A Light From the Ashes

by Rachel Anne Cox

  “I know you can. That’s why I need you to help protect the twins. Zacharias and Jesse are old. They’re smarter than me, but I don’t know how they would be in a fight. I’m counting on you to protect the twins and run for help if you need it. Can you do that?”

  “I guess I can.”

  “You guess?”

  Daisy turned back toward Gemma, grabbing one of her hands in her own. “I will. But Gemma, promise me you’ll save Ethan. He’s my best friend. My best friend besides you, I mean.”

  “Daisy, you are my best friend. And I’m making you a promise that I will do everything in my power to bring Ethan back. Now, give me a hug before I go.”

  Daisy laid her head on Gemma’s chest, her arms around her waist tightly. “Gemma?”

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “I love you. I never told you this, but I wish you were my mother.”

  “So do I. I’ve never been prouder of anyone in my life.”

  “Be safe. Here, take this picture with you.” Rummaging among the pile, she pulled out the desired paper covered in brightly colored trees with a house and two people front and center.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s you and me in a new house outside the borders. So you won’t forget me.”

  “I can never forget you, Daisy. Never.” Gemma kissed the child on top of her head, breathing in her scent, and rushed out before Daisy could see her tears.

  * * * * *

  The ocean was larger and louder than Jesse remembered. And yet in its deafening roar, waves crashing on land that hadn’t felt a salt bath in centuries, she could hear her deeper thoughts that often ran away from silence. She was overwhelmed by her senses, feeling the cool spray of the saltwater in her face, smelling the ocean’s perfume. The gulls circled overhead. She let it all consume her as she imagined the sea had consumed her old home in Australia. She remembered her mother, the time they’d spent together on the beach. What was it she used to say? “We always get the miracles we don’t need.”

  Jesse thought of the water making its way further and further inland and knew her mother was right. Strange things occurred on almost a daily basis these days, but it never seemed to be the miracle she needed.

  All the songs left in Jesse’s mind seemed to be ones her mother used to sing to her, and by extension were songs she’d sung to her own children. They played in her mind, co-mingled with the cries of gulls and the sounds of the beach. She held her hands to her face, breathing in, imagining Jill’s and Max’s hair in her hands, breathing her children in. But it was only the sea wind that entered her lungs.

  As she stood with her toes sinking into the freezing sand, the sound of the wind and the waves was her mother’s voice cooing in her ear, hushing her to sleep after a nightmare. “It’s alright, Jesse. Mummy’s here. I won’t leave you. I’ll not be goin’ on walkabout.” And she hadn’t.

  But Jesse had been the one to leave her. She’d been so sure she would get back for another visit. And then the Disaster. No word anywhere to anyone. Then wars. Lost children of her own. Prison. Exile. But somehow, she came back to the sea, the waters connecting the whole earth. And maybe this wave lapping over her feet right now came from Australia, from Brighton Beach. Maybe they weren’t so far away after all. Jesse wished she was a sailor on a ship that would take her and Zack across the vast ocean to Australia. Even living in a world littered by natural disasters would be better than trying to piece together a life from the ruins the Corsairs had left them on these desolate shores.

  She sensed movement behind her. The waves had receded. Low tide. The meeting was beginning. She had to get to the cave. It wouldn’t do to be seen out here on the beach.

  The citizens of Jesse’s Hollow and Boswell crammed themselves into one of the deeper caves. In the cold air, they were grateful for having other warm bodies close. As they’d traveled from their homes in the changing shades of leaves, the strands of summer unraveled and frayed, leaving the citizens to piece together autumn as they could with what was left them while the dying year limped toward its inevitable close. The cold hand of its dying lingered on their shoulders, prompting them to pull their coats tighter, raising their shoulders around their ears.

  Sam stood at the back of the crowd with Sophie, looking anxiously for Gemma. He knew she would be running the meeting as the highest-ranking member of the Watch left. Her superior officers had been taken by the Corsairs. The net was closing.

