Marie's Journey (Ginecean Chronicles) (5 page)

“I didn’t drink at all.”
Do they also get drunk here?
Marie steadied herself, planting her hands on the back of the chair. “I’m only tired.”
Thank the Goddess I got to sleep some.

“I don’t believe you.” The girl’s eye narrowed and Marie could almost see what she was thinking.

I’m not going to convince you, am I?
Marie waited patiently, knowing what was going to happen next.

“I’ll go tell Madame Lana I found you hung over and out of your room.”

Just say it and get it over with.
Marie maintained her gaze on the girl, her mouth closed in a straight line.

“Aren’t you worried about Madame Lana knowing what you’ve done?” The girl didn’t like Marie not cowering before her suggested threat.

“I’ve done nothing.” Marie moved her weight to the balls of her feet, rocking back and forth to reestablish blood circulation in her legs.

“Madame Lana won’t see it that way once I tell her.” The girl was getting angry at Marie’s attitude.

Legs working again and the painful tingling gone, she looked at the girl. “What do you want?”

“I won’t tell if you volunteer for me.”

Of course.
“I’ll do it.” She didn’t want to go to Donor Day in the first place, and what better excuse than being blackmailed for cleaning duty? She didn’t want to be present at the ceremony and face Verena if she got picked.

The girl eyed her suspiciously but passed Marie the broom and instructed her on what to say if somebody asked. Marie memorized the message, repeated it for the girl, and then took possession of the broom. She started sweeping the floor, unable to hide the small smile tugging at her lips, but lowered her face before the girl could see her.

Two hours later, she was far from finishing all the chores the girl had seen fit to bestow upon her, but the kitchen was still empty. A few minutes earlier, she had heard the bell calling everybody outside to gather in the courtyard to participate in the ceremony.
Oh, Verena…
A feeling of hollowness possessed her at the idea of losing her newly acquired friend to a terrible fate.
What’s going to happen to you?
Idra once had said that she would’ve killed herself before being touched by a man. Marie had nervously laughed at her words and told her not to be daft. The memory made her shiver. One look at the board where all her chores were appointed in neat writing and she groaned out loud.
I won’t ever get done.
Out of the blue, she felt a sudden craving for that piece of marzipan she had meant to smuggle the day before.
I shouldn’t go back to the cellars.
The more she said no to herself the more the aromatic sweetness called her until she was salivating at the mere idea of placing a piece of marzipan on her tongue.

A last gaze at the board and the sheer magnitude of the chores waiting for her left Marie thinking ten minutes wouldn’t make any difference. “Nobody will notice I’m gone anyway.” She reassured herself with a nod. She entered the cellars a moment later, having run the steps three at a time. She walked straight to the shelf where the sweets were stored and grabbed a big chunk of almond paste from a rectangular mold. The marzipan was in her mouth and she was already going for a second helping.

“You’re not going to betray another woman, are you?”

She spun around, mouth hanging open, marzipan spilling from her lips. Grant was a few steps behind her, staring unblinkingly at her. Shocked she hadn’t heard him coming, her heart started racing in fear.

“You won’t, right?” He closed the gap between them, forcing Marie to step back, only to be stopped by the hard edge of the shelf behind her. Grant towered over her and his proximity was menacing.

“Are you going to hurt me?” One look at him and she was already shaking.

“Hurt you?” His eyes finally registered a glimpse of a feeling.

He’s angry.
Marie nodded to answer his question.

“I’m not a woman.” His voice was low and carried such contempt that Marie wished she had never thought of stealing the marzipan. “Are you going to betray your friend?” he repeated.

“She’s no friend of mine.”
Wrong answer.
The fury in his eyes flared and she closed hers, waiting for him to beat her or do something worse. Every time some of the younger girls tried to escape the strict rules of the Institute, the elders told horrific tales of women killed by men. They didn’t spare details. Marie instinctively brought her arms over her chest, closing the lapels of her shirt with her crossed hands.

“What are you doing?”

Marie opened one eye and saw Grant looking at her with a strange expression. He could’ve been shocked for all she knew. Unable to read his thoughts, she said, “Please, let me go. Carnia is not my friend, but I won’t say a word to anybody. Promise.” She felt her knees shaking to the point she could barely stand. Grant moved away a few steps, still looking down at Marie with eyes she could only describe as bewildered. “I won’t say a thing,” she repeated.

He seemed mollified at her statement. “Thank you.” His facial muscles relaxed and he let out his breath as if he had been holding it, then turned and left.

