by Jason Letts
Mira was taken aback. Somehow Mary had grown through their difficult travails, becoming both more confident and less self-involved. The last thing Mira wanted was to see everything they’d gained fall apart, but it still troubled her to be honored so.
“I think we’re overlooking someone who would make a much better fit for our new elder,” Mira said.
“And who’s that?” Jeana asked, giving a puzzled look to Kevin.
Leaving the construction site, Mira approached the old man sitting in a chair. Turning to address the others, she noticed Chucky had joined them. Will and Vern were climbing down from above. Clara exited the tent, Roselyn following close behind and whispering something into her ear. Even Vika and Knoll noticed that something was going on. Still, it seemed like someone was missing.
“We can’t forget about our town’s longest-standing resident, Mert Bogger. Why, he was the first teacher of the senior schoolhouse, and I know he shares our commitment to peace. I can’t think of a more upstanding and honorable individual to take up this position.”
Mert burst into laughter, holding in his sides. It was funny to see him laugh, though the suggestion did have a degree of merit to it.
“If you insist, I’ll be happy to do it, and I’ll perform the job to the best of my abilities. But you should know I can’t stand making serious decisions, I have a tendency to assume the worst, and to be perfectly honest I don’t like talking to people that much,” Mert explained, his grouchy disposition clearer than ever.
“Oh,” Mira said, ruing her decision.
“That’s why you’ll have to come on as my assistant and do everything for me. No one will know you are really controlling everything, and I can bask in the glory of your hard work. What do you say?”
“Like a puppet regime?”
“I don’t care what you want to call it, just as long as it doesn’t interfere with my afternoon naps,” he yapped. “Oh, and can you get to work on making me a big chair. Seems like everybody has a big chair.”
Plenty of snickers and giggles passed around the small crowd. Kevin called them all to order before it got out of hand.
“It’s settled then. To Bogger Outpost!”
“To Bogger Outpost!” everyone cheered. They rushed in to congratulate Mert and his new assistant. In the midst of all of the well-wishing, Mert tugged on Mira’s sleeve, pulling her ear closer.
“The name always belongs to the elder,” he whispered. “You can keep your modesty, but you won’t be able to hold off Mira Outpost for long.”
She turned to look at him and caught the seriousness in his eyes. In a way, it was flattering. Whether she liked it or not, she would help shape their new town into what it would become. It was her ideas and her beliefs that would mold a new society. An awe-inspiring and arduous task, to be sure, but glimpsing her jubilant friends made her realize those were the kinds of things they excelled at most.
Mira slipped out of the crowd, content to listen to their memories and visions from behind. Chucky too left them, approaching her in a timid yet endearing way. He shook his head, brushing some of his knotty locks out of his eyes.
“What do you say we go take a break?” he suggested.
Mira looked up to the bag of nails and the uncompleted corner posts. That had to be done soon before they could start setting the stones in place for the archways.
“Sure.” She smiled, deciding the work could wait.
He took her hand and led her across the construction area. They hopped over gaps in the foundation and stepped around piles of supplies. The forest line was just ahead, giving her a good idea where he was taking her. The stones marking the different paths had been knocked away during the war, and now sprouting plants disguised the little trails. But they remembered well enough which one to take, and soon they ducked into the woods.
Low-hanging leaves brushed against their sides as they wandered down the trail. The sunlight trickled through the trees, and a pleasant sense of calm pervaded the area.
“It’s nice being here with you and forgetting about anything we have to do. We’re not being chased, not in a hurry,” Mira said, taking a deep breath of calm air.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for,” Chucky said. He appeared much more relaxed now. As much as their struggles had been hard on her, Mira realized how much strain they had put on him. She believed she wasn’t meant for fighting because she didn’t have a power, but in truth he seemed equally repellant to it. It was his quiet ways. He didn’t need conflict or to always have the last word, and she loved that about him.
“Thanks for bringing me out here. I think I needed this,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder and squeezing his hand tightly as they moseyed along the trail. Everything was so green and beautiful.
