“This is not where I expected you to be.”

Nadja leaned her head back against the door, meeting Elana’s gaze.

“I couldn’t sleep in the room you gave me.  I came here, but she didn’t answer.”  Elana knew that’d be all the explanation she’d get.  It was secondary, anyway, to why she was standing in the cold hall in the middle of the night with no damn pants on.

“Okay then.  Your handheld is off.  Those on watch tried to reach you, could not, and so contacted me.”  Nadja had not moved, her head still resting back against the door, but her eyes were suddenly awake.  Elana continued.  “There is someone outside, asking for you.  I guess they’ll only talk to—“

The Common House Administrator blinked and, seeing she was addressing the empty air, chose not to finish her sentence.  She looked at Tei’s door, decided that if her advice was wanted it would be asked for, and shuffled back to bed.

Elana saw Tei at mid-meal the next day, chatting brightly with a group of Tens at the end of one of the long tables.  Glancing around, Elana saw no sign of Nadja.  Her brow furrowed a little and she wondered if the girl had gone back on watch or if she’d be back for the rest of her leave.  For Tei’s sake, she hoped it was the former, but Elana wanted to know more about this mysterious visitor.  It didn’t seem to be something that would appear in the weekly reports.

Though Elana often ate her meals in the Common House’s refectory, today she did not feel like making the inevitable small talk, despite the wealth of the gossip echoing through the high-ceilinged room.  Taking her tray, with its modest meal and mismatched new old plates and hand-thrown bowls, Elana wove through the tables to the hallway.  She had to stop at intervals, snagged by a teacher with a question or a child she’d been keeping an eye on.  Finally, she got herself out and started towards the administrative offices.  Looking down at her tray, judging how best to balance it while walking and starting in on her meal, Elana ran directly into Nadja, who caught the tray so deftly the soup didn’t spill.

“This is an “officially unofficial” thing I am going to tell you.”  Nadja folded into the visitor’s chair as Elana dug into her meal.  A small glass window high in the wall brought dappled light into the plainly decorated room.  Stacks of tablets and papers ranged across the low desk and onto the floor.  Elana carefully nudged a clearer space around her tray and began on her soup, keeping the lookout in her field of view.

“Are you still on leave?”

“Yes.  And they’re adding on the time I spent at the tower last night, which is nice, I think.”

“Quite.”  Elana watched Nadja over her sandwich.

“Anyhow.  So you know we had made new trade contacts at last Three Summers Fair?  The visitor was one of them.”  Elana raised her eyebrows.

“And they made this visit last night?”

“Yes.”

“And they’ve been here before?”

“Yes.”

“Alone, both times?”

“Yes.”

“And they only wanted to speak to you, a lookout?  Okay.”  Elana held up her hand, stopping Nadja’s affirmation.  Her lunch was going cold.  “I’m not going to say this is strange, or questionable, or that it goes against all regular procedure.  I am not going to say these things because you are going to explain to me why.”

“Yes,” said Nadja, settling deeper into the chair.

One would presume, thought Elana, that with paper at such a premium every report and progress summary that came across her desk would be relevant and useful.  It seemed to her that as the village grew, so did the self-importance of each person in charge of something.  She remembered the novels Tei had found and shown her, full of people who did nothing but sort and file and make paperwork, waiting for the plot to take them somewhere better.  Tei said the word was “bureaucracy”.  Fates forbid they go down that path.  Not if they could avoid it.

Elana poised her stylus to write, started a sentence, smoothed it out and closed her eyes.  It was late and if she kept at it her mood and concentration would just grow worse.  She gathered together the papers and set them on the floor next to her bed.  As she settled under the covers, Elana caught sight of the mug, its glaze reflecting softly in the dim light.  It’d been months since she’d had a chance to spend time with potters Laurel and Marsh, sharing their bed and wheel.  With a frown Elana put out the lamp and thumped into her pillows.  No regrets.  Paperwork or no, this was the job she’d chosen.

The shrill cry broke through Elana’s dreams.  She stepped through the dark, fumbling in her shoulder bag to find the mobile, one of the few not in the hands of the lookouts.  When they’d claimed most of the cache, the Guild left some for the Common House council, so they could be the first to know of any alarms.  Like this one.

