She bent to kiss my forehead, and the familiar scent of warm bread filled my nose. It was the scent of my mother. She reached for the book, taking it from my hands.
As she lifted it, a slip of paper drifted from between the pages, settling on top of the heavy covers that blanketed me. My mother didn’t notice it, and as she turned to set the book on my bedside table, I reached for the note, unfolding it.
I knew immediately that I wasn’t the one who’d hidden it there.
And when I read the words written on the page, I drew in a sharp breath.
“What is it, Charlaina?” she asked, turning back to me.
I shook my head but kept the note hidden beneath the covers, clutched within my fist.
She raised her eyebrows, as if she was going to ask again, when we heard the three familiar bursts of the siren coming from outside, reminding all that it was time to take cover, that the streets were now off-limits. When she turned back to me, her curiosity was forgotten and she reached for the lamp, turning the flame all the way down. “Good night, Charlie,” she said, this time in Englaise, surprising me, since she normally refused to speak it within the confines of our home.
“Good night, Mom,” I answered with a sudden mischievous grin, surprising her by speaking her favored language.
When the door closed and I was certain she was gone, I turned the flame back up.
I had to read it again.
Or maybe two . . . or three . . . or fifty more times, I thought, pulling out the rumpled note and carefully unfolding it.
The paper was now creased in places that it hadn’t been before, where my fingers had squeezed it, hiding it from my mother’s view.
I looked at the words scrawled there, wondering at them, trying to decide exactly how I felt about them. Every muscle in my body tensed. The hairs on my arm stood on end.
I read it one last time, committing the words to memory so I could recall them later. Then I tucked it away again inside my book before turning off my lamp once more.
I listened to the sounds of my little sister’s sleeping breaths as I wondered what it would be like to hear those words rather than just to read them. To listen to them quietly whispered in the night.
In any language.
IX
I couldn’t bring myself to look at it again. Not once over the next few days did I even allow myself to peek at the note nestled inside the flap of my schoolbook.
I was too afraid. Too worried about the words I’d read, words heavy with meaning and laced with the promise of things not said.
I was terrified of him.
I tried to concentrate on my lesson, on the professor lecturing us from the front of the classroom. He was passionate, even after years of teaching the same subject, the history of our people, the Vendor class.
Our lessons were divided into blocks that included three hours in history—one hour of Vendor history and how we fit into our society; another about the history of our country; and yet another about world history, which was filled with stories of ancient aristocracies, democracies, and dictatorships that had risen and failed before the Time of Sovereigns.
Because we were vendors, there were also classes in trade, accounting, and economics. Our one discretionary hour could be fulfilled by anything in the arts, sciences, or culinary skills. Still, these elective classes had a purpose that served a vendor’s skill set. Even art involved learning about textiles, potteries, and graphics that could be packaged and sold. All of it training, preparing us to take our place in society.
I took halfhearted notes on the lecture, pretending that what the teacher said was more interesting than the letter concealed inside the book beneath my desk.
When I shifted my foot, I inadvertently bumped my leather bag, spilling its contents onto the floor. I bent over to pick up the mess, ducking my head beneath my table, gathering pencils and sheets of paper that had slipped out. I took great care to arrange everything, placing it all neatly inside. I saw the folded note peeking up from behind the cover of the book in which I’d hidden it.
I brushed my fingertips across the lineny surface, my skin sparking with electricity, my fingers itching to pull it free.
I shouldn’t, I told myself, even as I held my breath and watched myself withdrawing it from the book. I tried to tamp down the feeling of anticipation coursing through me at the same time I argued that it was a mistake to look at it again.
It didn’t deserve any more of my time. He didn’t deserve the space he already occupied in my mind.
I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed me there, tucked beneath my desk, reading a note that I’d already memorized.
No one paid me any attention.
I held the letter, vividly picturing the six words written inside the folds. Six words that I already knew by heart. Six words that meant more to me than they should.
I unfolded the top third of the paper, then the bottom, purposely keeping my eyes unfocused for just a moment.
My heart stopped.
And then my eyesight cleared.
I pledge to keep you safe.
I spent the rest of the day trying to forget the note, trying to undo the damage I’d done in the moment that IR Bght At IR 17;d allowed myself to read it just one more time. The words now felt inescapable, as if they’d somehow been etched into me and the letters were traced, ragged and raw, into my very flesh. The meaning behind them made my head ache.
He was asking too much from me with that simple pledge.
How could he vow such a thing? How could I take such a promise seriously? He barely knew me, and I certainly didn’t know him. Not well enough to trust him. Not with the kind of information he already knew, or at least suspected he knew, about me.