  He heard her voice over his shoulder from the side of the cave. Gemma was making her way toward them, talking to other citizens along the way. As he turned to face her, he noticed Sophie looking at her with recognition.

  “That’s my Captain Foxglove. I’ll introduce you before the meeting begins,” Sophie whispered in his ear.

  “Aishe, hello.” Gemma held her hand out to Sophie. Her eyes turned to Sam, and his eyes in turn begged her not to say anything. He didn’t want Sophie to know of their connection. She needed to stay focused on the mission to come.

  “Captain Foxglove, this is my husband, Sam. He’s decided to join us.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Sam. We can use all the help we can get.” Gemma shook his hand briefly. Sam was impressed with her performance. He knew now why she’d done so well in the Watch.

  Suddenly, she looked past him to the mouth of the cave where she seemed to recognize someone. Sam and Sophie followed her gaze to rest their eyes on Jesse, the autumn sun pouring in and lighting her white hair on fire.

  “Jesse? Why aren’t you with Z?” Gemma asked straight to the point, worried that something had gone wrong with the children.

  “He asked me to come here. Said you needed moral support. I’d say he’s right. I’ll meet him at the cabin shortly.”

  Sophie wrapped her arms around the woman she knew as Gran. “What about the ripples?” she asked with a smile on her face.

  “Ripples? Hell, it was time to make waves,” Jesse laughed quietly.

  “Shall we get started?” Gemma asked as she walked to the front of the gathering crowd. Most of the remaining members of the Watch stood behind her as she faced the crowd with Sam and Sophie on either side of her. There were no more than twenty total members left. Two stood guard at the mouth of the cave, hidden behind two large boulders, but where they could still see anyone approaching.

  “Welcome, friends!” Gemma shouted over the din to get their attention. “We don’t have much time. Settle down, please. As many of you may already know, the Corsairs are now targeting the children. Their plan is to take them to a government facility outside the borders, for what purpose we don’t know. We have obtained intelligence about the location and will have a short window of access to rescue them. We must call for volunteers to help us in the rescue.”

  A low mumble went through the crowd. Citizens looked at each other and at the ground.

  “I know this is a lot to ask. But we have no choice if the children are to be saved. We must also hide those children who have not already been taken. Now, please raise your hand if you’re willing to go with us.”

  The sound of the waves outside the cave was her only answer.

  “Come, now. Will not one of you join us? The Watch has been looking after all of us for many years. And now that their numbers have dwindled, it’s up to all citizens to protect themselves and their children, to join together as one.”

  A shout from the back of the crowd caused the citizens to turn around. “Who among us thanks the founders of the Watch, the fighters of the First Revolution for their actions?” A man roughly Sam’s age stood with his hands shoved in his pockets, a frown on his forehead, and fear in his eyes.

  “Truthfully, who?” No answer was to be had for his question. “Isn’t it the Watch who got us into this mess in the first place? We talk about them,” he continued, “We have daily reminders of their actions and the results. Most of us were robbed of parents, siblings, homes. But do we thank them for their sacrifices and for the residual payments we’re forced to make in t
erms of the way we live . . . to pay for their choices? Or do we hate them for the burdens they saddled us with? Do we wish and pray to their gods that they’d kept their damn mouths shut and just waited for things to settle down and get better?”

  The word “hate” echoed and rang against the walls of the cave, striking like a bell.

  “And how has that strategy worked out for you, sir?” Sam responded when no one else would. “No, I mean it. Has your life gotten better for all of your silence and keeping your head down? You see, I used to be like you. Don’t fight, I’d say. Just keep your head down. Try to keep them from noticing you. Don’t do anything to stand out. Fall in line. But with every blow, my face got closer to the ground until I realized that looking at and eating dirt is no way to live.”

  “What other choice do we have? Death? Because that’s all that waits for us if we fight them,” said the man, not backing down.

