years. Men sang songs about her beauty and her bust in all the wine houses.
As members of the Righteous Way Council, her brothers heard the world updates from the schoolhouse information center. They might know something. They might have already gone to one of the other river towns for help. Perhaps they had called a meeting in the Gathering Lodge and formed a team. If some distant war caused this violence, the school viewer would have a message about it and Kejere would know.
When she wanted to go to the village, she rode in a wagon with Benjere, in the donkey cart, or she walked.
There was the river path, or the rock path, a well-worn tread winding behind her neighbors—closer on the side of the Peace Lands than One Road. It was a little longer, but tree-lined. Sheltered, it felt safer than the open road, where anyone or anything could see her coming and going. She'd get to her brothers. They would know what to do. They could send messages to the other villages.
Annabell packed a lunch. Washed her body and face from the basin three times because she kept discovering that she was crying without realizing it. Slid on her favorite walking boots and threw back her shoulders.
Moving kept her sane. She could not, could not stop.
