by A. Sparrow
“This is our chance,” said Miles. “We should go now.”
“Go … where?” said Misty.
“What do you mean where? Didn’t you want to make that call to your sister?”
“Don’t you have service here?” said Misty.
Miles glanced at his phone. The bars that had appeared before were now absent. “It’s gone,” he said. “But I bet there’s a signal up in the hills.”
“Your car … won’t be there ... anymore.”
“Obviously not,” said Miles.
Misty looked pained. “Don’t know about you, Miles, but I ain’t in any mood to talk to anyone right now. I just wanna go home.”
“Home? You mean North Carolina?”
“I mean … back to Liz’s farm.”
Chapter 40: St. Johnsbury
Ara wandered, dazed, out of the town forest, past the playing fields and over the bridge into St. Johnsbury. Her eyes and feet did all of the navigating. Her head swam with too many regrets to care about reaching any particular destination.
Preoccupied by her cascade of failures, she dwelt on the ways she could have made things better. Inaction, in retrospect, seemed a better course. Doing nothing would have left Feril’s group intact and kept her and her friends out of harm in some peaceful dell, subsisting on the land, cultivating the reluctant and strange little flower of her budding relationship with Canu. She couldn’t bear thinking of the inevitable slaughter coming from the garrisons of Raacevo to all but her.
She veered left along the river, hooked right without thinking about where it took her. After a while, recognition flared and the logic of her meanderings came clear.
She was heading to the poorer side of town, a place she had once lived near the end of her time in Ur, the only time she had slept under a roof.
Across the way, a sign with white letters over green, Central Street, sent her head spinning. She had scoured this place from memory, vowed never to return. She had abandoned a person here once, someone with whom she had nothing in common and whose attraction seemed as involuntary and unexplainable as what she felt with Canu.
Michael.
***
Ara crossed Railroad Street and turned down Central. When she spotted the white clapboards of the Kingdom Recovery Center, something rippled in her chest. Her head blurred almost as if she had passed through another portal.
Three years ago, this was where she had found Michael (or Michael had found her) and her assimilation into Urep’o life suddenly accelerated. Until then she had wandered between forest and street on the periphery of Venep’o society, outside looking in, foraging scraps left behind on picnic tables or dumped into trash bins.
She had followed a queue of scruffy and paunchy Urep’o into Dr. Bob’s, as the Recovery Center was called, thinking there might be food, or at least something worth queuing for. Thus, she enrolled herself in an alcoholic rehabilitation program without ever having ingested alcohol beyond the occasional spoiled plum.
Michael had worked there as a facilitator. He had gone through the twelve steps himself and represented one of their success stories. He was young, not much older than Ara, though his face even then seemed prematurely creased.
Ara found herself gravitating towards him despite herself. Was it his large brown eyes? Playful lips that found a hundred ways to grin? Maybe it was his soothing demeanor and god-like patience.
He noticed her watching him. “You’re new here, aren’t ya?” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Ara.”
“Just … Ara? What? You don’t have a last name?”
“John,” said Ara, blurting out the first Urep’o sounding appellation that came to her.
The corner of Michael’s lip curled slightly. “Ara John, it is. Welcome to Dr. Bob’s. Here’s a clipboard to fill out your details. Sign the waiver if you agree to give up your first born.”
“What?”
“Just a joke. Read it. It’s just standard mumbo-jumbo. Er … you do read English, don’t you?”
“Oh yes!” said Ara, even though she was quite baffled by the sheet that Michael handed her. Nevertheless, she filled in every slot whether she understood what they were asking or not, entering ‘no thank you’ under ‘sex’ and ‘town forest’ under ‘address.’
The men in the room, and they were predominantly men, were already sizing her up, some to the point of leering. One scrawny fellow came over and started in with the ritualized and ridiculous courtship badinage so common in Ur, where insults passed for flirting.
Michael intervened, herding her suitor away as if she were a sheep who had blundered into a pack of wolves, though this sheep could have gutted any or all of these mangy wolves with the blade tucked into her sock.
