The Mountain and the Valley

“Willow. Wake up.” A jolt ran up my spine and my eyelids cracked open. An open breeze flung loose strands of saltwater hair across my face as my body obeyed before my mind. I sat upright with tired shoulders that hunched forward out of habit.

“Where are we?” My voice was raspy and my throat felt dry.

“Vannes,” his voice replied, so familiar and calm yet darkened and husky. His words were laced with subtle tremors. “You fell asleep so I decided not to wake you.”

Blurry eyes soon focused and I turned my vision to face the voice. Rupert, my mind thought thankfully. Every day I woke up with him at my side I counted myself lucky.

Rupert was a tall, stocky man with deep brown eyes and hair like straw. His arms rippled with strength and his hands were calloused from labor. He sat beside me, leaning on his knees, still a whole two heads taller than me. What once had been a collared shirt was tattered and ripped into a style which hung off his shoulders loosely.

Then there were his shoes, caked with dirt and falling apart. I remember him finding them underneath a pile of clothes in a landlord’s home a few years ago. They used to be brand new, a fancy shade of chestnut leather with puncture holes dotting the wingtips along the toe. Now, the holes were filled with dust and the wingtips had been torn from their holding amongst the laces.

“Vannes,” I repeated, running a hand across my hairline, gathering perspiration. “But we were just in Quimper less than a day ago.”

“The tides have been generous with us this past night,” Rupert grinned. “Are you ready for a new scene of wealth?”

Wealth. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in through my nose. Food. A roof over our heads. A new pair of shoes for Rupert.

“I’m ready,” I said firmly, smirking while looking at him out of the corner of my eye. “There must be a lot of fools in Vannes.”

Rupert understood. They were foolish because of how deeply they flaunted their wealth, how externally they showed their riches by how much they could buy and strap to their chests. The glamour, the fancy diamonds and pearls and fur coats - all because they could. When I was little I used to wish I was them, but that yearning soon turned to loathing, which turned to an endless search for vengeance.

The boat docked before long and the sound of boots clacking against the deck sounded louder than before. Maybe it was because everyone aboard was so eager to get on solid ground. I was just glad life was moving, rather than remaining stagnant. Staying too long in one place made me go stir crazy.

“Ladies first,” Rupert said, bowing mockingly while extending his arm toward the stairs that led to the shipyard.

From behind me, I heard a loud guffaw; turning my head, my eyes caught the haggard face of a man in his late forties. “You call that a lady?” he cackled.

“Sure they do,” I said, raising an eyebrow, taking a step toward him. “Just the same as they call you a dirty ol’ bastard.”

The man cackled. “Oh, she’s a feisty one.”

“I’ll show you who’s feisty,” I muttered, reaching for the switchblade in my back pocket before I was stopped.

“Come on, Willow,” Rupert’s voice boomed behind me. “We don’t have time for this.”

I arched my back and straightened my shoulders, elongating my neck and looking down my nose at the man with squinted eyes. I then turned on my heel, shaking my long hair off my shoulder, and walked down the ramp toward shore. I sensed Rupert’s glare piercing into the man aboard the ship; I forced back a smile and kept walking.

As soon as my foot hit land, I nearly collapsed, flailing onto the ground and rejoicing for finally being off that dreadful ship. I hated ships, and to avoid that constant feeling of seasickness, I slept as much as I could while on board.

Instead, I fought back a terrible grin and ground my toes in the dirt, just to be certain I was actually on land.

“Where to?” I asked, looking out at my surroundings. There wasn’t more than small shops that looked too expensive for our current tastes, especially when all we had was lint in our pockets.

“To the nearest pub,” Rupert said thoughtfully. “We just have to make sure they don’t catch on too quickly.”

“Men who have enough to drink and gamble are the foolish ones,” I said quietly.

It took us ten minutes to locate a map of Vannes, and then another ten minutes to make out the words on the map, words that could have taken others a moment to read. Rupert was patient, but I got frustrated easily and went to sulk near the water while he figured out our current standing.

While I was waiting I found a few rocks to skip along the shoreline. The smooth, flat ones worked best for skipping, and I managed to get one to skip six times in a row before I was summoned back to the crowded street.

The city air smelled cleaner than Calais, which was located at the northernmost point of France along the English Channel. It was a dirty city with lots of chapels that people like me never paid attention to. We had to scour the town tenfold to find anyplace worth scavenging, or anyone who had anything to their name. The town was crawling with spiders - people like us who crawled in the darkness, lurked in corners, and sprung for the chance to make a quid or two.

Calais was nothing like Vannes, and the more I looked around, the more I noticed it. It wasn’t in just the smells or the clean air or the bustle of the city, it was in the people. It was as if you could see inside them; they were different than Calaisians. Their spirits were lighter.

They were happier.

As I followed Rupert through the city, hard at his heels, I hoped that I would soon feel different, too.