Chapter 6: Pt. 1, Ch. 6: Through Sunset Gates

Part 1

Chapter 6: Through Sunset Gates 

The forest gave no sign of which way Rosa had gone. There was little grass between the trees to be crumbled to ash underfoot, no low hanging branches to be disturbed by the brush of a hand. The coal ground was too loose and dry to hold any footprints. There was no sign anyone had ever been there at all. No voices echoed through the trees. The only sound was the crackle of flames when the blackbirds soared across the night sky. 

Still wary of what else might be lurking around the camp, Davcina had commanded Terrell to stand guard atop the walls, while Honora waited within in case Rosa managed to get past him. Meanwhile, Rocco and Davcina made slow, outward circles through the forest, searching for any sign of where Rosa and the pregnant girl might have gone. More accurately, Davcina looked for signs while Rocco did his best to keep himself from running headlong into the unknown, shouting frantically for his sister. 

He should have waited with her and the girl. It had never occurred to him that Rosa would do something like this, but it should have. It was just like her to get an idea and run off with it regardless of the dangers it might bring. And Rocco had heard her assure the pregnant girl no one would take her baby. He should have known what she meant by it. That no one would take her baby because Rosa would not let them take it. He should have gone to check on her. He would have at least gone with her. But he was stupid enough to think that after wandering off once and spending the entire summer as a hostage because of it, his sister might have a mind to stay put.

Now they might never find her again. Terrell had suggested their means of escape would be through the cave from which they came, but Davcina was reluctant to follow any one path blindly. Rosa had only been in the woods for a summer, but the pregnant girl had been there much longer. The camp might not have been the only place the men brought her. 

It had been nearly impossible to get any information out of the pregnant girl or Rosa. His sister neglected to include many of the details of how she came to meet the man who took her into the forest, and it did not seem to bother her in the least that she could not remember the answers to most of his questions. That was hardly unusual for her. Distracted as she was by caring for her fellow captive, she had no concern for herself. Once the task was finished, she would move on to the next one until there were no more. Then all her thoughts and feelings would burst from her all at once, until there was nothing left, at least for a while. 

However, the pregnant girl seemed to remember just as little, and what’s more, what she remembered made little sense. Rocco and Rosa tried to veer away from any topic that might upset her by asking about her childhood and how she came to be in America. She claimed to have fled her village in Sicily when the British attacked, but the British had been on their side in the war. Rocco wrote it off as a lack of education, but Rosa objected strongly. 

“She is clever,” Rosa insisted. “All of the shedim said so. She made them a calendar that counted the days and months without the moon or the sun. They have a collection of clocks, but none of them work except the hourglasses. She built something with them. They showed me.” She had looked around the camp, her face falling as she noticed the destruction. “It must be gone now.” 

“She could be clever without being educated,” argued Rocco. “And they weren’t shedim. They had human feet.” The talk of clocks reminded him to return their father’s pocket watch to her. 

Now she was lost again, and it seemed the forest was determined to prevent Rocco from ever finding her.  

But just as he was beginning to lose hope, there she was, ambling leisurely through the trees as if out for a stroll through her garden. Alone.

“Rosa.” Rocco ran to her before Davcina even noticed her.  “What happened?” Rocco asked as he embraced her. He let go after a long moment, but still held her firmly by the shoulders, lest she run off again. “Where’s the girl?”

“I took her home,” said Rosa, as if her impromptu errand had been known to all. 

Davcina appeared at Rocco’s side. “Rosa, you… We were going to wait until the child was born, Rosa.”

“But she could not give birth here.” Rosa looked between her and Rocco, confused. “And she was frightened.”

“The baby, Rosa,” Rocco tried to explain. “It might not be good for her to keep it.”

“Then she will decide that,” said Rosa. She shook Rocco off and strode towards the camp, greeting Terrell merrily as she found him crouched atop the stone wall, lurking in the shade of the trees. 

“What happened?” Terrell asked Davcina when he reached the ground. His eyes widened as she recounted what Rosa had done. 

They followed Rosa back into the clearing, Terrell questioning Davcina along the way. Rocco set his attention back on his sister, lacking the energy and patience to follow the English.

“Rosa,” Rocco hastened to keep up with her, “why didn’t you tell me you were taking the girl home? I would have come with you.”