Elana recognised the sharp, pulsing chime as notice of a possible intruder alert.  Finally locating the slim device, she thumbed it on, a soft glow chasing night shadows into the room.

“Elana here, what’s the word?”  In her hands she saw a sharp face, straight hair pulled back like silk, Jochim.  He frowned before answering.

“Can you get us Nadja?”  Elana pushed loose curls from her face.  She frowned back.

“She’s off-watch.  Is there a possible intruder or no?”  Jochim’s eyes darted to the side, getting input from someone off screen.

“Yes and no.  I’ve got someone here who she’s dealt with before.  They’re alone, won’t go away, only’ll talk to her.”  He paused again.  “At least have her contact us.  We can’t reach her by handheld.”  With that, he signed off.

Elana growled between her teeth.  Administrator of Common House, page for the Watch, fetching the lookout errant.  Quickly, with sharp movements, Elana threw a loose sweater on and went to find Nadja.  If her handheld was off, there was one place she’d be.

“Ah yes.  But I’m off-watch now, just a regular person.”  Nadja saw Tei glancing at the bag of market goods she’d thrown on the bed.  “A regular person who goes to the market with other regular people and gets gifts for her friends—the one wrapped in oilcloth is yours.”  Tei plucked the little package from the bag.  She looked at Nadja from the corner of her eye.

“I’m glad you made the effort.”

“It’s no effort to get you things.”

“You know what I mean.”  Tei shook her head, dismissing any further conversation in that vein and unfolded the oilcloth.  She grinned.  “Butterscotches?  From Karmil the cobbler’s wife, no doubt.”  She broke off a piece and popped it in her mouth, half-closing her eyes.  “Mmm and mmm.  You are too good, braving such crowds to get me sweets.”

“I saw Elana on the way in.”  Nadja scooted to the edge of the chair and stretched more fully.  She wondered what time it was.  Tei crunched her candy.

“Did she give you a room assignment?”  Tei perched on the bed and kicked her legs.  “If not, we can try and snag her after dinner.”

“No, she did not.”  Nadja looked to where Tei had hung her satchel.  It drooped with comfortable familiarity next to an old winter cloak Nadja had given her years ago.  “I had hoped to stay here.”

“I have the morning classes tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll figure it out.  We can talk to Elana, after dinner.”

She was glad to have Tei as a friend and teacher.  Nadja felt she understood the place of those on watch more than the other lookouts—the balances of power between those who guard and hold and those they protect.  Tei had shown her with ancient, simple children’s tales that such a balance could be easily reversed by the passive power of the protected.  We must always be on watch, Nadja reminded herself.  She saw that her thoughts had carried her unknowingly into the middle of the village market.  Stalls were set around the dry central fountain, bodies crowding in a mass around her.  Nadja choked back a feeling of claustrophobia and smiled.

Hours later, Nadja arrived at Common House, a bag of bread and sweets hanging loose in her hand.  Shifting the duffel slung across her shoulder, she glanced at the big clock ruling mutely over the lobby.  Nadja took a moment to read the position of the hands.  Timepieces at the watch points were pre-fall and told the hour plainly, with numbers.  After some figuring, she decided Tei was not quite half-through her shift.  That gave Nadja plenty of time to get comfortable and maybe eat before Tei came home.

Weaving her way through corridors, Nadja tried to understand why the bustle of humanity, just as present in Common House as in the village square, didn’t bother her.  Thoughts occupied, she reflexively moved close to the wall, making room for a couple of Sevens and Eights who were racing each other.  They giggled, rushed and skipped just slow enough to not quite be running inside.

Nadja watched their tumult as they chased down the hall.  She wondered which in the group belonged to Common House and who, if any, were visiting for lessons or play.  The children glanced back and suddenly slowed their pace.  From the corner of her eye Nadja caught a glimpse of dark red hair.

“Hullo, Elana.”  The women watched as the children, walking now, jostled each other.  The race to see who would reach their dormitory room first was still going, despite the calculated, sedate pace.

“You always won that game,” Elana said, glancing up at Nadja.

“Ah, but I am faster.”

“And sneakier.”

“And Tei is smarter, and kinder.  You are best at planning and manipulating the rules.”

“Well, I make the rules now.”

