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  Copyright © 2022 by E.S. Barrison

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  E.S. Barrison

  www.esbarrison-author.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Cover designed by MiblArt

  Speak Easy: A Tale from the Effluvium/E.S. Barrison. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN 979-8-9853634-0-1

  Table of Contents

  Start

  Cover

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  Want more Tales from the Effluvium?

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Dedicated to anyone who is afraid to tell their story.

  Your story is worth telling.

  And I’ll always be there to listen.

  ONE

  .----

  Father died soon after my nineteenth birthday on a day when the misty hands of Death’s Grip flooded the swamp beneath my home. The stories go that if someone dies when Death’s Grip is at its strongest, then they won’t suffer. And like so, Father passed while asleep, a smile on his face, embracing his new death as an old friend. A day later, I lay his body to rest at the base of the Old Cypress Tree…alone.

  That was that day I realized I had to leave Stilette, the city on stilts where I’d spent my whole life.

  Memories haunted my home. In my adolescence, I played in the swamp, telling stories to my dolls made of sticks and moss while throwing mud balls at the neighborhood children. We would hide behind the stilts, watching as strangers performed feats of magic for our entertainment until our parents called from the boardwalks above to come and eat dinner. My mother would greet us with an ugly casserole after a day erecting the stilts that kept the city afloat, kissing both my sister and me on the head. At night, we gathered at my father’s feet, listening to the stories he wove for the neighborhood children while teaching us all to read and write. Every night, as he told his stories, he tapped his foot in rhythm. Each beat was a different letter, each connection a different word.

  These stories, mixed with his unusual tapping, left a twang in my heart. A desire for adventure, an urge to escape the now-empty home and see the world.

  Just like my sister had a few years earlier.

  So, I sold the house and packed a bag. The plan was simple: once the thickest plumes of Death’s Grip left Stilette, I would hop on a caravan to Rosada, the nation north of my home.

  Rosada wasn’t my first choice to make a home, but it was the one place where I knew I wasn’t alone. My sister moved there years ago to attend the prestigious Rosadian Academy. Every month, I received a telegraph using the all too familiar tap-code from her, begging that I come join her and her partner after she stopped her studies.

  .—- —- .. -. / — .

  “Join me,” it said. “We have plenty of room.”

  With Father gone, nothing much held me back.

  Yet, the rumors about Rosada worried me. Whenever travelers came through from the north, they bore no tales upon their lips, often keeping their heads down as local theater troops produced plays of swamp monsters and heroes in our streets. As a young girl, I thought it was because of the language barrier. When I asked my father about it, he never really had much of an answer. All he ever said was, “Some people believe stories taint the world and produce a false narrative. We do not. So, my Nanette, love your stories...for others cannot.”

  I only hoped what he said did not apply to Rosada as I prepared my bag to join a caravan heading north. But what did I have in Stilette otherwise? My mother had died years ago in an unfortunate construction accident. My sister had left a few years later and, now married, had no aspiration to return. Most of my childhood friends left Stilette seeking adventure and riches abroad. My father had been my confidante, my best friend; without him, I couldn’t stay.

  And even if I wanted to, the city was stagnant with no work that inspired me.

  What stories were there to tell?

  My father planted a yearning to grow in my heart. He wanted more for my sister and me than a life surrounded by swamp gas. Every day, growing up, he told us, “Elodie, Nanette, there’s a bird on our windowsill. See it?” Sometimes, there wouldn’t be a bird, but we would agree. “I want you to fly away someday like that beautiful bird.”

  He said it with such romance and grace. And, as soon as Elodie turned eighteen, she took his advice and flew away to Rosada to pursue her studies. Two years her junior, I stayed behind with our father, ignoring my own flourishing desires. He further declined after my mother’s unprecedented death, whispering that he saw her in Death’s Grip.

  In his final days, he sometimes even confused me with my mother before launching into a fantasy about dragons. He would tell me, his eyes wide, to climb upon a dragon and leave this petty life to the mist. Other times, he claimed Death would arrive on a tremendous stork for him, and it would be his turn for an adventure.

  After I gave his body over to the Old Cypress Tree, I sent a telegraph to Elodie saying I would join her in Rosada. Within three weeks, she’d used her connections to gain the proper documentation. She had a way of working the system despite never finishing her law degree, more enthralled with the adventures in the capital of Rosada than her own studies.

  The day the papers arrived, I gathered them in my arm and read through each document carefully.

  On top of them all, Elodie had inscribed a letter in her looped handwriting.

  Doris –

  I am so excited for you to join me in the Capital of Rosada! I have missed you dearly. There is so much I need to tell you that can’t be summed in a single letter or a telegraph. That can all wait, of course.

  Marietta and I have already prepared your room. Oh, I guess I haven’t told you about Marietta, have I? That’s right, I have a wife now! She started her transition last month, and we are so much happier.

