Of Metal and Wishes Read online

  “Thank you for turning them on,” I say as I approach. Hazzi has been to see my father a few times for the pain in his joints, and though he cannot pay, my father does whatever he can to make the old man more comfortable—and able to keep his job here at the factory.

  Hazzi shakes his head. “I didn’t turn them on, Miss Wen.” He smiles, showing a gap where his bottom front teeth used to be. “The Ghost must have thought you needed a little light.”

  I laugh. “I told you last week that I don’t believe in ghosts.” Which makes me different from nearly everyone else in this factory. They give up their hard-earned money and food to make offerings to the Ghost of Gochan One. They write their silly prayers and leave them at his altar at the front of the factory. They truly believe that he responds. I think he is nothing more than the bundling together of the useless wishes of people who must spend their days in a terrible place like this. “But it was a fine trick all the same, Hazzi.” Fine enough to make my heart speed.

  “No trick,” he says with a raspy chuckle. “And you must be respectful of our Ghost. He is not all about the light. He brings darkness, too.”

  “That’s certainly a useful myth to scare the workers into behaving.” I nod at his cart and bucket. “Can I help you carry something to the front?”

  “We can’t splash wastewater on your fine dress,” he says kindly as he rolls his bucket away from my skirts. “And it’s not a myth, you know. A few years ago there was a young worker who proclaimed he was going to find out who takes the offerings from the Ghost’s altar every night. His many prayers had not been answered, see, and he had decided the Ghost didn’t exist. He was determined to prove it too. Right up until the day he disappeared. Atanyo was his name. I remember him well.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “Are you sure Atanyo didn’t simply run away?”

  Hazzi purses his lips. “Suppose he might’ve, though I’m not sure why he would, since he had a good enough life here and a family out in the Ring. If you ask me, he challenged the wrong specter and it devoured him. You shouldn’t anger our Ghost, Miss Wen. He hears everything and can do anything. You should be grateful he favors you.”

  “Please, Hazzi. Forgive me, but I’m not superstitious.” I try not to laugh again as I gesture at a set of light switches on the wall not two feet from his broom cupboard. “And I think you’re playing with me.”

  The corner of his mouth twitches as he shuffles over to the switches and flips all of them down at once. The lights stay on. He flicks one switch up and down repeatedly, the sharp clicks echoing in the empty corridor. “These haven’t worked for months, and this hallway has been dark that whole time.” He grins at me. “Until you decided to walk this way.”

  THE CEMENT FLOOR suddenly feels cold and hard beneath the soft soles of my woolen shoes. I thank Hazzi for his wisdom and leave him in the side hallway to wheel his rickety bucket to whatever place needs a good scrub. My skirt swishes with my steps as I enter the administrative corridor, hoping I’ve arrived in time to walk to the cafeteria with Vie, my best friend from school who came to work here a year ago. But when I reach the bookkeeping office, I see that she’s already left for her lunch. I tiptoe past the office of the factory underboss, Mugo, whom my father warned me about as soon as I arrived at the factory compound. The whispered rumor is that Mugo has a thing for underage girls. Having just turned sixteen, I apparently fit the bill perfectly. I’ve kept a low profile since I’ve been here, but I can feel his eyes on me sometimes, prying and weaselly.

  I enter the front section of the factory and pass the entrance to the killing floor. On the other side of the wall are hundreds of men, armed with their long knives, hacking away with merciless precision. The noise is deafening: the zing of the hooks, the wet slap and slash of blade against bone and muscle, the crash of metal on metal as the belts churn in their forever circles. Engines roar as the spinner machines rotate-twist-jerk-tear-dump the wheezing, lowing cattle onto the stained concrete. Their hooves clack and scrape, splashing their own blood on their dirty faces as they try to get up and run. This is how they spend the last few moments of their lives. If I turned my head, I could see it all through the tiny, round window set into the metal door.

  I keep my eyes straight ahead and hold my breath until I get to the cafeteria. Even though I don’t consider myself squeamish, I still can’t understand how the men wolf down stew and soup and casserole after cutting out beef tongues and carving out hearts for hours on end.

