Rook Winters - Weight of Ashes

Court seemed genuinely naive; he was capable in his familiar environment but ignorant of the wider world.

She’d know if they weren’t being truthful with her, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she see something in their faces? The village didn’t feel like a place built on deceit but wasn’t that the way of dishonest people? You never knew for sure.

“Dr. Donovan, why?” she whispered, almost sighing the words.

Unbidden, her mind replayed the sight of his missing chest. She pressed her palms into her eyes. “Stop stop stop.”

It didn’t stop. She kept seeing it over and over.

Air wouldn’t come into her lungs. She tried to inhale and gasped desperately with no relief. It felt like she was drowning.

Elle flung herself out the door into the fresh air and braced herself against the cabin wall. Her heart felt like it was coming through her ribs with each beat.

L37, control your breathing.

She focused on the memory of Master Zheng.

Control my breathing, right.

She forced a long exhale then a ragged inhale.

Again.

Again.

Eventually, her heart rate slowed. She put her palms on her sides, arms akimbo, and walked a small circle in front of the cabin.

I have to stop staring at that suit, it’s making me crazy.

She went to the white cabin where she found Vaidehi organizing a cabinet.

“Afternoon, Elle.”

“Hi. I was wondering, do you have a waterproof container that I can have? A pouch or something would be great. I want to wrap up my suit, to be safe. I don’t know how sensitive it is and I hate to keep it just laying out.”

Vaidehi pulled on her lower lip as she thought. “Well, I suppose you don’t need anything that’s medical grade sterile, so…” She flipped up the lid of a blue container and pulled out a semi-transparent bag. “This could work. Had a splash pad in it.”

“What’s a splash pad?”

“For wrapping injuries. Technically, it’s a wound-sealing antiseptic mesh wrap with embedded growth accelerant. Way easier than stitching up skin and less likely to get infected, which is pretty important out here since antibiotics are hard to come by. Used this one to patch up Evangeline. Sliced her leg open trying to get a chicken back into its pen. Her foot slipped off a grip and tore a gash down most of her thigh. Would leave a nasty scar without the growth accelerant. Her kid let the chicken out to play, if you can believe that. Anyway, not sure why we call them splash pads, but that’s what everyone called them back in med school.”

“You went to medical school? You’re not from here?”

“Blazes, no. Went to John Hopkins. Got stationed up here as an itinerant medic for some of the state facilities.”

“So, why are you here then? This isn’t a state facility.”

“Love.”

“What?”

“Met a guy while I was traveling. He thought I should leave my job and live the simple life. You know, pick up work for cash or barter. Deliver babies, set bones, that kind of stuff. Anyway, that worked for a while then the weaselly bastard cheated on me. A friend introduced me to Moriya who introduced me to Marsh who invited me here and been living the free life ever since.”

“Wait, who’s Moriya? Someone in the village?”

“No, an old friend of Marsh’s. More than a friend, if you want my opinion, but Marsh’ll never admit to anything. Lives down in the Chignecto settlement. Kind of a kooky old bat but she’s got connections. Here, take this tape. If you put your suit in and squeeze out the air, you can seal it with the tape and that’ll keep the water and dirt out.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, no worries. Listen, I know it can be hard adjusting to life here. Thought about leaving a bunch of times myself the first couple of years, trust me. But these are good folks.”

“It’s definitely different here.”

“That it is. If you ever want to just sit and talk it out, let me know. We can get into my stash of corn whiskey. It’ll burn your insides but it does the trick now and then.”

“I’ve never had whiskey before. We weren’t allowed to have alcohol. Dr. Donovan and the others said there was too much risk that it would interfere with the study results.”

“Study results? And I thought I had stories to tell. Well, when you’re ready, I can introduce you to your first ever whiskey then. Good news is that anything you drink in the future will almost certainly be an improvement.”

Elle gave her a genuine smile. Vaidehi seemed decent, like she was someone Elle might consider opening up to.

“Thank you again for the bag and the tape.”

After the hospital, Elle borrowed a shovel from the village gardens and went back to her cabin. By rolling up the suit and stuffing it into the helmet’s cavity, she was able to squeeze everything into the bag and seal it shut with the tape.

Elle didn’t know how long she would leave it hidden, only that she needed it away from herself and there was no one to trust with it. She carried the suit and shovel across the clearing into the woods, following a trail leading away from the village until she found a pile of rocks as big as a cabin.

According to Court, the pile was there long before the village, from a farmer clearing rocks from his fields hundreds of years earlier. It was a tradition in the village to have the teenagers carry rocks from the land they farmed now to the old rock pile. Court said it was to build strength and endurance. Elle suspected it was a way to keep teenagers busy and tired so they stayed out of trouble. She also suspected that Court was too naive to have figured that out.

She cleared away some rocks from the edge and began digging. It was hard work, harder than it looked in the old movies she’d watched with Dr. Donovan. Her hands burned, and she was soaked with sweat by the time she had a big enough hole. She lined it with thin, broad rocks to create a crude floor and walls before she laid the suit in.

A blister tore open on her hand while filling in the hole, which was now a bulge of dirt rising above the ground. She covered the small mound with rocks and stepped back to inspect her work. Other than footprints in the dirt, there was no evidence.

Good.

The task had been more work than she’d expected but she felt refreshed as she returned to the village, like a thousand pounds had been lifted from her shoulders. The open sore from the burst blister stung as she walked. She thought again of Master Zheng and observed the pain instead of feeling it. Tomorrow, she’d go see Vaidehi about it. For now, she would observe.

Marsh tapped a copper coin on the bar top to get the bartender’s attention. Nine other patrons sat scattered throughout The Squid and Whale. A quartet of men with sinewy arms played a game with little wooden tiles at a table crowded with empty glasses. There was a man and woman, her not much older than Walker and him much older, pawing at each other in a corner. Two men that Walker guessed to be late twenties chewed wordlessly on sandwiches. And one man sat slumped over with his face on the weathered bar, a half full bottle of something yellow an inch from his unmoving fingers.

The bartender, a gaunt woman who looked ancient to Walker but moved behind the bar with ease, eyed the coin first and then its owner.

“We don’t serve kids in here. I ain’t lookin’ for trouble from no one. The religious nuts’ll ruin me if I do.”

Marsh waved his thumb at the other customers. “They don’t care about the rest of the folks you’re serving?”

“People can do whatever they like when you’re grown but corruptin’ the youth gets em into a lather.”

“Then we can be on our way. I came in looking for a friend but I see he’s not to be found here.”