The Feral Sentence - Part One (4 page)

Jeena
cringed at the sound of her own story.

“
I—I’m sorry,” I said.

“
That’s what happens when y’only got two medics for several
hundred women and when the Northers kill one of ’em
off.”

“
You only have one doctor?” I asked.

Savia
laughed.

“
Medic,” she corrected. “Ain’t no prisoner here a doctor. But
we’re lucky enough to have one woman who knows anything and
everything about the plants on this island. Knows how to heal the
injured and the sick. ’Er sister was our other medic, but she was
killed not long ago.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It had never occurred
to me that medical care among felons would be completely stripped.
We were on our own with nothing more than bare necessities. What
would happen if food were to run out? If the last medic were to be
killed?

I watched the other women as they punctured holes through
thick sheets of leather, cut numerous shapes out of the skin, and
stitched pieces together by sewing through the holes they’d made.
I’d get the hang of it.

There were several sheets of skin stretched out across what
appeared to be giant slingshots. Pieces of wood held the skins at
an angle, which I assumed was to allow the sun to dry them
out.

“
What do you guys make with all this leather?” I
asked.

Savia smiled, and I noticed a few of the other women smirk as
if I’d just asked the most idiotic of questions.

“
Anythin’ and everythin’,” she said. “Women on the island need
to survive. We’ve gone back to the native times. We need clothing,
water satchels, weapons, footwear, tents…”

Jeena handed me several long pieces of leather. She pointed at
it and made a fist-like gesture, but I couldn’t make out what she
was trying to tell me.

“
Arrows,” Savia intervened.

I stared
at her. Was I supposed to make arrows out of flimsy
leather?

I felt a tap on my thigh, and I glanced back. The woman
sitting beside me pointed at a pile of finely carved arrowheads,
and then a pile of smooth pieces of wood with beautiful
multicolored feathers attached at the tips. I watched Jeena as she
tied the pieces together, her fingernails whitening as she
repeatedly wrapped the leather band around both the arrowhead and
the stem of wood. When she was finished, there was no telling these
two pieces had ever been apart—what she held in her fist was a
genuine hunting arrow.

I knew
it would take practice. I felt humiliated by my twelfth attempt,
still unable to solidly conjoin the two pieces.

“
Why’d they give ’er Needlewoman?” I heard one of the women
whisper to another.

I glanced up, but what I met was a pair of fearless black eyes
beneath uncombed eyebrows. I could tell that confrontation was no
alien matter among these savages.

“
Got a problem?” she asked.

I shook my head and looked away. I wasn’t the type to talk
back to anyone. I’d been raised to respect those around me, to
avoid conflict at all costs, and to mind my own business. The woman
scoffed, as did the other, and then she said, “Probably here for
some stupid shit like drinkin’ and drivin’ and killin’ a
family.”

“
That’s enough,” Savia intervened.

I didn’t bother to look up. I felt my throat swell at the
memory of it. He hadn’t deserved death. Prison—maybe, but not
death. I cringed at the image of his lifeless body lying on my
mother’s kitchen floor surrounded by a pool of thick blood, his
empty eyes staring past me into nothingness. I’d only meant to
knock him out. He’d had my mother pinned against the wall, his
thick hands around her collapsing throat, and I’d swung the iron
pan at the back of his head.

I hadn’t meant to kill him.

“
Lydia?”

I was shaken from my past by a beautiful young woman standing
by Savia’s side. She had thick, wavy brown hair tied to the side of
her head and dark chocolate eyes shaped like almonds. Her build was
strong, but her features were soft. She had a small butterfly
tattoo on her right shoulder, and a necklace made of seaweed and
seashells. I felt at ease.

“
I’m Ellie,” she said, extending a hand. “I’ll be your new peer
support worker.”

I rose
to my feet and shook her hand.

She
smiled.

“
We try to maintain a prison’s standard societal structure,
even though we’re in the wild.”

A peer
worker? I had no objections. I was very welcoming to the idea of
having someone show me the ropes.

“
Come with me,” she said.

I felt several eyes on me as I walked away from my new post,
but I didn’t mind—I was happy to get away from the
hostility.

She led
me through a narrow path in the trees, away from all of the
commotion around the waterfall.

“
That,” she said, eying the loud voices and noise behind us,
“is the Working Grounds. You’ll be spending most of your time
there, working with the leather. Murk sometimes gives us the
opportunity to change posts, but don’t count on that. It’s happened
twice since I’ve been here, and she only allowed a handful of
people to change jobs. Disrupts the expertise otherwise, you
know?”

I nodded, even though she was ahead of me and couldn’t see
me.

“
Hey, Tal,” Ellie said.

I glanced up just in time to step to the side and allow the
woman to pass. Her head was shaved on both sides, and she had skull
tattoos covering both arms. She eyed me from top to bottom and
released a growl-like sound.

“
That’s Tal,” Ellie said, smiling back at me.

Was I really supposed to remember all these names? I didn’t
bother to look back at the woman. I feared she might attack me if I
so much as looked at her.

“
She can be a bit scary at first, but she means well,” Ellie
said. “Come on.”

The sound of the waterfall had faded behind us, and the
jungle’s orchestra returned. Birds chirped in the distance,
rustling leaves shook above us, and vegetation crackled underneath
us.

“
Through here,” Ellie said, sliding her way through a thick
curtain of vines.

When I entered the opening, I couldn’t believe what I was
seeing. An entire village. What caught my attention first and
foremost was the seclusion of the Village. Trees and branches had
been bent, vines intertwined, and stones compiled around the area
to form an enclosure—a barrier around the Village, which appeared
to be the size of an average football field.

