Chapter 4: Cups of Tea

Vekaya’s mind was on fire. She strangled on fear, while an unnamed but inescapable sadness dragged her into gloom her like a ship’s anchor in a midnight ocean. Surely, she was going to die. Surely, it would happen soon. Had she died already? The thought blew away like ash in the grips of a mind that was no longer hers to control. She could not fight it; the terror and the melancholy ate at her mind like starving animals. Please, she begged, whatever it was that was doing this to her, please, let this end. But it didn’t. It went on. And on. And on.

When she woke, Vekaya found that her bed was soaked in some warm liquid. She leaned forward in the darkness. No, it couldn’t be. She had wet the bed. Was this normal? How could she possibly know? She hadn’t woken up in a puddle in the storeroom. Had she? Then, she heard them. Crying. Whimpering. She was in some sort of dormitory, surrounded by other children. More sobs stole into her ears. These poor children were going through the same thing that she had been, moments ago. Vekaya moved, almost automatically, to the bunk of the first child whose whimpers she could hear, a younger girl. Grasping her shoulder, she shook the girl awake. Her eyes and mouth simultaneously opened to take in all that they could. A second passed as the young face contorted in terror. Then, the girl began crying all the more.

“It’s fine,” said Vekaya, not even bothering to whisper. “The dream is over.”

“Nuh-nuh-n-n-nuh-no!” the little girl marshalled a whisper. “You, you can’t - you aren’t supposed to wake anyone up!”

“What?” gasped Vekaya. Terror reached out from the girl’s dark eyes.

“T-T-Thank you!” she said, “but go back to b-b-bed before they c-c-catch you! They’ll give you the t-t-tea, too!”

At hearing the word “they,” Vekaya’s eyes darted down the dormitory past the other children’s bunks. Not all of them were moaning and crying. She glanced at the other end of the hallway.

“G-g-go back to bed!” whispered the little girl. “N-n-now!”

A white robe flowed past a bunk at the hall’s corner, and Vekaya did not wait. If the bittersweet, iron-smelling tea really caused those kinds of nightmares, she did not want any more of it. Not only that, she doubted that she could resist drinking it if one of those shamassons told her to. Vekaya dived into bed and felt the chill of the urine that waited for her. She began to cry. Her cries joined those of the others. What was this place? What would happen to her? Part of her wanted to sprint for the exit, but she could just imagine that voice stopping her in her tracks. And, more tea. The thought was horrifying. She cried and cried. At some point, she fell asleep, and though it lacked the nightmares she’d experienced before, it was not a restful sleep.

The next morning found Vekaya already awake when a very loud clang split the dark, cold air of the dormitory. The sudden sharp noise was repeated until it was clear that it wasn’t any sort of mistake. They were being woken up. Some of the other children were still crying. Had they slept at all? Vekaya had, and the little rest that she’d gotten had given her some of her spirit back. There was a way around this. There was something that could be done. She was not going to stay in this place. Not a chance. If the shamasson’s voices could make her do whatever they wanted, she just would have to figure out a way not to hear them.

But how? She thought about using some of the straw from her bed to fill her ears, but that didn’t seem like a very good solution. Vekaya’s eyes jumped from one object to the next, and she imagined them in her ears. Nothing seemed like it would block sound, come out, and not injure her permanently. Could she take a strip of fabric off of her dress? Could she wind it tightly enough to block the sound coming into her ears? There was only one way to find out, but she had only just had the idea when she began to descend stairs toward the kitchen and heard the unmistakable other-wordly voice of a shamasson. She was near the landing, and Vekaya was impelled forward by the crowd.

“Good morning, Children,” the pale woman’s voice resonated into the back of Vekaya’s mind. She dreaded whatever was coming next. “Go to breakfast. That’s right. Go to breakfast.”

Back to the storeroom of her mind… until her concentration was broken enough that she slipped on the first stair and put her foot down painfully, rolling her ankle.

“Oh, be careful, Little One,” the shamasson addressed her.

Vekaya heard the shamasson but was in so much immediate pain that she didn’t notice at first. She struggled forward, putting distance between the two of them. It wasn’t until the pain in her leg started to dull that Vekaya realized she was in control. She waved her hand in her own face and twirled her fingers. Somehow, she had escaped the shamasson’s voice. But, how? Had she just concentrated better? Had hurting her ankle somehow done it?

