Uncharted territory [Sarella]

“Amity, you have to go, he’s your friend,” Fornax says, placing the smooth brown shirt Aisling had made she’d been folding onto the little table we were selling them on. The sun was very warm today, it was obvious the little hands of cold that had broken into the District were slipping away with the month. She was referring to Othal Nightbird, a boy who only a little more than a week ago had been stabbed by my uncle. I didn’t know how to feel. On one side, my closest friend besides my sisters had been nearly killed. On the other side, the man was my uncle and he had been whipped. He surely would have been simply shot if my aunt had not bribed the peacekeeper to the point of bankrupting herself. There would be one less place to buy meat in District 11.

I feel someone grab my hand, and look over to see my cousin Briar Rose. She was deaf and blind, and currently telling me something. When she finishes, I ask her to repeat since I had not paid attention at first. Did anyone come yet? she asks. I tell her no, and she goes back to handing Fornax articles of clothing. She was amazing – all she could do. Too bad her mother didn’t let her do much. That woman crept me out, her dark attitude, the way she was never outside, always playing that piano of her’s and insisting her husband listen though he was deaf. It was strange. Rosie’s mother was blind, her father was deaf; she was born blind, and went deaf. She plays the piano too, however unwillingly.

“I don’t know,” I say to Fornax after a too-long pause, and sigh, “I told him I loved him.” Fornax laughs, and I feel color coming to my cheeks. Meredith was the one I could talk to, Fornax was too awkward to understand.

“Oh Amity, it’s called a crush, you have a crush!” she laughs again. “Amity has a cruu-uuush, Amity has a cruuu-uuush! Oh, Amity and Othal, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-” I stomp my foot, and grab Briar’s hand. The girl makes a strange sound as I pull her behind me in the direction of the clinic. Her mother was the only female born to my grandparents, and the woman only had one child. It was considered unfortunate to bare the Strekker name and not breed like a freaking rabbit. I keep thinking about was Fornax said, about me having a crush. Meredith giggled over boys all the time, but was this really what I had? Had I caught... oh dear Ripred no… a cootie bug? I express my thoughts to Briar as I slow down, and her usual blank expression changes to a smile. I would never be able to get over how Briar was two years older than me, yet thirty times more innocent.

“Let’s go in,” I say to Briar as we reach the door, but I know she does not hear me. She treads carefully over the wooden floor as I try to find the woman who had helped Othal before. “Hello? Hello?” I try to remember the woman’s name, but she appears before I can recall it. She makes a half smile, probably knowing what I wanted. I fix my hat, looking both ways before proceeding. I guide Briar after the woman and find the room with many beds, spotting Othal immediately. He looked better. Less pale, less shaky, not even coughing like he so constantly had before.

“What do I do?” I ask Briar, but with my hand. She tells me to go to him. Very slowly, and very quietly, I walk down the small row to him, my cousin gliding smoother than I ever would, even for someone as graceful as me. “Hello Othal,” I say, staring at him with glassy eyes, wondering what he thought of my uncle and his daughter Common. “You seem better now.” Briar asks me how it’s going, and I let her know I have no idea. It seemed so strange sometimes – how she lived in her own world, a room of darkness and silence, no communication with anyone who did not know the exact combination of pushing and rubbing on her hand that would let her know what she needed to do. Did it frustrate her? Ever?

“This is Briar Rose, one of my cousins. We usually call her Briar, but her mother and father call her Rosie. She can’t hear or see you, a deaf-blind, you know,” I look over at my cousin, who was chewing on her lip. She grabs my hand, and as though demonstrating to Othal, she asks me a question on my palm. Anything yet? Yes, I’m telling him about you. She stops chewing her lip for a moment, and blinks. I wonder if blinking felt strange to her. Perhaps not, if she was so used to it. ”You have to talk to her on her hand.”

