even said a word. We already knew."
"It's true," he told her, "whether you believe it or not."
"It can't be," she replied. "I would know, wouldn't I?"
"Sooner or later," he assented, nodding. "Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you yet, but I doubt it."
"It can't be," she shifted in her seat. Don't I have the wrinkles to prove it, she asked herself, convinced it was a fact.
"How old is your husband?" the Captain inquired, thinking 'of course the husband would never have reported her. He must have known for some time, but to continue to have such a beautiful woman, forever remaining as stunning as she was. No doubt someone else turned her in. A colleague, most likely, or a neighbor. A woman, in all probability, jealous for sure.'
"Fifty nine," she reported immediately.
"And how old was he when you married him?"
"Thirty," she replied. "We'll be celebrating our thirtieth anniversary this summer."
"And yet," Snig said, "your retinal scan shows your age to be thirty two, and exactly thirty two by the way. How would you explain that?"
"It's a mistake," Edeline said.
"Yet when you look in the mirror?"
"I work hard to stay in shape," she insisted. "I workout every day. I do yoga. I color my hair to keep out the gray."
"There is no gray," he informed her. "Never was, never will be. Miss Wills? Do you truly not know what you are?"
"I'm an ordinary person," she said. "I go to work every day. In fact, what time is it? I have a meeting at nine. It's very important."
"It will have to make do without you," said Snig with a sigh.
"But".
"It's no use, Miss Wills," he went on. "You do know the rules, I am sure. Everyone does. There's simply no place for those such as you in our world. Too much trouble, you know. It can't be allowed."
"Not the forest!" she exclaimed. She waited a moment for Snig to relent but when she saw that he didn't, she began finally to panic.
"No, please no," she begged him, but he only sat quietly. He knew what would come. The yelling, the crying, perhaps even a physical attack. He was old and decrepit. She could crumple him like paper if she chose. Anyone could, but his veneer of utter weakness was sufficient to deter most violence. In any event, officers were posted outside and would intervene at once if it were needed. Snig didn't worry. He would wait out the storm, but Edeline found she was incapable of making a scene, as much as she wanted to. She had always been way too polite and proper. There were ways of behaving oneself, and appearances must be upheld. She would not make a fool of herself (there was her mother again, lecturing once more in the back of her mind. Edeline! do NOT make a fool of yourself!)
So it was she was easily led, loaded into a van and driven out to the boundary. They would not let her take anything with her, not even a jacket. They refused to let her even change her outfit. She was compelled to go into exile exactly as they'd found her when she'd opened the door. They drove for hours to get there, then drove past the gate and up to the edge of the forest, which seemed to stretch on forever. She got out of the car on her own. The female escorts did not have to force her. They pointed the way down a narrow dirt path and told her "get walking and don't turn around". She did. At some point she must have passed through containment. She couldn't tell where that occurred, but when she finally did turn around, the world she had known had entirely vanished. All she could see was the forest.
She turned completely around to be sure, then she stood very still, and listened. She heard nothing at first but the pounding inside her own mind. Then there seemed to be a sound of leaves rustling in wind. Then suddenly a voice, very clear, very close.
"The Hidden One calls you to order," it said. She had no idea what it was talking about.
"You're new here, aren't you?" said the voice, and looking around, Edeline saw no one, only a very large, very black bird, hopping about on a tree stump in front of her.
"Excuse me?" Edeline said, expecting some man to appear, for it was a man's voice that she heard.
"Yes, it's me," said the crow, flapping its wings to attract her attention. "I know it's not exactly what you're expecting."
"Crows don't talk," Edeline said, fixing her gaze on the bird. "At least not where I come from. If you're some of ventriloquist," she called out loudly, "you can come out now. Game's over and I'm really not in the mood."
"I can only reach you this way at the moment," the bird told her. "Consider it an alternate means of communication."
"Right," Edeline snapped. "I'm out of here." She turned and began to walk away from the crow, but it took off and flew just above her.
"You might as well listen," the crow said.