“How convenient.”  Nadja grinned, slapped Elana on the shoulder and strode off, leaving the Common House administrator smiling quietly in her wake.

Nadja made her way to Tei’s room with easy familiarity.  Lookouts off-watch could claim a night’s stay at any household in the village, though most took the time to visit family.  Nadja went to Tei and Common House.

The three of them, Nadja, Elana and Tei, had grown up as Common House wards.  Their parents were Hunter-Gatherers and, like most HGs, spent at least three weeks of every month beyond the confines of the village, finding plants and animals worth integrating into the village’s gardens and stables and catching the meat that was easier to hunt than raise.  They made trips out of the valley to the coast to trade with the strange fishing village, or across the far mountains to the east to trade with the sheep herders who ran small mines out of the barren rock.  Most importantly, during all their movement, the HGs kept an eye out for salvage.

It’d been Elana’s parents who found the cache of handhelds.  The Guild of the Watch quickly traded and bought up most of them.  Working with the archae-translators to understand the faded booklet of instructions, the devices were linked to the monitors.  For this, Nadja was ever thankful.  The handhelds were smaller and slimmer than an octavo book, easily carried, understood spoken and written word and each ran on the wonderfully eternal atomic batteries.  They allowed her to properly patrol her watch-point, instead of remaining tied to the monitor scanners.

Even better, the devices could speak to each other, tying all watch-points together.  Nadja’s generation of lookouts were better off than any other, in her opinion.  They may be aloof, but they could not be alone with the handhelds tying them together.

Reflexively, Nadja touched the holster containing the slim device.  There hadn’t been any messages, from Tei or anyone else on watch who was keeping an eye on her.  That was good.  Nadja was of the opinion that out of politician, lookout and teacher, Tei had the hardest job.

Settling into a worn, over-stuffed chair, Nadja let the excited chatter of the children down the hall lull her to sleep.

There were more new old stock gadgets accumulated in the four watch buildings than were distributed across the village.  It made sense, most stock the HGs came across were designed for security, monitoring and defence.  At times, Tei could understand why a person would choose, as a Twelve, to try for a permanent watch post.

Reaching the top level, Tei took a deep breath.  Up this high, all you could smell were trees.

“You’re early.” Tei turned quickly, trying to hide how startled she was.

“Nadja!” The lithe figure moved forward from a shadowed doorway.  Like all the people who were permanently on watch, Nadja looked like she spent all her off hours in the watch-points doing callisthenics.  On Nadja, muscle roped gracefully, hidden under sun-brown skin until she moved.  The two women were the same birth year and friends from the cradle, yet each time she saw Nadja, Tei had always had to fight a momentary feeling that she was just a doughy lump next to her friend’s streamlined form.

“Bring me any presents?”  Tei rolled her eyes.

“You are incorrigible.  Tell me why I would haul junk all the way up here when you can just go get it during your time off?”

Nadja smiled, cat-like.  “Because you like seeing people’s faces when you give them things.”  Laughing, Tei fished a small package from her shoulder bag and handed it over.

“Handwarmers.  I tried something new with the dye this time, but it’s Mara’s wool.”  Nadja already had the knitted gloves on, wiggling her fingers.

“Good, Mara spins better than you.  I like this new design, it covers my knuckles better but doesn’t get in the way of the fingers.  The last pair was too—what’s the word—shallow.”  She paused and regarded Tei seriously.  “And they turned my hands blue.”  Tei suppressed giggles.

“I told you I tried something new with the dye this time.  Your hands should remain unsullied.”

“Unsullied.  I like that one.”  Nadja shouldered a bag, grinning.  “You’re late now, by the way.”  She tossed a spare handheld to Tei and told her who was on backup in the tower, waving vaguely at the rotation schedule posted on a wall.  Sketching a mock salute, she took off skipping down the stairs.

“Incorrigible!” Tei shouted after her.

On the roof of the tower, Tei checked the monitor screens, checked the handheld for messages from others on watch, then sat on her heels and gazed out into the forest.

From the tower side, the forest was relatively clear, making the height of the building an advantage.  Up this high in a denser forest the view would be lost in a tangle of branches.  Not that everything wasn’t choked with underbrush, despite the village’s attempts to keep it clear—nor that the evergreens weren’t packed close enough to hang hammocks from.  But there was less bamboo and the trees had realised long ago that it was a waste of energy to put out branches that would just run into a neighbour.  Instead, they focused on growing high and snatching light in the canopy above.

