She quickly crouched back down, realizing that someone else had come into his checkpoint.
“No one,” Hunter quickly recovered. “Did I say…” he shook his head and looked down to his ledger. “Uh, it’s Vander, right?” he asked, finding the man’s name on the list.
Once he waved the man through, he finally looked down to where Norabel was hidden. She stared back up at him, her face framed by the two fruit skewers, and suddenly she couldn’t help herself; she started laughing. It was a silent kind of laughter, but her back shook, and the fruit in her hands bobbed up and down. Relief seemed to wash over Hunter’s face as well, and he joined in on her laughter.
“Is something funny?” a voiced asked above her head.
Norabel tried to quickly bite down on her tongue to stop from laughing.
“Yes,” Hunter told the villager, still chuckling. “Only I can’t tell you what it is.”
For the next few minutes, Hunter waved through villager after villager as they excitedly passed through his station, eager to get to the waiting festival beyond. Norabel thought she might be stuck there for an hour, squished in between the warm cedar walls, when Hunter suddenly turned and looked down at her.
“You okay down there?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said with a smile. She started to raise a fruit skewer up to him, saying, “I was wondering if…oh!” She gave a small exclamation, realizing that she couldn’t extend herself too far because Hunter was stepping on her dress.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said, quickly moving his foot.
“That’s alright.” She tried to start over again, saying, “I was wondering if you’d like to share a fruit skewer with me.”
A smile spread on his face as he stared down at her, and she felt somehow lighter for it.
“What—now?” he asked, amused. He looked around to make sure no one else was coming.
“Well, if you have nothing better to do,” she joked, giving him a shrug of her shoulders. “Because I figured I might sit around here for a bit longer. It is pretty comfy down here.”
“Really?” he asked, raising his eyebrows in laughter.
“Oh yeah,” she assured him. She lowered one of the skewers so that the top fruit was just below her lips, and popped it in her mouth. “See?” she said around the berry, holding up his skewer for him to take.
Hunter lowered his hand and grabbed the bottom of the wooden skewer so that half of his hand was covering hers. Instead of accepting it right away, he kept his hand on hers, staring down at her. Norabel cocked her head and stared back, wondering if he was challenging her to a staring contest. After a few seconds, she felt her face starting to heat under his gaze, and looked away.
“Norabel,” Hunter said, saying her name in such a way that it caused her to suppress a shiver. She looked back up to him, and he continued. “I’ve never met someone as kind as you.”
He finally took the skewer from her, but then reached for her hand with his other, pulling her up to her feet. Due to the small space, Norabel found herself standing very close to him. So close, in fact, that she didn’t have the courage to look up in his face, for it was so near to her own.
“You,” he whispered out, his breath tickling the skin on her face.
Norabel stopped breathing, wondering what he was going to say.
“You should probably go now.”
Her eyes lifted to his at that, and she felt a heavy wave of disappointment fall over her.
“I don’t want you to get in trouble,” he said, taking a step back from her. “In case someone sees you.”
She nodded and looked down to her boots. “Yeah. That’s probably best.”
She stepped past him and towards the wall she had originally jumped over, when he called her back.
“Wait,” he said, reaching out for her arm. “Don’t you know it’s illegal to cross the wall without my permission?”
Norabel paused in confusion, wondering what he meant. He then stepped up beside her and bent down, sliding his arm under the bend of her knees. Her legs curled, somehow knowing how to respond better than her brain did, and her hands reached up to wrap around his neck as if on instinct as well. She didn’t know where to look as Hunter carried her in his arms and walked her over to the wall.
When his shoes were right at the base of the fence, he began to lower her down so that her feet gently touched the ground. Spinning back to him, she found that they were standing on opposite sides of the wall.
“Thank you,” she told him, not sure what else to say. She looked down at her hands and was surprised to see the fruit skewer still there. Had she really still held onto it when she linked her arms around his neck!
“It was no trouble,” he responded softly. He looked down to the wall between them, and then back to her face, saying, “Goodbye Norabel.”
As he left to return to his station, she realized that there was something about the way he said goodbye that made her feel so acutely sad. Hunter had always been so happy. In fact, he always seemed to be smiling more than anyone else she met. Yet, after all that time, she finally glimpsed at his sadness. Now she wondered if it had been hidden underneath this whole time.
Pointing her feet away from the wall, she spun back around and let the fruit skewer fall to her side. Up ahead, she spotted a little girl that she knew, and ended up giving the berries to her. She didn’t feel much like eating fruit anymore.
Chapter 10
At nine o’clock, the main attraction of the summer festival was set to start. Most of Breccan travelled to the inner sector of the village in order to see it. The Pax hired dancers to perform on a stage they had set up in the village square. The square itself was located just in front of the stronghold, and the red and black colors of the Pax flag waved in a circle around the whole affair like sentinels keeping watch.
The reason that people came to see this performance was not so much that they enjoyed dancing, but because of what the dancers were given. In the back of their dresses, there was a pouch filled with Snapper. However, unlike normal Snapper that was just used for practical purposes, this Snapper had been colored. As the dancers moved, they would send sparks of colored fire cascading through the air, each dancer holding a different hue so that the stage would be alight in a rainbow of color.