After the session, he took her aside. “Got a place to stay? Some place safe?” He mimed a pillow with his hands, aware of the limits to Ara’s English comprehension.
“Yes,” said Ara.
“Then why did you write the town forest as your address?”
“It’s where I sleep. It is safe … but … cold.”
“You’re homeless,” he said. “Nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not anybody’s fault in this economy. Lots of folks coming through Dr. Bob’s have had a stint or two on the street. I normally send them over to the shelter on Railroad Street, but I hear they’re overbooked.” Michael’s eyes filled with calculation and concern. “I can get in touch with social services. You might be better off in Montpelier. They have more capacity, more charity. St. Johnsbury’s not the greatest place to be without a home.”
“It is not good, no,” said Ara, smiling, not quite understanding everything he said.
“Or …” he said, scrunching his face in a sort of wince. “I’m not supposed to do this.” His eyes flitted. “But I’ve got a couch. I can let you crash … until a slot opens at the shelter. Or … you find a job. Get your own place. Whatever.”
“Okay,” said Ara, not remembering what exactly a couch was but, with a blade tucked in her sock and the assurance of Michael’s kind eyes, she was willing to try anything.
The Philosophers sent apprentice Travelers like her to Ur with the minimum of preparation, forcing them to process everything they encountered without any distortion or preconception by prior Travelers. In the early days, before Michael, she had been like the deer that occasionally wandered out of the forest onto the city streets—one more feral forager.
But staying with Michael accelerated her assimilation. It gave her the crucible that helped her decipher Urep’o culture and language and learn the secrets of survival in a place so inhospitable.
They were never lovers. He wanted it and her snubs saddened him but he never forced the issue.
Ara wanted no entanglements. She knew she would return to Sesei alone, likely never to return to St. Johnsbury. Michael seemed content enough to have her reside on his couch. He kept chattering about finding her an open slot at the shelter, but he was in no hurry to do so. It was just another ritual to satisfy his pretenses.
***
Ara had lived in St. Johnsbury for less than one year. It seemed odd that her return could feel so much like a homecoming. She turned onto Pearl Street and worked her way down to 66a. Chipped concrete steps led down to a battered door. Bluish light flickered behind the window. Finger noodle and plucked on a guitar. She knocked on the door, even though she knew there to be a key between the drip tray and flower pot holding a petrified geranium. The guitar noodlings evaporated. A chair creaked.
The brass occluding a spy hole in the door slid away. Latches clicked.
The door swung open, revealing a face she barely recognized. The big round eyes that once charmed her had sunken deep into their sockets.
“Michael?” she said. “What happened to you?”
“Ara? It’s Ara, right? Oh my God! How are you?” His voice was hoarse and wheezy.
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah. Sure. Come right in.” His eyes looked famished, as if th
ey sought to devour every bit of light coming their way.
Ash trays overflowed. Empty beer cans littered the floor. Dark specks—coffee? Blood?—spattered the futon in the corner. Grease matted the shag carpet. The place smelled like the inside of a dumpster.
“Wasn’t expecting company,” said Michael. “You gotta pardon my appearance.”
“Are you … have you been … ill?”
His neck and wrists were riddled with weeping, picked away scabs.
“Naw. I’m okay. Not working. And I got a bit of a meth habit goin’. How you been?”
“Fine,” said Ara.
“Oh yeah? What you been up to? You’re looking good. Real good. Got kind of a woodsy glow about ya. Get yourself an outdoor job, did ya?”
“In a sense. Yes.”
“Where you been … all this time?”
“Away,” said Ara, afraid to touch anything.
“Hey listen, uh … I get my disability on Friday. I’m a little short. Can you spare a couple bucks? I can let you stay here.”
“I … I really can’t,” said Ara. “I’ve got nothing right now. I just came to say hi. Let you know I was in town. I was on my way … somewhere … and thought I’d pay you a visit. I’d better be heading off. I’ll see you soon.”
