Free The Crossing by Mandy Hager Page B

Rebekah assured her, “to show you where to fetch the water for your bath.” As the light from the corridor caught Rebekah side on, Maryam registered an unusual tinge of yellow in the whites of her eyes.
    Alone again, Maryam spat the toddy straight back into the cup. Her mouth felt numb, tingling from the drink's magic. She crossed into the bathroom and poured the residue down the drain hole of the bath. May the Lord forgive her: she could not stand to drink it all. It was bad enough to go from humiliation to humiliation, without also losing the ability to think things through. The mirror reflected her worried face back to her. Dark smudges of sleeplessness framed her eyes and, there, where her eyeballs should be white they, too, were muddied by a yellow hue. Was it just the diffused light, or had something else turned them so?
    â€œSister Maryam?” Mother Michal called.
    Maryam dashed back to her bed, placing the empty cup beside her just as Mother Michal entered the room. “Ah good, I see Rebekah has been here.”
    Mother Michal patted Maryam's shoulder, a kindly gesture that almost brought tears swelling in Maryam's eyes. “I have asked Rebekah to show you where to fetch your water and then you can join the others in the kitchen to help prepare our meals.”
    Maryam nodded, unsure if she was allowed to respond. It seemed not: Mother Michal checked the cup was empty and reiterated that complete silence now would aid her journey toward the Lord, then left. The toddy made Maryam a little dizzy, despite the small amount she had consumed. She dragged on her clothes, eating the breakfast of fresh fruit and nuts hungrily as she did so. The thought of joining the others in a normal task was reassuring. Maybe the trials they'd put her through were over. Please, she prayed, let this be so.
    When Rebekah returned, she led Maryam down through a maze of corridors, reminiscent of her scattered dreams thenight before. There were many more people about today, black-clothed servers rushing silently from job to job. The girls made their way down to the very bowels of the great ship, where huge steel vats, tarnished with age, filled the cool dark space. It was noisy here, as the motors powered by the waste converted the salt water into fresh. Maryam longed to take the controlling server aside and deluge him with questions as to how it worked. But she dared not speak, conscious of the eyes of the Apostles upon her. They seemed to be everywhere, supervising the servers at their tasks.
    Once they had delivered the fresh water to her room, Maryam followed Rebekah up to the kitchens, cheered by the rumble of warm chatter that greeted them as they entered. “Come and I'll introduce you,” Rebekah offered, and she started reeling off servers’ names so fast that Maryam could not keep up. But what she did register, with each new face, was the same strange yellowing of the eyes.
    â€œAnd you remember Sarah,” Rebekah now said, pulling a reluctant girl from her place slumped by a sink.
    So this washed-out girl was Sarah, who had played with her when she was young. She wouldn't meet Maryam's eye, squirming like a bonubonu worm brought to light. Her face was a sickly grey, dry skin patching both her cheeks. And her lips, as pale as driftwood, were split and cracked. Her hair, which Maryam remembered as strong ropy curls, hung limp and unkempt, and her hands trembled as she took Maryam's offered hand and shook it with the limpness of a slaughtered chicken's claw.
    Maryam swallowed a gasp, as Sarah's extended arm revealed a weeping wound at the crook of her thin elbow. The surroundingskin looked bruised and fragile. Just for a second Sarah's eyes met Maryam's then slipped away. But the pain in them, the deep resigned misery, struck Maryam. Sarah was gravely ill, she was convinced of it.
    But she had no time to dwell on this, as Rebekah led her on to meet Miriam and Abigail, both of whom she vaguely remembered