Page 37 of The Quiet
“The second meaning is that we are all connected, and when you kiss that person, you pass on your legacy. They are responsible for carrying it on if you die. It’s why the symbolism of blood is so important to the ROSE. They are a bloodline, but not by birth, but by sacrifice. As long as one ROSE is still alive, it carries the deaths and lives of all the others.”
Urged on by her curiosity, the man shared other things in great detail, taking a break for a while to teach her how to move a coin across her fingers. The break consisted mostly of him watching her drop it.
“It’s alright,” he reassured her when the stress manifested intensely on her face. She looked up at him, desperate for help after dropping it again. He still had that smile on his face, gentle now, and Baker wondered how someone could ever smile so much. It was as if he saw humor in everything.
He demonstrated it to her again, the coin flipping slowly over his hand. “I practiced a lot,” he explained, “it’s all about balance. I use it to make choices sometimes.” He handed the coin back to her. “Sometimes I think we’re better off with chance than with our choices, you know. There’s so much we can’t possibly know.”
Baker wondered at the idea, still working on balancing the coin until they arrived at the capital. Now she flipped it over her fingers without the frustration of trying to complete a task, but as if she held something magical. Flipping the coin became symbolic of risk.
This man let something as scary as chance dictate his choices. He really wasn’t afraid of anything, was he?
Both of them hopped out of the wagon, walking together up the main path. He stopped talking about the ROSE, warning her that the people around here wouldn’t take mention of them as lightly as he had.
At last, they reached a crossroads only a few more blocks near the Bleeding Grin.
“Why don’t you just ask the Strike to take your fears away?” the man asked, a common question for anyone visiting the capitol. It was clear she was afraid, infected by fear.
Baker shook her head resolutely.It’s mine.
It was one of the few things that she owned.
“You really do have the makings of a ROSE, don’t you?” he sighed in a burdened way and she visibly lit up.
“Calm down, calm down,” he said. He’d shown a keen adeptness to reading people, and Baker imagined he knew what she was thinking. “I told you, I’m not a recruiter. If you die before facing any of your fears, what use would that be anyway?”
That didn’t deter her hopeful stare.
“I really shouldn’t help you,” he said, “the world has its systems, you know. Things are this way for a reason. Things will be much easier for both of us if you just stay put.”
She thrust the coin out in front of him. He inspected it and chuckled, running a hand through his hair. Kneeling, he took it. “Alright. Fine,” he said. He flipped it and then looked at the result, raising an eyebrow. “Well,” he said and the way he seemed to be admitting defeat brought new joy to her. “Fine. Alright. If our paths cross again, then I’ll teach you to face your fears, but you have to understand that there is a reason people choose to live in fear all their lives.”
With a firm stare, and passions bolstered by the conversations of the evening, she looked resolutely forward and nodded.
In that moment, she could almost taste the freedom. She imagined briefly what fearlessness must feel like. Her slaver and captor for so many years, for the first time, she believed she could defeat it. She was more afraid than anyone she knew, and felt that one day her fear would be what killed her. The only way was forward.
Seeing the calm, steady strength in the man’s eyes, she knew that was what she wanted, she knew that somewhere it existed.
“Alright,” he said, extending his hand. She caught sight of his wrist again confirming the simple, single column of names. She shook his hand. “What’s your name?” he asked.
She felt the pressure to speak, and this time, she could not. Her face felt hot with embarrassment, but he reacted with ease.
“It’s alright,” he said as he straightened. “You’ll speak when you’re ready. Until next time, if chance allows. A promise is a promise. Silence is a powerful thing, but learn to practice your words while I’m gone,” he said and walked off.
She heard someone call her from down the street.
She turned abruptly to see Jolie jogging toward her. “Fisher thought he saw you.” She wrestled the bag of medication free. “This is it? You got here fast. Come on,” she said, urging Baker toward the gates of the Bleeding Grin. “Who was that man with you? Are you alright?”
Baker took one last glance at the alley as they headed back.
That night she found the closest thing to a coin, and tossed it over and over, measuring the state of her luck.
CHAPTER 11
THE SPIRIT OF LIFE
ELLA WOKE UP early to the throbbing in her arm. The morning was quiet and pristine, the weather crisp as breezes rustled the world around them with the subtle scent of pine bark. Sunrise brightened the haze of early dawn as she lifted herself with a stifled groan against the tree.
Were it not for the severity of her pain, she felt like she might be on any other early mission. For a moment, she half expected Crow to walk toward her through the mist and fog as he had so many mornings before. He was the last to sleep, and first to wake up, Ella willing him through the woods to greet her in a normal fashion like the embolism had never happened.
