Shepherds: Awakening
Damian Connolly
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Epilogue
About the author
Thank you
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Damian Connolly
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Dedication
To my parents: to my mother, for always wanting me to write something, and expressing only mild disbelief when I told her I was doing it; to my father, for always doing what was needed to make sure we had what was necessary when we were growing up.
To Alex, for putting up with me and for not grumbling too much when she couldn’t watch her shows while I was writing this.
To Raphaël, because he’s just awesome.
Je vous aime.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to everyone in the SPS community for your support; you guys rock!
Thanks to Alex, Maria, and Mam for being the first to proofread this and give me feedback.
Thanks to Nathalie Lehnert who took my vague descriptions and produced a pretty stunning cover. You can find more of her work at http://lithana-stia.deviantart.com/
A huge thanks to Page Morgan for all the work she put into editing this book, making sure what I wrote actually made sense, that any reader questions got answers, and generally just making it a better book overall. You can find her on Twitter at @PageMorganBooks and her books at http://www.pagemorganbooks.com/
1
She’d been here before; she was sure of it.
She was standing in long, thick grass up to her knees. It rippled like velvet whenever the wind blew. She was more of a city girl, but she was pretty sure that grass shouldn’t change colour when it did so. Greens became blues and then violets with each wave.
Around her, bushes and trees thrived; competing with each other to see who could be the most colourful. This, too, seemed normal. Harmonious, even.
She looked around. One direction seemed as good as the other, so she set off at random. The grass parted before her, and closed behind her, so she left no tracks.
The air seemed thick here, giving a slight resistance and making her feel sluggish. She moved her arm in front of her and could almost see the air flows eddying around it. She took a deep breath and smiled, her head dizzy. Growing up in a city, you never realised what clean air was until you experienced it. It was intoxicating. Each breath seemed to clarify the world - for the edges were fuzzy in her vision, as if she was looking through a vignette - and made her feel more alive. All manner of fragrances came to her, mixing and interchanging, never too strong, never uncomplimentary; each one hinting at an association with a memory, and not necessarily one of hers.
Ahead of her, rays of sunshine pierced through the canopy of a group of trees. God rays, her father, an amateur photographer, would have said had he been there. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t. She ran her hand through the beams and watched as they folded around it like bolts of silk. She took the pair of scissors that her mind insisted she’d been carrying, and cut off a piece long enough to wrap around her neck like a scarf. It was deliciously warm. She continued on, leaving the cut ray ending abruptly in mid-air.
As she walked along, snuggling in her sun-scarf, she picked the heads of various flowers as she passed them, and popped them into her mouth. It seemed the thing to do. Each one melted on her tongue, leaving a sweet taste behind. Any larger ones she found, she’d spin, and leave them hanging in the air behind her; eternal floral helicopters.
She came to a shallow river, maybe ten times as wide as she was tall. The water was crystal, and ran swiftly over the stony bed, though it hardly made a sound, as if she was looking at it through a thick pane of glass. It was hard to tell if this noiselessness was specific to the river or everywhere, as this place was calm, seemingly devoid of life. It was mildly disconcerting.
When she looked up, she was on the other side of the river. She didn’t remember how she got there. It seemed unimportant anyway, and at least she wasn’t wet.
The clouds on this side were much more agitated. They streamed silently across the sky, probably faster than they should be - not that she’d made much of a study of clouds in the real world to be an expert on the subject. The thought of the real world went unheeded. The part of her brain that would have picked up on it was riding passenger, looking out from behind her eyes but unable to affect anything.
Truth be told, she didn’t much care for this side of the river. It seemed darker, and there was a tickling at the base of her spine that made her feel like she was being watched. Shapes that would flicker occasionally at the edge of her sight, only to disappear when she turned her head.
She continued on. Was the air even thicker here? It was almost like walking underwater; the more she pushed, the less she moved. She kept on as she could, feeling more uncomfortable, acutely aware that no matter where she turned her head, she could never see behind her.
It had been warm before, but she found that she was now wearing a coat with a large hood. She pulled it up over her head, but that cut down her field of vision even more, so she dropped it again, and immediately felt exposed.
There’s nothing here, she thought to herself, though it was a toss-up whether it was a wish or a declaration.
The weather seemed to be affected by her mood; it got darker still, and further away, on the horizon, she could see a storm. As she looked, lightning lanced down. She automatically began counting under her breath, waiting for the thunder.
