by Jason Letts
Severely confused, the little girl took a halting step back and then turned to run for the stairs, taking the smell of cinnamon with her. Mira watched her as she fled. The girl stopped suddenly in front of her sister. Coming attentively to her bedside, Clara tried to brighten her spirits.
“Let’s go outside and look for fireflies!”
“I can’t play now, Clara. I’m hurt.”
“What can make it better?”
“I don’t know,” little Mira said.
“Please feel better. Maybe you can invent something, like the water sill.”
From the windowsill, Mira could only faintly see them, but Clara’s kindness touched her. After the two girls spoke, they shared a hug. Mira buried her face in her hands, unable to bear witnessing something so sweet that she had never known. Tears welled in her eyes as she imagined how badly she wished for kindness like that. This is what the Warlord had stolen from her, a happy childhood and a united family.
Clara left her sister’s side and skipped down the stairs. Her namesake remained quiet, returning to her book. Compelled by Clara’s sweetness, Mira yearned to provide that same service, even if it didn’t matter at all, even if everything around her wasn’t real.
She slid off the thin wooden frame, stepped over her cot, and crept among the rafters to where the young girl rested in bed. A candle on the small table near her head illuminated the side of the girl’s face and the book that she held. The bloody bandage began to peel away. She had another cut on her forearm that also looked infected.
Noticing the book in her hand, Mira felt a ripple of anger swell into flaring rage. Her fingers shook against the wooden rafter she held against her face, and the tension tightened the muscles in her arms and legs. Seeing her reading one of Flip Widget’s Manuals of Science pricked her and saturated her with venom.
Mira emerged from her nearby spot in the attic and ripped the book from the girl’s hands. She tossed it flat on the bed.
“You shouldn’t read that! He’s not a good person. Never let him come near you. Never let him change you.”
The little girl, pain afflicting her at every moment, formed a sudden look of concern.
“What? What are you talking about? I love Uncle Flip. We study together and make gadgets. He’s coming tomorrow.”
“No! You can’t listen to him. He’s only trying to deceive you,” Mira implored.
Hearing what the girl called him, she begged her passionately to listen for her own good. The girl reached over and reclaimed the book, unconvinced by Mira’s pleading.
“But I have to learn from him. He’s the only one who can teach me these things,” she said before continuing with a weak smile. “Daddy says if I know enough, it can be a kind of gift.”
After being rebuffed, the concern on Mira’s face slipped away, and a cold, stern glare replaced it.
“Nothing you do will ever fix what is wrong with you. You can never make up for what you are. You’ll never be like everyone else. You will never be real, never, never, never. And the sooner you learn that the better off you’ll be.”
All at once, the girl broke into tears. Her eyes became as puffy as her wounds, and she cried with her mouth open. She rubbed her eyes, knocking away the bloody bandage on her face. Blood and puss trickled from the deep, open wound.
Seeing the effect she callously wrought on this little version of her own self brought tears to Mira’s eyes. She clutched the piece of moldy bread in her hands. Angry and confused, she bared her tangled mess of reason to the scalded child.
“I was only trying to help you. I’ve only ever tried to help anyone. It doesn’t help you to shield you from the truth. You can try to be the smartest or you can become so tough that nothing can touch you, but even that doesn’t help. Believe me, I know. You will always be different. I’ve tried to pretend I wasn’t so hard. Even when I thought I wasn’t, I was. It just goes to show that I still haven’t figured it out.”
Mira slunk onto the floor and cried. Mira sat in her bed and cried. Mira cried. This wasn’t what she wanted to become. She meant to do good and didn’t understand why it came out bad. All of the fighting, all of the pushing against the outside world had done nothing to change it. She had driven away her friends and hurt the people she loved. And for the first time she realized it all.
