A Light From the Ashes

by Rachel Anne Cox

  * * * * *

  Sam did not have to think about his way to the cabin where he’d lived for more than a year before being discovered by Zacharias. He meandered through the woods, allowing his thoughts to wander freely as well. He felt the weight of his pack on his back as a burden. Zacharias had loaded him down with what food he could spare from the cellar; the rest of his needs he would find in nature. But it wasn’t the physical weight that tired him. Nothing seemed easy anymore. He felt his muscles and heart slowing as the rivers in winter, slowing and freezing until a thaw releases them.

  The cabin was higher in elevation than Jesse’s Hollow, and the air was biting against his cheeks. He passed the lake, which had already experienced its first hard frost of the season. It was pockmarked with ripples in stasis as if it had frozen suddenly while in the middle of a windstorm. But in the places where the water still lived, the ripples responded to the caress of the wind.

  The cabin under the pines revealed itself slowly as Sam approached. He was surprised to find the roof intact, and not only in good repair, but with a plume of smoke escaping its chimney. Nothing, apparently, would be as he expected to find it anymore. The crows crowded around the refuse pile behind the cabin, enjoying their feast. After years of hunting and surviving in the woods, Sam knew how to walk silently. He did so as he neared the cabin, peering through the eye-level windows. The inside of the cabin was clean and well cared for. The cabinets seemed stocked. But the woodpile next to the fireplace was low. He saw no inhabitants inside but assumed they would soon return to tend the fire. This would not be his refuge, then, and he would have to find solace elsewhere. He thought it fortunate he’d decided to pack his warmest clothes, for his time would be spent mostly outdoors as the weather continued to cool the air and his ire.

  * * * * *

  In the twilight hours, Gemma approached the Cutler farm on the edge of the village. The darkness descended earlier and earlier as winter neared. She wondered why this always took her by surprise, the early nights of winter. She pulled her wool coat more tightly around her, catching her breath in the cold wind blowing in her face. Seeing the lights from the farmhouse shining across the field, she stopped, dropping her heavy pack full of blankets, food, and supplies beside her. She held her lantern up above her head, waving it back and forth. Then took one of the blankets to cover it intermittently to achieve the signal she desired: “Gone to the cabin. Kyle will ask after me here. Will pass by again in the morning.” The curtains shut once and re-opened, signaling message received. Then Gemma picked up her pack and walked on toward the forest. She needed to make a stop at the cabin before making her way to the lighthouse for her meeting with Aishe.

  Gemma listened at the door of the cabin to hear if anyone was inside. The curtains were drawn; no information would escape the windows, though they seemed cleaner than when she last visited. She heard a wooden chair scrape the floor in the kitchen deep within, so she slowly entered the door, not making a sound. As soon as she’d crossed the threshold, a knife was at her throat. Gemma’s breath stopped as she turned slowly but could see nothing. The angle of the knife told her what she needed to know.

  “Hey, kid,” she said through a smile.

  The knife fell, and a giggle escaped a little girl’s mouth. She threw her arms around Gemma’s waist and waited for her lesson.

  “That was a good trick with the chair, Daisy. How’d you do it?”

  “I had some string and pulled on it from behind the door.”

  “Clever girl.”

  Daisy was happy to know her efforts had impressed Gemma. “How’d you know it was me with the knife?”

  “It was angled down, so I knew you were a child. Next time you’d better stand on a chair. Keep them confused.”

  “I will.” Daisy picked up Gemma’s pack to help her bring the things inside.

  “I’ve brought you warm blankets and more food for the next few days. Where are the other children?”

  “They went hunting. Oh, I almost forgot, I have a message for you from the Watch.”

  “Who brought it?”

  “Someone new. Never saw her before. She called herself Cypress.”

  “Did she give the right passcode?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t have talked to her without it.”

  “Well, let’s have the note then.”

