| THE LORELEI SIGNAL |
.
| Written by Dawn Lloyd / Artwork by Marge Simon |
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| A Traitor's Letter |
As I neared my old hometown of Thera, the lone
Regalian guard, eyes half closed at the afternoon
sun, leaned against the iron gate. I’d seen the
gate only twice in the last fifteen years. The first
time was when the seven of us Fen had broken
out and fled past the guards. The second was six
years later when I returned to help the Regalians
destroy my own people.
The brick wall still reached towards the clouds,
barbed wire curling knives into the sky. Children
played kickball outside. They were Regalian
children, not Fen.
I started to walk through the gate, hoping my
show of confidence would dissuade him from
questioning me, and grateful I was tall enough
to pass for a Regalian woman. A week before,
when I’d tried the same trick entering the last
town, the guard hadn’t been so easily fooled.
He’d drawled, in that bored way guards do,
“business here?”
“Research for the Ministry of Internal Affairs.” As
I’d reached for the letter from the minister
identifying me as his assistant, a servant of their
empire, the ever-present wind had caught my
sleeve and pulled it above the triangular brand
on my wrist.
He jumped to his feet and threw me against the
wall. “Runaway, are you?”
“No.” My words rushed out. “I’m here on the
authority of the Minister of Internal Affairs. I’m
writing a history of the Empire’s restoration e
fforts. The letter is in my pocket.”
He snorted and felt my clothing, his hand lingering on places that had no pockets. I clenched my teeth and let
him.
At last he withdrew the paper and scanned it.
“Since when have we been using Fen to write our history for us?” His eyes ran the length of my body. “Says
you’ve got a scar on your right hand. Let me see.”
I showed him the jagged scar. I’d gotten it when we broke out. I’d held the barbed wire for the others, and it
had sliced my palm when I released it. My brown hair and eyes were non-descript, but the scar identified me
clearly.
As he handed it back, he spat at my foot, muttering, “pigs stinking up our city.”
I’d replaced the letter and walked away.
Now, here in Thera, the guard seemed too comfortable in his nap to look up, and I walked past quickly. Inside
the wall, the skeleton of the town was the same, but everything else had changed. Cobblestones covered
streets that had been dirt. The narrow two or three story houses were whitewashed. The flowerbed Jethro
had been so proud of was gone, replaced by a sign for the general store that had never needed a sign
before.
I almost searched the streets for Fen, but of course there were none. Instead, an older Regalian woman sat
on the sidewalk weeding between the rocks outside a house. She could have been my mother the way her
hair whipped around a face just beginning to show wrinkles and over eyebrows that had been plucked into a
thin line. But my mother was dead. The knot of hatred I no longer felt living in the capital wound my stomach.
Thera was our town, not theirs. The woman gave me a curious look. Thera was still small enough for
strangers to stand out.
“Good day.” I nodded.
“Good day,” she called back. “You visiting someone?”
I shook my head, perhaps a bit too quickly, and started to walk away.
She eyed me. “You related to someone here?”
For a moment, I imagined my friends leaving. Donkeys and carts loaded, chattering happily to each other
about the new homes I had promised as part of the relocation program. I opened my mouth to explain my
work, but the words didn’t come. It wasn’t any of her business, anyway.
“Everything all right?” She cocked her head, and I tried to put aside both the feelings and the thoughts.
My head jerked mechanically up and down and I started to walk away again.
“Doesn’t look like everything’s all right,” she pressed on. Her voice was soft. It wasn’t her fault she lived in
what had been my home.
I stared at the ants wrestling half blades of grass along cracks in the cobblestone and tried to force a smile.
She put a hand on my shoulder. “You sure you’re okay, honey? You look like my sister did when she found out
her husband hadn’t come back from the fighting. Let’s have a sit-down over here, why don’t we?”
I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t certain I could handle walking through more of the town right then, so I let her
steer me to the giant stump Jertho had turned into an outdoor table. All but the center of the stump had
rotted away. The woman gestured at the flat stone we’d used as a chair.
“Is it anything you want to talk about?” Her hand slipped down to rest on my arm, the same way my mom
used to.
I reached for a chunk of rotten wood and crumbled it in my hands. The wind carried the dust away as I pulled
a larger piece and picked the edges. The inside was still solid. I pushed against it with a fingernail, but it was
my fingernail that bent.
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” She patted my hand. From the corner of my eye, I could see her
watching me.
For a moment, I thought of pulling my sleeve up above my wrist. But then I imagined her gasp. I pulled
another piece of wood instead.
I could show the letter, but then she’d simply know I was a traitor. So I braced myself for a different
confession. “I’m fine. As a kid, my best friend was Fen. Her family was from here.”
“Oh.” She drew her breath in slowly. “I see.”
I wondered if she saw at all.
“There are a few sponsored Fen here. My friend’s cook is one. Maybe you’d like to talk to her?”
A spider crawled across the wood toward my hand. I dropped the bark. It’s strange how you can spend days
traveling back to your hometown, irrationally dreaming of being greeted by old friends, but when faced with
the actual confrontation, the anticipation shrivels away. “Who’s your friend’s cook?”