"Leave me alone," Edeline shouted as she waved her arms above her head, hoping to fend the thing off, but it persisted in following her as she stumbled about in the woods. She didn't know where she was going, of course. The bird reminded her about that.
"What do you care?" she yelled at the bird.
"Listen!" she continued. "I'm having a really lousy day, okay? Come back tomorrow if you want. Just leave me alone." At that, Edeline finally broke down into tears, and stopped to lean against a tree trunk and weep. The bird settled down on a branch just above her, and waited. After her tears began to melt into sniffles, the crow spoke again, more gently this time.
"The Hidden One calls you to order," it repeated.
"I don't know about any hidden anything," Edeline mumbled.
"Then I'll tell you," the crow offered. "Come, sit down, and let's talk."
"Oh all right," Edeline relented. She looked around for somewhere to sit but finding nothing, she plopped down onto the ground. The crow flew down and ruffled its feathers, taking a position beside her.
"That's better," it said. "We have much to discuss."
Three
Ember got the news from a cricket that chirped it out in code.
"Call ME to order, will you?", she spat. "We'll see who calls who in the end!"
She leaped up from the boulder where she'd been hunched, and grabbed a hold of a branch above her head with both hands, and with a swing worthy of any trapeze artist, flung herself higher and higher, limb after limb, until she had soared to the top of the two hundred foot elm. There she perched, surveying the vast canopy surrounding her. From this vantage point there was no end to the forest in any direction, but she sensed this was somehow an illusion. She still remembered the outer world and knew it was there even now, though she could never see it, no matter where she roamed, and she was sure she had covered every inch of the territory by now.
Ember was an eight year old girl, but not quite your ordinary kind. Barely over four feet tall and weighing less than sixty pounds, she seemed to float however she moved. Her wavy light brown hair flew about her shoulders, and her small pale blue eyes matched the cloudless sky above. She scanned the horizon from the top of the tree like any worthy captor would. In the back of her mind she held a grid of her captive world and nearly everything in it, alive and breathing in real-time.
Ember was a Savior, and one of the best in the game. It was a Savior's gift to know the terrain, to sense it, to feel it, to see every goal and every ball in play, to spot every player, every Hunter, Gatherer, Smacker or Flower-Bearer. None could move without their intention and direction lighting up on her cranial screen. She would keep in the background, trying to free her mind to focus on the more important details, for the one gap in the Savior's map-ability was their Striker-blindness. They could never know when or where a Striker was or would be, and their entire performance depended on just that. The Savior's job was to stop the Striker from scoring, and to never know where a Striker was at any moment was maddening. It was stressful. It was the key to the entire tournament.
She was an eight year old girl, and had been for more than a century at least. One lost track of human time here in the forest. It didn't help that seasons barely seemed to occur in there. On the more deciduous trees, leaves would turn and drop
but new leaves would be budding and forming simultaneously. The temperature fluctuated seemingly at random. The length of the days and the nights never seemed to vary by much. Everything about the place seemed un-genuine somehow. Ember, like the others, could never quite figure it out, given all the time in the world. At least it seemed like all the time in the world. She held her breath and closed her eyes as if that would help her better see if any Striker was on the move. It came to her sometimes. She didn't know how but she trusted her instincts, and more often than not they were right. But this moment it wasn't a Striker that caught her attention, but something new, somebody new had entered their world.
It happened. New blood came seeping in now and then. For years Ember had tried to foretell it somehow. There must be a pattern. From every newcomer's description she knew there was only one road, and only one gate that exiles were brought to, so when they entered the forest you would think they would arrive at the same location every time, but it just didn't work that way. They could appear anywhere and it always seemed they showed up in the middle. There were no visible edges, no boundaries or borders. Ember and the others all wanted to discover a seam, a way in or way out, but it was another maddening fact of life that no one could find such a thing. You could walk in a straight line for days, weeks or years and never come across an edge of the woods. Instead you would always find yourself somewhere familiar. It all
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