He was almost certain she was a mute, because the only rumble he ever heard from her throat was the soft hum of breathing. Every time he asked if she could speak, she’d ignore the question. For a while, he thought he’d never be able to understand her. By his third week at the sheriff’s house, however, he got an idea. He could hardly sleep that night. When he arrived at the jailhouse that morning, she was sitting peacefully by the barred window and staring at the pine forests. It was almost as if she was looking for something. He set his stuffed backpack down by the door.
“Hi.”
The girl stretched out her leg, a gesture for him to begin his examination. Her toes curled slightly as he peeled away the gauze. He twiddled the green vial of medicine playfully.
“Don’t think you’ll need this medicine anymore. Hey, Atia?”
She turned, her lips pursed, as if the name he’d given her was unnatural. He fiddled with the buttons on his shirt. He had uniform shirts tailored to fit him, but they still felt strange. “Want to try and walk on it? The leg, I mean. Can you try to put some weight on it?”
She slid her shackles farther back as she stood. Her dress swayed with the motion of her hips as she put more weight on her right leg. Her nose wrinkled a bit, and she leaned more on the opposite side, her muscles quivering. She gave a few reserved steps, but then glided down against the stone wall and sat.
“That’s so great,” he said excitedly. “Before you know it, you’ll be walking around in no time.”
She fingered the chains.
Samuel reluctantly shook his head.
“Oh. I’m sorry. That’s not my choice.” Samuel brushed his shaggy hair nervously, pushing his bangs away from his eyes. “I went shopping for more things. Would you like to see what I got you?”
Samuel grabbed the backpack, lowering it onto his lap as he knelt. He slid down the zipper and reached inside. The truth was, he’d spent his first week’s pay entirely on her. He didn’t mind. It wasn’t like he’d lived with much before. She angled her neck slightly as he showed her the chartreuse strip of fabric. Her fingers cautiously reached out and took hold of it.
“It’s a ribbon.”
She rubbed the frayed ends.
Samuel swallowed. “For your hair. It’s so long and pretty. I thought the green would look nice. Match your eyes.”
She put the ribbon down, letting it fall from her fingers. He wasn’t sure if she liked it, but decided it was best to move on. The hair ribbon wasn’t the thing he was nervous about giving her. His palms sweated as he snatched out a plain leather notebook and a fresh pencil.
She peered at the gift, her nose scrunching. Was she smelling them?
“I’ve watched you,” Samuel said as he slid over the items. “You’re always doodling on the floor. You could use this to draw on. And. Maybe we could write each other notes and things like that. If you want.”
She held the pencil delicately as he placed it against her thumb and index finger.
“If there’s anything you want me to get for you. Something you want to tell me. You can use it. And I can always get more supplies.”
Atia gingerly crossed her legs as she bolstered the notebook, turning the blank pages until she settled for one near the middle. Samuel pushed his glasses farther up his nose. She might tell him where she’d come from or how old she was. Or maybe she could write what had happened that night with the bear trap and the patrolman. He watched, speechless, as what had seemed like random scribbles in the dirt transformed into detailed images. Graphite lines filled the page, and it took several minutes before he could make out the drawing.
It was a map of the three states. On the bottom part of the boot-shaped land, she drew the redlands, the southernmost region with a desertlike environment that harbored the military class and safeguarded the old sciences. She added detailed light shading to make the gritty impressions of the sand deserts. In the middle were the greenlands, the centermost region of the continent, which housed the majority of the states’ citizens due to its vast size, comfortable temperatures, good soil, and bountiful crops. She filled the section with heavy shading and bunched circles, a representation of the diverse land with its various forests, plains, and mountains. At the top of the map, she drew the whitelands, the largest but least populated of the three states, which harbored the largest resources of lumber and coal.
The girl flipped the page around and pointed to an area on the upper left-hand corner.
“It’s beautiful,” Samuel said. “You’re really good.”
She tapped the area once again.
“Oh, uhm, I’m not sure where that is. I don’t know geography all that well, but I’m guessing that’s near Haid. We’re in the mid-eastern region of the whitelands, about three hundred miles from the coast. From what I’ve been told. I’ve never stepped foot outside of this town and the eastern woods.”
She swiped at her chopped bangs before filling in more lines, adding more details to the page.
“How did you get so good at drawing?”
Before he could say anything else, she tore the page from the notebook and laid the paper down beside her.
The copper bell above the door dinged as Samuel shuffled into the butcher’s shop, his hands plunged deep into his pockets. Rows of beef were on display behind a glass counter with tiny white labels describing each cut: tongue, neck, brisket, rib, flank, chuck, tenderloin, round, shank. All imported from the south, of course. Greenland cows weren’t exactly fit for northern weather. There were other selections of meat as well. Pork, chicken, venison, quail, goat, turkey, rabbit, and bison. Half of the meat was merely for show. The mayor was the only one who could afford bison meat and other premium cuts.
Breathing in the smell of blood brought Samuel back into the woods with his father, back to their simple hunting traps and his father’s lessons about Azhuel gifting mankind with the mind to overcome beasts.
The butcher’s granddaughter, Claudette, sprinted out from the back room to the bloodstained counter. She smiled a bit when she saw him and wiped her hands on her filthy apron.
Samuel tried smoothing the wrinkles out of his uniform shirt.
“I heard that you were a patrolman now.”
“Something like that.”
“Can I help you?”
He scratched his elbow.
“I’ve been busy. With my job and all. I don’t have the time to catch my own game. And I was thinking I could try something different.”
He dug back into his pockets and dumped loose coins on the table. He’d gotten his second week’s pay, and this time he swore to himself he was going to save as much as possible. He’d already bought Atia more or less everything she needed for now. But still, he wanted to get her this one thing. And there was one other thing he was going to buy for himself, something other than a uniform.
“Have you tried the goat?”
“Goat?”
“Yeah.” She bent down and pointed, her finger tapping the glass. “It’s a different texture and taste, and not as expensive as some of the other meats.”