“Let me see.” She stared up at the sky. “Kaylan, I think? Or Kylee. Karyn, maybe?”
The name, and the coincidence of this stranger knowing her, yanked me from my thoughts. “About my age?
Red hair?”
“Why yes! So you do know her.”
“Kaylan.” She had been friends with my younger sister. They had always begged to come whenever Samira
and I went anywhere, and my mom had always insisted we let them.
“So, you’ve met her,” she prodded the silence.
“She was my sister’s friend, but she couldn’t get out when the purges...”
“Oh.” Then, quietly, “and your friend?”
I stared at the stump.
“Do you want to come back with me? I’ll take you to meet her.”
“She won’t want to see me.”
“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go.”
Somehow my head nodded. She stood up and my feet followed.
We walked down the Elm Tree Lane. The grove at the end where we’d played hide and seek had been cut to
make way for new houses, shorter and more sprawling, Regalian architecture I’d grown used to in the capital.
We turned into what had been the Veels’ yard. “The Garbises have lived here since the restoration,” the
woman was saying. I tried not to hear the words.
She jangled the wolf’s-head knocker. I, who had come on assignment from the minister himself, could barely
look above the doorframe here in my hometown.
The wood inside creaked, and I suddenly thought I should explain. “I’m Leema. From the Ministry of Internal
Affairs. Here researching history.” Then the door swung open. Kaylan, much older than I was prepared for,
stood before me.
“Ah, Mrs. Merse, welcome.” She glanced at me curiously, but without recognition. I didn’t know if I should be
relieved or not. “Have a seat and I’ll tell madam you’ve come.” She looked over at me. “Can I give her your
name as well?”
My throat went dry, but my companion spoke for me. “A friend. She’s here to inquire of you, actually, after we’
ve spoken to Arry.”
Kaylan blinked, but kept her composure, as good a servant as any that could be found in the capital. “Of
course. Anything I can do to be of service. What would you like to drink?”
“Think I’ll have rose hip tea today. And you?” She looked over at me.
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
Kaylan bit her lip the way she always did when nervous. “Something else, then?”
“Thank you, but no.”
My companion frowned. “You sure? Kaylan makes the best rose hip tea of anyone in town.”
Kaylan blushed, and something, perhaps rage at seeing her blush over something so trivial, rose up inside me.
“I’m sure she does, but I’m not thirsty,” I lied. My throat was drier than it had been in years.
Kaylan led us to the living room, then disappeared down the hall. I watched her. She was still tall by Fen
standards, still slim, still seemed quiet. I’d never pictured her as a servant.
Mrs. Merse rearranged red throw pillows on the large wooden couch and seated herself at one end. I took
the other and tried not to gawk at the changes decor. A tapestry with a scene of a dozen men on horseback
facing a stag hung on the wall. The usual Regalian string of blue and white beads framed the doorway.
“Best if you don’t tell Arry you were friends with a Fen,” she whispered.
I nodded.
“Doesn’t look like Kaylan recognizes you.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“Are things really so bad between you?”
“Probably.”
A minute later, our hostess scurried in, hair in the ringlets popular with the Regalians, and the loose skirt with
the slit up the side. She threw her arms wide. “Renette! It’s been too long. Why haven’t you come around
more?” They hugged, and then I hugged her too since there seemed no other way to escape the arms.
“Oh, I keep meaning to come by, but you know how things get.” Mrs. Merse smiled a bit too broadly, then
turned to me. “This is...”
“Leema,” I inserted quickly, adding, “personal assistant to the Minister of Internal Affairs.”
Mrs. Merse blinked and Arry’s eyes brightened. Mrs. Merse continued. “She was looking into the town’s history
a bit, so I thought your Kaylan might be able to tell her something.”
Arry beamed. “It’s an honor to have such a distinguished guest. I’d be happy to help with the history if I can.”
“Thank you, but it’s Fen history I’m researching.” I looked to Mrs. Merse for support.
She rescued me. “Did you hear I’m a grandmother now?”
The woman’s face lit up. “Well it’s about time. Congratulations. Boy or a girl?”
She rambled about her grandson, and I wished the couch would swallow me. Then they exchanged comments
of children and husbands and the color of the neighbor’s roses. They’d moved on to the price of cloth these
days when Kaylan came in with a tray and two cups of tea. Her eyes drifted to my face in that way people
have when they’re trying to think if they know you. She looked back at my feet as soon as she saw I was
watching and set the tray on the coffee table.
Arry gasped. “Kaylan! There are three of us.”
“Madam said she didn’t want anything.”
“It’s true,” I added quickly. “Tea doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Then she should have offered you something else. Coffee, apple cider? Gracious. What does it take to get
good manners out of a servant these days? It’s no wonder people don’t want Fen.”
My mouth went even drier. It was Mrs. Merse who protested.
“Oh, she tried to bring something else, but my friend insisted she didn’t want anything. Maybe just some of
your apple cider now?” She patted my leg, and I sat there letting her.
