A Light From the Ashes

by Rachel Anne Cox

  “It’s not a fairy-tale. I know it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “How do you know the sun will come up in the morning?” Ethan countered.

  “Because it always has.”

  “Right. Sophie’s always been there for me. She hasn’t let me down once since I met her. When the Corsairs took me from the farm, she punched one of them in the face. Did you know that?”

  Sam smiled. “No, I didn’t. But I believe it.”

  “She told me I wasn’t a Lost Boy anymore and she would come for me. And she did. She said we’d always be a family. And I believe her.”

  “Alright, son. I’ll try to believe her too.”

  “Maybe we should head back now.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  Sticks cracking in the underbrush were as loud as gunfire in the silence, drawing Sam’s quick attention. His eyes shot to the left where he’d seen something out of the corner of his eye. He placed his arm in front of Ethan, gently moving the boy. “Stay behind me.”

  “What is it?”

  Sam saw the fog moving in swirls ahead of them, as if a creature at least the size of a man was moving through the haze. Another swirl moved to his right. Something was closing in on them. Sam knew he didn’t believe in ghosts, but there was something uncanny in the forest this evening.

  So when my thoughts begin to stray . . . An echo of a song hung in the air just out of hearing in mist ahead. Not a true sound, but something like the memory of a sound when someone has stopped singing. Just the slightest suggestion that the air had reverberated with sound only seconds before.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked Ethan anxiously.

  “What? The leaves moving?”

  “No, the song.”

  “I didn’t hear a song.”

  “Listen.”

  Their breathing stopped, willing the very machinations of their bodies to silence themselves as they strained to listen.

  For you will always be here . . .

  “That! Did you hear it?”

  “No, Sam.”

  Somewhere in my dreams.

  “It’s right there, I can almost hear it, but not quite.”

  “Hear what?”

  “Sophie’s song.”

  Ethan took Sam’s hand in his as they walked slowly into the gathering mist. “Let’s go back, Sam.”

  “Just a minute.”

  More sticks cracking in the fog ahead of them. They both stopped, feeling the moist leaves and every vibration beneath their feet. Something was walking toward them. Something large.

  At first, Sam and Ethan each thought they were imagining things. But in seconds, a large white stag began to materialize before them out of the mist, head and antlers towering over them both. Sam wondered if he was hallucinating from lack of sleep. He remembered the white deer on the mountain but knew this couldn’t be the same one because he’d had to kill the other for his own survival. No one could take away his belief that the buck had offered itself to him on that day for that very purpose. Yet here stood another. One of the rarest animals in the forest, and he had seen two within the course of a year.

  “Ethan, tell me you see it too.”

  “I see it. It’s a white deer.”

  In the dwindling light, and with the fog playing with their senses, the stag almost appeared to be made of dew and mist, its every movement, every breath, courting a graceful dance with the bank of haze surrounding it.

  “Hand me the camera. Slowly. I’m going to try to get a picture of it,” Sam whispered.

  Ethan reached for the camera in mini-movements as if he were a set of still pictures taken one after another, trying not to startle the animal. But as he placed the camera in Sam’s outstretched hand, the buck turned to walk back into the mist. It didn’t run or leap away. In fact, it turned back to look Sam in the eyes, seemingly as if he wanted him to follow.

  Follow they did, one tentative step after another until they were finally in a clearing of trees nearer the river. They could hear the gurgling waters, though at this part of the forest, the riverbed hid behind many berry bushes for at least half a mile. The deer stood and began nibbling among the leaves just as if he were all alone. Sam got into a good position, lining the great white deer in the sights of his camera, clicking the shutter button, turning the film crank, and clicking again. He took several photos before the fog began to thicken and it became impossible to see the white deer in its camouflage.

  “We can go home, now, Ethan. We got what we came for. And, I believe, what we were meant to see.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Long ago, the Native Americans believed the white deer was a good omen, a symbol of change and good things to come. I saw one in the mountains last year just before you found me and just before we met Sophie. And now we saw one again today. So maybe you were right after all.”

