Repatriate Protocol Box Set 3

by Kelli Kimble

  I lifted us both into the air, and we swept towards the trees. The driving rain made looking for shelter nearly impossible out in the open field, but once we were in the woods, the trees filtered it enough to feel more tolerable.

  I kept a tight hold on Gayle’s hand — even though I didn’t need to touch her to keep her in the air. I just felt better that way. She squeezed my fingers, and I knew she felt better, too.

  We moved through the trees, towards higher ground. I didn’t want to be caught in any more floods. I scanned the forest floor, looking for a place we might be able to get even a tiny amount of shelter.

  It was Gayle who found a good spot. There, she projected to me.

  I glanced at her. She was pointing towards a tree that had half-fallen but hadn’t reached the ground. It was propped up at an angle by the surrounding trees. Perfect, I said. Good eye. I brought my own feet to the ground first so that I could check it out.

  The tree was big and had a wide trunk. It had tipped to the side so that the roots were shooting up into the air in a strange, web-like pattern. I crouched and felt underneath the trunk. Miraculously, it was dry. I started grabbing branches to lean against one side of the trunk, hoping to make a spot under the tree that would be somewhat sheltered from the wind.

  Gayle watched, sometimes pointing out branches I could use or giving me verbal guidance and encouragement. She had to be freezing-cold — on top of the pain from her leg as it hung in the air — but she didn’t complain at all. I decided right then and there — while watching her keep a stiff upper lip — that I needed to be more positive. I was going to get us through this, and a bad attitude would get us nowhere.

  When I’d finished making something that looked like a wall, I mentally gathered loads of leaves and pushed them against the outside of the branches, packing them in as tightly as I could. They smelled like wet dirt and slugs. Once the wall looked as solid as I thought I could get it, I went around to the other side and underneath the trunk, then pushed the dry leaves against the inside of the shelter wall.

  A family of mice was snuggled up where the trunk met the ground, and they grumbled at me. I tried to explain that we meant no harm, but they scampered under the leaves, and I felt them moving away.

  I checked to make sure there wasn’t anything else we should be worried about. There was a snake sleeping nearby, but I hadn’t disturbed it yet. I decided maybe it was best to leave it alone and went back to trying to make our hidey-hole accommodating.

  Finally satisfied I had made a safe spot for Gayle, I brought her down from the air and guided her under the log, then gently set her down so that her entire body was sheltered, with the bedroll under her. I crawled in beside her and snuggled against her good side. Then, I drew some of the dry leaves over us to give us as much cover as possible.

  “I sure hope it stops raining soon,” Gayle said.

  “Me, too.”

  “I know this hasn’t been easy, Nim. I want you to know I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. When you were under the water . . . I’ve never felt anything as horrible as that. I know I’m not your mom, and I could never replace her. But, I . . . you’re like the daughter I never had.”

  I blinked back tears and squeezed the arm she had around me. “That’s nice, Gayle. Any girl would be lucky to have you as a mom.” I turned my head to look up at her in the darkness. Her eyes were shining with tears. “How come you don’t have any kids?”

  She shrugged. “The doctors said Tabby’s cancer was hereditary. That either of us could pass it to our children. Anyway, I never met someone I wanted to have a family with.”

  I fell silent. It seemed to me like Gayle’s obsession with Tabby was more likely to be the culprit than not having met someone. But who was I to pretend circumstances didn’t shape a person?

  “I suppose now, we’ll never find them,” she said. “Without the tablet, you won’t be able to connect with Silver anymore.”

  “I think we know enough,” I said. “When the rain stops, I’m going to look for our things, though. I only have to follow the stream, and something will have washed up somewhere.”

  She squeezed me. “You’re a good girl, Nimisila. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different.”

  If only I believed it myself.

  Chapter 5

  The next day dawned, bright and cheery. The air smelled scrubbed clean, the birds were singing, and both of us were alive. I opened my eyes and narrowly missed hitting my head on the log above us as I shot into a sitting position. In all the excitement the night before, I’d neglected my wrist — but this morning, it wasn’t going to wait.