  The secretaries and office girls are already seated at their regular table in the far corner of the room, and among them I see Vie. The men are coming off the killing floor, through the antiseptic spray and the plastic sheeting. They strip off their rubber hoods, gloves, boots, and aprons and leave them lying in piles in the cavernous chamber that separates the killing floor from the cafeteria. They stride in, wearing matching imprints around their eyes from the goggles. And also matching tired, glazed expressions. It always takes a few minutes for that to wear off, for them to start talking and laughing again. But there’s a strange intensity to them today, a layer of anger smeared over their usual fatigue as they notice that most of the tables are already occupied.

  The Noor are here. All two hundred of them, by the looks of it. And I have to squeeze past them if I want to sit with my friends. The barbarian men lean forward as they eagerly shovel rice and beans into their mouths, moving their hands over their almost-bald heads, laughing and talking in their strange language. It’s straight from the back of their throat, like something got caught there and they’re trying to get it out. Now that no one’s threatening them with cattle prods, their gestures are sharp and quick. Untrustworthy. I imagine them trying to pick my pockets, or worse, and press myself to the wall to edge by them.

  A few of them turn their head to watch me, their darting eyes sparking with recognition, and suddenly the swishing of my skirt and petticoat sounds like an avalanche, a bulky crashing noise that I can’t leave behind no matter how fast I move. As I pass the table closest to the wall, the impish Noor boy with the scar on his eyebrow says something to me, but I put my head down and ignore him. My heartbeat thuds against my temples. I wish I were invisible.

  When the foot shoots out in front of me, I don’t stand a chance. The toe of my shoe snags on his boot, and I fall forward like a sack of grain. As I push up to my hands and knees, I feel air on the back of my legs.

  The impish boy has lifted my skirt.

  My cheeks burning, I twist my hips in an effort to yank myself away, but he’s got a thick handful of embroidered cotton in his grimy fist. If I pull any harder, my skirt will rip. If I don’t, the Noor will have the chance to see parts of me no boy ever has. Somewhere in the cafeteria I hear an angry shout from one of the Itanyai workers, but it doesn’t seem to register with this horrible imp with muddy hair and muddy eyes. He grins at me and makes a show of licking his lips as I try to scramble to my feet while preserving my modesty. Tears sting my eyes and all of them laugh.

  Well, not all of them.

  A wide, long-fingered hand cuffs my tormentor hard on the side of the head. The older rust-haired Noor is standing up and leaning over the table. He hisses at the impish skirt-lifter in that throaty language of theirs. The imp blanches at whatever he’s said and drops my skirt like it’s burned him.

  I jump to my feet. In the moment before I turn away, the rust-haired boy turns his pale eyes to me. I should say “thank you,” but I am so humiliated right now that I hate him as much as the rest of them. I whirl around and try to find my escape, and nearly burst into tears when Vie appears at my side, her round cheeks flushed with fury.

  She makes a gesture of contempt at the Noor, sliding her hand over her shoulder in a way that tells them she thinks they’re scum. She puts her arm around my waist and leads me to our table. Behind me I hear some of the Itanyai workers in strident argument, and I flick my gaze over to see the rust-haired boy speaking to them�
��in our language. Lati was wrong; perhaps most of the Noor don’t understand us, but this one does. He’s got his hands up and is making conciliatory movements, like he just wants everyone to calm down. Maybe to make a point, he smacks the imp on the back of the head, and the guy doesn’t object as he stumbles forward with the force of the blow. I guess the rust-haired boy scared him a little. Against my will I feel a twinge of gratitude toward this strange-looking Noor.

  I turn away as his head swivels around, like he knew I was looking at him. I put my back to all of them and sit down at the table with Vie. Jima, Underboss Mugo’s personal secretary, sweeps her shining curtain of black hair over one shoulder and gives me a sympathetic look. She slides me her untouched tray of rice and beans. “So you don’t have to walk past them again.”

