Page 5 of The Artist
“Great, thank you for introducing yourselves. Now, let’s start by separating you into five groups for the tents so you know where you’ll be sleeping tonight,” Sheana Rene said pragmatically. “Jonah gave you a number, so if you’re number one, please take a step forward.
Two boys and Aubri stepped forward, which made Thor, Indiana, and me protest right away.
“Hell no! Aubri isn’t sleeping in a tent with two males,” I exclaimed in a non-negotiable tone.
Jonah muttered a low “I told you so,” to Sheana.
I zoomed in on him. “You’re married to my sister. You fucking know better than this.”
Jonah sighed. “Mila did warn me you might not go along with mixed sleeping arrangements, but I was hoping you boys would be more relaxed than your fathers.”
“Don’t call us boys,” Indiana and I insisted at the same time.
The guy from the Motherlands who had stepped forward was fourteen and didn’t look like he’d hit puberty yet. With a face scrunched up, he asked, “What’s wrong? I don’t understand.”
Victor frowned. “What is this about?”
Taking a defensive stance with my arms crossed, I explained. “In the Northlands we protect our females. If any of you guys touch Freya or Aubri, we’ll kill you.”
Gasps sounded from the others and it made Freya elbow me. “Stop it, Mason!”
“No, I won’t stop it. If anything happens to either of you, we’ll be the ones facing Dad and Khan, and you know damn well they’d string us up for failing to protect you.”
“I can protect myself!” Aubri exclaimed with irritation.
Jonah held up his palms. “Okay, how about we make a tent with three young women then. Aubri and Freya, why don’t you go with Belle? She’s the youngest and it might be a bit overwhelming for her to be sleeping next to someone like Indiana or Mason anyway.”
We all looked toward the twelve-year-old girl, who hadn’t said a single word except her name and age. Her shoulders were tipped forward and her eyes fixed on the floor. I couldn’t see much of her face as her long light brown hair was covering it, but from the way she cowered, she didn’t resemble someone with leader potential.
“Oui, that’s fine,” Victor said with a dismissive wave of the hand, like he couldn’t care less about Belle. “The rest of us aren’t scared of coupling males and females.”
“You won’t be coupling shit, my friend?” I puffed my chest up and narrowed my eyes at Victor, but Jonah was quick to put a hand on my shoulder.
“Relax, Mason. Remember that English isn’t Victor’s first language. I think he means that they aren’t afraid of mixing males and females.”
“That’s what I said,” Victor nodded.
I wanted to explain the difference between coupling and mixing but as always, Aubri broke in.
“We’re notscaredeither. We just don’t want to harm one of you for touching us.”
“Why would we touch you?” the Motlander boy asked with more confusion.
“You won’t!” Thor narrowed his eyes and resembled his father Khan as he stared the boy down.
“It’s nothing personal,” Freya explained. “These are just old customs from a time when there were very few women in our country.”
“There’s still too few,” I added, but Freya ignored me and soon the bonding games began.
We spent the day divided into three mixed teams searching for answers about the past. Nostalgia Park was separated into time pockets and was the closest thing we could get to time traveling. I found it hard to focus on the questions for the quiz when I was fascinated with the actors and scenarios imitating different time periods from the Stone Age to the twenty-first century.
Exploring the Bronze Age, I was measuring my height next to the door opening of a hut when Freya came running from her own group to me.
“What do you have so far?” she whispered.
“I think humans in the Bronze Age were dwarfs. Look at the size of this door.”
“Honestly, do you know anything about history?” Her tone was annoyed.