She wondered why she couldn’t share the burden of their sorrows, like Clara had done for her sister. Just feeling so sorry for herself and the little girl in the bed, Mira lurched up to give her the same kind of hug that Clara did. The moldy bread slipped from her fingers, and she put her arm on the girl in a weeping embrace. The girl seemed too entranced by her sobbing to care. Mira’s hand rested softly on her cheek after wiping away a tear.
Lying there, she got to thinking. Everyone’s problems would never be erased, and there would always be struggles, but the answer wasn’t to fix them. She could be there for those around her and help them learn from their trouble without drowning them in it. Sometimes showing that you care does more to heal a wound than any medicine.
Before Mira could say or do anything else, she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Kevin emerged, a disappointed look on his face. He had no doubt heard the commotion and came to put a stop to it. Looking at Mira draped over his injured and miserable child, he saw the problem at once and immediately acted to remove it.
“You’ve worn out your welcome, stranger. It’s time for you to leave.”
Chapter 10: Tied Hands
“She’s getting worse,” Aoi said, spoon-feeding more applesauce into Mira’s mouth. A bloody bandage fell away from her cheek, revealing a gash that looked gruesome and infected on her pale and feverish face. Pussy mucus soaked through her uniform in places to form spots. Her comatose body rested against the inside of the tent near where her friends idly passed the time on their mats.
The news had spread quickly throughout the camp of the Specials and the impending battle. Every soldier in the field had been called back to base, and now they all had standing orders to engage the enemy as soon as they arrived. Until then, there was nothing for any of them to do but worry about what would happen and when the army of the Sun would come screaming through the wasteland.
“They are deafening,” Mary said of the Specials, balled up on the floor and pressing her hands to her chest. “I knew there was something strange going on when we returned, but they just keep getting louder and louder. It’s like they know they’re going to wake up.”
While the sound existed only inside of her senses, that same feeling emerged as an ill foreboding from the others. Still haunted by the fresh memories of their last battle, they couldn’t imagine how the one before them could be more dangerous or more pointless.
“I mean, if he’s got the eight of them, he doesn’t need the rest of us. We could all get wiped out a hundred different ways. It doesn’t make sense,” Rowland blubbered.
“Those are our orders. When the battle lines are drawn, we’ve got to be at the front with the rest of the soldiers. We can’t forget we came here to put a stop to this war. The people back home are counting on us, and I’m not going to do anything to disgrace them,” Vern argued.
“I heard some other teams talking about making a run for it. I don’t know if they will or not, but they say they didn’t sign up for this,” Mary said.
“If the Shade army is defeated, and the Sunfighters are allowed to pass through, the first place they’ll come to is Corey Outpost,” Roselyn noted.
“I wasn’t saying we should run,” Mary defended. “Just that other people might.”
“I certainly hope they don’t,” Vern said. “And we shouldn’t either. I have a feeling running won’t make anyone any safer, so we might as well be there to do what we can. We can’t take the coward’s way out. It would be much worse than death.”
“But there’s got to be something we can do to help ourselves, to give us a chance,” Rowland pleaded.
“Yeah, where’s the plan? At least Mira would have had
a plan,” Will jumped in.
Vern looked at Will, caught off guard by his demand. It only took a moment of silence for it to become clear that Vern didn’t have a plan. He’d urged them to do the right thing and fight, but no one knew what would happen or what it would look like. So how could anyone have a plan? Even the usual rally calls to fight their hardest and try to keep themselves out of danger wouldn’t do, because nothing but dumb luck and chance would determine who walked away.
“If there’s one thing Mira taught me,” Rowland declared, getting to his feet, “it’s that putting your mind to work in advance is the best bet. If I can’t take the initiative by now and come up with something then I might not deserve another chance.”
Storming out of the tent, Rowland left them all behind. Surprised by his abrupt exit, the others shared glances.
“Do you think the nerves are getting to him?” Chucky asked.
“No matter how tough you want to act, getting thrown into something like this would be humbling for anyone,” Vern said softly.
