Children of Ash: A Meridian Six Novella by Jaye Wells Read Free Book Online

be on garden and KP duty.”
    I raised a hand to ask where she was taking Mica, but she shot me a warning look.
    “Stick to your assigned areas. Do not leave unless Bravo, a guard, or I give you permission. You will be given scheduled bathroom breaks. Do not ask to go at any other time. What’s the final rule, children?”
    All the children, except Mica, who was too new, spoke in unison: “Never let the guards see your fear.”
    My stomach dropped. Mica’s eyes widened. I shook my head, hoping to reassure him.
    Matri held up a hand. “Mica, do you understand the rules?” She cocked a brow and held a finger to her ear. Something about her tone and mannerisms made me wonder if she’d been a teacher before the war.
    “Yes, Matri,” Mica whispered.
    She smiled. “Very good, my dear. Listen to me and you will adjust to life here. Ignore me and you will find this place very inhospitable, indeed.” She looked at me, as if to let me know that applied to me, as well.
    I wasn’t sure how anyone could ever adjust to being imprisoned. I already felt like a caged animal, ready to claw my skin off.
    Matri left the children and pulled me aside. “There is a small plot of land behind the intake building. Put half of them to work harvesting potatoes. The other half will be in the kitchens, scrubbing and cooking. There’s a vampire there named Magda who will oversee them. Do whatever she says.”
----
    M agda turned out to be about as charming as one would expect. She wore the trademark black and red uniform of a Troika guard and ran the kitchen like a colonel. Huge pots of potatoes boiled over large fires. Some of the children were in charge of stirring the cauldrons using huge paddles. The rest were stationed at massive sinks, where they scrubbed potatoes nonstop.
    “It’s potato day, huh?” I said, trying to make conversation.
    Her eyes narrowed, as if she suspected I was making fun of her. “Every day is potato day.” The words were delivered in a clipped Slavic accent.
    “How do the workers stay strong if they only eat potatoes?”
    Magda’s right eyelid twitched. I took a step back. “I’ll just go see how the gardeners are doing.”
    As I walked away, she called out, “Train delivers monthly delivery of swine. Miners get meat rations once a week, everyone else eats protein every two weeks. Next train is expected in two days. Until then, potatoes.”
    I looked over my shoulder. “If you need me I’ll be in the garden.”
    The air was cold outside—a relief after the kitchen’s sweltering heat. But my relief was short-lived because the air was thick with ash, and the garden looked more like a graveyard than the source of nourishment.
    Ten children spread out over the rows of low plants. Any green in the plants’ leaves was obscured by a generous coating of gray. Each child carried a burlap sack across their thin shoulders. As they moved down the rows, they filled the sacks with potatoes that were barely larger than pebbles. Once their bags were full, runners would take the sacks back to the kitchen, and new sacks were brought to the gatherers.
    One of the runners was a boy named Ezekiel. From what I’d seen of his interactions with Matri, he was something of a leader among the children. I put his age around ten, which meant he was only a couple of years from being transferred to the mines. His shoulders still had the narrowness of boyhood and his eyes, impossibly large in his skeletal face, were shadowed with a knowledge too old and dark for his young body.
    “Everything okay?” I asked, approaching him.
    His eyes were on the children farther down the rows. “Yes, ma’am.”
    “You can call me Bravo.” I bent down to try to catch his eyes, but he stared fixedly down the rows. “Ezekiel?”
    “Yes, ma’—Bravo,” he said, correcting himself quickly.
    “Where did Matri take Mica?”
    His eyes skittered toward me but quickly moved back to their original position. “The barn.”
    “Magda said there