The New Day

by Lorraine Thomson

  “We don’t have much time. Come with me.”

  David stared at the hooded figure. He’d felt good before. At peace with himself. Now this dark swirl of violence was giving him orders he didn’t feel like obeying. He pulled his arm free.

  The hood called to the other. “Mason, he’s totally stoned. Give me a hand to get him out of here.”

  Stoned? The word escaped the hood’s mouth in a swirl of dandelion yellow. David had no idea what it meant, but when Mason grabbed his arm he didn’t like it.

  He tried to tell them to leave him be, but he couldn’t make his tongue work and he couldn’t shake off Mason’s grasp. Big hands, Mason had big hands. Like a mutant. David tried to peer into Mason’s hood, but the other hood had a hold of him again and they were running. The three of them were running. David couldn’t understand it. He didn’t want to run but his legs didn’t listen to him. They listened to the hoods.

  David didn’t understand what was going on. One minute he was with the bony tribe, the next they were gone, a scream in the night he wasn’t sure he’d heard or dreamed. The fire was gone, left behind. Perhaps it had fallen into the pit.

  Beneath him, his legs ran and his feet pounded the earth. He’d thought about this moment when he’d tried to escape the pit. He licked his lips to see if they tasted of freedom and in the process bit his tongue. His mouth filled with the metallic tang of blood and made him think of eating himself, which in turn made him feel sick. His legs stopped running. The two hoods – Mason and the other one – crowded in on him, asking him questions. They talked about the Sawneys. David watched their words ballooning out of their mouths in yellow bubbles and had no idea what any of it meant.

  “He’s completely out of it,” the other one said to Mason.

  They cared so much it was funny. David laughed and then he laughed some more, and he kept on laughing until he was crying and all he could see were razor sharp teeth and gleaming skulls, and a scar-faced woman with bony arms who wasn’t Sorrel.

  He woke up in a wooden shack. Dust motes swirled in thin beams of light shining through knot-holes and gaps in the walls. He didn’t know where he was or how he’d got there.

  He pushed back the rough blanket covering him. He was naked from the waist up. His arms and torso were covered in nicks and bruises – a flashback of bulging eyes and sharpened teeth was accompanied by a quiver of fear.

  His boots had been set neatly by the bed. He sat up and pulled them on. There was a shiver inside him that had nothing to do with the temperature, and so he pulled the blanket around himself and went to the door. He had no idea what kind of scrape he was in and was surprised to find the door wasn’t locked. It opened onto a whole new world.

  2.

  Lost

  Sorrel and Einstein walked the length of the valley in silence, their shadows stretching before them. Sorrel had plenty of thoughts in her head, but they caught in her throat, unuttered, stifled there by a choking mix of excitement and dread. Excitement at being finally reunited with her little brother, dread at how she might find him.

  In her mind, Eli was the same child she had last seen in Amat, always ready to laugh and eager to please, but on that devastating day, he had lost his mother, his sister, his home. He had lost everything he had known. They all had. The events of that day alone could not have failed to make an impact on Eli. She could not bring herself to think about what might have happened to him in the intervening time, and in what ways it might have changed him, as changed he must surely be.

  She had changed, she knew that, as had David. Once so easy going, anger had eroded him and clouded his judgement. He had become jealous and irrational. He shouldn’t have made her choose between him and Einstein. If her feelings at being reunited with Eli were shaped by a combination of excitement and dread, her feelings for David were tempered by anger and loss. All she wanted was for them all to be together. It didn’t seem so much to ask.

  By the time they reached the impressive Before building that Brig had claimed as his home, the last light of day was a fading memory.

  “Are you ready?” Einstein asked.

  Even Einstein had changed in the time she had known him. Being shackled in the mine had sucked something from him and seeing him reduced scared her.

  “Not really.”

  “You will be fine.”

  Sorrel took a deep breath and walked up the wide shallow steps to the door. It opened before she could knock.