  On the page of a book Gemma didn’t recognize, she read the circled words sprinkled around the page: fort, night, trains, port, mid, night, and base. The bottom of the page bore the signature Cypress.

  Taking a deep breath, Gemma considered the meaning of the message. The guns and horses would be transported to the Corsairs’ base at midnight two weeks from today. They must move quickly. Aishe needed to mobilize her people to cut off the transport.

  Gemma threw the note from Cypress into the fire, then reached into the cabinet to the right of the fireplace. In old days, this was used to keep food warm. She used it to hide the couple of books in her possession. She pulled out Dandelion Wine. Flipping through its pages, she found the appropriate one. She hesitated to pull the page out from the cover. It was one of her favorite parts of the book. But it could not be helped. She had to use it. She circled the words: under the stars, defender, citadel, withstand, assault. Then at the bottom of the page she wrote: Aishe and Foxglove.

  “Daisy, you’ll need to take this quickly, sweetie, back to Cypress. Do you know where you can meet her?”

  Daisy nodded her head.

  “It can wait until morning. I don’t want you going out tonight. Look what else I brought for you.”

  Daisy rifled through the pack to find an old game she didn’t recognize. She shook the long thin box and heard the pieces within. Her eyes lit up to realize she’d have something to pass the time and play with her band of friends.

  “It’s called Checkers.” Gemma loved bringing surprises to Daisy to see the smile in her eyes. Nothing gave her more pleasure in her life than taking care of the child. Sometimes her friends in the Watch would bring her games or books found in the old houses in the area, knowing she was taking care of the children. “We have time to play one game and read one story before I have to go. Alright?”

  “I wish you could stay here with me or I could go back with you.”

  “I know you do, darling. I wish it too. More than anything. One day. Hopefully one day soon. But with as much as we’re being watched, I don’t want anything connecting you and me in case I’m captured. I couldn’t bear it if the Corsairs came after you. So, for now, this is how it has to be. But it’s what we’re fighting for. It’s why the people in the Watch do what we do so that one day, we won’t have to sneak around like this. You do understand, don’t you, darling?”

  Daisy held the tears back from her blue eyes with great effort and forced herself to look at Gemma with a smile. “I do.”

  “Alright, then. Which first? Game or story?”

  “Game.”

  4

  WATCHING THE SKY

  W ith the sun’s short journey from east to west now complete and another day swept up in the wind-troubled night, Sophie lay next to Bridget in the child’s bed, trying to coax sleep to wrap her in its arms. Leaning her head back against the chipped white headboard, Sophie’s eyes closed as she recited again the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. With her daughter curled up beside her in the crook of her arm, Sophie absently played with Bridget’s own golden locks as her voice sleepily ran through the story like a stream through a forest. She was startled to feel two chubby hands on the sides of her face.

  “Mommy. Wake up, Mommy.”

  “I’m awake, Peanut.”

  “What do bears look like?”

  “I think they’re big and tall when they stand on their hind feet. They’re brown or black all over with thick fur.”

  “Are they scary? Will they eat me for dinner?”

  “No, love. The story says they eat porridge, like oatmeal.” Sophie didn’t mind telling white lies to her daughter to a
ssuage her fears. She wasn’t even sure bears still existed. There hadn’t been a sighting of one for as long as she could remember.

  “Where is my papa bear?”

  “What?”

  “There was papa bear, mama bear, and baby bear. I the baby bear. You the mama bear. Where’s papa bear?”

  “He had to go away before you were born, Peanut.” Sophie’s eyes fluttered as she started to doze again.

  Bridget gently patted her mother’s cheeks. “Mommy, Mommy.”

  “I’m awake.”

  “Mommy, I want a song. No more story. Sing to me, Mommy.”

  “Sing to you? What song would you like?”

  “The ‘I see you’ song,” Bridget giggled and snuggled in more closely.

