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thought
the blast of noise rose from the heart of the earth. The racing
cockroaches tensed at the horn’s blare and then scattered for the
corners of shadow, save for the bug with the orange shell decorated
in swirls, who turned to peer towards Abraham.
     
    “Hurry into my palm, friend, before my
brother and father burst into my chamber to see how I’ve wasted
time painting bugs.”
     
    Abraham deposited the burrowing cockroach
into a pocket sewn within his thin jacket and hurried towards his
home’s ladder that led onto the surface. The clerics didn’t blare a
celebratory horn as they had several nights before when the village
men had gathered to witness the rockets exploding in the sky. They
instead blew a low and somber note, one that growled that the
clerics had pressing business regarding their community’s souls,
one that promised the clerics would exercise little patience, or
mercy, in waiting for their tribe to assemble at their tower. The
terrible castles floated high overhead in their regular orbits, and
they remained silent no matter the destruction of their rockets.
All the same, Abraham shuddered to see how a shadow of one of the
enormous castles swallowed his village before joining his father
and brother.
     
    Abraham’s neighbor, Josef, brought his
young, twin daughters, Alexis and Cassandra, onto the surface with
him to answer the cleric’s summoning horn, and he led each of them
by a rope leash he wrapped around each girl’s waist, tugging
harshly at the ropes whenever either of the girls fell behind his
pace or strayed too far from his heels. The girls had only recently
turned seven, and Abraham realized it would not be so long until
Josef could offer his daughters in marriage, not long until those
girls’ faces would receive the first swirls of tattoos that would
eventually expand to cover their faces entirely, not long at all
until their hair would be treated until it turned the same silver
as all the rest of the village women, or until they donned the
dark, black glasses that would conceal the color of their eyes.
Girls too young to undergo any of the ceremonies that would deliver
them into womanhood were still permitted to climb out from their
families’ holes without acquiring special privileges from the
clerics.
     
    Abraham couldn’t determine if it was Alexis
or Cassandra who waved at him, for the twins appeared identical to
his eyes. But he tentatively waved back, and Ishmael immediately
slapped him across the face.
     
    “How dare you brother?” Ishmael hissed.
“You’re lucky Josef didn’t catch you staring at his daughters. He
could petition the clerics to burn out one of your eyes for such a
trespass.”
     
    Abraham mumbled as he rubbed his stinging
cheek. “Why does he bring those daughters onto the surface if he’s
so worried about someone peeking at them?”
     
    Rahbin glared at his youngest son. “Josef’s
motivations are none of your concern, boy. Perhaps his wives suffer
from a sickness that prevents them from watching after his girls,
or perhaps his wives concentrate on working their looms. Or perhaps
Josef wishes to show his girls to a family he wishes to offer them
to in marriage. Do as the Maker teaches, Abraham, and murder your
curiosity before it kills you. Would you wave if Josef pulled goats
with his leashes?”
     
    “I would not.”
     
    “Then you will not wave at his daughters,”
Rahbin retorted.
     
    As if the Maker sent it to show his
pleasure, a breeze whistled across the barren landscape to bring a
little relief from the hot sun, and the wind fluttered life into
the five capes hung upon tall poles set before the clerics’ tower
of scaffolding. The tribesmen who had sacrificed themselves to
bring down the blasphemers’ rockets had left their capes behind
before departing to achieve their glory and heaven. Abraham knew
that the village’s best seamstresses and weavers had slept very
little since that most recent victory against the unbelievers