A Light From the Ashes

by Rachel Anne Cox

  Sam took a threatening step toward the old man, placing himself between him and Sophie. “What are you talking about? What happened to Jarom?”

  “She-devil. She-devil did the deed. Do the deed, plant the seed.” He laughed to himself. “Raining under the shadows of the bridge. Slipping into the general’s camp. She-devil!” He pointed a crooked finger in Sophie’s face.

  “Let’s get out of here, Sam. I obviously remind him of someone else. We can come back another time.”

  They started making their way out of the square, feeling the eyes of other citizens on them. The last thing they needed was to draw attention to themselves with the Corsairs close and bent on punishment. The old man fell out of line behind them, shuffling along the road in their wake, following them with a barrage of incoherent mumblings. The edge of the town square gave way to the woods, and they hoped to lose the man among the trees, but he stayed close. Too close.

  “She-devil. Evil in the eyes. Always the redheads. Can’t make me tell, though. Never did. Never did.”

  “Sam, what are we going to do?” Sophie whispered. “I feel like he needs help, but he’s frightening me.”

  “Just keep walking for now.”

  “Too much rope to hang a man, just enough to tie him up.”

  Suddenly, the man took up a strange and wandering tune, blended pieces of songs and poems he’d heard in whatever life he used to live. “Gone in the valley, the valley below. Always the children crying in snow. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord her neck to break.” He began to giggle uncontrollably as he ran around to block the path in front of Sophie and Sam.

  “Sara! Sara gave us all away. Jarom gone. All gone now. Sara! Sara did it!” The man stood unexpectedly straight and tall with an accusing finger piercing the air between himself and Sophie.

  She had turned pale, gripping Sam’s arm and trying to hold herself up.

  “I pray the Lord her neck to break!”

  Before either of them could move, the man had his hands around Sophie’s throat.

  It took Sam a moment to register what was happening. When he came to himself, the man, crazed with memory and fear, had Sophie up against a tree, strangling her. Putting the old man in a headlock from behind, Sam was amazed at his strength, and was struggling to pull him away. Moments of scuffle and struggle felt longer as Sam fought to stay in the present. His arms were beginning to tire as he tried to use enough force to stop his foe, but not so much as to kill him.

  Sophie’s face over the man’s shoulder was turning blue. Sam knew he had to act quickly. Other faces flashed before him. His father being dragged into the square to be executed, his mother right behind. The first man who tried to kill Sophie in the woods. It all came flooding back, swirling around him like fetid water. And suddenly he was falling into the water, into space, into a world made of silenced breaths.

  He wrenched the man to the ground, heard Sophie coughing and sputtering behind him. He couldn’t let the man up, not yet. Not while he struggled. He couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t attack again.

  The noose tightening around his parents’ throats as they stood on the gallows. Sophie gasping for air. Kyle pushing him into the river. So many Corsairs swirling in the waves of the river. Reaching out to grasp at something, or to hold it at bay. Sam battled to draw air into his lungs. He was coughing and choking on his own tears. A hand was on his shoulder. He shrugged it away. Sophie’s voice seemed to float to him from far away as if he were just waking from a dream.

  “Sam. Sam, let go. Sam! Let him go.”

  Looking down at hands he couldn’t quite recognize as his own, Sam saw his grip on the man’s neck as he lay on the ground beneath him. The old man no longer moved or breathed. A stillness fell around them more hostile than the fight. Sam fell back into damp leaves covering the ground, pushing and clawing himself away from the still form. His vision began to blur. The bark of the trees dripped and ran in rivulets to a ground moving beneath his stumbling feet.

  “Is he dead?” he whispered.

  Sophie crawled over, moving the man’s beard to feel for a pulse on his bruised neck. After a few moments: “I think so.”

  “Are you alright?” Sam saw the bruises rising on Sophie’s own neck.

  “Yes, I will be,” she said hoarsely. She joined Sam to sit beneath a tree as they stared at what they’d just done in disbelief.

