Ferocious

4. In Parts and Pieces

I slipped going through the principal's door and fell face first in slime and stinking mud. I tried to push myself up. My hands couldn't find purchase and sank deeper in mire. Cold water swirled around my wrists and knees.

"Hello?" I called. Where was I? "Is anyone he-"

My head was shoved down from behind until my nose touched the mud. I swiped at whatever was holding me and felt a man's heavy hand and wool sleeve. "Let me go, please let me go!" I cried.

"Spy?" A man's voice to the left asked.

Spy? "No!" I cried. I wasn't even sure if I was answering his question or simply denying the fact that this was happening. Think, Brooklyn. I had been walking into the principal's office, but was now in a marsh or at a lake in the mud. The light was murky and the air stank of decay and wood smoke. There were at least two men, one holding me and another standing nearby. Was this what the message meant? These men were the ones coming for me? Had I passed out in school and been kidnapped?

My heart was beating so fast it was hard to breathe and all my muscles tensed. I sank deeper in the mud as the man pushed me down further. My mouth and nose would be under soon.

"No, I'm not a spy!" I gasped. I scratched the fist in my hair. Think, Brooklyn, you know how to do this. "Let me go now!"

"What's to spy on in these parts?" The man holding my hair jerked my head back and forth.

By then I had determined he was using his right hand. With my right hand, I grabbed his and twisted my body up and around. I jabbed my left elbow in his forearm, then chopped into his neck with the side of my hand. But from that distance, I didn't have enough strength. He snapped his head back, choking some and caught my arms. He laughed. I was pinned beneath him and sinking in the mud.

"Little spitfire we've got here, boys!" the man called.

"That so?"

My world reeled, bits of reality chipping off and falling aside. A Confederate soldier was holding me down. He called me a spitfire. I gaped at his crooked, rotting teeth, the tattered cap on his head, his greasy hair and untrimmed beard and thought how genuine he seemed. Not like an actor or a costumed freak, but an actual Confederate soldier with a thin wool jacket and tarnished buttons. One was missing.

I could see so many details crystal clear, but they were things that couldn't exist. Each unreal detail seemed to detach itself and grow until the things that should be my real world disappeared.

Confederate uniforms, another soldier behind him missing an arm, grimy skin, yellow sashes filthy with dirt, blood and water stains, burn streaks on cheeks, and the smell of chicory boiling nearby wafting over the sweet stench of rot.

"What'll we do with her?" said a young man coming up to look at me. "Think Feros'll want her? She ain't but part here. It won't do, I reckon."

"Take her to him anyhow," the man holding me said.

"Nah. Won't do. Gwine rile him up for nothing." The young man, a boy about my age studied me. His jacket was off and wide suspenders kept his trousers up. There was a blankness to his stare, as if he was only partly there, as well. He ran a thumb up the inside of one suspender. "Part here is worse 'n none here."

"Please let me go. I want to go home. I'm not here to hurt anyone or get you in trouble." I said as calmly as possible. What did he mean by saying I was part here? This whole situation was wrong. Too sharp and cold to be a dream. I started shivering.

"Push her back through, then, be the only solution," the man standing to the side said.

"I reckon so." The soldier holding me started to push me deeper in the mud.