by Kelli Kimble
“Is this the southwest corner?” said the assistant.
“Yes, Sir. Her house should be the third on the right.” The driver pointed up the path.
“Very good. Please, go and knock. See if she’s home.”
Leo stood, leaning against the vehicle. He needed the support, but he tried to appear casual. Would Fiona come out to see him? Panic raced in his chest as it occurred to him that she might refuse his visit.
He squelched it down. She would do what he wanted.
This time.
Chapter 1
I spotted him when I rounded the corner. I stopped abruptly, and my apprentice, Oliver, ran into me from behind.
“Sorry, Master Fiona,” he said.
I didn’t answer. I was studying the boy at my door. He wasn’t from our village, and he didn’t look familiar enough to be from my mother’s village, either.
“Do you know that boy?” I said, pointing towards my house.
Oliver shrugged. “He’s just a boy. I don’t know him.”
I looked to my other apprentice, Helen. She lagged behind, intimidated by Oliver, as usual—though he was only standing there.
“Helen, do you know him?”
Helen glanced up from the ground outside my house and shook her head.
I handed the basket of thread I’d been carrying to Helen. “Wait here,” I said. I stepped out into the open, but I’d only moved a few feet when I saw the strange machine just past the village path. It could only be someone from the mountain.
My throat constricted. What did they want?
The boy didn’t see me approaching, and he knocked again at the door, harder and longer than before. He stepped back and crossed his arms. Then, he craned his neck to look through the window next to the door.
I came up behind him. “May I help you?” I said.
He jumped. “Oh,” he said. He fumbled his hands into his pockets, his face red as he turned around. “I’m looking for someone named Fiona. Do you know her?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s me.”
He stared at me.
“What is it you want?” I asked.
“I thought you’d look older,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry. I’ve brought someone with me who would like to see you. If you’ll come with me?”
I thought about resisting. Why make it easier for them? I had to think of the safety of the village over my own wishes.
The boy didn’t wait for me to answer. He was already past the next house before I started walking. I followed along. Two people stood by the machine whom I hadn’t seen before. One was greying and leaning against the machine with a weary attitude. The other was younger and studying a tablet.
“Sir? Here she is,” said the boy.
The greying man looked up and saw me. He smiled and pushed away from the machine, but only to stand upright. He didn’t move any closer. “Fiona,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Hello, Leo,” I said.
He held out a hand. I didn’t offer mine. I kept my eyes trained on his. They were watery and faded.
He dropped his hand after a moment. “You look as lovely as you did the last time I saw you.”
“You don’t need to spread your flattery here,” I said. “I’ve aged, as you have.”
“Yes, but time has been kind to you.”
“What do you want, Leo?”
“Would you give us a moment, gentlemen?” he said to the two younger men.
They wandered a short distance away. Leo watched them go, and then looked back at me. He licked his, lips then pushed out his cheek with his tongue. “I’ve given up on my vision. We’ll not rebuild during our lifetimes,” he said.
“I think our village is quite nicely built,” I said.
He nodded. “Yes. Though, these are only houses. We could have done so much more.”
“We’re happy this way. It isn’t complicated.”
“Humans are complicated,” he said. “Our lives should be no less.”
He opened the machine and eased himself carefully into the seat inside. “You’re the leader here. You should want what’s best for them.”
I sighed. “Leo, if you are going to try to convince me . . .”
He held a hand up. “No. That isn’t what I want. I’m done with that. But, I do want something.”
“What?”
“I need your help. Before you say no and send me packing, I beg you to consider what it has cost me to come and ask.”
“I haven’t said no, because you haven’t told me what you want.”
He pursed his lips. “Everything.”
◆◆◆
I wandered back to the children after Leo left. Oliver sat on the ground, tossing pebbles at a flower that was growing in the path. Helen clutched the basket I’d given her. For the hundredth time, I willed the girl to relax for just a moment. Her pinched features only tightened as I approached.
“I’ll take the thread. You two can go home for the day. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Oliver didn’t need to be told twice. He was on his feet and moving away before I’d even finished speaking. “See you,” he said over his shoulder.
Helen handed me the basket, a question apparent on her face.
“It’s okay, Helen. I can send you home early now and then.” I tucked the basket under one arm and patted her shoulder. The tension in her small body sang up my arm, like the movement of a fly caught in a spider’s web. “Smile, honey. You have some time to yourself.”
She dipped her head and flashed a quick smile at the ground. “Goodnight, Master Fiona,” she said.
“Goodnight.”
She took a few steps, then looked back. “Who was that boy, Master Fiona?”
“Nobody you need to worry yourself over,” I said.
“He isn’t a weaver, then?”
“No. You’re my apprentice, Helen. You and Oliver. That’s it. Okay?”
She nodded and moved along. I watched her go. She had greatness in her. I knew it. Something just held it down.