  “I killed him.”

  “You didn’t have a choice.”

  “I was out of my mind.”

  “He didn’t give you a choice.”

  “I’ve seen him before.”

  “Where?”

  “I think he was my father’s best friend.”

  “How can that be?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Sam buried his face in his hands, pushing hard against his eyes, trying to wipe the memory away. “We can’t do this now. You have to go back to the house, and I have to bury him before the soldiers find him.”

  “Sam, let me help you.”

  “No! Please, just do as I ask and go home. Please.”

  Sophie felt the anger in him, and it wasn’t only anger about what he’d done or even anger about the man attacking her. No, Sam was angry with her for the first time ever. And she didn’t understand it.

  “Fine. I’ll see you at home, then. Be careful.”

  Sam didn’t answer but retrieved a large branch and started digging in the moistened earth. As Sophie walked away, she heard his huffed breathing as he drove the stick harder and deeper into the earth, and his feelings deeper within himself.

  Hours later, Sophie sat outside on her porch, leaning against a post with her head thrown back and her knees drawn up into her chest. Her neck ached under the bruises as she tried to sooth the swelling with a cold cloth. For once, she was grateful Ethan was holed up in his room. She needed time to think before she could even attempt to explain to him her injuries. She had no wish to frighten the boy more than he already was.

  The chill evening air was warmed by the setting sun peeking in under the roof of the porch. From the great sighing earth, she drew breath, holding it in her lungs until her own body forced her to breathe it out again. Just as she was beginning to worry that Sam wasn’t home yet, she saw him shuffling slowly up the drive without his usual jaunty step. He looked at the ground at his feet, never raising his eyes toward the house.

  When he reached the porch, Sam slumped down next to Sophie on the other side of the post.

  “Is it finished?” she asked gently.

  “Finished.”

  “Sam, I wish things were different. I . . .”

  “Tell me what you know about your parents,” he interrupted.

  Sophie took a minute to answer his abrupt question. “Very little.”

  “Your mother’s name was Sara, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she turn against her people in the Watch?”

  “I don’t know. I was just a girl. How can we possibly know what really happened all those years ago? One day I had loving parents, the next day, I didn’t. It was the same with you.”

  “Not quite the same. My father’s name was Jarom.”

  “And you think based on what that man said that my mother is responsible for your father’s death.”

  “It would make sense.”

  “Nothing makes sense, Sam! That’s the point. The Watch, Corsairs, the Triumvirate, patriots, traitors, spies. Look around us. It all defies understanding. We can make ourselves crazy trying to figure it out. In the end, though, the color of blood looks the same no matter which uniform it stains.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if we’re all going to die in this fight, which I have no doubt we are, all that really matters to me is what happens right here between us. This is our life now.”

  “How can we really know what there is between us if we don’t know ourselves or where we came from?”

  “You can’t be serious.” Sophie sat up and tried to reach
for Sam’s hand, but he pulled away.

  “I just can’t . . . I’m sorry, Sophie.”

  Sam walked quickly into the house, shutting the door behind him. Even with all his nightmares and the many things they’d lived through together, Sophie had never seen him like this. It frightened her. She knew if she allowed this gap between them to continue, it would grow into an unbreachable chasm. They had to work through whatever they were both feeling here together, or they would always be apart.

  So, against her instinct to leave him alone and give him space, Sophie followed Sam inside. She found him sitting at the kitchen table, his hands folded before him, looking for all the world like he was praying, but to whom?

  As he sat at the table, his eyes closed, he heard Sophie enter the room. And the wave of unexpected information washed over him again. Sophie’s mother was responsible for his parents’ deaths. How could he look at her again? He knew she was not to blame. The children could not be responsible for the sins of the parents. But then, could he just forget this strange connection that bound them? Or could he forget all the days and nights they’d shared together? He wished his mind was a slate, able to be wiped of all undesirable knowledge, holding only that which was good. Pressing his hands together until the knuckles were white and his fingers went numb, he realized something he’d never known before. Realized you could want to know something, crave it with your whole being. Questioning, searching, seeking to find it, and never realize how heavy it would be to carry it once you did know.

