by J B Cantwell
“How long do you expect they’ll be?” Grandma asked.
“Probably a while,” he said.
She slumped down onto the couch, hoisting her feet up on the wood chest that doubled as a coffee table.
“Well, I don’t know about you all, but I don’t have any desire to head out into that cold again until we have to. When Carl comes back, we can start the search for a new pump.”
Mom slid into one of the four small chairs that surrounded the round dining table. Caleb looked back and forth between us and, finishing his soup, grabbed for one of the heavy winter coats hanging by the door.
“I think I’ll go get him for you,” he said.
“No, hon,” Mom said. “They just left. Let them do what they need to.”
“It’s alright,” he said. “I haven’t been out yet today. Can you watch Lily, though?”
Mom smiled.
“Of course,” she said. Her finger traced around the rim of the soup bowl Caleb had placed on the table for her.
I stood up.
“I think I’ll go, too,” I said.
Mom’s eyes widened. It was one thing to let Caleb go out into the strange mountain town he called home. But for me to leave her when she was feeling so vulnerable seemed too much for her.
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to soothe her concerns. “I want to have a look around.”
I nodded my head towards Caleb, trying to tell her without talking that it would be better if I could make sure he didn’t say anything to Carl. He had said he wouldn’t, but now that the car was dead we were in a fix. The last thing we needed was our host to change his mind about our staying in his house.
“You have a jacket I can wear?” I asked. “I didn’t bring one.” I pointed to my long sleeved canvas shirt. It was the warmest piece of clothing I owned, and it didn’t seem like a good idea to reveal that the thin blanket from Kiron’s had the powers it hid.
“Yeah, sure!” Caleb said, reaching for another coat hanging by the door and holding it out to me. His face was bright, clearly excited that I had chosen to join him.
I took the coat from him, heavy canvas, but lined with furred animal skins. It had a musty smell about it, but not entirely unpleasant. I buttoned it and followed him out the door.
“Aster,” Mom called after me. “Be careful, okay? No…disappearing.”
I laughed.
“No disappearing,” I echoed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We walked for a few minutes in silence, and I noticed that the weather was downright pleasant now that I was well insulated. I breathed deeply, and the smell of trees and snow were invigorating.
“How far is Amos’?” I asked after a few minutes. It seemed Caleb was waiting for me to start up the conversation.
“Not far,” he said. His stride bounced a little at being spoken to. “Maybe half a mile.”
Away from the road like this, several more small dwellings came into view, each on large plots of land. Beside them, nearly every one had covered greenhouses. This confused me.
“Why do you have to cover your crops if the rain up here is clean?” I asked.
Caleb looked up, confused for a minute, then smiled.
“Oh, we don’t need to protect them from the rain. We need to protect them from the frost.”
“Oh!” I said, feeling stupid. “I didn’t think about that. It doesn’t snow out of the mountains. Not anymore.”
“What’s it like down there?” he asked, no longer able to contain his enthusiasm.
“Where, the city?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I heard they have big buildings where they grow food. Is that true? How do they do that?”
I spent a few minutes explaining the growing towers to him and, when I was done, what a typical day in the city was like.
“Wow,” he said, his eyes becoming distant as he imagined it. Maybe to him it sounded glamourous. Or, at least, safe.
But no twinges of homesickness came to me while I recounted the life I had once led. Not now that I had traveled like I had, seen the amazing things I never would have witnessed had I stayed home. Now, the city had become boring, an artificial thing, flat and lifeless. It wasn’t enough, not for me. Now that I had felt inspiration, true inspiration, I knew it needed to come from the dirt, the wind, the water. Outside the concrete fortresses, danger and beauty and magic combined to create a life I wanted to live.
And there was something else. Even though we all lived so close to one another in the city, I still felt disconnected. And though my heart condition had prevented me from making much in the way of friends before now, I think I would have felt the same way even if I had had a big social circle. Somehow, out here I belonged.
“I’d much rather live in the mountains,” I said, looking up at the trees towering above, their branches intertwined into a lattice of cover. I hadn’t been anywhere in the Fold like this, and yet it reminded me of what it was like to walk across those distant planets. I’d take these trees over the city’s towers any day.
Caleb looked around, a look of distaste on his face.
“Why?” he asked.
“Well, it’s beautiful for one thing.”
“It’s boring is what it is,” he said. “There’s only a few kids in town, and none of them are my age. Are there lots of kids in the city? There must be.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But they’re not the best. At least, not in my opinion.” I shrugged.
“Well, at least you have food,” he said, finally winning the argument.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess you’re right.
But as we continued up the hill towards Amos’ place, and a lake of what I guessed was crystal clear water came into view between the trees, I was still happy to be far from the safety and sustenance the city offered. I wondered, if I was ever able to complete this monumental task before me, if I would ever be able to return home to those streets, to that little apartment Mom and I shared amidst the thousands of others. And in that moment, I decided.
No.
Caleb opened the door to the house without bothering to knock.
“Dad!” he called out, stomping his feet to rid them of the snow sticking between the treads.
A muffled sound came from somewhere inside, but nobody appeared.
