#rojer devorak

Giggling at the thought of such a long name, Jiya unwrapped a piece of her candy and slipped it into her mouth, dropping the wrapper into the canal. It tasted vaguely sweet on her tongue, with a hint of chalkiness at first that made her wrinkle her nose. She wasn’t supposed to have candy--It’ll rot your teeth out, Yanti--but she’d found a copper piece in the gutter earlier while waiting for her father to finish for the evening. For her, that forgotten copper was practically a count’s fortune, and the siren song of forbidden candy was too much. She knew there was a candy stall in the Market--her mother had to drag her past it once a week on shopping day--and before she knew it, she was already there, watching him scoop a handful of the tiny rainbow treats into her pocket. Now she was running late to meet her father, but she smiled as she continued trying to whistle.

Her father was a gondolier, and on weeks when his shift ended in the evening, Jiya would often come out to meet him and walk him home, listening to him tell stories of all the interesting people he had ferried that day. Usually he was tired, but sometimes, on a good day, he would let her ride on his shoulders as they walked back to their house. Thinking of this, Jiya sped up her steps, noticing the way the shadows of the ramshackle buildings around her were getting longer and darker. Going to the market had taken longer than she meant--if she didn’t hurry, she would miss her father and have to walk back home alone, explaining where she had been in the meantime. 

Just to the dock and back, Yanti. Vesuvia can be dangerous.

Just as that thought crossed her mind, she heard shouts--instinctively, she ducked down to hide in one of those long shadows, her back scraping against brick. There was a water-warped mess of wood nearby--the busted skeleton of an old wine barrel--and she hid behind it just as the shouts rounded a nearby corner. There were hurried footsteps, and then another shout from a different voice; soon, both voices yelled in unison, their owners running past Jiya’s hiding place frantically.

“Rojer? Rojer! Rojer, where are you? Come here, please! Rojer!”

What a strange name, Jiya thought to herself, peeking out around the barrel. She could only vaguely see feet running off into the distance, sandals kicking up dirt and sand as the desperate pair disappeared around another alley. I doubt anyone named Rojer lives here. I’ve never heard that name, anyway. But the thought was replaced by panic--she was so very late now--that she immediately forgot about Rojer as she began to run, her legs taking her with sure quick steps down to the gondola docks. 

Her breath was only slightly heavier as she stopped at the top of the gang plank, frowning and tutting in frustration; there was her father’s boat, tied up for the evening, but he was nowhere to be found. She loved her father’s gondola almost as much as he did, which, she thought, must be saying something, as she knew how much pride her father took in it. While some of the other gondolas docked here in the Flooded District looked worn and chipped, their seat leather faded and cracked, Emir Sainesh’s boat was polished and gleaming enough to see yourself in. A cheery wreath of spring flowers was artfully placed on its prow, and would be replaced again the next day with a new one woven by Jiya’s mother. On the dock, it was a well-known sight--but everyone loved her father, and so no one would begrudge him his beautiful boat. She could just make out the name, written in a small but neat and beautiful script. The Jiyanti.

Turning on her heel, Jiya swiftly ran across the newly-built footbridge that led towards the heart of the residential area of the district. If she was quick--as quick as a rabbit, our Yanti--perhaps she could catch up to her father and convince him not to ask too many questions. She would tell him about the people yelling and searching earlier. Maybe he would believe that she had been scared, and that was why she was late coming to see him. Her mother might not believe such a story, but Jiya’s father was more easy-going. Even if he could smell the sugar on her breath--can mother really do that?--he probably wouldn’t scold. 

So caught up in her plan was Jiya, that at first she walked right past the mouth of the tiny alley without a thought--and yet, something drew her back. What was it? She couldn’t remember, later. Maybe it was the unnatural wafts of cold air coming from it, as if winter still gripped that alleyway in its clutches even though beyond it was springtime. Maybe it was the sudden realization of stillness--that as she walked, all the sound seemed to have been leached out of the area. There was no familiar sound of running water, or of evening bird calls; even Jiya’s footsteps seemed muffled and distant to her ears. Maybe it was something out of the corner of her eye; that instinct that every child has of demons lurking somewhere nearby...and the irrepressible need to throw open the closet doors, even knowing that what is inside might swallow you whole.

And so, slowly, reluctantly, without really knowing why, Jiya took one step back, and then another, until at last she stood trembling at the entrance to the alley. Even under her scarf and her clothes, her skin was covered in gooseflesh; from the cold or from the sight of what was in the alley, she couldn’t be sure. 