She had to pull her head up and gasp when she glimpsed the schoolhouse in the small clearing. It had been knocked over during the war, but now it was standing tall. Excited, she jogged down the trail and came to the stone steps leading to its front door.
“Wow, who did this?” she gasped.
The one-room schoolhouse looked shabbier than ever. Little more had been done to it than a push to make it stand. The door had been fixed, and some of the broken wallboards had been mended. Still, large gaps in the walls and roof remained.
“I had a little help, but I was keeping it a secret until I could show you,” he said with an adorable grin.
“It’s wonderful! What a great landmark this will be. This is our oldest standing structure, restored, of course. We can give tours with little pamphlets telling all about what went on here!”
Chucky laughed, shaking his head. He put his arm on her shoulder and pulled her close.
“Is that really what you want? I was thinking we’d open it back up. I’d hate to think that we were the last ones to ever make it out of here,” he sighed, wistful.
“Well,” she paused, casting him a sidelong glance. “We’d have to get a great teacher to run it if we did. What do you think? Are you up for it?”
“Me? You must be joking. What would I possibly know that could be of value to anyone?”
He joked as he said it, but Mira could hear traces of his old insecurities woven within his voice. He was no long painfully shy, but some parts of a person can never wash away completely.
“I think you’d be perfect! We’d be much better off teaching farming techniques than combat training anyway. Maybe for things like math and science, I’ll give you some special tutoring. Once we get the manuals from Widget’s laboratory, every child will be able to get a good education. Before you know it, you’ll be training other teachers!”
She got so excited as she spoke, holding her hands to her chest. She could see it all, the magical place of learning she had always dreamed of. Chucky nodded and smiled. Maybe he didn’t understand it yet, but he would.
“Look at you, happy as a sunflower,” he said. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were trying to make everyone just like you. Course after all we’ve been through, it wouldn’t hurt if people had a bit of your nature. No, I think now you’ve got yourself a job you’re trying to square everybody away.”
“No!” She exaggerated her denial. “That’s the last thing from my mind. Just because I’ve become the elder’s assistant doesn’t mean I need to start planning for everyone. It’s not my fault if it’s obvious you’d make a great teacher or Roselyn an exceptional designer.”
Chucky laughed, giving her a playful push.
“You’ve got it all figured out haven’t you? What about for Will, Vern, or Mary?” Chucky snickered. “What about Aoi?”
A sudden thump came from within the schoolhouse, and the pair immediately crept around to investigate. It sounded like something had broken, and they were wary of the entire building collapsing. Sneaking around to the side window, they saw Aoi holding a part of the wall together. She rubbed her shoulder against her face, trying to compose herself.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that,” she sai
d, flustered. Exhaling, she dropped the thin boards and shuffled out through the door to meet them on the grass.
“What are you doing here?” Mira asked. Everything seemed so strange all of a sudden. Aoi appeared awfully embarrassed.
“I should be getting back to work, shouldn’t I? Sorry. I needed to be alone for a minute,” she stammered.
“What? Why?” Chucky asked, concerned.
“No reason. I’m sorry again, Mira. I’ll…” and Aoi whisked herself away toward the forest trail and the construction site. She left Mira and Chucky standing there, watching her go. Neither of them had a clue what was going on with her.
“What was that about?” Chucky asked, but Mira just stared at her thin figure slipping between the trees.
It wasn’t long before the new outpost started to take shape. They molded the archways and the enclosures with plaster, forming a beautiful and inviting center to their hometown. In the weeks since Vika joined them to reclaim her son, other refugees and vagrants from the demolished towns and defunct slave camps arrived in search of a better life. Many of them were haggard, hungry, and desperate for stability.
A lone man of tall stature approached through the early morning mist. The group noticed him stalking toward them across the open stretch leading out toward the mountains. He held a cloak tight around his body, keeping the hood over his face. He passed a few other newcomers, who shied away from him. The group was sculpting a new aqueduct in the square when word came of his arrival. When he finally drew near, Mira, Vern, and Mary went out to meet him.