One-one hundred…two-one hundred…thr-
The world exploded.
Aisling jerked her head up, heart thundering in her chest. Miss Linsey picked up the history book that she’d slammed down on her desk.
“Back with us, Miss Shepherd?” she asked.
Aisling looked around. She was the focus of everyone in the classroom. She hated being the focus of everyone in the classroom. Every face she looked at contained suppressed glee and sniggers were breaking out across the room. Blood flooded her cheeks. She hoped she hadn’t been drooling.
“Yes, miss. Sorry, miss.”
“Perhaps you’d like to inform the class of the subject that we’re covering at the minute?”
Knowing it was no good, but loath to not even try, she hazarded, “Agricultural revolution?” Around her, more sniggers.
“Not even close,” Miss Linsey said brightly. “See me after class.” She walked back to the head of the room.
Aisling grimaced and focused as hard as she could on a spot on the desk in front of her, willing herself to stop blushing furiously. She started to sweat. Great.
“Now,” continued the teacher, “for this week’s project - settle down, please - you’ll pair up and create a presentation on the Indust
rial revolution.” That, with a meaningful glance towards Aisling. She sank lower in her seat, trying to hide behind her hair. The other students lapped it up; she wasn’t friends with any of them so she was open game.
As Miss Linsey named out the groups, she found herself paired off with Jake Shelley, as she had been for pretty much every team exercise since first year, the alphabet being what it is. This brought another flush to her cheeks, much to the amusement of everyone except Jake and his girlfriend, Amy.
Aisling, somewhat absurdly, felt a tinge of pity for him. He was undoubtedly the coolest kid in school - the trifecta of good genes, athletic ability, and being a natural-born leader working their magic - while she, undoubtedly, wasn’t. She knew what the others thought of her. The not-so whispers and snide remarks made sure no-one would want to be seen associating with her, had Aisling the courage to approach them in the first place. No, she was destined to be a loner. To repeatedly get saddled with her must be frustrating, though Jake at least had the good grace not to be open about it.
The bell rang, and they gathered their stuff to leave for the next class. She snuck a glance at her project partner as she swung her bag over her shoulder. She’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit to fantasising a bit about him. His medium-length hair framed a face so casually good looking that it was almost unfair. He was on both the football and the water-polo teams, and the combination had given him broad shoulders, narrow hips, and tight arms. Her stomach clenched at the thought of spending time with him, even though it was for schoolwork.
She mustn’t have been as subtle as she thought, as Amy’s voice broke through the general babble.
“…snoring like a pig!”
Amy’s clique of chittering puppets laughed their approval, and her face was a picture of petty triumph. Worse still, even Jake was laughing.
Aisling stared at the floor, face burning, doing her best to hold back tears as the others slowly made their way from class.
How it burned, the humiliation.
2
She walked home, bundled in a coat and scarf, holding an umbrella against the wind and rain. On a normal day, it’d take her about half an hour to get home. She normally didn’t mind, being of the opinion that any exercise was a good thing. On days like this though, when she’d eventually arrive home with soaking feet and sodden trousers, it was a right drag.
The other thing about walking was that it gave you plenty of time to think. And she was a champion thinker. For the current episode of Things that Happened to Me Today that I Should Have Handled Differently, she was running through all the different fantasies of what she could have done in History class, and kicking herself over what she’d actually done. Anyone looking at her right now would see her staring off into the distance while emotions and phrases flitted across her face as she played out each scenario.
“Back with us, Miss Shepherd?”
“That depends; is it interesting yet?”
Not very witty, of course, but in her head, all the other kids laughed, and she basked in the glow, counting up all the points she’d scored. She replayed it with a few other different phrases, but in the end, she just wasn’t comfortable with even the idea of flaunting authority. Besides, she liked Miss Linsey, as the teacher had always treated her nicely.
“…snoring like a pig!”
“Better than having the face of one! Not to mention the moustache!”
She imagined the look of shock on Amy’s face, the silence from the class, followed by the explosion of laughter at the result of someone like her standing up to the in-crowd.
She was even less comfortable with that, as it hinted at the possibility of a confrontation, as well as future vengeance.
In the end, Aisling settled for an imagined haughty demeanour, where she’d simply look down her nose at Amy, and treat her like the snot that she was. She liked this one better; she’d come across as the better person, something which everyone would take notice of. Later, maybe Jake could even have come to her locker to apologise in person. He’d come in close; what he would say only being for the two of them.
