“I’m sorry, that's awful,” Angela said. Everyone she knew had faced so much loss. Even though Angela grew up without her mom, she felt guilty for being shielded from so much pain.
“You know, you look kind of like her,” Trace said.
“Like your sister?” Angela asked.
“No, like one of the women who helped us get meds when we first moved underground. Good friend of mine. Her name was Aliyah”
Angela’s heart pounded. She looked over at her father, trying to read his expression in the dark.
“Aliyah,” her father said to Trace, too stunned to say anything else.
Angela pulled her mother's photograph out of her pocket, asking, “Was this the woman you knew?”
Trace took the photo and gave it a quick look. “Yes, that’s her. We grew up going to the same school our whole life. When my sister mutated, a lot of our friends left us, but not her. One of the kindest women I knew. You know, she had a mutation as well, but not as noticeable as some. Last time I saw her, she said she was going someplace secret to be cured.”
“We tried so many cures,” Nathan said, a tear slipping down his face.
Trace looked at Angela with warmth in his eyes. He walked over to her and put his arm on her shoulder. “I don’t even have to ask, you are the spitting image of her. Know that your mother was a good woman, brave and resilient. She cared about the people the world overlooked. I can see that her spirit lives on through you,” Trace said.
Angela couldn't help herself. She wrapped her arms around the man and concentrated on not sobbing into this stranger’s shirt.
“If I’m going to help you all, I will need to arm myself with more than just this pistol,” Trace said, hugging her back. “I know a place where we can get some supplies. Come on.”
Trace shone his flashlight down the dark hallway and started to lead the group through the tunnels. Eventually, they could hear the chatter and laughter of various voices in the distance. The voices sounded free and open, but Trace warned his new friends to be cautious.
“Hello!” he called out ahead. “Customers approaching. Some new faces here.”
They turned the corner to find a room illuminated in dim yellow lights, the low hum of a power generator was the only sound as twelve silent faces looked Trace’s guests over with curiosity. About half of them had visible mutations. Most were a little too hairy or unusual to pass as normal. Beyond the physical differences in clientele, this shop was similar to the market inside the old mall — a place for people to gather and barter.
Two figures stood tall over all others. They looked like men, but their pale skin had a greenish tint, and they had such extreme height and muscle mass that Angela was sure they must have some type of mutation. These imposing men did not speak.
“I ain’t seen you in these parts,” said a bald, pale man that Angela had not noticed before. At his feet, a large alligator rested. Its yellow eyes blinked at Angela.
“Their goods work just as well as the people you see all the time,” Trace responded.
The man looked them over once more before speaking.
“Name’s Al. Mess with me, you mess with my best friend, Allie, right here,” he said, pointing at the creature at his feet.
“Not a problem,” Trace said, stocking up on weapons and ammo. Al did not charge any money, but Trace traded a few items to get what he needed. Jesse traded some extra ammo to buy additional food and water for the group. He figured they would need it once they made it above ground.
When Trace decided they had enough supplies to get out in one piece, they were on their way again.
Most of the journey was uneventful. They ran into mutants, but the majority were nonviolent. Trace told stories about his sister and cool secrets about The City Below. He also shared memories of Angela's mother from his childhood growing up with her in the same south Chicago high school. Trace’s stories about her mother were the first stories that Angela loved even more than fairy tales. Angela got the feeling that he had been alone for a while and he enjoyed having people to talk to. So much so, that he was willing to risk his life for the company.
“Wait,” Trace whispered, pausing in his tracks as they walked through the tunnels. “I hear something up ahead.”
Angela could hear it too, the faintest laugh echoing in the distance. Trace pointed his flashlight forward.
There were five of them ahead, standing perfectly still like tall, thin statues. Their skin was the palest white, almost translucent, and their eyes were an icy blue. Their hair, long and gray, clung to the sweat on their necks. Their clothes were both wet and dirty, and their feet were bare. One of them, the smallest of the bunch and the only female, smiled a wide, toothless grin and moved towards the group; a quick, swift movement that reminded Angela of a cat leaping towards its prey. They held no weapons, and as Jesse pointed his gun towards them, they were not fazed. Angela wondered why these mutants were so fearless.
