We Leave Together, стр. 34
Rachel’s face broke. Her lip trembled. Her eyes shut. She fell into Jona. He saw it coming in time to catch. He ran his hands over her hair. She lost three wracking sobs. Then, she swallowed her tears, and she stepped back, acid steaming off the mud at the corners of her eyes. She took a deep breath. She looked up with her face back. “Thank you, Jona,” she said. She took another deep breath. “Thank you.”
***
Djoss was awake when Jona arrived. Djoss squatted half-naked in the mud, tied up with his own shirt. He didn’t move. He didn’t look Jona in the face.
Djoss looked at Jona’s uniform. He nodded.
“You look like a tosser with lady troubles.”
Djoss shrugged. “I got no trouble with you, king’s man.”
“Me? I got trouble with you. I got lady troubles deep.” Jona laughed at Djoss’ hard eyes. “Your sister sent me.”
“What?” he said, “When I woke up alone…”
“She did and she didn’t. She left to get help.”
“Oh,” said Djoss. Djoss processed this statement in his head like a mathematical equation and deduced no solution. He squinted. He looked up at Jona. “I remember you.”
Jona scratched at his scalp. “Like I said, I got lady troubles.”
Djoss stood up slow. He walked slow, too. His eyes never left the ground at his feet. Jona walked beside him. In his mind, he was trying to figure how gone the pinker was.
Djoss’ hands began to shake. Jona wondered if the trembling hand was frustration, rage, or pinks. He decided it was pinks, because frustration and rage would only make Djoss want more false bliss.
At the house, Jona led Djoss in through the kitchen. There wasn’t anything worth stealing in the kitchen but old clay dishes. Jona handed Djoss some cheese and bread. Djoss ate as slowly as he had walked. He didn’t look up from the table.
Jona leaned against the cupboard. Jona watched Djoss nibbling. Djoss looked back, shifting in his seat.
“Where’s Rachel?” said Djoss.
“She’s upstairs, I think. I can hear someone moving about up there, taking a bath. You’ll be having one of those soon, too, so my mother won’t know you’re here. Mess like that everywhere, there’s no hiding a thing.”
Jona watched the stranger in his kitchen eating. Around the edges of the eyes, Jona saw the man beneath the shame: strong, proud, and dumb.
Djoss stared at his hands.
***
Rachel plucked out the darkest dress with the longest hem and the highest collar and tried to figure how to sew what was left of her Senta leathers over it to get a red X across the chest. She poured the bathwater down a drain in the floor, and she pumped for more water from the wall. Then, she scrubbed at the basin.
The Joni house was huge and larger in its sparse furnishing, full of bright white paint and dark woods. Her bare feet echoed in the upstairs hall. Her scales clicked quietly in the air. She walked naked, poking her head into the different rooms she found. Most of them were just naked walls, where furniture had been sold off and not even drapes covered the windows. When Rachel found Jona’s mother’s room, she dug through the drawers to find something that covered her scales and boots. She dressed. She wandered through the house again, searching for signs of life. She found her way to the kitchen.
Djoss looked up at her, in her ill-fitting new clothes too thin in the hips and too loose in the stomach.
Jona placed more cheese on the table.
Djoss stood up.
“Hello, Djoss,” she said. She sat down at the table and tried to act natural. She didn’t feel natural. She was clean and he was dirty. She was in Jona’s kitchen with nowhere else to go. And Jona watched them both, a scowl locked in his eyes.
“Djoss,” said Rachel, “you could use a bath.”
“I could,” he said, “have you eaten?”
“I have,” she said.
This was all that was said. Djoss ate more cheese and none of three people said a word. At first, Rachel felt like standing up and moving and walking around a little, but she didn’t want to be the first to move.
Jona pierced the veil of still. “What’s your plan?”
Rachel looked up. “We’ll leave together.” She pointed at her brother, then herself. “Him and me.”
Djoss nodded.
“How?” asked Jona.
“I don’t know,” answered Rachel.
Jona placed a hand on his chin, thinking deeply. “Right,” said Jona, “that is certainly a thing to think on. I figure you got no money or you wouldn’t come to me.” He scratched his head. He shook his head. He stood up, “Come with me, Djoss. I’ll get you in a bath and get you some clean clothes while we all think about this.”
Djoss followed Jona up the stairs and down the hall. He was careful not to tramp too much mud in his wake. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t have Rachel’s fires to burn it away on his boots.
Djoss said, well out of Rachel’s hearing, “What’s to think about?” said Djoss, “We have to steal it. Enough money, I mean.” He looked at his hands. “She can’t do it. Not with her blood like it is. I do what I have to for her, to keep her good. Only I can do it. I have to steal the money, somehow.”
“Never occurs to anyone to get a job, does it?” said Jona, “You know I’m a king’s man. I can arrest you just for saying it.”
“Arrest me, then,” said Djoss, “Set her free of me. I know you’re a child of a demon, like her. She told me.”
Jona took a deep breath. Instead, he led Djoss to the bathtub and gave him some of Jona’s old clothes. “Don’t rob anybody without warning me first,” he