  Sophie grinned. “‘Somewhere in My Dreams’? You like that song?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Sophie hummed a few bars first, inviting the song to join them in their warmly lit cocoon before she sang the first refrain. “No matter where I go, I see you. In the butterfly’s wing, I see you. In the tiny little flower, in the passing of each hour, in the love that’s in my heart, I see you. So when my thoughts begin to stray, I know you’re not far away. I’ll see you always near me, so it seems. For you will always be here somewhere in my dreams.”

  Any time she sang, Sophie’s mind was pulled back to her birth mother, Sara, a woman burned into her heart and memory, though she had only had her for ten years. In another life or time, Sophie, as her mother before her, would have been a musician. Sara Bryan tried to hold onto lessons about music her own mother had taught her and pass them onto her tiny red-headed daughter, whose clear voice could be heard in her crib singing and making up songs to herself as a baby. She would sit at the piano with Sophie, whose legs dangled from the bench, and play happy, dancing songs loud enough to drown out the sounds of distant gunfire and screams.

  When Sophie found her own farmhouse, she was overwhelmed with gratitude to whoever had gone before for leaving an upright piano standing, or rather leaning, in the front room. It was out of tune and some of the keys were missing or no longer hammered the strings. But Sophie spent many hours tinkering around with the piano that quickly became her friend. Her fingers would caress the worn black and white keys with bits of brown peeking out from under missing paint. She would play from memory the songs which still rang in her mind from her mother. In the attic of the ancient farmhouse, she had found an old wind-up gramophone. Of course, she didn’t know what a gramophone was, nor what it did. But after some experimentation, she found it gave her some of the most beautiful music she’d ever heard, full of instruments she couldn’t identify, yet thrilled to the sound of. Listening to the records expanded her repertoire and gave her new songs to learn on the piano. Songs from Before, which were a kind of bridge to a life she’d never known and didn’t understand.

  Hearing the deep and measured breathing of her sleeping daughter, Sophie tried in vain to roll out of the bed noiselessly. The creaking of the bedsprings filled the silent room, but Bridget didn’t stir. A good sign.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Mrs. O’Dell waited for her to come down. The kindly old woman sat roundly in her abundance at the table in the glow of a beeswax candle. A lantern in the attic window, a signal from Sophie, had brought her over from the neighboring farm.

  “Thank you for coming, Mrs. O’Dell. Bridget is sound asleep and should stay that way. I’m not quite sure how long I’ll be. Are you alright to stay for a while?”

  “Of course, dear. You do what you need to do.” Mrs. O’Dell had learned not to ask where Sophie went on nights like this. She knew it had something to do with the Watch, and that was enough for her to know she wanted to help in her small way.

  Gathering up a lantern, her rain slicker, and an old hat, Sophie headed out the door toward the ocean.

  “Be careful, dear,” Mrs. O’Dell called.

  * * * * *

  From their porch home, the weary wind chimes whistled a call to no one in particular, but an owl from the forest replied as Sophie made her way across her back field to the coast. Every sound seemed to her a warning, but she trudged on, telling herself it was only the wind. She heard the small dinghy before she could see it bumping against what used to be a fence post where it was tied off but barely hanging on in the rough waves. The moon shone bright enough that she didn’t need her lantern. So she blew out the flame but brought it along anyway. She waded out in the frigid water to get to the boat she would row to the lighthouse. Strangled by the dance of wind and waves, she fought hard against the froth and surge. As she rowed out to the lighthouse, she felt the oars rubbing her hands raw, even within the gloves, and dreamt of a time when rendezvous like these would not be necessary.

  As she looked back toward the shore, moving farther out, she could see the fires of the guard stations along the coast. There were only two left these days, one at the Southern Border and one at the Northern. After most of the boats were destroyed and the Border secured, they had nothing to fear from ghost ships of days gone by. Looking over her shoulder, she could see the top of the timeworn lighthouse looming in front of the moon, throwing a great shadow over her little rowboat. The roar in her ears made any vocal call to her captain impossible. Gemma stood on the catwalk, following Sophie’s approach. As Sophie climbed up over the rail and tied off the boat near Foxglove’s, she tried to maintain her footing on the slick metal surface.