They heard footsteps near the tent’s entrance, and everyone looked to see if Rowland had changed his mind and come back. But instead of Rowland, another familiar face stepped through the fold. When Neeko appeared, everyone immediately got to their feet.
“Relax, relax. I’m not here to do anything,” he scoffed. Solemnity replaced the usual condescension on his face. Already shielded from the sun, his pale skin did not have its shadowy transparency to it.
“Then what do you want?” Vern asked, still wary.
“Look, no matter how you feel about it, I’m responsible for Jeremy. I lost a few of my soldiers in that first skirmish, but I have no idea what happened to him. I heard you made it back, and so I have to ask you. Do you know anything?”
“Yeah, I know something,” Vern sniped, unable to hold back the anger any longer. “We saved his life and then he left us to die! If you can teach him something about cooperation you’ll be a better leader than…”
Vern stopped himself, finally mumbling “I ever was.” Neeko must have assumed he meant Mira and changed his words in respect to her fragile condition. Taking Vern’s words as an invitation, Neeko passed through to look at the body sitting against the side of the tent.
“Yes, my mentor told me about her. This floating between life and death does seem fitting for someone who could never tell what was fun and games from what was real,” Neeko said.
“If you’d wanted it to be fun on Shadow Mountain then you shouldn’t have made it so personal with her. You asked for what you got, and now you play out your sick revenge game by pulling on the commander’s coattails. How real is that? Now get out before we all follow her example. It’s starting to make a lot more sense than yours,” Vern glowered.
Chucky put his hand on Vern’s shoulder as he spoke. Together, all six soldiers looked at Neeko with such revulsion that he immediately started moving for the exit. Everyone followed him out, except for Chucky and Mary, who stood in the entranceway.
“Looks like the hole Mira put us in just gets deeper and deeper,” Will scowled. Succumbing to harsh glances from those in the group who supported Mira, Will ducked into a passing crowd. Those remaining looked at each other, each puzzled over the nature of his problem. After a moment, Roselyn cleared her throat and turned to face her friends.
“He’s been through a lot,” she covered, “and I can’t blame him if he doesn’t know how to deal with it. He just needs our support, even if he can’t show it.”
Mary set her jaw when she saw Roselyn go after Will, wondering if she was only interested in him now that he always seemed so distressed. She couldn’t have any real feelings for him, could she? Mary suddenly became afraid of what she would be left with if her best friend’s attention vanished. Shuddering, she turned back into the tent, where she saw Chucky kneeling beside Mira’s body.
A goofy grin on his face, he helped her to sit upright as though he were playing with a doll. He let his eyes drift over her, brushed strands of hair from her face, and set her arms in her lap as though she were right there with them. Altogether, it struck Mary how deep his affection must be, and she wondered why she’d never noticed it before.
“How can you care for her so much after all she’s put us through?” Mary asked, some of her own confused feelings about Mira finally finding a voice. But Chucky was neither frightened nor ashamed to be caught tending to her. He glanced at Mary, offering an undeniably adorable shrug.
“If being respected and appreciated are things to be put through, it makes perfect sense to me. Don’t let her rough exterior lately fool you. Deep down her spirit’s as bright as ever. I know it’ll find its way through again. It just has to.”
Starting after Will, Roselyn peered along the row of tents, where soldiers walked from the mess hall chatting freely in the pathway. Everyone wore the same uniform, so she scanned their heads looking for the right light-brown hair color.
Roselyn jogged to the right, trying to figure out where he had gone. Coming to the row’s end, she realized how close they were to the edge of the camp. The wall of unshielded sunlight hung in front of her in the air. Glancing to the side, she saw a solitary figure skulking along through the training fields.
Racing after him, she kept her eyes on him as he settled on a small, shady hill overlooking the graveyards in the sun, the bare rolling hills, and the faint mountains to the west. There were far fewer buildings in this quadrant, and so a breeze passed over them as it traveled through the wastes. Slowing down behind him, she watched him for a moment as he sat on the ground holding his legs and resting his head on his knees. Even if he came here because his opinions on Mira made him an outsider, Roselyn knew enough about emotions to know she wasn’t the cause of his strife.