“I really liked how you handled yourself back there, it was very noble. It made me see that Amy’s just a jealous child and I need someone more mature.”
She pictured looking him in the eyes, letting him know without words that she’d picked up on the subtle hint and that he could make his move. Maybe even giving him a playful push on the shoulder - boys liked physical stuff, right? It didn’t matter. Jake would like it because it would have been her doing it.
She was broken out of her reverie by a cyclist riding on the footpath, nearly running her over. He would have too, if she hadn’t have jumped out of the way, getting skit by his wheels in the process.
“Hey!” she shouted after him. The jerk continued on as if he hadn’t heard her, hadn’t even noticed she was there. She looked around, seeking common sympathy from any stranger close by. One old man passed her without a glance.
What the hell? she thought. The injustice and indifference of it ate at her, but she had nobody to vent to. She tried her best to wipe the mud off of her trousers, but they were soaked anyway.
With a low cry of frustration - she didn’t want to draw attention, after all - she gave up and continued home, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t get her fantasy back.
When Aisling arrived home to the apartment that she shared with her mother, the first thing she did was strip off her clothes and change into sweatpants and a pyjama top, with a bathrobe for good measure, as she was shivering. Her shoes, she threw outside onto the balcony. With luck, they’d be dry by morning, but given how cold it was, she doubted it.
Right around now, her mother would be leaving her waitressing job and heading to the all-night supermarket, where she’d work until about eleven, so as usual, Aisling had the apartment to herself. It was small and sparse, but neat. It was quiet enough that she could hear the clock ticking softly on the wall, and the distant crying of the upstairs baby, but she preferred it that way.
There was no TV, no internet, and any books had stamped library cards inside the front cover. There were a few pictures on the walls, all of her and her mother during happier times. Here was one when she’d started primary school, there was another for when they’d went to the beach together, and another of them lying side-by-side on the grass in the sunshine. None of her father though. Her mother had removed them all the day after he just upped and left years ago.
She went to the fridge to find something to eat. It was a small one, for they never had much in it. Her mother usually brought back some groceries from the store; often what was unsellable for one reason or another. She found a microwaveable curry and some bread that was probably on the brink of going bad. She heated the curry and toasted the bread for good measure.
After eating, Aisling washed the few dishes that she’d dirtied and set about her homework. Later, as it got colder, she wrapped a blanket around her legs.
She finished long before her mother was due home. She got up, took out the note that Miss Linsey had given her after class, and propped it on the table. Her mother would see it when she came in and sign it.
Then she headed off to bed. Despite the amount that she’d been sleeping lately, she always felt tired, though the only change had been the amount that she’d been dreaming. She’d always made a habit of writing down her dreams, and the notes from last few weeks had all been about the colourful world where it seemed like anything could happen. There was probably some deep meaning behind it all, so she vowed to get out some books about dreaming the next time she went to the library. Maybe something by Freud. He seemed to know it all.
However, when she finally tucked herself in, wrapping the quilt around herself against the chill in her room, she could only stare at the ceiling, her thoughts buzzing. She wanted to dream of that place again, but the one she’d had during History class had left her wary. It was the first time that strange world had hinted of something darker.
The door opened silently and she could see the shadow of her mother silhouetted against the opposite wall. Deep down, she was sure her mother knew she was faking, but she didn’t particularly want to talk to her.
Apparently, Aisling wasn’t the only one that felt that way. The door closed as quietly as it had opened and her mother made her way to her own room. She heard the bed creak through the thin wall, then silence. Aisling closed her eyes and willed herself to go to sleep. She heard some suppressed sniffs and told herself it was nothing.
Eventually, sleep took her.
3
She was back in the dream; this time standing at the river, the edge of the bank just under her toes. Overhead, the sun beat down, though she didn’t feel it as much as she should have. Across from her, the other bank seemed dimmer, less colourful, less inviting. She didn’t want to go there. She looked behind her, where life exploded in multi-faceted hues, where it seemed possible to do anything, where it felt safe.
When she turned back around, she was on the other side.
She was hit with the same sense of foreboding and danger as before, but this time it came quicker. She had no idea how she’d crossed, and she got the feeling that if she touched the water to get back to the other side, it would overwhelm her and sweep her away, shallow as it was.
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