by Rook Winters
Once Wilm and Ainsley had left, Bear looked at her with pursed lips. She knew what was coming.
“So, do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“About whatever had you so upset earlier. We almost missed the train after two months of planning. It had to be something serious to distract you like that.”
“You already know that I won’t tell you.”
He shrugged. “Fair enough. Thought I’d ask in case you needed to talk.”
“Let’s go.” She put on her three-quarter brim hat. The style was in fashion and convenient for obscuring one’s face from overhead cameras and nosy neighbors, even if it did look ridiculous. “I’m fine.”
As fine as I can be after hearing that an old friend was killed.
CHAPTER 22: ELLE
“Food is ready.”
It was the first thing Court had said to her since she declared that she was going in search of Nora Barrett. The meal was a feast. Grilled coywolf, roasted potatoes, corn, carrots, spinach, beets, and turnips. All these things were new to her in the last week. All these foods. It had taken some convincing for her to accept the villagers’ use of the word food to describe the meats and vegetables but she had acquiesced.
Elle ate greedily, realizing how hungry she had grown in the last twenty-four hours.
“That was good. Thank you.”
“I figured we might as well eat it. What the animals don’t get is going to rot anyway.”
“Can’t you dry it, like the apples?”
“Not if I’m not here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said, about something bigger happening and people dying because of it. Marsh spent decades here. If he was willing to leave, it’s important. If these new laws are real and somehow there’s a way to do something, then you should go, and I should make sure you don’t starve to death on the way.”
“After all this, there’s not much risk of starving. I could walk for days without eating again.”
He smiled at that. It was a small smile, like his face wasn’t ready to concede to anything positive yet but it was something. It gave her hope that he wouldn’t drown in the darkness.
My loss suddenly seems small. No, not small. Different but not small. We’ve both lost everything we know.
“Do you still want… I mean, is it alright for me to come with you?”
“Yes, definitely. I think it’s best.”
“Then it’s settled. We’ll do what you said and salvage what we can to sell. Hopefully, we can find enough supplies for the trip. There’s an old storage cellar under the council’s cabin. If it survived the fire, I think there are things from the outside world down there. It could be helpful.”
“Then we should get started before the light’s gone. We’ll leave in the morning.”
“Not yet. I have dessert.”
“Dessert?”
He came back with two green balls.
“Watermelon,” he said.
He sliced the fruit. The flavor exploded in Elle’s mouth. It was unlike anything she’d ever eaten.
“This is amazing.”
“I know, right? Watermelon’s my favorite. We don’t grow much of it because it has a long season and it’s a bit finicky about temperatures.”
“I would grow only watermelon.”
They both laughed at that. The watermelon left sticky residue on their hands and faces so Court fetched them a wash basin. Elle let her hands linger in the water. Even something as rustic as the simple bowl was a luxury they wouldn’t have on the journey ahead.
Court asked, “So we head for Toronto then? Since that’s the last place Marsh knew that Nora Barrett was?”
“It’s the best plan we have.”
“How far is it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Roughly?”
“I don’t know. It’s west. Sort of west. West and a bit south, I think. I saw it on a map once. It’s not close.”
“You don’t know how to get there or how far it is?”
“No.”
“How were you planning to get there?”
“It’s not like I’ve been planning this. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
Elle’s frustration was evident in her voice and she could see his irritation on his face.
He’s still processing his loss. Try to be sensitive, Elle.
“Obviously,” she said, “we can’t just go wandering off in an arbitrary direction. What about Alma, where Marsh and Walker went? Could we find someone there to point us in the right direction?”
“Moriya. We should go see Moriya.”
“Marsh’s old friend? Vaidehi told me about her. You think she’ll help?”
“She’ll do it for Marsh. I’ve only met her a couple times but I know where she lives.”
It took them most of an hour to dig out the entrance to the council cabin cellar. The floor hatch had collapsed under the weight of debris, which saved them the trouble of breaking the lock, but it was arduous work clearing out the opening so they could squeeze in. An antique lantern hung from a hook. After a minute of experimentation, they realized that turning its crank handle powered the light.
“This place has been around since the first few years of the village. Hard to say what we’ll find.”
“This box says Marsh on it.”
She slid the bin closer to Court but he only stared at it.
“Would you rather if I opened it?”
“Yeah, that would be better.”
Elle flipped the clamping mechanisms that held the lid in place. Clouds of dust made it clear that the bin hadn’t been open in years. The seal around the lid groaned as she pulled it off. She looked up at Court to gauge his reaction but he was looking away.
The bin didn’t hold much: clothing items, a gold disk on a chain, and a small wood box containing a few papers.
“He would have been seventy-one next month, if this thing marked ‘Birth Certificate’ is right.”
Court looked down. Elle understood how he was feeling, or at least she believed she could imagine how he was feeling. She was digging through the belongings of his mentor and friend, looking for anything of value, like a scavenger.
