by Sara Kincaid
“What do you mean?”
“You did something. We felt it or heard it…maybe a bit of both?” He looked at Nita for reassurance and she nodded.
“Yes. I felt it, too,” she declared. The phoenix on my arm caught her eye once more. “Your mark. He knows that you’re different, doesn’t he?”
I knew the he to which she referred without her needing to elaborate. Kade. “I don’t know how much he knows,” I began hesitantly.
Nita adjusted the pack on her shoulder and tossed her long hair out of the way. “We should move. They can track us and they’ll wonder why we aren’t working.” Apprehension filled me. “Don’t worry. They can’t hear us, at least not as far as we know. They only care about where we are. If we’re not back at this location in three days, then we’ll get a heavy dose of Pop, which will knock us out at the least.”
“And at the most?” I asked.
Nita waved my question aside. “We’re at their mercy. Other than that, what we say out here is negligible.”
I didn’t push the issue further. We turned and headed northward, hints of the sun peaking over our left shoulders. Overhead, smog swirled, choking the light. We cut through a narrow path, surrounded by twisted knots of dead twigs, plants and brush. Much of it had broken down over the years, pummeled by the incessant heat. But without any bugs to continue the process, rotting limbs and plants took much longer to melt away. Unused to the sensation of the dead grass against my skin, I walked gingerly across the desert-like landscape. The earth was silent and nothing moved save for us three Curare skirting across a desiccated plain.
We walked in silence. My companions’ steps were steady, which made me wonder how many times they had been sent out to clean. They knew the path well and didn’t seem phased by the desolation that surrounded us. The harsh price for wielding their abilities had not yet started to take a toll on their bodies, though strands of silver were beginning to permeate Nita’s dark locks.
We crested a small hill and I looked down into a raw piece of earth. In one corner, dead relics of the lush past had been burned to ash. This was just one small sector of a giant field that had been sectioned off into equal pieces. “This is Kade’s farm?”
“Yes,” Micah replied.
“What are you doing here?”
“We’re burning the dead trees and turning the ashes into the soil to try to help revive it.”
I regarded the empty fields with skepticism before falling into the void to evaluate it more thoroughly. The affliction I encountered there shocked me, and even at a distance, I could taste the destruction. I pulled back from it, but the taint was far too strong and began to work its way into my energies. I could hear no song of the earth beneath the destruction. “If you don’t clean the earth, then who does?”
Nita and Micah exchanged glances. “Our last Terrae Curare died. They worked him to exhaustion, didn’t give him enough recovery time. And the sickness of the earth just seemed to seep into him. It was horrible to witness.” They didn’t voice their concerns aloud, but their silence implied the belief that the same fate would befall me.
I regarded the field at a distance, remaining carefully away from those seeking tentacles of destruction. The illness was so complete that I feared even walking barefoot onto the surface, believing that the taint would wend its way into my body and destroy me from the inside, just as I imagined it had done to the Terrae Curare whose death sentence was tangled in his task of cleaning.
We plodded down the hill into the basin of Kade’s ailing land and Nita laid the pack just on the edge. She rolled up her sleeves and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Why do you do it?” I asked.
“Do what?”
“There’s no one here forcing you to use your abilities right now. So why follow through?”
The two Curare exchanged glances. “Kade is powerful. His punishments are legendary.” Nita nodded in agreement before striding out into the burned section of the field. The stiff remains of their efforts crunched beneath her. After a moment, Micah joined her. The two Curare stood next to each other and cupped their hands. I dove into the void, curious to see their abilities in action and watched as their life essences flickered. Flames burst forth from their hands and I witnessed the rush of energy it took to mold them. I stepped away from the void and returned to my regular sight and watched the flames lick at their fingers.
Slowly, they soldiered out into the next patch of wild, dead bramble, wielding their flames expertly. They moved away from one another in a carefully calculated dance, bisecting the next portion of the quadrant. The smell of burning wood and rotted undergrowth filled my nostrils. Their progress was slow and their work complete. When they finished a small space, nothing remained but scalded ash and scorched earth.
After a time, they returned to where I stood, their faces dark with soot and eyes filled with fatigue. They sat down with a huff beneath the crooked branches of a long-dead tree. When I didn’t walk into the fields, Nita grew concerned. “Aren’t you going to do your part now?”
I cocked my head to the side, considering. I had never cleaned anything before and the idea of doing so made little sense, since I would just destroy another piece of earth to clean this one. “I don’t know how,” I replied simply.
“What?” Nita’s voice was sharp and her face settled into a scowl.
Finally, I turned to face my companions, putting my back to the field. “I can’t clean the earth because my abilities do not come from me. They come from the earth. Essentially, I would be killing the earth to clean a different part of it and then someone else would have to heal it all over again.”
I moved my awareness to the void and evaluated my companions after their work on the land. The pulse of their life energy had changed, become discordant. When I returned from the void, I caught the end of Nita’s sentence. “…I don’t understand why you are out here.” I blinked and she huffed in frustration. “Where do you go? You keep zoning out.”
“You don’t know?” I bit my lip, considering. “All Curare are connected. Our abilities, our songs…”
“Our songs?”