Everything in that narrow, dirty space shone and sparkled as if it were covered in glass. Sprays of white coated up the dingy walls; long, vicious-looking daggers of ice jutted up from the ground and down from the rooftops above. Everything in the alley was coated in frost, something Jiya had only seen once or twice on the coldest of winter mornings in Vesuvia, and yet it wasn’t hard to see what was beneath it. Encased in huge blocks of ice were several confused and terrified-looking men, their frozen eyes wide, their skin tinged an unhealthy pale blue, their bodies in the middle of aggressive movements forward. One of them, she thought, held something aloft in his hand, although it was hard to make out. A knife? She felt her pulse jump, her heart race. In fact, Jiya was so caught up staring at their faces--those bulging, unseeing eyes--that she almost missed the flash of brilliant-orange hair that came from behind one of the human ice sculptures.

She flinched, prepared for...what, she wasn’t sure, but what she saw was the last thing she expected to see. A boy, about her own age and milk-pale, with that fiery hair, freckles, and blue eyes that were so striking and brilliant, they didn’t look human at all. He seemed to be observing her, like she was him, but unlike her obvious fear, the boy appeared unbothered--as if he was looking at a vaguely interesting bird that had landed on the windowsill. Something about that look made her feel pierced, even in his disinterest, as if by one of the long, sharp ice spears jutting from the ground.

She shivered again, feeling it through her whole body.

“D-Did you d-do this?” she asked, unable to keep her voice from shaking. The boy’s head tilted a fraction, and after a long moment he looked around him again, as if having completely forgotten where he was or what he’d been doing. He then shook his head.

“No. He did it.”

Jiya’s head twitched back and forth, looking for the person she seemed to be missing. Someone--or something--that could have done all this. 

That was when she saw him, and it felt as if the floor of her stomach dropped out. Everything stopped. Her body, heavy, took one small step forward, and then froze, as trapped to the ground as the ice-men.

“Babi?”

Emir’s body lay crumpled upon itself in a far corner of the alley, behind the blocks of ice. His head was turned away from her, and the length of him was covered in a fine film of icy-white frost...but the beautifully-tailored coat that he always hung by the door was unmistakable. Her mother had made it, imbuing it with hours and hours of her expert needlework, and it was the only thing her father would wear to ferry his customers around in the Jiyanti.

It was as recognizable as the blood that soaked it, and the ground, tingeing the snow around his body pink.

Jiyanti’s brain couldn’t register. It seemed to be trying to think through mud. How could her father be laying there? Why was he bleeding? Couldn’t he get up, so that they could go back home and she could stop having this strange and terrible dream? 

The boy took a step closer to her, still seeming perplexed by her presence. If it was possible, he looked more confused now than before.

“Why are you sad? He got rid of them. He got rid of the bad men.”

Jiya’s eyes, trembling with tears that stung in the cold, dragged themselves back to his icy stare.

“Who? Who d-did this?”

“...He has no name.”

“Is he your friend? B-b-but… But he killed...he killed them.”

“So? They were bad.” He emphasized the last word, as if she were slow to catch on; as if it were obvious. “They hurt people. They wanted to hurt me, too.”

“What do you--” she began, when suddenly, from behind the frozen statues, a large figure arose. She would have sworn it wasn’t there, until it was; iIt unfolded itself, a walking shadow, with tendrils of frozen air radiating from its body and eyes that burned. She couldn’t look at it, so she dropped into a crouch, her eyes jammed shut, her hands against her ears. She couldn’t look at it. She’d rather die, she’d rather go mad, than look at that monster. In the dark she could hear the sound of furious shattering as the alley shook, and every piece of ice smashed in unison around her, spraying her face with cold. Then Jiya screamed, her tiny voice shrill, her whole body lead with terror and fear. 

And in the darkness of her room, separated by 17 years from this distant memory, Jiyanti Sainesh sat up with a jerk, eyes wide, a familiar scream tearing out of her throat. Although she clasped a hand over her mouth to stifle it, to stop the scream, it didn’t help the spasms of cold that wracked her body, as real as if she’d still been in that frozen alleyway. 

The memory of her father’s murder that never seemed to go away. 

There were footsteps outside of her room; a violent rapping of knuckles on wood and a hissed whisper to be quiet!, but then nothing. Jiyanti’s breath hitched and hiccuped into her lungs, forced around the confused tears. She always woke up at that part--she could never remember the monster’s face. 

Maybe everyone was right, and there had never been any monster to begin with. 

With a broken, exhausted sigh, Jiya lowered herself back onto the threadbare pillow, scrubbing a hand over her face and through her hair, desperate for more untroubled sleep. But as she could already see the dark sky growing light outside her window, she knew that wish wasn’t meant to be--just like the constant wish that her father had never met his grisly fate that day so long ago. Instead, she sat up again, planted her feet on the floor, and heaved a jaw-cracking yawn, hand fumbling around on the bedside stool for her uniform. 

Strangely enough, inside her mouth, she had a deja-vu taste of that chalky candy from so long ago.

It was time to start another day. Maybe this time she would find the boy from that evening, and get the answers she craved.