  Ethan smiled to himself as they walked in sacred silence back to the cabin.

  23

  A STILL HEART

  S am and Ethan left the cabin while it was still light enough to see the road to Jesse’s Hollow. In the shadowed starlight now freed from the fog as winter stabbed the air, they made their way to the shed at Z’s house. Ethan didn’t want to wait to develop the pictures.

  It was cold in the little shed. Sam wished he would have started a fire inside the house to warm it for when they went inside. But he was now involved in developing the pictures and didn’t want to stop until the task was complete. He moved the paper from the chemicals to the fixer to the water, the liquid cold on his fingers as he watched the image start to slowly appear in the dim light. His mind wandered in the silence, finding dark and hidden paths that frightened him to consider. Paths that led to terrible endings where Sophie or Gemma was dead, or both.

  “What are you thinking about, Sam?” Ethan startled him out of his thoughts.

  “Huh? Oh, I was just thinking about shifting focus, I guess.”

  “Shifting focus?”

  “Yes. You know, when you take a photograph, depending on where your focus is, sometimes what’s in the foreground is in perfect clarity, and sometimes it’s what’s in the background. Regardless, though, once you find your focus, everything else fades away.”

  “Do the pictures always show you the truth, Sam?”

  “Not always. The truth is different, depending on who’s looking at it and where their focus is. Sometimes pictures show you things you never thought were there. Sometimes they show you only what you wanted to see.”

  “You say ‘sometimes’ a lot.”

  “I guess that’s because things always change. Very little in this life is sure. Now let’s see what these photos have to tell us.”

  Sam hung the dripping pieces of paper up on a line to let them dry.

  He picked up his pack to go into the house to make a fire, but his copy of Great Expectations fell out on the dirt floor of the shed, splayed on the ground like a bird with wings outstretched. Picking it up and brushing the dirt from its leaves, he noticed a page dog-eared. It was not his habit to mark pages that way, so he turned to look at the page.

  Scanning the page, he saw a few lines underlined: Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before—more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle. In the margin, he recognized in Sophie’s handwriting a short note: I am more grateful and more gentle because of you.

  “Oh, Sophie,” he whispered, sitting down on the one short wooden bench in the shed. There was dust on the floor and on all the bottles and equipment in the shed. In the diffused light from the lantern, it was hard for him to focus his vision. Or maybe it was the tears in his eyes.

  “What is it, Sam?” Ethan’s hand was on his shoulder, ever mindful of Sam’s well-being.

  “I just miss her, boy. I wish I knew where to find her.”

  “Should we go look for her and Gemma?”r />
  “Gemma would kill me if she knew. Sophie too, probably. And they would tell me they can take care of themselves.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to look for them.”

  “Then that’s what we should do.”

  “You’re right, boy. If they’re not back by tomorrow, we’ll go after them.”

  Ethan picked up the book lying loosely in Sam’s open hands. “Why do you love this particular book so much?”

  Sam wiped his hands over his face, putting his dark thoughts away for later. “It’s a study of what it means to be human. And because it’s equal parts good and evil, as I imagine the world to be.”

  “Seems like there’s more evil in the world than good.”

  “That’s here. The result of the prison we’re living in. But if there’s more evil here, that means there must be more good somewhere else in the world.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s just a feeling, a sense, like an animal sniffing the air. There’s more good out there, son. We just have to find it.”

  “Well, I guess we found Sophie once, so that’s a start.”

  “So it is.”

  Outside the shed, moonlight cut through the trees in sharp shafts of reflected and filtered light. Some aspects of the trees and ground revealed, some hidden. Focus and light, Sam thought. So much can change with focus and light.