Kaylan rushed away.
Arry sighed. “I’ll have her beaten, but I’m truly sorry for that. She was here after they cleared the city, and
helped with the rebuilding. She wanted to stay, so I thought I’d take her in. We have a responsibility to help
even the Fen, don’t you think?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Merse murmured. “But don’t beat her. Leema was insistent about not wanting anything.”
I shifted in my seat.
Arry waved it off. “So, tell me, what is it that makes you interested in the history?”
“I’m chronicling the history of the rebuilding efforts. To properly document the improvements, I need to know
what it was like before.”
“Oh, excellent. Records are important.” Arry nodded with far more gravity than the project warranted.
“Certainly. Future generations must know of the Regalian accomplishments and triumphs, and of the primitive
nature of the people it has purged.” Had I been writing a report, I would have thought nothing of the line. But
here, sitting in this Fen house with the Regalian decorations, I nearly vomited.
Mrs. Merse stared at me for a moment too long. Arry went on beaming. “I can see why you were chosen to
write the history. You have a way with words.”
I couldn’t look at Mrs. Merse, so I left my eyes on the floor.
“Yes, she certainly seems to.” Mrs. Merse spoke for me again. “Speaking of writing, did you hear Nilian got a
letter from her son last week?”
They discussed townsmen for the next fifteen minutes and I’d never been so grateful for small town gossip.
Somewhere in the middle of it, Kaylan appeared again with the apple cider. I took several gulps. The glass hid
my face.
“Perhaps now would be a good time for Leema to talk to Kaylan?” Mrs. Merse suggested when I set the half
empty glass on the coffee table.
“Oh, of course.” Arry leaned back in the chair as if preparing to be bored. “Feel free to ask any questions
you’d like.”
“Maybe private would be better? I wouldn’t want to bore you with Fen drivel.” The words were out before I
thought of Kaylan. To her credit, she didn’t react.
Arry considered. “If you’d like, you can go out back on the patio.”
I thanked her and almost started out myself before remembering to let Kaylan show me the way. She did,
holding doors open and stepping aside as we walked down the hallway to the back door. The patio was much
as it always had been, but with whitewashed walls and wooden furniture instead of wicker. I sat in the bench
and waited for her to take the chair.
She stood.
“Kaylan, for all things...” I stopped. It was a Regalian apology. “Kaylan, sit. Please.”
She sat obediently, hands folded on her lap, eyes at my shoes.
“Kaylan, don’t you...” I stopped again. She didn’t move.
For a moment, I started to pull back my shirt sleeve, but instead, I ran my hands through my hair and took a
deep breath. It would be easier with my lungs full.
From the corner of her eye, head still turned down, she watched me. I knew the look from when she and my
sister were spying.
I opened my mouth to ask if she recognized me.
What came out was the truth. The other truth. The truth I’d told inside. “I’m chronicling the history of the
Empire’s rebuilding efforts, starting with the Fen ghettos up through their refurbishment into the fine towns
they’ve become. I know what the ghetto was like when your people,” I didn’t even hesitate at the reference,
“resided here. What I’d like to know is about the purges. How many Fen were allowed to remain, names of
any still here, your adaptation into proper Regalian society.”
Her hand tightened around the arm of the chair. “As a historian, madam, don’t you have access to that
information already?”
“Numbers, yes. But not names or how you have actually adapted.” I should have told her. Right then. I should
have pulled up my sleeve and confessed that I’d been enamored with my own position. That I’d been a fool,
and it was my fault so many Fen had gone to their deaths instead of the new homes I had promised them.
And that now, standing here, I was too much a coward to own up to it.
It’s harder to confess in reality than it is in your head, though, and I continued. “I would like to know how
your people have changed. Whether it is still in the Empire’s best interest to continue the sponsorship
system.”
She was half out of the chair by the time she caught herself and sat again, placing her hands back on her lap.
“I apologize, madam. But I beg you not to discontinue the sponsorship. We, those of us still here, we aren’t
the enemies of your empire. We just want to live.”
“I know.”
“Then surely you won’t be recommending ending sponsorship?”
That’s when I should have done it again, but I couldn’t. I rested my hand over my wrist. “No, that’s not my
intention.”
The stiffness went out of her body. She still sat straight, still kept her hands in her lap and her eyes
downcast, but the tension faded. “Then what can I help you with, madam?”
“I’d like to know about the Fen who are still here.”
The muscles tensed just a bit. “What about us? We all have legitimate sponsors.”
“I have no doubt you do. So tell me, what other Fen are here?”
“There are eleven of us.”
“Who?” Then, to soften the tone, “who all is still here?”
She counted on her fingers, whispering the names too softly for me to hear. “There are six as laborers, the
rest are domestics.”
“But who are they?” My voice rose. Why wouldn’t she just tell me the names?
She flinched. “The laborers are employed by...”
“I don’t care who they’re employed by. I asked you who they were.”
“You want the names, Madam? Of the Fen?”
“That’s what I said.” I stood up and walked to the railing, my back to her so she couldn’t see my face.