  “Though my soul may set in darkness . . .” Gemma called over the waves, shielding her face from the choppy water with her own raincoat.

  “It will rise in perfect light,” Sophie responded to the passcode. “Foxglove.” She smiled and put out her hand.

  Gemma gave her a firm handshake. “Thank you for coming out, Aishe. Let’s go inside the light so we can talk a little easier.”

  Within the glass lighthouse, it was still damp with a couple of panes broken, but at least they didn’t have the waves crashing on them and could hear each other speaking at normal levels without the need to shout.

  Sophie took her hat off, shaking the water out of her hair. “I’m sorry for being late. I couldn’t leave until my daughter was asleep, and that didn’t happen as quickly as I would have liked.”

  A concerned look played behind Gemma’s eyes. “I didn’t realize you had a daughter.”

  “Why would you? We keep our private lives out of this work, don’t we?”

  “Is she going to be a problem?” Gemma had a chill in her voice that even she did not fully understand. Was it just concern for the mission, or did the thought of another woman having a child prick the inner longings of her heart?

  “In what way?”

  “I just mean it’s harder to complete difficult missions when you have someone depending on you that you’ve left behind.”

  Sophie tried to see into her captain’s eyes. She knew Foxglove was only doing her job and trying to protect the mission and the other people in the Watch. She came to the strange realization that you can know someone for years, yet never really know them, their thoughts, fears, strengths. What holds them back and what pushes them forward. She wished circumstances were different and they could have been friends just chatting about their lives on her front porch sipping tea. “Do you have a family?” she asked finally.

  “A husband, yes.”

  “And does that affect your work?”

  “Those I care about are always in my thoughts, but I find that propels me into the hard tasks rather than holding me back.”

  Sophie nodded. “Exactly. I don’t think any of us are fighting just for ourselves. We all have someone we’re loyal or devoted to. That’s the only thing that makes all this bearable—those we fight for. Besides, is there any alternative to me completing this mission?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Well alright, then. I’ll do what needs to be done as I always have, Captain.”

  “You’re right. I have no reason to doubt you, Aishe. I apologize.” Gemma relaxed slightly and rea
ched out to put her hand on her compatriot’s shoulder.

  “So let’s get down to business. Your message seemed urgent. We haven’t met in person in a while.”

  “Yes, you’re right. I’m sure you’ve noticed the increase in troop numbers.”

  “And in the number of messages from the Triumvirate. Just today, I saw them drag people out of a public assembly for not answering the motto.”

  “The barbarism continues. I predict it will only be a matter of time before the public beatings and executions begin again. But the urgency comes because we’ve also learned there will be two wagons of guns and a fresh herd of horses coming to the Corsairs’ base from the northern road,” Gemma responded. “They mustn’t get through. We will divert the guns and divide them among our people. The horses will be hidden on farms along the coast.”

  “How many guards assigned to the transport?”

  “Only four, we’ve been told.”

  “Well, that should be easy enough to take them by surprise. Pretty arrogant of them, if you ask me. We’ll use the cave for the guns and disperse them a little at a time among the Watch. If you can ensure the barns are ready, my troop can split up the horses to the farms that night. Has there been any news from the Wash District?”

  “Only that the members of the Triumvirate seem nervous about something. More vigilant, added guards in the villages.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what they could possibly need so many guns for. There are only seven or eight villages left within the Border. Could they be preparing for an outside attacker or another war?”

  “We don’t know yet, but we can’t take any chances. Someone close to the Triumvirate has been leaking us information. They haven’t been specific as far as their purpose, but only let us know of new shipments and troop movements. It seems as if he’s trying to give us a picture with all of these puzzle pieces, but it’s hard to know where they all fit if you haven’t first seen the picture.”