Freedom Workers (boyxboy)

Freedom Workers

With work comes freedom.

Work hard, and you and your families shall prosper.

Work.

This is what they tell us, every day.  And most of us believed them…until Shia and I learned the truth.

                “Tem. Tem. Temerren! Wake up!” I groaned and threw a hand over my face, rolling away from the piercing voice of my sister.

Anza shook me.  “Tem! You’re going to miss Counting!”

She shoved me one more time, then ran out of the room, presumably to dress.

I sat up slowly and rubbed my eyes, running a hand through my hair. I swung my legs over the edge of my cot and slowly starting pulling my clothing set on. Long brown trousers, white shirt, brown vest, brown coat, brown shoes, brown stockings, brown cap. And, most important of all, my blue necktie. Without this length of cloth, I could be put into the Gand. I could be shot.

I checked the twins’ cot to be sure they weren’t still asleep, then walked out of my room to get a biscuit before the Counting.

Mam flicked my head, baby Cata balanced on her hip.

“Hurry now, Tem. The Counting’s soon.”

“Yes, Mam.”

“Get your sisters, will you? I have Serrin and Offrin… I think Mrin and Heston are down already.  Hurry, now.”

“Anza! Marra! Come on, quickly now!” The girls hurried down the hall, Marra still tying her necktie.  I grabbed her shoulder as she ran by and checked her kerchief, making sure it was straight.

The three of us rushed out the door. Marra and Anza went to stand with their groups, and I went to the back to stand in mine.   The workers were organized into groups by the job they performed. They stood in eight lines of six workers. Each line consisted of an age group. The youngest stood in front and the eldest in back. I was in the fourth line with the two other Fifteens, two Sixteens, and one Seventeen.  We worked as Messengers, running dispatches all over the city. Shia and I were a team. We traded off carrying letters and running.

As I stepped into line I felt a nudge from my left.

I turned and smiled.

“Late, as usual,” Shia whispered.

I laughed softly, keeping one eye trained on the guards bordering the neat lines of citizens.

“Did you expect anything else?”

Shia’s eyes flickered quickly over me as I did the same to him. “Your cap is crooked,” I whispered. He reached up immediately and straightened it. Not a moment later did a sudden shout rise up farther down the formation, in the Weavers’ block. Shia, who was taller than me by three inches, stretched up on his tiptoes and craned his neck to see.

“What’s happening?” I hissed.

“Little girl from Weavers… I think it’s Nilya Hogge, the blonde Five…they’re shouting at her… oh- they just slapped her. I think her kerchief was tied crooked…” Shia sucked in air through his teeth. “They slapped her again… oh, no- they’re going to Potters. That’s where her mother works.”

I gritted my teeth.  I didn’t need Shia to tell me what would happen now. Madam Hogge would be beaten, then she and Nilya would be dragged to the Gand, the city’s jail. All because of an allegedly crooked necktie.

When mother and daughter had been taken away, the guards stood at the front of each line and began the Counting. They started at the far right, with Artists, and worked their way down. Each line would step forward, in perfect unison, and stand motionless while the guards counted and inspected each member.  If any aspect was deemed wrong by a guard, the unfortunate Worker would be beaten and taken to the Gand.

I have been fortunate enough to never have gone to the Gand, but horrible stories have been told. Those who survive it are full of tales about dank, damp cells where rats scuttle across your toes and fleas and lice abound. But the worst, far more terrible than the disease, the beatings, is the darkness. The cells in the Gand are kept in complete and total darkness.

“It presses down on yer very soul,” an old prisoner had once told me. “Ye can’t escape it. It suffocates ye, drowns ye, crushes ye. Ye canna breathe. Ye jest lie there an’ wait for the darkness to kill ye.”

I shivered just thinking about it, and Shia gently pressed his pinky to mine, our special signal.

I hooked my finger around his and squeezed lightly. We quickly let go when it was our group’s turn for Counting.

“I swear,” I muttered to Shia. “I am so tired, it’s a miracle I’m on my feet right now.”

“Shh,” Shia said, casting a glance around to be sure there was no one about. I bit my lip. I always did that… spoke words that could get me killed if they were overheard.

Reassured that we were alone, Shia nodded. “Aye, me as well. I feel like a stone… so what time will you be coming?”

I grinned. I had finally gotten a pass to visit Shia’s tonight, a Sleeper, which meant I could stay the night.

“I can leave just after the evening bell.”

Shia smiled gently. Even though he was so big and tall, everything he did was soft and understated. He had light brown curls and piercing green eyes, and his skin had a soft golden tone. I, on the other hand, was shorter and skinnier, with hair dark as midnight and skin that was pale as the moon. My eyes, however, were remarkable in the oddest of ways- one was deepest emerald, the other shadowy violet. Most people didn’t notice- they only saw dark eyes. But those who looked closer saw the colors and shadows that shifted of their own accord within my eyes. Shia swore it meant something.

“You’re different, Tem. There’s… something… mystical about you. Something…. foreboding, I guess,” he’d said. I had laughed. “Impossible.”

We reached the fork between our streets and parted with a nod.

“I’ll see you later,” said Shia.