Shadows of Sherwood (10 page)

One:
5'7”. Black hair, last seen braided. Thin. Athletic. Light-brown skin. Wanted for Trespassing and Resisting Arrest.

Two:
5'2”. Dirty-blond hair. Very thin. White skin. Wanted for Theft and Resisting Arrest.

“It's official.” Robyn spoke softly. “We're fugitives for real now.”

The girls rushed out onto the street. “How did they get a Wanted poster up so fast?” Robyn asked. She was doubly relieved now that the warden hadn't processed them when they arrived. The MPs could only post a rough description; they didn't really know who she was. “Why do they even care that we escaped?”

Laurel affected her voice like a TV advertisement. “Welcome to the new, more punitive Sherwood. Courtesy of Sheriff Marissa Mallet and the Nott City Military Police Department.”

They joined a line of pedestrians headed back toward the market. In her normal voice, Laurel said, “Now that we look okay, we can go for some food.”

Robyn's stomach growled in response. The tray of mystery meat had barely put a dent in her hunger. “All right,” she said. “With that poster out, we'll have to be careful.”

“Getting food is harder than clothes. Most of the food vendors know how to look out.”

“Just show me what to do,” Robyn said nervously.

“Oh no. Let me do it,” Laurel added. “I have a lot of experience. You'll probably get us caught.”

“I'll distract them,” Robyn said. “While you . . . shop.”

Laurel grinned and clapped her hands. “Maybe it won't be so hard with two of us.”

They walked along a row of real shops, amid a gathering crowd of people who all seemed to be headed toward the market. They passed a large grocery store–pharmacy, and Robyn glanced through the InstaScan sliding doors that automatically opened as they went by. Perhaps because of the pleasant weather, or because it was market day, all the shops had things outside. Tables and chairs in front of the cafés, racks of discount T-shirts outside the fashion boutique, and large metal animal statues standing guard outside a home-decor store that appeared to contain nothing anyone would ever want to buy.

In front of a small produce stand, a spindly woman in an apron stood arguing with a thick-chested MP with a digital clipboard in hand.

“The edge of these crates is too close to the edge of the sidewalk,” the MP said. “It's a violation.”

“I've never had a problem,” the shopkeeper protested. “There's plenty of room.”

“You have a problem today,” the MP said. “These will be confiscated.”

The woman's dark face slackened. “But that's half of my produce for the week! I—I can move them closer—”

“Too late.” The MP lifted the front row of boxes and placed them on a rolling dolly by the curb. He turned away to grab the next crate.

Robyn didn't plan it. It just happened. Her arm snaked out, as if of its own accord. When it returned to her side, a bag of small oranges came along with it, lifted right off the top crate on the dolly.

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A Proper Thief

“Whoa,” Laurel said. “What did you do?”

“I—I don't know,” Robyn said. She hunched her shoulders around the sack and clutched it to her chest. The girls hurried down the sidewalk.

“The MP was RIGHT THERE,” Laurel cried. “That is exactly how you get caught.”

“He wasn't looking,” Robyn said. There was really no defense for what she had done, but she'd done it.

“Well, gimme some.” Laurel held out her hand. “We have to get rid of the evidence. NOW!”

Robyn tore at the mesh and poured three baby oranges into Laurel's cupped palms. The bag contained over a dozen—more than the two of them could eat quickly.

“Here you go.” Robyn tossed two oranges each to a pair of barefooted boys scampering through the crowds. They rewarded her with matching grins.

“Oranges,” she whispered, placing a few on the lap of a blind woman sitting on a blanket on the street corner.

It didn't feel so bad, taking food that had already been taken by an MP. It felt even better to share it with other hungry people. Robyn discarded the mesh bag in a corner trash can.

Laurel watched with dismay as the fresh haul dwindled to nothing. “Leave the rest up to me, would you?” she mumbled around a mouthful of citrus sections. “You are
not
a proper thief.”

“Sure,” Robyn said, peeling and scarfing down the last few oranges herself.

The sidewalk was seriously crowded at this point, full of objects and people browsing and strolling. Around the corner, they passed a bookstore, a coffee shop, a shoe store, and a hair salon that appeared to specialize in braiding. The bottom half of the window was plastered with pictures of various braided styles. The sidewalk was lined with loudly chatting ladies braiding one another's hair.

One old woman among them had a gray braid as long as her body, woven in a similar manner to Robyn's own hair, which Robyn had never seen on anyone else. Her own hair was currently tucked up in her hat, in disguise, so the woman would have no way of knowing she wore it. And anyway, the old woman sat with her eyes closed, gently flicking the tail of her braid across her palm.

Robyn wanted to stop and talk to her but found that she couldn't stop. When she slowed her steps, the people behind bumped into her. And there were many people behind, all of a sudden.

“What . . . ?” Robyn started.

“I don't know . . . ,” Laurel said.

