Our Dried Voices Read Online Free Page B

corners of the hall, Samuel paced the length of the room until his clothes and skin were dry. Despite the incessant rain, the temperature in the colony had not dropped, and it remained warm enough inside the hall to keep him comfortable.
    The midday meal came and went. The colonists navigated the perimeter of the hall to retrieve their cakes and returned to their previous seats against the wall to eat in silence. Samuel ate and traced his foot against the edge of a seam in the floor surrounding the nearest set of table and chairs. He noticed that these strange lines drew a square around each set of furniture in the entire hall. He had just finished the last bite of his meal cake when the woman with the copper eyes entered the meal hall. She stalked up and down the length of the room, her soaked tunic dripping a trail on the floor as it dried. The other colonists watched her from lowered eyes as they crouched deeper into their own bodies. She ignored them. Samuel watched her as well, and a rather pleasant, cool, exhilarating feeling crept up from his stomach. The woman paced for several minutes—back and forth, back and forth—her eyes focused on the empty air a few feet in front of her. When she came to a stop, her body seemed to grow straighter and more rigid, though she had not stooped over at all as she walked. She reached into the pocket of her tunic and dug out some crumpled fragment of thin material and studied it in her hands. The colonists murmured to themselves in broken phrases tinged with obvious distress.“
    “walkingwalkingstopwalkwalkingstopwalkingwalk…”
    “…notherewhyhernothernotherewhyhere…”
    “…gowaygowaygowaygoway…”
    Samuel eased to his feet as the woman resumed her pacing, her light steps carrying her effortlessly across the great hall as she wove a straight path through the bolted-down furniture without ever appearing fully aware of its presence. She stopped in the center of the hall. The murmurs ceased. The woman glanced at the colonists strewn around the edges of the room, as if just noticing them for the first time. It appeared to Samuel—though he could never be sure—that her eyes rested on his for the briefest of moments, that they flashed that now-familiar glint of copper, and that her icy veneer was momentarily broken by a faint grin. She moved to the door. Without warning, it slammed shut in her face and she stopped in her tracks. A muffled creaking sound filled the room. The woman stepped to the door and pushed it open and the noise stopped. She slipped outside and was gone.
    Throughout the hall, the other colonists resumed their bowed-head meditations with evident relief. Samuel walked to the door, clumsily dodging the furniture in his path, and blinked away the rain as he stepped outside. The sticky odor of sweet detritus struck him instantly. Everything was dead slate fog, the rain droplets materializing out of an earthbound cloud. The mountains were invisible. The few short trees oozed jadeite boughs to the muddied meadow that squished under his feet. Samuel could barely make out the distant figure picking her way across the slick turf. He wiped water from his brow and set out after her.
    Upon first glance, the woman appeared to walk with no particular direction in mind. She meandered between buildings, ran her hands over their walls, stopped to stare at the sky. Yet her steps were quick and decisive; her gaze never wavered from its target. Samuel followed her without knowing why. The rain continued to fall in slow sheets. Even through the thick grayness, the woman must have noticed his presence, for despite his best efforts Samuel was less than stealthy in his pursuit. But if she did see him, she paid him no mind. At one point, her gaze passed directly over him and he felt his feet rooted to the soggy ground. But she looked away without reproach and they both went on, and Samuel felt the slightest bit encouraged at not being rejected.
    Samuel followed the woman all