CREATIVE WRITING: For thirty pieces of silver (short story)

By Caroline Soderlund

The water was clear enough to see the skeletons lurking at the bottom. The boy, fifteen and skinny, did not look at them. His arms ached and his hands had begun to blister, but he rowed the little wooden boat on, facing the way it was going. The sound of the oars cutting through the water echoed between ancient sandstone buildings.

            “I wonder who lived in that window,” the little girl sat in front of him said, pointing at the round balcony of a half-collapsed house, held up by a single remaining pillar. The gaping hole of what had presumably been the front door was almost entirely submerged in the water. “I bet it was someone with really long hair.”

            “Why would you think that?” the boy said.

            “I dunno, just seems like a waste of a balcony if you don’t have long hair.”

On rowed the boy, and the sun shone mercilessly on them. They passed through a stone arch into an alleyway narrow enough for the oars to scrape against the mosaic-covered walls. The patterns were cracked and faded, and many pieces were missing, but you could still make out the figures of women heavy-laden with jewellery, winged beasts with horrifying faces and warriors holding spears and chains. The pictures continued below the water level, where long black strands of seaweed danced around a huge, decaying spine and got tangled up in the boy’s oars.

            “I wish we had things like this back home.”

            The boy glanced at the wall, then went back to rowing. “We have the temples.”

            “That’s not the same, they’re just old. It’d look so pretty on Miriam’s walls, can you imagine?” The girl leaned dangerously far out to touch the wall.

            “Hey, stop it!”

            The boy grabbed hold of the girl’s shirt to pull her back into the boat, but the girl leaned further out, until her fingers reached the mosaic and pried a piece loose. She sat back down in the boat, triumphantly holding up the faded green stone as the boat rocked from side to side.

            The boy dropped his oars into his lap and slapped the stone out of the girl’s hand. It disappeared into the water.

            “You can’t just go around taking stuff!”

            The girl clutched her hand to her chest. “Why not?”

            “You just can’t.”

            The girl pursed her lips, crossed her arms and stared him down. The boy picked up his oars.

            “Well, if you’re not going to tell me…” She reached for the wall again.

            “Okay fine, fine! Look, it’s just not like the ruins back home. You and your little friends can do whatever you want. Here, you have to give them something greater in return.”

            The girl scoffed. “Who, the dragons?”

            But the boy refused to say anything else on the subject, and eventually the girl turned around to the front of the boat, to more exciting sights. The mosaics turned into narrow windows, though which you catch glimpses of abandoned homes – a dusty goblet lying on the floor, a table with game pieces scattered across it, a silver hairbrush fading in a fireplace, cupboards with their doors hanging askew.

            The boat approached another archway, twin to the one they had passed through earlier, with bleak carvings of flowers, and crumbling dragon heads mounted on the walls on either side. Once, they might have held torches in their teeth. The arch was narrow, and the boy’s oars landed at an awkward angle so that he struggled to push the boat forward. The girl had to reach up and grab hold of the arch to pull them through, under the boy’s watchful eyes.

            Beyond, the street was wider, and the water grew steadily deeper until the seaweed at the bottom became only vague shadows. Half-collapsed rooftops with scorched tiles surrounded them, a rusty red against the turquoise waters. The boy concentrated firmly on his rowing, but the girl gazed into the waters with a distant curiosity.

            “I think there are human skeletons too down there. Or maybe a baby dragon.” She turned to the boy. “Hey, did I tell you what me and Miriam found last time we went to the temples?” she said as they passed by a row of scorched statues of owls perched on the edge of a roof. She reached out her hand as if to touch one, but then pulled it back. “She took me up to the roof of the really big one, you know the one with the stairs on the side? I nearly fell into one of the cracks. I never thought I’d be allowed to go there but Miriam said I’m big enough now. Anyway, she caught me and just told me to be careful. Then on the roof she found this weird white stick, and guess what it was? A real-life bone, a thigh bone Miriam said. It’s in my room now.”

            The boy slipped with one of the oars so that it almost fell out of its socket. With an annoyed grunt, he secured it again. “How exciting.”

            “Miriam also told me this story about a lion who refused to eat little girls. It was really cool.”

            “Can we stop talking about Miriam?”

            “You’re just jealous. Miriam said so.”

            The boy shot her a murderous look.