“Don’t come any closer,” Jesse called out. Their only response was to laugh. The shrill sound echoed through the tunnel and caused Angela to shiver. In the blink of an eye, the pale girl’s face was inches away from Angela’s, her eyes wide and her grin menacing. Angela shrieked and stepped back, but not quickly enough to prevent the girl from reaching out and grabbing Angela’s arm, causing her to cry out in pain.
The pale girl’s skin was colder than ice, so cold that Angela felt as if her arm was starting to freeze over. In the light of Trace’s flashlights, Jesse could visibly see the blue veins under Angela's brown skin rise, pronounced and frozen like icicles. Jesse fired a round at the mutant girl’s pale arm, causing her to giggle rather than retreat. She lifted her other hand to Angela’s neck, and the chill from the slightest touch made it difficult for Angela to breathe. This caused Jesse to fire straight through the pale girl’s heart. She fell to the ground as Angela gasped for air, and Jesse noticed that the pale girl, though dead, did not bleed. He had never encountered this type of mutation before.
In the blink of an eye, all of the pale girl’s friends were inches away, ready to attack. Trace and Jesse fired as many rounds as they could at the creatures, but it was Angela's sword that stopped a creature in its tracks as it tried to reach for Jesse’s neck. Angela stabbed the sword into the creature’s belly and watched as it fell to the ground.
“Thank me later,” Angela said to Jesse. He couldn't help but smile at her as he fired a round into another mutant that was reaching for Angela's father. Angela glanced over at Violet, who seemed to be enjoying herself as she zapped every mutant that got close to her.
Once the creatures were all dealt with, the remainder of the trek to the exit was quick. Jesse pointed out a rusted metal ladder leading out of the tunnels.
“I hope you guys make it out of the settlement safely,” Trace said, a sad smile on his face. “You are some brave ones, as far as land-dwellers come.”
“Would you like to come with us?” Angela asked. “We have room for one more friend where we're going.”
Angela looked over at her father, expecting him to protest, but instead her father smiled.
“Really?” Trace asked. “Are you sure it won't be a problem?”
“Not at all,” Angela said. “It would be nice to have someone of your skills helping us out for the rest of our journey. And I would love to learn more about your childhood with my mother on the way there. We still have a long way to go.”
Trace beamed at them. “I guess that will be alright. Don’t get me wrong, I love moldy, wet, smelly underground tunnels, but I’m due for a change of scenery,” he said, shining his light on the ladder that headed to the exit hatch.
Angela grabbed the cool metal bar on the ladder and climbed up and out.
Chapter Twenty
When Angela and her friends emerged from the tunnels, they found themselves at an abandoned L train stop on the outskirts of Chicago. Angela traced her fingers over letters on a nearby sign.
“Lake,” Angela said, rememb
ering the word from her sight word lessons with Miss Kaper. Nathan looked over at Angela, surprise in his eyes.
“Did you just read?” he asked.
“Of course,” Angela said with a shrug. “If you thought sword fighting and gun slinging were the only things I’ve been up to, then you don’t know your daughter. I have your entire bookshelf to devour once I get back home.”
“Harlem/Lake,” Jesse said, looking around in amazement. “This is near my old stomping grounds. My family lived in Oak Park back in the day, and my grandparents lived up here. My God, so much has changed. It’s a ghost town now.”
Trace looked towards the bright yellow moon and stars and took a deep breath.
“I thought I’d never see the stars again,” he said.
While they were technically still within the boundaries of the settlement, it was clear no one had lived this close to the edge for some time. The homes and businesses had all been reduced to rubble, and no people hung out so far from the settlement center. There were no Wardens patrolling this area, but the forest was still a distant walk. Covered by the dark night sky, they set off towards home.
Despite Nathan’s constant worries about mutants, the only problem they ran into was tired feet. In all honesty, Angela was starting to doubt very many human mutants truly lived in the wild. It was much easier to get food in The City Below. Then again, maybe they were just good at hiding.
The journey back home felt even longer to Angela than her journey to the settlement. It took Angela a full seven days to ask her father the question that had been in the back of her mind.
