Of Metal and Wishes (16 page)

WHILE WE’VE BEEN BICKERING,
the Noor have emerged from their dorms for their shift, and now there are several dozen of them staring at Lati and Iyzu with set jaws and fire in their eyes. Vie tugs my arm, insistent and desperate. But she’s not scared of Lati and Iyzu and their heartlessness—she’s scared of the Noor. “Let’s go,” she hisses.

I rip my arm away from her, wondering why I ever called her a friend. I’m so mad at Vie that I want to slap her. “I’m not going anywhere. I have work to do.”

Lati is looking at me so fiercely that I bet he is going to ask the Ghost to give me a terrible disease or make something heavy fall on my head. I’m not afraid of that, though, because I suspect I know the Ghost better than he does. The Noor are watching me with serious faces and chins held high, waiting for my response. I turn my back on Vie and the two cruel, idiot boys, and the Noor step off the path to allow me through. I look over my shoulder to see them closing ranks, blocking me from the view of my supposed friends. They are a solid wall of protection, and the only one who is looking at me is Sinan. Before I turn away, he places his hand on his heart and turns his palm to me.

I lift my skirt and run for the dorms like someone’s chasing me, and I don’t slow down until I am in Melik’s room, because oddly enough, it feels like the safest place in the world right now—which isn’t saying very much.

He is propped up against the wall, a sleeping pallet rolled behind him. In his hands is a book, but he closes it quickly and slips it under his pallet as I barge in. It’s cool in here tonight, dank. He has a work shirt draped over his shoulders, but beneath it I see the thick bandage dotted with blood. He gives me a questioning look as I step into the room, panting. I must look like a hunted rabbit, and suddenly I’m ashamed for bringing this to his doorstep. I take a deep breath. “Happy First Holiday,” I say in a cheerful voice that wavers on the last word. “Do the Noor . . . celebrate it?”

“Happy First Holiday,” he murmurs. “And no, we don’t. Shouldn’t you be out enjoying the festivities?”

I can’t stop the crazy laugh that bursts from my throat. “I tried to bring you a meat bun.”

He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t ask me what happened to it. “My brother brought me some rolls from the cafeteria,” he says, holding them up. “They won’t let me starve.”

Of course they won’t. The Noor take care of one another, and they seem to treasure Melik. “I’m glad,” I say. “I brought you medicine, and it shouldn’t be taken on an empty stomach.”

“Wen always has medicine.” His smile is wry and has the pull of the moon. Like the tides, I flow straight toward him.

He tries to drag a pallet over for me to sit on, but I bat his hand away. “You’ll pull your stitches. I do beautiful work. Don’t ruin it.” I glare at the spots of blood on his bandage.

He looks down at himself. “I’ve tried to be careful. When will I be able to go back to work?”

“Well, you have tomorrow off for the holiday, and then we’ll see. Can I look?”

He nods and then watches my fingers as they peel back the bandage from his chest. My breath becomes faster as I realize how intimate this is, how close I am to him, how my hands are touching his naked chest. Last night he was half crazed with opium and pain, but right now he’s all here, and his skin is radiating warmth. I focus on the stitches, on the injured parts of him rather than the smooth cream-white flesh stretched over hard muscles. Those are none of my business.

“It looks all right,” I say, sounding like I’ve just run the length of the compound.

“You must be an amazing seamstress,” he says quietly.

I secure the bandage again and sit back. “How would you know that?”

He shrugs, wincing as it pulls his stitches. “Your dresses. They are so fancy. Like the daughter of a factory boss.”

“And not the company doctor.”

His eyes linger on the silky roses embroidered into the collar of my overcoat. “Did you make them yourself?”

“My mother did.” I slip the coat off to reveal my brown work dress. This is the real me, the Wen-without-her-mother. “She taught me the stitches, but I am not an artist like she was.”

His somber expression tells me he understands that she is dead. “That’s why you live here with your father.”