            “She’s your mama.”

            “I am aware.”

            The girl turned forward to look out over the waters, past the rooftops where mountains bordered the city to the East. Once, their sides had been covered with flourishing grapevines, but now the vineyards were dead and long overgrown with weeds and thorns. “I’d give anything to have a mama like that.”

            “You practically do at this point.”

            The girl whirled around. “It’s not my fault she doesn’t like you anymore.”

            One of the oars banged against the side of the boat. The boy adjusted his grip while keeping his gaze firmly away from the girl.

            “You were fine with everything. Miriam asked you before she let me live with you and you were fine – you know what my father did –”

            “Yes, yes, we all know! You think you’re the only one who’s ever had problems?”

            The girl fell quiet. The boy rowed on furiously.

            “I don’t want to be here anymore,” the girl said finally, “turn around or I’ll swim back.”

            “What? No!”

            The girl shrugged, then tied her hair back at her neck, and despite the boy’s protests, stood up and stepped over the side of the boat. The boy tried to grab at her, but she disappeared under the surface, the boat swaying violently behind her. A moment passed, two, and the girl did not resurface, though the boy could see her moving around in the waters.

            She emerged few feet away, gasping and sputtering and splashing water everywhere as she swam clumsily back to the boat. “There’s something in the water – I swear I saw, I felt it!” She grabbed hold of the side of the boat and tried to pull herself up.

            “You’re going to make the whole boat tip over!”

            “So help me up already! There is something – it’s coming after me, I swear it was moving and it’s coming – you’ve got to –” She pulled and kicked her legs and banged against the boat but could not get herself up. The boy looked out over the water behind her. There was nothing there, only something softly disturbing the water, but that could have been the girl. She struggled before him, wide-eyed and panicked, lost her grip and fell back into the water, then reached back onto the railing. The boy hesitated.

            “What are you doing, just help me up!”

            A slight shadow, or the shadow of a shadow, moved closer underneath the surface. The boy sat still.

            “Help me!”

            Stiffly, boy grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled her, kicking, into the boat, where she lay panting on the floor. The shadow departed into the depths and vanished. The boy watched it go, his face blank.

            “What’s wrong with you? What was that?” the girl said. Her voice was hoarse.

            “I’m…sorry, that was…” The boy tore his eyes away. “Let’s just…keep going.”

            Slowly, the girl sat up on the bench opposite the boy. Her clothes were soaked with seawater. They dripped and formed a puddle around her. “Fine.”

            They rowed on in silence, the girl casting cautious glances at the water. It grew shallower as the houses became more damaged. Only a few had fragments of walls sticking up above the surface. Under the surface, great heads mocked them with their leering teeth. When some time had passed, and there seemed to be nothing more than sleeping skeletons in the water, the girl began to relax slightly. She turned forward to study the ruins they passed, though she was careful not to come too near the water.

            A single intact house cast a long shadow over the little boat. It was tall and square, with many windows climbing up from the waters. Like the others, it was built of sandstone, but it had been painted an aggressive, albeit fading, shade of blue. Cracked paintings of colourful animals littered the walls and crawled around the windows.

            The boy let the boat drift for a moment, gazing at the building’s slanted roof, before asking if the girl wanted to go inside.

            The girl turned around. “Really?”

            “It’ll be fun,” the boy said.

He rowed closer to the house and put his hand to the wall to stop the boat next to a window surrounded by bright green ferrets. Water spilled into the gloom inside, turning from bright blue to smoky brown.

            They climbed cautiously in through the window and secured the boat to a rusty nail sticking out of the wall with a tattered piece of rope from home. An inch-deep layer of dusty water covered the floor and lapped against their bare feet, and the ceiling was so low the boy could only just stand upright.

            The girl walked straight across the room to a carving of different animals shaped into arrows on the opposite wall. All of them pointed inward, towards some unintelligible ancient letters. She ran her fingers over what could have been a horse with horrific fangs.

            “Stop it!” The boy hurried over with water splashing about his legs.

            The girl snatched her hand back. “I wasn’t taking anything.”

            The boy rubbed his temples. “Just please, please don’t. You promised you’d do as I say if you came with me here.”

            “You promised this was going to be fun.”

            The boy gave her a look.

            The girl rolled her eyes. “Hey, how did you even come here before? Didn’t your parents notice you weren’t on the fields?”