“Downstairs,” Caleb said. “Told ya.”
We walked across the main living space, and I could tell why this place was the hub of activity for the village. This single room was huge, nearly as big as Grandma’s entire downstairs, and plastered to the wall were so many maps that the original wallpaper was almost entirely covered.
Sean’s face appeared at the top of a staircase, and he scowled.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, clearly annoyed. “This isn’t kids’ stuff, you know.”
“Shut up, Sean,” Caleb said. “Their car broke down and they’re gonna want to get out of town soon. We need Dad’s help.”
Sean shifted his suspicious gaze onto me, and I nodded.
“Grandma said something about a fuel pump,” I said.
He huffed and then turned to head back down to the basement.
We followed, and as we descended into the space, what I saw took my breath away.
Plants. Everywhere, every inch of table space was covered with hundreds of tiny plants. It was almost like walking into a growing tower, only on a much, much smaller scale.
“What’s up, Aster?” Carl asked, looking up from one of the tiny seedlings he had been inspecting.
“It’s our car,” I said. “It won’t start.” Then, unable to contain myself, “What is all this?”
Amos laughed.
“It’s our insurance plan,” he said, walking around from behind the table. “We grow the babies inside as long as we can until the frost is gone. Then we plant in the ground where they can get sun. The season’s short, so every plant needs all the help it can get. In a couple months, you’ll barely be able to walk two feet through here. We got kale, chard, beans,
tomatoes.”
Carl snorted.
“Tomatoes are a waste, and you know it,” he said.
“Don’t hurt no one to have three tiny tomato plants,” he said. His lips smacked unconsciously.
I imagined what Kiron’s face would have looked like, walking into a place like this. He spent his days on magic and defending Stonemore now, but I knew his heart was in the working of vines and sprouts and all things that grow. I made a mental note to tell him about it when I saw him again. Then, as my chest squeezed with worry over him and everyone else I had left behind, I forced my gaze up and away from the plants.
Carl wiped his hands on his jeans and walked around.
“What’s the matter with the car?” he asked.
“Fuel pump,” Sean said.
I shot him a look. Did he have to take away the opportunity for Caleb to be the one to tell his dad?
But Caleb was still full of pride at having brought me here. I hoped that extended to him keeping our secret, too.
“Hmm,” Carl said, thinking. “I don’t think we have anything we can use for that here. That’s not good news.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly worried. “You mean, you can’t fix it?”
“Oh, I’ll be able to fix it,” he said. “But it’ll take a while. We can try to put in an order with the deliveries to have them send one up, but it won’t be cheap. Those buggers will want nearly all your gold to trek back up here with something like that. Don’t worry, though,” he said, seeing my expression. “I can rip it apart and try to mend it. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
My heart fell. Either way, that didn’t sound like we would be on the road again anytime soon.
Carl turned to Amos.
“I think this’ll have to wait,” he said. “Not much we can do right now, anyways, except spread out the seeds and make sure people are planting as much as they can. Amos, can you start getting the word out?”
“Sure,” Amos said, nodding. “But I could use a hand, if you have one to spare.”
“I got two,” Carl said. “Sean, you go with Amos.”
Clearly, this was not what Sean wanted to hear, and part of me felt victorious that he had been assigned to, in his eyes, the less important task.
“We better get back,” he said, putting his arm around Caleb’s shoulder. Caleb beamed. “Gotta get these folks back on the road.”
Relief flooded me, both at Caleb’s silence about our attempted escape, and about Carl’s willingness to put his own responsibilities to the village aside so he could help us.
As we walked back, Carl didn’t ask me why we had been trying to start the car when we had clearly just arrived. His eyes were on the ground, watching his own boots crunch through the clean, white snow. I could tell he was relieved to be home and chewing on the problems the village now faced.
“Does everybody grow their own food here?” I asked.
“Just about,” he said. “Mrs. Jensen is eighty-seven and in a wheelchair, so she just works with the seedlings. It’s her way of giving back to the rest of us. Her place makes Amos’ basement look downright lazy by comparison.”
“Do you think you’ll have enough?” I asked. “I mean, now that the trucks aren’t coming anymore?”
“Too soon to tell,” he said. His breath made giant plumes of steam in the cold mountain air. He gripped one hand on Caleb’s shoulder, giving him a squeeze. “We’ll know a lot more after summer comes and goes.”
“What will you do?” I asked. “What if it’s not enough?”
“Well, I expect some people might head down to the city if that happens,” he said. He released his hand from Caleb’s shoulder and gave him a hearty shove, knocking him partway into a bank of snow we were walking past. “But we’ll hold out as long as we can.”
Caleb recovered and fell into step beside his father again, his hair now half-white from the feather-light snowflakes that clung to the black strands.
“Dad,” he said, and I could tell he was about to ask for something. His voice had a sort of begging quality to it before he had barely said a word. “Maybe I can go live with Aster.”
“What?” I asked.
Carl laughed.
“Son, did you even have a conversation with Aster, or his mother, about this idea? Not to mention me.”
Caleb shrugged.
“I’m having a conversation with you about it now,” he said. “Aster doesn’t like the city. Maybe we could trade.”