My smile is small. “Only for the past several weeks. I used to live in the Ring, up on the Hill.”

“I’ve heard of it,” he says. “That’s where Jipu and Mugo live. Where all the factory bosses live. It’s a fine place.”

I have no idea why he knows where the bosses live. “They do. I went to school with Jipu’s daughter. Our house was never as fine as theirs. It’s the smallest cottage, actually, right on the edge of the Western Hills. I used to look up at them and dream of what was on the other side.”

Melik touches the bottle of antibiotics. “I wonder how closely your dreams compare to reality.”

I watch his hands, callused and hard, and know my dreams were those of a silly little girl. What was on the other side of the Western Hills was him, and his people, and whatever they have been through. “Would you like to tell me?”

“Only if you want to know,” he says. His hand slowly travels over to mine, which are curled in my lap. They unfurl for him, and I watch our fingers tangle together, trying to translate the shapes they make. But they speak a language I do not understand, and I’m not sure Melik does either, because he’s watching them too, like they are outside of us, not connected to us.

“I want to know you.” It is the most real thing I’ve said all day.

“We are permitted to work the land, but we can never call it ours. Did you know that?”

“I know many of the Noor are farmers and sheepherders.” I have heard many a joke about how they breed with the animals, in fact, but now I realize how pathetic and degrading that is.

“That is the work we are allowed to do, but always for others, never for ourselves.” His fingers tighten around mine. “And that won’t change, because we do not make the rules.”

We lock eyes. “I was a little girl when the Noor rebelled. My mother told me they wanted to rule. That they wanted to take over, first the western province, then the entire country.”

He chuckles. “I was eight. And we wanted to rule
ourselves
, Wen. Is that wrong, to want that? You see how we’re treated here. It’s no different on the other side of the hills, no matter that there are more Noor there than Itanyai. We wanted a place in the government.” He bows his head. “My father went with elders from other villages to negotiate in the capital city. He kissed me good-bye and told me to take care of my mother. He told me he was going to make sure Sinan and I had a future, that he was going to make sure we could look any man in the eye and know we were worth just as much.”

Melik’s hand trembles in mine, but not with weakness. It is a raw, hard unsteadiness, like I am holding his rage between my fingers. I am afraid to speak, so when he whispers, “Would you like to know what happened next?” I can only nod.

“It was a ruse. They had no intention of giving us a seat at the table. When my father and the other Noor elders arrived in the capital, they were greeted with nooses. Hanged in the public square. No discussion. No negotiation. No warning, no trial. That was the beginning of the uprising.”

My stomach aches. This is not the story I was told. Our newspapers spun tales of Noor greediness, unreasonable demands, threats, and unjustified attacks. “The government sent war machines.”

He nods. He is staring at our hands, mine toasted almond and his ruddy tan, a few shades that make all the difference. “My mother fled with us into the high passes of the Western Hills, and if she hadn’t, we would have died like so many in our village did. The machines crushed everything in their paths. Sinan grew up playing in the muddy trenches they made as they destroyed the fields and our village. I’m glad he doesn’t remember much about it.” He raises his head. “But I do.”

“I’m sorry.” It is such a stupid thing to say. But I have no other words.

His gaze drifts over my shoulder. “Things were not always like this. A thousand years ago the Noor held the west. It was an empire,” he says, staring at the wall like he can see his people’s great history. “But that was before the Itanyai decided they wanted it for themselves. They took it from us, so long ago that most have forgotten it was ever ours to begin with.” He smiles sadly. “And when we rose up and tried to take it back, we had a few guns, a few bombs supplied by sympathizers. But for the most part our only weapons were sickles and threshers.”

And the Itanyai had metal monsters that crush and kill. I pull my fingers from his. It seems wrong to be touching him, this boy who survived so much evil brought down on him and his family by my people.

“Are you remembering the headlines and horror stories about the barbaric Noor?” he asks me. “At least a few of them are true, I’m sure.”