Her mind raced through the scene over and over again until she arrived at breakfast. The children were given a bowl of wheat in milk, glopped in by a harried woman that Vekaya recognized from the day before. The woman did not speak to her, but rather looked in her direction as if she were a very small and fragile thing. Vekaya watched as the comparatively large blob of breakfast settled in front of her, said, "Thank you," while holding up the bowl, and moved on. This woman had known her from before. That much was clear.

And, it was yet another frustrating thing that Vekaya did not know. She kept craning her head around to see the woman. It had been one of the people who had been there when she had drank the tea the night before. Who was she? What did she know? There were so many children going through the line, but Vekaya’s stomach rumbled, telling her that it had been ages since she had had anything to eat. She could not even remember eating. But the smell of the wheat and milk drew her in. She put the food in her mouth and chewed. It was wonderful. The food was fantastic. She knew, somehow, that there was better food, but this was amazing. It was almost difficult to concentrate on how she might avoid those nightmares again. Avoid tea. Avoid the shamassons. Avoid their voices. How, she thought as she chewed, could she avoid their voices? How had she broken free? Did the other children know?

She looked around at them. Murmurs quietly crisscrossed the tables. Some seemed unaffected. Others were still drying their eyes from a night of crying. A few chattered excitedly. They hadn’t merely mastered this place. They were at home here. These children had not drank the tea. Surely, they would know. She tried to insert herself into their field of view. She stared obviously. They ignored or didn’t see her. Vekaya stood and walked over to them, carrying her wheat and milk - what was left of it.

Fixing her eyes on one girl who had curly light brown hair, Vekaya tried to find her way into their circle. She noticed that they were, in general, older than the other children in the House of Civius. Vekaya stalked around the table. She was beginning to realize that she resembled a hurt animal, rejected by the pack – even though she didn’t understand how she knew what that looked like.

One boy was speaking to the others who were at rapt attention. His voice carried around the room as if those near him might have trouble hearing. Vekaya knew almost nothing, but she knew that they were not going to have any difficulty. This was acting. This was wanting to be heard.

“She thought that she was in trouble because of something she’d written. She was so scared,” he laughed. The others laughed along with him until he continued, “that she didn’t realize that what I was actually calling her on was not having washed her hands when she left the washroom.”

More laughter. Vekaya was sensing that these were not the children she might be able to talk to about breaking rules. The boy with the blond hair was making a stupid face and, Vekaya guessed, imitating the noises of the girl who had not washed her hands. Again, she felt as though she knew almost nothing, but she knew who these children were: they were bullies. More accurately, they were in the thrall of a bully.

“It’s called the washroom,” he said. “There should be, I’ve said it a million times, A Pillar of Intelligence! No one gets into Caelum without understanding that you must wash your hands in the washroom!”

The laughter grew louder. The conversations around them had died down a bit. The other children were being cowed, humiliated. Vekaya’s eyes scanned the room and saw another older girl, alone, crying in the corner. She could have been crying for any reason at all, but Vekaya guessed that the loud laughter from the center of the dining hall was a reason. With an eye roll and a sigh, Vekaya turned away from the table of older children who had been, at that point, clearly ignoring her. She walked over and sat down next to the crying girl. She said nothing, looked at her in a way that, she thought, was sympathetic. The girl merely cried more. Vekaya had a few more bites of her wheat.

Then, she looked back down at her dress. Cloth. Cloth could become strings. She could use strings to stop up her ears. Amazing what taking your mind off of a problem for a moment will do.

A glance at the girl next to her revealed that she was not sitting next to anyone in a position to question or tell on her. The girl was utterly beside herself, great tears were cascading into her wheat. A moment later, a shamasson appeared behind the girl with tea, and Vekaya panicked. She leaned forward, fluffed her hair over her hands, and stuffed her fingers into her ears. She pressed until it hurt. Until she was deaf to the world. And then, she waited. And waited. And waited. She opened her eyes and looked down at her dress’ hem. With a bit of chewing, she could probably make a little cut in the fabric. She pictured it coming off in a strip, which she would begin to pull apart.

Was the girl already drinking the tea? Did everyone see this? The whole dining hall was calm. The chatty table at the center was as talkative as ever. Vekaya risked a glance to the side and saw the crying girl blankly putting a tea cup down on the table. She walked out, and the shamasson went with her.

Vekaya was not drinking any more tea – whether it smelled like iron or not. None.