Tei scanned the area with a spyglass, and finding nothing more threatening than a handful of jays arguing, she settled in to wait out her watch.

Jakob and Tei entered the wide front room and found a table.  That was the main reason Tei liked Mildreth’s, there were none of the long group tables and benches of Common House, just little squares that fit two people perfect and four easy.  No jostling.

Mildreth herself came up soon after they were seated, her wide-eyed youngest slung on her back.

“Ah, my favourite regulars.” The baby peered over her shoulder and waved fat brown hands at Tei.

“You’re a sweet liar, I heard you say that to Potter Marsh just yesterday.”  Tei grinned and wiggled her fingers at the baby, earning a squeal in response.

“Yeah, but you were in here yesterday to hear it, so you’re just as regular.”  The tall woman chuckled and pulled her long dark braids from tiny hands.  She tossed her head at Jakob.  “You coasting for a loan or gonna start a new tab?”  Like a magician, Jakob produced a fabric parcel bound with twine from the depths of his satchel.  Mildreth snatched it out of his hands.

“That’s twenty sheets, white, cold-pressed and sized, your favourite.”  Jakob looked smug.  “You think it will hold me a while?”  Mildreth tried to glare at him as he sat back in his chair, long arms folded, smirking.  She decided it was a lost cause and laughed.

“Yeah, you’re good for a while yet.  I’ll bring it right on out, I know Tei’s got watch tonight.”  As she skipped off, the baby tried to crane around to watch them, then gave up and shoved one of Mildreth’s braids in its mouth.

“You’re lucky she loves to paint so much, else you’d be using marks like everyone else,” Tei teased Jakob.  He snorted.

“Well, I’m not the one riding free in town because I herd children and teach them letters.  The rest of us poor folk gotta use what we can.”  Tei rolled her eyes.

“Right, because running the paper production for the village leaves your pockets and larder so empty.”

“Oh, that’s not fair play.  I just mean that when I have to trade marks for things, you’re getting by on your skills alone.”  Jakob’s broad forehead creased.  “It’s a strange balance.”

She began to reply, but Mildreth swept in with two bowls and a basket of bread, so Tei spent the next few minutes finding a balance between savouring and gorging her meal.  When they were both halfway done and slowing down, she picked her words carefully.”

“At the shop owner’s meetings, how are they looking at that balance?”

“Hmm?  Oh.” Jakob focused on his stew while replying, “the general consensus is that it works—for now.”  He glanced at Tei, then returned to his bowl.  “There is, as usual, some grumbling about ‘Common House freeloaders’, but that’s just a couple of folks and they only say it in the meetings.”

“For now, anyway.”

“You poke around in that big computer’s story banks pretty regular, you know that unless the benefit of a cost is regularly shown, people will complain.  The Hunter-Gatherers bring in what they can and should, but the village isn’t as reliant on them any more.”

“And people associate Common House with the HGs and nothing more.”

“As I said, it’s a strange balance.  Guild members seem content to take labour marks from households and to barter and trade among themselves, product for product, but for those who do the intangible?”

“Like herding children and teaching them letters?”  Tei didn’t keep the sharp note out of her voice.  Jakob winced.

“Yes.”

“And the watch?”  Tei chewed slowly on a crust of bread and watched Jakob scrape the last bit of gravy out of the bowl with painful meticulousness.

“The watch is The Watch.  It is clear to everybody that we still need them.  What they do is tangible.”

“For now.”

Jakob walked Tei to the watchtower at the eastern edge of the village.  One of four watch-points, the tower hulked at a morosely looming four stories.  After reminding her to try and find some Twelves to help him at the vats, Jakob left Tei at the entrance.  She looked at the edge of the village, protected on this side by a wall.  The bustle of life was muted by vegetable gardens and the backs of buildings.  With a sigh, Tei started up the stairs.

