'What's going on?' Anakin wondered. 'It's like there's a sandstorm coming, but the air is so clear.'
As they got closer to their homes, their unease increased. On the outskirts, they saw shattered entrances and wreckage in the street. They passed a man crying into his hands. Sobs shook his thin shoulders.
Anakin and Amee exchanged a wordless glance. The fear that always hummed under the surface of their lives sparked and became a living current. Something was very wrong.
A woman ran by them, her eyes streaming tears. 'Elza!' she screamed.
'Elza!'
'Elza Monimi,' Amee said, panic beginning to shade her voice. 'He's our neighbor. What's happening?'
They began to run. Every other house seemed to be damaged. Beings mingled in the streets, asking one another for news of daughters, sons, mothers, whole families. They heard a whispered name, a name repeated over and over in tones of dread and horror.
Anakin stopped a neighbor, Titi Chronelle. 'What happened?'
'Slave raid,' Titi told him. 'Pirates. Led by Krayn. With blasters and restraining devices. They have transmitters that override our own. They can steal whoever they want. Many were taken.' Titi spoke in short bursts, as if he could not manage a whole sentence.
Anakin felt his own breath leave him. 'My mother?' Titi looked at him sadly before rushing on. 'I don't know.'
Without another word, Amee took off toward her own dwelling. Anakin ran, his heart bursting, his legs pumping. He charged into his home. He looked around wildly.
Everything seemed the same. But where was Shmi?
Then he saw her in the corner. Her knees were drawn up against her chest, her head buried. As he started toward her, she jerked her head up.
For a moment, he saw sheer terror in her face. Shock paralyzed him. He had never seen his mother afraid. For him, she was the image of calm strength. She held all the terrors of life at bay for him.
As she took in his expression, the wild look in her eyes instantly disappeared. The warm light he knew so well came back. She held out her arms to him, and he rushed to her.
'I didn't know where you were,' she said.
He felt her strong arms surround him and buried his face in the familiar scent of her clothes. She rocked him gently.
'You're shaking,' she said. 'Hush, Annie. We're both safe.'
Somehow he knew that the terror he'd seen on her face was not just because she could not find him. It was because of what she had seen. Of what had almost happened to her.
But that fear, the fear that his mother could disappear, that she could be hurt or killed, that she could be at the mercy of her own terror, was just too great for him to face. He pushed the thought of her anguished face away and breathed in her warmth, felt the strength and gentleness of her hands soothing him. Instantly, the shaking stopped. He told himself he had not seen her vulnerability. His mother could not be vanquished. She could not be taken. She could not be hurt. The core of her was strength.
She could keep them both safe. That was his reality. Somehow Anakin knew that if he acknowledged Shmi's fear he would close the door on his own childhood. He wasn't ready to do that. He was seven years old. He needed her too much.
Outside, they heard voices. A deep voice calling, trying to override a high, frightened one.
'Amee! Come back!'
'Where's my mother?'
Anakin looked up. 'It's Amee.'
Shmi's grip on him tightened. 'Hala was taken by the slave raiders.'
He looked into her face. The terror was gone, but sadness was there now, deep sadness and compassion, and also something else, something remote that he could not decipher. As though she knew something he did not, and would not tell him — he did not want or need to know.
'It is a terrible thing to be a slave on Tatooine, Annie,' Shmi whispered. 'But it could be far, far worse for us.'
She pushed his hair off his forehead. The remote look left her eyes.
'But you are safe,' she said in a firm voice. 'We are together. Now, come.
Let us do what we can to comfort Amee and her father.'
Anakin rose. He stood on the threshold of his dwelling for a moment, watching Shmi cross to console Amee and her father. Owners were now walking among the milling beings, checking on the slaves. Anakin saw Hala's owner, Yor Millto. Millto was checking off something on a datapad.
'A nuisance, to lose Hala,' he said to his assistant. 'This will cost me. But she wasn't highly skilled. Easy to replace.'
Anakin's gaze went to Amee. Her face was buried in Shmi's robes, and her thin shoulders shook with her wracking sobs. Hala's husband sat nearby, his face in his hands.
Easy to replace…
Pain tore through Anakin, pain he did not want to face.
