I stepped out into the street with a sense that I should be immune to encroaching eyes now that their local peacekeepers had had their way with me. I knew I wouldn’t be, though. Children, for one, care little for the opinions of arbitrarily-elected persons of authority. They still tried to crane their heads and look at me as I drifted past, trying to figure me out. Many of their parents focused on scooting them away from me with those habitual smiles of apology that were more afraid of what I might do if offended than of actually offending me.
There was another sort, too, that was less subtle. We didn’t get that sort back at the village, so as much as they watched me, as if simultaneously trying to catch my eye and avoid it, I watched them. I was intrigued. They loped toward the periphery of my vision most of the time, but I could feel their eyes on me as an almost tactile thing, such was their focus. Do you remember that tidal wave of question marks that swamped me when I first appeared? It was a force quite like that, except that rather than one big wash of puzzlement this was a steady drilling at the sides of my mind from one direction, and then another.
For a while, I made note of them and then pretended not to notice so that they would feel more comfortable watching me and perhaps approach like stray dogs offered a scrap of food. But when they continued to dip in and out of sight, I grew bolder. The next time I saw one, I turned and looked her straight on. Sure, I had no visible eyes to make that explicit eye contact, but you still know when someone is looking straight at you. You just do.
The woman froze under the weight of my attention. Her brows knit together, but the whites of her eyes grew more visible. From this distance, I couldn’t make out pupils, but I sure could make out sclera as alarm creased her features. She looked due west, turned, turned, and found a handful of apples to occupy her hands, immediately asking something of the trader selling them.
Interesting. I made no efforts at hiding my approach, slanting my head way over to one side to emphasize a question mark of my own --because one can never be a threat if they look confused enough, mask or no. The trader gave me about five glances in rapid succession, but the woman only gave me one: She fished coins from her pocket, announced she would buy the apples, then gave me the strangest look as she walked away. It was a keen look. If I didn’t know any better, I would say she bore some likeness to myself, but no. It wasn’t just observing. She wasn’t taking a mental snapshot. She was...measuring.
I watched her go, looked from apples to trader, then allowed myself to drift off in another direction. I wasn’t concerned, but intrigued. I wanted to find more of this new class to study, to mingle with, to understand. But they seemed to disappear into the woodwork, so to speak. Evidently, I had alerted them to the fact that I had not only noticed them but was willing to approach and force them to commit either to politeness or hostility. It was an amusing thought, but I didn’t get to test it any further.
Evening was falling over the town. I watched as the crowds thinned. Traders continued to eye me uncertainly as they packed up their wares and collapsed their stalls. Wagons were loaded up and hauled away, or draped with tarp and tied up. As the sunlight thinned out, steadily life seeped away to indoor spaces, leaving me to wander on my own through the cool, quiet twilight.
Perhaps it was because I was accustomed to a much smaller village, this wandering felt… strange. The larger buildings loomed, and I could feel the sprawl of the town around me. There were more alleyways to count, more stacks of crates and burlap, nooks and crannies that caught and held shadow. Mind you, I wasn’t afraid of these things. I had no reason to be. The odd sets of footsteps, a holler from several streets down, the rustle of wind through trees in the near distance were a part of the rhythm of any establishment. This is just another flavor, another part of the daily cycle that so many take for granted. They disappear into their homes and stay there until dawn, neglecting the peace and restfulness that comes with starlight and shadow.
I, for one, basked in it, wondering at all those dinner tables. The people there didn’t know me yet, a sensation I found myself probing over and over again. I wasn’t yet the pet they would invite in and prop up at the table to examine and play nice at. I didn’t intend to be. I didn’t want to be. But still I found myself hovering near lit windows, head tilting with the weight of my own thoughts. Each building a unit, whatever was going on inside a mystery, a story all of its own. How many generations shared that one roof? Were there children? Pets? Who was fighting with whom? Who did the cooking, or the chores after the meal? Did they eat meticulously-planned meals, or whatever they could scrap together in a hurry? Did they know there was a war going on somewhere in the distance?
“Hey. You shouldn’t be here.”
It took me a moment to realize that had been addressed to me. I had found myself a crate to sit on, chin nestled on the palm of my hand as I studied a pool of window-light on the cobbles. When I looked up, I found a woman standing to one side of me, eyes shadowed by nightfall. Her arms were crossed over her chest --a closed-off posture, insecure. She wanted to accost me, but she was still afraid of me. I understood.
I stepped my feet down from the crate, but remained seated. It wouldn’t help to loom over her. In careful motions, I pressed my hands to my chest and showed her my empty palms.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but I want you gone.” I looked further to the side, and a man stepped out of the shadows, older, burlier. His eyes were also shadowed by the night. “There are kids here. We won’t risk them to odd creepers in the night.”
Odd creepers in the night? This struck me as peculiar. After all --I panned a hand toward them-- weren’t they creeping just as much as I was? Including the third and fourth silhouette to appear.
“We,” said the forth, “are the rightful citizens of this town. We insist that you leave.”
My fingers curled in against my hand as I considered that last voice. I looked her over carefully in the darkness, the set of the shoulders the rock-solid confidence held her firm to her spot. That: She was the one from the market, who bought two apples just to get away from me.
“The peacekeepers have the best intentions, but their hands are tied by their oath. Ours aren’t. Get up.”
I looked around at all of them. Two men, two women, all of relatively similar dress from what I could tell. One still had her arms crossed. Another stared intently at me, but was fussing uncomfortably with his pockets. The third gripped his belt more readily, a sense of being spring-loaded and ready to launch at a hair’s twitch. The last brooked no negotiation. She stared me down as if she could see straight through my eyes and into my soul. They were nervous. That’s what they were --all of them. Puffed feathers mean nervousness just as much as a tail between the legs. It was just a different type of nervous from what I had encountered back in the mountain village. In the village, it had been confusion, a puzzlement. Here it was… different. It was…
A hand grabbed at my coat and shoved me back against the wall. My head struck brick, and stars exploded in front of my eyes. Reflexively, I grabbed at the arm that pinned me, but he was already yanking me up to my feet as if I was some ragdoll. This was new. This was very new. I pawed vaguely at his arm and face, struggling to keep up with the sudden violence. There was a snarl, and something hard slammed into my face. The stars that had been swimming across my vision ruptured into brief fissures of color.
I found myself stumbling along the road, clutching at the terrible throbbing pain blooming in my cheek. It blurred everything on that starlit street out of focus. Had he somehow struck my mind halfway out of my head? Was that the splitting sensation I was feeling? I tottered in place until I could see enough to look up and back at where the four of them blocked me from returning to my crate. Or rather, back at where the man was grabbing my shoulder and giving me another shove further down the road.
“Go!” snarled the woman at his side. “Get out of here. Take your war somewhere else.”
When I caught my balance this second time, I let myself continue to backpedal another few feet away from them. The woman was pointing to the road behind me. The man was stalking forward again, and I memorized that posture: the tight curl of his fingers, the sharp squareness of his shoulders, the darkness of his eyes, the way his feet planted themselves with every step, rooting and unrooting to propel him forward, the way he very distinctly resembled solid stone in so many ways. I memorized these details quickly and assigned them a label.
That label was: Danger.
I turned and ran.
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