Veracity (The Seven Cities Book 1) (5 page)

Built in almost a full circle, they have curved front and back walls that nestle up against each other, creating a barrier against the forest. A crystal clear lake guards the only open section of the circle, the houses reaching all the way to the narrow, sandy beach. Ruth tells me there are also grand tree houses hidden in the forest. When I ask her to show them to me, she sweetly replies that they are for Human eyes only.

The village is full of lively people, and everywhere you look, there are children. They run all over the place, in and out of houses, down to the water, and everywhere in between. A large fire burns in a great pit, and several long tables are set near it. A large wooden building sits in the middle of it all, and Ruth tells me it is for special ceremonies. Surprise, surprise . . . I won't be going in.

Hands down, the most stunning feature of Ruth's village are the carvings. Intricate figures of animals, flowers, and people are carved on every available surface, from doors to tabletops. I could spend an entire week trying to take it all in and never come close. My favorites by far are the faces. Each home features shockingly realistic carvings of the people who have lived there. Beautiful, detailed portraits of every age are gracefully captured. Like the others, Ruth and her father's home tells the story of their family. A young, happy couple with a new baby, then a chubby cheeked toddler, and finally a father and daughter alone. It's sad and lovely all at the same time.

Ruth doesn't allow me to spend nearly as much time admiring the art as I would like. Around us, the village is a buzz with excitement, and she wants to be a part of everything, flitting from one activity to another, dragging me along with her as she goes. We watch women make flower garlands to drape over tables and chairs, men preparing for a hunt, and hyper children driving their mothers crazy.

Ruth excitedly takes me to meet the bride, a gorgeous girl in her early twenties. Her brown hair is tied up in a mass of curls and her entire body is painted with lines of blue and gold. Like most people of the village, her outfit is made of fur and only covers the parts that need it. I am surprised to see that the bride's stomach is rounded in the early stages of pregnancy. Ruth laughs when she sees my face.

"Highborns get married when "The Man" tells you it's time. Humans get married when nature says its time."

"That is actually quite beautiful," I say, "but who is The Man?"

"You know! The Man! He tells you when to eat and where to go. It's the government, the great evil. He just wants to keep you down! Say no to The Man!"

I laugh at Ruth as she dances around the room, pumping her little fist in the air, singing about the power of the Human race. She is such a funny little girl and the women are all in tears at her antics. Now more than ever, I long to stay with these people instead of taking my chances with The Man. Long before I'm ready to leave, we get shooed out of the house. Ruth drags me to see the cows and sheep corralled down by the lake. She has named each one and tells me that she never, ever eats them. She says the people of the village rarely eat their livestock, but sometimes it is a necessity.

"When the soldiers are around we can't hunt," she says. "They make too much noise! They ain't gonna come to the village but they get awful close. They want us Humans to know they're there; gotta make their presence known."

The sun begins to set, and the villagers pile into the ceremonial building. They sing a sweet melody in words I can't understand. A great choir of voices, their song fills the village. Once they are all tucked inside, I walk to the door, peaking through the crack that Ruth left for me with a smile. The villagers have grown quiet and the only sound comes from the couple in front of the crowd. I'm unable to understand what they are saying, but I can see the young bride and groom as they stand together, their left hands covering each other's hearts. The groom looks enraptured with his glowing bride, and the crowd reflects their happiness as tears of joy and beaming smiles fill the room. After a few moments the young couple move their hands to her belly. I imagine they are promising to protect the tiny baby inside.

The groom gives his new bride a quick kiss, and the people erupt in great cheers of celebration. The crowd piles out of the building and in moments, a great feast is laid out on the massive tables as women pour out of their homes weighed down with bowls of aromatic food. I am momentarily afraid they won't let me join them, but I am quickly plopped down in a chair, fussed over, and stuffed beyond what I thought was possible.

There are no words to describe how amazing the food is. In their culture, sauces and dips are prized and every bite is something new. I find a blissful state of gluttony as I try every combination of meat, vegetable, and sauce. I never imagined food could taste so wonderful.