“There you are.”  The heavily pregnant cat gave Tei a disgusted look while scooting her haunches further between two towering cabinets.  “You can’t nest here Moss.” The cat ignored her and began grooming. Walking forward smoothly, Tei spoke in her kindest tone.  “I know, it’s warm and there aren’t any people.  But we can’t have you making a mess down here.” Moss froze, her ears flicking forward. Tei stopped mid-step.  “Please don’t bolt.”  Clucking her tongue, she slowly knelt, hand outstretched. With a heave, the cat levered up and waddled forward regally.

“That’s a girl.”  Moss butted her grey head against the offered hand.  “Let’s go upstairs now, eh?”  After scritching Moss under her chin just the right amount, Tei scooped the cat up.

Manoeuvring through the labyrinth of cabinets and consoles to the door, Tei continued murmuring pleasantries.  Shifting cat and torch carefully, she was considering how to open the heavy door with her arms full when the handle turned and the door slid open a crack.

“She’s not going to run, is she?”  Jakob’s voice muffled through the door.  Tei sighed with relief and shifted the cat again before answering.

“No, I’ve got her.  Not that she’d give us much chase, the girl is heavy as a sack of grain.”  The door swung open all the way, Jakob’s gangly form silhouetted by the lantern hanging on the wall.  Craning towards him, Moss meowed pitifully.

“I’m not helping you escape,” he scratched the cat behind her ears. “You’ll only sneak back here and nest your kittens all over something important we can’t fix.” Moss gave no reply except growling purrs. Tei flicked off her torch and joined Jakob in the hall.

“Good thing you showed up, I didn’t know how I was going to carry her, the torch and the lantern up the stairs.”

“Figured you’d need backup for this one, or that she’d eaten you and I would need to bravely carry on in your place.” Tei and Moss both gave him A Look.  He shrugged and ruffled their hair. “You know, maternal defence of young and all that.”

Tei chuckled. “Well, it’s appreciated.  Now let’s get her majesty up top and show her where she’s supposed to have her babies.”

Depositing the cat by the living quarters, in an out of the way nook that had been prepared for the kittens-to-be, Tei flagged down one of the Tens.

“Ragnel, could you keep an eye on Moss?  She needs to remember to have her babies up here.” The child scrubbed at the smooth stone floor with bare toes, hesitant.  Tei sized her up.  “You’ll be the first to see them born.  If you’ve got other things to do, I understand.  I can find someone else.”  Tei watched the girl tense with interest.

“Oh!” Large eyes darted to the side, greedily surveying the lolling queen.  “Teacher Tei, I think it’ll be fine.”  She looked looked back up at Tei through shining black hair.  Tei smiled.

“Right then.  Have Elana know, so she can find someone to watch when you’ve other chores.”

“But it’s mostly me, right?”

“Right.  Moss is in your charge until she births.”  Ragnel nodded solemnly and squatted by the imperious Moss, letting the cat sniff delicately at her fingers before getting scratched behind the ears.

Tei left them and met Jakob at the front of the building.  He was talking with the rambling Baker Ignus, periodically scribbling in a little octavo book.  Tei knew he had stacks of books like that, filled with sprawling, incomprehensible scribble—as the village’s papermaker Jakob could afford the luxury.  Ignus’ monologue rolled to a stop as Tei approached.  She spoke into the pause.

“Moss is squared away, I’ve put Ragnel on her, the hope of getting a kitten should keep her alert.”

“Good, nothing better than bribery,” Jakob smiled and nodded to Ignus.  “I’ll try to get the window sheets to you by the end of the week, I can look over the damage when I bring your new ledgers by tomorrow after noon.”  The baker thanked Jakob and padded off, rustling through ever-present leaf litter covering the cracked stone paths.  Stashing the notebook in a pouch at his waist, Jakob turned to Tei.  “One of those boys of his smashed a cooling rack right through that window I put up for him in autumn, loaves everywhere, snapped at least one of the laths in the process.”  He made a face.  “At least it wasn’t one of those old glass windows, from what he said it would have ruined an entire day’s batch of bread.”

“Ugh.  If you need any help, I’ve got a couple of Twelves who’re looking for something more exciting than garden-tending to do.”  Jakob bobbed his head.

“That’d be a blessing, actually.  Hopefully one will stick around to apprentice, Holas is ready to move on to more difficult work, I need someone to stir the vats.  Speaking of which—want to grab a bite to eat before you go on watch?”  Tei laughed and made a guess at the time, affirming it by ducking back into Common House to check the big clock in the lobby.  The trees surrounding the village made knowing the hour difficult even if one was skilled at reading the sun, which Tei wasn’t.

