The Word Burners Chapter 6

by Laura in my happy place

Shun

Shun.  To be pushed off the world.  To never be seen again.  To be disgraced.  To be shunned is to be dead.  Not literally dead, but the next thing to it.  To be away.  Forever.

“Bhaiki.”  My Father said.  “You. Have.  Been.  Gone.  For.  Two.  Whole.  Nights!”

“Yes, I have.”

“DO NOT USE THAT TONE OF VOICE WITH ME!”

“I’m not using a particular tone of voice.  I’m just using my voice.  You, however, are yelling.”

“Stop disgracing this family, Bhaiki!”  My Father’s face was bright red.  He let out a stream of curses.  I just stood there and took it.  The wolves had given me courage.

“I’m sorry.”  I said, not feeling sorry in the slightest.

“SORRY ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH!”  My Father bellowed.  “BHAIKI, YOU ARE HERE BY SHUNNED!”

My courage almost entirely wilted at that moment.  But I still had a drop left.  I thought of all the times my Father yelled at me and my Mother and my sister.  I thought of all the times he hit me.  I thought of all the cruelty he forced on others.  And I picked up a rock of the ground, and threw it at his face, which was almost violet from anger.

“Bye-bye, Father.”  I swung onto the rock our cave was built into, and climbed.  Years of practice paid off as I shimmied up, ten feet, then twenty, thirty.  I was at the top, resting on the ledge, my Father still screaming from the ground.  I smiled at him and waved.

“Bhaiki!  You’re back!”  A voice from behind me said.  It was Myrae, my ten year old sister.

“Myrae!”  I said, surprised.  “What are you doing up here?”

“This is where I come when Father gets angry.  He scares me.”  She shrugged.

“Well, you don’t want to be seen talking to me.”  I said.

“Why?”  She said, puzzled.

“Father shunned me.”

“He did WHAT?”  Myrae yelled.  I had never seen her angry before.

“I can’t live in this village anymore.”

“Come with me.”  Myrae started walking across the cliff, above all of the caves.  I had never seen Myrae take charge before either.  Actually, to me, Myrae always just seemed like an emotional blob to me.  Until now, that is.

I recognized the cliff above Trehynk’s home.  Mahrlee and Trehynk were sitting there together.

“Bhaiki!”  Mahrlee leapt to her feet.  “We were so worried!  Never go into those caves again!”  A puzzled look crossed her face when she saw our expressions.  “What’s wrong?”

“She’s been shunned.”  Myrae said.

“Shunned!”  Mahrlee said.  “No!  That’s impossible!”

“Have you ever met my father?”  I said glumly.

“That’s horrible.”  Mahrlee shook her head sadly.

“Well?”  Myrae said.  “What are we going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”  I said.  “There is nothing you can do.”

“Myrae is right!”  Mahrlee said.  “We have to do something!”

“No, you don’t!”  I shouted. They were giving me a headache.  Did they have any clue what kind of trouble they could be in?

“Why won’t you just accept our help?”  Mahrlee yelled back.

“I don’t need any help!”  I bellowed.  I knew that this wasn’t true, but I just wanted them to go away.  I wanted them to be safe.

Trehynk started climbing down the cliff.  I had forgotten he was there.

“Trey?  Trehynk!”  Mahrlee said.  “Where are you going?  We need to help Bhaiki!”

Trehynk remained silent.  I looked over the edge and saw him going back into his cave.

“I’m sorry, Mar, but I just don’t want any of you to get hurt.”

“I don’t care if I get hurt.”

“I don’t care either!”  Myrae said.

“Neither do we.”  Trehynk appeared again on the cliff, carrying a brown leather bag.  He was with his younger brother, Eldride.

“Trehynk, don’t you dare get Eldride involved in all of this too.”  I said.

“But I want to help!”  Eldride said.  He was eleven, a year older than Myrae.

I sighed.  Did anyone understand what being shunned was about?

“Listen, I appreciate your concern, but I’m shunned, and you’re not.  There’s no way to fix that.”

“Oh, I can think of a way.”  Trehynk smiled maliciously.  He opened the brown bag.  What seemed like hundreds of books spilled out, covering the ledge.  Those books could feed the entire village for a month.  Trehynk pulled one more thing out of the bag.  It looked very futuristic.  It was a clear orb, blue ribbons moving throughout it.

“Step back.”  Trehynk said.

“Oh, no.”  I said to myself when I realized what Trehynk was about to do.  “Stop it Trehynk!”  I yelled.  “Don’t you dare do this!”  But before I could stop him, Trehynk had cracked open the orb, the blue ribbons spilled out onto the books.

The blue color changed to orange.  It spread across the leather books, engulfing them in color.

Then Trehynk nudged the pile towards the edge of the cliff, careful not to touch the streams of color.  The rest of them helped to push the books off the cliff.  They landed on the rocks below, taking all of the fire with them.

“Trehynk, Eldride, Mahrlee and Myrae did this!”  Trehynk shouted.  “We burned one hundred books!”

Below, everyone in the village came out of their caves and looked up at us.  Then they looked at the burning books, so many hours of work taken to write them.  And then, like a wave, one word flowed through the crowd below us.

Shun.