There were several dozens of tents constructed of wood and
leather positioned in an uncalculated fashion across the land. The
color of the tents varied due to sun damage—some were beige, others
light brown, and the tents closest to the trees were dark mocha.
Many women roamed the area freely, some socializing, others keeping
to themselves. There was a fire pit at the center, around which a
group of women gnawed on cooked meat and pieces of bone.

“
Welcome to the Village,” Ellie said, wrapping a warm arm
around my shoulder.

I tried to smile to acknowledge her presence, but I was too
intrigued by what I was seeing.

At the far back were three huts positioned side by side. These
were constructed mostly of wood, with what appeared to be seaweed
atop tree branches to form a roof. The one at the center was the
largest and most beautiful of the three.

“
That’s Murk’s,” Ellie said, watching me eye the hut at the
back.

“
Who is Murk, anyways?” I finally asked.

Ellie smiled at me, and I could tell she’d been in my shoes
before.

“
Murk’s what you call the top dog,” she said. “Like wolves in
the wild, there’s always an alpha. Murk’s the alpha—the pack
leader. And we’re the pack.”

“
So she’s the boss,” I said.

Ellie smirked. “I’ll show you your tent.”

She led me to the farthest corner of the Village, past the
largest of tents, and we headed for the smallest and shabbiest of
them all. Mine was slanted toward the right, and several dozen
cobwebs were gathered around the base and underneath the leather
flaps.

“
Think of this as initiation,” Ellie said. She punched me in
the shoulder, but only hard enough to capture my attention. “I know
it looks like shit,” she admitted, “but you’re the new kid on the
block. Can’t expect luxury.”

I scoffed. “I’m assuming Murk’s hut is considered
luxury?”

Ellie smiled, but her eyebrows quickly came together. “I get
it, trust me, but no talking about Murk. Got it? She’s a good
leader, and if you walk around here disrespecting her, you’ll
disappear in no time.”

“
I wasn’t disrespecting her—” I tried.

“
Check it out,” Ellie said, extending an arm toward the
tent.

“
Can I clean it off first?”

Ellie
tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow.

“
You’re living in the jungle now. You’d better get used to bugs
and creepy critters.”

“
Creepy cr—” I started.

“
I’ll lead the way, princess.” She winked back at
me.

The moment she pulled on the large hanging front door,
something hairy and black fell from above. She didn’t flinch or
make a sound. Instead, she reached up and pulled the oversized
spider out of her hair. I cringed. It had long stick legs and a
round body, and I couldn’t tell whether it was a spider or a
tarantula. She held it gently in the palm of her hand.

“
Aw, it’s just a baby,” she said.

Just a baby? The thing was the size of a golf ball! I
swallowed hard. I wanted to tap the heels of my muddy sneakers
together and say aloud, “There’s no place like home,” over and over
again.

The thought of cleaning my cat’s litter box suddenly became
less repulsive to me, as did the idea of crushing little white
spiders in between thick sheets of napkin to remove them from my
apartment.

Ellie knelt on one knee and freed the baby monster. I could
only pray it wouldn’t find its way back to me.

“
It’s a good idea to keep your tent closed when you aren’t
around,” she said. She pulled the door to the side and wrapped a
piece of rope around it. She did the same thing to the other side,
allowing sunlight to enter my new home.

The interior was bare and somewhat cool in comparison to the
island’s sticky heat. I stared at the dirt beneath my feet. Where
was I supposed to sleep?

“
You’ll have to find your own bed and blanket,” Ellie said,
eyeing the ground.

“
Where am I supposed to find that in a jungle?” I
asked.

Ellie ignored me, and I knew I’d just posed a silly question.
I would have to make my own comfort with the items I could find. I
cringed at the thought of gathering leaves or seaweed—I’d be left
vulnerable to oversized bugs.

But the thought didn’t linger. My shoulders jerked forward at
the sound of a deep, hollow horn that resonated across the Village.
I glanced at Ellie, hoping to be eased and reassured that the sound
was no more than an invitation of sorts, but I knew it wasn’t the
case because Ellie’s eyes seemed to double in size, and she
crouched like frightened prey.

Something was wrong.

She muttered something, but I didn’t understand her. She
glanced back at me briefly and placed a finger over her lips, then
quickly reached outside of the tent and loosened the door’s
straps.

The
curtains fell forward with a heavy swing, and we were left in the
dark.

CHAPTER 4

The sound of footsteps and voices drifted in from outside. The
only thing I saw was Ellie’s silhouette as sunlight broke through
several cracks in the tent. I could hear her breathing heavily, and
all I wanted to do was ask her what was going on.

I’d been tempted to crawl to the front of the tent—just one
glance, that was all I wanted. But that’s when I heard it—a scream
like none other I’d heard before. It was the most horrific sound I
could have imagined: the sound of excruciating torment…the sound of
torture.

Ellie raised a hand over her mouth, almost as if to keep sound
from involuntarily spilling out. There were more screams—some were
pained, others vengeful. These sounds were the cries of
battle.

I couldn’t think. I could only feel adrenaline flooding my
body. Everything felt surreal, as if at any moment, I’d awaken from
this gruesome nightmare to the sound of my cat purring beside my
pillow. This couldn’t be happening.

There was a loud rip-like sound from above, and I immediately
felt heat spread across my face and atop my shoulders. My sense of
smell was quicker than my eyes, though. I’d smelled the smoke
before I knew it was fire. Up above, through a hole in the leather,
was an arrow lit on fire, sticking out from one of the tent’s
wooden support beams.

“
Shit,” Ellie muttered.

She reached for my hand and pulled me toward the front of the
tent. She peered through the cracks, and then back at the dancing
flames above us that had begun to spread. The heat became
unbearable, and the smoke thickened to a dark gray. I couldn’t
believe how quickly it was catching.