Nightfall (4 page)

After a restless sleep, Marin woke early and delivered a loaf of bread to Line's house. She came while the town was still largely asleep and placed the warm parcel at the front door. Marin had already been up for several hours, baking the dark, tough bread—known as
sheet iron
or
tooth dullers
—which would be their staple for the long journey to the Desert Lands. The main ingredient was fall wheat, a slender, reedy grain that grew reluctantly in the dimming light of the last year. For those who remembered the hearty summer wheat of years past, it was a poor substitute. Still, Line and Francis probably wouldn't care, especially since the loaf was still warm. Marin walked away, smiling at the memory of the three of them eating together last night. It might be a long while before she spent time with them like that again. Soon she would be in the Cloister.
What then?
Will Line wait for me—for a full year? And wait for what?

On the way home, Marin trailed along the cliffs, pausing for a moment to take in the view. The island and surrounding water were gripped in shadow. Angry gray-black clouds roiled above, while only a thin sliver of orange peeked on the horizon.

Marin looked up the shoreline to where the island began to curve inward. Standing here, she felt as if the island were a massive ship plowing through the sea. No matter how terrible the storm, waves would beat themselves into nothingness against the cliff wall.

It was strange to think that the people from Bliss had lived here for only a few generations—just over a hundred and fifty years. Before discovering the island, they sailed the Polar Sea following fishing stocks, as weather and the currents permitted. Then they landed on the island and found a beautiful storybook town, perfectly intact and completely uninhabited. After much prayer and argument, a decision was made. To the sounds of deep bass-toned drums, the oldest person carried a newborn baby into Deep Well House. There they stayed for twenty-four hours, hoping that the house did not contain some trap or curse that would kill them. Eventually, the old lady emerged triumphantly carrying the exhausted baby, and everyone moved into the town.

As a child, Marin loved to hear every detail of this story, and she eagerly looked forward to its retelling during the Pageant of Life and Death. But over the years, she'd grown dubious of the history. She'd recently overheard an uncle repeating the story to one of her younger cousins, and asked him afterward if he really believed it.

“Of course I believe it,” replied her uncle with a smile. They were sitting in the parlor of Shadow House and he was sipping his ale contentedly. “Don't you?”

“It makes no sense,” Marin had said. “Why were all of these houses in
perfect
condition?”

“It was our destiny to come here,” replied her uncle, setting down his ale and leaning in. “This island was a divine gift, and you do not question such gifts. You accept them and humbly express your gratitude.” Marin merely shook her head—as she always did when the adults spoke of destiny, and gifts, and unquestioning acceptance. There had to be a better explanation—a fight, a battle, maybe even a plague—but clearly this town had been inhabited, right up until the moment her people had arrived. And the former residents had been scared off, run off, or killed off. She glanced back at the town. No one would abandon such a perfect place without cause. Marin felt certain of this.

For several seconds, she stared at the water and felt the bracing wind curl around her face. Then something in the distance caught Marin's eye. To the left of the disappearing sun, dipping between each curling wave, was a boat. Her heart sank. Only one? Impossible. They needed more than that to evacuate the whole town. Moments later, a few more boats came into view, sailing in tight formation. The clippers that would transport them sailed in the middle, surrounded by sleeker, two-hulled vessels. All the sails were yellow. It was the furriers, no doubt about it. They were right on time, coming with the tide. The furriers were mercenary nomads of the sea who hunted in the Polar North, accumulating furs, then sailed to the Desert Lands to sell their stock. Furs were prized, even in the Desert Lands, where it grew cold when the sun fell. Along the way, the furriers picked up passengers from the northern islands—for a price.

Marin turned and ran back toward town. Was she the first
to spot the ships? She hoped so. It'd be nice to show the okrana how easily a teenage girl could best them at their own job. She followed the old wagon trail back to town, jogging and then running. At a certain point, she was sprinting flat out, and almost crashed into someone heading toward her. She tripped and came to a stop in a cloud of dust.

“What is it, child?” asked the person she'd almost collided with. He was a portly man in a blood-smeared smock—Bliss's fishmonger. He'd seen Marin running and come out from behind his carving table to meet her. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“The furrier boats,” said Marin as she struggled to catch her breath. “They're here.”

“How many?” barked the fishmonger, as if he were annoyed that she had failed to specify an exact number.

“Half a dozen,” said Marin. “I—I don't know. I didn't count.”

“Half a dozen!” he replied. He bit his lip and ran a hand through his matted brown hair. “By God, I hope there are more than that. Otherwise, we'll have riots—families against families, brother against brother. It has happened before.”

Marin stared at him, unnerved by the fear on the fishmonger's face.

“What do we do?” she asked.

The fishmonger didn't seem to hear her. So she took a step closer and asked again, almost shouting this time.

The fishmonger looked at the ocean and squinted. “Get home and tell your people,” he ordered. He turned abruptly and headed into town, leaving his fish to the flies.

Marin sprinted up a winding dirt road toward the woods. Her house was about a mile from town, and stood alongside a cold, fast-running stream. It was a grand old mansion called Shadow House, named for its proximity to the forest. Because of their age, the trees in this section of the woods had massive trunks and stretched several hundred feet tall. Over the course of Marin's childhood, as the sun arched across the sky and sank toward the sea, the shadows from these trees had lengthened, like the fingernails on an old man who had lost his clippers. Within the last several months, the shadows had crept faster, nearly erasing Marin's house from the landscape—as if blotting it out in a pool of black ink. This close to the woods, the shadows of the trees were so thick and overlapping that Marin wouldn't have been able to find her house at all if her mother hadn't placed candles in the windows.

