Chapter Three: Too Cozy For Comfort
AS NILHIN HAD described earlier, despite the distance, the best way to summarise Nehe and Tsani’s cottage was that it was cozy. There were thin walkways, shallow stairs, and rugs thrown over nearly all the hardwood floors. Their table was pushed into the corner of the kitchen, and held onto three seats. There were flowers in vases, and drying herbs over the furnace and stove. Tsani pulled a chair out for him, and he slid between the tall wooden back and the edge of the square table. Angla sat across from him, picking up a wooden spoon to scrape an empty plate.
“What do you like to eat, Nilhin? We’ve got berries, fish, and bread,” Tsani said.
“I like whatever you don’t mind sparing for this one,” Nilhin said. Tsani reached down to squeeze his cheek before she gathered him a plate of all sorts of the foods she mentioned. Angla grasped the ornate porcelain teapot -- a much higher quality than almost anything else in the kitchen -- and tossed in a handful of colourful dried flowers and herbs. She poured him a cup after only a few minutes of steeping. Nilhin was taught how to make tea by his mother, and that was not how it was traditionally done, but perhaps they had a different way in Aurumte.
Nilhin used his dual-tined fork to pick up the grilled eel flesh and put it in his mouth. He scooped up a mouthful of berries and ate those as well. They were much sweeter than the ones he usually gathered for himself and his mother, and they bursted as soon as his teeth touched them. Nilhin sipped his tea as he ate, very aware that both Tsani and Angla were staring at him.
Minutes passed, and Angla poured him his third cup of tea, her hands trembling now as she did so.
“Are you alright, Angla?” he asked, setting his teacup down to hold her hand. Her skin was soft, but also unwashed. She had a layer of dust and grime over her hands that would probably take a good, coarse luffa fruit to scrape off. She jerked her hand away from him, as if his touch had burned her, and stood up, nearly knocking the teapot over.
“Poor Angla’s nerves are just frazzled, after she was hurt all those years ago,” Tsani insisted, holding her hands out to keep Nilhin in his seat. “Please, don’t mind her. Just drink your tea, and help yourself to whatever you’d like.”
Nilhin watched as Tsani grabbed Angla by her shoulder and pulled her out of the kitchen and through the narrow hallway. Nilhin picked his spoon up and continued to eat the berries, sipping on the tea every now and again. It was quite bitter, but it was liquid, and it cut the sweetness of the berries and the oiliness of the eel. He poured himself another cup, and had finished that, too, by the time Tsani had returned. Angla was nowhere to be seen.
“Is Angla okay, aunty Tsani?” he asked, setting his utensils down. “Do I make her nervous or something?”
“Oh, no, I’m sure it’s nothing like that,” Tsani insisted, taking Angla’s place at the table. She poured him more tea and smiled widely. A few of her teeth had chipped at the bottoms, but she was still so kind to him. Nilhin was finished with his food, but was nervous to say so. Tsani seemed insistent that he eat all he wanted, but he was very done. He was still hungry, but no matter how much he ate, and no matter how much his belly protested any additions, he wasn’t satisfied. It was a special hunger, he supposed. Nilhin hoped that such a feeling would go away, like it did when he was with his mother.
“I’m finished now, aunty Tsani, and this one thanks you for feeding him. I could help you with something if you’d like, but I’m not very good at farming, fishing, or basket weaving.”
“Well, how about you have one more cup of tea, and then I’ll take you to the shed and I can show you how to help me prepare the reeds for basket making,” she said. Nilhin agreed, and gazed at yet another cup of tea he had been poured. He may just die if he drank it, but it would be impolite to refuse. He quickly inhaled the liquid so that he didn’t have to think about it or taste it before he stood up. Tsani gave a chuckle that she quieted with her hand before she told him to follow her.
The shed was very large, almost bigger than the house, and when the doors opened up, it was very dark inside. Nilhin was blasted with the scent of rot, sickness, and urine among other unpleasant things. It’s not nearly as nice as the house, which smelled like flowers and hearty food. Nilhin turned back to look at Tsani, but she waved for him to go ahead. He took a few steps into the darkness when something was shoved over his head. Nilhin struggled to get it off, but his frail wrists were grabbed and tied up with rope.
“I’m sorry, kid,” Nehe said, his voice would have been soothing under any other circumstance. “This is just the way business works. Young things like you go for a whole helluva lot more in Aurumte than Keydaya, and you really walked right into it.”
Nilhin realised that if he was kidnapped and sold, his mother would never get to see him again. His father would never know she was sick and to send a doctor. More importantly, Nehe knew his mother was dying and that he had no father to look out for him. Nilhin had made himself a target, and all he had done was dare to trust a kind man. Nilhin stropped flailing and went limp in Nehe’s grip.
