II #
Ain’t no thorns would scare off Shelka Morn. That’s what she had wanted to say to old Miss Ithica. Shelka made damn sure that she had said it a good few times to the others after the woman had left.
Can’t risk looking weak, can I?
If even a hair of vulnerability fell off Shelka’s head, one of the boys would usurp her leadership over the children of the Village in the Shins. She would burn in Grahtz before allowing some hairless milk-drinker to take her place.
“Listen up!” she proclaimed, swinging about to walk backwards up the hill. “If Miss Ithica says there are thorns—then we need to find ’em! Don’t even think of playing it safe in the cabbage patch!”
“Ithica don’t grow no cabbages,” said Jorn, the oldest of the boys. He wiped the snot dribbling from his tiny, red nose onto the sleeve of his tunic. “I think she grows watermelons.”
“Have you ever seen a pissing watermelon, Jorn? That’s southern fruit—and we ain’t no softie southerners!”
That earned a cascade of laughter from the others. Shelka beamed.
“I’ve a question!” cried Gertrude, one of the twin golden haired girls that followed Shelka around to say close to Jorn.
“Question away.”
“Why do we got to look for the thorns?”
Damn, Shelka thought, I don’t bloody know.
“Because I said so!”
“And,” added Jorn. “So we know where they are.”
“Right,” Shelka said. “Then we won’t get stuck.”
That seemed to satisfy Gertrude and her counterpart, Angelika. They’d always been worry worts and buzzkills respectively. Part of being leader that no one understood is that you need to present yourself as the authority figure on any given topic, even if your wrong. Not that Shelka was ever wrong.
She was a bloody genius.
Thus the procession of village children bounded up the hill, through the old wooden gate—still sticky with newly applied linseed oil—and into the Miss Ithica’s garden where mysteries abounded round every bend and shadow lurked beneath every leaf.
Shelka never ceased amazement at the lush, green bounty hidden within the bounds of Miss Ithica’s fence. As far as she was concerned, growing anything in the Shins was nothing short of miraculous. Even the garden at home, that Ma obsessively tended since Da died, barely yielded a head of lettuce for a salad. Yet Miss Ithica could feed the whole town.
Ma claimed Miss Ithica was a witch—that she had cursed the Village in the Shins so that everyone would be forced to rely only on her. But Shelka didn’t think that was true; it’s something Shelka would do, if she had the means, and Miss Ithica wasn’t anything much like Shelka.
Miss Ithica was too kind. Too vulnerable. And in the Shins, such traits equate to weakness. And weakness means death. If there was anything she had learned from her Da, who had been the strongest man in all the Village, it was that naught but a moment of weakness could get you got.
‘Twas just how things were.
Besides, Ma was a paranoid fool, always rambling about the machinations and plots. Shelka ain’t ever seen nobody plot nothing in the Shins—that was against the very nature of the place they called home. But when she pointed that out to Ma, Shelka earned herself a slap across the face. And Shelka didn’t much like being slapped. She’d learned that much.
Shelka stood on a rock and oversaw a game of tag turned shoving match between Jorn and Vander—who was a good two years younger than Jorn, and smaller besides. Soon the sisters, Gertrude and Angelika, joined the fray, opting instead for gentle taps on the shoulder before running giggling away, long golden tresses billowing in the wind like sorry flags of surrender.
“Come on, Shelka!” Angelika called to her, “I’m it—let me try to catch you!”
“You all go on—I’ll make sure no one cheats.” Shelka said, glowering down at the girl.
Shelka hadn’t much a taste for play or for games. She was a warrior. Like her Da. She was also a tactician, which was why she had taken it upon herself to organize the other children and facilitate their play. She had long since learned that too what you what, you had to give others what they want. So that’s what she did.
“Don’t be a coward, Shelka!” Jorn said, curling his pink, pouty lips in a mischievous smirk. “You just don’t wanna risk losing.”
