Short Story Time! (Part 2)

Check out Part 1 HERE

The Dealers of Justice/The Procession

part 2

The land came and went easily under their feet despite the wind. When the last slant of light slithered from the earth back to the sun, Five stopped them by a twisted grove of trees that marked the beginning of the forest. Without a word, One set down the lantern on the flattest patch of soil as Four set out to scout the next leg ahead of them. Three sat on the ground and stretched out his limbs, then pulled out a small wooden flute and began cleaning the notches in its side.

On the fringe of light cast by the lantern, Two walked the girl to the fresh remnants of a fallen tree. There he offered her his canteen of water. She made no motion to accept it, leaving him to awkwardly take a swig himself. Afterwards, he passed his end of the rope to the girth of the tree, tying it firm. He checked the rope around her wrists in turn, adjusting the knot so that it was tight but did not cut into her skin.

Two hoped that she would say something. By now, he was certain that any expression that could color her eyes would ground this girl as a convicted in his charge, because in this world there was a need for Two who guarded the desperate, the indignant, the cruel, Two who soothed and shushed and comforted the wretched. There was no Two for the emotionless. 

“We continue in the morning,” he said finally.

She stared at the tree before her, not so much stirring at his words.

Farther off in the grove, One leaned against the warped trunk of a tree. “So what are your guesses?”

Four grunted in question.

“You know, why she’d kill the man.”

“Not any man,” the larger boy corrected carefully. “Her husband.”

“And you’d think she’d actually kill the man?” One rubbed his jaw with a hand.

Behind them, the underbrush crackled. Both boys turned to Two emerging from the shadows.

“What’s your guess?” asked One.

“Nice girl,” Two murmured, and Four murmured his consent.

“Yeah,” agreed One. “Usually the Killings make a dash for it, don’t they? Think she’s deaf?”

“Why would you say that?” asked Two.

“Perhaps she didn’t hear the sentence,” Four said.

A glance passed between the three as the thought registered.

“No,” said Two quietly. “She hears alright.”

“Think she could have killed him?” pressed One, returning to his curiosity.

Two shifted his weight. “Dunno. Maybe.”

Four reached into his satchel. “Let’s read the report.”

“Yeah, read it out loud.”

Four cleared his throat, then spoke only loud enough for those in proximity to hear: “Male, 21. Blow to the temple. Cause of death: bleeding from the artery. 

One whistled. “Pretty brutal for a pretty girl.”

“It’s not about the looks,” Two suddenly snapped, flushing when he became aware of his outburst.

One frowned, turning to Three as he joined them. “What about you? What do you think of the girl killing her husband? Doesn’t look it to me.”

“Does it matter?” The others watched as Three began whittle the flute with his knife. Once, it had been as long as his arm, but over the course of a year it had shrunk to the length of a hand.

“No, really.” Swiftly, One snatched the knife. “Don’t you go into your shell now. This is important. What if she isn’t guilty?”

The words slammed Two into silence and stole what conjecture Four had been brewing in his mind. But when they reached Three, they slowed to trudge through the mud in his mind.

He tried to force himself to think but found that all he could think of in the moment was his childhood friend, Di. She was a great girl—a great climber, too. They used to climb all fruit trees in her farm. Sometimes, they picked fruit, but more often they just sat behind the foliage in a content silence.

They had plans. Small plans, like going down to the creek to fish, but big plans, too. When Three turned sixteen and she fifteen, they had planned to get married.

The past winter, Di’s father fell gravely ill, and so she married the cogworker’s son for his inheritance in order to pay for the healer’s visits. 

Two’s voice pushed through the fog and clung feebly to the sides of his skull. “Do you think it could be true?”

“What do you think, Three? Doesn’t look it to be me.”

“You don’t think she could have killed him, right?”

“Think it could be true?”

“She probably killed him for inheritance.”

Two outright gaped while Four eyed Three in concern.

Three didn’t care for their reactions. He took the chance to snatch his knife back from One’s slack hand.

The ground was hard and the wind was harsh and the trees made rustling sounds and he couldn’t fall asleep. But Five was a reflective boy, a specimen of human that spent a good amount of time looking inwards, turning over objects and searching for some sort of truth or definition that he knew he would never find. As a result of the searching, he knew himself well. Now, he knew that the ground, the wind, the trees were constants. What was actually keeping him awake was the soft shape that sat at the edge of the log.

He had been watching her for most of the night—not that he wanted to watch her. It was part of his job. They always tried to make a run for it at night, when the darkness seemed more forgiving to sin.

At first, he had watched her with scrutiny. For the most part, she sat still and upright. When she moved, it was a hand or a boot or a piece of hair, and even then she didn’t move much.

The more he watched, however, the more Five imagined that he knew her. Her life seemed to flash like leaves in the moonlight before his eyes, and he saw her as a young girl who sewed dolls and perhaps watched from behind her parents’ trousers and skirts as the procession cut through their town. Perhaps she had seen the previous Five and had admired him for his wit and decisiveness.

Blinking, Five tried to shutter out the images of the life of a girl he didn’t know.  The night weighed heavy on his mind, a powerful but unobtrusive presence. It steeped into his blood, made his senses sharper.

He suddenly considered getting up and walking over to that log. He played the scene through his head. He would sit down a far distance from her, and they would sit in silence. Then, when the time was right, he’d say:

Tell me what happened.

Not why, because he knew better than that. They would come flooding—the excuses, the tears, the pleas of set me free.

Or not. From where he sat against the tree, he studied her again. She was the quiet type to the marrow, if he had deduced correctly (and Five might have been the leader because he often deduced correctly).

He played the scene again. He would get up, walk over, sit down, wait in silence, then he’d ask:

Why.

She would turn to him, eyes quiet and solemn, and whisper set me free. No pleas, no tears.

Maybe she’d say nothing.

 As he watched her, she slowly moved. Increment by increment, she wrapped her arms around herself. So small a motion that he almost missed it, she shivered.

He’d walk over to her and untie her wrists.

He’d say:

Go.

Tell me what happened was bad enough.

Once again, thanks for reading and let me know of your thoughts!