  “Sam is right!” It was Sophie’s turn to speak up. “They’ve pushed us and moved us, fought us, abused us, and we’ve always retreated, always fallen back. Well, now they’ve pushed us all the way to the sea. They’ve taken our children, just as we were taken. There’s nothing else they could take from me but my life, and I will gladly give that if it will make someone else’s life better. We have no choice but to stand and fight. And any fight that doesn’t take down the corrupt oppressors is no fight at all. This is more than just saving the children. It’s to stop them once and for all.”

  Sophie was shocked when the crowd was still not responding. She couldn’t believe how deeply the fear had sunk into their hearts, how completely conditioned they were to not respond. She took a deep breath before speaking again, trying to calm her heightened emotions. She knew shouting would never convince them. “There are things that are still right and things that are still wrong. To just sit by and watch as the wrongs continue to pile up, drowning us in the ashes of our consciences, that’s not surviving. It’s just dying more slowly. That kind of life will leave you incomplete, empty.”

  “We’ll never take them down. Our numbers are too few!” The man shouted from the back.

  Gemma regained her voice, “Sir, do you have children?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m sorry, but I believe that makes your opinion somewhat irrelevant. I’d like to hear from those of you who have children. How many here are parents?”

  Fifty or so hands reached slowly into the chill air.

  “I still say losing is inevitable, whether you’re a parent or not.” The man refused to give up his argument but spoke more quietly.

  “It doesn’t matter if we lose!” Gemma finally shouted. “It only matters that we fight. They’re counting on us not fighting. They’re counting on the fear they’ve sown being enough to hold us back. All this time, all the horrors we’ve seen, have been orchestrated to convince us that fighting was useless. They were constantly testing us to see if we’d react. So if they expect us not to fight, we just might win if we do. But isn’t it worth the risk? Aren’t our children worth the risk?”

  “How do we even know if any of this is true? It could be a trap,” another citizen finally spoke.

  Jesse’s aged voice came from the back of the crowd this time. “Oh, it’s true.”

  Gemma, Sophie, and Sam were happy to see Jesse walking forward through the crowd parting before her.

  “I heard the plans from the Triumvirate’s very own mouths. Look, I know you’ve all seen horrible things in your lives. But none of you are old enough to have lived through the Disaster. The days of panic and mass casualties. It wasn’t a natural disaster, my friends. There was nothing natural about it. All orchestrated for sick government purposes. A cleansing, they called it. Nothing clean, though. The world became more filthy than ever. And now here we are again. Being moved and manipulated like pawns on a chessboard. The only thing we can still call our own? Free will. The will to decide not to lay down and die. The will to say, ‘No! You’ve taken our homes and our food, but you will not take our children.’” As she reached the front, she placed her withered hand on Sophie’s shaking shoulder. “This young woman has lost her son in this attack from the Corsairs. She could have taken this information and gone straight to him, concerned only for her own family’s well-being. But she came here to warn you, to help you save your children as well. Now who among you is still possessed of your free will? Who among you with stand with an old woman and these young parents to fight evil?”

  Jesse’s heart was beating loudly in her ears. She let the gathering silence weigh heavily on the citizens before her. But soon she knew it was not just her heartbeat she heard. Muffled hoofbeats echoed the blood beating in her ears. Horses. Horses getting closer.

  The two guards ran into the cave. “We have to get out of here! Corsairs are coming. Run!”

  “Scatter, everyone!” Gemma called over the commotion. “Don’t all go the same direction. They won’t be able to follow all of us.”

  The mass of bodies crushed to escape the cave, seeing Corsairs on horseback riding down the beach, sand flying in their wake. The low tide made access to the cave easy for them. Guns pulled out of holsters, they raised their rifles, holding the reins of the horses in clenched teeth. Bullets flew down the beach as swiftly as the sand behind the riders. No shots were heard from the guns bearing silencers. But as the citizens ran and scattered like tiny bugs, they heard the dull thumps and groans next to them as their neighbors were struck and fell in sprawling motion over themselves.

