Weight of Ashes

by Rook Winters

  “How do they bury people in state facilities?” Court asked.

  Marsh waved his hand dismissively. “Let’s leave that for later. We haven’t done proper introductions yet. You know Court and Pica already. My name is Marsh. And you are?”

  “Dr. Donovan called me Elle.”

  “Elle. French for she. That’s a lovely name.”

  “It’s not my name. It’s what he called me.”

  “That’s what a name is,” Court scoffed. “It’s what people call you.”

  Is she dumb or did she just knock her head too hard falling off that motorcycle?

  Elle didn’t respond. She didn’t even look at him.

  “Is it alright if we call you Elle as well?” Marsh asked.

  “That’s fine.”

  “I’m not sure if you took this in earlier but I knew Clint—Dr. Donovan—a long, long time ago. We used to work together.”

  Court chewed on his lip, trying to be patient. This Elle woman wasn’t quick to volunteer anything and Marsh wasn’t getting to the critical information. It was driving him crazy.

  He blurted out, “What were you doing on that old motorcycle way out here?”

  Marsh frowned at him. Elle ignored him again, a pattern he was finding frustrating.

  “Clint was a friend,” Marsh continued. “I didn’t honestly expect to see him again. I would like to know what he was doing way out here.”

  “He said we needed to find the rabbit and the tour guide.”

  Marsh’s eyes widened. He drew in a breath to speak but a voice interrupted him. From the steps of the hospital, Vaidehi yelled, “Marsh, you’d better come look at this.”

  CHAPTER 3: MARSH

  “Found it scanning for metals before we wrapped him up. Almost missed it. He had metal pins in his ankle and after I removed them, there was still a faint reading. I assumed it was a fragment that we overlooked but it was in the wrong place. Found this embedded in the bone.”

  Vaidehi tapped her finger on the display screen where a red circle highlighted an anomaly.

  “What is it?” Marsh asked.

  “Hoping you can tell me. It’s like nothing I’ve seen in a body before. Not natural and not serving any obvious medical purpose.”

  “What did the expert system say?”

  “Unidentifiable. Very low probability matches on a couple things. But we haven’t had a database update in over a year. If this is new tech, the expert system won’t know anything about it.”

  “What were the low probability matches?”

  Vaidehi swiped her finger across the display screen. “Fragment of electronics from a childhood accident that the bone grew around or a tracking chip. Neither seems likely in this case. There’s no signal or radiation coming off him so not a tracking chip unless it’s broken. Looks to me like he had a notch of bone removed and surgically implanted whatever that is. It was undetectable with the pins in the ankle right next to it, like he meant to keep it hidden.”

  “How long do you suppose it’s been in there?”

  “Hard to be sure. There’s a hint of what could be a rash from tissue growth accelerant where you’d go in to implant something in this spot but there’s no way to be sure.”

  “Let’s remove it and take a closer look.”

  “That’s the thing. Looks to be fused to the bone. Can’t guarantee that I can get it out without damaging it. We don’t have sophisticated enough gear for that.”

  “Let me try talking with Elle. If this is important, she might know something.”

  Outside, a couple dozen villagers had gathered to stare at Elle and Court. They stepped back a few paces at the sight of Marsh but didn’t disperse. Marsh kept his voice low as he described the doctor’s discovery.

  “He was limping the other day, and he said if anything happened to him, the rabbit needed to look at his ankle. He didn’t say why.”

  “That’s got to be connected,” Court said. “Right? He must have implanted something before you left.”

  “Jumping to conclusions is a good way to get hurt.” Marsh scratched at his cheek through his beard. “You said that you had to find the rabbit and the tour guide.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure I know what the rabbit means at least. Come, it’s time for the emergency council meeting. Follow me.”

  Marsh was several strides toward the council’s cabin when he realized Elle wasn’t following. She was glancing between her suit and the cluster of onlookers that had grown by several more people.

  “You don’t have to worry about our people. No one wants trouble. But bring the suit with you if you’re concerned about it.”

  The council members wore grave expressions when Elle and Court entered. Marsh took the empty spot at the head of the rectangular table that dominated the room. Two council members sat on either side. “Have a seat, please.” He motioned at the guest bench that ran along the wall. The room was small—the bench was close enough for conversation but still far enough away for visitors to know unambiguously that they were not at the table, physically or metaphorically.

  Court sat at Marsh’s invitation, but Elle didn’t so he stood back up awkwardly.

  “Or stand if you like. Doesn’t matter.” Marsh grinned and Court’s cheeks flushed red.

  Colleen, the council member to Marsh’s immediate right, asked, “Ready?”

  Marsh nodded, and Colleen tapped on her tablet. The cabin door swung shut of its own volition, causing Elle to jump.

  “Sorry,” Marsh said, “I should have warned you. We hold our meetings in private. A bit of old timer paranoia.”

  “Cloaking activated,” Colleen said.

  “Thank you, everyone, for dropping your work to make time for this emergency session. I’ll try to keep it brief. I know some of you need to get back to finishing up the corn harvest. I call this meeting to order. Let the record show that all five council members are present and are joined by village member Court and the visitor Elle.”