  I bite my lip. My skin is hot with shame and I can’t quite catch my breath. “Did they do that to all of you?”

  Onya, who has been at Gochan for at least fifteen seasons, shakes her head. She is the oldest of us and tries to act like a mother. I don’t mind. I know she wishes she had babies of her own, but her husband was badly injured in an accident on the killing floor a few years ago and died soon after. She gives me a pitying look. “Only you.”

  I look at them, and I look down at myself, and I know why. All of the other women are wearing simple brown dresses with straight skirts and plain sleeves. I look like a peacock in this embroidered dress of mine. I bury my face in my hands.

  Vie rubs my shoulders, her plump fingers sliding over flowers and vines lovingly stitched onto the fabric. “Ignore the Noor. They’re good for nothing. They’ll be gone at the end of the feasting season, and good riddance.”

  “I wish they’d never come here at all. They don’t belong here,” I say in a choked voice. The men are still arguing with the Noor a few tables away, and I think I hear Lati’s voice, though I am too ashamed to turn my head and look. I hope he fines them harshly. I hope he teaches those barbarians a lesson.

  Jima pats my arm. “Until feasting season is over, Gochan One will run twenty-four hours a day nearly every day, and Underboss Mugo is under pressure to increase profits. He’s been very . . . stressed.”

  I peek through my fingers to see her somber brown eyes, too widely set in what is otherwise a pretty face. She looks a bit like a hunted animal.

  “I’ll tell you why the Noor are here,” says Onya, clucking her tongue. “Look how hollow their cheeks are. They’re too incompetent to feed themselves, so they’ve come here looking for handouts. I suppose it’s better than an all-out rebellion.”

  “I think rebellion would be better,” says Vie, leaning forward. “Iyzu’s father commanded one of the units that put them down the last time they tried to carve out a piece of Yilat for themselves. Iyzu told me that the Noor are so primitive that it wasn’t much of a fight once our war machines arrived. Maybe they could be driven from the country for good this time.”

  Onya rolls her eyes. “You’re a silly girl, Vie, and Iyzu is exaggerating to impress you. Good men died trying to keep the Noor from cracking the Yilat Province like an egg. No, much better to keep them in their place so they don’t try to fight at all.”

  Vie gives Onya a pinched, petulant look. “If they know their place so well, why did one of them just expose Wen’s delicates to the entire cafeteria?”

  My stomach turns, and I push Jima’s tray away. “I’m going to go back to the clinic,” I mumble as tears burn my eyes.

  Jima slides her arm through mine. “I’ll go with you,” she says.

  I keep my head down as she leads me out of the cafeteria, and grip her hand tightly as we pass by the Noor. I mark each step, waiting for one of them to bar my way, but they are quiet and still until we reach the exit. It does nothing to cool my anger toward them, though. It’s sitting in my chest like a burning coal, fueled by hot humiliation. In this moment I share Vie’s desire to see them crushed and broken. No matter that the rust-haired one intervened to stop his imp friend from ruining my reputation—it was probably to save his own skin, not to help me.

  When I turn to enter the administrative hall, Jima tugs me in the opposite direction. “Come,” she says. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

  I groan as she pulls me into the alcove where the Ghost’s altar is set up. I’ve never ventured back here before, but I’ve seen many a worker and office girl duck in, carrying their gifts for the Ghost. Someone has lovingly carved a low table out of elm, and the wood alone must have cost a week’s wages. Atop it sits a row of tallow candles, thirteen in all. Their tiny flames flicker and weigh down the air with a faint, greasy haze. Around the candles are prayers, scratched carefully onto scraps of paper or fabric, and on top of each prayer is an offering. A bronze coin from the Ring, a few plum cakes, a braided-thread bracelet.

  Jima pulls an ink stick from her pocket, along with a piece of paper. “I was going to ask him for something. I could write your wish below mine—if you have an offering?”

  “Jima, I appreciate this, but I don’t believe in the Ghost. Or any ghosts, for that matter.” If they were real, surely I’d feel my mother’s presence. She wouldn’t have abandoned me completely.