She jumped to her feet. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t thought you would be interested in such details.”
I didn’t answer, willing her to go on talking. At last she did, giving me the names—the blacksmith, two
farmers, my old algebra teacher, the younger of the two town doctors, and several of my old schoolmates. I
was glad she couldn’t see me close my eyes. I didn’t want to ask my next question, but I couldn’t hold it down.
“And the others? Most towns sponsored more Fen.”
Silence.
A thought niggled that she had recognized me, but I didn’t dare turn to see. “Well?” I ventured.
“Gone.”
“Gone?” I lowered my head enough that if I strained, I could see her standing by the chair. Through the hair
blowing over my eyes, I saw she’d gone stiff again.
“The purges. They trusted...”
I shouldn’t have turned around while it was so strong on her mind. But I had to see, had to know how much
hatred there was. And so I turned, slowly.
Her eyes widened. “You! You...How dare you come back here!” Her voice shook.
I forced myself to stare at her, to not look away.
“How dare you stand there and talk to me about my people.”
She crossed the two steps between us. I tried to pull away, but the railing cut into my back. She grabbed at
my arm and yanked my sleeve. Limply, I let her and her thumb jabbed into my wrist. “There. So you are still
Fen, even if you think you can hide it.” My wrist tingled.
“Kaylan, I didn’t know. I thought they were just moving you to another city. I didn’t know they were...” Even
now, having chronicled the sixteen liquidated ghettos with over fifty thousand Fen, I couldn’t bring myself to
actually say the word.
“Didn’t know they were murdering us?” She said it for me. “We all knew, until you promised us otherwise. And
you’re going to stand there and tell me you were there, working for their government, and you didn’t know?”
“I didn’t.” It was a meaningless excuse, and I didn’t know what I wanted from Kaylan anyway. Surely I hadn’t
expected forgiveness.
She threw my wrist back.
“Kaylan. You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t think. They showed me real cities. Fen cities. They were beautiful. I
thought that’s where you were going.” My voice rose in desperation.
She glowered at me. There was nowhere I could escape to. A minute passed and I grew more tired than I’d
been in months. I moved to sit on the bench, and the pocket holding the letter brushed against her. Paper
crinkled. She whirled, grabbing my shirt tails and yanking the letter out. I jumped to grab it back, but she
spun away.
Her eyebrows lowered as she read. “You really do work for them. You really are...” Her jaw worked up and
down again. “I don’t even know what to call you.”
My head slumped. The bushes rustled in the wind and a bird twittered. I wondered if the birds had been
singing the day my family left. They would be different birds, too. “Traitor, Kaylan. The word is traitor.”
She snorted.
The boards at my feet blurred as the birds sang on. I kept my shoulders from shaking and didn’t wipe my
eyes. When at last I looked back, she held the paper with both fists, ready to rip it.
“No!” All other emotions gone, I lunged to save the letter.
She pulled it away. “Afraid of being Fen for real?”
I dropped back to the chair. She could tear it if I grabbed.
“I should rip it. Watch you get back to wherever you live without it.”
“The capital.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“I’d be captured and killed. Do you really hate me that much?”
“Yes.”
There was nothing I could say. The birds finished their song and started again, echoing each other. My black
shoes made blurry lines against the whitewashed boards.
She growled. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t go to the officials. There’s a good reward for catching runaway
Fen, even if it’s one of us who turns them in.”
The irony struck me, but I tried anyway. “Because the fact I’m a traitor doesn’t mean you should be too. Our
people are better than that.”
“Our people? So ‘madam’ is one of us now?”
“I was trying to help.” The words held no power, and I hated myself for the excuse.
More silence. I reminded myself to breath as naturally as I could. She knew the letter’s significance as well as
I did, but I didn’t want her to see it in my face.
For a time, I stared at the letter still in her hands, but gradually my vision shifted to the shrubs, then to the
rail, then back to the white boards.
“Will you at least tell me what happened to everyone?”
“They’re dead. What do you care?”
“I want to know.”
“Want to know what? You know already.” She ripped the paper and threw the pieces at my feet. The wind
caught them. “You’re right. My people are better than you.” She swung around and disappeared inside,
slamming the door behind her. The wall rattled.
On the two pieces I managed to catch before the wind whipped them beyond the railing were the words “in
this year” and “of the Rega...” I looked for other pieces, but the bushes held twittering birds.
I started to run, to flee my hometown a second time. I might be able to stay hidden until I made it to the
capital to get a new letter. I’d stayed hidden when I first escaped, after all. But then I thought of Kaylan
slamming the door. There was nothing that would excuse a Fen who’d behaved in such a manner to a
Regalian, least of all one of import, and the Regalians were looking for excuses to kill the few remaining Fen,
anyway.
Dropping the two pieces in my pocket, I pulled my sleeve above my wrist. The door closed softly as I walked
into the house.
Regalian guard, eyes half closed at the afternoon
sun, leaned against the iron gate. I’d seen the
gate only twice in the last fifteen years. The first
time was when the seven of us Fen had broken
out and fled past the guards. The second was six
years later when I returned to help the Regalians
destroy my own people.
