They sang along with the old man, raising their arms to the sky and moving their hips to the music. Their movements were free, liquid, completely unrestrained. The music possessed them.

They were free.

Paw swore, nudging Lumpy to move faster. The horse snorted, bothered, but obeyed, moving at a faster clip. With a tight jaw, Paw spit onto the front steps of the building as they passed. The patrons didn’t blink an eye.

Minette couldn’t look away, either, maintaining eye contact with the old man until the building and its music vanished out of sight.

“Paw, what was that place?” Minette asked.

“Droz’s only sin,” Paw growled with a startling vitriol. “That place is for freaks and thieves. Everyone knows that place is dangerous. Our walls are to keep riff-raff out–they don’t belong in here with us. If they can come in, they can get the bees out.”

“Oh. That’s… terrible,” Minette said, trying very hard to sound disgusted.

“You’re damn right,” Paw snapped. “Just keep working, marry a nice woman, give her a good son, and keep your head down, and you won’t end up like any of them.”

Minette didn’t respond. She turned around, trying to catch another glimpse of the mysterious establishment, but it was gone.

***

This signals the end of part one of My Name is Minette, and also my final submission as a blogger for Arts, Ink., as I am graduating in May! I have just completed the novel as my honor’s thesis, and hope to query it to agents and eventually get it published.

I would like to thank Joe and all the lovely folks at Arts, Ink. for all their support and for making a dream come true.

You can find my other works at theopoling.com, and my student org at transgncartsreview.org.

Thank you,

Theo

She looked to Paw and his clenched jaw. “Where are we? Do you know where we’re going?”

“Of course I do,” Paw grit out. “We’re out in the sticks. It must just be a little bit further.”

Minette shook her head at Paw’s stubbornness. The only thing they stood to lose if they turned back and went another way was Paw’s pride. Minette stared straight ahead, hoping the hills would rise up over the next turn, guiding them safely to the mines. 

Droz didn’t feel like Droz here. Like this place was something unspoken–something not to speak about. And it was true, in a way—Minette had never been taught that Droz was anything other than a merry little community, safe in its walls.

Seeing something that contrasted that so aggressively made a cold feeling sit in her gut. How little did she know about the world beyond her front door?

A new building caught Minette’s attention. This one had a life dissimilar to the shacks and homes around it. It was two-story, brick, with a broad porch that wrapped around the building. All of the windows were open, and music, noise, and voices echoed out from the premises.

On the porch, a couple of old men with sunburned, sagging skin and bright white hair sat nursing their beer bellies in rocking chairs. One of the men had a banjo. He played a song that was like nothing Minette had ever heard before. It was twangy and morose, but oddly upbeat: she felt like she could weep over a dead lover and beat the bees out of a bad guy while listening to it.

The banjo man caught Minette’s eye. Her breath caught in her throat. Instead of glaring at her, or chasing her away like she thought he might, he smiled over at her, gap-toothed, and played even faster, singing along with a raspy croon. His eyes never left Minette’s, even as his fingers flew across the banjo strings.

Some other people came out from inside the building, and Minette couldn’t tell if they were boys or girls. People without shirts on. People with their shapes hidden under cloaks. They were of all heights and weights, skin colors and origins. They dressed like bandits and street workers, bartenders and night-walking women. They smoked and spit into spittoons.

They were something utterly new to Minette.

New, and not terrifying. No, they piqued Minette’s curiosity.

The mines were on the opposite side of town, set into the hills and crags just beneath the walls like orange and brown canyons. Dark caverns stretched underground for miles, yawning, black mouths opening out from the hillside.

They headed toward Main Street, which was a straight shot through Droz and out the other side to the hills full of copper.

When they got close, though, Paw’s nose grew just as wrinkled as hers.

Main Street was the center of life in Droz, and apparently all that life was all out in the streets today.

The heat pushed crowds into its shady streets and pubs, food and drink in high demand. Bodies and donkeys and horses crowded one another, elbows bumping elbows and shoulders hitting shoulders, creating a density like that of cranberries shoved into a bucket to be smushed into juice.

“I know another way,” Paw grunted, jerking on Lumpy’s reins, directing the horse away from the loud, overlapping shouts and cries of peddlers and hagglers on Main Street. He took them on a zig-zagging route, moving farther and farther east until they were on the edge of Droz.

Minette had never been to this part of the city before in her life. She sat up straighter, holding her hand up as like a visor and squinting into the sun, peering at the buildings strewn about.

This neighborhood felt abandoned. Instead of cobblestones and pavers and bricks, this part of town was dotted with listing huts with gaps in the thatch; warped-wood, grey wooden buildings; and scraggly, unkempt vegetation creeping along dirt roads.

They were close to a run-down section of the wall, black with soot and shiny with moss, close enough that the entire area was cast in a permanent shadow.

They passed a few people walking in the road, wandering in the fields, lurking on porches. Each and every one of them stared up at Minette as she passed, stopping in what they were doing. She was a spectacle, something new, and the tired mistrust was apparent on their lined faces.

It made her feel itchy, sweaty, like eyes were sticking to the small of her back along with the humidity.

They were outsiders. They weren’t welcome here.