look out the windows by the front door, exiting the building when we are sure that there is no one around.
We move much more carefully toward the next promising-looking building. It is lifeless like the previous one, and I am no longer able to pretend that what we are doing now is anything like what we’ve done before. Still, I push myself, satisfied that if a few more places give us the good fortune that the last home did, we will have more than enough to be done.
Chesrie is also acting edgier as we go from house to house. She jumps at each noise almost as badly as I do. It’s hard not to. Being in such profound silence in such a dead place makes everything that creates a sound feel like it’s alive.
“Look at this,” she whispers, holding the pendant of a necklace out to me. “At first, it didn’t seem like much, but I’ve been seeing this strange symbol on a lot of things. What do you think it means?”
I take it from her hand and study it more closely using the white aura of sunless light pouring in from the window. A horizon line runs across the pendent. On top of the horizon is a black half-sun with the crescent moon hanging higher to its right. Below the moon and horizon is the other side of the sun, which is filled like a pool of blood. To its left is a black star, which is connected to the moon by a thin, curved line.
“I don’t know,” I answer, rubbing the embossed edges of the symbol, which I find quite beautiful, “but I recognize it from outside the inn. I think it’s also etched into the boardwalk in places.”
“Strange,” she mumbles, “but very elegant. I kind of want to keep it. It’s unique.”
“Yeah,” I agree, “but let’s worry about that later.”
The path we take through town leads us further inland, eventually ending at the edge of a forest. Several small to medium-sized huts have been built up against it and away from the rest of the town’s buildings. They appear altogether rougher and less refined than the homes we’ve been raiding, but I wander their way out of curiosity. Chesrie follows.
We approach the front door of the nearest one. I gently push it open, instantly regretting my decision to have come this far. A scatter of things line the floor, indicating a struggle of some sort, and a faint trail of blood streaks across the center of the room and out the door.
“We should never have come here,” I turn to Chesrie, whose pale face perfectly matches how I feel.
But then I hear a soft thud coming from inside of the home, like that of something light being knocked over. My impulse, however, is not to flee. I instead turn around slowly and step further inside. I can’t bring myself to walk away now not knowing what is going on or what actual danger we are in. We can’t flee blindly into the mist.
“What are you doing?” Chesrie chokes out.
I don’t answer, putting my finger to my lips. My eyes shift from one side of the room to the other. There are no hallways or other parts to the hut. It’s simply a large room with one bed. Whoever lives here, or lived here I hesitate to conclude, must have been alone, but where did the noise then come from?
Once that question enters my mind, I hear another muffled sound, this time from below us. It confuses me, that is until the sound repeats itself, allowing me to locate its source. It is coming from underneath a table that is tucked against the wall opposite to the front door. Beneath that table is a space just a couple of inches above the ground, and a subtle gap has been cut into the baseboard there.
“A trapdoor,” I say quietly.
Together, Chesrie and I push the table out of the way and open it. A faint flicker of light, like that of a lit candle, rises up from the darkness below. A sound accompanies it. The soft whimpering of a crying child.
Chesrie and I immediately climb down and find the child, a little girl, curled up in the corner of the surprisingly large hideaway that has been built beneath the hut. Chesrie puts her arms around her as I grab a blanket from the child’s bed and cover the two of them.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Chesrie says sweetly, hushing the little girl and rocking her back and forth in her arms.
I study the room more as the two of them sit there. It is framed and walled, which is not what I am accustomed to seeing in hidden compartments. Then again, this doesn’t seem like a normal hideaway. It is a bedroom, one for a child who for some reason needs to be kept concealed.
I glance up again toward the trapdoor, but the brightness pouring in through it makes it difficult to see Chesrie and the little girl when my eyes shift back down. I climb a few rungs back up the ladder to close it. Then, to my relief, I find a latch, which I use to lock it.
“What’s your name?” asks Chesrie.
The little girl looks up at her for the first time. Her eyes are green, greener than any I’ve ever seen, and glow even in the dim light.
