1
THE SCARS OF YOUTH
“The sewers?” My mother’s head jerks up from where she’s just finished planting the last of the radish bulbs. She wipes at the dark wisps of hair pressed against her forehead, smearing dirt into her freckled complexion. “What in the realm makes you two want to play out there?”
Abashed, I lower my gaze. I’ve lied to my mother every day for fifty-two days now. What’s one more going to hurt?
“I wouldn’t call itplaying. It’s more like…a scavenger hunt for things that people threw away that we could still use.”
“We already have everything we need.” The summer sun beams down on us both, making her hairline prick with sweat as she grumbles in distaste. “I don’t want you wandering off out there, Charlotte. It’s not safe. And Rowland Barret should know better.”
He does. I’m not sure there’s a single person in Hulbeck who doesn’t know better than to find themselves alone on the outskirts of our protected sanctuary. It’s out there where the monsters roam, where they await any opportunity to feast.
Truth be told, I don’t like the idea any more than my mother, and I begged for an alternative option. The problem is, the reason the monsters like it is the same reason it’s good for our purposes: no one will see us out there. No one will know what we’re up to.
Rowland says the best way to conceal a lie is to hide it in the truth.
“I promise we won’t be long, Mother. Besides, you know I can’t stand the stench. It’s horrible! Smells like fish that’s been left in the sun for years.”
She chuckles, but the usual joy that accompanies her smile doesn’t quite erase the worry from her tired eyes. I’m told that when she was younger, she’d had eyes as vibrantly ambered as mine, like beads of honey shimmering in the warm, summer sun. Now they’re as dull as the dirt drying beneath her fingernails.
After a long, scrutinizing moment, she sighs. “Stay within earshot of the sea,” she warns. “And if you hear anything—"
“We’ll return, right away.” I nod vigorously, desperate to leave before she can change her mind or before the nausea climbing up my throat can spill forth. “I promise.”
One of her slender brows arches at me, and for a moment I fear I’ve given something away. Thankfully, the moment passes.
“Well, alright. Give Rowland my regards,” my mother says, squatting back down to resume her work. She starts humming a familiar and soothing tune, one I’ve often heard her singing when she’s planting a new crop, but she stops as soon as she’s started. “And if you see his mother, tell her to swing by. Gregory will be working the salt mines all day and I’d love the company. Tell her I have a fresh pot of that lavender tea she loves so much, just waiting for her.”
“Okay. Will do.”
With my heart in my throat, I wave goodbye, completely unaware that it’ll be the last time I ever see my mother alive.
I scurry through the streets, sure that each person I pass somehow knows what we’re up to and are seconds away from dragging me back to my mother to confess. If Rowland were with me, he’d tell me I was just being paranoid, and he’d probably be right. He often is about these sorts of things. It’s one of his many talents, knowing how to get away with small lies, and knowing when the small lies will blow up in our faces.
For courage, I pretend he’s racing alongside me until I finally find him, sitting on a busted cart, looking so bored that he’d rather die.
“What took you so long?”
When he sees me, Rowland jumps to his feet on the uncoordinated limbs of a young boy who is only just starting to become a young man. An injury to his knee makes him wince on impact, even though it’s been more than a year since he fell from that rooftop. That, with his recent growth spurt, makes him even wobblier than usual on the landing.
“It was my mother,” I whine while he regains his balance. “She started asking me questions about where we were going and what we’d be doing. I had to lie to her.Again.”
“It’s not lying if—”
“If it’s the truth,” I finish for him, fingers nervously twining around themselves. “I know, I know. But she made me promise…and…and thatwasnotthe truth.”
His eyes roll back. “It’s not a crime to lie, you know? And, if it was, it’s not like it’d be a bad one. They wouldn’t feed you to the sirens.”
My jaw drops wide. “They’re not…they don’t do that... Do they? I thought that was just a legend.”
His shoulders bob, but I never get my answer because Rowland becomes distracted by his itching scalp. “I hate these things,” he grumbles, scratching at the tightly bound locks.
This happens every time his mom re-braids his hair. She worked on them almost all day yesterday, and it’s why we had to postpone our gathering until today.
“I kind of like them.” My cheeks warm when his brown eyes shoot up at me and self-consciously I begin rubbing my arms. “My mother stopped doing my hair a long time ago.”
Deeming it an acceptable response, he gives his head another vicious scratch that looks like it could break the skin, let alone tear out his hair, before he allows his attention to scan our dingy surroundings.