After we eat, the women are ushered inside as the men clear the tables. We sit by our fires, fat and content, for a few lovely hours of storytelling before crawling in bed to sleep off the tremendous meal. I know I can't remember many other moments in my life, but surely this is one of the happiest.

Ruth and I rise with the sun, and her father sends us off with a small pack of food and water. Following the narrow path between the houses and lake, we cross into the forest. I confess to her how nervous I am, how pretty much everything in this world scares me. She assures me I shouldn't worry, that this place is big and scary, but when you are as tough as her, the bad things just move out of the way and let you pass.

Ruth leads us through the dense forest; careful to make sure I won't know how to get back to the village. She doubles back a few times, even making me spin around with my eyes closed in an attempt to confuse me. I smile at her antics, but inside I'm miserable because I doubt I will ever see the lovely village again. We twist and turn through the trees, and before I know it, we have stepped out of the woods and back onto the paved road.

"A long time ago there were metal carriages, called cars, that ran these roads," she says, turning a cartwheel on the smooth pavement. "They didn't need horses and went so fast it looked like they were flying!" she cries. "Up and down these roads they flew, only inches away from each other. Those yellow lines right there, made sure they didn't crash."

"I don't know if I believe all that," I laugh.

"It's true! There used to be hundreds of them broken down on the road until The Man came and took them away."

"And they really ran on their own, without horses?" I ask skeptically.

"Oh sure! I think they were magic. You jumped inside and zipped around where ever you wanted to go. Didn't take no time to get somewhere."

"Faster than a horse?"

"Waaaay faster than a horse."

"Huh," I say impressed. "I would really like to see one of these cars."

"That aint gonna happen lady!" she says snapping her fingers. "The Man took them and hid them away. They would get all crazy if you even said the word cars in the city. They want to keep you highborn stupid and slow."

"Gee thanks!" I say, pretending to be offended.

"It's true! They know the only way to keep your kind happy and locked up is to make you dumb as rocks. They teach you stuff, like reading and writing, but the important things like how this big old world works . . . nada."

"Nada?"

"It means nothin'," she says rolling her eyes. "As in, "they are teaching you people nada. What good is it for you to be able to read if they only let you read certain things? What good is it to be able to write if you aren't allowed to write what you truly feel? They used to say knowledge is power, but I say freedom is the real power."

Ruth is a wonderfully absurd distraction, and her love for singing, dancing, and telling jokes makes the time fly by. My attempts at getting her to tell me more about the world is met with a claim that my brain just isn't strong enough to handle the truth. Me being a highborn and all.  When she grows tired of singing, she talks about her mother, and how she ran away when she didn't like the boy they picked for her to marry.

"He was mean as a snake!" she says. "He didn't hit her or nothin' of course. That would have gotten him killed, but my Momma said that sometimes words can take a Human apart, even faster than fists."

"Do you know how she got out of the city?"

"They were working on part of the wall and she slipped right past them. My Momma was smart. She figured out when they took their breaks and she just walked right out!"

"That was smart," I say. "I don't know if I would have been brave enough to try that."

"Oh, she was so brave," Ruth says softly. "Brave right up until the end of it. She always said that nothing in life was worth being scared over. Change was good, she said, made you strong."

"Do you mind me asking how she died?"

"Died? My Momma didn't die. She got drug off by those darn soldiers. They gave her a pill and wiped out all her brains," she says kicking a rock across the road. "That's how I know you ain't forgetting things 'cause you got knocked out," she said wagging her finger at me.

"You've got me all figured out," I say, smiling sadly. "How do you know that's what they did to your mother?"

"We saw them give it to her. It was a big red pill. They made us watch so we would know she was gone. Then they drug her back off to be with her people. They don't like it much when folks run away from them."

"Oh Ruth, I am so sorry. That must have been so hard for you to watch."