As Norabel waited in the crowd, she was almost sad that she and her team were planning on crashing the show. After the dance started, the plan was for Ashlin to come on stage, carting a known leacher up with her. Then she would list off to the villagers every act of greed he had committed against them.
She was apprehensive about their plan, but her involvement in the whole thing was actually quite small. They were planning on setting each of the Pax flags on fire before Ashlin came on. Logan had doused them lightly in a catching agent the night before, and had run a small line down the wooden flag pole. All Norabel had to do was use a little Snapper to ignite it, sending the fire soaring upwards until it caught the flag on fire. It sounded simple enough, yet her nerves were frayed just at the thought of it.
Taking a glance behind her, she tried to make out her shadow in the torchlight and bustling crowd. Are you there? she silently asked her Guardian Albatross. She shook her head at her foolishness. Of course you are. She gripped her hands behind her back, imagining that her guardian was holding onto her hand. Maybe you could stay a little closer…just for tonight?
Something bumped into her back, and for a small, fleeting moment, she thought it might have been a sign from her guardian. But, turning around, she saw that it was only a man moving through the crowd. That wasn’t you, by any chance? She gulped and felt her stomach churn. Grandpa did say you had a sense of humor.
It was still a little before nine when she spotted Logan weaving his way through the crowd to where she was standing by her assigned flag.
“You okay?” he whispered to her, standing close so no one could overhear them.
“I’ve been better,” she admitted, feeling a cold hard pit twis
ting and spreading at the bottom of her stomach.
“Me too,” he admitted. “I’m a little concerned about the lack of Pax presence here. Usually the village square is infested with the pox.”
Her mind went back to what she had overheard when she was hiding inside of Hunter’s checkpoint. She hadn’t meant to eaves-drop, but she had heard what his uncle had said all the same.
“I think they’re concentrating their presence at the village perimeters,” she whispered.
Logan looked down at her in surprise. “How’d you know that?”
Suddenly she felt guilty for having told him; almost as if she had been using Hunter for information.
Upon seeing her reaction, a knowing look crossed Logan’s features. “Let me guess. A Pax official told you. The same one that told you about there being no transfers in Breccan for the past two years.”
Norabel’s shoulders drooped in defeat. “You won’t tell Mason, will you?”
He shook his head. “No. I won’t tell him.”
She twisted her fingers together in apprehension, causing her skin to turn pink in the process. To her side, she could smell the catching agent that Logan had dripped down the pole. It was musky and bitter, and she was sure the people around her could smell it too.
“You don’t think we’ll get…” she started to ask.
“No,” he replied quickly. “I’m sure everything will work out fine.”
“To be honest, I’m not quite sure what we’re getting ourselves into.”
Logan let out a nervous laugh and ran a hand down his hair. “Yeah. The things we do for my brother, right?”
Norabel gave him a sad smile. “You should get back to your post.”
He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her an encouraging shake. “Good luck.”
She nodded. “You too.” He took a step away from her, and she called out, “Hey. I’ll see you on the other side.”
Logan tipped a hand to his head in salute before walking away and disappearing into the crowd.
Norabel felt colder when he had gone. The thought suddenly occurred to her that they were about to commit treason there that night. Of course, they had been doing that each time they stole back a Pax basket, but somehow this seemed different. This was treason inside the village, right in front of the Pax stronghold. And that thought left a coldness in her that she could not shake off.
When the bells in the stronghold chimed, signaling nine o’clock, she dug her fingers into her palm to make sure that she was ready and alert. The crowd of villagers cheered as five girls dressed in silk took the stage at the far end of the square. There was a wooden back drop behind them, and on it a large Pax flag had been pinned, as if to remind the people that it was Amias that made this show possible. On the stage, the girls stood still, waiting for the music to start. To the side, hidden in the shadows, a man placed a wooden lute to his lips and started to play a song. When the first of the notes reached their ears, the girls sprang into life, gracefully leaping about the stage while showers of shimmering light danced around them.
The people standing around Norabel jittered in excitement and awe. There was a little girl standing nearby who couldn’t take her wide eyes off the stage. The dance was such a spectacle of wonder in the eyes of a little girl. Even Norabel remembered being captivated by it the first time she saw it…and every time since.
The dancers swirled and twirled around for a few more mesmerizing moments, when all at once the happy and wondrous attitude drained from the stage. A loud sizzling noise ignited the air, and the large Pax flag on stage erupted in bright red fire. The sight sent such a shiver through Norabel that she almost forgot that it had been her signal.
Quickly digging her hand into her coin pouch, she took out a pinch of Snapper that was inside. Her fingers were so numbed with cold apprehension that they almost lost their grip. Trying to hide her hand from the view of those around her, she snapped her fingers and cast the spark at the wooden flag pole standing next to her. The sizzling rang out through the night air again, not just on her flag pole, but on all four of the posts around the square. A moment later, the flags caught fire and waved like angry beasts in the wind.
