“What’s the deal with everyone?” Zavy asks as she joins me. We retreat to the privacy of the woods to change into the spare outfits they had packed in our bags. The quality of their clothes isn’t nearly as nice as the ones from the bunker. I notice Zavy chooses to wear the extra pieces she had brought with her instead of the rags Cinder had given us. I pull on the large white tank top and soft black cloth shorts. I try and tie the tank top up on the side so it fits better, but it still hangs off my shoulders.
“Cooper doesn’t think any of them will be allowed into Libertas now that we lost Alexander,” I say bluntly back to her.
“That can’t be true! They promised them,” Zavy says shocked.
“They promised them in exchange for me and Alexander. No offense Zavy, but you in exchange for Alexander isn’t exactly a fair trade,” I say with a flat tone in my voice.
“We’ll just have to make a new deal with the people at Libertas when we get there,” she says simply.
Zavy and I don’t say anything else. We come out of the woods and back to the bank of the river. I scan the clearing and see that everyone has gotten to work and changed into fresh clothes as well. Albert, Andy, Bren, and James are cooking. Essie, Cassandra, and Sarah are washing clothes. I don’t want to feel useless to the group that has already given so much to me. I know they may be angry with me for losing Alexander, but I need to try and make things right. I cross the clearing toward the sisters.
“Would you like some help?” I ask as I stand over Essie while she works, scrubbing our dirty clothes.
“Oh no,” she starts. “You don’t have to help. We can take care of it. It’s our job,” she says, gesturing to her sisters.
“Please,” I cut her off, taking a seat across from her. “I need something to do.” Essie gives me a soft smile and says I can start with my shirt.
“Dunk and scrub,” she instructs. I take a brown rough brush and soak the shirt in the water.
“I used to help my mother clean clothes,” I say as I work away on my shirt. “Well, not really.” I laugh, remembering how little I actually did. “She’d fill one bucket for clothes and one for me to play with,” I start to explain. The three sisters have fallen silent eager to listen to a story of my past.
“I used to have these little toy boats. I had been walking the streets with Alexander, no Cooper,” I correct myself quickly. “And we wandered into the toy shop on the edge of town. It was my favorite place to go.” I pause, remembering all the times we had gone there. Basically any day we didn’t have school Cooper would take me there. “Anyway,” I say, continuing, “We’d just wander around and look because we could never afford the toys. I had found these beautiful white boats in the back of the store. They were tiny, just the size of my hand, and there were little blue waves painted on the sides.”
“How’d you get them?” Essie asks me in a soft voice.
“Cooper haggled with the owner and got me the boats,” I explain.
“What did he give in return?” Cassandra asks, listening in on my story.
I smile, remembering. “A gold necklace our father had given him for his birthday. Even then he was making stupid decisions to make me happy.”
“Your father must have been upset,” Sarah offers, but I shake my head.
“He didn’t notice. Cooper just said he had lost it in our room,” I say.
“Believable because our room was a disaster,” Cooper chimes in as he walks over to our group. He’s probably been listening the whole time.
“Just your side,” I say back to him and he lets out a half laugh. Maybe he can forgive me for messing up their plan. Maybe I can still make this right.
“So anyway,” I say, drawing my attention back to the clothes, “My mother would do laundry and I would play with those boats.”
“That’s a lovely story,” Essie says smoothly.
“What about you guys?” I ask. “Three sisters, your mother must have had her hands full.”
The three of them laugh. “We were a lot to handle,” Essie admits, nodding her head.
“We didn’t have an older brother to take us on cool adventures,” Sarah offers, glancing up to Cooper. His cheeks have blushed red.
“We mostly played dress up in our mother’s clothes,” Cassandra continues.
“Our mother worked in the bakery so she was lucky enough to afford such luxuries like dresses and jewelry,” Essie notes.
“We’d each take turns dressing up and being whatever we wanted,” Sarah explains the game. “Most of the time I’d choose to be a princess.” She stands and twirls in her rags pretending they are a big ball gown. The three girls giggle and Sarah sits back at her bucket.
“I actually preferred being a teacher,” Essie admits softly.
Her sisters respond in unison, “Boring,” and the three of them burst out laughing. This must be something the three of them joked about a lot because Essie doesn’t seem to take offense at the insult.
“No one dressed as a baker?” Cooper jokes and the three burst out laughing again. I assume he’s heard these stories before.
“I miss that,” Sarah says and the moment settles as the three of them hold on to that feeling of playing dress up and being a kid.
“Remember when you taught me to braid hair?” Cassandra asks Essie and her smile widens.
“You can braid?” I ask and turn to Cassandra.
Essie and