“No, I feel awful about all of it. And I don’t understand why you . . .”
I don’t understand why you look at me—an Itanyai—the way you do.

Melik recaptures my hand and holds it firmly. “How old did you say you were when all this happened?” There is a hint of amusement in his voice.

“Does it matter? My people did this to yours.”

His thumb traces a circle on my palm. “There are millions of Itanyai. Maybe if more of them were like you or your father, none of it would have happened.”

“I think my father admires you,” I say. “He believes you are educated, and that is what he values.”

“My father taught me your language,” he explains. “I worked in the fields like the rest, but after he was gone, I also translated when anyone needed medical care or government permits, things like that.”

“That’s why the men look up to you.”

He smiles. “That, and I’m taller than most of them.”

That’s not why they look up to him. Melik is not loud about his power; in fact, he is quite quiet about it. But it vibrates from him; it’s like electricity, like sound. He can’t hide it for too long, because those around him feel it against their skin.

“Why were you willing to come here?” I ask. “Didn’t you know it would be just as bad, and maybe worse?”

“I don’t suppose you have heard about the drought.”

“I heard about how the rains aren’t coming.” It’s why the price of vegetables has doubled in the past year, why there are rumors of food shortages in the bigger cities. I am ashamed that I never considered what it might mean for the farmers.

Melik’s finger strokes over my thumb. “I couldn’t let my mother starve. I promised my father I would take care of her. I was willing to do almost anything, but Sinan ended up making the decision for us.”

We both laugh, because Sinan is a force unto himself. “Is he as young as I think he is?”

Melik’s smile is as warm as sunlight as he thinks of his brother. “Yes, he’s only thirteen, if you can believe it. I have no idea how he got that work pass and signed up for this job, but when he did, I had no choice. He’d signed a contract, and I couldn’t let him come here alone. And the rest of the men, they followed me, drawn by promises of money enough for our families to keep their bellies full.” His smile fades quickly. “Now we are stuck here.”

I squeeze his hand. “Does Sinan feel guilty? Do the others give him a hard time?”

He shakes his head. “No, Sinan still believes we can make money here. He’s only a boy, and the others feel protective of him. And many are as hopeful as he is.”

I bite my lip. Sinan could not have known what he was doing to all of them, but Melik does, especially now. He has to have figured out that Mugo will never let them earn enough to send money home. “You should leave,” I say, even though my chest feels hollow at the thought.

“I don’t think so.” Melik’s voice is hard. “We will not leave until we are paid what we’re owed.”

I drag my eyes away from our tangled hands. “What are you talking about?”

He meets my gaze for a moment and then looks away. “I don’t know why I said that. You’ve already paid so many of our debts.” He pulls his hand from mine and lifts the bottle, staring at the pale green liquid inside. “And now you’ve paid for this as well. Should I ask how much it cost you?”

I take it from him and reach into my satchel for the dosing cup. “No. But I can tell you how you’ll pay me back.”

“Oh?” His eyes spark with mischief. “I hope you’ll be creative.”

My mouth drops open at his forwardness, but what comes from it is a laugh instead of a reprimand. I pour the medicine into the little cup and hand it to him. He does not take his eyes from my face as he drinks it down, grimacing at its sick-sweet taste. The apothecary adds way too much sugar to cover up the bitterness.

“I don’t want you to think about debt and owing,” I say. “This is from me to you.”

He lowers the cup from his mouth. A tiny bit of medicine clings to the stubble above his upper lip. “A gift,” he says.

“A gift,” I agree, and reach forward to wipe his lip before I think about it. He catches my hand as soon as my thumb brushes his skin. He gives it the lightest of tugs, but I move like I’m water, like I’m light as air. My hand slides over his uninjured shoulder, and he reaches for me as I rise to my knees. His hands on my waist are a shock, overwhelming, tender and powerful and addictive.