  A mutant with closely-shorn black hair and no discernible neck appeared. The light from the lantern he held cast deep shadows across the far side of his face. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  His words alarmed Sorrel. What did he mean, “waiting”? Had they known all along she was searching for Eli? She glanced at Einstein.

  “I think what Olaf is saying is that they have been watching us since we arrived in the valley.”

  Olaf snickered. “Long time no see, Einstein.” He ushered them inside to a reception hall illuminated by a few candles. Paintings hung on the walls, and though the light was too dim to reveal much detail, there was enough for Sorrel to see that the canvases depicted strange beasts and wild landscapes.

  “Who’s your friend?” Olaf’s words were addressed to Einstein, but it was Sorrel he looked at.

  “My name is Sorrel.”

  “Sour Sabs.” Olaf snickered again.

  Sorrel bridled at the words. The last time she’d been called that, she’d been locked up in Dinawl’s prison.

  “Leave your weapons here.” He nodded to a sideboard.

  Einstein laid down his spear. Sorrel’s hand hesitated as it went to her knife.

  “Don’t make me take it from you, Sabs,” Olaf said.

  “Put it down,” Einstein said.

  Sorrel paused for a moment before laying down her knife.

  “Do I have to search you for more?” Olaf asked.

  “That is all we have,” Einstein said.

  Olaf smirked at the spear and knife. “Surprised you got this far. Come this way. Brig is waiting for you.”

  Sorrel’s heart pounded as Olaf led them to a room where several lamps had been lit and a lively fire burned in the grate. She’d been focused on Eli, but finally it dawned on her that she was about to come face-to-face with the monster who had not only taken her brother, but who was responsible for killing her mother and sister.

  She looked around, but Brig was not there.

  “He’ll be with you presently.” Olaf dipped his head and left the room.

  There were rugs on the floor and cushions on the upholstered sofas. Flowers had been placed in a vase on a table, and the fire burned bright and warm. Care had been taken to make it a room of comfort. Einstein watched as she wandered around, touching and looking.

  “Not what you expected?”

  She shook her head, not sure what to make of it.

  “He is a complex character.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Sorrel jumped at the sudden growling voice. She turned around and found herself staring at the shaven-headed mutant who had murdered her mother and sister.

  Mutants tended to the brawny by nature, but even by those standards, Brig was powerfully built. His piercing blue eyes pinned Sorrel to the spot and set her blood running cold.

  “I know who he is, but who are you?”

  Sorrel almost laughed, though had she done so, it would have tasted bitter and curdled on her lips. Brig was the harbinger of all the misery in her life and he did not even know that she existed. Shame, hot and full of misery, swept through her body at the thought of how she had crawled into Amat’s shadows to hide from him. But that was not something she was willing to give up to Brig, and so she pulled back her shoulders, raised her chin and looked him square in the eye when she spoke.

  “I am Sorrel – Eli’s sister – and I have come to claim him.”

  If Brig noticed the quiver in her voice, he did not comment on it. Instead he narrowed his eyes and turne
d to Einstein.

  “And why are you here? What have you come to claim?”

  His tone was mocking, but Einstein did not rise to the bait.

  “I am here as Sorrel’s friend.”

  “Friend?” Brig looked back at Sorrel. “This is a word he has little understanding of. You’d do well not to trust him.”

  The tension Brig had brought to the room increased ten-fold. Sorrel felt that an eruption was imminent, but from what direction, she could not tell.

  “You sold me, Brig. You sold me to the Free!” The words, held back for so long, exploded from Einstein’s mouth.

  “You betrayed me!” Brig roared back.

  “Betrayed you? We were friends. You turned on me for no reason.”

  Sorrel’s gaze went from one to the other as Einstein and Brig hurled words at each other. She moved towards the door as the two mutants drew closer. If the worst came to the worst, she’d go to the hall and grab her knife and stick it in Brig’s neck, then they could find Eli and flee this place.

  As though reading her thoughts, Brig rounded on her. “You! Get over where I can see you.”

