Under the Willow Root

Chapter 5

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." --Albert Einstein

As we continue traveling, I notice the woods around us become less and less sinister-looking. The trees are less crooked and gnarled, and some are even healthy enough for leaves. I hear one or two birds twitter somewhere unseen, and once I see a rabbit dart across the road. I try counting my sightings for a while, but that gets old fast. Even my flashes of memory bring no comfort now, overshadowed as they are by the knowledge of my grandmother's death. I'm not sure I want to know anymore. I'm not sure I want happy memories of her now that I know she's gone.

I want to cry—really cry. Sobbing, screaming, the whole bit. After Baba Nadia died, I was too numb and then too caught up in keeping it together for the sake of appearances to let myself go. It's so unfair that, now that I'm ready, I have no voice to scream and no room to throw myself down and pound the dirt with my fists.

Instead I watch the trees pass by and drift in and out of consciousness in a mix of sleep, memory, and general confusion punctuated by muscle spasms and hunger pangs. Although we're given small quantities of water fairly regularly, we haven't been given any food. I don't know what our captors want with us, but it seems unlikely that they'd go through the trouble of hauling us around until we die of starvation. They have to feed us eventually. Unfortunately, I know from watching my grandmother's slow decline that you can go weeks without food before your body finally gives up. "Eventually" could be a while.

We spend another cold, awful night in the forest and travel through the next morning until we meet a heavily guarded caravan waiting on the road. Our guards dismount from their horses to greet the newcomers. One comes to unfasten the bindings on the cage door, capturing everyone's attention. The guard begins hauling out those closest to him so roughly that some fall to the ground. The rest of us get the idea and move cautiously out of the Cage. The guards push and shove us into a line along with the men and we stand in our places, unsure of what to expect.

I glance at the men, then quickly look at the ground with my face burning. I've long since lost any embarrassment for my own nakedness, but I had never seen a naked man before. I had never seen...you know. One of those. Now that I have, I really wish I hadn't. It was weird and wrinkly and...sad. Kind of pathetic and helpless, like a turtle without its shell.

A man from the caravan moves along the line, inspecting each person and making notes on a piece of some stiff material, maybe leather, with a funny-looking pen. He looks different from the others. He's not one of the guards, I don't think. He's small and a little chubby, not hard and lean like the guards. Instead of leather and metal, he wears soft, loose robes in shades of red. When he gets to me, he smiles widely, chortling with pleasure, and turns me around in a circle. I stare at the ground, unable to muster the energy to feel offended.

After the inspection is finished, the man in red says something to the guards and shows them his writing pad before toddling off. I watch him go, glaring sullenly at his back, until sudden motion at the end of the line catches my attention. A trio of guards move down the line, two of them grabbing each captive by the arms while the third does...something. I can't see what's going on.

As the guards come closer, I find out. I watch as they take hold of a boy barely into his teens. He's tall, but skinny--the guards' hands circle all the way around his biceps--and he looks like a little boy. The third guard presses something into the captive boy's hip, making the boy's face contort in a silent scream. When the guards move away, I see an angry red star-burst pattern imprinted in the boy's flesh.

The next captive, well muscled and clearly in the prime of life, stares at the brand in horror for a brief moment. Then he spins, jerking his arms out of the guards' grasp. He shoulders the third aside and runs for the woods, his legs pumping frantically.

Go, go, I want to shout, my heart in my throat. But the man doesn't make it ten yards before a spear appears in his lower back as if by magic. He staggers and falls to his knees, hands wrapped around the shaft protruding from his stomach. He stares at it almost curiously, like he hasn't yet realized what it is or what it means.

A guard saunters up behind him, drawing a long, wicked looking knife, and jerks the man's head back by his hair. Now the wounded man knows what's happening. Even impaled upon five feet of wood and metal, he struggles, right up to the moment that the guard slits his throat.

I gag at the sight of the dark red blood pouring out onto the ground, but there's nothing in my stomach to come up. The guard turns and shouts something at us, pointing at the body with his knife. I can't understand his words, but the message is unmistakable: this is what you get. Don't try it.

The guard plants a foot in the dead man's back and jerks his spear free. He drags the body off the road with the help of the other two guards, and then they continue on down the line as if nothing happened. No one else moves a muscle, not even to cringe away from the branding iron. When it's my turn, I almost fall to the ground, I'm shaking so badly. I close my eyes, hoping that it will make the agony easier to bear, but it doesn't. Oh, it doesn't at all.

When it's over, we're all stuffed unceremoniously back into our respective wagons. I try to make myself as small as possible, nearly biting through my lip in pain every time someone brushes against the wound on my hip. Packed as tightly as we are, it's impossible to avoid. Everywhere I look, I see tears running freely down faces twisted into expressions of abject misery.

I think of the man the guards killed and wonder if maybe he had the right idea. No. Escape hadn't even occurred to me before, but now that it has, I can't help imagining the wet, meaty impact and the sight of a spearhead sprouting from my own stomach. Maybe I'm a coward, but I know I won't be making any attempt to run. Anyway, where would I go? How far would I get, weak and confused--and now branded like an animal? It's hopeless.