“If you’ve got something quick to grab, yes.  I was just going to drop by Mildreth’s on my way to the tower.”

“That sounds good enough to me.” The two walked companionably, Jakob’s long-legged gait an easy match for Tei’s shorter, but brisker, steps.

    Unlike most of the buildings in their nook of the Hound, Tip-Top, now technically a hostel and café, used all their floors; each themed and designed for different purposes and clientèle.  Though, of course, each served tea.
     His grandfather started the garden, but Johnnie had maintained it from the moment he could weed.  Under his care the place became a merging of bounty and beauty.  People meeting in the arbour could snack on berries or cherry tomatoes directly from the vine while the family harvested herbs for the kitchens unseen and unheard by guests.
    Behind him, Johnnie could hear the soft murmur of voices.  The fog and mist that shrouded the hills folded another layer of privacy over the garden.  Johnnie kept his eyes west, digging into his memory to plot what land lay beyond.

    There were first more hills, gently sloping with plains and clusters of trees that weren’t quite forest.  Herds of dead buildings whose bulk and surrounding expanses of tarmac were overgrown and dug up by time and villagers.  The trees continued to grow thicker, interspersing with pasture, until the woods surged up into vineyards, then forest, the dark expanse of the coastal range.  Forest reluctantly faded into sand and then the sea.
    Johnnie had never been to the sea.  He’d never left the Five Cities.  With its trees and gardens and river port it appeared much the same as the pictures and maps of the land that lay west.  Talking with people from the coast, traders and clients of Tip-Top, Johnnie knew that other than salt water and sand the west held nothing that wasn’t readily available in the Five Cities.  He knew this.  And he knew that the desire to Go West was something best reserved for the protagonists of yellowed and crumbling adventure books, not the young bachelor heir to one of the more powerful families in the Hound.  Nonetheless, Johnnie was old enough to know that he was young enough for the desire to chafe.
    Behind him the murmuring was replaced with rustling.  Johnnie held his gaze on the fog-blurred hills and tried to think of how to better dampen sound in the arbours.  The mist and fog grew thicker, becoming a steady drizzle of rain.  Johnnie sighed at the dark wall of the hills and went inside.

    He was pouring wine for an importer who sidelined in cuttings when one of the employees brought him a message from his mother.  Excusing himself, Johnnie climbed the fairy-lit stairs to her rooms.  The boy who’d brought the message led with an oil lamp, flickering yellow shadows over the tiny white lights.
     His mother decorated with drapery and rugs, strewing them in even profusion over walls and floor.  It always looked to Johnnie like a cross between the tent of a Mongol war king and a French boudoir.  Which, he was sure, was most likely the exact effect his mother was going for.
     The woman waited for the servant to leave, curtains falling back over the closed door, then stated baldly, “There’s a dead woman in your garden, Johnnie, Grotto Two.”
    ”Wait, what?”  He was not sure if she was accusing him or making conversation.  Rolling her eyes, his mother lit a pipe.
    ”Boy, you heard me.  One of our guests did not pick up their trash when they left.”  Blue smoke wreathed her features in the dim lights and Johnnie wondered if she did that to hide her age.  Most things she did were very deliberate.  “It’s not slim and clean-shaven, so I know it’s not yours, don’t dither.  Besides which, I raised you better than that.”
    ”You’d like me to remove it then?”  He tried to keep his face neutral.  Though she’d leaned back in her pillows and closed her eyes, Johnnie had no doubt she was watching from under her lashes.
    ”I have engendered a genius.  Yes, everyone else is busy.  Be a dear and go dump the girl somewhere else or bury her”.  Nodding a slight bow, Johnnie left.

    The fog from the day before had solidified into rain.  Johnnie wrapped the soggy corpse in sacking and hauled it over his shoulder.  A fireman’s carry would have been easier and more balanced against the backpack he was wearing, but it also would have been more obvious.  With a grunt, Johnnie navigated to the service stairs, knocking his shin against a bench and nearly dropping the body in the process.
    The trip down was not one Johnnie wanted to make again.  It wasn’t the weight, he’d made similar trips before with produce, it was the shape.  A human body does not fill a bag as evenly as potatoes.
    In the large garden lot next to Tip-Top Johnnie dumped the bag into one of the holes dug for the new cherry trees.  He shovelled a few inches of dirt on top and rested his hand on the wet-black trunk closest to the hole.
    ”I hope she doesn’t make you sick.”  He patted the bark, turned up his collar against the rain and walked south.