She flipped through a little blue booklet with the word PASSPORT stamped in gold lettering on the front.
“What’s a passport?” she asked.
“No idea.”
“It has his picture in it. Maybe you should keep it.”
She passed the booklet to him and he rubbed his fingers on the pages delicately. His lips quivered and Elle feared she’d lose him again to his grief but he sucked in a deep breath.
“He looks so young.”
They searched the rest of the cellar, finding relics from the former lives of some of the older villagers but little of obvious value until they came to a pouch. Inside, Elle found coins.
“Money,” she said. “I wonder if it’s still good.”
Court knelt beside her to look more closely.
“Silver and copper, yeah, we can use that, at least in Chignecto where Moriya lives.”
“Is this a lot?”
“I’m not sure. Marsh always handled the money when we went.”
“Then we’ll take it and find out.”
They left the cellar with a metal-framed backpack, a few pieces of formal-looking clothing that Court thought they could barter in Chignecto, and the passport with Marsh’s photo.
In the hospital, they made of pile of everything that didn’t appear damaged. They found splash pads, painkillers, a small bottle labeled antibiotics, and Vaidehi’s tablet. Court packed everything into the backpack then they collected all the dried food they could find in the village. The fires had destroyed so much that they only found enough for a few days at the most.
“We’ll have to hunt along the way,” Court said.
Elle nodded. She didn’t like it but she knew they’d have to eat.
; The sky was still bright but the sun was below the trees by the time they finished packing. They used a pair of harvesting bags to hold more food, some water, a pair of blankets, the pouch of money, and Marsh’s passport.
“I don’t want to sleep in the village,” Court said.
“The woods?” Elle asked.
“If you don’t mind.”
“No, that will be fine. We still need to do one more thing first.”
The sky was a gloomy gray when they finished digging up Elle’s suit and helmet. To her surprise, Court hadn’t insisted on an explanation for why she’d hidden it. He’d accepted that she’d done it and that they had to retrieve it for their trip. According to Marsh, it was the reason for their trip.
They slept under a tarp at the edge of the woods. Their blankets reeked of smoke, not the pleasant smell of a campfire but the harsh smell from entire buildings burning. Sleep came easily for Court but the smoke made Elle think of the villagers. They’d done nothing to deserve their fate. She squeezed her fists and then her eyes, pressing out the tears that had been building up. The night air was cool when she felt her exhaustion dragging her to sleep but that was when Court started muttering. His words were nonsensical but the emotions were clear: terror and desperation.
She rolled to her side, an unforgiving root digging into her arm. She found one of Master Zheng’s meditations in the recesses of her mind and murmured the mantra to herself. When sleep did take her, she dreamed fitfully.
A rustling woke her. The sun was up but the air was still cool. She felt damp and realized this would be her new reality for an unknown number of mornings. An acute feeling of loss and a sad longing for Dr. Donovan washed over her. Her stomach clenched at the thought but there was another rustling that pulled her thoughts back to the more immediate concern of safety. She was embarrassed to realize the rustling was just a squirrel over head in the tree. She rolled over to see if it had woken Court as well.
He wasn’t there.
CHAPTER 23: ELLE
Elle threw off the blanket and got up to her knees. She was in the same spot as the night before. The backpack was still beside her, but one of the harvesting bags was gone. The mag gun was hidden under the other. She moved it aside and took the gun.
Turning in a circle, she looked for Court or any sign of a threat. The morning air was still, and she heard only the chirping of birds.
A branch snapped behind her and she whirled around, holding the mag gun up and ready to fire at whatever was there.
“Morning,” Court said.
“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you.”
“Why would you shoot me?”
“Because you were gone, and I didn’t know what happened to you.”
“You’d shoot me for that?”
“No, I mean you’re lucky I didn’t think you were—never mind, just tell me next time if you’re going somewhere.”
“You were asleep. You want me to wake you up to tell you I’m off for a piss and to get apples for breakfast?”
He lifted the flap of the harvesting bag and showed off a half-dozen apples.
“Just let me know next time, alright?”
“Alright,” he said.
They ate apples, packed up their modest camp, and stood staring at the blackened cabins for several long minutes. Court seemed to struggle with leaving.
Elle asked if he wanted to say a few parting words.
“No, it’s just hard to leave. Whatever we find out there, I know that I might never make it back here.”
She wanted to reassure him but Master Zheng’s voice echoed in her mind. The weak cling to fantasies. The strong face reality.
“If it’s important enough, you’ll come back.”
“You won’t be forgotten,” he finally said across the clearing and turned to face the forest. “I’m ready. If we keep a good pace, we can be there in two and a half days.”
That day and the next were long and they only spoke sporadically. Elle stared at the ground in front of her, watching her feet move past each other over and over. No individual step was difficult but the sum total was monotonous and exhausting. She slept deeply and without dreams the first night. In the morning, Court had to wake her, telling her they were wasting daylight.