  Sorrel hesitated, but when Einsten gave a curt nod, she moved away from the door. Just at that moment, it opened and Olaf appeared. He looked at Sorrel and Einstein and then at Brig, a question on his face.

  “Leave us,” Brig said.

  “As you wish.” Olaf nodded, drawing a sly look at Sorrel and Einstein before withdrawing.

  “Neither of you is to be trusted,” Brig growled. “As for you, Einstein – I knew you would survive. My conscience is clear.”

  “You do not have a conscience.”

  Brig drew him a contemptuous look. “You’re so smart, but you don’t know a thing. I feel as much as anyone, Einstein. I hurt, I bleed. When you betrayed me, it was like a stab in the heart.”

  “I was loyal to you from the moment you took me in – so tell me, how did I betray you, Brig?”

  “Don’t play mind games with me, Einstein. You know what you and Clovis did.”

  “Clovis? Is that what this is about? That was –”

  “That was what, Einstein?”

  There was a pause before Einstein answered and Sorrel jumped right into it.

  “Can you stop? Please? I came here to find my brother. Brig – you claim you feel and you hurt like anyone else – but you came to my home and you destroyed it. You murdered my baby sister and I watched you kill my mother. I saw you do it. Then you took Eli and I’ve been looking for him ever since. If – as you claim – you have a conscience, you’ll give him back to me.”

  This time her voice did not quaver, but when Brig looked at her, the muscles in his face twitching, she thought he was going to bite her head clean off her shoulders and a tremble ran through her so deep it almost turned her bones to soup.

  Though she feared she’d collapse in the hard glare of his eyes, Sorrel remained standing. After a few long moments, Brig’s face calmed and when it did, he seemed to regard her with new interest.

  “You were there?”

  Sorrel nodded.

  “Hiding?”

  She nodded again, this time with a glower in her eyes and the flame of scarlet in her face.

  “Then there is something you should know. I killed your mother to put her out of her misery.”

  Anger, sudden and fierce, blazed its way across Sorrel’s face, but before she could say anything, Brig held his hand up and told her to listen.

  “I didn’t kill the baby, Sorrel.” A shiver ran through her at the sound of her name on his lips. “Someone in my crew did that, and when your mother tried to protect the child, he stabbed her in the stomach.”

  Sorrel thought back to that dreadful day in Amat. Her mother tumbling out of their home, clutching Bella to her. There had been red, lots of red. She’d assumed it had come from Bella, but it could have come from her mother, or both.

  “She was going to die, slowly and painfully, and fretting for her child. I put a quick end to it.”

  “If that is true, what became of the one who stabbed her?” this from Einstein.

  “He was injured,” Brig looked at Sorrel, “by a girl. We gave him food and water and left him behind.”

  “I threw his food on the fire and knocked over his water.” Drained by what she had heard, Sorrel’s voice was flat, though inside she felt sick at the thought of the mole-eyed mutant. “I hope his death was long and painful.”

  Brig shrugged. “There is not a soul alive who would shed a tear over Turk.”

  “I want to see my brother.”

  After a moment, Brig nodded. “Come with me.” He walked to a door in the corner of the room. Sorrel’s heart pounded as she followed. She glanced at Einstein. He nodded. Finally, she would be reunited with Eli.

  The door led to a short corridor, at the end of which was another door. Brig opened it. Beyond him, in a room lit by bright lamplight, a child sat on a rug playing with a set of wooden stacking cups.

  Sorrel’s heart almost burst out of her chest at the sight of him. Eli! After all this time. And he looked well. He was bigger, but he hadn’t changed much. After months of his face fading in her memory, it was a relief to know that she would have recognised him anywhere.

  Eli looked up as they entered and a smile blossomed on his face. There was no sign that he was hurt or suffering. He looked happy. At first Sorrel thought he recognised her, but when he got to his feet, it was Brig he ran to.

  “Up, Dada, up!”

  Brig laughed and threw Eli into the air before catching and hugging him while Sorrel stared, aghast. Dada?

  Eli gazed at Sorrel from Brig’s arms but when she whispered his name, he buried his face in Brig’s neck.