  Gayle pulled my sleeve up to look at it. “Well, I really can’t tell if it’s broken or not. Can you move your fingers?”

  I flexed my fingers, but it sent white-hot pain shooting up my arm and into my neck.

  She sighed. “I think the best we can do is wrap it. Maybe that will keep swelling down and give you some stability. Without that tablet, I don’t know what to do.”

  “We don’t have anything to wrap it with,” I said. “Maybe I can fashion something from some grass, or a vine . . .” I trailed off when I heard the tear of fabric. She’d torn off the pant leg hanging loose around her broken leg.

  “We’ll use this,” she said.

  “But that was keeping your injury warm,” I said, “and without a shelter, that’s really important.”

  “Too late now. Give me your wrist.” She tore the fabric into two long strips, rolling one up and putting it into her coat pocket.

  I held my hand out to her.

  “Maybe you’d better lie down,” she said. “I have a feeling this isn’t going to feel good.” She reached behind her and broke off a twig, sticking out of the shelter wall I’d built the night before. “Uh, put this in your mouth. You can bite down on it. For the pain.”

  “Wait, what? How much do you think–”

  But I didn’t get the chance to finish my question. She shoved the twig in my mouth so that it stuck out on either side, like a dog bone. Then, she started wrapping. The pain was terrible, but then I realized I didn’t have to be at home for this; I could leave my body and watch from afar. I inhaled, then drifted up and out, feeling the familiar tension against my belly button. I moved to sit in a tree above, looking down at us.

  Gayle finished wrapping and tied off the end. She set my wrist on my chest, and — apparently, thinking I’d lost consciousness — she swept back my hair and patted my cheek.

  I’m not there, I said to her. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll wait up here for a while. It’s a pretty view.

  Gayle laughed. When you come back, I want to make sure it isn’t too tight. Remember how the tablet said something about checking for circulation?

  Right, I said. I relaxed my stomach, allowing the pull to snap me back into my body. I opened my eyes. “S’ not so bad,” I said.

  “Can you wiggle your fingers still? Can you feel it when I touch them?” She waited for me to move each one, then she tapped each finger with hers. “Good. That looks good. I guess there isn’t much else we can do,” she said. “I wish we had some water. Or something to eat.”

  “Water, I think I can do,” I said. “We’re not far from where I found water before. I bet there’s an even bigger supply there now. But first, I want to build a fire. If I get lost, I can hopefully follow the smoke back to you.”

  I wriggled out from under the log, then cleared the ground of leaves and debris a good six feet from our shelter. I rolled some rocks into a circle, and then used some of the dry leaves from underneath the log to start a fire.

  Gayle scooted out from under the log and came over to the fire. “This is great,” she said. “I didn’t even realize how cold I was until now.” She took off her coat and held it close to the fire.

  “Not so close,” I warned. “We don’t need that catching fire.”

  She laughed. “No, we certainly don’t. You go on, now; see if you can find water. I’ll be fine.”
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  I tapped my forehead. “Call me if you need me.”

  Right, she said.

  I walked away from the log, looking back now and then to make sure I could still see the smoke rising. The little pond was further away than I thought, but I found it.

  Actually, I smelled it first. The cat’s body was still nearby. Something had gotten into it, and the innards were spilled out onto the forest floor. Flies buzzed around. I waved them away as I wrinkled my nose at the smell.

  The cat was a reminder we weren’t alone, and it made me nervous to have left Gayle by herself at camp. I should have projected myself here instead and kept my physical body there, so she could snap me back, if necessary. But it was too late now; I was here, and she was there.

  I passed the cat and found the pond was larger than before, just as I’d expected. I knelt beside it and scooped water up to my face, drinking handfuls of it.

  But, how to get it back to Gayle?