“I trusted you,” Nilhin said, his body being lifted like he weighed less than a chicken.
“So did all of them,” Nehe said with another sigh.
“He’s pretty, so keep him on the top,” Tsani’s voice called. “We don’t want to have to bathe him before we sell him. Wasting our good water with those ones.”
Nilhin’s body was practically folded and he was shoved into something cold. Hard lines of a cage bit into his knees and hands before the sack was ripped off of his head. Around him it was still very dark, but he could see some things now that his eyes had adjusted to it. There were lots of people, most of them only slightly older than Nilhin. There were people in the cages stacked beneath his, as well.
Nehe looked at him from inside his cage, and the man who was once a friendly body that held him and kept him warm, that offered him bread and a free wagon to travel in, was staring at him.
“Get those necklaces off of him,” Tsani called. “The ones we can’t sell will look lovely on me, don’t you think?”
The cage opened, and Nehe reached his hand inside. He tried to take the necklaces that Nilhin’s mother had given him and Nilhin sunk his teeth into his forearms. Nehe yanked his hand back and then slapped him hard enough that his face went careening against the bottom of the cage, and his forehead bounced off the metal after it hit.
“Don’t be difficult, Nilhin,” Nehe said, holding his wounded arm. Nilhin could smell the scent of fresh blood, and he licked the remnants of it from his lips. His teeth felt sharper than he remembered them, but his ears were ringing and his entire body tingled with rage, shame, and hatred. “Just give me the necklaces.”
“My mother gave them to me,” Nilhin said.
“Your mother’s going to die. She won’t need them,” Nehe argued.
“She will not die,” Nilhin said. He surged forward in his cage, his fingers curling around the metal bars. “I’ll find her a doctor. I’m going to Capvita, and this cage won’t stop me!”
“The tea isn’t working,” Nehe said, locking the cage door. “I saw him eat baneberries without a problem. He’s an odd child, perhaps he’s immune to the toxin. We’ll have to try something else to sedate him.”
“I’ll get him that valerian tincture we use for Angla,” Tsani said, turning and likely heading back into the house. Nilhin looked at Nehe, but the man didn’t look at him, almost like he couldn’t look at any of the people he had stuffed into cages in his shed. Nilhin wondered how many of them had believed that Nehe was a friendly and kind uncle. Who else had been deceived just like Nilhin?
When Tsani returned, she carried a glass jar with a long glass injector with a squishy back. Nilhin had seen some of the aunties use these to administer medicine to his other aunties when they were sick but didn’t want to catch the illness themselves. Tsani filled the long glass tube with brown liquid and shoved it through the bars.
“Open your mouth and drink this,” she said. Nilhin kicked the glass thing away from him and pressed his back as far against the back of the cage as he could. Tsani scoffed. “Grab him, Nehe.” Nehe walked around the cage and slid his fingers through the back, holding Nilhin’s shirt tight and keeping him in place. Tsani opened the cage, but everytime Nilhin tried to rush out of the gate, he was held back by a much stronger man. Nilhin struggled for a moment, squirming as he got his arms out of the shirt he wore and thus out of Nehe’s grasp. Tsani stuck her arm inside the cage, and Nilhin let her put that damn thing close to his face before he surged forward, jumping on her and out of the cage. He rolled with Tsani on the ground and tried to get up to run off, but Nehe had him by his upper arms, picking him up by his arms. Nilhin tried to smash his feet back against Nehe, but then Tsani got up and slapped him. He used one foot to try and keep her away. She slapped at his ankle and then reached up to his shirtless body and pulled two of his necklaces off.
“No!” he cried out, but he couldn’t pull them out of her hands.
“Naughty boys don’t deserve fine jewelry,” Tsani said. He kicked her again, but it barely brushed her body.
“Ugly old women don’t deserve it either!” he said, trying to kick out of Nehe’s grasp, but the man had a very firm hold on him. Tsani made a high pitched sound of shock and disbelief.
“Open his mouth,” she said, grabbing the bottle of medicine. Nilhin kept his lips sealed shut, and Nehe’s hands were busy holding him in place. He turned his head away when Tsani tried to push the lip of the bottle to his lips. Nehe put him on the ground, forcing him to his knees, and then he grabbed Nilhin by the neck, one hand tight around his throat, forcing his head back, and the other pinching his cheeks to force his mouth open. Nilhin tried to bite his fingers, but it didn’t work. Tsani poured the foul tasting, bitter liquid into his mouth. It tasted like someone mixed dirt with the cattail tuber liquor, or even the more expensive rice liquor. He spit it back out, covering Tsani with a mixture of medicine and spit. Nehe dropped his face just long enough for Tsani to slap him again.