  “Eli, don’t you know me?”

  Eli peeked at her, but she could see no hint in his eyes that he recognised her. Could he have forgotten her already? “I’m your sister, Sorrel. Please,” she looked at Brig, “let me hold him.”

  Brig contemplated her request for several moments before kissing Eli on the head and passing him to her.

  Tears welled in Sorrel’s eyes as she held out her arms to embrace her brother. “Eli, it’s me, Sorrel.”

  Though she spoke the words softly, Eli’s face puckered and he began to cry. Within seconds he was screaming and writhing to get out of her grasp.

  “No, Eli, it’s me. I won’t hurt you.”

  But the child wouldn’t be calmed and she could barely keep hold of him. Just as he was slipping away from her, Brig grabbed him. As he lifted the child out of Sorrel’s arms, Eli’s hand clawed at Sorrel’s neck. She gasped as his tiny nails raked her throat. When he drew back, his hand was balled, and trailing from his fist was the silver chain of her necklace.

  Sorrel’s hand automatically went to her throat. The empty space there told her what she already knew – Eli had snatched her grandmother’s necklace.

  “Do you know it, Eli? Do you remember my necklace?”

  She heard the pleading tone of desperation in her voice, but she couldn’t help it – she was desperate. Desperate to be recognised – and loved – by her brother.

  Eli turned his head away from her and buried his face in Brig’s neck.

  “Please -”

  “You’re frightening him, Sorrel,” Brig said.

  “But I’m his sister.”

  “Then act like it and back off.”

  “Back off? Give him to me, you monster.”

  Brig turned away, shielding Eli as Sorrel tried to snatch him. Eli raised his head from Brig’s neck and howled as he saw her come for him.

  “What have you done to my brother?” Sorrel screamed.

  Einstein grabbed her by the arm to prevent her from lunging at Eli again. “Sorrel, stop.”

  Sorrel struggled to get away from Einstein, but he would not let her go. He kept his voice low as he urged her to calm down. She pulled against him, watching as Brig stroked the back of Eli’s head and nuzzled him. Every indication of love he showed towards h
er brother was another splinter in her heart. Even as she felt the pain, she knew it was better than what she had feared – that he had treated Eli roughly – but still it hurt. Admit it Sorrel – what really hurts is that Eli loves him back.

  The insight hit Sorrel like an avalanche. It blasted her away, sending her spinning and tumbling in a thousand tiny pieces over the edge of a precipice.

  Einstein’s grasp on her relaxed as she stopped trying to break free. He didn’t yet know that she was shattered, that the pieces of her were falling with nowhere safe to land.

  He spoke to her, trying to soothe her in much the same way Brig was soothing Eli, but there was nothing he could do.

  When Brig told them to go back to the other room and wait, Sorrel did not resist as Einstein led her through. There had been so many times when she’d felt empty; now she was desolate.

  She looked up at Einstein as he sat her in a chair by the fire.

  “He doesn’t want me. My brother doesn’t want me. All this time – all the dreams I’ve had about finding him. I never thought – not once – that he’d reject me. That he’d hate me.”

  Einstein squeezed her shoulder. “I am sure he does not hate you, Sorrel, but seeing you would have been a shock. Perhaps it brought back memories of that day.”

  “You mean the day Brig murdered our mother?”

  “I told you,” Brig said as he entered the room, “your mother was already dying. I put an end to her pain.”

  “You would have murdered her anyway.”

  Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears, as though it was coming from a deep void.

  “That is not so. She was young enough and strong enough – I would have taken her with the others.”

  “To sell at the thrall market,” Einstein sneered. “How kind you are.”

  Brig sucked in a deep breath before replying. “I’ve done plenty of things I regret, including selling my soul to the Monitors for coin, but I’m done with the old ways. Eli has shown me the way. You might not believe me, but I’m different now. I seek only a peaceful life – I haven’t left the valley since coming here with him. Look around if you don’t believe me, Einstein. I disbanded the old crew – there’s only a handful of us here now.”