I stood with my mouth agape, both annoyed and impressed by this kid’s resolve.
But the funny thing was that, in that moment, I was tempted to take him up on it. These mountains were beautiful, more spectacular than anyplace I’d ever been on Earth. If I did return when all was said and done, I knew I would at least pay this place an extended visit.
Carl stopped walking and turned to his son.
“Listen, kiddo,” he said, placing one hand on each of Caleb’s shoulders. “We’re not going to rough it out here forever. If the summer passes, and our plantings fail, we’ll all have no choice but to go down to the city.”
“You’ll never go to the city, though,” he said, his eyes on the ground. “You’ve always said that.”
“I know what I’ve said,” Carl said. “Staying on out here takes resolve, and my refusal to go has been one of the ways I stay focused on life here, not there.” He held out his hands before Caleb, like two sides of an old fashioned balancing scale. “But if it comes down to my pride in one hand and my family’s lives in the other, I’ll be choosing this side.” The hand representing family sunk down low.
Caleb sighed, and I could tell that even though this was the answer he had been seemingly hoping for, he was unsatisfied.
Carl laughed and, wrapping one arm around Caleb’s shoulder, began to walk again. He turned to me.
“Caleb here would have us move now,” he said. “But not so much for the reasons he wants me to think. He’s dreamed of the cities since he was small.” He shook his head, clearly not relating to his son’s ambitions. “But he can wait.” He turned back to Caleb. “Either we go cause we’re hungry, or you go cause you’re eighteen. Got it?” He squeezed him tight to his side, and then released him again, giving him another shove like before.
This time, Caleb caught himself before falling into the snow.
He stood up tall, his own expression of pride mirroring that of his father’s. Then, despite his best attempts to remain stoic, his face broke into a wide smile.
Carl inspected the car when we got back to the cabin and proclaimed he would be able to repair it, but that it would take time. He estimated two days before he would be able to get the torch he needed from the other side of the village to work on the metal part of the pump, and then another day for the actual repair. And that was if things went according to plan. At first, I squirmed at the thought of such a delay. But as the sky clouded over late in the day and snowflakes began to fall, I decided that at least this was a pleasant place to be stranded. The peaceful feeling brought on by the snowfall was unexpected, and entirely welcome.
That night Grandma unloaded several days’ worth of rations from the trailer to share with everyone. And as we finished up dinner, Mom had let most of her frostiness towards Carl thaw. Though it was clear she still didn’t completely trust him. The two of them carefully avoided each other as the night wore on. Carl seemed to understand that nothing he could say could fix his behavior earlier in the day, and eventually he stopped trying to force his apologies on her.
When the lights finally went out for the evening, and we were all tucked in together on the living room floor, I scooted over to her.
“Why are you still so freaked out?” I asked, my voice barely audible as I spoke directly into her ear. “It’s not like he attacked you or something. And he’s fixing the car for us. What’s the big deal?”
She sighed.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Not to me. You don’t understand. With your dad, it was alwa
ys this way. One second he’d be hugging me, kissing me, and the next I’d be down on the floor. He would snap, just like that. It got to the point that I never knew what to expect, so I was just scared all the time.” She was quiet for a moment. “All the time,” she repeated.
I had seen Dad hit her once, but it had never occurred to me that it had happened more frequently than just the one time my four-year-old brain had hung onto.
“I don’t think he’s going to hit you—” I began.
“I know, I know,” she said, cutting me off. “But once someone starts acting like that, doing unexpected things, scary things, it’s hard to forget. Hard for me to, at least.”
I sat in the quiet for a while, the only sound was the last of the fire crackling down to embers.
“I’m sorry that I’m making you see Dad again,” I said finally. “I didn’t know.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said, her voice immediately sounded tougher, stronger, and I wondered if she, too, was remembering being knocked to the floor. And the strength it had taken her to pick herself up and move on without him in her life. “I know how to deal with your father. But when someone you don’t expect, someone you trust, when they do something to hurt you, it’s hard to go back.”
So she didn’t care about Carl’s attempts at restitution. She felt she had seen the true man behind the quiet, kind exterior. And while I didn’t agree, I understood.
Suddenly, the image of Jade standing over me as the Fire Mountains crumbled around us unwittingly flashed in my head. A crawling sensation crept over my skin, making me feel cold despite the warmth of the room. In my mind, I stared into those deep green eyes, watched them succumb to the black of the Corentin’s possession. But the black of her eyes, the only visible sign of his possession of her, hadn’t come until the very end, not until she was completely in his grasp. How long had she been doing his bidding before that day had finally come?
“I know someone like that, too,” I whispered in the darkness. “I don’t know what will happen if I ever see her again. I don’t know if I can ever trust her again after what she did.” My hand raised automatically to my forehead, right over the spot where she had struck me with the rock in her Riverstone chamber. I paused, listening to the last pops of the wood as it slowly turned to ash. “Do you think people can change? Do you think there’s anything they can do to win that trust back?” I tried to imagine what Jade could possibly do to prove herself to me once more, to show that she had never meant any of it, that she would never break my trust again.