Whisper by Chris Struyk-Bonn

that went into his neck. We were not used to such blatant cheating. We were not used to people who didn’t stop fighting when we’d already surrendered.
    Nathanael accepted Ranita in his bloody hands when I handed her to him. My fingers, as they laid Ranita in his lap, shook and fluttered. Nathanael gripped my wrist, pulled me down and spoke into my ear.
    â€œCome back, Whisper. As soon as you can. You, of all the rejects, were never meant for the life out there.” While he spoke, he slipped something around my neck. I looked down and saw the violin that Jeremia had carved for me—the miniature instrument. Nathanael had fitted it with a string through a tiny hole at the end of the long neck—a little piece of warmth and wood with smears of Nathanael’s blood on the edge. I slipped it under my shirt, where it soothed my skin.
    I stood, held my head high once more and bit down on my tongue. I would not cry in front of these men. I would not let them have that power over me. I reached into myself and pulled on a small thread of anger. I held on to it, squeezed it, felt how delicate it was.
    My belongings were quickly collected; I had very little. Everything my mother had given me fit into a scarf she had worn around her neck. I held the scarf up to my nose and breathed deeply. It still smelled of baking bread and molasses. I wrapped my cloth doll, a silver spoon and three ribbons for my hair inside the material. The violin fit against my back. I left the blankets, pillows, Jeremia’s life-size carving that reminded me of waterfalls, and my books—the three encyclopedia volumes I’d read from cover to cover, learning about the world. I pulled on my sweater, flipped aside the deerskin door and walked out of the hut. I wished I could pack Jeremia, Eva, Ranita and Nathanael into the violin case.
    When I emerged, Jeremia stood by the fire pit, holding Eva. The two of them watched me with big, glassy eyes. I wanted to run to them, feel Eva’s arms around my neck, feel the tingling that started when Jeremia’s body was pressed against mine. Instead, I jerked my head away and tried to hold on to my thread of anger.
    Celso and Belen stood by the path into the woods, and my brothers peered out at me from behind Belen. I turned to look at our camp—the log huts, the fire pit, the sitting logs surrounded by huge trees that stretched and strained toward the sun—and I thought of how small my world had been for sixteen years. How small and yet how huge.
    When we walked into the woods, I did not look back, but as we moved away I heard nothing from the world behind me as the two men and two boys in my company lumbered through the trees, drowning out any sign of beauty that might have been there.
    My mother was dead. And with that thought, my thread of anger disintegrated and I felt my lower lip begin to shake. I bit down on it until I couldn’t tell if the tears in my eyes were from my mother’s death or the pain in my lip.

Five
    The two boys looked at me as we walked. The farther we got from the camp, the braver they became, as if distance gave them strength. The younger one, who looked to be about eight years old, had sturdy legs and a protruding stomach. He waited for me to pass and then followed me. I walked between the tromping men, my feet so silent it was as if I wasn’t there. We trod beneath the oak trees with their majestic branches, and I listened to every move the boy behind me made. The other brother walked in front of me but glanced back often, looking at my face, examining my features. Belen led the way along the narrow path through the woods. Tree branches and bushes almost covered the slim trail we followed. Celso brought up the rear. No one smiled at me, attempted to talk to me, softened their gaze when they looked at me. I had no friends among these men and boys with their unblemished faces. There was no one to trust here.
    About three hours into our march, I