            “I’m not on the fields every day.”

            “No, but then you’re off selling stuff and they couldn’t live without those coins.”

            The boy moved the water around with his feet. “I just snuck away. Baba’s not exactly the most observant.”

            “No, but you’re definitely not sneaky enough to get around Miriam.”

            The boy took a breath. “Do you want to go upstairs?”

            “Upstairs?”

            The boy nodded to the corner behind the girl, where there was a square hole in the ceiling. A ladder of blackened wood leaned against the wall underneath it. 

            When the girl tried to step on the ladder, however, it collapsed underneath her, and she fell backwards onto the floor. The boy stifled a laugh at her sour look but helped her up without comment. The back of her already wet shirt and trousers were soaked with grey water. He cupped his hands and helped the girl clamber up through the hole, and then hauled himself up, wincing at the gravel and sand against his blisters.

            It took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the gloom. The room had no windows, but the only light came from cracks between the ceiling and walls, and from the hole in the floor. There was a persistent smell of dust and damp; an old, stale odour.

            Then figures began to appear in the dark. A glimmering golden sceptre, extravagant necklaces with dusty gemstones, a half-destroyed sculpture of a lion-headed beast. And everywhere, everywhere, human skeletons. Ribcages and skulls, arms and legs. Some still wore the remains of rotten burgundy robes.

            “This is so much cooler than the temples,” the girl breathed. She walked slowly closer to the skeletons. “I can’t believe you’ve never taken me here before.”

            A big rusty headpiece fell to the floor with a deafening clatter. The boy shrieked. For a second they were still, and then they scrambled back down the hole, the boy first and then the girl, who caught herself with her hands on the floor. They hurried across the floor with water splashing around their ankles, the girl with her hand to her mouth to stop from laughing, and almost forgot to untie the rope before they jumped into the boat,

            The boy struggled to get the boat moving again, but the moment he did, they burst out laughing. Wheezing, the girl pointed at the boy and tried to mimic his shriek, and her colossal failure resulted in even more eruptions of laughter. Whenever it died out, they’d catch each other’s eyes and start all over again.

            “How do you even know about this place?” the girl finally said.

            “Just…stories. Has seriously no one ever told you –” The girl raised her eyebrows. “No, of course not.”

            “What stories?”

            “Baba used to tell them. There was this guy with about nine children, and they were really poor. He was desperate and searched far and wide for a way to provide for his family, and he found this place.” He hesitated. “But he couldn’t find anything and finally he just turned back and told his children the story and they were happy.”

            “That’s a terrible story.”

            “It’s the way Baba told it.”

            “No, it’s not.”

            “Yes, it is.”

            “You’re a terrible liar. Miriam said so too.”

            At that, the boy turned serious, and put greater force into his rowing. Houses grew up out of the water again. Here, the streets were edged with buildings that must once have been marble exhibitions of wealth but were now yellowed and crumbling and overgrown with weeds and birds’ nests, although the birds stayed out of sight. The water turned shallower. Underneath the boat, fish nibbled at dragon teeth and cracked fountains.

            “Do you think there was a dancing hall in there?” the girl asked, looking into the marble entrance of a grand, pillared house.

            The boy smirked, although his eyes were somewhere behind the girl’s head. “Maybe. Do you want to take a look? Dance?”

            “I would rather die.”

            “It’d be good practice.”

            The girl scrunched up her nose. “I don’t know why they make us do it. It’s not like we’re ever getting near one.”

            The boy wiped the sweat out of his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. “You have to become civilised people.”

            “You never had to.”

            “Ah, but they didn’t care about the sophistication of their children back then. We’re just the workforce.”

            “Lucky.”

            The boy raised an eyebrow.

            The girl groaned. “It’s just so stupid! It’s just jumping around and flapping your arms and rolling around on the ground looking stupid. I’d rather play the drums.”

            “That’s for old people.” He cast a glance ahead, where the end of the street was approaching.

            “You’re old.”

            The boy opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it again. The street opened up into a huge square, cobblestoned in faded nuances of yellow and red and blue which looked strange and distorted in the water. Dragon heads and wings cradled old market stands of stone. The square was surrounded by grand houses in the same cracked colours with many pillars and archways and balconies. The girl ran her fingers through the water, her attention entirely consumed by the bones underneath.

