Free Away by Teri Hall

possible for the Others . . . I mean for you people, I mean . . . I mean for people like you . . .” Rachel stopped talking. Nothing she said sounded like what she meant.
    â€œYou mean for people like us, whose great-grandparents were separated from their lovers and daughters and sons, with no warning and no remorse; people like us, who got abandoned over here, who got left to suffer and die when the bombs went off, who got left to die here, by people like you?” Nandy stared at Rachel, something wild in her eyes.
    Rachel stared back. “No,” she said quietly.
    â€œNo, what ?” Nandy sounded more angry than Rachel had heard her, more angry than she had thought it possible for Nandy to be, really.
    â€œNo,” Rachel whispered, looking straight into Nandy’s eyes. “ Not by people like me. People like me wouldn’t do that. I didn’t do that. I never would.” She walked to the corner where her bag and duffel were and stood looking down at them. She felt tears stinging her eyes, but she didn’t cry. She wanted to take her things and go. She wanted to go find her father herself, without any help from this woman, without any help from anyone. She wanted to find him and look at him and hug him and hear him say he loved her and that everything would be all right. But the most she could do right now was to go outside and sit, and wait for the moment to change. She fumbled in her pack for some gloves.
    â€œRachel.”
    Rachel didn’t turn. She felt her cheeks burning. She kept looking for the gloves.
    â€œRachel.” Nandy touched her shoulder, turned her around. Her face was etched with regret. “I’m so sorry.” She looked at Rachel and her eyes looked helpless. She shook her head. “I just get so angry, and I have nowhere to put it. I’m so angry at what they did. Every time one of us dies because of a simple infection, or in childbirth . . . What they did goes on and on for us. And they don’t care at all. But you’re right. You are not them. You had nothing to do with it.”
    Rachel just looked at her. She didn’t know what to say.
    â€œCome help me with dinner?” Nandy smiled a small, tentative smile.
    Rachel nodded. She followed Nandy to the hearth. Nandy handed her a smooth piece of clean wood, carved with a wider, paddle-like end.
    â€œIf you could stir those up.” Nandy nodded to the eggs.
    Rachel saw three tiny yolks floating in the pan. She broke them with the utensil and began to stir.
    â€œWhere did these come from?”
    Nandy looked up from the table, where she was measuring some sort of rough flour from a crock. “They’re from a bird that lives in our woods—a funny bird that can’t fly. They lay three eggs at a time, and we gather one from each nest.” She stopped her measuring and leaned on the table. She waited until Rachel noticed the silence and looked back.
    â€œI truly am sorry, Rachel.”
    â€œIt’s okay.” It was Rachel’s turn to smile a tentative smile. “I’d be mad too.”
    They worked in silence for a few minutes. But Rachel had so many questions racing through her mind that she couldn’t stay quiet for long.
    â€œI met Fisher today. Before the council meeting. Pathik didn’t seem to like him.”
    â€œOh, there’s lots of history there.” Nandy shrugged. “I do wish those boys would loosen up a bit. It’s all about their fathers. Well, not fathers—I mean, Malgam is Pathik’s father, but Michael isn’t Fisher’s. He’s his guardian.” Nandy took a bit more flour from the crock. “Fisher’s parents were both killed when he was four. Michael took him in, and raised him up like his own son. And Michael and Malgam don’t always get along. So the boys get torn apart a bit with that.”
    â€œHow did Fisher’s parents die?” Rachel knew what it was like to lose one