  Enough of that, though. We’ll have all the time in the world to catch up.

  In the meantime, all the legal documents you need are in this envelope.

  I can’t wait to see you!

  Elodie

  After reading through the letter twice, making sure to commit Elodie’s wife’s name to memory, I removed the legal documents. Upon reading them, I took my fountain pen and signed each document with my full name: Doris Nanette Ivans.

  A single signature sealed my emigration from Stilette, and by the next morning, I hopped on a caravan north to pursue my new life.

  The caravan I joined whisked me into a brand-new world. It consisted of an odd bunch who took in refugees and orphans, with a shared goal to see the world. They sang songs and told stories around their fires each night, all of them promising one thing: a chance.

  There was something oddly enchanting about them. They cast a spell over me, displaying small feats of magic in the palms of their hands while painting stories with their music. I marveled as one traveler turned the fire different colors with a snap of his finger and another performed slights-of-hand with a deck of cards. To be honest, if I hadn’t promised Elodie I would join her in the Capitol, I might have continued traveling.

  The caravan gave me a chance to cut away the final threads tying me to my father and Stilette. As a child, I kept my head down, always obeyed the rules. I was naïve, pious, kind, and pure. Not once did I disobey orders, even if a fire brewed in my chest to shout.

  Traveling with this caravan changed all that. I expanded my vocabulary, tasting the most obnoxious words in both the Rosadian language and my native tongue, Volfi.

  “Damn.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Shite.”

  The first time I tried speaking those words while sitting around the fire with a few other travelers, they tasted bitter. But like a deep swig of ale, over time, the flavor grew familiar, and I treated them like any other words.

  The curses unlocked another side of me. I cast aside the poise and grace I’d displayed for my father, letting my shoulders relax and my smile brighten. I opened myself up to some travelers, keeping most conversations short, while other times enamored with the stories around the fire.

  I also began spending more time with a tall, striking woman named Gisela and a stout chiseled fellow named Yeshua. They took me under their wing, teaching me more curse words and telling stories of lives that might have sprawled centuries. Something drew me to them, their beauty making my heart flutter and causing warmth to rise in my chest.

  About two weeks into my journey, I sat with them by the fire as we did most nights. Yeshua strummed alon
g on his oud, a string instrument from his homeland abroad. Gisela told me stories about magic, talking about seers who saw the dead and a woman who saw heat. I scoffed. The story was anticlimactic, nowhere near as special as the dove catchers in Stilette or the traveler I’d met who turned his fingers invisible.

  “Now, Nanette, there are many kinds of magic!” Gisela said.

  “Yes, but seeing heat? That is so fucking uncreative.” The curse formed a knot on my tongue.

  Gisela balked. “Oh, how adorable she is! Did you see the way her face twisted when she cussed?”

  Yeshua agreed, patting my hand. “It is quite adorable. She is innocent as a flower.”

  I blushed. Gisela and Yeshua’s laughter made my heart swarm with a thousand different emotions, the types that are indescribable unless you feel them. Their smiles were flawless, eyes like jewels; they were almost like two gods carved perfectly out of stone, complementing one another in unison. Whenever they spoke, my attention fell only on their lips. Each chime of laughter left my head swimming.

  And they were more perceptive than I knew.

  Throughout our voyage, I’d been sneaking glances, trying my best to hide my internal attraction. But that night, beneath the moonlit sky, Gisela and Yeshua showed their true awareness.

  As I tried to hide my flushing face, I continued to practice that confounded word. “Fuck.” I didn’t notice at first as the two of them shifted beside me until they were so close, I felt their breath against my skin. Gisela lifted her slender hand and pushed back my hair. When I raised my eyes to meet her gaze, Yeshua took my hand, tracing the veins on my wrist.

  “Doris,” Gisela whispered.

  “Please, call me Nanette. I hate that name… Doris.” I muttered.

  “Nanette... yes, that is much prettier.” She cupped my cheek. “Like you. You are so beautiful, Nanette.”

  My entire body stiffened as a heat bubbled in my belly. I’d felt this longing before, the warmth, the need, back when I was just piquing into womanhood and began stealing glances at others my age. Elodie told me it was all natural. She told me to guide myself through that warmth, to touch where my desires flourished, and let my body fly.

  Like most adolescents, I’d experimented, but not enough to share the experience with someone else. What if I fell too deep into my desires? What if I didn’t want to stop?

  Now, with Gisela and Yeshua as my guides, I longed to explore the depths of my sacred core.

  “You’re so innocent...so young,” Gisela continued. “You really haven’t experienced the world yet, have you?”

  “I want to,” I replied as another spike of warmth lashed through my body. Yeshua’s fingers had moved from my arm, down my stomach, and onto my thigh.