“My name is Kindra,” she says.
Her voice surprises me. It doesn’t sound weak or childlike, though she appears to be quite young. Rather, it sounds mature. Had I not seen her and only heard her voice, I’d have judged her to be a teenager with how clearly she speaks.
“Do you know what happened to my mother?”
My heart sinks. That must be whose blood is upstairs.
“No,” Chesrie answers apologetically, “we don’t know anything about what happened. We were hoping maybe you knew something.”
“Just that they took her. She was coming back for me. It was supposed to be our chance to escape. That man must have followed her when she snuck away to come get me. He came from behind and hit her when she was about to move the table. She fought back, but he hit her again and took her away. He must not have seen me.”
“What were you two trying to escape from?” I butt in.
“The Day of Tribute,” she answers solemnly.
Chesrie and I stare at each other confused. Kindra seems to pick up that we have no idea what she’s referring to.
“How could you come here not knowing what that is?”
I doubt either of us is willing to answer that question, especially to an innocent child. I glance once more at Chesrie, hoping that she will have something to say, but she is just as stunned as I am at Kindra, who to our relief stops pressing for answers and decides instead to enlighten us on what is going on.
“The day of tribute is why I’m down here. My mother gave birth to me in secret. No one knew she was even pregnant. That way, when the day of tribute came, I wouldn’t be the one offered up.”
“Offered up?” Chesrie perplexes.
“Every five years, when Maltehom comes, someone from the island is given to him as a tribute. My mother says that it’s because he collects souls to take back to his lair underneath the Dead Seas. A long, long time ago, he came to take everyone on the island there, but our leaders made a pact with him. Instead, they give him a tribute, one person, every five years. Today is the day he comes.”
I’ve been told about Maltehom many times before, but the stories are all different. The most recent one I heard was actually from Anwir. While we were traveling from the mainland out to the archipelago, he was teasing Chesrie about how Maltehom was going to get her and that there was nothing she could do about it. It made me laugh at the time, but I don’t feel like laughing anymore.
“Do you know where all the people are?” I ask.
“On the other side of the island. That’s why my mother thought this would be our chance to get away. Because the tribute is done at the western harbor and everyone has to go, there would be no one to stop us. She was going to be so careful. She’s so smart. I don’t know why she wasn’t able to get away unseen. Unless…” she trails off.
“Unless what?” Chesrie begs, but Kindra begins crying.
“No, why would they do that?” she whines to herself. “This year was supposed to be different.”
“Different how?” I interrupt, but we all go quiet when the steps of someone above us suddenly reverberate through the floor.
We become absolutely still when the person stops moving, perhaps having noticed the displaced desk.
I look up at the trapdoor, grateful that I decided to lock it. After a second, the person hurries across the room and tries to open it. The trapdoor rattles violently, matching the rapid beating of my heart, while my terrified lungs panic for air. But though the door shakes and shakes, it does not budge, and just as quickly as it came, the rattling stops as the person seems to disappear.
“There’s another way out,” Kindra whispers, pointing toward the far corner of the room. “My father built it before he died.”
“Let’s go then,” Chesrie says as she lifts Kindra to her feet.
We move slowly across the room. I glance up at the floor above, wondering if the person is still there. When we get close to the corner, I realize that there actually isn’t a corner at all. Instead, a cavity between two rocks forms a tunnel that can be crawled through, though it’ll be a tight fit for Chesrie and me.
“It’s safe,” Kindra reassures. “I sneak out sometimes when it’s night.”
She then quickly disappears into the crack. Chesrie looks at me as though she expects me to go next. I oblige, getting on my knees and crawling through. Kindra greets me on the other side, which ends up being a small cave. I have to crouch when I get up, as does Chesrie, who emerges right behind me. The three of us then climb a steep slope toward the cave’s entrance.
We surface just behind the hut in a patch of trees and bushes concealed by large boulders. Chesrie grabs Kindra’s hand and starts walking north with