  He stood up, still unable to meet Sophie’s gaze. He had wanted to get a glass of water but placed his hands on the table and bowed down again. His body bent and buckled under the weight of his own actions, not Sophie’s parents or his parents. He had killed a man when he had sworn to himself and to Sophie that he’d never kill again. The guilt was almost too much to bear.

  She watched him for a few moments, afraid of how he would react. He had told her so many times he would never kill again. Never again. And yet he’d done it—and for her. Because of her. Because of who she was and who her parents had been. She walked slowly behind him and folded herself over his back, covering his body with her own, wishing she could cover up what had happened, erase it from both their minds. Standing up slowly, Sam turned around to face her. She felt ashamed when he looked questioningly into her eyes. She couldn’t hold his gaze and looked away.

  “Some people live for the struggle and the fight,” he said finally. “I’ve tried to live my life in a way that I would never have to fight or kill again. This will be the third war in my lifetime. These wars seem to follow me. I can’t escape them.”

  “Sometimes we have to make hard decisions, do hard or painful things to protect ourselves or others. You didn’t want to kill that man, I know that.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We can’t lie and kill and still call ourselves different or better than the Corsairs. The result is the same. A man is dead by my hand. More blood on my hands. I can’t forgive myself for that.”

  Sophie wondered if she could tell Sam what she knew she had to. But the banks and the levees of her river finally collapsed, and she could be silent no longer. “Well, then, can you forgive me?”

  “For what?”

  “I’m the one who killed Griffyth Credell, the government worker in Boswell. I was out of my mind with grief, sure. But he would have gone on killing. He was an evil man who caused the deaths of others, not in self-defense, but just for the hell of it. There would have been no justice if I had not done it.”

  “It’s not the same thing. You weren’t in your right mind. It wasn’t a conscious decision.”

  “I’d venture to say that neither was yours a conscious decision. But the result is the same regardless. The point is we’ve all done things we regret that we wish we could undo. That doesn’t make us bad people. It makes us human. No one is perfect, Sam. But you’ve come closer than anyone else . . .”

  “Don’t!” Sam couldn’t listen to her go on about how good he was. Not when he knew his Sophie was almost touching perfection. He knew he’d never be worthy of her. “I’m not perfect. I need redemption or absolution—something! Something to pull me back from the path I’m constantly being pushed toward. My whole life. All the wars, the killing. You don’t know the things I’ve done. People have died because of me! So no, I can’t do enough to make up for that. Everything I’ve done has been to purchase my absolution.”

  “Absolution can’t be purchased. It’s freely given.” She reached out to touch his arm, but he jumped at her touch. When he saw the pain enter her eyes, saw the bruises again on her neck, he could no longer stand it, but rushed out of the house.

  * * * * *

  Simeon Drape sat on what used to be a park bench, surrounded by large chunks of broken concrete, tattered sidewalks, and fallen trees. There was a gray, chopped-up quality to the world around him, like a quarry. Here they had mined for a new world, driven the monstrous drills deep into a society hardened by greed and apathy. They had saved the people, saved them from themselves, from their historical myths that bound them to nonsense.

  Simeon was rarely this relaxed. But he felt the threads he’d woven finally coming together into a cohesive whole. His feet rested on the severed head of a statue. He believed it was probably Thomas Jefferson. No matter; it made a fine footrest after the long ride from the wall. He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun with his lowered hat, waiting somewhat impatiently for President Gabbro and Vice President Craven.

  He heard movement behind him before the voice, “It’s strange to see the remnants of what used to pass for civilization to these people. Good day, General.”

  “Good day, Vice President Craven.” Simeon stood to salute him. “This is, after all, the only place on the planet where we can be sure we won’t be overheard or spied on.”

  “Very true. The president should be here shortly.”