“No one was talking about taking her home,” Rosa replied, making no effort to keep her voice down. “They were talking about taking her baby.”

“They think it might be an evil thing, Rosa,” Rocco started to reason with her, but he knew it was of no use. Arguing with Rosa was exhausting even when he had conviction, and just now he was not so sure. He glanced back at Davcina to make sure she was still talking to Terrell. “We have to get out of here,” he said to Rosa in a low voice. “I don’t trust that woman.”

“But I haven’t shown you any of the houses yet,” Rosa protested. “The men collected the most beautiful things. Their library is ten times the size of papa’s.” 

“We don’t have time for books, Rosa. You saw the fire. That woman, she did that.”

“They have books I’ve never seen before, not even in the university,” she continued as if she had not heard him. “There were dozens of original manuscripts, some of them for works I’ve never even heard—”

“Rosa, listen to me,” Rocco wished he could shout, but all he could risk was a hysterical whisper. “She mutilated those bodies. She’s not a normal woman. She has no humanity, no remorse. She—”

He was interrupted by an exclamation from Davcina. 

“What is it?” he asked her just as she grabbed Rosa’s arm, stopping both of them.  

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“Rosa,” she said, ignoring Rocco entirely, “you took the girl all the way home?”

“Not home, exactly.” Rosa turned to look at her, still not the least bit aware of the stress her actions had caused. “She was afraid to go home, so we went to a church.”

“Which church?” asked Davcina. 

Rosa looked from her to Rocco, confused. “Her church. I… I’ve never been there before…”

“Rosa,” said Davcina, “you didn’t come from the right direction. How did you make it back to the caves,” she pointed back towards the camp, “and how did you get back through the caves so fast?”

Rosa shook her head. “We didn’t go to the caves. Her home is not in the city.”

“Where is her home?” Rocco asked Rosa. 

“In a little town just through the forest,” Rosa replied, continuing her walk. “It must be far from the city. The smells and sounds were much different.”

“Were there stars?” asked Davcina. “Or a moon?”

“No, it was sunset when I returned,” said Rosa.  

Davcina exchanged a look with Terrell and translated into English.

“That’s what the shedim called this part of the forest,” she added to Rocco. “Sunset. There were people everywhere out on the streets, and the church was so beautiful…”

Rocco’s attention drifted away from her as he looked back at Davcina and Terrell walking behind them just out of earshot, muttering to one another, gesturing towards Rosa. He hoped if they intended on going to search for the pregnant girl, they would leave Rosa out of it, but how could they? She was the only one who knew where the girl went. Then again, how hard could it be to find a church in a little town? Their bells could be heard for miles. They could let him and his sister go while they went off to search for the girl. 

The camp appeared deserted when they returned. Rocco took care to steer Rosa towards the stone houses by a path that would take them past as few burned bodies as possible. Despite how she had come to be there, she seemed fond of the strange men. Between being burned and butchered, even Rocco was sickened by the sight of the bodies, he who had wished them dead not an hour before. 

“Honora!” 

Rocco looked back at the sound of Davcina’s shout, detecting an edge of panic to her voice for the first time that night. 

“What?” Honora ran out of one of the stone houses wearing a white fur coat far too big for her, a flute in hand. “I’m here. What’s wrong?”

“What happened to the bodies?” Davcina stood next to Terrell by the stream just outside the houses, gesturing towards the corpses she had torn up earlier. 

“You did that,” said Honora defensively. “Don’t you remember?”

“Look again,” Davcina gestured more strongly.

“What is she talking about?” Rosa asked Rocco, wandering towards the others before he could stop her. 

“What do you mean?” Honora came closer.

The five of them stood in a half circle, looking down at the charred remains, seemingly the same pile of torn limbs and blood-soaked entrails they had left behind when they went to search for Rosa. But something was not right.

“Where are their heads?” Rosa looked around at the others curiously. “Did you do something with them?”

Davcina shook her head. “Nor did we do anything with their hands.” 

More than half of the heads and hands had vanished. The ones that remained were nothing but clay. 

“An animal could have carried them off,” suggested Rocco, but neither Rosa nor Davcina bothered to reply or translate for the others. It was plain that no animal would carry off the heads and hands and leave the rest. The surrounding trees gave no sign nor sound of any living creature, save the blackbirds that flitted from branch to branch in balls of flame. 

 

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