“I don’t blame you for what you did,” she said.
“I knew it would be you…that would come,” he mumbled. “You shouldn’t have. I don’t deserve your attention.”
She came closer, sitting beside him. As soon as she did, she got the impression she was too close.
“Why are you acting like this? I don’t look down on you,” she wondered, trying to be sympathetic.
Finally accepting he didn’t want her there, she got up again. She took a few steps down the front of the hillside and turned to face him. A sea of graves stretched out behind her, open and closed, large and small.
“I didn’t even do it,” he said. “It just happened all of a sudden and he was dead. Now I’m left to live with it. He lives in my memory because there’s no place else he exists. I owe him. I belong to him now in a weird way because of what I took from him. It’s something I can never repay. I’ll just have to feel it grinding away at my gut, weighing me down, forever.”
“Will! Do you think he would feel so bad about it if he’d done it to you? That’s what he wanted to do. We’re all just protecting ourselves, and we’ve all had to do things we wish we hadn’t because of it,” Roselyn pleaded.
“You haven’t killed anyone,” Will scoffed at her.
“I hid! Is that really better? If I could, I would snap my fingers and make this whole horrible thing be over so we could go home together. I’d make it so nobody thought they had something to gain by hurting anyone else. I promised Corey I’d do that, but I can’t. I’m just a little piece in all of this,” she said.
Will stood and turned away, hiding a face full of despair.
“If you’re a little piece, then what am I?”
Flustered at him, she marched up the hill and pulled on his shoulder so he would face her.
“Stop that! You never used to think that way. It used to be just about having fun and playing games. Where did that Will go?” she asked, looking straight into his eyes.
But Will gave her a push, gentle enough but one that still hurt.
“The same place all heroes go that never make anything of themselves.”
He shrugged away her hand and shuffled down the hill. Roselyn didn’t know what else she could
say, and so she just watched him walk along the empty training fields. From the top of the small hill, she could see across most of base camp. Nothing good came from anything she saw in front of her. She raised her hand to it, made her wish, and snapped her fingers.
Around dusk, when the sunshield had been laid against the ground to the west and a few torches glowed around the residential area, Aoi sat on the ground beside toothpicks and stones. Most others had gone to the mess hall for the evening meal, allowing her to enjoy the relative quiet of an otherwise noisy place. Letting her breath drift effortlessly through her lungs, she cultivated peace in her mind that stood at stark odds with her surroundings.
Admiring the thin wooden pick in her hands, she tried to open her mind and heart to all that it could receive. She bent the toothpick, but could not break it. Setting it back down, she dug her hand under a small boulder, nearly half her size. She let her peace of mind radiate out through every pore. Without difficulty, she lifted the stone over her head.
As soon as she set the rock down, she sensed that someone watched her. Slowly shifting her attention, her eyes found a girl standing on the other side of the path. She had brilliant red hair and bags tied around her hands. Having gotten Aoi’s attention, Gloria crossed the path to approach her. She looked timid and fragile, like she might run away.
Aoi regarded her patiently, and it took Gloria some time to settle on how to begin.
“It’s you. We met on Shadow Mountain during the Rite and I’ve been looking for you ever since. Do you remember me?” Gloria asked.
“Yes, I remember,” Aoi answered.
The girl cleared her throat and kneeled down beside Aoi. She put her wrapped bags on her knees. Green goo stained the burlap fabric.
“I can’t touch anyone without hurting them, but I touched you and somehow you were OK. I watched you here, but I can’t figure it out. What is it you do?”
“There are two sides to everything. For me, there is energy coming in and energy going out. I never thought weakness could be a strength, but sometimes it’s the only way to absorb and transform what otherwise might hurt you,” Aoi explained.