Marie watched as he disappeared through the window opening at the end of the cellar. She stood still several minutes, not knowing what to make of the whole episode.
He’s protecting Carnia,
she finally realized and the thought surprised her more than the fact he hadn’t beaten her.
A man protecting a woman.

The taste of marzipan lingering on her tongue became sour and she had to spit it out. Once the shaking of her legs abated, she ran back to the kitchen where a group of somber girls was comforting a crying brunette. The girl had her face hidden under her hair, but Marie recognized the shirt and her heart lurched down to her stomach in less than a second.

“Verena?” Marie walked straight through the circle of girls and went to hug Verena. “Were you…?” She was desperate for better words, but there wasn’t a lot she could say.

Verena’s weeping became so loud that when she answered, Marie didn’t understand a word. “I’m so sorry.”

“I wasn’t chosen! Marie, I wasn’t chosen—” Verena managed to utter between heartbreaking sobs.

Marie’s reaction was to start laughing. “Oh, my Goddess! You just killed me.” Happiness replaced the dread that had squeezed her heart to the size of a walnut.

“I was sure this was it.” Verena finally raised her face and Marie saw she was smiling. “I’d already prepared my bag.” Another round of heartbreaking sobs replaced the smile and Verena buried her head against Marie’s chest.

The scene was almost comical, big and tall Verena leaning down, looking for comfort in Marie’s embrace. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.” She let Verena cry for a few seconds, then disentangled herself from the embrace and looked at her. “You weren’t chosen. You can breathe now.”

“You weren’t at the ceremony. Why?” Verena sniffled once or twice, but the worst seemed to have passed.

“Got blackmailed to kitchen duty.”

“How?” Verena went to sit at the table and one of the girls promptly brought her something to drink.

“Wrong place at the wrong time.” Marie joined her at the table. “Not important.” But it was, and her mind, now that Verena turned out to be safe, went immediately back to the cellars. The memory of Grant’s piercing, unblinking stare assailed her. She despised him for looking at her as if she were a vile creature ready to betray her own race. She didn’t want to be looked at that way.
You, a man, disrespecting me.
She was getting upset and didn’t like it.

“Poor Carnia, I feel so bad for her.”

Marie was abruptly snapped out of her thoughts by Verena’s comment. “Carnia was chosen?”

“Yes, Captain Callista called her name—” one of the girls answered, but then her voice broke and she couldn’t finish the sentence.

“She ran off after the announcement. The elders gave order to leave her alone.” Verena said the last words looking directly at Marie.

What’s up with all of you and this obsession of looking after Carnia? What’s so special about her?

“I barely know Carnia.” Marie felt an ugly tinge coloring her words, but nobody seemed to notice and she hurried to add, “She needs close friends now, I imagine.”
Oh, she has plenty of those, doesn’t she?
And there it was, unbidden, the image of the redhead being consoled by Grant.

“I’d want to be alone in a moment like this,” one of the girls surrounding Verena said, her voice almost broken.

Yeah, right. Alone my butt.
Marie snorted and tried to cover it as a sneeze. “Something in the air…”

“When is Carnia going to leave?” the same girl asked, seemingly too upset by Carnia’s fate to notice Marie’s flounders.

“I guess the elders are giving her a few hours to compose herself and then she’ll be shipped to—” Verena blushed and everybody nodded, filling the blank.

A good fathered woman would have problems even thinking about the place Carnia was going to, let alone saying it out loud. Semental farms were the place fathered women dreaded the most. Madame Carla had taught everyone that a waste plant was a better option for a fathered woman.
She didn’t get caught for being a man lover, but she got her comeuppance anyway.
The ugly tug had come back with a vengeance. Marie was troubled by her own thoughts.
What’s up with me?

“So soon?” several voices commented the same.

“Why prolong her agony?” Verena shrugged, her eyes liquid again.

“Okay, stop. It doesn’t help Carnia anyway.” Marie felt she was being childish and unfair, but words had left her mouth and there was no going back. “Let’s focus on the positive. You’re here and are going to stay here, and that’s all that matters. Right?”

A few of the girls nodded. Others didn’t dare say anything one way or the other.

In the afternoon, the elders gave the order to look for Carnia. Nobody could find her and the bus was waiting. Madame Lana made an appearance in the kitchen and icily asked if anybody knew where Carnia was. Nobody dared breathe a word. The rector stormed away, threating to punish the whole farm. A few of the younger girls, barely floor sweepers, started crying. Marie had the feeling they knew firsthand the kind of punishment of which the woman was capable.

