“Oh.” Yaila brightened with a smile his direction. “Anyway, I’m glad you came. I wish you still went to school with us.”
“Sometimes, so do I.” He winked at her. “But, I’m an old man, now. No more school for me, I’m afraid!”
“But,” she went back to the perplexed squint, “Father always said you’d go to the advanced school, that they have for the older kids, after normal school.”
He sucked in his breath discreetly. “Things are different now, little bird. I have to work.”
He could tell she was about to press the topic. She wasn’t easily dissuaded once she got going, and often managed to reason him into a corner. Usually a corner of, “But why is it that way?” It was his stomach that saved him, by rumbling loudly.
She giggled. “Sounds like an angry dog.”
Relieved, he grinned and leaned forward to tickle her. “Do you know what you sound like?”
“A bird!” She proved the point with her high, singsong voice.
“Exactly. And little birds shouldn’t mess with angry dogs!” He tickled her until her eyes watered with laughter. It made any anxiety he had been feeling melt away. When he finally let her go, he was laughing too.
Jakkit did not pick up on the mirth. “You didn’t pack yourself a lunch, again?”
Zoper simply smiled at him, shaking his head. “You have a remarkable talent for turning concern into an accusation. Bravo. I’m not sure many can—”
“Zoper, I’m serious.”
Serious. The word echoed in his mind. It was serious. Being in as much debt as he was was extremely serious, and it couldn’t be fixed by Yaila’s melodic laughter. “Not now, Jak,” he whispered, sending his little brother a pleading look. Not in front of Yaila. She doesn’t need this burden. Though even Jakkit didn’t know just how great their debt was. He didn’t know that much longer, and Zoper wouldn’t be able to afford for them to pack a lunch, either. What then?
“What does he mean that you didn’t pack yourself a lunch, again?” she asked. So much for not letting her catch on.
“Nothing.” He poked her nose playfully, earning another giggle. “You see, it’s just that angry dogs are often hungry enough for two lunches. I only had one, so…” He shrugged, as if wistful. “Alas.”
While Yaila was diverted, Jakkit wasn’t. He extended half of his sandwich to Zoper. “Second lunch,” was his mumbled offer, without eye contact.
Zoper tried to ignore the way his stomach clenched, desperate for a lot more than half a sandwich. “No, Jak, come on, you—”
“Oh just take it.” Practically flinging it into his hands, Jakkit hunched his shoulders and finished the rest of his lunch in a moody silence.
No use arguing further. Zoper gave his genuine thanks, and did his best not to swallow it in two ravenous bites. When he stood up to leave and dizziness made the ground sway beneath him momentarily, he knew that half a sandwich was barely going to get him through the rest of the day. How much longer could he continue doing strenuous labor at the mill on only two light meals a day?
Instinctually, Zoper glanced west. Though it was blocked by hundreds of buildings, the castle lay only a few miles away. One visit, one plea, and all his problems would be solved…As quickly as the temptation came, it was stamped out by his father’s dying words echoing in his mind. “Don’t…trust him, Zoper. Don’t rely on him for anything…you have to take care of your siblings…don’t trust him.”
And yet, his father’s warning wasn’t as convincing as it used to be.
Zoper forced the matter from his mind as he finished the meager half-sandwich. After telling his siblings goodbye, it was time to make the trip back, again at a jog. About halfway to the mill, he slowed to a walk, body trembling. All he could do was take a swig of water and force himself back into a run as soon as the weakness abated slightly.
The rest of the day passed even slower than the morning had. The men he worked with weren’t any friendlier than Evres, but he didn’t have the energy to make conversation anyway. He didn’t really have the energy for the work, either. Twice he stumbled and dropped something. The first time, Restir snapped at him. The second time, he asked if Zoper was okay. With a forced smile, he nodded.
Finally, finally, it was six o’clock: time to go home.
Home for how much longer?
By the time Zoper was walking through the woods toward his house, he had given up on keeping his posture straight, and on ignoring the stress that he’d been dodging for so long. It had caught up to him. There was no more avoiding it. He was in debt, he was so physically exhausted that he could barely work. Without any hope of paying back the money through a middle-class job at the mill, he would have to sell the house. The only home he and his siblings had ever known.
Jakkit would probably want to kill him. Yaila would cry. He knew her tears would hurt him far more than Jakkit’s anger.
On the porch, he opened the door, stamping his boots half-heartedly on the rug. “Yaila, Jakkit, I’m home.” No delicious aroma of supper, like there always was when their mother was alive. Jakkit and Yaila occasionally worked together to cook something up after school, but mostly supper consisted of simple things; some bread and jam, cold meat from the cellar, cheese and canned fruit.
Except, the table was bare of even those items. And there were no voices to answer him, no Yaila scampering out to greet him.
“Yaila?” He ventured further into the house, checking the kitchen, her bedroom, Jak’s bedroom, his bedroom, their parents’. Nothing. Swallowing, Zoper turned and went back outside, searching the yard. “Yaila, Jakkit! Come on guys. Let’s play hide-and-seek after some supper, alright?”
His voice rang out, only to be absorbed by the stillness of the evening. Nothing stirred.
Dread stabbed his chest like a knife. Sprinting back to the house, he went inside and scanned every room again, this time for their school books.
Those weren’t there either.
They never made it home.
Zoper tore out of the house and back down the path he’d just come from. Panic-driven adrenaline overcame his exhaustion, lending speed to his legs that got him the three miles to the city gate in record time. Panting, sweating, and shaking with both fear and fatigue, but there, just in time.
“Hey, that you, Zoper?” one of the guards hailed him. “You look a sight, kid. What’s—”
“I need to go in.” The words came out hoarse, between ragged breaths, as he started forward to pass them.
“Hey, wait,” the man caught his arm, “we close this gate at sundown, which is in ten minutes. You know that. Whatever business you have in the city can wait until morning, surely.”
“No it can’t!” He brushed past the man. Frenzy was leaking into his voice. “My siblings didn’t come home. I have to…please just let me in.”
They backed up, allowing him passage. He sped up to a run again, knowing he wouldn’t be able to hold it much longer. He stumbled into the schoolyard, gasping for breath. There wasn’t a soul in sight. No response came to his croaked calls. Where could they be?
An image filled his mind, shoving out everything else. His father and mother, lying in a pool of their own blood, in the forest not far from their home. Attacked while out on a walk. His mother’s eyes already fixed on nothing, lifeless. His father only able to get out a few garbled words past the blood in his throat, before he died. Murdered by a band of ruffians who didn’t like his policies.