My eyes widened in surprise. “Can you hear the earth, Micah? Your blood, your abilities. The earth. They’re all a part of it and have their own voice.” I shrugged, unsure of how else to explain it.
“Even this earth?” Micah asked, gesturing at the destruction before us.
“There’s not much left here. It’s too far gone. But elsewhere in No Man’s Land? Yes. And the farms…” Memories of the song of East Farm flooded my thoughts and tears sprang to my eyes for both the beauty of that sound and for all I had lost since that time.
Despite my best efforts, Micah saw the tears that threatened to overflow down my cheeks. “Can we hear it, too?”
“You are exhausted. But perhaps if I heal you.”
“Wait, you can heal us?” I saw hope blossom on his face.
“Yes.” I had failed to save Trina, but I had little energy to offer her. Now that I was stronger and more fully restored, I knew that I could do what I promised. I stepped up to Micah, my eyes asking for permission. He met my gaze and nodded. I could tell that he was unsure, but his curiosity won out. As I moved closer, I could see the fine lines that crinkled his eyes and the thick sheen of sweat from his work. Ash and soot dirtied his clothing and was thick beneath his fingernails. His limbs trembled with effort, but pride kept him sitting tall.
When my fingers connected with Micah’s shoulder, tiny tendrils of energy crackled forth from him, tainted with the chemicals of the earth. Sinking into the void once more, I reached my awareness deep into the earth, seeking the harmony that still remained. I felt that energy flow through me, filling me for a moment as I channeled it forward, transmuting it into the green, healing earth energy I had used on myself many times before so that it might grow and revitalize the exhausted Igni Curare before me.
As I poured the energy into him, I felt his body relax and his heart steady. The song that had become discordant in his veins reformed and found rhythm with the earth once more. As I healed him, I tried to call to him, to help him find that awareness so that he, too, could access the void. Unsure of what I was doing, I felt clumsy. But still, I persisted, hoping to bring him to a greater place of understanding with his abilities.
When it appeared that Micah’s health had returned to what it was before, I opened my eyes only to discover him lost in shadows behind his own lids. His mouth was upturned in a small smile. “Yes. I can hear it. I can hear it. I hear you!” His voice was filled with awe and his face was flushed. When he opened his eyes, they nearly sparkled. I broke the connection between us and waited. Micah turned to Nita. “It’s true!”
Nita remained skeptical. “Are you sure you’re not a bit delirious?”
“No, it’s nothing like that, Nita. Let her at least heal you. I could run for miles or even do this field all over again!” He laughed in surprise.
Nita scowled. “You’re certainly not going to overwork yourself. Especially for the likes of Kade.”
“Nita,” Micah sighed, holding his hand out to her. “Just let her try.”
Nita finally nodded. I knelt on the ground in front of her and took her hands into my own. The skin of her palms was scalded by the flames she had carried and the many scars she bore from previous cleanings were broken anew. Noting that the Igni Curare burned, I understood why Nita’s hands remained mostly at her sides. She never made fists for the scar tissue had frozen her fingers, leaving her hands nearly immobile. I closed my eyes and reached back into the depths of the void and deep into the earth, calling the energy of the lands of South Farm to me. I remembered the leafy vegetation, the cool touch of fronds and leaves the size of lily pads. I drew that energy to me, for once unconcerned about the effects on the earth, for I was healing someone else.
Slowly, the tender flesh on her palms began to knit, energized by the pure strength of the earth that I spun for her out of the tendrils of withered land beneath us. I knew what was happening beneath my fingers but I fought the urge to open my eyes and witness the look on her face. Trina was the first person I had healed and my thoughts went to her out in the desert.
Once the wounds in Nita’s hands were made whole, I broke our connection and opened my eyes. Nita stared at her hands in disbelief. Tenderly, she made fists, balling her fingers tightly into her palms before straightening her fingers once more. “I haven’t been able to do that in years. How…how did you do this? How is this possible?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it. I just can.”
“And you? You’re not hurt?” she asked quickly, grabbing my hands and examining them.
I knew she expected to see similar wounds on my own skin as if I had simply absorbed her pain and made it my own. I shook my head. “I have no pain. But I do hurt the earth. You can’t see it here because the land around us is already broken. But, if we were in the fields of the farms, you would see withered grass and other vegetation around us. Back home, I had to be careful. Everywhere I went, I left dead spots.” For a moment, I hesitated, remembering how the Curare in the Undergrounds reacted to the realization of my abilities.
I looked away as the old feelings of shame surfaced. But when Nita’s hand squeezed my shoulder and her eyes found mine, I knew that I was in no danger of being outcast. “Your abilities are a double-edged sword just like ours.”
The corners of my mouth quirked into a small smile. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Can you heal other Igni Curare?” Nita asked. “Their hands look just like mine did.” Micah, who had joined us on the ground, held up his hands for comparison. I had only sought to heal his exhaustion before. I placed my hands upon him again and focused the energy into healing his hands as I had healed Nita’s. After a few moments, I broke contact and Micah stretched his fingers wide, experimenting with his range of motion.
“As long as I have energy or access to the earth, then I can heal or do anything else,” I confirmed.
