We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky by Emma Hooper

Author:Emma Hooper [Hooper, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Published: 2022-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

The next time was the town jail. The big town, the big jail. Sarah and the others had been waiting to do that one until they had more bodies, more support, us. We’d have to walk through the night until morning, until the dirt turned to path turned to road and the brush turned to people turned to crowds.

You’re sure? whispered Liberata.

Yes, we’re sure, said Basil, catching my eye.

Yes, I said.

Liberata stayed at our camp to mind our fire and the silent one stayed at the other camp to mind their fire and their child, while Basil, the barbarian with the braid, and I walked towards town along the fold of the river as the buzzing bugs of night gave way to the buzzing bugs of day.

My name is Sarah, said the barbarian.

I’m Quiteria, I said.

Are you sure you want to do this again, so soon? asked Basil.

It’s not so much want to as have to, said Sarah.

And you’re not scared? I asked. After last time, after…

No, said Sarah. I’m not. I don’t want to die, but I’m not afraid to. Because it’s not really dying, is it? Not anymore. It’s just finishing in one place and starting in another. And that time, when you start, it will be forever, that time it’s starting and never finishing, never-ending.

Like a river? I said.

Exactly, said Sarah.

Basil nodded.

So you shouldn’t be afraid either, said Sarah. None of us should be.

I’m not, I said. Of course I’m not. I had my shield tied with gut rope to my back under my tunic. I had the warm, familiar handle of a sword in my sleeve, the blade flat against the inside of my wrist. I’m excited, I said.

We moved with the haphazard crowd through the town gates and in, then on towards the centre with the natural flow of people, goats, carts, and flies, and no one paid us any attention, none at all.

There had been stories of prison breaks, of course, stories that had spread across the hills and down the river, curled and spiralled around and around in the whirlpools of villages and towns; there had been stories that had spread, certainly, certainly as far as that town. But those stories involved monsters of men, barbarians huge with muscles and weapons and dogs and, sometimes, lions. They didn’t involve skinny girls and weary middle-aged women. They never did, even years later, even dozens, hundreds, of breakouts later. So these people, these guards didn’t pay us any attention at all either.

The jail was a hole-in-the-ground type, with the convicts down in a sort of pit with walls too tall and slick to climb, a cheap and, generally, effective design, if you had the space and slave power to dig it. There were two soldiers, two guards. They looked like Cyllius, but they weren’t Cyllius. One was outside the door, watching it. He had hair fair as sun-bleached grass, faraway hair. The other one was inside, watching the prisoners, making sure they didn’t try to

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