Something curdled in her chest. The sensation was akin to pain, or discomfort. “I ain’t no coward.”
Jorn balled his fists. His hands were so soft, Shelka couldn’t tell if he even had knuckles. “Then come down and play with us.”
“Yeah!” shrieked Vander. “Don’t be craven!”
“Craven, eh? Callin’ me a coward,” Shelka leapt off her rock and stomped over to Jorn. They stood eye-to-eye. “I’ll show you a bloody coward!”
With both hands, Shelka palmed Jorn’s chest. Spittle flew from his mouth as he stumbled back a few steps, then tripped over a vine crashing into a massive zucchini plant.
Jorn let out a ear-shattering cry. He’d fallen right into a bed of thorns, where writhed fruitlessly trying to pull himself free.
Shelka rushed to him to and knelt beside him. “Gods, Jorn! Hang on, don’t move—you’re making it worse.”
“Hell on Earth, Shelka,” Gertrude whispered. “You didn’t have to hit him.”
“I didn’t hit him!”
“It hurts!” Jorn screamed, tears streaming down his face, etched with red scratches. He was entirely entombed in thorny vines, as if the plant sought to pull into the ground to fertilize its roots. “It’s hurts, Shelka, it hurts!”
“Of course it bloody hurts!” she said, frantically untangling the flailing boy from the grasping vines. She hadn’t wanted to hurt the boy, she only meant to prove a point. “Calm down, Jorn! Varden, stand on his other side—good—Jorn, give us your hands.”
Shelka and Varden heaved. Something ripped—whether it was Jorn’s tunic or flesh, Shelka couldn’t know. At first, the boy wouldn’t budge. Shelka gave one more pull with all her strength and all at once Jorn launched to his feet sending Shelka and Varden tumbling to their asses on the gravel path, and thankfully not more thorns. Shelka scrambled to her feet and pulled up Varden, who had scraped up his elbows something fierce.
The twins screamed. Shelka turned and her jaw dropped as she laid eyes on Jorn. The boy was covered in blood, as if he’d bathed in it. He stood in an awkward standing-squat, his arms outstretched and dangling at the elbows like you would if you’d accidentally gotten a handful of manure. His face had gone pale, drenched with a sickly pallor.
“Time to move, everyone! Help me get Jorn to safety!”
Together, the children took turns shouldering Jorn’s arms. By the time they’d made it down the hill and back home, all their tunics were stained with blood.
Jorn’s mother must have heard Jorn’s screaming, or watched their approach from the window, because she stomped out of the house, her face twisted with rage. “You good for nothing misfits!” the woman growled, taking up her weeping son in her arms. “Your mothers will be hearing all about this…”
Shelka watched from the road as Jorn disappeared into the house and his cries muffled behind the closed door. The others dispersed without another word.
“I’m sorry…” Shelka whispered, her eyes hot. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She never meant to hurt anyone, and yet, it seemed she couldn’t stop herself from doing it.
Shelka Morn didn’t go home that night. She knew Ma would hear whatever lies Jorn’s mother was spreading around the village and knew Da’s belt would be laid out on the table when she arrived. Shelka bloody hated that belt—more than she bloody hated the cold.
She couldn’t stop the beating, no more than she could stop herself from beating on others. But she could prolong it. So Shelka went off to the center of town, behind Collin’s place where Da used to spend all his time, and sat down on the ground, leaning her back against the rough timber walls.
A dizzy spell came over her then, and Shelka closed her eyes for moment. She must have fallen asleep, because when she again opened them, she was shivering and it was dark, a crescent moon hanging heavy in the starry night sky.
I can’t keep doing this… Had it been winter, she would have died just like Da had died.
As she picked herself up, she heard the front door to Collin’s place open and click softly closed. Shelka glanced round the corner and watched a strange woman that she had never before seen jog down the road and disappear into the woods.
Too tired and distraught to care, Shelka shrugged and went home.