  Thuds. Bullets ripping through clothing and flesh. Ringing ears from whizzing near misses. Blood and saltwater blending in a swirling red cocktail. Twisted limbs in strange shapes. People lying still on the sand but looking as if they were still running. No one stopped to calculate the number of Corsairs versus the numbers of citizens or the odds of their escaping. The bullets kept coming. One after another. Five citizens down. Ten.

  The soldiers fanned out from a column to a follow after the fastest runners scrambling over the dunes toward the forest. If they reached the tree line, they’d be lost. And still more people ran out of the cave. The leaders were the last.

  Jesse turned to Gemma. “Go! I’ll get back to Zack and the children in the cabin.”

  “We’ll draw the soldiers’ fire first, then you run out in the opposite direction.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Jesse, take care of Daisy. Please.”

  “I will. Now go!”

  Gemma turned to Sam and Sophie. “Three different directions. Meet me at the abandoned guard station. We’ll cross the Border together. One hour.”

  Sophie kissed Sam quickly, and they all ran. North, south, and west.

  21

  WHERE THE TRAIL RUNS OUT

  A lthough Kyle was expecting him, the sight of Mark in uniform on his horse hit him behind the eyes and in the pit of his stomach. Broad shoulders covered in the tight blue uniform, head held high, almost arrogant, but he’d lost the old twinkle in his eyes. Riding to the Border, Kyle had felt his resolve like a wall around him, protecting a vulnerable core. But when he saw Mark on his horse, his wall began to crumble. Kyle breathed in the rain-washed air deeply yet felt as if he were filling his lungs with hot, choking ash, burning him from the inside out. Spontaneous combustion.

  Mark approached the Border fence slowly, cautiously. He absently saluted the guard in the shack as he passed through the gate. He was surprised, yet somehow not surprised, to see Kyle in his old Corsair uniform on the other side of the fence. The two men sat, shuffling slightly with the movement of their standing mounts, looking each other squarely in the eye. “I got your message. Why are we here?” Mark asked stiffly.

  “Let’s not talk here. There’s a spot near the Northern Border where the trail runs out.”

  “Fine.”

  They rode in silence along the Border for a while before Mark spoke again. “Why the uniform? Back to your true colors?”

  “I thought it would be less conspicuous for us to be se
en talking if we were both in uniform.”

  As they rode, Mark held the reins gently, often reaching down to stroke the mane or pat the neck of his horse. Kyle felt a sense of indulgence watching Mark’s gentleness, a quenching of a thirst he didn’t know he had.

  He reined his mount in sharply. “We’re here.” Dismounting, each man drew his horse further into the trees, tying the reins to nearby branches.

  Mark hesitated, looking around intently, seemingly expecting an ambush. Light cut through tall, straight trees as if it were coming through bars. But he saw no one else about. “So why did you summon me?” The edge of his voice cut Kyle more than a sword could have.

  “I didn’t like the way we left things.” Kyle moved toward Mark, reaching for his hand. But Mark pulled away, taking a step back.

  “Is there any other way we could have left it? I mean, I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

  “But you came anyway. That must mean something.”

  “Kyle, I’ve watched Simeon take you away from me a piece at a time. Like you’re dying in front of my eyes. I don’t think I can continue to watch it.”

  “I’m not dying. I’m still here.”

  “Are you? Because the Kyle I knew would not be working against the rebels, but with them.”

  “We gave them a choice. They chose wrong.”

  “It’s not an either/or choice. How can we make them choose from the catalogue of horrors that could be visited upon them?” Mark took a deep breath and a step forward before he continued, steeling himself for the reaction he thought was to come. “To conquer the monster, we first have to face it. Kyle, what do you remember about the last fifteen years? Do you even remember the things Simeon has done to you? To other people?”

  “I remember you.”

  “I’m serious. Think hard.”

  “I’m serious too. Of course I remember. He made the soldiers strip off my clothes first. But it went deeper than that. It felt as if they were stripping away my skin, getting into places inside me I didn’t know existed. We were children, he said. And we hadn’t yet earned the dignity of clothing.”