Quiver by Holly Luhning Read Free Book Online Page B

heat. I walked faster, anxious to get to the town, a building, water, someplace out of the sun. I berated myself for not being prepared for the hike, not researching more thoroughly how to get to the village from the station. But Maria had promised we’d go together, she’d be my guide, that she’d been there “of course, many times before.” I wondered exactly how many times she’d trekked along a rural Slovakian road for miles in thirty-degree heat.
    I pushed on, bombarded by grasshoppers each time I stepped on the thick tufts of grass that rimmed the edge of the ditch. Most of the hoppers pinged off my jeans, but some leapt higher, the barbs of their legs and beady heads rough against my bare arms, my face. I was ready to cry from the heat, from the frustration, when I finally reached the end of the curve and saw there was only another mile at the most before the road turned to asphalt. The road passed through a graveyard, then into a town ahead. I hoped it was Čachtice.
    I slowed down when I reached the graveyard. The hardtop road split the field of graves in two. Rows of graves nearest the road were simple slabs of stone, weathered black, a lace of moss inhabiting the cracks. About a third of the stones had bright flowers on them, or white candles, unlit, encased in clear glass globes. A raven landed on one of the slabs and cawed repeatedly.
    I was almost through the graves and at the edge of town when a loud, tinny voice came from a speaker that was strapped to the top of a telephone pole in the ditch. The voice spoke urgently, almost a yell, in Slovak. It was repeating the same phrase over and over. I looked around for any security cameras, any watchmen. Was the voice talking to me? My throat was dry and I gripped my purse strap, my hand soaked with sweat. I walked back a ways, looked, turned, looked. Thought about going back to the station. Then the voice stopped and the speaker started broadcasting accordion polka music. I was disoriented, and had to take a minute to calm down and get my bearings among the graves.
    I was nearer to the town than the station, so I continued through the graveyard, under a stone archway and into the village proper while the music kept blaring through the speakers. A large white delivery truck sped towards me and kicked up stones. I scurried up the steps of the building beside me, a church, to escape the spray of pebbles. The church cast a shadow, so I sat on the shaded steps, wiped the sweat from my face with the bottom of my T-shirt and spied on the truck. The polka music played on.
    The truck parked in the town square. People emerged from all directions and congregated at the back of the vehicle, then the rear door slid up. Each person carried a cotton or burlap sack; the man at the back of the truck was taking people’s money and handing them vegetables. The polka music stopped for a minute, another broadcast in Slovak rang out, then more music. Danica, you are ridiculous, I told myself, scared by a produce truck and a polka recording.
    As I headed to the square, I passed people who were carrying sacks of vegetables; they stepped far out of my path, whispered to their friends. I was as conspicuous as if I’d been walking through town in a gold lamé prom dress. I averted my eyes when I passed by them, felt like I was intruding.
    The town museum was just off the square. I climbed the crumbling concrete stairs to the entrance and pulled on the hot, wrought-iron handles of the wooden double doors. Locked. A small paper note was taped to the pale stone wall beside the door. A few words in Slovak, and a time: 13:00. It was 12:30.
    I went back down the stairs to the street and stood in the mottled shade of a poplar tree, trying to decide what to do. I fished my compact out of my purse and popped it open. My hair was sticky and wet along the hairline, and my cheeks were bright pink. I tried to dab some powder on my nose, but my face kept perspiring, turning the powder into a wet