As she approached the front door, Marin heard a steady clanking, like someone banging two pieces of steel together. She squinted through the darkness and saw her father kneeling
by the front door, banging away with a small hammer. The door was a huge oval-shaped slab of oak, crisscrossed with a latticework of blackened metal. Her father was hammering with great concentration at an ornately engraved copper keyhole below the doorknob.

“It won't come off?” asked Marin. She breathed deeply and tried to catch her breath.

Marin's father was so startled that he dropped his hammer. Anton was a stonemason by trade and he looked the part, with broad shoulders, bulging forearms, and perpetual dust in his light brown hair. He wore heavily patched workman's coveralls and a long-sleeved muslin shirt. The only sign of softness was in his dark blue-green eyes, which were unmistakably kind.

“Marin,” said her father with a shake of his head. “You scared the wits out of me. It's not wise to sneak up on people like that—especially these days.”

She leaned over to peer at the keyhole. “Is it rusted shut?”

“Afraid so,” replied Anton. “The other locks came off without any trouble, but this one is stuck.”

“I still don't see the sense in it—taking off the locks,” she replied.

Anton leaned back onto his heels and stared at her. It was clear that she'd run home and had something to tell him. He smiled expectantly, bringing dimples to each cheek.

“I walked home along the cliffs.” She paused for a moment, savoring the news she was about to deliver. “I saw the boats—they're here.”

Anton nodded slowly. “How many?”

“Half a dozen.”

Her father frowned and stood up.
“Half a dozen,”
he repeated.

“Is that enough?” she asked.

Anton deliberated the question for several seconds. “I suspect more are on the way,” he said finally. “Overall, the furriers always come with enough. There have been exceptions, but not in recent times . . .” He picked up the hammer with one hand and ran his thick fingers through his hair with the other. “We'll be fine, I'm sure.” Although his voice was confident, he still looked uncertain. “Go on, hurry along and tell your mother.” Anton opened the door to let Marin in, and turned back to the lock. “She's looking for you,” he said, then began to hammer loudly.

Upon entering the foyer, Marin heard her mother's footsteps before she actually saw her. The footsteps were hurried, frantic, as if she were nearly running. Her mother was frenzied with the prospect of moving.

As far as Marin could tell, Tarae had been eager to leave the island ever since arriving fourteen years ago. “I came here because of love,” she was fond of telling her children. “Your father was so charming and so handsome that he lured me to this rock in the Polar Sea.” Anton was a native of the island, and had met Tarae during his last stay in the desert. They had married and Tarae had agreed to follow him north, but it had never been an entirely happy arrangement. Now, on the eve of their journey to the south, Tarae was unable to contain her excitement.

“Mother!” Marin called. “I'm back—I saw the ships!”

“I heard.”

Moments later, Tarae emerged from the darkness, holding a candle. Marin's mother was tall and darkly olive-skinned, with waist-length raven-black hair that gleamed in the candlelight. Like her daughter, she had honey-colored eyes, a trait that was fairly common in the Desert Lands. Tarae was wearing a sleeveless white gown, cinched at the waist with an elaborately braided belt. Her arms, shoulders, and lower neck were covered with interconnected skin markings that depicted a tapestry of snakes, lizards, and dancing nymphs. They started just above her wrist, then twisted and turned and writhed all the way to the base of her neck. The sight was arresting, even for Marin, who had seen her mother's body many times before. What really surprised Marin, however, was her mother's revealing outfit. Women on the island typically wore pants, silk waistbands, and long-sleeved shirts made from simple muslin. In colder weather, closer to Nightfall, they wore long oilskin coats. No one dressed like this—not on the island.

“I met your father in this dress—he could not avert his eyes.
The poor man is bewitched,
they said.” Tarae's cheeks flushed with color as she smiled at the memory. “He fell helplessly in love—and it happened just weeks after I left the Cloister.”

Marin had heard many times about her parents meeting and about Tarae's year in the Cloister, where she pierced her eyelids with lizard bones and marked her skin with scalpels and ink.

“Are you going to the boats dressed like that?” asked Marin tentatively, thrusting her hands into the front pockets of her pants.
People will gawk at you.

“Why not?” asked Tarae, sounding slightly wounded. “Would you mind?”

“Of course not,” said Marin, kicking at the floor with her boot. “I was just asking. It's cold out there.”

“Marin,” said her mother, stepping closer to her daughter. “After fourteen years, I am headed
home
. I know that you love your life on this island, and I don't expect you to share my joy. Just understand that . . .” Tarae's voice cracked as she tried not to cry. “I recognize something of what you feel. I wasn't much older than you when I left the desert.”

Marin swallowed hard. She had never really thought about just how scared her mother must have felt coming to Bliss. She was about to say something—what, exactly, she didn't know—when suddenly a breeze blew in from the front door, causing the candle in Tarae's hand to flicker and then go out. They could hear the sound of Anton hammering on the lock downstairs. Tarae muttered in annoyance and turned to get a match.

“Wait!” said Marin. “Don't light the candle yet.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said Marin. “I want to see your arms again.”

Tarae spun around and arched her back proudly.