"I was just a tiny thing, I can't remember much but what my Papa told me. He followed them when they left, you know. He followed them right up to the gate and they never saw him. He cried whole buckets when he got back, but he got stronger, and made me strong too."

"I believe it," I say. "I don't think I have ever met anyone as tough as you are. You mother would be proud."

We walk in silence for a bit, Ruth lost in thought about her mother. I feel so bad for her. She has buried a lot of feelings deep down inside that tough exterior, and cracks are starting to show around the edges. She walks with her eyes cast down on the road in front of us, a look of pain etched across her petite face. Taking her hand in mine, I squeeze it in reassurance. She doesn't pull away and we walk together, using each other for emotional support.

A few hours later, Ruth begins to hum next to me. Almost mad from the silence, I can't stop smiling at the sound. Over the next half hour, her humming gets steadily louder, and soon she is spinning in wide circles with her arms outstretched, singing about a man who fell in the ocean and met a mermaid who saved his life.

As we walk, the outline of a town rises in the distance, but my excitement is snuffed quickly once I see that it is just as gutted and burned as the first one. Unfazed by the destruction, Ruth jumps over debris, and plays "kick the can" with any cylindrical object she comes across. When I ask her why everything is destroyed, all she will say is that it was the "Cleanse", and everyone is dead. She stubbornly refuses to tell me anything else, and I begin to doubt she even knows.

With a sudden squeal, Ruth grabs my hand and pulls me down the street toward a dilapidated house with a red X marked on the door.

"Is this the safe house?" I ask, slightly horrified.

"No way. The safe house ain't nasty like this one. That red X means it's a supply house. If you take something you have to leave something, so you never know what you are going to find. Last time I found chocolate! I would chop off your left arm for some more chocolate!"

"You mean your left arm."

"That's what I said. YOUR left arm."

"No," I say laughing. "The phrase is, "I would chop off my left arm . . ."

"Why would I chop off my arm? That's just crazy."

"Well, why would you chop off my arm?"

"For the chocolate! Boy, you sure don't listen very well."

When we walk through the door and into the living room, a group of black birds take flight, disappearing through a hole in the roof. They quickly return, settling on the ledge and cawing angrily as we make our way through the room. I honestly believe that a more disgusting place couldn't possibly exist. Foul from corner to corner, and top to bottom, the place reeks in a way that makes my stomach roll.

The centerpiece of the living room is a dank, smelly couch turned upside down with its moldy cushions torn open and scattered across the ragged carpet. Rotting lumps of fur and meat have been abandoned by scavengers and now are covered by ants and revoltingly large, black flies. Empty glass bottles and food wrappers litter the floor, and we have to carefully pick our way through to avoid the garbage and shards of glass.

As we pass into the kitchen, the smell of decay punches me in the stomach. Reeling against the staggering stench, I follow Ruth as she ventures in unscathed. The smell is thick, and I feel as if I am swimming in it; which is impressive considering the far wall of the kitchen has been burned away, leaving it open to the outside. A stiff breeze blows through the gaping wall, but instead of clearing out the smell, it sends it back in our direction.

Finding the source of the smell, I begin to gag and dry heave, making loud retching noises from the back of my throat. Something dead and bloated, possibly a dog, is lying smack in the middle of the kitchen's shredded linoleum floor. The sight and putrid smell makes me feel faint, but Ruth ignores it, skirting around the carcass and heading straight for the cabinets. I stay rooted to the floor, revolted at the thought of going any further in the room.

"Don't be such a baby," she yells over her shoulder as she rifles through the cabinets.

"I am not a baby! That is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen."

"Then you haven't seen very much highborn. They use stuff like that to scare away people like you. Guess it works!"

"It most certainly does! Did you find anything over there?"

"Nah. Just some canned stuff. We can leave it for the next person, my Papa packed us better stuff than this."

She walks back to me, pausing to kick a large mushroom growing through the floor before bending down to take a good, hard look at the dead thing.