“I’ll go find her.” Verena removed her apron and sailed off soon after Madame Lana left.

Marie was checking off items from her interminable list. “I’ll come with you.” She couldn’t pass the opportunity to leave the kitchen if even for a moment.

“Don’t judge her,” Verena warned her with a whisper, but didn’t say she couldn’t come. She left without checking if Marie was following.

Marie ran after her. “Of course not.” She was happy Verena had reached that conclusion about her reaction. It was the appropriate reaction given the circumstances. “But, do the elders know about her…?”
Perversion.
She shivered at the thought.

“Don’t know, but probably.”

“But why has nobody denounced her?”

“We stick together no matter what. We fathered women protect each other, always.” Verena slowed her stride to look at her as if she were from another planet. “Didn’t they teach you that at the Institute?”

“We never had cases… like Carnia.”

Verena stopped altogether and laughed. “You’re so young.”

“I’m fifteen already.” Marie hated when people assumed she was a child just because she didn’t look like a woman yet. “And I would’ve known if we had
cases
at the Institute.” She wasn’t surprised they went directly to the Apothecary. It was the first place she would’ve gone and wasn’t sure if Verena knew anything about the window in the cellars. For some reason, she didn’t want to divulge that information. Maybe because it felt exciting to be the only one privy to a secret.

This time, Verena had thought beforehand and brought a flashlight. Without breaking stride, they walked through the main room to reach the dim-lit, smaller hallway. The faint noise of whispered words stopped immediately when Verena called, “Carnia? Are you here?”

Silence stretched for a few seconds before Carnia emerged from the safety of the darkest corner at the end of the hallway. As Marie had imagined, the redhead wasn’t alone. Grant, who kept his arm around her waist, followed Carnia. He looked at Marie and she felt judged once again.

“Verena, please, don’t tell anybody you saw me.” Carnia’s eyes were red and swollen, her face streaked from hours of crying.

Marie pitied her, but she couldn’t understand why Carnia was taking it so hard. Clearly, she didn’t have a problem being around men.

“I can’t. You know that.” Verena sounded even more heartbroken than Carnia.

“I won’t leave.” Carnia’s statement had a finality Marie didn’t like.

“Don’t say it like that.” Marie was getting scared. It was an unfamiliar situation for her and she wasn’t sure what they were dealing with exactly. The presence of a man among them unnerved her. It was wrong. “They’ll treat you with respect. I’ve been told you aren’t forced to—” She didn’t know how to say the words without being crude.

“I won’t leave him.”

“What?”
What the heck is she talking about?
“Verena?” Marie looked at her roommate, hoping she could confirm she had heard wrong.

“I’ll kill myself.” Carnia raised one hand and showed a pair of open scissors before directing the sharp edge against her wrist.

“Wow! You can’t be serious.” Marie’s head went back and forth from Verena to Carnia. Once, she intercepted Grant looking at her, desperation in his eyes.
This is not happening.
“Verena, do something!”

“Carnia, please, think.” Verena walked slowly toward the couple. “You don’t want to harm yourself.” She reached out her hand and took Carnia’s, carefully putting distance between the razor edge of the scissors and her wrist. “It’s not the end of the world. You’ll serve seven years and then you’ll retire somewhere nice.”

“I’ll wait for you,” Grant said, surprising everybody.

“Will you?” Carnia turned to face him, her arms flying to his shoulders.

“I will.” He took her in his arms, then bent to kiss her as if they were alone.

Marie gasped, her senses confused by a barrage of feelings fighting for supremacy. One, stronger than the others, begged to be recognized and Marie gasped again. A longing to be held like Carnia was being held by Grant. Wanting to see the possessiveness in his eyes while he was looking at her. Marie wanted that.
Idra?
She thought that conjuring her soft lips would realign her emotional chaos, but it didn’t. Thinking of all the stolen embraces in the dark corridors of the Institute didn’t douse the flames of the fire consuming her. She finally averted her eyes, ashamed of looking longer than was proper. Ashamed for much more than that.

The couple stood silent and still for a while, neither Verena nor Marie saying anything to break the spell, but eventually, Carnia stepped away from Grant and went straight to Verena’s open arms.

“You’ll see. Seven years will fly away.” Verena contained her voice until the last word, and then she started crying along Carnia. “It won’t be long until I’m chosen. We’ll be together soon. Don’t worry.”