  Gisela’s lips were close to my ear now, brushing the edge of my skin. “Do you want us to help you learn?”

  “I do.” We had spent so much time together. I felt like they knew everything about me. Who else could I trust to teach me the art of desire?

  I gasped as Yeshua’s fingers navigated the area between my thighs, merely touches away from an area I deemed sacred. He was a man of a few words, but his movements spoke volumes.

  I stared at Gisela as I spoke. She was stunning in the moonlight. “I want this...”

  “Of course you do.” Gisela unlaced my bodice.

  Then, the pair lowered me onto the ground and taught me things about my body I never even fathomed.

  I would never say that my sensuous affair with Gisela and Yeshua turned me into a woman. No. Not at all. I was a woman long before I cut myself loose of the tethers over my sexuality. What it did, though, was solidify the last bit of confidence and determination that had been brewing since my father passed away. It put a bow on everything.

  I was independent now. Free. I did not have to meet expectations or do something because it would make my father happy. I could finally be me. If I wished to have sex, curse at the top of my lungs, or try on that uninhibited outfit hanging in a shop window, no one stopped me. I was my own person.

  But, as we traveled through Rosada to the Capitol, I noticed a change not just in myself but in the atmosphere. Each city and town we passed through felt bleaker than the last, Death’s Grip more like a storm cloud than an incandescent embrace. Shops sat with dark windows, and people strode through the streets with their heads bowed. People didn’t gossip or smile, in contrast to the friendly streets of Stilette. I was a foreigner, not just in my accent but in my behavior as well.

  If Stilette were a color, it would have been green.

  But Rosada was gray.

  And I was like a stain on its traditions.

  The Capitol emerged on the horizon, glowering over evergreen forests and shrub-filled fields. It bore fear in its gaze, watching me as I approached with the caravan.

  On the final night, I hid in the back of a wagon with Gisela and Yeshua, making love for the last time just out of sight from the Capitol’s glare. I cried in their arms, my fear and heartbreak rocking every corner of my body. I couldn’t believe it. In less than a day, I would no longer have these two wonderful people in my life. We’d spent so many hours together, touching, kissing, and uniting. But they did not need to stay with me in Rosada.

  And I’d made a promise to my sister.

  Wandering: that was their life. I was but one of many lovers on their adventure.

  Not that I held any disdain. They had opened a whole new world to me.

  The next morning, after a night of little sleep and many kisses, they walked with me into the Capitol, past the Guards in stone watchtowers. I gripped both their hands tight, my stomach twisting in knots and throwing bile into my throat.

  At the marble archway to the plaza, Yeshua turned to me and said, “Doris Nanette?”

  His voice startled me, but I stared into his face, memorizing his chiseled jawline all the same. “Yes?”

  “Listen to me closely.” He squeezed my hand. “Destiny does not control you. The people in your life are merely threads in your design. But they alone do not embroider it. You do. I can see you, Nanette, and I know you will do great things.”

  I shrunk. “But I don’t know how...”

  “You will learn.” Yeshua kissed my fingertips. “You will be great.”

  Gisela placed her hand on the small of my back, “Our time with you has ended, dearest Nanette.”

  I shook my head, restraining tears. “I’m going to miss you both so much...”

  “It is time to move on,” Gisela said, then kissed me. Yeshua followed suit, his own lips lingering just as Gisela’s did.

  I clamored for them, but they pushed me into the crowds. They concluded their story with a wave, turned their back to me, and strode away as if on a cloud, leaving me alone in the heart of the Capitol, unsure how to begin my story.

  TWO

  ..---

  As soon as Yeshua and Gisela left, my shield cracked. Certainly, everyone stared at me: I was a foreigner here, dressed in a green chemise, my hair pulled back in an unkempt braid and face beaten with dirt. I quivered beneath the watchful eye of the hourglass structure perched upon the Temple in the City Center. It counted each moment, jewels toppling from the upper chamber into the one beneath it. The guards watched me with similar intent from their towers and street corners. Rosada’s gaze never ceased.

  Even as I hailed a horse and buggy, I felt their gazes, set aware by my thick accent cutting open my disguise.

  It was clear.

  I was not Rosadian.

  Now, everyone would know. The Guard. The civilians. Everyone.

  But even as I climbed into the buggy, I kept my head high.

  “Where ya heading?” the cabby asked.

  I handed him my letter from Elodie. He read it over, smirked, then gave it back to me.

  “You going to Ms. Lieu’s house? That’s gonna cost ya a pretty penny. It’s on the outskirts of the city, y’know.”

  I removed a small parcel of coins Elodie sent me. The cabby sifted through the coins, smiled, and pocketed them.

  After I climbed aboard, with a thrust of the reigns, the cabby ushered his brown horse forward down the path. I sank back into the seat, holding my breath as the horse trotted over each bump and swerve in the road.