It felt like they were leaving a place after a parade or fireworks display, or on the exit ramp from a stadium after the final buzzer: hundreds of people in a narrow space, everyone moving in the same direction.

Robyn and Laurel were being carried along with the surging crowd. “Ack!” Laurel cried as a large man stepped on her foot.

“Sorry, kid,” he murmured.

The crowd pushed and jostled. The girls became separated. Robyn snaked her hand through a gap between the people and grasped Laurel's hand. Her small fingers clutched Robyn's in return. Where were they going?

The large man who had stepped on Laurel used his arms to ease people aside so the girls could come back together. He put a hand on each of their shoulders, keeping them inside his wingspan. He had a big backpack on his shoulders, so altogether he commanded a fair amount of space in the crowd.

Robyn looked up at him and saw a kind, worried face. He had a Y-shaped, rough-looking scar along one side of his jaw. “What's happening?” she asked him. “I can't see anything.”

“It's the MPs,” he said, “rounding people into the square for some kind of announcement.”

At one edge of the square a line of MPs gathered on a raised wooden platform. It reminded Robyn of the bandstand
in Notting Square in Castle District, where her family often went with a picnic blanket to hear an orchestra or watch a summer-stage production. Robyn imagined this space often filled with crowds to watch bands and performers, though there was little grass beneath her feet here, just a stretch of rough concrete.

The big man scratched his cheek along the scar, then shrugged out of his backpack. “Here, stand on this,” he said, laying it at his feet. The girls climbed up and he rested his hands on their waists to steady them.

The kindness of strangers
, Robyn thought. Her father had always talked about the kindness of strangers, but in a fairy tale kind of way. Most people in Castle District would not randomly help each other that way.

No sooner had Robyn thought this than Sheriff Marissa Mallet herself took the stage. She stood center stage, hawk-like eyes piercing the crowd. Standing on the backpack, Robyn's head poked above the crowd. She studied the sheriff. In person Mallet was actually tall and slim. She was dressed in a gray pantsuit with her badge pinned to her blazer pocket. She would have been pretty if not for the severe expression and tense line of her mouth.

Mallet flicked her wrist and the MPs behind her jumped to action. They stuck up screen corners on the wall behind the stage and images jumped to life. A larger-than-life wanted poster appeared over the sheriff's shoulder. The grainy, old-style photo showed a dark-skinned man her father's age. One MP handed her a long wooden arrow, with a rock arrowhead and a feather tail.

“Those who wish to dissent,” Mallet called, holding the arrow aloft. “We know who you are. You cannot hide from our eyes any longer.” Her voice was strangely amplified above the circle of the crowd, a microphone taped at her temple like an actor onstage. She reached up with her other hand, gripped the shaft of the arrow in both fists, and snapped it in two. She tossed the pieces to the ground and stomped on them.

From the wanted poster, Mallet read: “Charles Lorian. Wanted for theft of government property, arson, and political agitation.”

Another, more modern, picture of a young woman flicked into place. “Nessa Croft. Wanted for political agitation and illegal broadcasting.”

Mallet called up additional wanted posters, one by one. Unlike the smaller versions that had scrolled by in the library, these seemed starker and more permanent. At some, the crowd murmured in recognition.

“Thieves. Trespassers. Agitators. Resisters,” Mallet declared. Robyn began to fear that the sheriff's review of blown-up posters would include the one that was most painfully familiar, of two young girls who escaped from Sherwood Jail this afternoon.

Robyn surveyed the fringes of the crowd and realized the MPs were standing in a ring around the gathered people. There would be no easy way out of the square. They were blocking every exit!

“It is only a matter of time,” Mallet said. “Surrender and there will be leniency. Fail to surrender, and . . .”

A scuffle began at the edge of the stage. The crowd surged and leaned, all trying to get a better view. MPs dragged a woman onstage. She wore a feathery green dress over brown tights.

“Nyna Campbell,” the sheriff shouted. The woman's wanted poster flashed up, with a red stripe across the bottom of her picture: “Apprehended.”

Nyna Campbell stretched and strained against the MPs' grip. “My blood, my breath, my bone,” she cried, all manner of pain in the hollows of her voice. “Forever yours, Sherwood. The rebellion lives on—”

Mallet sidestepped toward the woman and slashed out with an elbow to her throat, cutting off her call. Nyna Campbell's head dropped forward and she fell still and silent. A low trill rose up from the crowd, from all corners. People rolling their voices together, wordlessly.

“Silence.” The sheriff motioned with her hand and the MPs bound and gagged the woman more tightly, then carried her back out of sight.

“Fugitives, beware! We will find you.” Mallet continued, “Maybe even right here today.” She made a threatening, stalking journey across the front of the stage, pointing into the crowd. “All citizens of Sherwood
will
abide by the law.” She spread her arms to indicate her corps of military police. “We are here to ensure cooperation and a smooth transition to our new way of life.” The sinister edge to her voice was less than comforting.