Give Them Wineby Mary Brunini McArdleBook I
|
General Synopsis |
| Chapter 12 |
In the mid-22nd century, a mysterious apocalyptic event has destroyed the world as we know it. In the Mississippi delta country, survivors reorganize in isolated enclaves and live in primitive conditions with little knowledge of their own history.
Donas, a beautiful, bright, curious girl on the verge of womanhood, discovers that her community is hiding a terrible secret: drug-induced conformity. She flees, taking her younger brother Mak and sister Rani with her. They make their way south and find a new life with a new people. They find hope, love and maybe some trace of their own past that might point the way to the future.
The caves were enormous, cool and dim. Donas was amazed by the vaulted ceilings and the funny risings like tiny hills coming out of the dirt floors. The tops of the risings had to be cut away by the men and two of the bags filled. That was how the salt had to be harvested.
The remaining bags were stuffed with flint. This part of the work was harder, because of the heat outside and the large area that had to be covered. The men did the collecting, although a few were required to watch the horses.
Lionel and Donas took advantage of the nights on the return trip, the first spent resting and sleeping in the caves to benefit from their shelter. The caves were more comfortable near the entrance; to the back it was hotter. But there were drafts coming from somewhere — a small circulation of the air, and against the edges of the walls water dripped in a few places.
“It’s our good fortune that the area around the domes is dry,” Lionel said. “Otherwise the salt would be washed away by rainfall.”
The other members of the expedition courteously overlooked the couples’ preoccupation with each other. Lionel and Donas exchanged covert kisses and talked in low voices before sleeping. He told her of growing up in the City. She listened intently, but disclosed little of her background, still hesitant to reveal too many details.
Once she asked, “Does the City not have leaders? I haven’t heard anyone mention them.”
“We don’t call them ‘leaders.’ We have three ‘Masters of Decision.’ If the first two disagree on an issue, the third decides the outcome.”
“Who are they?”
“Three of the older Storytellers.”
“Why?” Donas asked, puzzled. “Why not someone like your father, or this Perce who heads our expedition?”
“Because the Storytellers don’t wed; they don’t have the responsibilities of a family, so they are free to devote their lives to the keeping of all our knowledge,” Lionel explained patiently.
“In that Hall — where no one is allowed entry?”
“Questions, questions!” Lionel looked exasperated. “You tell me you were not permitted to talk at meals or at work in the north! How did you ever survive there?”
“I... I...” Donas sputtered, unable to come up with a response.
“Aren’t you weary, Donas?” Lionel yawned. “Let’s go to sleep.”
‘Every time I try to find out something about that Hall, Lionel tires of talking about it,’ Donas thought. ‘I can’t tell if it just doesn’t interest him or if there really is something secret about it.’
She sighed and turned over. It never occurred to her that he could have thought her just as evasive about her former life.
At the midday meal on the last day, Lionel and Donas drew apart, leaving Sewella laughing and talking with Perce as they tasted food together. Lionel frowned slightly, then remarked, “Perce is a good man, but I wish Sewella would pick someone else to interest herself in.”
“Why?”
“He’s at least twelve years older.”
“Does that matter? Surely what she feels is more important. Perhaps she thinks she has found someone special only to her.”
“Well, at least it’s distracting her from us.”
“Lionel, I want to thank you. I know you arranged this journey partly for me.”
“And how else can I court you except through gifts?”
“Your kisses are gifts,” Donas said shyly.
“Oh, Donas, I must... I want...”
He put out his hands and pushed the damp curls back from her face. “Donas, I want you to be my betrothed. Alfreda has a husband and a home and is expecting a child. We could ask my parents for permission and they would betroth us and we would be promised to each other — to make our own home and family. When a person weds, things change forever. I want you to be the one to make those changes for me, Donas.”
“But... what about Mak and Rani? I cannot desert them, though they are fond of your family.”
“We will take Mak and Rani into our home,” Lionel declared. “They will be our first children.”
Lionel looked pleadingly at the girl from the faraway place with her smooth olive skin and expressive brown eyes. “What is your answer?”
A picture of the two-level Hall with its silent guards flashed into Donas’s mind, but she pushed the unsettling image back. She thought of the night sky and the sweet kisses and the touch of Lionel’s hands. And she thought about him being with her forever. Somehow it seemed much more of a right thing than the wrongness she had known.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And then,” he said, with a triumphant smile, “I will kiss you like this.”
Donas caught her breath as she felt the strength and hardness of his mouth, a little frightened by his intensity. Her limbs seemed to disintegrate into liquid flame, as if someone had stolen her bones. When he released her, she began to walk unsteadily with him to the main party.
‘Can they not see?’ she wondered. ‘Can they not see me blazing like logs set for the cool? Am I not shedding light on the rocks around me?’
She rode for the next hour in such a daze that she only half-heard what happened next. There was a crunching sound ahead, and a woman’s scream. One of the older men yelled, “Keep your pace, all of you! You two, come with me!”
Lionel grabbed Windflower’s reins as Donas turned toward him. The riders nearby were maintaining a slow walk, their faces grim.
“Stop your mounts!” The order came from somewhere to the front. Everyone obeyed instantly.
“What is it, Lionel?” Donas asked anxiously. “Is it Sewella?”
“I don’t... I think it is Perce.”
Several of the men dismounted, Lionel remaining with Donas, as was his place. She could hear other noises now — of the animals, of the men’s voices, of someone sobbing.
An eternity later, a pair of men escorted a tearful Sewella to the rear. “He’s dead,” she kept saying. “He’s dead.”
“The ground gave way beneath Perce’s mount,” one of the men said. “Most fortunate Sewella was to his left — otherwise she would have gone with him.”
“There’s no—” Lionel began.
“No. No hope. His neck is broken. They are retrieving his body, but we will have to leave his horse.”
Donas watched bleakly as the men lifted Sewella and seated her in front of Lionel on his horse. “We’ll have to use Sewella’s mount to carry Perce’s body,” one of the older men said.
‘I feel cold,’ Donas thought. ‘Cold — and there is a heaviness in me. How can things change so from one moment to the next?’
The line of men and women approached the first hills in the vicinity of the City at day’s end, the sun setting in the smoky sky behind. A background of steam formed behind the silent riders. A distorted moon was rising ahead of them, misshapen and laced with strings of coal-hued clouds.
Sewella flew into Sebastian’s arms when he opened the gate; Lionel and the rest of the men going to the stables without speaking. Donas left the family to themselves and went to her room. She shook her head when Rani began a clamorous greeting.
‘Dark days ahead,’ Donas thought, unaware she was echoing the words of someone in the recent past, someone as different from Donas as any person could be different from another, someone still in the place that to Donas had become only a memory...
Donas was already asleep in bed with a confused younger sister by the time a subdued Mak entered their room.
To be continued...
Copyright © 2011 by Mary Brunini McArdle