The brick wall still reached towards the clouds,
barbed wire curling knives into the sky. Children
played kickball outside. They were Regalian
children, not Fen.
I started to walk through the gate, hoping my
show of confidence would dissuade him from
questioning me, and grateful I was tall enough
to pass for a Regalian woman. A week before,
when I’d tried the same trick entering the last
town, the guard hadn’t been so easily fooled.
He’d drawled, in that bored way guards do,
“business here?”
“Research for the Ministry of Internal Affairs.” As
I’d reached for the letter from the minister
identifying me as his assistant, a servant of their
empire, the ever-present wind had caught my
sleeve and pulled it above the triangular brand
on my wrist.
He jumped to his feet and threw me against the
wall. “Runaway, are you?”
“No.” My words rushed out. “I’m here on the
authority of the Minister of Internal Affairs. I’m
writing a history of the Empire’s restoration e
fforts. The letter is in my pocket.”
He snorted and felt my clothing, his hand lingering on places that had no pockets. I clenched my teeth and let
him.
At last he withdrew the paper and scanned it.
“Since when have we been using Fen to write our history for us?” His eyes ran the length of my body. “Says
you’ve got a scar on your right hand. Let me see.”
I showed him the jagged scar. I’d gotten it when we broke out. I’d held the barbed wire for the others, and it
had sliced my palm when I released it. My brown hair and eyes were non-descript, but the scar identified me
clearly.
As he handed it back, he spat at my foot, muttering, “pigs stinking up our city.”
I’d replaced the letter and walked away.
Now, here in Thera, the guard seemed too comfortable in his nap to look up, and I walked past quickly. Inside
the wall, the skeleton of the town was the same, but everything else had changed. Cobblestones covered
streets that had been dirt. The narrow two or three story houses were whitewashed. The flowerbed Jethro
had been so proud of was gone, replaced by a sign for the general store that had never needed a sign
before.
I almost searched the streets for Fen, but of course there were none. Instead, an older Regalian woman sat
on the sidewalk weeding between the rocks outside a house. She could have been my mother the way her
hair whipped around a face just beginning to show wrinkles and over eyebrows that had been plucked into a
thin line. But my mother was dead. The knot of hatred I no longer felt living in the capital wound my stomach.
Thera was our town, not theirs. The woman gave me a curious look. Thera was still small enough for
strangers to stand out.
“Good day.” I nodded.
“Good day,” she called back. “You visiting someone?”
I shook my head, perhaps a bit too quickly, and started to walk away.
She eyed me. “You related to someone here?”
For a moment, I imagined my friends leaving. Donkeys and carts loaded, chattering happily to each other
about the new homes I had promised as part of the relocation program. I opened my mouth to explain my
work, but the words didn’t come. It wasn’t any of her business, anyway.
“Everything all right?” She cocked her head, and I tried to put aside both the feelings and the thoughts.
My head jerked mechanically up and down and I started to walk away again.
“Doesn’t look like everything’s all right,” she pressed on. Her voice was soft. It wasn’t her fault she lived in
what had been my home.
I stared at the ants wrestling half blades of grass along cracks in the cobblestone and tried to force a smile.
She put a hand on my shoulder. “You sure you’re okay, honey? You look like my sister did when she found out
her husband hadn’t come back from the fighting. Let’s have a sit-down over here, why don’t we?”
I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t certain I could handle walking through more of the town right then, so I let her
steer me to the giant stump Jertho had turned into an outdoor table. All but the center of the stump had
rotted away. The woman gestured at the flat stone we’d used as a chair.
“Is it anything you want to talk about?” Her hand slipped down to rest on my arm, the same way my mom
used to.
I reached for a chunk of rotten wood and crumbled it in my hands. The wind carried the dust away as I pulled
a larger piece and picked the edges. The inside was still solid. I pushed against it with a fingernail, but it was
my fingernail that bent.
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” She patted my hand. From the corner of my eye, I could see her
watching me.
For a moment, I thought of pulling my sleeve up above my wrist. But then I imagined her gasp. I pulled
another piece of wood instead.
I could show the letter, but then she’d simply know I was a traitor. So I braced myself for a different
confession. “I’m fine. As a kid, my best friend was Fen. Her family was from here.”
“Oh.” She drew her breath in slowly. “I see.”
I wondered if she saw at all.
“There are a few sponsored Fen here. My friend’s cook is one. Maybe you’d like to talk to her?”
A spider crawled across the wood toward my hand. I dropped the bark. It’s strange how you can spend days
traveling back to your hometown, irrationally dreaming of being greeted by old friends, but when faced with
the actual confrontation, the anticipation shrivels away. “Who’s your friend’s cook?”
“Let me see.” She stared up at the sky. “Kaylan, I think? Or Kylee. Karyn, maybe?”
The name, and the coincidence of this stranger knowing her, yanked me from my thoughts. “About my age?
Red hair?”
“Why yes! So you do know her.”