“Daddy, you are my biological father, right?” Angela asked.
“Of course,” he said, concerned. “Why on earth would you ask me that?”
“I don’t look like you,” Angela said.
“You are the spitting image of your mother,” he said, dipping his hand into his pocket and pulling out a small locket. He opened it, revealing a photo of Angela as a baby, being held by Aliyah, with Nathan smiling on as he wrapped his arms around his wife.
“I’m glad you are,” Angela said. “But even if you weren't, it wouldn't change anything. I love you. Thank you for coming after me to bring me home.”
When Angela finally saw her home in the distance, she didn’t immediately recognize it. The garden looked just as dry and barren as the rest of the forest. There were no plants or food, and the stream was murky, low and still. However, Angela’s heart skipped a beat when she saw her piano sitting outside of the cottage. Angela hadn't realized how much she missed her music until now.
Despite the barren land, this was home. Only now, Angela and her father had others to share it with and a mission to help create a place of healing within the struggling world. Angela's father walked up behind her and put his hands upon her shoulders. She looked up at him and smiled, squeezing his hand tight.
Violet stepped into the garden gate and started exploring.
“So this is paradise, huh?” she asked.
“It looked much different last time I saw it,” Angela said. “We are going to have to work to get it back to the way that it was. Even with my gift, it will take time.”
Nathan sighed, “It’s definitely going to take some time to get this place back to how it was.”
“It needs to be better than it was before if we are bringing more people here,” Jesse said. “Safer, more secure. The Watch will not care if a few rogue people are living in the wild, but as a community, they might see us as a threat.”
Jesse started to brainstorm possible security strategies. He talked about building a basement under Angela’s home to hide if the Watch ever showed up and building a couple of additional cabins to house people. He suggested he might be able to travel back to the settlement occasionally to keep communications open with Winter and Freedom.
“Let's give this place a name,” Violet said. “I think Lighthouse is a little too bland for a place like this.”
“How about Eden?” Nathan spoke up.
“I like it,” Violet exclaimed.
“Well, I'm ready to turn this place into a home,” Trace said. “What should we do first?”
Both Jesse and Nathan opened their mouths to answer, but Angela interrupted them by taking off towards her piano.
“This,” she answered Trace’s question by brushing off the dirt and grime collected on its bench. She plopped down, letting her fingers find their familiar resting places on the keys. She looked towards her father, “I learned a new song.”
Angela played the tune she had heard at Lighthouse by ear, singing the lyrics as best as she could remember.
“I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
Traveling through this world below
There is no sickness, no toil, nor danger
In that bright land to which I go”
To Angela's surprise, Nathan started to sing along. Violet, who knew all the words, belted out the song while Jesse, Trace, Kevin, and Akeria started to hum the melody. While music had always given her peace, the feeling was compounded as she listened to their voices blending together. Angela smiled, realizing that even though she wasn't living in the settlement, she had finally found a community. Jesse sat beside her on the bench, putting his arm around her waist as she played. She lay her head on his shoulder, realizing that she made more than simply a new friend in Jesse.
Angela looked around the garden as her fingers hit the keys, taking in the familiar sights. She knew restoring a thirty-acre garden would take time. However, she couldn't shake the feeling that the garden was already changing, as she stood with her friends and sang, into more of a home than it had ever been. Maybe it was all in Angela's mind, but when she looked around the garden, the grass already seemed a little greener.
Acknowledgments
This book would not be possible without the support of others. I received helpful feedback from people in online writing communities such as Black Girls Belong in Fantasy and Sci-Fi Writers Society and Writers Helping Writers. I would like to thank my husband, Justin McEntire, for making sure I was fed and hydrated while binge typing, and my parents, Keith and Janet Smith, because they read my books when they were written in crayon and held together by staples and they always believed in my story.
Credits
Cover Design: MoorBooks Design
Editor: Ibis Literary
Layout: Pixie Covers
K. R. S. McEntire (Keshia McEntire) shares all of her bookish finds on her Facebook page “Diverse Fantasy and Sci-Finds.” Connect with her by searching @DiverseFSF.
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