The Cutting was yesterday. We missed it. Soon as we hit the trail out of our valley, I knew we would. I’ve seen dirtworms slither faster than some of our lot walk. Three boggin’ days it’s taken us to get to Deep Six. On my own I could hike it in one, but that was never going to happen. Out here in the Barrenlands, you go mob-handed and in dayshine or you don’t go at all. Our wildlife’s too nasty and there’s always the chance of running into Reapers. It’s a curse, missing the Cutting, but at least we’ve made it to the Peace Fair in time for tomorrow’s Unwrapping.
‘C’mon, Kyle,’ Nash says to me. ‘You done yet?’
Our men have cleared off to do some catch-up drinking, the women and the girls to check out the merchants’ stalls. Nash and me, we’ve been left behind with the wagons, stuck with setting up camp and finding fodder for our fourhorns. Now we’re supposed to sit tight and look after everything. Don’t think so.
I hammer the last guy rope in. ‘All done.’
We head towards the roars of delight from the nearby fairground. I feel sick with excitement and sweat pours off me. See, this is my first Fair.
‘I’m going to tell them,’ says Nash.
He’s only a year older than me, but he’s been to loads of Fairs already. We both know I could be flogged for not attending sooner. Once you’re ten, the Saviour’s law says you must go, at least once every three years.
‘Give us a break, Nash.’
He sniggers. He’s such a gommer.
It’s Rona’s fault. She won’t say why, but she never attends the Fair. She gets away with it because she’s the only healer in Freshwater. Which is fine, I guess, and none of my business. Except every year she comes up with some excuse why I can’t go neither. Last year, I kicked up. Told her I was going, no matter what. Next thing I know, I’m flat on my back with swamp pox, the only dose in the three valleys. Rona denies it, course she does, but I swear she gave it to me deliberate. And you can die easy from the swamp pox. It’s a miracle I wasn’t scarred for life.
Well, she might be my mother, but I’m sixteen now.
At the gate, we hand over credits and flash our ID tags. I worry the gate man will figure out mine is fake, but this is the Barrenlands – he couldn’t care less.
Nash keeps his poisonous little mouth shut, for once.
We hurry through a dark tunnel to emerge blinking back into evenshine, halfway up some stone-built terraces, which curve round to form an immense arena. The size of the crowd rips the breath out of my lungs – I’d no idea there were this many people on Wrath, let alone in the Barrenlands. Stalls and show tents stand out like brightly painted islands in a boiling sea of bodies. It’s fierce loud. A madhouse of hoots and rough laughter and merchants yelling their wares.
‘Are those the idents in the cages?’ I ask.
‘What do you think?’ says Nash.
At the far side of the fairground is a stage, loads of cages stacked like crates around the back of it. Even from here I can see each cage has two child prisoners inside. So it’s true. We get to gawp at them between Cutting and Unwrapping. They can’t mess with their wounds without someone seeing.
Nash dives into the crowd. I follow him to a food stall.
Surprise, I end up paying for both of us. A credit buys a beer each and steaming bogbuck steaks wrapped in purple leaf. While I wolf the meat, I stare at the faces around me. Most are thick-fingered grubbers like us, but I see plenty of hunter and scavenger folk too. The locals are easy to spot, their pale miner faces scrunched up against the sun. Nearly as many women wander around as men, many with straw still plaited into their hair, to celebrate the recent harvest.
‘You don’t eat the leaf, you donk,’ says Nash.
‘Oh,’ I say. It was chewy.
I watch him as he takes a long pull from his beaker. His eyes water, but he doesn’t drop dead or anything, so I sip mine. It’s fierce strong beer and tastes foul, but he’s watching me back. I smack my lips and pretend to like it.
‘Rona’d kill me if she saw me drinking this.’
‘Rona ain’t here.’
After I finish it, I feel floaty. Can’t stop smiling, even at strangers. It’s like the hoots and yells and laughter get louder too. The crowd’s excitement is more catching than swamp pox. My heart starts pounding.
Why was Rona so worried about me coming here?
We bump into some girls from our valley then – Vijay, Mary and her little sister, Cassie. They tag along, which is no hardship. After a while, we end up near the stage and its wall of cages. Nash and the girls push on to watch jugglers, but I see two pale faces peering from the nearest cage and hang back.
Hairs stand up on the nape of my neck.
Both these girls have exactly the same long red hair, the same blue eyes, the same lips pulled down at the corners. One face two times. Twin sisters. Despite the muggy air, I shiver. I bet even their own mother couldn’t tell them apart.
Identical. But one is a monster.
I make the Sign of One. Our sign against evil.
‘Oh, come on,’ says Nash, back at my elbow. ‘Don’t go all pious on us.’
Mary and Vijay snigger, safe behind him.
I shake my head, feeling stupid. The cage looks solid enough and is covered in wire mesh. Both girls have iron leg shackles. They’re going nowhere.
And the thing is, neither looks evil to me, only scared.
‘Never seen idents before,’ I say. ‘That’s all.’
‘Not even baby ones?’ says Mary. ‘Doesn’t Rona heal them?’
I shrug. ‘She does, but always goes on her own. To spare the families.’
Even back in Freshwater, so tiny compared to this great big mining town, we have five families now cursed with ident babies. Rona’s helped deliver all of them, but won’t do the marking. Says chopping fingers off infants is no job for a healer. Sometimes I’ve heard these babies crying as I passed by, but I’ve never seen any of them. The shame is so great and guys like Nash would throw stones, so the unfortunate families raise them inside, behind bolted doors. Four long years of despair and misery before Slayers take them away to the ident camps.
What must it be like to be their parents? Just cruel.
And yet where would we be without the Saviour’s law to protect us?
‘Hey, see the bandages?’ says Nash, pointing.
Further along, two ident boys stand in their cage, gripping the bars. I see their forearms, bandaged from the Cutting. I see too that both bear the telltale mark of the ident, the little finger hacked from their left hand. Sick but clever that. Word is, back in the early days of the Saviour’s law, desperate parents would hide their ident offspring by splitting them up. No way to hide a missing finger though.
I look back at the redheads, but they see me staring.
Although I’ve paid good money to be here, I have to look away. Okay, so I know these girls are freaks, but it still feels wrong to gawp. Just does.
‘C’mon,’ says Nash, making to head off, ‘I’ll show you something better.’
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Those girls.’
Nash stops and stares, obviously not bothered in the slightest that they can see him looking. ‘Yeah. Cute, but not my type. What about them?’
‘Which do