Taken (Erin Bowman)

the house together, in complete silence, for the very last time.

TWO
    TODAY IS A SERIES OF lasts. Our last lunch. Last afternoon tea. Last game of checkers. After tonight it will be over. After tonight, he’ll be gone.
    Blaine picks up one of his dark, clay tokens and jumps over two of my wooden ones. I finger the lines of the game board carved into our table as he collects my fallen pieces, smirking.
    It’s hard to believe his Heist is already here. It feels like the years flew by, like I must have missed a bunch of them while blinking. The moments I remember with clarity are the milestones of our childhood. Starting school, learning how to hunt. Xavier Piltess taught us over the course of a muggy summer when I was ten. He was fifteen and had his own bow. He sat in Council meetings and got to vote on important issues, and he knew exactly how much a rabbit could go for in the market compared to a deer or wild turkey. The way we saw it, there was no question Xavier couldn’t answer.
    Until, of course, he was Heisted as well.
    By the time I was thirteen, Blaine and I were selling game regularly in the market and helping Ma in the textile building twice a week. A year after that, Ma caught a chill that even Carter and her medicines couldn’t chase away, and the two of us carried on alone.
    As customary, we became men at fifteen, attended Council meetings, and were eligible for the slatings. It’s strongly encouraged, of course, for the boys to make their rounds in Claysoot and follow through with slatings. I’ve always felt a little torn about it, though. Not that it isn’t enjoyable—it always is—but I’ve grown to hate the moving around, sleeping with one girl only to be pushed at another. There’s a level of comfort that is always missing. Each encounter feels like a formality and one that could far too easily result in fatherhood. While I hate the routine, I understand why the Council shoves us at a different girl each month. If we don’t want to die out, there’s really no other option.
    Blaine was always a year ahead of me in these milestones, always leading the way, setting the example. When I was uncertain or scared or confused he’d set me at ease. And now he’s just hours away from being gone forever.
    “Gray?” Blaine’s voice pulls me from my thoughts.
    “Huh?”
    “I think I’m going to go to the blacksmith shop. I need to stay busy.”
    “No, don’t go to work. Let’s at least finish this game.”
    Blaine touches one of his game pieces but pulls his hand back without moving it to a new square. “I can’t do this ’til midnight, Gray. I’m too anxious.”
    “I’ll come with you,” I offer.
    He shakes his head and points at my chin. “You should get your jaw checked out. It looks worse compared to this morning.”
    I notice for the first time it’s already late afternoon. Had we really been playing that long, or are all lasts quicker by nature?
    “Fine,” I say. “I’ll stop by the Clinic.”
    He nods in approval, almost the way our mother used to, and then tosses my pack into my lap. He pulls on his new jacket, even though the air is now oppressive and heavy, and tousles my hair before leaving. I sit there, staring at the game pieces, Blaine’s clay tokens far outnumbering my wooden ones. Our last unfinished game.
    He would have won.
    The Clinic has several beds, separated by thin curtains that hang from wooden rods running the width of the building. The curtains aren’t being utilized when I arrive and I can see that Carter is not in. Her daughter, Emma, is there though, reorganizing a set of clay jars on the shelves at the far end of the room.
    I’ve known Emma since we were kids. Our mothers had been close, mostly on account of how sick I was as a child. Ma once told me that I’d seen nothing but the inside of our house until I was a year old; and throughout that time Carter visited often, fussing over me and working her magic. Whatever she did, she did it well. Half of Claysoot still stares at me like I’m some sort of miracle, like it should be impossible to be so sick as an infant and still come out on the strong side of healthy.
    Ma and Carter remained inseparable through most of my childhood, and as a result, I spent a lot of time with Emma. Sometimes Ma brought Blaine and me to the Clinic and we chased Emma around the wooden tables until she cried mercy. Other days, when Carter had less work, she brought Emma over to our house and we entertained ourselves