  Jima’s eyes shine with hope. “This one is real. Minny told me he cured her son of sickness after she left a prayer—”

  “My father treated her little boy, and that’s why he got better.”

  “Not everyone your father treats gets better, Wen.”

  My throat tightens as I remember how hard my father worked to cure my mother. “I know that. But still—”

  “That’s not the only thing the Ghost has done!” Jima says, clutching her ink stick. “He can bring feast or famine, frost or rain. He’s powerful! He could avenge you. He could make the Noor pay.”

  “Lati can do that too.”

  She shakes her head. “Lati might fine them, but the Ghost can do more than that.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Has anyone ever seen this terrifying apparition for themselves?”

  “No one’s lived to tell about it.”

  “Hazzi told me about that worker who disappeared—Atanyo. He could have run away, or someone else might have killed him. Seems like a good way to cover up a murder, if you ask me.”

  “I hadn’t heard about that one, but I’ve heard of others. Onya told me that the last few men who ventured down into the basement levels never returned. It’s why no one goes down there anymore.” She says it with such reverence, as if these rumors are proven fact. “But the Ghost protects the faithful. I know he does.”

  She scribbles something on her paper, cupping her hand around it so I don’t see what she’s writing. I glance over the wishes people have left on the altar today. Some of them are for good fortune and health. Some of them are very specific, like for the slurry machine on the killing floor to stop shorting out midshift. The Ghost is going to be very busy if he intends to reward all these true believers. I shove my fists into my pockets, willing myself to keep quiet. Something warm and metal brushes against my knuckles, and my fingers close around it. A tin factory coin, square with a hole in the middle, the currency of Gochan.

  Jima finishes writing and looks up at me, her delicate face full of expectation. “He’ll listen,” she says. “He’ll help. Tell him what you want.”

  I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I’m not religious. I’ve never been to the temple. I’m not used to asking anyone but my parents for what I need. And I know the Ghost isn’t real. But as I think of that impish, muddy-haired boy, the way he licked his lips as he looked at my bare legs, the way he laughed at my shame, something inside me breaks.

  I pull the coin from my pocket and toss it onto the table. People pray to the Ghost just to make themselves feel better about having to be here, but I shouldn’t be here at all. I should be on the Hill, living with my mother, far from the stink of blood and cow, far from the imp boy and all the Noor. If
I were there, if my mother were alive, I wouldn’t have any reason to pray to a nonexistent ghost. But Gochan One is my home now, so: “Ghost, show me what you can do. Prove yourself to me. I want to be impressed.”

  Jima sits back on her knees and stares at my little coin lying among the lovingly placed offerings. “Be careful, Wen.”

  I scoff, too angry to do anything else. “Careful of whom, exactly?” I gesture at the bolt of purple cloth, the bottle of rice wine, the package of salted fish, the carved letter opener—all offerings left in exchange for wishes. “Who is this Ghost, that people think he is worthy of their best things?”

  Jima folds her prayer. “He was once a worker here.”

  “Did you know him?”

  She shakes her head. “I’ve only been here for two years. But Onya said he died on the factory floor. It was an ugly death.”

  “Any death on the killing floor is bound to be ugly, Jima, and my father told me there are at least three of them each year. Why would this one worker have the power to become a ghost?”

  “I couldn’t say,” says Jima, “but he cares for us and has granted many wishes. He does not deserve your contempt.” Jima touches her prayer and then sets her own offering—yet another molded tallow candle—between a small jar of curing salt and a thick roll of fine wire that was probably stolen from a maintenance closet. “He might even punish it.”

  “We’ll see.” And maybe I would deserve it. From the look on Jima’s face, her wish means a lot to her, and she has been nothing but kind to me. It’s not her fault that I can’t bring myself to believe. “Thank you for trying to help,” I offer, touching her sleeve. “I hope your prayer is answered.”

  She wraps her arm over her middle. “Me too,” she whispers.