As if his aunties hadn’t gotten mad and done the same to him plenty of times. Nilhin spit some lingering sour tasting spit at her, too, just in case it was poisoned. Tsani pinched his cheeks and poured more medicine in his mouth, but then she held her hand over his mouth. He started to squirm again, but at least he could breathe through his nose. Nehe seemed to realise this too, and pinched his nose until Nilhin was forced to drink the medicine down.
Once he had swallowed, he was shoved into the cage again, and it was locked once more. His rapid heart beat never waned, however, in fact, it grew faster. His body grew warmer despite the day getting cooler as it grew later into night. Nilhin’s breathing came out as horrible, desperate pants as he held onto the metal of his cage, sometimes reaching up to caress the necklaces that hadn’t been stolen by that wretched Tsani.
“You need to calm down,” a quiet voice said from somewhere near him. Without the doors, and with only a thin smattering of light from outside -- slowly fading as the sun went down -- it was difficult to see anything. “Panicking only makes it worse. You’ll get used to it, and then they’ll ship you out. That’s just how it is.”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m across the shed,” the voice said. It was neither distinctly feminine or masculine, but they did sound older than Nilhin, and wiser, too. “I’ve probably been here the longest. I don’t know why they keep me around, but I’ve been here long enough to know that if you don’t calm down, you’ll work yourself into a proper state, and then they’ll really be angry… I’ve never seen anyone fight them quite like you, though, either.”
“I have to get to Capvita,” Nilhin explained. “My mother’s life depends on it. I’ve wasted enough time. I-I can’t stay here. I need to go.” Nilhin grabbed his bars and shook them, rattling all the cages around him. Soft protests came from their child inhabitants. “I need to leave this place. Now!”
“Quiet down, or they’ll come back out here and gag you,” the voice said before they sighed. “I’m Maer. What should I call you?”
“Nilhin,” he said after considering whether or not to give his name out yet again.
“You’re not from Aurumte, then,” Maer said. “He usually doesn’t travel that far to sell his wares, but maybe he was really selling proper cargo this time. He does that sometimes for appearances. You said you have a family? They usually won’t take anyone with anyone willing to look for them if they go missing. Most of the kids beneath you were homeless, and just wanted to sleep somewhere safer than the street.”
“I should’ve known. Most men aren’t very nice to me,” Nilhin admitted. “If they are kind, then they were only that way so they could try to touch me. I thought… I thought that there was nothing uncl-- Nehe wanted from me. He seemed so kind, and he listened to me. The men I’ve known don’t listen to me, they don’t want that sort of business.”
“Yeah, that’s how he does it,” Maer said with a sigh. “They gave you the valerian tincture, though. I’m surprised you’re still awake. I’ve seen them give it to bigger, stronger boys, maybe even a little older than you, and they can’t fight its effects.”
“I’m not tired at all,” Nilhin admitted. He leaned against the front of his cage. “I feel… I’m just so angry.” He bit his lip, never having heard his voice sound like that before despite it having come from inside him. “How dare he do something like this. To cage me like I’m some… some sort of beast.” Nilhin squeezed his eyes shut, his hands shaking with all the heated anger coursing through his small body. He grit his teeth for a moment, forcing breath into his lungs with shuddering inhales. He looked across the shed, able to see through the darkness unlike ever before. He could see the benign farming and fishing tools hanging along the wooden walls, and the metal cages stacked on the bottom of smaller, reed-formed baskets. There were wooden cages, mostly broken in the corner, and in that corner was a single metal cage, away from the others. There was a young man inside, maybe twenty, who was covered in filth, and the parts that weren’t grime-coated were red with friction and infection.
“Maer?” Nilhin asked. The boy in the corner sat up, looking around like he wasn’t able to see still. The moon, Nilhin decided, must be full and therefore offer more light than before if he could see so clearly. The boy looked towards him and gasped before shrinking back in his own cage. “Maer?” he asked again. “What’s wrong?”
“I see something,” Maer said. “It’s glowing. It’s near where your cage is. I’ve never seen something like that before.”
“I don’t see anything,” Nilhin said, looking around the outside of his cage, trying to see the glowing thing that Maer mentioned. Perhaps it could be used to get them out of this shed.
“I think… I think it might be you, Nilhin,” Maer whispered. “Do you, perhaps, know magic?”
“Not much,” Nilhin said, looking down at his dirty hands. “My mother wanted me to learn, but I couldn’t do most of the spells. She bought manuals for me in town, but I’m a poor student. Why? Do you think I could use what I know to try and get us out of here?”
“You should try, shouldn’t you? You have to escape, you have to go to Capvita,” Maer said. Nilhin nodded, he did have to get to Capvita, and he was a bad magic student, but if he had enough magic to accidentally startle Maer, then he should have enough to free himself and all the other children, too. He just… he didn’t know how to use any spells. Or at least he didn’t know how to make them work.
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