The second night, the air was cold and they built a small fire.
“We’re no more than two hours from Chignecto in the morning,” Court said.
“What kind of place is Chignecto?”
“Like the village, I guess, but bigger and with less order. There’s no council of leaders. It’s just a whole bunch of people trying to make their way.”
“It sounds like anarchy.”
“What’s that?”
“When there’s no government, no authority.”
“It’s sort of like that.”
“Anarchy is dangerous.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because people will just do what’s best for themselves when there are no rules or consequences.”
“I don’t know about that. Don’t you believe in people being kind to each other?”
“Sure, people will be kind to each other until it’s inconvenient or bad for them.”
“That’s not a very positive opinion of humanity.”
“I haven’t had a lot of reason to keep a positive opinion of most people.”
“With that cheerful thought, I’m going to sleep.”
He lay back and pulled his blanket over his shoulder. Elle stared into the embers, hoping they wouldn’t have many more nights outdoors. She didn’t like the damp chill. She didn’t like the uncomfortable ground. She especially didn’t like the constant noise that made her jumpy. If not for the exhaustion of the long day’s walk, sleep would have been impossible.
She closed her eyes and listened to the breeze whispering through the trees. Tomorrow, she was walking into the unknown again. She smiled a little when she thought of how proud Dr. Donovan and Master Zheng would be of her. In a small way, that soothed the heartache. She remembered her last promotion ceremony with Master Zheng and how Dr. Donovan had beamed, his boyish smile stretching across his face. And when she had scored top of her cohort in the launch drills… And the first time she had interpreted one of the Others communicating…
Her thoughts morphed into fantastical dreams as sleep took her. She saw Dr. Donovan and Marsh picking apples outside the village, Court riding the motorcycle through a city, Vaidehi flying like a bird in a rainstorm. Then a grav flyer was chasing Vaidehi. It shot her down with arrows that exploded into puffs of gray powder. She crashed into the apple tree that Dr. Donovan was picking from and it burst into flames. The fire crackled and snapped.
Elle’s eyes shot open. Her heart was racing and her breathing was shallow. She heard snapping.
I thought that was in my dream…
A large brown animal was nudging a harvesting bag with its muzzle. Elle caught a gasp in her throat before it could escape. The animal had four long gangly legs and a spindly tail that whipped side to side. It wasn’t a deer, Court had shown her one of those, and it obviously wasn’t a bear. Her best guess was a moose.
When the big animal had given up on the bag, it looked at Elle. With its two symmetrical eyes staring at her, she felt inexplicably at peace. She had more in common with this forest creature than the Others. It belonged to her planet. The moose kept gazing and Elle held eye contact. She felt her heart rate slow.
She felt an urge to say something to it.
That’s stupid. It can’t speak. You’ll spook it.
Court rolled over, still asleep, and the moose’s head twitched. It snorted and walked away, tree branches snapping as it went.
Court jolted awake.
“What was that?” he whispered. “Why are you smiling?”
“We had a visitor.”
“What kind of visitor? Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I think it was a moose.”
“A moose can be nacking dangerous.”
&n
bsp; “It seemed gentle enough to me. I think it was a good sign.”
“A sign?”
“It didn’t see us as a threat. I think it recognized that we’re a positive force.”
“A positive force? Are you feeling alright? Did you eat something I didn’t see?”
She laughed at that.
“It’s just something Master Zheng used to say.”
“Who’s Master Zheng?”
“No one. Never mind.”
She got up and rolled her blanket. Letting Master Zheng’s name slip out was foolish. She’d let her guard down. She was getting too comfortable around Court and had to be more careful. Going back into civilization wasn’t safe for her. She didn’t know how long their fates would be intertwined and she didn’t want him knowing any more about her than necessary—it was risky for both of them.
Court followed her lead and rolled up his own blanket. He didn’t press the Master Zheng issue and she appreciated that. He was a decent person, she’d decided that already.
Once I know where I’m going, I’ll send him back so he can rebuild his village. That’s where his heart is.
They ate dried apple slices as they walked the last hours to Chignecto. Court had rationed their food so they’d have at least a day’s worth when they arrived. The apple slices helped but her stomach wasn’t satiated. She was about to suggest they collect some plants to eat when Court told her they were coming to Chignecto.
“It’s just around this next turn.” He pointed at the rusted remains of two posts. “Marsh said that used to be a sign for it, from before.”
They walked through a cluster of stalls where scruffy-looking vendors competed for their attention. The smell of roasting meats and vegetables was intoxicating and Elle’s stomach rumbled in response.
“I’m so hungry,” she whispered.
“Yeah, me too. But Marsh always said the bazaar vendors were cheats, taking advantage of people traveling the old roads.”
“It smells so good.”
“Let’s find Moriya first, alright? She’ll help us make sure we don’t get cheated out of our money.”
They weaved through the settlement, drawing stares from a few locals. Court stopped outside a metal trailer.