I had never reached out to touch any of the previous dwellers, because I assumed differently. I was the bottom feeder of the bottom feeders, and if my eighteen life-cycles had taught me anything, it was that nothing ever changed. Dwellers would always be worthless to the world, and I would always be worthless to the worthless.
As if I’d summoned the accident by thought alone, my feet tangled in a rough section of brush by the side of the dirt road, and before Emmy could right my balance—no doubt the reason she’d chosen to utilise her crazy, muscle-man strength and manhandle me in the first place—the bag shot from my hand and hit the side of the cart. A cart which bore the very regal crest of Blesswood; the mark of the creator, the original God. His mark was a staff, with a spear-head made of silver. Always silver, because silver was the colour of the Creator. I’d heard, once, that all the gods were defined by certain colours, but the only part of that particular lesson that had actually stuck with me had been the fact that Death’s colour was black. It just seemed so … predictable. Where’s the creativity, gods? I didn’t see why Death couldn’t have pink. Or purple. What if he liked sparkles?
I was distracted from my thoughts as my bag dropped heavily into the dirt beside the cart, billowing up a plume of dust. An actual gasp was let out en-mass as the shock of what I’d just done wore off. Come on, people. They couldn’t be surprised, right? Did they think that by just being chosen, I’d suddenly emulate the grace of a sol? Well, that would have been nice, but I was a pragmatic sort of dweller. The clumsy curse was going nowhere, although I did take a moment to be grateful that I’d neither killed anyone, nor disabled the vehicle in a way that would render it completely useless.
“Willa,” Emmy hissed. “What the hell is in your bag?”
I took a closer look at the crest. There was now a dent in it, right in the centre. Knocking the pin-straight staff a little off-kilter. Whoops. Striding a few feet forward, dragging Emmy with me, I snatched my bag up again.
“I think it was the saucepan,” I whispered.
“Why is there a saucepan in your bag?” she asked, glaring at the bag in question.
“Won’t we need it to cook with?”
She slapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. I’d caught the start of her laugh. I brandished my bag at her, fully prepared to whack her with it—and the gathered people gasped, again.
Emmy only shook her head at me.
“How many strikes do you get before they bleed you?” I was half joking as we were forced to turn to the gathered villagers and wave.
She blinked a few times, her mouth opening and closing, before she was finally able to say, “It’s your own fault, Will. What did I tell you about walking?”
“That I should leave it to the experts,” I mumbled, trying to sound chastised.
The stark white of her skin was a little too pronounced, and I knew she feared for me, even though she was teasing me in the same way that she always had. I wasn’t the only one who had been kept up last night by visions of the many ways in which I would almost definitely be tortured. Dwellers might live simple, menial, task-driven lives—but it was reasonably safe in the villages. My curse was barely tolerated here, but there was nothing that could be done to actually get rid of me. Most dwellers figured that one sun-cycle soon, I would simply take care of the problem myself, by tripping into one of the spiked pits that bordered the village to protect us from wild animals, or accidentally stumbling into untamed bullsen territory. Pfft. Been there, done that, wasn’t even that close to dying.
“Come on.” Emmy dragged me the last few feet.
My bag was now being stored in the back by the guide … though not before he searched it suspiciously. He didn’t even open Emmy’s. Hardly surprising. One look at Emmy and it was pretty clear that the most illegal thing she would be capable of smuggling into Blesswood would be a pair of underpants with an accidental rip in them. Not even a deliberate rip—an accidental one.