“But you just got here,” he said, his flaccid jowls quivering. “We haven’t even had time to chat. Catch up on things.”
“I’ll see you soon,” said Ara. “Really. I’m supposed to be meeting someone.”
“Who ya meeting?” His eyes fluttered; his face twitched. “Is it John?”
“Who’s John?” said Ara. “I don’t know any John.”
Michael seized Ara’s wrist and tried to restrain her from going to the door.
“Let go of me, Michael.”
“What is it, Ara? Is it the way I look? It’s just the meth. I’m still me inside. And I’ll clean up. Especially with you here now. I just need a little to get by till my next disability check.”
“I said, let go of me, Michael. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
He tried pulling Ara closer. She swung her leg and cut him down at the back of his knees. An elbow to the chest accelerated his tumble.
“I told you … to let go!”
“Ara … I don’t understand.”
She headed for the door. “I’m sorry Michael. But I’m not strong to take care of you right now. I’m having trouble enough coping with myself.”
***
Ara walked to the fringes of St. Johnsbury as fast as her feet would carry her, to the Route 28 underpass where the cops on patrol used to watch over her, letting her sleep there night after night, undisturbed. She had spotted no other homeless on her way through town, unsure of whether that was a good or a bad sign.
The back streets of St. Johnsbury looked no less decrepit than in her day. Maybe the police were cracking down on vagrants, chasing them out of town or shipping them off to shelters in another city, like Montpelier.
She set her back against the slant of concrete and listened to the rumble of trucks overhead. Though the leaves remained green, a chill was settling in. The air had a brittle feel to it, conveying a sense of ice and snow, though the temperature remained well above freezing. She wished she had borrowed a blanket from Michael, soiled or not. She was dressed for Gi, where the land below the mountains never froze.
Seeing Michael’s condition filled her with loss, as if a good friend had died, even though he still walked and breathed. She had no regrets for not sticking around. Michael couldn’t hardly provide shelter and sustenance for himself anymore, never mind take care of her. She could never abide the ghoulish creature he had become or the filth of his apartment.
It would soon be harvest season in Sesei. If she had followed the postman back to Ubabaor, she had relatives who could take her in.
It would be difficult to pass unnoticed. This route had become one of the busiest relays in the system due to the sheer volume of militia who had infiltrated Gi. This also made it the most closely watched and regulated, opening straight into the heart of the Cadre’s central academy.
But it wouldn’t be long before soldiers started trickling back in retreat, if Ingar’s influence held. Perhaps then Ara could blend in with the crowds.
For now, she was penniless in a world fueled by cash. Come November, the margins of the lakes would freeze. Vegetable gardens would be tilled over. She could not persist outdoors in the nights to come.
She wondered if the restaurant where she had once washed dishes might hire her back. She would need a job re-establish herself in this world, something that paid in cash, preferably ‘under the table’ as Michael had once described it, so that she might remain invisible to the authorities.
She wished she knew of an easier place to start a new life in Ur than St. Johnsbury. She had been mistaken for a Filipina once. Would life in the Philippines might be any easier than in Vermont? Maybe she would first give Montpelier a go.
Ara left the underpass and wandered back into town. She almost hoped the police would pick her up and put her into custody overnight. At least they might give her a warm blanket and some food.
As the streetlamps flickered on, she thought of her time in Greymore with Canu. It had been much more fun to have a fellow conspirator in Ur, even someone of Canu’s arrested maturity. Canu met deprivation and stress with aplomb. He had a way of finding calm amidst turbulence, of softening tragedy with humor.
She missed him.
Chapter 41: Hospital
Seor awoke to a clarity she had not felt in many days. Prior awakenings had left her suspended half in dream, half in murky reality. The price of a clear head was a pain as crisp and bright as the linens that enveloped her. A hundred blades sliced through her midsection when she tried to sit up. But the pain was good. To hurt was to live, to be human, not some drugged wraith.
