Chapter 36 Yaaf
YAAF
Once again, Number One walked through the gate of the enclosure alone, but this time, he was carrying a present. The construction paper he'd wrapped the eight books in had been far from decorative, but then Mattie had added drawings of flowers and hearts that made it look a little more special.
The other seven remained outside with the Humvee, close enough to maintain coherence and provide cover if needed.
The guards at the gate had been thralled to forget that they had let Number One in and to ignore the others waiting for him in the vehicle, but it was always possible for a patrol to stop by, and if that happened, the seven would take care of the problem.
The human guards inside the enclosure were child's play, and Number One manipulated their minds en masse as he searched for Sullha.
He no longer bothered with the inspection cover story and just thralled them to forget that he had ever been there.
The same went for the women and children he was passing by.
The thrall didn't need to be invasive, it was just a mental suggestion to ignore him as if he weren't there.
The only one who would see him was Sullha. When he found her, he would remove the haze of his thrall just from her, similar to a worker wiping clean just one window in a building and leaving all the others obscured by grime.
The enclosure was quiet in the late afternoon.
The midday heat had driven most of the women indoors, and the yard was occupied only by older children who no longer napped during the day.
They chased each other around the climbing frame, their occasional shrieks and laughter sounding odd in this gloomy place.
Yaaf wished he could take all of them with him, so they could grow up free to choose who they wanted to be, but he couldn't.
At least not yet.
He found Sullha sitting on a bench, watching her son and the other children running in circles and occasionally stopping to argue about rules that were being invented on the spot.
None of them could see him, or rather acknowledge his presence, so he took a few moments just to observe the dynamic in the playground.
It wasn't as innocent as it looked at first glance.
The children's world was a microcosm of the adult world, including power plays, intimidation, and the formation of cliques.
The difference was that it wasn't serious.
Grudges were forgotten almost as soon as they arose, and the peacekeeper in the group, who had his hands full negotiating a truce every couple of minutes, was the most respected kid on the playground.
It wasn't the aggressive bully.
Yaaf reached into the minds of the other mothers and the children and implanted a suggestion not to look at Sullha. After all, his invisibility trick wouldn't work if they saw her talking to someone who wasn't there.
He walked over to her bench, sat beside her, and implanted a suggestion in her mind that counteracted the general thrall.
Startled, she gasped, and her hand flew to her throat. "How do you do that?"
"Do what?" He pretended innocence.
"Appear out of thin air."
"Stealth."
Her eyes narrowed. "Did you thrall everyone not to see you?"
He allowed himself to smile. "I did. I also thralled them not to look your way so they wouldn't think you are talking to yourself."
She glanced at the nearest woman, who was sitting three benches away and showed no sign of registering his presence. "What about Tomek?"
"He can't see me either."
Sullha looked at her son, who was chasing another boy around the climbing frame. He showed no awareness of anyone encroaching on his mother's space.
"That's disturbing," she said. "How can you make people blind to what's right in front of their noses?"
"They are not blind. They just see what they expect to see, like the empty bench beside you, and nothing that they don't, like a soldier sitting right next to you. Their minds fill in the gap with whatever makes the most sense."
"What happens when you leave?"
"They won't remember because there's nothing to remember. As far as they know, you've been sitting here all alone this whole time."
She was quiet for a moment, then her expression went through several quick changes.
First came relief, because what he had done meant that their conversations would be absolutely private.
Second came unease, because the power to alter perception at will was disturbing even when it was wielded by someone she trusted. Then it was back to relief.
"I brought you something." He produced the wrapped books.
Sullha stared at the pile. "What is this?"
"Open it and see for yourself."
She glanced at the other women and then the children. "Can they see this?"
"No. They are not looking your way because I thralled them not to."
With hesitant fingers, she reached for the wrapped bundle and released the string that held the paper over the stack. It was a simple cord, not anything decorative, but she treated it with care as if it were.
"Books," she breathed once she discovered what was inside.
She touched the spine of the top book, her fingers tracing the cloth binding with reverence, but then she pulled her hand back.
"Where did you get these?"
"There's a crate of old books in Lord Navuh's basement. They've been there for a very long time, so there is no chance of anyone missing them."
She picked up the English novel, turned it over, and read the back. Then she set it down and picked up the hardcover about Eastern civilizations with illustrations on the front.
"Yaaf." Her voice was tight. "I can't take these."
"Why not?"
"How would I explain having these books? What if there's an inspection and they find them in my room? They will know right away I got them from someone outside the enclosure, and I will have to tell them it was you."
He hadn't considered that. The collective processed the objection and recognized it as valid.
In a controlled environment like the enclosure, unexplained possessions were red flags.
A woman suddenly owning books that weren't part of the enclosure's approved library would be questioned, and if she refused to disclose who had given them to her, she would be tortured until she did.
"Are the inspections done often?" he asked.
"They used to be regular when there were guests." She set the book down on the pile. "It's less frequent now that there are no visitors, but it didn't stop altogether."
"What are they looking for?"
She shrugged. "Things the guests might have given the women that might be used inappropriately or that are too valuable for them to keep. Also, knives from the kitchen or anything else that can be potentially used as a weapon."
Number One arched a brow. "To kill the guests?"
Sullha shook her head. "To end their own lives when things become unbearable."
The words were delivered flatly and calmly as if she was talking to him about the weather, but the content ignited the sort of rage that was impossible to extinguish.
At least not on his own. The collective absorbed most of it, distributing it across all of their minds so it wouldn't overwhelm him, but it still burned, hot and corrosive.
Had Sullha ever been so desperate to escape the pain and degradation that she'd contemplated taking her own life?
"Have you ever thought of doing that?" he asked, and the question came out before he could weigh whether it was appropriate.
Sullha looked at the playground, where Tomek was now hanging upside down from one of the bars, his face red and his dark hair dangling.
"Yes," she said. "But it was before Tomek. There were nights when the kitchen knife seemed like the only way out."
The admission was quiet and unadorned, spoken without drama and without tears. It was just the truth of a girl who had been used and abused and had no way to stop any of it.
"What changed after he was born?" Yaaf asked.
Her eyes still on her son, her lips curved in a smile. "The moment the midwife put him in my arms, the calculation changed. I no longer lived for myself. I lived for him. He needed me, and being needed turned out to be enough of a reason to keep going."
"I'm glad he gave you that," Yaaf said. "I owe him."
She chuckled. "You don't, but I do. My love for him is what keeps me going." She turned back to the books. "You need to take these back."
He nodded. "Are you sure you can't keep at least one?"
"I would love to, but I'd better not. It's not worth the risk." She looked up at him and smiled. "Thank you for thinking of me."
The warmth of that smile spread through Yaaf's chest, kindling the coals of a dormant fire into a steady sense of calm.
The collective absorbed that as well, distributing the good feeling among them.
They were trying not to intrude, but he felt them in the background, monitoring and cataloging, learning from his interactions with Sullha the way they learned from everything else, but there was more beneath this analysis.
Something that felt less like observation and more like a distant echo of joy.