"Yep. That's a dog," she says.

I vomit.

"Now THAT is disgusting," she says wrinkling her nose.

Wiping my mouth with my sleeve, I give her a sour look and she smirks back at me. If being wild and free makes you jaded to such horrors, maybe I don't want to be on this side of the wall after all.

Working up the courage to walk past the bloated dog, Ruth and I exit out the back. The fresh air hits me full in the face, and I have never been so grateful for anything in my life. Mentally and emotionally exhausted, I throw my old suitcase on the ground, using it as a seat in the grass.

"You said they use the dog to scare away people." I say.

"Yep." She replies, picking flowers and braiding them into a crown.

"Who are "they"?"

"The rebels. They have houses like that all over. The soldiers are bred weak like you, so they don't like to venture far into the broken places. The rebels take advantage of that and do everything they can to steer them away."

"Who are the rebels?"

"People like you. Ones who have run away or had parents or grandparents who ran. A lot of them are women whose husbands got sent to the work camps. When that happens they take their children and find a way to run so they aren't separated."

"What are the work camps?"

"You know curiosity killed the Kat right?" she says, giggling at her pun while placing the flower crown on her head.

"Please tell me?" I bed. "I won't ask anything else today, I promise."

"Oh all right . . . The work camps are where people go when they get caught committing a crime, which in the city isn't hard to do. Loving the wrong person or talking to someone outside of your class is all it takes. At the camps you spend the rest of your youth working. You work, eat, and sleep. That's it. The people in the camps are what keep the cities running. They build the items that get sold in the shops, make the clothes . . . they are the back bone."

"Which is probably the reason it's so easy to get sent there," I say thoughtfully.

"You are not as dumb as you look highborn." She grins at me. "It's quick, and no one fights it. You get scanned, they find out all your secrets, and you get shipped off. With the scanners, there is no need for proof or witnesses, and no one is stupid enough to lie."

"What happens when you lie?"

"Hey! No more questions, curious Kat."

"I said no more questions today," I say. "Will you tell me tomorrow?"

"Maybe, but only if you get your lazy tail off that suitcase and get to walking. We gotta make it to our next stop before dark."

Our destination is a ratty, old motel. A one-story building shaped like an uppercase "L", it boasts an empty, trash filled pool out front. The stairs leading into it have long been smashed and broken, and as we pass the pool, a viscous growl makes its way from the bottom. Ruth pulls out a piece of meat from her pack and throws into the pool. A mangy, limping dog scuttles out and eats the meat before hiding itself back under the trash.

"He's been in that pool for ages," Ruth says. "I don't know how he is still alive, I tried to get him out once but he's too mean. Won't let me come near him."

"Poor thing," I say.

"Poor thing, yourself," she grunts. "Your people are no better. The only difference is that the dog knows he's trapped. At least he knows where he stands in the world."

"If the city is so bad, why are you working so hard to get me there?"

"No more questions today, remember?"

Ruth ignores my irritated look, and we lug our stuff to her favorite room. She prefers this one because the door is strong and will keep out the "jittery critters".  Once tucked safely inside, Ruth digs into the glorious smelling food her father sent us. She quickly eats her fill, but it is a good hour before my tender stomach is settled enough to eat. While I pick through the wedding leftovers, which are just as good today as yesterday, Ruth entertains herself by jumping on the bed. I look on amazed as she turns flips and lands on her behind, laughing like a lunatic. She squeals as she spins around in the air, landing on her back. It's impressive the mattress is still in good enough condition to take this much abuse. I remember the rotted one I found in the white house, filthy and filled with animal debris. I guess a good strong door makes all the difference.

Other than the bed, the room is bare. The faded, striped yellow wallpaper is peeling, and the brown carpet is worn through in more than a few places. Dust cakes every available surface, and I hope Ruth's jumping at least cleared some off the bed. I'm not surprised to find that the bathroom is useless, although past travelers had obviously not minded using the broken toilet.