I returned home and left the thread basket at the loom for tomorrow. I changed into my meeting robes and left for the smithies. I needed to see Davenport before the village meeting. I couldn’t blindside him with Leo’s request.
As I walked, I thought about Leo. He’d seemed genuine. He’d always had a talent for making others feel like he cared about their opinions. At least, until he turned to listen to the opinions of someone else.
Or danced with someone else.
I tamped down the sting of his treatment and tried to focus on the problem. If people in the mountain were getting sick, would their disease spread to the village? Could Leo have been carrying it? He hadn’t looked sick, though he had seemed to have aged more than he should have. And he had seemed too weak to stand while he’d spoken to me.
He’d said the sickness had driven people out of the mountain before. It rang familiar, and I wondered if I should head to my mother’s village to ask her—or maybe Eliot—about it. So much of my former village’s history had been hidden from view. It was difficult to tell which—if any—of my memories of it were true.
I heard the clank of the smithies before I could see it. Davenport had been working hard to finish up an order for a newly-married couple. The wife had asked Davenport to create a wedding gift for her groom—a selection of brand-new tools for the small farm they were starting.
The smithies was a small building with walls on two sides that folded back to let the air flow through. The third wall was taken up by an immense stone fireplace. The last wall held a variety of tools and gadgets with a wide wooden shelf beneath them. In the middle of the room was the heavy anvil, where Davenport spent most of his day.
Today was slightly cool, and only one of the doors stood open. I could see him working at the anvil as I approached. Using a pair of tongs in his left hand, he held something firm against the anvil. His right hand was shaping with a hammer. The sharp
sound rang out in quick succession.
“Do you have time for a break?” I asked when he noticed me in the doorway.
He nodded. He looped the handle of the hammer over a hook on his belt with a practiced motion, and then extracted a rag from his pocket. He wiped at his forehead and came around the anvil to kiss me on top of my head.
“You’re in your meeting robes early,” he said.
“We need to talk before the meeting.”
“All right.” He went to the tool bench and drank from a mug sitting there.
“I had a visit from Leo today. He’s the president of the colony.”
“I know who Leo is,” he said, sliding his gaze across to me.
I paused. “The colony needs our help.”
He laughed. “What help could we possibly offer them? They have everything they need inside that big rock, don’t they?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then, what can we help them with? They’re fine on their own.”
“The colony is dying, Port.”
“Of course, it’s dying. They’re people living underground. They don’t even know what life is.”
“No, not that. The people are developing a disease. Their scientists call it ‘mountain sickness’. They think it’s caused by something inside the mountain, some contaminant. They are literally dying. We have to do something.”
“What can we do? They can come out anytime they want to.”
“But, they don’t have anyplace to go.”
“Not my problem,” he said. He set his mug back down on the bench more violently than necessary. “They chose to stay in there all this time. They could’ve been figuring out how to live out here. They clung to their science and technology. Look how it’s helping them now.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “We’re talking about human beings. Children, even.”
“I know what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a group who would have used us for their own purpose, until we couldn’t serve it anymore. We’re talking about people who regard us as little more than animals.” He unhooked his hammer from his belt and hung it in its place on the wall, then removed the tool belt.
I watched as he tidied up his space.
“Are we done here?” he finally said.
“If we do nothing to help, we’re doing the same thing to them,” I said.
His lip curled up on one side. “Golden rule,” he said. He brushed past me and headed out the door. “I’m going home to change. I’ll see you at the meeting.”
My shoulders drooped, and I slumped against the doorframe. I’d expected him to be resistant but was surprised at the vehemence of his reaction. There would be others who felt the same. And there would be those easily convinced by them.
I sighed and went about closing the doors. A sliver of wood jammed into the tip of my pointer finger and broke off. The wood was unreachable under my skin. It would have to wait until later for an extraction.
◆◆◆
The meeting house wasn’t a house. It was a pavilion—just a roof over a flat surface with bench seating. At one end, there was a large brick fireplace. There were no other provisions for comfort. When I arrived, there were already people milling around. I greeted everyone warmly and by name. It was at least one thing I’d learned from Leo—knowing everyone’s names and something about their business made them feel special.
Although, for me, it wasn’t a trick. All of them were special to me. If they weren’t among the people I’d led to freedom from slavery years before, they were direct relatives of those people. I felt a kinship among them that I’d never felt in my mother’s village. I felt at home with them. As if I belonged.
I moved to my seat at the front of the pavilion. Though we ruled democratically, the others still considered me as their leader, and I didn’t disabuse anyone of the notion. Anyway, even democracies needed a figurehead, and why shouldn’t it have been me?
It wasn’t long after I took my seat that everyone else settled down.
“Good evening, everyone,” I said.
Murmurs of greeting rose from the crowd. Davenport was sitting in his customary seat in the front bench. He kept his gaze averted from me.