“Kaylan.” She had been friends with my younger sister. They had always begged to come whenever Samira
and I went anywhere, and my mom had always insisted we let them.
“So, you’ve met her,” she prodded the silence.
“She was my sister’s friend, but she couldn’t get out when the purges...”
“Oh.” Then, quietly, “and your friend?”
I stared at the stump.
“Do you want to come back with me? I’ll take you to meet her.”
“She won’t want to see me.”
“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go.”
Somehow my head nodded. She stood up and my feet followed.
We walked down the Elm Tree Lane. The grove at the end where we’d played hide and seek had been cut to
make way for new houses, shorter and more sprawling, Regalian architecture I’d grown used to in the capital.
We turned into what had been the Veels’ yard. “The Garbises have lived here since the restoration,” the
woman was saying. I tried not to hear the words.
She jangled the wolf’s-head knocker. I, who had come on assignment from the minister himself, could barely
look above the doorframe here in my hometown.
The wood inside creaked, and I suddenly thought I should explain. “I’m Leema. From the Ministry of Internal
Affairs. Here researching history.” Then the door swung open. Kaylan, much older than I was prepared for,
stood before me.
“Ah, Mrs. Merse, welcome.” She glanced at me curiously, but without recognition. I didn’t know if I should be
relieved or not. “Have a seat and I’ll tell madam you’ve come.” She looked over at me. “Can I give her your
name as well?”
My throat went dry, but my companion spoke for me. “A friend. She’s here to inquire of you, actually, after we’
ve spoken to Arry.”
Kaylan blinked, but kept her composure, as good a servant as any that could be found in the capital. “Of
course. Anything I can do to be of service. What would you like to drink?”
“Think I’ll have rose hip tea today. And you?” She looked over at me.
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
Kaylan bit her lip the way she always did when nervous. “Something else, then?”
“Thank you, but no.”
My companion frowned. “You sure? Kaylan makes the best rose hip tea of anyone in town.”
Kaylan blushed, and something, perhaps rage at seeing her blush over something so trivial, rose up inside me.
“I’m sure she does, but I’m not thirsty,” I lied. My throat was drier than it had been in years.
Kaylan led us to the living room, then disappeared down the hall. I watched her. She was still tall by Fen
standards, still slim, still seemed quiet. I’d never pictured her as a servant.
Mrs. Merse rearranged red throw pillows on the large wooden couch and seated herself at one end. I took
the other and tried not to gawk at the changes decor. A tapestry with a scene of a dozen men on horseback
facing a stag hung on the wall. The usual Regalian string of blue and white beads framed the doorway.
“Best if you don’t tell Arry you were friends with a Fen,” she whispered.
I nodded.
“Doesn’t look like Kaylan recognizes you.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“Are things really so bad between you?”
“Probably.”
A minute later, our hostess scurried in, hair in the ringlets popular with the Regalians, and the loose skirt with
the slit up the side. She threw her arms wide. “Renette! It’s been too long. Why haven’t you come around
more?” They hugged, and then I hugged her too since there seemed no other way to escape the arms.
“Oh, I keep meaning to come by, but you know how things get.” Mrs. Merse smiled a bit too broadly, then
turned to me. “This is...”
“Leema,” I inserted quickly, adding, “personal assistant to the Minister of Internal Affairs.”
Mrs. Merse blinked and Arry’s eyes brightened. Mrs. Merse continued. “She was looking into the town’s history
a bit, so I thought your Kaylan might be able to tell her something.”
Arry beamed. “It’s an honor to have such a distinguished guest. I’d be happy to help with the history if I can.”
“Thank you, but it’s Fen history I’m researching.” I looked to Mrs. Merse for support.
She rescued me. “Did you hear I’m a grandmother now?”
The woman’s face lit up. “Well it’s about time. Congratulations. Boy or a girl?”
She rambled about her grandson, and I wished the couch would swallow me. Then they exchanged comments
of children and husbands and the color of the neighbor’s roses. They’d moved on to the price of cloth these
days when Kaylan came in with a tray and two cups of tea. Her eyes drifted to my face in that way people
have when they’re trying to think if they know you. She looked back at my feet as soon as she saw I was
watching and set the tray on the coffee table.
Arry gasped. “Kaylan! There are three of us.”
“Madam said she didn’t want anything.”
“It’s true,” I added quickly. “Tea doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Then she should have offered you something else. Coffee, apple cider? Gracious. What does it take to get
good manners out of a servant these days? It’s no wonder people don’t want Fen.”
My mouth went even drier. It was Mrs. Merse who protested.
“Oh, she tried to bring something else, but my friend insisted she didn’t want anything. Maybe just some of
your apple cider now?” She patted my leg, and I sat there letting her.
Kaylan rushed away.
Arry sighed. “I’ll have her beaten, but I’m truly sorry for that. She was here after they cleared the city, and
helped with the rebuilding. She wanted to stay, so I thought I’d take her in. We have a responsibility to help
even the Fen, don’t you think?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Merse murmured. “But don’t beat her. Leema was insistent about not wanting anything.”