Marie felt bad for Verena, who was so sure she was destined to bear fathered kids and couldn’t envision anything better.

“Can you give us ten more minutes?” Carnia had gone to Grant again.

“Sure.” Verena gave Marie a look and they both retraced their steps and exited the Apothecary in complete silence. Once outside, Verena led a meaningless chase through the main building and courtyard, letting everybody know she was still looking for Carnia. Close to an hour later, they went back to the Apothecary to retrieve Carnia.

“I’m sorry, but you must come with me now.” Verena offered her hand to the redhead.

Marie saw how Grant’s arms tightened around Carnia for the briefest moment before he relaxed them, but at the last moment, he bent and murmured something in her ear. Carnia threw her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely, sobs wracking her slim frame.

“Please.” Verena pried Carnia from Grant by gently grabbing her shoulders. “Please, don’t make me call the elders.”

At her plead, Grant helped by stepping back as he pushed Carnia forward.

“I don’t want anybody else but you.” Carnia refused to let him go, freeing herself from Verena’s hold to seek his embrace once more.

Only this time, he slowly shook his head and kept her away from him. “You’ll be treated with respect.”

“Carnia, I’m begging you. I can’t stall people forever. You must come with me now.”

Voices and steps echoed from the outside. “I found her!” Verena yelled, then added at a softer volume, “Go away,” looking at Grant.

He nodded, gave Carnia one last kiss, and disappeared into the shadows. One moment later, the three of them met the elders who had come looking for Carnia. Not a single question was asked, which Marie found peculiar, and Carnia was escorted to the bus, her belongings already packed in one big sack.

When the bus left, Marie finally felt something akin to sympathy for the girl who had stared at them by the window, eyes bloodshot.

“I’m next.” She heard Verena whisper.

“No, you aren’t,” she shot back, angry at the whole world. Angry she was only fifteen. Angry she was born a fathered woman. Just angry.

A whole week passed; nothing new happened. Carnia’s departure had touched everybody. Even Marie felt her mood darkening. The kitchen, normally a silent place, became sepulchral. Girls cried at every small remark from the chef, who had finally come back. People got sick to their stomachs from Madame Lana’s cold stares, literally. One girl had to be sent to the infirmary after an unfortunate accident involving the rector and a salty salad. Verena escaped into hard work and went to sleep every night exhausted, only to exchange no more than two words with Marie, who at the end of the week was starving for human contact. Any human contact.

Anytime the chef looked for volunteers to go fetch something from the cellars, Marie found herself raising her hands with barely hidden enthusiasm. She was never alone though; one or more scullery maids were sent along to help her carry the heavier burdens.

“Forget something?” the girl running errands with her asked, looking toward the dark spot Marie had been staring at for the last minute.

“Do you know where they keep the marzipan?” Marie immediately made up a question.

“Over there.” The girl’s chin pointed at the aisle where the sweets were kept.

Marie nodded. “Do you think I can take some?”

“I saw nothing.” The girl smiled and turned the other way, not before giving her a wink, then hopping toward the exit.

Marie went along with the charade and took a small piece of marzipan from the big square. Then she changed her mind and took a second piece for the girl. One last look at the corner, where she expected a rectangular opening into the men’s world, and a big sigh escaped her mouth. The wall looked untouched and perfectly sound. She backed up slowly and joined the girl waiting for her at the end of the stairs with an expectant look on her face.

“Thank you.” The girl’s eyes widened at the sight of the sweet morsel. The marzipan disappeared in her mouth and she moaned loudly.

Marie laughed at the girl’s reaction to her small gift. “For what?” She winked.

“Nothing at all.” The girl laughed back, wiping her mouth with her small hand.

Marie walked to the kitchen, her mood worsening again after the temporary reprieve. Normally, the sight of the cavernous room devoid of happiness wasn’t conducive to happiness, but she felt even more despondent than usual. Hours passed, tedious chore after tedious chore, and finally, dinnertime arrived. She didn’t feel like eating or talking, and so, after grabbing a half loaf of fresh bread and a few olives from a jar, she opted for a walk in the courtyard. She headed toward a big mulberry tree with its limbs shaped by the gardeners to resemble a big umbrella and sat under it. Someone had put a soft cushion on the tree’s roots and Marie’s thoughts went to the sweet embraces she had shared so many times with Idra. She hadn’t expected to miss Idra with such heartache.