            “Sarai,” the boy said, an edge of uneasiness in his voice. He wiped the sweat from his brow.

            The girl turned around and lifted her gaze. A little gasp escaped her lips. On the opposite end of the square stood the grandest building of them all, as cracked and decaying as the rest, but with a massive red dome and still-intricate patterns carved into its walls and pillars. A set of wide stairs led up from the water to its entrance, high and wide enough to dwarf kings and emperors, though the doors themselves had long ago fallen off its hinges and lay crooked and crumbling in their arches.

            “Is that it?”

            “Yes.” The boy sat still, gripping his oars tightly in his lap. They drifted.

            “Are we not going in? Is something wrong?”

            Stiffly, the boy came back to himself. He started rowing again, then picked up the pace.

            The little wooden boat hit the stairs with a thud. With some labour the boy and the girl dragged the boat up to a landing a couple of steps from the water edge. They worked in silence. Though the girl tried to catch the boy’s eyes, he would not speak or look at her. Above them, the sky was a blazing blue. Even in the shadow of the building the air was relentlessly hot. Both of their shirts were damp, and the girl’s hair hung limp down her back.

            Panting, they ascended the stairs, leaving sloppy wet footsteps on the scorching stone behind them. They paused a moment before the gaping entrance. Even when the doors were lying on their sides, they were taller than both of them. The girl reached for the boy’s hand. He shrugged it away. But when she reached for it a second time, he reluctantly took it, and wordlessly they entered into the gloom beyond, their bare feet hardly making any sound.

            Hand in hand, they walked through an echoing entrance hall, and then through silent marble corridors. One had arched windows looking across an alleyway to another building, another had a series of shut or rotten doors. The girl looked in awe into the rooms they passed, but the boy wouldn’t stop, and something in his demeanour made the girl hesitate to make him.

            They came into a high, domed chamber, littered with chests of varying sizes, some shut and some revealing dusty treasures of gold and silver. A round hole in the ceiling let in a tired beam of light. It landed on a pile of chains and a set of manacles rusting on the floor.

            The girl shook off the boy’s hand.

            “Don’t –” the boy began, but the girl approached the centre of the room without paying him any heed. She knelt before a chest full of faded silver coins, picked up a few and let them slip through her fingers. They clinked back into the chest. The sound echoed between the walls.

            “Are these the same ones you brought home?”

            “Sarai, listen –”

            “Did you take something before?”

            Slowly, the boy came nearer. Something wild came into the girl’s eyes.

            She dug her hands into the chest of silver, picked up handfuls of coins and threw them all at the boy. The boy winced but did not stop. He picked up the chains, rusty with old blood. The girl threw them again, and again, frantically and without reasoning, but the boy took a few quick steps and grabbed hold of her hands above her head. Coins dropped to the ground. She shook her head, struggled against the boy’s grip and tried to run away, but she was a little girl, and though the boy was skinny and weary, he was fifteen and much stronger. The manacles closed around her wrists.

            “What are you doing?” the girl screamed. Tears welled up in her eyes.

            “Look, I’m sorry,” the boy said, eyes down, voice wavering, “I only took a little at first, just thirty silver coins. It was for my family. You know – I had to – and it was fine at first but then they demanded blood, any blood, and I just couldn’t…I’m sorry.”

            He walked away.

            “Who’s they?” The girl struggled to her feet and ran after him, screaming and shouting after him with a hoarser and hoarser voice. The boy covered his ears and walked faster through the corridors. The girl stumbled after, dragging the chains behind her, and falling and scraping her knees when they got stuck around corners. Her hair came undone into a sweaty mess all over her face and she screamed at the top of her lungs for the boy to stop.

            Underneath the grand entrance, the chains reached their limit. The girl stumbled to the ground, squinting against the sun.

            The boy pushed the boat into the water. It was considerably easier than pulling it up had been.

            “Don’t leave me!”

            The boy did not look back, did not hesitate in his steps when he climbed back into the boat, but his hands shook ever so slightly when he took up his oars. He rowed, facing the way he was going.

            “Luka!” the girl screamed, but the boy was already far away.

            In the water, the bones began to rattle and move.

            The boy rowed faster.

NOTE
See the ‘Essay Commentary’ for the marker’s comments and the accompanying critical essay.