Screams of terror shook the crowd. The music had ceased, and the dancers fled from the stage, a few stray embers of colored light following after them like the tail of a falling star. Mothers hugged their children to their chests, and everywhere eyes darted around, waiting for the next attack to fall.
Then, from the stage, a hooded figure appeared, seeming to have come from nowhere. It was a dark shape against a raging red fire. There were shouts of alarm, and people pointed up to it, drawing everyone’s attention back to the stage.
Even though Norabel knew it was only Ashlin underneath, the sight was still a frightening one. She reminded herself that this was all for a good cause. To help take down the Pax. The thing responsible for killing her grandfather, burning her home, and separating her family. The sight before her should fill her with a sense of empowerment, yet she couldn’t keep the fear from rising up in the pit of her stomach.
Amidst the panicked shouts and frightened outcries of the villagers, a voice rose above it all. “People of Galerance!” Ashlin bellowed out. Her voice was like a dagger in the night, commanding and straight. At once, the commotion of the crowd died down to a hush. No one dared speak over the voice coming from the hooded specter on stage.
“People of Breccan,” she continued. “You do not have to be afraid anymore. The way out is coming. And we are only the beginning. We are a sign of the changing tides. The Pax has oppressed us all for far too long! It has murdered our parents, slaughtered our sons and daughters and bled our friends dry. Well their days are numbered!”
She raised her arm and pointed to the burning flag behind her.
“And it doesn’t matter how many men they throw at us! We are not afraid! I am not afraid.”
With this last affirmation, she swiped the hood from off her head, revealing her face for the whole village to see. There were gasps and murmurs of surprise and astonishment all around Norabel. No one could believe that she would expose her identity like that, knowing full well what the Pax could do.
Ashlin gave the crowd a few moments to study her face before taking a step forward. “My name is Ashlin,” she announced firmly. “And I am not afraid of the Pax.”
From the eastern side of the square, Norabel could hear someone shouting. Trying to lift her head above the people around her, she could just make out the stout and commanding outline of Chief Auberon. Terror shot through her body, and she was afraid that he might try to shoot Ashlin down.
However, instead of racing through the crowd and charging up on the stage to stop what was happening, he turned to those around him, shouting, “Quick! Help me go for water!”
Norabel was greatly surprised to see him actually leave the square. She thought he would be furious. In fact, she thought there would be a number of Pax officials trying to get on stage to stop her, but the square seemed almost devoid of any Pax presence. Aside from Auberon, there was no other official in sight.
Back on the stage, Ashlin announced, “I have a message for Guardian Amias and his Pax!”
Norabel gasped as she noticed a figure up on the stage’s roof. Others around her did the same. She wanted to cry out and warn Ashlin, but she knew she couldn’t without giving away her involvement.
Ashlin, seemingly unaware of what was going on above her, continued to speak her message, saying, “You have provoked the beast!” She paused, looking out among the faces of the crowd, before finishing, “And the beast has answered!”
At that moment, something dropped down onto the stage from above. People screamed and shrieked in terror, and for a moment Norabel thought that it was a Pax official come to take Ashlin down. But, as the scene was illuminated from the fire on the stage, she realized what it was that had dropped down from the roof.
A Pax Official hung down from a rope, his feet eerily hovering just a
few inches from the stage floor. The rope was wrapped around his middle, binding his arms to his sides. His mouth was gagged with a cloth, but he was not struggling to speak or get free of his bonds. In fact, it was hard to tell if the man was still alive. His face was swollen, bruised, and bloody, and his head hung limply to his side. Around his neck, a sign had been hung, bearing only one word: Leacher.
With the sudden appearance of the hanging leacher on stage, Ashlin seemed to disappear into thin air. At her absence, pandemonium broke out in the crowd. People hurried to get away from the village square, but they were shoving and pushing in all directions, each person needing to get to a different sector of the village, that Norabel found it was hard to even stand up.
As she struggled to keep her footing in the sea of writhing, frightened people, she couldn’t keep her arms from shaking at the spectacle of it all. What she had seen on stage—that had not been the plan. They didn’t tell her that they were going to beat a man nearly half to death! Yet, ignorant or not, she had still been a part of it, and she would have to live with that.
A few yards up ahead in the crowd, she heard a familiar voice shouting for people to stop. She tried hopping up in order to see, and realized that it was Aleta who was screaming. She was hunched over in the crowd, and didn’t seem to be able to stand up, for people were shoving and pushing and trampling all around her. Her arms were shielding her face, but she was still getting battered around.
“Aleta!” Norabel yelled out.
She tried to squeeze through the crowd towards her. It was hard work, but since she was so thin, she was able to slip through small openings easier than most people. Suffocation weighed in around her as she plunged into the thick of the crowd, but several harrowing moments later, she finally reached her friend.
“Aleta!” she called out, reaching down and pulling her to her feet.
“Oh, Norabel!” she exclaimed when she realized who it was. She quickly wrapped her arms around her in gratitude, and Norabel could feel her quivering in her arms.
Chasing Shadows (Saving Galerance, Book 1) Page 11