Nobody's Child Read Online Free Page A

that her sister was right by her side. She could hear her gasping back her sobs.
    The fields were littered with threshing tools, but not a worker was in sight.
    Mariam’s eyes scanned the fields. She spotted her mother’s sickle. On it was a single drop of blood. Mariam picked it up and wiped the blood off with her finger, then tucked it carefully into the back of her belt as she had seen her mother do.
    â€œMaybe they had time to hide,” she said hopefully, searching the area for possibilities.
    â€œWhat about the caves?” asked Marta.
    They walked, hearts pounding, toward the first cave. Marta held Onnig firmly on her hip while Mariam peered in, calling, “Mairig? Boba? Are you there?”
    She looked at her siblings’ anxious eyes. “I can’t see anything,” she said. “It’s too dark.”
    The children went back to the camping area and found a candle and matches. Mariam didn’t tell her brother and sister why she was doing it, but she also rooted through her mother’s rucksack and withdrew a vial of oil and all three of her mother’s packed veils. She put the container of oil in her pocket and tied all of the veils around her shoulders, on top of her own. They returned to the cave and again Mariam entered. The cave was empty.
    In eerie silence, they searched cave after cave. Finally, they approached one that was far away from their camping area. This one looked large enough to hold many people. Marta held Onnig close, caressing the back of his neck to calm his trembling, while Mariam lit the candle, then entered.
    The cave was huge and wide at the mouth, and then it narrowed into smaller pathways. As Mariam approachedone of the smaller openings, she stepped into something slick and had to grip onto the side of the cave to keep her balance. She lowered the candle to her feet and saw that the slickness was just as she feared: blood.
    She swallowed back fear and sadness and anger and bile. She was the oldest, and she had to find out if her parents were here. She stood up and extended the candle in front of her as far as it would reach. Suddenly, the opening was illuminated. Armenians hacked to death. All men. She made herself look carefully at the faces. Neither her uncle nor father was in the group.
    Although they were dead, there was still one last thing she could do for them. She drizzled a bit of the oil from the vial onto the tip of the index finger on her right hand. She made a circle with her thumb and index finger, and made a sign of the cross in the air. She untied one of the veils and lightly draped it over the corpses. She bent down and scooped a small handful of pebbles from the ground and scattered them on the veil, and then she recited the traditional Armenian prayer for the dead.
    Not a proper burial, but at least their souls would rest in peace.
    With the candle to guide her, she looked for another opening. The next one she found had no blood at the entrance, but she shone her candle in just in case. A single migrant worker dead. One of the leering men from the barn.
    Because there was only one, and she could step in closer, she dotted the man’s brow and hands and feet with the oil in a sign of the cross, and then she ripped a strip from one of the veils and draped it over him — symbolicof a shroud. She finished the ritual, then backed away.
    Her gruesome journey of discovery continued. Difficult as it was, she had to find her own parents. She knew it immediately when she finally found them. When she shone her candle into the opening, the first thing that set this group apart was her mother’s dirt-encrusted wool skirt. She was curled into a tight ball and she looked like she was sleeping, except for the slit across her throat, and all the blood. Her father and uncle were crammed into the crevice in front of her, as if they had tried to protect her to the death.
    Mariam reached in. She touched her mother’s face. Then she reached