  I looked around. I needed to make a bowl or bucket. But I also didn’t have time to sit there, playing arts and crafts. I spotted a plant on the other side of the pond with big leaves. Maybe I could use one to line my hands, effectively allowing me to become a watertight vessel.

  I floated over to them and picked the largest one I could find. A terrible smell wafted up to me. Ugh. Stinkweed. I reminded myself it wasn’t toxic, only stinky, and it was the best I could do. Gayle was thirsty and alone, and I needed to get back. I found the leaf had a natural curl to it, which made it settle in my cupped hands particularly well upside-down. I floated over the pond, dunked my hands into it, and filled them to the brim.

  I rose over the trees, spotted the smoke, and returned to the log and Gayle. I’d only spilled maybe half of it. “Okay, this is the best I could do at the moment,” I said. I held my hands up to her lips and tipped them so that she could drink from the leaf.

  She gulped it down without hesitating, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “That felt great,” she said. “But it smells bad.”

  I dropped the soggy leaf into the fire. “Stinkweed,” I said.

  Gayle pulled a face. “Good thinking, but yuck.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “I didn’t know how else to bring it back. I’m going to bring you another cup. Then, I’m going to look for our things. I’m sure we can salvage something.”

  Gayle smiled and nodded — even though I could see she didn’t believe I’d find anything.

  But we had to find something. It couldn’t have all just disappeared.

  I sat next to her by the fire. “Remember: Just tap me if you need me,” I said.

  I closed my eyes and returned to the water hole. This time, I wasn’t distracted by the big cat or the lack of a container; I went straight for a stinkweed leaf, gathered a handful of water, and returned to my body with the leaf of water floating above us.

  While I was gone, Gayle had arranged a group of five rocks into a circle, with a hollow about the size of my fist in the center. She pointed me to it. “I’ll drink a little now, but maybe this can save some for later?” She took the leaf from my mental hands, spilling only a few drops. She drank a few sips, and then settled the leaf into the center of the rocks. Again, some of it spilled out, but most of it was kept in the leaf for later. “Our first pot,” she said, smiling.

  “Great,” I said. “I’m going to go and see what I can find.”

  While making minor adjustments to the leaf’s position, she nodded. “Okay.”

  I settled into myself, and then drifted up and away again. I glanced down at us. I was sitting cross-legged with my head bowed. Gayle looked upward and waved in no specific direction. It gave me pause; was she able to see me, just as the cat could?

  There were more important things to worry about, though, so I moved on. I drifted to the area where the shelter had been. I didn’t expect anything to be left there, but it seemed the best starting point. The stony areas were newly-buried in a layer of silt and sand, making the exact original position of the shelter impossible to find. Neither the fire ring nor any of our things were where I thought we might have been camped.

  A trickle of water was still moving through the streambed, and I followed it away from our camping area. Deposits of dirt and branches clumped together along the sides, where the water had receded. I was going through each clump, breaking it up with my mind, looking for anything in it that wasn’t natural. I quickly found they contained nothing of interest, and I moved on.

  I spent a few hours looking, poking through the piles and rolling large rocks out of the way. I found nothing — not even shreds of the bright yellow shelter, which should have been easy to find.

  I returned to my body emptyhanded. At first, I didn’t move. I didn’t know what to say to Gayle. Without any supplies at all . . . we were so exposed to the elements. I resolved to try again, but first, I wanted to check on her. I opened my eyes, but she wasn’t next to me anymore. I jumped to my feet in one swift motion. “Gayle?” My eyes scanned the area. I spotted a foot sticking out from under the log, and I exhaled. She was in the shelter.

  “Yes?” she answered.

  “I – I just wondered where you were. I thought you’d still be sitting here.”

  “You were gone for so long. I just wanted to lie down for a bit. Did you find anything?” Her voice rose in a hopeful lilt.

  “Um, no. Not yet. I just wanted to check and see if you needed anything, before I went looking some more. How’re you doing?”

  “Hungry but just fine.”

  My own stomach growled in response. How had I missed hunger cues two days in a row? “Right. Me, too. I’ll see what I can get going.”