I give Othal a slight, close-mouthed smile. Tell him I say hello. ”She says hello.” I stare at my friend, admiring his blonde hair. Briar says something, but I don’t notice. She doesn’t repeat it when I ask. I’m too busy staring at him though – wondering how he’d been for the past week or so. He didn’t look as hungry, much better than when we’d asked Common for something to eat. Not like he had when he was eating those little pieces of ham… or when my uncle threw open the door and took it away…

I glance around, noticing only three other people. An old man, a young woman, a teenage boy seeming green as spring grass, all sleeping. It felt strange to speak, as though it would disrupt the people. It was so quiet here, too. Like the death of the night after my mother died, and the peacekeepers took her body and a threw it in a grave like it was a ragdoll. I can still her the little thump, and Aisling gasping. Meredith cried, she freaked out, almost ran away. Fornax – she was crying, but not loudly. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t cry, and I didn’t speak. Callum wasn’t even there. It wasn’t until I saw Othal that I said anything to anyone but Briar…

When she was 8, Amity's entire household was sick, except her mother, but they could tell she was getting there. They coughed and spat up green slime, and had so little food that what we did get was no use. They were sure someone, if not all of them, was going to die of hunger. Surprisingly though, a neighbor came and visited one day and gave them some food. They got better, after a while, though they hadn't any medicine. Amity wonders why they didn't ever mention this place. Must have been those evil apples' doing.

Amity tells Briar that Othal replied, and drops her hand nervously. "It's very, very complicated at first, but then you get used to it and it's like habit. You end up being somewhat bi-lingual." Briar, through all of this, was actually thinking more about the boy she knew nothing about. What did he look like? Fornax had told her the boy was a blonde, but to her that meant nothing. She wanted to know what he was like. Her cousin was sort of biased, Amity liked to exaggerate. Was he really an adorable, sweet little mouse? Perhaps he was, quoting Amity.

Briar didn't think she was a world away. She could remember certain sounds. She remembered her mother playing on the piano shortly before she went deaf. She remember her mother singing to her, creating the pictures neither one of them could see. Her father would sit next to her, unable to really communicate. He was deaf and she was blind. Not much to do there. Soon she joined him though, in that realm of silence. Her dark style meant nothing, not to her already dark world. The silence. The darkness. The emotionless feeling. The disconnection with the world. Then it changed, when she learned her new language. The one that was her's alone in the empty world that she called her own.

She used to speak. She was as talkative a young child as any. If she tried to talk now, it would be weak and strange, but she could if she wanted to. The words could barely form on her lips any more, after so long. The piano was hard enough. Never hearing her mistakes or seeing the keys. But her mother insisted - instead she keep trying until she was the prodigy she wanted her to be. If she could see, there wouldn't be much to see though. The house was a void of darkness, to a point her parents didn't want their eyes to adjust. Or rather, her father's eyes to adjust. The house was quiet except for that piano her mother never ceased to play. The attitude was dark. The stories were only morbid. The clothing, well what can you say for it?

She feels forward, touching something she supposed was the boy Othal. Most people freaked out at her touch. Her hands were ice like winter in the arctic, ceramic like was her entire body and the still, gentleness might be enough to shatter a glass with a breath. The things she would tell someone, that they wouldn't understand. The story of the spiked barrel. The nude women in the fireplace. Well, better keep that to herself. She takes his palm, turning it upwards and telling him something about being hungry. He would not understand but Amity would get upset if she told her, and she had to get it out. She feels someone take her wrist and pull it away.

Briar repeats her message to Amity, slightly irritated. Amity drops her cousin's hand back down and sighs, running her finger over the girl's sleeve. She was not red haired like most Strekkers tended to be. Perhaps that was unfortunate, and perhaps it was a good thing. People didn't like red hair that much around the District, it seemed. "She was telling you she was hungry," Amity says, her own stomach doing a little flip. It seemed wrong to say it so loudly in such a quiet place.

"Ffff... ffff.... fuuuuu.....d," Briar says, the first half a little more than a whisper and the last bit a near shout. Amity grabs her hand and tells her off, trying to be gentle. Briar couldn't be offended though, it was just too hard to do that to her. Amity turns back to Othal, apologizing, and leans on one leg.

"Briar is one of the bluntest people I have ever known," and with that she laughs a little. She couldn't see it, but behind her the girl was making a very ridiculous face.

Briar quickly moves to sit next to Othal, grinning ever so slightly, unaware of the look she was getting for her cousin. Amity looks back to Othal, biting her lip and wondering how he would take it. She wouldn't be surprised if he ran screaming. She knew her cousin was not dangerous, at all, but she could creep the hell out of most people. She wouln't even know it either, and when she did figure it out she didn't care, because that was who she was and she did not care what others thought, only what went on in her own mind.