    The man who answered the door wasn’t slim, so much as he was sinewy and lean.  His otherwise smooth cheeks were weathered in that salt-scoured way particular to sailors.  He smiled at Johnnie and drew him inside.

    The Five Cities gave her that, tearing up asphalt to get to the dirt, handing out flyers about rooftop gardens, letting the ivy and the blackberries have their way with public structures.  People who planned gardens were more likely to get solars, oil and meat, which was enough to encourage those who were not inclined to community work.

    Taking an already existing system of shame for selfish actions, the Five Cities aimed it precisely.  It wasn’t the whole earth they cared about now, just 100-odd square miles.  With bribes, requests and guilt, they got their people to let nature have her head.

    In hearsay, the Five Cities looked like an eden.  A lower population and a retreat from industrialism, combined with enforced community effort, made it true.  Where cars had parked, groves now grew.  Manicured grass was consumed by clover.  Decorative trees cracked sidewalks and turned streets to shady groves. It was as if the place had been waiting all this time, shoots coiled and ready to spring.

    And so a place that had been where most people ended up anyway became a sought-after destination.  Some used it as a jumping board to the north or to the ocean; others were captured in its green snare.

    “We’re getting in on the ground floor, ha, ha,” her dad said.  And continued to say.  Bliss wanted to think her mom was secretly on her side, but ever since they’d arrived she’d heard nothing but ringing praise of “how modern” and “can you believe it!”  Yes, her dad seemed happier setting up shop than when he was travelling to do it.  Sure, Bliss had her own room above the store, instead of sharing a caravan with her folks.  But hell and damnation!  The whole place was so new there was nothing to do.

    Bliss flopped onto her bed, kicking over on her back to stare mournfully at the ceiling.  On top of everything, the Bridge had a ‘school’.  This was a thing that, from what Bliss had gathered, could not be any more boring.  She could read just fine and write, even.  Sitting in a room with a bunch of other kids did not seem like an improvement over sitting by the fire with her mom to read or perching on a stool next to her dad when he balanced accounts.

      “Fucking stupid,” Bliss told her ceiling.

    The next day she helped her mom build shelves downstairs while her dad was out talking to the Cities people and tallying his stock.  They’d packed their caravan to bursting with everything from raw wool to yarn to finished pieces.  Bliss wondered, while she hammered, where they’d get more wool when it ran out.  She hadn’t seen a single alpaca or more than one or two sheep at a time since they’d reached the northern arm of the Hollow and the buildings rose up around them.

    Maybe they’d get to go back east to re-supply.  Bliss hoped so.  The whole place was too big and too small all at once.  Her mother interrupted Bliss’ thoughts—

    “Isn’t it something to have all this wood?”  As she spoke, the woman hefted another board onto sawhorses and measured, her spinning-calloused fingers drawing the tailor’s tape taut.  “The trees just keep getting thicker the farther west you go.  The baker told me they grow right up to the ocean and you can go crabbing from the branches.”

    “What’s crab?”  Her mother marked the board before looking over at Bliss, laughing.

    “I have no idea.  But from what I gather, you can eat it.”  Beginning to saw, she added, “Y’know, they’ve got a giant library here.  Not on the Bridge, but down below, in the Hive.”  Bliss feigned indifference.

    “Oh?”

    “I don’t want you going by yourself, ‘cause you could get lost, but the baker has a son your age, maybe you can get him to take you when we’re done with these shelves.”  If Bliss started hammering faster, neither she nor her mother pointed it out.

    It wasn’t until a couple of days later, when empty shelves lined the shop walls, that Bliss had a chance to hunt down the baker’s son.  She found him to be exactly her height, even though he tried to draw himself up taller when asking,  “And what’ll you trade me for being your guide?”