I shifted in my seat.
Arry waved it off. “So, tell me, what is it that makes you interested in the history?”
“I’m chronicling the history of the rebuilding efforts. To properly document the improvements, I need to know
what it was like before.”
“Oh, excellent. Records are important.” Arry nodded with far more gravity than the project warranted.
“Certainly. Future generations must know of the Regalian accomplishments and triumphs, and of the primitive
nature of the people it has purged.” Had I been writing a report, I would have thought nothing of the line. But
here, sitting in this Fen house with the Regalian decorations, I nearly vomited.
Mrs. Merse stared at me for a moment too long. Arry went on beaming. “I can see why you were chosen to
write the history. You have a way with words.”
I couldn’t look at Mrs. Merse, so I left my eyes on the floor.
“Yes, she certainly seems to.” Mrs. Merse spoke for me again. “Speaking of writing, did you hear Nilian got a
letter from her son last week?”
They discussed townsmen for the next fifteen minutes and I’d never been so grateful for small town gossip.
Somewhere in the middle of it, Kaylan appeared again with the apple cider. I took several gulps. The glass hid
my face.
“Perhaps now would be a good time for Leema to talk to Kaylan?” Mrs. Merse suggested when I set the half
empty glass on the coffee table.
“Oh, of course.” Arry leaned back in the chair as if preparing to be bored. “Feel free to ask any questions
you’d like.”
“Maybe private would be better? I wouldn’t want to bore you with Fen drivel.” The words were out before I
thought of Kaylan. To her credit, she didn’t react.
Arry considered. “If you’d like, you can go out back on the patio.”
I thanked her and almost started out myself before remembering to let Kaylan show me the way. She did,
holding doors open and stepping aside as we walked down the hallway to the back door. The patio was much
as it always had been, but with whitewashed walls and wooden furniture instead of wicker. I sat in the bench
and waited for her to take the chair.
She stood.
“Kaylan, for all things...” I stopped. It was a Regalian apology. “Kaylan, sit. Please.”
She sat obediently, hands folded on her lap, eyes at my shoes.
“Kaylan, don’t you...” I stopped again. She didn’t move.
For a moment, I started to pull back my shirt sleeve, but instead, I ran my hands through my hair and took a
deep breath. It would be easier with my lungs full.
From the corner of her eye, head still turned down, she watched me. I knew the look from when she and my
sister were spying.
I opened my mouth to ask if she recognized me.
What came out was the truth. The other truth. The truth I’d told inside. “I’m chronicling the history of the
Empire’s rebuilding efforts, starting with the Fen ghettos up through their refurbishment into the fine towns
they’ve become. I know what the ghetto was like when your people,” I didn’t even hesitate at the reference,
“resided here. What I’d like to know is about the purges. How many Fen were allowed to remain, names of
any still here, your adaptation into proper Regalian society.”
Her hand tightened around the arm of the chair. “As a historian, madam, don’t you have access to that
information already?”
“Numbers, yes. But not names or how you have actually adapted.” I should have told her. Right then. I should
have pulled up my sleeve and confessed that I’d been enamored with my own position. That I’d been a fool,
and it was my fault so many Fen had gone to their deaths instead of the new homes I had promised them.
And that now, standing here, I was too much a coward to own up to it.
It’s harder to confess in reality than it is in your head, though, and I continued. “I would like to know how
your people have changed. Whether it is still in the Empire’s best interest to continue the sponsorship
system.”
She was half out of the chair by the time she caught herself and sat again, placing her hands back on her lap.
“I apologize, madam. But I beg you not to discontinue the sponsorship. We, those of us still here, we aren’t
the enemies of your empire. We just want to live.”
“I know.”
“Then surely you won’t be recommending ending sponsorship?”
That’s when I should have done it again, but I couldn’t. I rested my hand over my wrist. “No, that’s not my
intention.”
The stiffness went out of her body. She still sat straight, still kept her hands in her lap and her eyes
downcast, but the tension faded. “Then what can I help you with, madam?”
“I’d like to know about the Fen who are still here.”
The muscles tensed just a bit. “What about us? We all have legitimate sponsors.”
“I have no doubt you do. So tell me, what other Fen are here?”
“There are eleven of us.”
“Who?” Then, to soften the tone, “who all is still here?”
She counted on her fingers, whispering the names too softly for me to hear. “There are six as laborers, the
rest are domestics.”
“But who are they?” My voice rose. Why wouldn’t she just tell me the names?
She flinched. “The laborers are employed by...”
“I don’t care who they’re employed by. I asked you who they were.”
“You want the names, Madam? Of the Fen?”
“That’s what I said.” I stood up and walked to the railing, my back to her so she couldn’t see my face.
She jumped to her feet. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t thought you would be interested in such details.”
I didn’t answer, willing her to go on talking. At last she did, giving me the names—the blacksmith, two
farmers, my old algebra teacher, the younger of the two town doctors, and several of my old schoolmates. I
was glad she couldn’t see me close my eyes. I didn’t want to ask my next question, but I couldn’t hold it down.