  * * * * *

  Morning sun shone across the barren yard, its ugliness covered by a fresh but thin layer of snow. The ice crystals reflecting and magnifying the sun made Zacharias feel surrounded in light, yet not warmed by it. Even the warmth of the horse beneath him wasn’t enough to soothe the chill in his bones. One of the villagers who brought him the message he was delivering had also allowed him to use one of the Corsairs’ stolen horses so he could be quick. But he walked the horse slowly toward Gemma’s house. The animal blew out plumes of visible breath in the cold morning air. The metal of halter and reins clinking and echoing around him. Its hooves crunched in the snow. Every sound like fingernails on chalkboard in the old man’s ears.

  Zacharias found himself hoping she wouldn’t be there. They hadn’t heard anything from her or Sophie since they’d gone to the lumber mill. But his loyalty to Gemma made Zacharias take the trip to her house to tell her the news he bore on his weary shoulders. He kept thinking it would be better, though, if she were still out on her mission with Sophie.

  He dismounted and dragged himself up the slick porch steps. His knobby knuckles rapped on the door, five quick taps. He turned away from the door, surveying the front yard. No other footsteps in the snow besides his. Maybe she wasn’t back yet. His boot was down the second step when he heard the door open behind him.

  “Z? What are you doing here?” Gemma’s voice was weary, hoarse with sleep.

  “I didn’t think you’d be back,” he said over his shoulder, taking a deep breath before he turned to face her.

  “Just got back the middle of last night. So why are you here if you didn’t think I’d be here?”

  “I had to check.”

  Gemma wrapped her arms around herself against the cold. She hadn’t even changed her clothes when she got home. Just fell asleep on the couch, not wanting to wake Kyle. “I can tell something’s the matter, Z. Please just tell me what it is. Is it Sam? Did something happen to him?”

  “No, Sam is fine. He’s at the cabin with . . . He’s at the cabin.”

  “Then what? My God, you’re white as a sheet.”

  “I have to tell you something.”

  “Come inside. Sit down. I’ll make some coffee.”

  “No. Gemma.” Another breath to steady his voice. “Gemma, I don’t know how to . . .”

  “Just say it.”

  “A young girl has been found in the woods.”

  Gemma’s eyes asked the question she couldn’t voice.

  “We aren’t sure who it is yet. But Daisy has been missing since last night.”

  Gemma ran as if she was physically pulled from the porch.

  “Gemma! Gemma, wait!” he called after her. But she was gone.

  She didn’t feel the ground under her feet or the dry branches lashing her legs, arms, and face. She ran almost without breath, no sense of time. All the way to where a small group was gathered. They parted for her as the wind parts the leaves in the trees. A form lay motionless on the dank earth, too cold to receive her. She had known as soon as Zacharias had said the words. Daisy.

  Gemma knelt beside the girl whose head bore the wound of the jagged rock beside her. Blood, melted snow, and mud beneath her. Her white apron stained with berries.

  “A fall, must have been,” the people whispered.

  Gemma gently lifted Daisy’s head and shoulders, holding her in her lap. She softly pulled leaves and dead grass out of the girl’s hair, piece by piece. Then slowly pushed her blonde hair out of her face. Gemma began to rock gently as she would have rocked her children, yet unborn.

  No one neared her, no one moved, but held a circle around her. Gemma’s beating heart pressed against the still one in her arms. What little space there was between them began to pull an almost feral whimper from her chest, her heart unwinding in a long string of sound. Rocking, unable to think or speak or hear anything but the rush of blood in her own ears, Gemma’s cry grew into a wail which would never leave the ears of the circle of witnesses.

  Zacharias had ridden up in time to hear the scream and tried to hold Gemma, his adopted daughter, and comfort her as he used to. But she would not allow him to touch her.

  “Where were you?” she whispered hoarsely. “How did she end up out here in the woods alone? Why weren’t you with her?” Her voice broke, and the cries continued unbidden. She was not pushing out her screams, they were being wrenched from her.

