And Repentance would never see them.
"You'll have Aggravation for a best friend, Comfort. I'm glad of that."
Comfort set char-stick to parchment and began sketching. In moments Aggravation's face took shape on the paper.
"Are you afraid?" Comfort asked without looking up from her work.
"A little," she lied. She concentrated on the soft scratching of char-stick on paper and forced herself to relax.
"Because you don't know Sober?"
"I know him." Not well. He was older and he lived on the far side of the marsh. He'd left school five years earlier.
"I haven't thought about Sober much. I'm not really afraid."
Her little sister lifted her eyebrows in disbelief.
"Really," Repentance said. "Now I'm going to leave you so you can get to work on my button present." She tapped the picture Comfort was working on. "Don't you dare give me a picture of Aggravation. He's a handsome fellow, but I don't want him hanging in my main room."
Comfort laughed, her cheeks tinged with the rosy hue of embarrassment. "I didn't even realize I was drawing him. I do it without thinking."
Repentance squeezed her tighter. "I'm glad you have someone to love, Comfort. And who will love you back. He'll take care of you."
Comfort leaned against Repentance's shoulder. "He'll take care of me, and Sober will take care of you, and we'll have lots of little girls and they'll be best friends just like we are."
Repentance kissed Comfort's head. Sweet, happy Comfort. It was just like her to imagine that they'd only give birth to girls. If only there was a way to have such a guarantee. The mothers in the village would give their milking pigs and their weaving hands, too, for a promise of only girl babies.
Repentance shoved that little bit of hope down. She could not depend on Providence to give only girls.
It wouldn't do any good even if he did. If he started giving only girl babies, the overlords would start taking girl babies instead of leaving them to breed.
No, the only way to keep the overlords from stealing her children was to not have any in the first place.
The girls are safely promised.
The boys have all found mates.
Slave carts shall stand empty.
Come drink and fill your plates.
Gather 'round. Let joy abound. We'll drink and fill our plates.
~From an old buttoning song
Chapter 2
Fire glowed in the village center, its smoke acting as a discouragement to the biting flies. Repentance wilted before it. If the fingers of flame had clawed a hole in the fog she would have embraced the heat, but the sticky mist clung as always, threatening to choke her.
She sat on the ground with her back to the blaze—she and five other girls all in their sixteenth year.
Repentance ignored the chatter from the others. She held a char-stick and hunched over her small parchment pad, trying to think of some way to explain to Comfort. Nothing came.
People began to fill up the village center. They sat on logs facing the girls.
She quickly wrote I love you, and I'm sorry, ripped the note off the pad, and tucked it under one leg. Later that night, or maybe in the morning, someone would find it and give it to Comfort.
And Comfort would cry her eyes out.
Repentance slipped her parchment pad and char-stick into the pocket of her blouse with a sigh. Nothing she could say would ease the pain.
She looked up to see Confusion Pondside taking a seat up front. Cursed lot! Repentance had been born three days before Buttoning Day and Confusion had been born three days after. So, though Repentance was only a week older than Confusion, she was to be buttoned this year and Confusion would wait until next. Of course, Mother would say that was a kindness granted by Providence. Next year there would be no desperate fifth-year boys willing to take Repentance as a mate.
Goodwoman Marsh would likely agree with her mother.
Repentance scanned the audience. She found Sober's mother on the left, in front, leaning forward anxiously. Her features were fuzzy in the dim light, but Repentance could still make out a guarded look of longing directed toward her. If she would save Sober, she'd have Goodwoman Marsh's undying devotion. She lifted her eyes from the crowd, saw the dark slave cart hunkered just outside the circle of villagers, and a wave of nausea swept over her.
She wouldn't be condemning Sober alone, though. She would share his fate. Boys had five chances to find a button mate. Girls had only one—they were either buttoned in their sixteenth year or they were sent off on the slave cart, never to see their families again.
Often one or two were sent away. There were not enough boys one year and not enough girls the next. So button ceremonies were full of mixed emotions. The relief and joy felt by those who had found mates was tempered out of pity for those who had not.
This year was different. The crowd didn't hold a single weepy face. All the boys and girls of age had been promised. Beads had changed hands and blouses and scarves had been sewn amidst a jolly feeling of wellbeing. The girls were especially happy. Buttonings made on years that took no slaves were said to enjoy special blessings from Providence.
The button girls wore blouses with different colored buttons. Repentance had gray buttons. A large heart-shaped one at her breast, a round one at her wrist, and a square one at her hip. To her right, Blamed Backwater had the same shapes in brown, and to her left, Sovereign Gumtree had green. It was supposed to be a surprise—the identity of the button mate—but that tradition had long passed out of practice. Each girl knew which boy would carry the