Glassy sacks dangled from metal stands, connected by tubes to a nipple on her wrist. Her Urep’o healers, she suspected, piped philters to her veins to forcibly separate her from her senses. She tried to rip the tube away, but straps restrained her.
Clicks and whirs and beeps like alien fauna, engulfed her and multiplied down the corridor from the other rooms. Human voices boomed overhead from people unseen, reverberating as if through a cavern.
She reacquainted herself with her limbs, clenching and unclenching fingers and toes, absorbing the layout of her room. The little table hanging over the bed held a tray of neatly wrapped food she had no intention of eating. A set of metal cuffs, connected by a chain rested on a shelf below it. The man assigned to watch her had attempted to attach them to her ankle until a scolding from a fierce, pastel-clad healer dissuaded him.
The wave of drowsiness engulfed her without warning. She fought to stay alert, but was helpless against its power. It dragged her out of the world, down to the place where neither free will nor pain could dwell.
***
Dima, her daughter, visited often in her potion-induced dreams. In many, Dima was a young woman come to polish Seor’s bones. Seor would lift her arm and a sullen Dima would brush off the dust and swab it with oil.
In a blink she would transform into Dima as Seor last knew her, several years younger than she was today, if she still lived, but not yet a woman.
“Momma! You’re back!” the younger Dima would say, running down the walk between orchard and kitchen that was her domain, a world of tiny homesteads shaped from clay, inhabited by fingerling dolls with acorn heads and mushrooms for beds.
The house of Seor’s sister, Naan, smoldered roofless in the background. Crasacs marched beyond the gate.
“Where’s Auntie?” said Seor.
“They took her,” said Dima. “But they let me stay.”
“Are they kind to you?”
“No,” said Dima, matter-of-factly.
“What do you eat? Where do you sleep?”
“I make cakes out of mud,” said Dima. “And I sleep with my dolls, in their littl
e houses. I can make myself very small. The size of a cricket. Did you know that?”
“I see,” said Seor, gazing down the hill, trying to make sense out of the jumbled remains of her village. Only a few trees remained standing over the rubble.
“Momma?”
“Yes, Dima?”
“Are you coming for us?”
“Of course.”
“When?”
“Soon. I’ll be there soon.”
***
When she next awoke, hands were slipping beneath her knees and behind her shoulders, not the soft hands of her nurse, but hands that were thick and rough as a farmer’s. These hands took little care, slinging her around like a sack of meat.
She winced but did not resist. She did not even open her eyes, grown accustomed to night-time intrusions from healers of diverse gentleness, whisking her down halls and up vertically mobile rooms to coffin-like chambers that buzzed and whined.
As the spider webs fell from her eyes, Seor saw she was in the hands of no healer. It was Baas. She squirmed out of his grip. Her bare feet squeaked on the floor. She tried to flee. Baas leaped and tackled her, wrestling her into submission. His knife pricked her throat.
“Fight me and it all ends in a puddle of red.”
Seor kept still. There should have been nurses about, even this late, but the nearest station was silent.
Baas was clad in the blue, one-piece garb of the medical attendants that traveled in rolling infirmaries.
He plonked her down onto a chair with wheels and rolled her down the hall.
A shape lay still on the floor behind a curtain, bare legs protruding.
“Did you—?”
“Shut up,” said Baas. He wheeled her out into the cool night, to one of the vehicles that had been used to carry her to the healing center from the patch of ferns where Ren had died and Seor had fallen.
Baas opened the front door of the vehicle and hauled Seor roughly out of the wheeled chair and shoved her onto the front seat.
“I need to lie down. It … hurts if I sit too long.”
“You will sit and be quiet.”
Blood smeared the seat. Droplets, not yet dry, speckled the glass. Baas slammed her door and walked around the nose of the vehicle. Seor used those few seconds apart from Baas to search for something to use as a weapon. The best she could manage with her mind mired in cement was a thin board with a metal fastening a sheet of paper which she grabbed and shoved between her seat and the door.