Parable of the Talents - Octavia E Butler Page 0,40

Dan was whimpering, “No, no, she’s still not here! Why did you say she was here? She’s not!” He sounded much younger than his 15 years.

And I heard Bankole talking to him, trying to calm him, but I stood frozen, staring at one of the boys—a young man, really. The young man stared back at me then looked away. Perhaps he had not recognized me. On the other hand, perhaps he was warning me. I was late taking the warning.

“Like that one, do you?” Cougar purred.

Shit.

“He’s one of my best. Young and strong. Take him instead of a girl.”

I made myself look at the girls. One of them did look like the description we had given out of Dan’s sisters: small, dark-haired, pretty, 12 and 13 years old. Nina had a scar just at the hairline where she had been burned when she was four and she and Paula and Dan had found some matches to play with. Some of her hair had caught fire. Paula had a mole—she called it a beauty mark—on the left side of her face near her nose. The girl that Cougar hoped we would buy did have a scar just at the hairline like Nina. She even resembled little Mercy Noyer quite a bit. Same heart-shaped face.

“Did she say she was Nina Noyer?” I asked Cougar.

He grinned. “Can’t talk,” he said. “Can’t write either. Best kind of female. She must have said something bad to somebody, though, back when she could talk. Because before I bought her, somebody cut her tongue off.”

I didn’t let myself react, but there was no way I could avoid thinking of our May back at Acorn. We still don’t know whose work this tongue cutting is, but we know that some Christian America types would be happy to silence all women. Jarret preached that woman was to be treasured, honored, and protected, but that for her own sake, she must be silent and obey the will of her husband, father, brother, or adult son since they understood the world as she did not. Was that it? The woman could be silent or she could be silenced? Or was it simpler than that—some pimp in the area just liked cutting out women’s tongues? I didn’t believe Cougar had done it. There was nothing about his body language that said he was lying or being evasive. That might just mean he was a very good liar, but I didn’t think so. It seemed to me that he was telling the truth because he didn’t care. He didn’t give a damn who had cut the girl or why. I did. I couldn’t help it. How much more of this kind of mutilation would we be seeing?

The beautiful young man moved his feet in a restless, noisy way, dragging my attention back to him. Not that I was in any danger of forgetting him. And he was the one I had to buy now.

“How much for him?” I asked. It was too late to pretend I wasn’t interested. I had all I could do to just keep functioning—speaking sensible words in normal tones of voice, pretend that the impossible was not in the process of happening.

“Buying, are we?” asked Cougar, smirking.

I turned to face him. “I came here to buy,” I said. In fact, I would chance making an enemy of the Georges and kill Cougar if I had to. I would not leave my brother in this man’s hands. The thought that I had to leave any of these kids in his hands was sickening.

“I hope you can afford him,” Cougar said. “Like I told you, he’s one of my best.”

I haven’t had to do much haggling in my life, but something occurred to me as Cougar and I began. “He looks like one of your oldest,” I said. My brother Marcus would be almost 20 now. How old did one of Cougar’s child-slaves have to be before he was too old?

“He’s 17!” Cougar lied.

I laughed and told a lie of my own. “Maybe five or six years ago he was 17. Good god, man, I’m not blind! He’s great-looking, but he’s no kid.” It amazed me that I could lie and laugh and behave as though nothing unusual were happening when my long-dead brother stood alive and well just a few meters away.

To my further amazement, we haggled for over an hour. It seemed to me to be the right thing to do. Cougar was in no hurry, and I took