  “Sure. You catch it, and I’ll prep it, if you want to go off searching again.”

  I searched around us for something and shortly found a squirrel. I caught it and returned it to the campfire. “It’s right here,” I said. “By the water pot.”

  “Great. You go on. I’m fine.”

  I watched her for a moment, struggling to scoot out of the shelter to come back to the fire.

  I needed to try harder. For her.

  I inhaled and moved out of my body. This time, I flew rapidly over the trees, until I came to the area I’d stopped searching before. The streambed flowed along the base of the steep hill for some time, and then the hill steepened until it became a cliff. The stream hugged the cliff for maybe half a mile more, and then suddenly turned and flowed perpendicular to the cliff, towards a lower elevation.

  I was pushing through piles of debris where the water flowed away from the cliff when I finally found something of value: Not one of our possessions, but shelter.

  There was a crack in the cliff, maybe four feet from the ground, just wide enough for two people to enter, shoulder-to-shoulder. I drifted up and into the crack. It widened out to maybe 10 feet before tapering off again to a solid wall.

  I felt for anything alive, but there wasn’t. I illuminated the corners, the floor, the ceiling, and the walls. There was nothing to indicate the cave was occupied by anything other than bugs.

  Excellent. This would be far better than the log, as far as shelter went. My mood lifted, and I decided to return to camp and tell Gayle.

  We had a temporary place to call home.

  Chapter 6

  When I got back to camp, Gayle plied me with squirrel meat and some berries she’d found in the underbrush nearby. We both recognized them as something we’d eaten before, but I was wary of eating them. Without the tablet we didn’t have a good way to recognize what was safe to eat — or what to do if we ate something that wasn’t. Still, we were hungry, and it’d been safe before, so we ate it.

  I waited until we’d finished eating before I told her what I’d found. “Guess what?” I said.

  “You found the tablet?” she asked. She leaned forward, and her eyes were bright and shiny.

  “Uh, no. Sorry. Didn’t mean to get your hopes up. I didn’t find any of our things. But I did find something useful. I found
a place where we could take shelter. In a cliff face, not far from here, I found a cave.”

  I waited for her to bubble over with enthusiasm, or maybe to smile, or . . . well, something.

  But instead, her shoulders drooped, and she dropped her eyes to the ground. “Oh,” she said.

  “This is good news, Gayle,” I said. I smiled and clenched my hands together. “We’ll be far safer there than we are here. We won’t be exposed to the elements, and we’ll be near water. Those are all good things for your recuperation.”

  “Recuperation?”

  “Yeah, you know. While we wait for your leg to mend?”

  She looked at me like there were bugs smashed on my face.

  “Gayle?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you all right? I just said we’d have a place to stay while we wait for your leg to get better.”

  “That’s great,” she said flatly.

  “It doesn’t sound like you think it’s great,” I said. This was going against my newfound effort to stay positive. I forced my lower lip to stay in place, instead of jutting it out in a pout.

  “I don’t think we should stay here,” she said. She looked into the canopy above us. “Actually, I don’t think you should stay here. I want you to go on without me.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I can’t travel this way.”

  “I know. That’s why we’re going to hole up in that cave. We’ll stay there until your leg is better. Then, we’ll move on. To the coast.”

  “We’re wasting time. Any day now could be Tabby’s last, and you haven’t found her.”

  “It doesn’t matter if I find her,” I said. “She doesn’t even know me. We’re finding her for you.”

  Gayle fell silent. She picked at the splint branch on the outside of her leg.

  “I’m going to take you there. You’ll see; it’s so much better than this spot. You’ll feel better when you see it.”

  She nodded — though it didn’t seem like she agreed.

  I kicked some dirt over the fire and imagined my hands smothering it with pressure. It sizzled and foundered until it was nothing more than smoke. I grabbed the sleeping bag out from under the log and handed it to Gayle. “You want me to help you stand?” I asked.