    Bliss eyed the boy and held out a slingshot, carefully carved to settle perfectly against the wrist.  It was only her second-best, but it was still better than anything she’d seen kids playing with outside her window.  The baker’s boy looked it over with a practiced air of incredulousness.  Before he could start to dicker, Bliss crossed her arms and glowered.

    “Don’t be such a fucking shithead, it’s a damn good trade.”  The boy looked up quickly, eyes wide.  He was either surprised or impressed at her words.  After a moment he collected himself and pocketed the slingshot.

    “Just what I was gonna say.”  He trotted back inside his house and came out adjusting a bag slung over his shoulder.  The boy held a small paper sack out to Bliss.  “Thought I’d throw in some honey rolls for free.”  Taking the bag, she peered inside, inhaling the sweet, warm scent.

    “Oh awesome!”  Bliss tucked the sweets into her shoulder bag and hurried to catch up to her guide.

    The trip was uneventful, though Bliss nearly sprained her neck craning at the towering buildings.  It looked as though nobody lived above the third floor, leaving the top halves of the structures sitting dark, with broken and boarded windows.  Pipes snaked from the roof, junctioning off at the lived-in floors before reaching the street.  Bliss guessed they were from rain barrels.

    There were window boxes and murals and a forced sense of cheeriness.  She’d seen old buildings before, but never so many together.  The windows seemed too small and the street was darker and closer.  Bliss decided she was glad they’d moved to the Bridge instead of below.

    The library was less intimidating, decidedly out of place in heavy carved stone.  And the books, Bliss was very excited about the books.  She had to register to take anything home, the baker’s boy vouching for her with a swagger.

    On the way back, the two stopped at a pocket of greenspace to eat the honey rolls.  Between bites, the baker’s boy lectured Bliss on the Thousand Gardens, the weather and the history of the Five Cities.  Bliss wondered if he’d got all that information at school.  It would be almost worth attending to be able to tell him to shut the hell up ‘cause she knew it already.

    They were dusting off crumbs when they heard the yell.  Bag of books thumping against her side, Bliss raced the Baker’s boy to the foot of the Bridge.  On the west side it splayed out, dropping half of itself below a flyover.  Reaching the edge at the same time, the two dropped to their bellies and peered over, noses in the vines that engulfed the structure.

    Below, in the center of the roadway, three men struggled.  She could see right away that it was no fair fight, two of the men were working together, trying to force the third against a wall.  Bliss looked back over her shoulder, then at the bridge as it curved up and away to the east.  It seemed like nobody else had heard the yell, or cared to check it out.  It was impossible to tell what buildings were lived in, none of the tiny, dark windows disclosed faces.  Life on the Bridge huddled far away, at the center.  From where she lay, Bliss could not even make out her new home from the clumps of buildings.

    Something moved at the corner of her eye.  The baker’s boy was aiming her second-best slingshot, drawing a bead on the larger of the two antagonists.  A small pile of stones lay in front of him, probably gathered on their walk.  Bliss tried to stop him, whispering curses.  What the whole damned situation needed was a grownup.  That fight down there had nothing to do with her or the baker’s boy.  She struggled against him for a second, but even though her arms were longer he was in a better position to defend.  With a shove, the boy tossed Bliss off him, rolled back into position on his stomach and fired.

    The tiny missile smacked against the man’s shoulder.  The aim wasn’t bad, but Bliss thought the baker’s boy wouldn’t do much better with her best slingshot.  The kid had no muscle.

    “You fucking idiot,” she hissed at the boy as they cowered down into the vines.  Between sap-rich leaves Bliss watched the struck man examine the embankment, sweeping his eyes around while his partner kept the other man pinned.  How he determined their position, Bliss didn’t know, but suddenly the baker boy’s missile came back at them, slicing through ivy at Bliss’ side.  She and the boy shrunk closer to the dirt.

    After a moment of contemplation, the man drew a knife from his belt.  Recognising the smooth, utilitarian throwing shape, Bliss panicked.  As the baker’s boy scuttled back and away, she snatched the slingshot from him, loaded it and let fly.

    Second best slingshot or not, the round little stone snapped easily through the man’s eye.  Arm half-raised, he stood swaying for half a minute then sank down, knees giving way.  The two live men on the roadway tussled as the other fell.  Bliss did not stay to watch the outcome, but ran after the baker’s boy and back to the Bridge, library books swinging heavy against her side.