  Marsh asked Court to recount the events of the day. Council members interrupted a few times to ask clarifying questions. When he got to the doctor’s discovery, Marsh took over.

  “Whatever’s embedded in the bone, we don’t have the tools required to extract it safely. I want to cut out the surrounding bone and take it to Alma. I have contacts there who should be able to tell us what it is.”

  Elle winced at the mention of cutting out the bone.

  A small, bald council member reacted first. “That sounds like a significant risk. And an unnecessary one. Taking some unknown tech from the body of a scientist killed by a Qyntarak and walking into Alma with it? Half that town is collaborators and the other half is criminals. We should dump the body deep in the woods and let the coywolves drag it away.”

  Elle squeezed her hand into a fist.

  Colleen said, “Paul’s right. It’s a tremendous risk. What could possibly justify that?”

  “Clint Donovan and I were students together, we worked together, and we were friends. When I left to come here, we vowed that if either of us were ever in inescapable danger, we would be there for each other. It’s no coincidence that he showed up on the old road. He was looking for me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because he told Elle that they needed to find the rabbit and the tour guide. Like most of you, I’m old enough to be from a time and place when people had family names. My family name is Lapin. That means rabbit in French.”

  CHAPTER 4: MARSH

  Vaidehi handed Marsh a wire necklace threaded through tooth and bone fragments.

  “Best I could do under the circumstances. This one is the fragment with our mystery object in it.” She touched a piece of bone between a chunk of antler and a bear claw.

  “You’re convinced that people will believe we wear things like this?”

  “They think we’re unhinged savages. They’d believe it if you walked into town wearing a bear mask with a coywolf fur around your shoulders.” />
  “So you’d walk into town with me wearing this if I asked?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  They both knew Marsh couldn’t call that bluff. The village had at least a dozen people old enough for the trip but young enough for the ruse of an old man and his grandchild bringing pelts to town for trading. Not only was Vaidehi too old to be convincing, she was the most educated person in the village after Marsh. They’d need her while he was away.

  “I think I’ll wear it under my shirt, just to be safe.”

  “I’ll try not to be insulted.”

  She pushed him out the door with a warning. “Take care of Walker. That boy shows a lot of potential.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m taking him. You watch out for Elle. Maybe keep a tranquilizer in your pocket as a precaution. I’m still not sure what to make of her.”

  CHAPTER 5: COURT

  Elle slapped another blood-engorged insect, leaving a smear of red on her forearm.

  “What are these things?”

  “Mosquitoes,” Court said. “I told you to wear long sleeves.”

  “They’re awful.”

  “This is nothing. I’ve seen them so thick you couldn’t breathe without sucking one in.”

  “How can you stand to live like this?”

  “It’s the way things are. You just deal with it. And wear long sleeves when you go out. There’s a spray that keeps them from biting but it’s not easy to get and it makes hunting harder because the animals can smell you coming. There’s some kind of system at the village that Marsh rigged up a long time ago to keep them away so at least we only have to deal with them when we go out. That was before I was born. It must’ve been awful here back then.”

  “Have you lived here your whole life?”

  Court weighed possible replies in his head, unsure of how forthcoming he wanted to be. Elle had opened up a little bit in the three days that Marsh and Walker had been away, but she’d shared almost nothing about the life she’d left behind. He was no more interested in exposing his emotional wounds to a stranger than she was.

  Have I lived here my whole life? Not exactly...

  What he said was, “Pretty much.”

  “Well, don’t take this the wrong way but I think the animals can smell you coming even without that special spray.”

  “Hey, now, we can’t all be fancy city girls.”

  “I’m not a city girl.”

  “No? Then where are you from?”

  She turned her head away from him and let her hands run through the leaves of a cluster of small trees as she passed them.

  “You shouldn’t do that. Good way to pick up a tick.”

  “A tick?”

  “A type of bug. Some of them carry disease. You don’t want Lyme disease, trust me.”

  “It’s so different out here. You worry about things I’ve never heard of.”

  “Different from what? You’ve got a pretty good view of my life but I don’t know anything about yours. You’re not a city girl, so what are you?”

  “Something between a patient and a prisoner.”

  Court was trying to think of what to say next to get her to share more when they found a brown rabbit trapped in a snare.

  Elle went to her knees and reached out to touch its fur. The animal’s grasp on life was tenuous.

  “The poor thing.” She turned to look at Court, her eyes wide. “Can you save it?”

  “Save it? That’s dinner.” He let his pack fall from his shoulders and pulled a knife from his belt. “I snared it on purpose.”

  “How can you eat such an innocent little animal? It’s just trying to survive out here.”

  “No different than the rest of us.”

  She didn’t move out of his way.

  He frowned and waited for several long seconds but she stayed on the ground with the rabbit.

  “It’s suffering. It’s cruel to leave it like that. If you make some room, I’ll put it out of its misery.”

  Elle nodded and gave him space. She turned away as he worked. The neck crunched as he broke it. He was fast tying the rabbit to the outside of his pack and resetting the snare.