  Zacharias retreated as if he’d been struck. He knew her pain was responsible for her words. But he also knew the truth that lay behind them. He had been responsible for the loss of another child. And that poisoned truth bled into his veins, into his very breath, into the tears on his face.

  After what seemed like hours, the villagers brought Kyle to Gemma. Some wondered if they should try to get a tranquilizing medicine from the Council of Doctors. But Kyle, with tears in his own eyes, said he would tend to her. He gently removed the stricken Daisy from Gemma’s arms to be buried by the others, then helped his wife, leading her like a child through the trees and back to their home.

  With stooped shoulders, Zacharias returned to the cabin. When Jesse saw him walking up the path, she wondered how it was possible he had aged ten years in a couple of hours.

  * * * * *

  Mark Goodson was in command of a regiment of one thousand Corsairs. But standing at attention before him in a small clearing just west of the Border were his personal security force, a company of one hundred and fifty men under the command of his Lieutenant Colonel Taylor.

  Colonel Taylor stood at his elbow as Mark hesitated. “The men are ready for you, sir.”

  “Yes, Taylor, I know.”

  “Is everything alright, sir?”

  “Nothing is alright, Taylor. Not a damn thing.”

  Mark stepped forward to address his men, wondering for the thousandth time if he was doing the right thing, coming again to the inevitable conclusion that there was nothing else to be done.

  “As I speak to you, men, General Drape is instructing the Fire Brigade of Corsairs to set fire to the Forbidden Grounds.” He saw the ripple his words cast over the company, though they all remained at attention as they’d been trained to do. “I know this comes as a surprise to you. But this is only the first step of his final plan, which I have learned is to exterminate everyone within the borders of this prison. He does this of his own accord without the sanction of the rest of the Triumvirate. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never thought of myself as an assassin or an executioner. But that is what we’ve all become over the years under the command of General Drape. And I say no m
ore!”

  Another ripple through the group.

  “I make a vow here and now to stop him, whatever the cost. You are my most trusted soldiers. And I hold you in the highest esteem. I’ve learned to rely on you. So I invite you all to join me in this endeavor. However, those of you who want to leave may leave without repercussion. If you stay, you need to know from this moment on, we are no longer Corsairs.” His voice was growing in intensity with each word. “From now on, we are rebels! So, what say you?”

  After a few moments of loud silence, a sergeant stepped out from the center of the group. “If I may, sir?”

  “You may speak, Sergeant.”

  “I say better a rebel with you than a Corsair with General Drape.”

  The men behind him cheered in unison.

  “Very well, then,” Mark responded. “We’ll have to change these uniforms. Taylor, bring out the coats.” Colonel Taylor, with the help of some of the other men, started unloading citizen-gray coats taken from the Government Office.

  “Take off your army blue and put these on.”

  The sleeves just under the shoulders of each of the coats had been marked with a thick streak of black ash to distinguish them from the other citizens. Mark needed to know who his men were. He was more relieved than he could express that they’d all decided to stay with him. He hadn’t been altogether sure how they would protect themselves from Simeon if one of the soldiers had decided to go back. Now they at least had a chance.

  The men stood again before Mark in their new uniforms, looking brighter in their ashed gray than they had in the bright-blue Corsair uniforms.

  “Alright, soldiers. We’ll spread ourselves out along the Border at the guard stations. Five per station. You will relieve the current guards of their posts by whatever means necessary. Your primary objective after that is to prevent fire in the Forbidden Grounds, preferably before it starts. That will require you to stop the Fire Brigade from getting through. They will be coming down from the north, from the Wash District. Take plenty of ammunition and use the guard stations to your advantage. Don’t come out in the open unless you absolutely have to. Your secondary objective will be to allow the rebels and citizens to pass as they need to across the Border from either side. The Fire Brigade will be attempting to trap people within the Forbidden Grounds before they set the fires. We can’t allow this to happen. Understood?”