“Charity, can you provide the list of business this evening?” I asked.
She stood and listed a handful of items—a dispute over some livestock; maintenance on the southern well; congratulations to the newlywed couple.
“All right. Can the livestock-subject parties come forward?” I asked.
The two parties came forward and presented their cases. I sat in my seat and tried to listen, but I just couldn’t sort out what was fair in their case. Perhaps, one was stretching the truth. In the scheme of things, it didn’t matter. The livestock would be butchered and distributed equally amongst all the villagers when the time came. It was only a matter of bragging rights.
“I move that we vote on this matter,” I said when I had lost all patience with listening.
Charity called out the party names and counted the votes. “The cows will be part of the Baldwin herd,” she said.
“All right. Well maintenance—who can speak on this subject?” I plopped back into my seat to wait for the next topic to grind through discussion. Oftentimes, it seemed that hearing everyone’s thoughts about an issue boiled down to petty things. If there were to be a public source of water, it had to be located somewhere. And it had been located where it currently was long before the houses surrounding it had been built. When the walls of the well started to degrade, nobody wanted to be inconvenienced while it was repaired.
I sighed and tried to appear interested. My fingertip pulsed at the site of the splinter. The matter was finally settled.
Charity called the newlyweds to the front. I stood and shook their hands. They were a charming young couple, both born in the village. My chest swelled slightly to think of how they’d lived a life free to make their own choices.
“It’s my pleasure to officially introduce the newest family in the village. May your family know love and grace. Congratulations,” I said.
The crowd applauded. Meena, the bride, blushed prettily, and her husband, Franz, squeezed his arm around her shoulder.
“You can return to your seats,” I said as the clapping died down. “I have one more issue to address, which is not on the agenda. Today, I had a visitor from the mountain colony. From the president. He came to ask me—rather, to plead with me—for help.”
The audience shifted in their seats.
“You all know that I lived in the mountain for a time, and that Leo wanted to join forces with my mother’s village. He proposed to do that by marrying me. He thought if he married the future queen, he’d be able to wield influence. I didn’t agree to his plan, and I left.”
I glanced at Davenport. He was studying his hands.
“Leo had aspirations of resuming life as it had been before the winter. He wanted technology and big cities. Basically, he wanted excess. He thought he could get that by using me—and you—to create what he envisioned. I wouldn’t agree to that.
“He is a proud man, and when I left the mountain, he let his vision leave with me. I don’t know why he didn’t pursue it any further. And now, he’s come to me to tell me that a sickness is spreading inside the mountain. And he wants our help.”
Everyone began talking at once. Charity shouted for order, but nobody could hear her. I waited for the talking to die down.
“I know this is asking a lot. If it were one of you dying, I would do all that I could to help you. And I’d like to believe you would do the same for me. I’m asking you to think about our fellow human beings, and what we can do for them. We aren’t deciding on this tonight, because we don’t yet know all the facts. Next meeting, I’ll open the floor for questions. For now, just keep it in your thoughts.
“All right, everybody; that’s it for tonight. Everyone, have a good evening. Thank you.”
As soon as I stopped talking, I was mobbed. Everyone was
asking questions at once. I couldn’t understand even one of them. From the corner of my eye, I saw Davenport hurry from the pavilion, his mouth set in a straight line.
The crush of people threatened to overload my senses. “One at a time!” I shouted over the din; it didn’t stop them from asking more questions and jostling me.
From somewhere near my right, there was a loud, sharp whistle.
“Hey. Hey!” It was Charity. The sound slowly died, but nobody moved away from me. “I’m sure Fiona would be happy to answer your questions in an orderly fashion,” she said. She pushed through the people and grabbed my arm. “Right now, it’s time to go home. Think about what you want to ask, and we’ll have a forum here tomorrow night.” She glanced at me, and I nodded. “Yes, tomorrow. We’ll see you then.”
She moved forward, clutching my arm, and the group separated to let us through. I tried not to look at anybody. I didn’t want to get a sense of their emotions yet. I had enough churning through me.
When we reached the edge of the pavilion, Charity released my arm. “I sure hope you have some answers for those people. If you face them tomorrow with a bunch of nothing, you’re going to be sorry,” she said.
I sighed. “I know. You’re right. I need to get some answers. Tomorrow, I’m going to visit my mother and find out what I can.”
Charity made a scoffing sound. “What does she know about it? You think he asked her first?”
I shook my head. “No. I think this isn’t the first time this has happened.”
“Oh. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” She started off towards her house.
“Charity?”
She stopped and looked back.
“Do you have any questions?” I asked.
She laughed. “I’ve got nothing but questions.”
“You must have one that feels most pressing.”
“All right. What do they want from us? Saying they want help is like saying the sky is blue. It doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Okay,” I said.
She scrunched up her forehead, and I thought she was going to say something else. But then, she waved and walked away.