“The CPA facility must be a nightmare for you. That old steel is inches if not feet thick.” I nodded in agreement, but before I could reply, Micah rushed on. “What do you mean ‘anything else’?”
I paused briefly and looked from one of my new companions to the other. Though I had started sharing my story with others, doing so felt unnatural and trusting others was not something I was used to doing. “You have healed us, Vea. You are family now. This is how it is in North Farm.”
The dam inside me broke, buckling under the sheer weight of my captivity, beneath my desire to be accepted and no longer seen as an outsider, and purely for the need to share all that I had been through since losing Leo. So, I told them. I started at the beginning, explaining the extent of my abilities and the threat of death I carried with me. I reminisced about the beauty of East Farm and even talked about my aunt and the tragedy of Leo’s death. I thought a river of tears would flood my eyes. But I simply spoke, my voice cracking on occasion.
After I finished, a gentle wind picked up, tousling the silence that settled between us, entwining itself in my dark hair. Finally, Nita spoke. “And now that you are here, what do you plan to do?”
“I’m going to kill Kade and end this.”
Micah clasped Nita’s hand in his. His eyes were wide with disbelief and his mouth opened in surprise. “Is it possible? Truly?”
“Who will lead us afterward?” They both looked at me but all I could do was shake my head in response.
“We will join you!” Micah exclaimed. Registering my surprise, Micah continued with a grin. “We’re not pacifists, either.”
“And we’re willing to sacrifice everything to see this through,” Nita added.
Over the next two days, I followed Nita and Micah through the fields, helping them as they worked, protecting their hands and healing them as needed as they wielded their unpredictable element. As we worked, we plotted and I noticed a greater change in my companions. They stood a little taller with their shoulders thrown back and their heads held high. I even detected a shift in the void, noting a stronger beat in the strange songs marking their life force and energy there. I, too, felt lighter, less burdened now that someone else knew of my trials and loss. But mostly, I was happy to have companions and allies who I believed would fight beside me. My own plans for Kade had not changed. I knew that I would destroy him by taking every last bit of his energy and returning it to the earth. I would gladly watch him wither away. From dust and, at last, back to dust, once more.
What’s more, Nita and Micah were well-known throughout the facility by other Curare. They had pledged to find accomplices to help us in our cause. When I expressed concern about revealing our plans to too many people, Micah had laughed cynically. “No Curare would ever sell out any of our own. Don’t you worry. They all want their freedom. They just don’t know how to get it because they’ve mostly bought into the whole pacifist thing. Frankly, I’ve always believed that to be a control mechanism and nothing more than a load of garbage.”
“Just leave it to us, Vea,” Nita assured me. Though we had not known each other long, I chose to take them at their word and I began to hope that perhaps Kade’s fatal mistake would have been pairing me with these Igni Curare who, like their element, seared with energy and crackled with resolve.
As the daylight lengthened, weakening beneath the crush of night, we turned from our work in the field and made our way back to the spot where the transport vehicle had turned us loose three days prior. Nita was particularly on edge as we retraced our steps. Micah raised his left arm, sensing my confusion. “She’s always worried that the transport will be late. The Pop doses in these inter-dermal tranquilizers are particularly potent. It will knock you down for at least a week.”
I remembered the confusion, the debilitating weakness and
more that had characterized my first encounter with Pop. “I can’t say I blame her.”
“Me neither.”
When we arrived, the transport was nowhere to be seen. Nita slumped to the ground, her back resting against the trunk of a dead tree. Micah joined her, reclining on the parched earth. I sensed their unease and decided it best to leave them to their own thoughts. I turned to face the shadowy orb that was the sun hidden beneath layers of smog and dust and closed my eyes. One last time, I focused my energy down into the roots of the earth, calling to the energy that swirled sleepily there, tarnished though it was. I reveled in the feeling of my toes in the dirt even here where so much destruction had taken place, for I didn’t know when I would get the chance to be close to nature again once we returned to our metallic prison. I had used much of my energy in healing my new companions over our three days in the fields but it was a task that I felt happy to undertake. Silently, I thanked the earth for giving what little it had left to revive me and satiate me once more, and I vowed to avenge it.
The transport arrived just as the last rays of light disappeared over the horizon. This time, a CPA soldier exited the vehicle and stood near the rear of it. The door to the belly of the vehicle opened silently and as we climbed inside, the soldier held a device over each of our left arms and pushed a button to reprogram the vials of Pop lurking beneath our skin. I looked scornfully at the soldier but he barely glanced my way as the door closed and we found ourselves in our cool, metallic prison once more.
Bram,
The first Curare, after you, has died. She was a Terrae Curare, assigned to help clean South Farm.
She and a small team of Terrae worked the fields there, toiling day in and out. They have been healing South Farm for months. Their progress was apparently steady and promising. We don’t have much information about what happened. There are rumors that her hair turned white and that she exhibited symptoms of Chem Sickness. Other Curare there are showing similar symptoms. This reminds me of some of the convoluted letters I found in your pod. What was happening to you? Would it have progressed if you had been allowed to continue your work? Would you have died from using your abilities?