The Exile by Donald Levin

Author:Donald Levin [Levin, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780997294163
Published: 2020-01-11T22:00:00+00:00

15

Ross guides her through a maze of corridors to a section of the building that houses sleeping chambers. The halls are filled with people moving about purposefully, as if they are late for important meetings. Mae sees equal numbers of men and women, all younger than the women in her settlement.

Her former settlement, she quickly corrects herself.

Ross stops outside a closed door. “She’s in here,” he says. “She won’t come out.”

In this settlement, like her old one, children stay in a different area than their parents. Mae knows this developed because so many children could not be kept with their mothers because the women dragged up while giving birth, or else sickened shortly after birth and dragged up soon after. Other arrangements had to be made for the children, so they were housed together.

Now her tribe is old, so few young women remain. And there are no children. The settlement’s future is bleak.

They enter a room where several sleeping mats lie scattered on the floor. Only one is occupied, away in a corner. A small form is curled up on it, head peeking out from under a tattered blanket even though the heat in the room is intense. The blanket moves back and forth as the shape rocks beneath it.

“Twig,” Ross says.

The girl ignores him. He gives Mae a woeful look that says, See what I mean?

Mae kneels beside her and gently draws the blanket away from the girl’s face. Twig’s eyes are squeezed shut and she turns her head into the mat, avoiding Mae’s gaze. Remembering her dream, Mae reaches out to touch the girl’s hair but at the first contact, Twig flinches and shrinks further away from her into the corner.

“Twig,” Mae says softly, but the girl does not respond.

“You can see how she is,” Ross says.

Mae nods. “When she left the settlement, how did you discover she was gone?”

“I came to bring her to first feeding, as I always do. When I saw she was not here, I looked around both buildings for her, and when I didn’t find her, I suspected she might have slipped out.”

“Do you always go looking for her when she escapes?”

“Aye.”

Mae lays a gentle hand on Twig’s shoulder, but the girl makes an odd, high noise and Mae withdraws her hand at once.

So terrified, Mae thinks.

Perhaps a monster of Twig’s own mind forces her to keep running away?

Or, more likely a living, breathing monster, Mae suspects. She cannot bring herself to leave her distrust of men behind. She wonders if Twig left because of something one—or more—of the men was doing to her. Especially if she stays here with other children, away from her father’s supervision; she is vulnerable.

She is young, but she is a female. And therefore prey for men.

“We should let her rest,” Ross says. “Usually when I bring her back after one of these episodes, she has to sleep. And then she’ll stay. At least for a while.”

Mae looks down at the girl. Her face is dirty. She has not been washed off since she got back the night before.

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