The Protectors Read Free Page A

hear the loud music and garish laughter in the distance if we listen. We consciously ignore it. None of us would ever laugh that way and wouldn't even want to. It was too overdone, almost a dare for something terrible to happen. We didn't need any dares for that.
    Dinner is the typical large kudzu salad topped with goat cheese and whatever nuts, berries, and home pressed oils we are able to find or make. It is the one meal where everyone typically gets to eat until they are full. The Protectors sneer at kudzu salad, but it is sweet and Grandpa says it's filled with nutrients. It also helps the little ones to sleep at night if their bellies are nicely satiated.
    Most of the dark room is filled with teenagers, small children and women, more than a hundred in all. The Chit Girls are serving duty at the Shrieker House, so we watch after the children of their unions. It is men that are noticeably absent. Those present are either old or maimed like Grandpa, allowed to live as an example. It makes me wonder again about my father was and if it really was Clay as some have whispered. Either that, or he was killed by the Shriekers like all the other men after the Rebellion. Most of me doubts this. Still, sometimes I cannot help it. I dream that he was a good man. True and wise and strong. Like Grandpa, but younger and not so sad.
    There are some adolescent boys around. When girls came Of Age they can Take the Chit. Boys have no choice, they are taken into the Shriekers as Prospects. Most end up working for them doing minor tasks. Some even make it to the level of Protectors eventually like Jonsey. A few are never seen again once they enter the Shrieker House.
    Broily st ands and we all fall quiet. It has been less than a year since the old man's right hand was chopped off by Clay. Broily had dared to write letters and arrange for them to be smuggled out of town by the few traders through Newton heading east. Grandpa said Broily was a fool to have written the letters at all. Everyone knew the Knights of the Watch were a myth, and even if they weren't, they would be unlikely to help the people of Newton.
    "Tonight I will talk about Before," Broily says dramatically as if this wasn't what he talked about every night at Remembering Time.
    Unlike the other kids, I do n't groan. The stories from Before are fascinating to me. Although it is always difficult to believe most of what the Sad Ones say about those times.
    Broily glares out over the dim tightly packed room and it becomes still. The old man commands respect because he is one of the few left who can read and write, although I'm pretty sure Grandpa can even if he won't admit it. The Sad Ones would have us believe that there was a time when nearly everyone could read. We know that can't be true.
    "At the End," says Broily, "we didn't know it was the End. This was before the plagues and the famine and the chaos. We had food to eat whenever we wanted and walked around without fear of someone whipping or killing us. It was an age of wonder. It was also an illusion."
    Many of the Sad Ones nod. All of them had withdrawn into themselves I see.
    "Back the n it was all about making money. Money is something you accumulate so you can buy other things you want," Broily explains.
    "But you said you had all the food you wanted," sa ys Ginny, a little girl in pigtails seated near Broily's feet.
    He frowns . "We did at that, but it was the money that allowed us to get the food. The point is we were able to get more than we needed, more food, more of anything. It was unbearable for us to consider we couldn't instantly have whatever it was we wanted. But it wasn't just us, it was everything. Money was the ends, not the means. This is what caused the Great Plague."
    Some of the Sad Ones cough reflexively at the memory.
    "We had seasonal sicknesses every year, pandemics. Little plagues if you will. They would sweep the globe and set off a panic for a few months before some big pharmaceutical company