  “Done,” he said and continued walking.

  He heard her slapping at mosquitoes behind him as she followed at a distance. The silence felt different than the quiet times when he walked through the woods with Walker. Even the birds seemed to have grown silent. It made him feel heavy.

  By the time Court checked the final snare—all empty save for the one rabbit—the silence had grown too uncomfortable for him. “I should have warned you what checking the snares meant.”

  “Yes, you should have.”

  “But you know that all the meat you eat comes from animals, right?”

  “We didn’t eat meat where I lived.”

  Didn’t eat meat?

  The idea of surviving without meat made no sense to him. They couldn’t survive the long winters without hunting.

  “What did you eat then?”

  “Food.”

  “Food?” He stopped and turned to face her. “Meat is food.”

  “Meat is not food.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Meat is meat. Food is food. They are different. They don’t look the same. They definitely don’t taste the same.”

  “Lots of food looks and tastes different. We had corn and apples yesterday. Corn is different from rabbit which is different from apples.”

  “No, food is always the same. Those things aren’t food.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He pulled his pack to one side and fished a piece of dehydrated fruit from a pocket. “Here. Dried apple. Food.”

  “That isn’t food.”

  He pulled a chunk off with his teeth. “It’s something you eat so it’s food.” Fragments of apple sprayed out as he spoke through a mouthful of pulp.

  “No.”

  “Well, whatever you call it, here.” He handed a piece of dried apple to her and reseated the pack on his shoulders.

  After they’d walked for a few minutes, Elle said, “It’s good. The apple. It’s better than food.”

  He rolled his eyes but she was behind him and didn’t see.

  They continued that way, walking single file, for the remainder of the return trip. The air was comfortable for walking although the warmth of the afternoon was starting to yield to the cool of the coming evening.

  “Salut,” Court shouted and waved to the person keeping watch from a platform suspended twenty feet up between the trunks of three trees. There was rarely any need for a watch but it was part of the routine of the village. Court had scared off a pair of coywolves a couple months earlier but the wildlife usually stayed away. It was more important to keep track of who left the village and make sure they returned before dark. They’d lost an amorous couple when Court was younger. Teenagers a few years older than him who’d snuck off for some privacy. From what they found, it looked like a rutting moose had attacked the boy and the girl had hit her head on a rock trying to run away. Court had found the girl’s body. He hadn’t thought of that in a long time. He shook his head, trying to push the memory away.

  After the blood was drained, he skinned and deboned the rabbit. He mixed the chopped meat with potatoes, carrots, and onions in a pot hanging over a snapping campfire. With Marsh and Walker away, Court’s common table would have only Pica and Elle tonight. The modest stew would be more than enough.

  The stew was thick and fragrant when Colleen wandered over and inhaled over the pot as Court stirred. “Smells good. I’d add more thyme.”

  “I’d prefer to add garlic.”

  She leaned in conspiratorially. “Between you and me, I asked Marsh to barter for new garlic bulbs if he can find them in Alma. If I can get a new crop started, I’ll trade you a dozen cloves for a night’s watch in the winter.”

  “I’ll take that deal anytime.”

  “You’ll change your tune when your bones are as old as mine. How is the
girl?”

  Court looked at Elle, who was watching a pair of young boys practice printing the alphabet in the dirt with a stick.

  “Strange. She was upset about killing a rabbit to eat. And she was going on and on about the things we eat not being food.”

  “Interesting.” Colleen tapped a finger against her chin. “Could be she’s used to only eating government rations.”

  “You mean that gray stuff Vaidehi brought when she moved here?”

  “Yes. Tastes awful but keeps people alive.”

  “If that’s what she’s used to, she should kiss my boots for giving her apples and stew.”

  Colleen laughed at him. “She doesn’t seem like the boot kissing type.”

  “True,” he replied with a grin. “Any word on Marsh and Walker?”

  “Nothing, but that’s how we want it. If we hear from them, it means something’s gone wrong.”

  CHAPTER 6: WALKER

  “Can we take a short break?”

  Walker didn’t understand how the much older Marsh could keep going for hours without stopping. Their pace was leisurely but shouldn’t someone his age need to rest? Or take a piss?

  Well, he’s not carrying a pack loaded with fur and animal parts.

  Marsh looked at the sky. “We’re almost to Chignecto and the sun’s getting low. Another hour at most. We’ll find a place to sleep there for the night. We should push through.”

  “I at least need a second to piss.”

  “Go ahead.” Marsh waved his hand toward the edge of the narrow trail. Walker let his pack slide from his shoulder and stepped a few feet into the trees. Despite spending a significant amount of his life walking through the woods with other people, he still liked a bit of privacy when he relieved himself.

  The mosquitoes weren’t concerned with his sense of modesty and he had to do some maneuvering to keep them away. He splashed his pant leg in the process. “Nack,” he said in frustration.

  “You alright over there?” Marsh asked.

  Walker felt his ears burn with embarrassment. “Fine,” he called back. “Just the nacking ‘squitoes.”