  “The president is here now.” The voice came from behind a half-fallen wall a few feet away.

  Though General Drape was a tall man, President Gabbro dwarfed him. His large, boulder-like head rising several inches above Simeon’s. The president, as all members of the Triumvirate and administration, wore the bright-blue uniform of the Corsair army. He pulled a large handkerchief out of his pocket and held it up to his nose, looking around him in resigned disgust. Those who saw the three men of the Triumvirate together often thought the vice president looked to be a cadet in the army, so slight was his form. Only when they saw the snake and star insignia of the Triumvirate did they salute and give him deference.

  “I can’t abide this smell of old things, General,” President Gabbro was saying. “Let’s make this meeting quick. Why have you called us here?”

  “Sir, I need more troops to be able to crush the rebel army.”

  President Gabbro scoffed. “Army, what army? You mean that rag-tag group they call the Watch? A nuisance at the worst. They are not a threat, General. They have no army.”

  “Do you think they aren’t planning for an attack, gathering allies?”

  “We’ve heard this same argument for years, but the evidence doesn’t bear it out. Besides, it doesn’t matter what they plan. They simply don’t have the manpower to stand up to us. No, I believe the experiment is at an end.”

  “They can get more manpower.”

  “From the few stragglers we’ve seen here in the Forbidden Grounds?” Vice President Craven joined in, choosing to remain on the president’s side of the argument.

  “General, as always, you are exaggerating the threat.” The president spoke as if he were soothing a frightened child.

  “And I don’t think you’re taking it seriously enough. We must kill off the genetic line of rebellion. No DNA trace of resistance must be left.”

  “We’ve beaten the rebellion out of them. It’s over. We can’t continue to prolong this, waiting to find other rebels. We must move forward with Phase Two of the plan.”

  “It’s my considered opinion that th
ey’re past the point of being useful citizens. The rebellious streak runs too strong in them. They will poison the pool. We must go forward with the executions for the sake of the greater good, Mr. President.”

  “We can’t kill them all. We have to get the children out. They’ve done nothing.”

  “They’ve aided the rebel cause.”

  “They’re only children.”

  “And as I’m sure you’ll remember in the last revolution they used ‘only children’ to fight against us. Many of my comrades in the Corsairs were killed by children. Then these children will grow into rebels. No, they must be eradicated like a disease. We must kill all the diseased cells. If you don’t win, you lose. If you don’t kill something, it kills you. That’s the way the world works. Dog eats dog.”

  “I’ve made my decision, General. We’ll pull the children out and send them for reprogramming. Then we can move on with Phase Three, if we must. Do you agree, Craven?”

  “Yes, President, I do.”

  “Very well, Mr. President.”

  “It’s time to begin to put an end to this. It’s been forty-three years since the Disaster. We can’t continue to allow this land to go to waste. I want this ended within the year. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * * * *

  Picking among grasses under a ruined and leaning merry-go-round, Gran found the wild garlic and chamomile growing in a bent shaft of sunlight. She’d be cooking up a soup tonight with tea besides. She had found some carrots in an ancient garden, scrawny though they were. They’d go fine with the squirrel the young fellas had left her before they took off. She took it as a peace offering, an apology for leaving her. The young ones never stayed long. Skittish, they were.

  The rusted swings on the old swing set creaked in the breeze, startling her. She almost hit her head on the upturned merry-go-round. Stretching her back, she mused on the new aches and pains that were coming over her lately. She could feel even the slightest chill just in the small of her back, reaching down into her knees, and twisting her so she’d have to stretch and consciously remind herself to stand straighter and taller. She thought of the playground like this one that used to be down the road from what had once been her house. The playground where she took her kids every Saturday. It had a slide with a lion’s mouth, and another that looked like an elephant’s trunk. The merry-go-round was horses and zebras. She could hear her kids squealing as she ran, pushing them faster and faster around. “Faster, Mummy, faster!” Even now, their voices were clearer and more real to her than the ground on which she stood.