“And the others? Most towns sponsored more Fen.”
Silence.
A thought niggled that she had recognized me, but I didn’t dare turn to see. “Well?” I ventured.
“Gone.”
“Gone?” I lowered my head enough that if I strained, I could see her standing by the chair. Through the hair
blowing over my eyes, I saw she’d gone stiff again.
“The purges. They trusted...”
I shouldn’t have turned around while it was so strong on her mind. But I had to see, had to know how much
hatred there was. And so I turned, slowly.
Her eyes widened. “You! You...How dare you come back here!” Her voice shook.
I forced myself to stare at her, to not look away.
“How dare you stand there and talk to me about my people.”
She crossed the two steps between us. I tried to pull away, but the railing cut into my back. She grabbed at
my arm and yanked my sleeve. Limply, I let her and her thumb jabbed into my wrist. “There. So you are still
Fen, even if you think you can hide it.” My wrist tingled.
“Kaylan, I didn’t know. I thought they were just moving you to another city. I didn’t know they were...” Even
now, having chronicled the sixteen liquidated ghettos with over fifty thousand Fen, I couldn’t bring myself to
actually say the word.
“Didn’t know they were murdering us?” She said it for me. “We all knew, until you promised us otherwise. And
you’re going to stand there and tell me you were there, working for their government, and you didn’t know?”
“I didn’t.” It was a meaningless excuse, and I didn’t know what I wanted from Kaylan anyway. Surely I hadn’t
expected forgiveness.
She threw my wrist back.
“Kaylan. You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t think. They showed me real cities. Fen cities. They were beautiful. I
thought that’s where you were going.” My voice rose in desperation.
She glowered at me. There was nowhere I could escape to. A minute passed and I grew more tired than I’d
been in months. I moved to sit on the bench, and the pocket holding the letter brushed against her. Paper
crinkled. She whirled, grabbing my shirt tails and yanking the letter out. I jumped to grab it back, but she
spun away.
Her eyebrows lowered as she read. “You really do work for them. You really are...” Her jaw worked up and
down again. “I don’t even know what to call you.”
My head slumped. The bushes rustled in the wind and a bird twittered. I wondered if the birds had been
singing the day my family left. They would be different birds, too. “Traitor, Kaylan. The word is traitor.”
She snorted.
The boards at my feet blurred as the birds sang on. I kept my shoulders from shaking and didn’t wipe my
eyes. When at last I looked back, she held the paper with both fists, ready to rip it.
“No!” All other emotions gone, I lunged to save the letter.
She pulled it away. “Afraid of being Fen for real?”
I dropped back to the chair. She could tear it if I grabbed.
“I should rip it. Watch you get back to wherever you live without it.”
“The capital.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“I’d be captured and killed. Do you really hate me that much?”
“Yes.”
There was nothing I could say. The birds finished their song and started again, echoing each other. My black
shoes made blurry lines against the whitewashed boards.
She growled. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t go to the officials. There’s a good reward for catching runaway
Fen, even if it’s one of us who turns them in.”
The irony struck me, but I tried anyway. “Because the fact I’m a traitor doesn’t mean you should be too. Our
people are better than that.”
“Our people? So ‘madam’ is one of us now?”
“I was trying to help.” The words held no power, and I hated myself for the excuse.
More silence. I reminded myself to breath as naturally as I could. She knew the letter’s significance as well as
I did, but I didn’t want her to see it in my face.
For a time, I stared at the letter still in her hands, but gradually my vision shifted to the shrubs, then to the
rail, then back to the white boards.
“Will you at least tell me what happened to everyone?”
“They’re dead. What do you care?”
“I want to know.”
“Want to know what? You know already.” She ripped the paper and threw the pieces at my feet. The wind
caught them. “You’re right. My people are better than you.” She swung around and disappeared inside,
slamming the door behind her. The wall rattled.
On the two pieces I managed to catch before the wind whipped them beyond the railing were the words “in
this year” and “of the Rega...” I looked for other pieces, but the bushes held twittering birds.
I started to run, to flee my hometown a second time. I might be able to stay hidden until I made it to the
capital to get a new letter. I’d stayed hidden when I first escaped, after all. But then I thought of Kaylan
slamming the door. There was nothing that would excuse a Fen who’d behaved in such a manner to a
Regalian, least of all one of import, and the Regalians were looking for excuses to kill the few remaining Fen,
anyway.
Dropping the two pieces in my pocket, I pulled my sleeve above my wrist. The door closed softly as I walked
into the house.
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Dawn Lloyd is an American who got bored and set out across the world looking for
adventure. Four continents later, She has settled in the peaceful and
unadventuresome Sultanate of Oman where she teaches English and history in a
local college.
Her work has appeared in The Future Fire and OG's Speculative Fiction Magazine.
adventure. Four continents later, She has settled in the peaceful and
unadventuresome Sultanate of Oman where she teaches English and history in a
local college.
Her work has appeared in The Future Fire and OG's Speculative Fiction Magazine.
