As I zigzag my way through the tightly packed tents, I see all the usual nighttime village activities: a woman hanging wet clothes from a line; Totters playing tag, squealing with delight, their mother scolding them for making too much noise, one hand on her hip and the other holding a wooden spoon; a big family praying to the sun goddess before eating dinner—probably ’zard stew or fried pricklers—this one a man with his three Calls and nine children. A Full Family. A rare thing to see these days.

Most of the tents are boxy and upright, a standard collection of ten wooden poles of varying lengths based on size of family, knotted tightly together with cords at each corner. Four of the poles are dug into three-foot-deep holes and form the tent corners, rising up to meet the side and cross beams which run along the upper sides of the tent, as well as through the middle of the ceiling, forming an X, and helping to support the heavy tugskins, which are knitted together and provide the tent covering.

However, some of the tents are half-collapsed, their support poles cracked, bent, or rotted. Anything from strong winds to wild animals to age and decay coulda caused the damage, but the families that live in these tents are forced to make due, as they won’t be allotted any further wood unless the sun goddess grants a miracle and trees start growing in the desert, or the contract with the Icers can be renegotiated with more favorable terms.

We used to live in one of those broken down tents.

But now, ’cause my father’s a top-ten Greynote, we get to live in a sturdy wooden hut.

I reach the end of the eastern tent fields and cut across the eye of the village, which is the quickest path to the western side, where the families of the oldest Greynotes live. I’m not sure why I’m in such a hurry all of a sudden—I think ’cause being alone in the night scares me.

As it has for every night I can remember, a large fire roars in the village center, casting a reddish-orange halo of flickering light in every direction. Men sit on stone benches drinking fire juice and telling boisterous stories and jokes that end with raucous laughter from their mates. There’re no women in sight.

A group of Youngling boys sit with the men and try to act grown up by being every bit as loud as their fathers. They even sip out of leather flasks, which are likely filled with cactus milk or perhaps milk from their own mother’s teats. I laugh softly at my own joke.

I hurry by, giving the fire a wide berth, keeping my head down so as to not draw any attention to myself. Considering I look like a drowned rat, that’s easier said’n done. When I do glance over at the fire to confirm I’m in the clear, one of the Younglings stands up, stares at me. No, I think. It’s Hawk. Here we go again.

Forcing one foot in front of the other, I keep moving swiftly, not running, not walking, but preparing myself to run like scorch if necessary. But Hawk doesn’t move, just watches me, his eyes tracing my path across the village, his lips curled into a smile. He points, says something to his buddies, and they all laugh. I let out a long exhalation when I pass out of their sight and between two of the Greynote huts.

Away from the glow of the fire, it’s dark, and I stop in the shadows, panting, trying to force the thud, thud, thudding in my chest to slow down. I lean against the side of one of the sturdy huts, suddenly feeling the need for something to support me. For a few seconds, I just breathe, in and out, in and out, a simple act that my body normally performs automatically, without me even thinking ’bout it, but which now seems so difficult, as if it requires every bit of my energy to make the oxygen fill and then exit my lungs.

Eventually, however, my heartbeat does slow, my breathing does return to normal, and I’m able to move on. My only concern now is what my father’ll say when he sees me. Or more accurately, what he’ll do to me.

Chapter Four

The huts flit away on either side. Two, four, six—turn right. Thud!

I run smack into someone who’s moving in the opposite direction. My feet get tangled and I stumble, start to fall backwards, but strong arms grab my thin ones and haul me up, the soles of my moccasins lifting off the ground for a moment ’fore clamping back down. A familiar face stares down at me.

“Where have you been?” Wrapped up in the voice’s tone is a question, a threat, and a punishment, all bundled together in one angry snarl. Without waiting for an answer, my father growls, “Get inside!” His fingers are like pincers, cutting into my upper arm and beneath my armpit, as he drags me into the hut on the left. His hut. Although I always called the old, beat up tent we used to live in our tent, since moving to the hut, I’ve never referred to it as our hut. It’s always been his.

His domain, his palace, his power.

His hut. A king in his castle.

My mom and I are just squatters.

I allow him to pull me inside, ’cause fighting him would just deepen the bruises that I can already feel settling beneath my skin. You cannot resist! The phrase pops unrequested into my head. It’s what the leader of the Glassies said to us using some sorta device that magnified his voice like a god’s. At the time, he was only a speck in the distance, his army of fire chariots and strange, pale-skinned warriors stretched out in front of him, but his voice boomed across the sand-blasted desert plains, over the heads of the men defending us, and into the ears of every woman, child and Fire-afflicted man left behind.

You cannot resist!

The phrase fits so well with my current situation that I accidentally snort. It just slips out, a laugh that I try to stop, to cover with my free hand, which just makes it worse, turning it into a…well, a snort. My father stops just in front of the door, whirls on me, his eyes a black void of anger. “Is something funny?” he says between clenched teeth.

I stare at him, my eyes and mouth wide. When I don’t answer, he says, “You show up well past your curfew, smelling like filth, wetter’n a Soaker, and you think something is funny?” His mouth is all screwed up like he wants to spit on me, and I know I’d better break my silence soon or things are only gonna get worse.

“What’s a Soaker?” I ask ’fore I can stop myself. When I see his face redden, I backtrack. “No—I mean, no, sir. I didn’t mean to…I didn’t think…”

He releases my arm and pulls his hand back across his body, preparing to strike. I close my eyes, cringe, wait for the blow to come—

Creeaakkk!

A second passes, then two. I open my eyes to find a woman staring at us from the doorway of the hut across the way. Tari—last remaining wife of the Head Greynote. Older’n durt—thirty three years old!—but tougher’n iron. She’d hafta be to handle her husband.

My father glances at Tari, then back at me. His eyes narrow and for a second I think he’ll hit me anyway, but then the tension drops from his arm at the same time as it drops to his side. “Inside. Now,” he says.

Just before pushing through the door, my eyes flick to Tari and I try to convey my thanks in the look I give her, but her expression is neutral and I can’t tell if she gets the message.

As I move inside, heat radiates off my father. He’s royally grizzed this time—more’n I’ve ever seen before. I wonder if now—in the privacy of our own home—he’ll hit me.

While he closes the door, I scan the room. Even without looking, I coulda pictured it. Sari, my newest Call-Mother, sits cross-legged on the floor, making something, probably clothing for one of her kids. Her children, Rafi and Fauna, who are my Call-Brother and Call-Sister, sit next to their mother, playing some game—Rocktop or Tugbug or something. There’s an empty chair beyond, where my last Call-Mother used to sit, before a Killer attack two years ago took her and her two children, Jace and Naya. I cried when they died. Father gave me four snappings on my wrist and I shut up; but what he didn’t know is that I continued to cry inside, where it counts the most, in my heart. My mother taught me that.