Amity stares at Othal awkwardly for a moment, losing the confidence she usually gained when taking care of Briar and shoving it all into the corner of the room. Had Othal heard her last week? When she said she loved him? Fornax didn't believe it was real, and all those curious glares from Callum had to mean something. Meanwhile, Aisling and Meredith were falling over each other with how adorable it all was. For a moment, Amity catches a sensation that Briar was going to bring up the words, when very quickly Amity fends away the subject with some nice, good old depressing news.

"You don't know her, but my cousin Autumn went with my other cousin Eloise for a day, and they got up into a tree. Both fell, Autumn farther than Eloise. Autumn landed funny and died nearly instanty, Eloise is pretty beat up but she's okay. Er..." Amity hesitates to say the next part, wondering what Othal would think of the death of the girl who had cared to bring him food. "Common died as well. Shot by a peacekeeper for trying to teach him a lesson." A nervous laugh. She admired the strong will of Common, and the ferocity of her brother Rare, but since the incident with Othal the Strekkers had been very wary of these now famous-within-the-family Nightbirds. Eloise's mother had even warned her to stay away from that Eileen girl who was the younger sister to Othal.

"And also, most of my family now despises you." Another nervous laugh.

Amity's mouth turns into a little line, teeth pushed hard together as she listens. "You have done nothing but defend me, Othal. You put me first, and I don't deserve you at all." She pauses, choosing her next words carefully, fighting the urge to get emotional. There was a reason her sisters emphasized her 'youngest' status. "Th..that's exactly what they are afraid of, Othal. Th...they think we are... too close..." Her eyebrows furrow together, and Briar shifts backwards, bringing her feet up and sitting criss-cross.

"Look," Amity begins again, whispering. She sits on the other side of him, leaning forward a little and keeping her voice very quiet, "Remember when I got my limp? The first time we met? Remember when I stole that bread? Do you remember, a few months had passed and my mum died and I wasn't talking, and all you had to do was be right there, and I would talk? My sisters tried to get me to say something for months, and you did it in five minutes. You know exactly what they are thinking. When I went to get Aisling, it was because I thought I loved you. But last week... I know I do."

For a few seconds she simply stares at him, swallowing and wondering how in hell she had managed to say so many words. It was only around him she was that way. Everywhere else she could barely say hello, but if he was in the room all she wanted to do was talk to him. She did not need Meredith to interpret her "mm"s and "um"s. She did not need Fornax to get her away from bad situations. Because he was the best situation she had ever been in.

Briar moves again, this time standing up and switching to be on the other side of Amity. She takes her hand and begins asking questions, and for a minute or two Amity replies, then she turns back to Othal and her face drains of color. Had she said the wrong things? What if he did not feel the same way about her? It had been two years, butt hey were still so young. Meredith had a boyfriend once, but it lasted a week. So did Aisling, two months.

"I love you too, Amity," Othal says. Her heart quickens, and she begins to turn red. She hides her face with her hair, letting her hat tilt down slightly to cover the blending colors. Could he really return her feelings? Fornax would bash it all as silly. But would she? She peers at him for a moment, wondering all these things and more, wanting more than anything to have him alone. She plays with the edge of her shirt, crinkling it and straightening it in her hands. What would she say, and what would she do? Her relationship was getting serious, and she was scared. She didn't want to mature, and this obviously meant she was maturing.

Instead of saying anything, she leans over, bringing her face closer to his. If he was looking at her, he would not see her, for her face was blending into her hair like a chameleon. In love, at only twelve years old? Was it even possible? Did things like this happen, could they? Amity leans away, a smile lasting for a split second before she lets herself sink down, thinking and contemplating everything that was going to happen. Briar did not know any of what had just happened, but she would pressure Amity for details, and she would break.

Then Aisling would find out, and Meredith would hear from Aisling, and Fornax and Eloise would hear from Meredith, and her father would hear from Eloise, who would tell her uncles, who would eventually tell her aunt, who would panic, sending everyone else into panic except Meredith, who would want dating advice, and Callum would overhear, and threaten to go find Othal and hurt him. Then Amity would cry, ranting to her sisters about the situation, and a month later she would run back to Othal and do it all over again. It was so predictable, Amity wasn't quite sure if she should do the thing she so wanted to do. So she makes up her mind, leans over, and pecks him on the cheek.