Pulling off his hood, they saw the gaunt figure of Crimshaw standing before them. His manicured goatee had grown into an unkempt beard, and his thin fingers and bags under his eyes made for quite a jarring appearance. It’d been so long since they’d seen him after the shipwreck that they had no idea what hid behind his sad eyes. Finally, he dropped open his jaw to speak.
“Where can I help?” he asked, appearing both pitiful and shamed.
They welcomed him with smiles and their old adversary nodded gratefully. Mira shot Vern a look, and he put his hand on the man’s back and led him to the worksite. Watching them go from just beyond the outer archways, Mary held her hand to her mouth to hide a chuckle.
“I would love it if the witch dragged herself down here. It’s too bad we don’t still have her studs in our ears. That’d make it real easy for her to find us.”
“Where are we going to put him though?” Mira asked, glancing out at the tents bunched together near the forest’s edge. It was starting to become similar to the despondent conditions they’d lived with at Shade Base Camp. The memories made her shiver.
“Isn’t it about time we clear the rubble away and start rebuilding the town?” Mary asked. “That’d give a lot of the new arrivals something better to do than sit around and watch us.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea though? So many of them are so tired they can barely stand?”
Her argument did nothing to deter Mary though. She flashed a bright smile, looking back over her shoulder at the wreckage still covering the ground on the south side.
“You’d be surprised what people can do when they’re working to put a roof over their heads. Trust me, this place will look a lot better once we don’t have a giant garbage pile covering half the area. Who knows, maybe we could make room for some gardens here and there. It’d take a lot of lumber for the homes, but then we could focus on things like ice cream restaurants, makeover spas, and clothing stores!”
Mira laughed at her friend, who defiantly defended her girly inclinations. Mary crossed her arms and gave Mira a firm look.
“Alright, I get it. So do you want to be in charge of all that? You can play city planner, making sure the new people get settled and start work on more permanent housing. Does that sound good?” Mira asked.
“You bet!” Mary lit up, her brown eyes wide and excited.
“Let’s keep in mind we don’t need too many clothing stores yet, OK? We won’t have much use for them until we get some people who actually make clothes.”
“Oh, of course. You won’t have to worry about a thing. This’ll be the kind of town we’ve always dreamed of living in!”
Mira noticed a few more people in rags wandering onto the farmland. She nodded at them, trying to get Mary’s attention, but she was so excited she took off the opposite way toward Roselyn, Clara, and her projection, who were painting the plastered walls.
“Hey guys, guess what I am!”
Mira lowered her head into her hands and released a deep sigh.
“Mira, we’ve got a problem,” Vern announced, approaching her while she was kneeling down to fit the stones around the fountain. She set down the rock and waved up at him, apparently unconcerned.
“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” she asked, leaning back against the ground and crossing her legs as though she were at the beach.
“We don’t have enough food to feed all of the people who are coming here. They’re showing up with nothing, and we’re just plain running out,” he explained.
“That does sound serious,” she said, getting under Vern’s skin with her nonchalant manner. “So what are you going to do about it?”
Expecting her to tell him the answer, he was caught off guard. She smiled at him coyly though, and it was impossible to stay mad at her. He waited for a moment, still anticipating she would tell him what to do, but Mira only yawned and pulled on a hat to shield herself from the sun.
“I don’t know. What should I do?” he ventured.
“You should probably figure it out so we don’t all starve.”
“You’re not going to tell me?” he asked, bewildered.
“I’m a little busy here. Sorry,” she said, scraping some mortar onto a stone and then dropping it onto the fountain wall.
“You’re already starting to take after Mert,” Vern teased, shaking his head and starting off for Will, Roselyn, and Aoi, who were constructing tables on the other side of the square.
The worst part about not having food was that Vern was hungry, and he could go for some fresh bread, a juicy steak, and a glass of cool water. But as of right now, only the water was available, and that wouldn’t fill his stomach for long. As he approached the trio, a rumbling from his midsection announced his arrival. Roselyn laughed.
“It sounds like somebody’s hungry.”
“Well, why don’t we break for lunch? It’s got to be about that time,” Will suggested, setting down a rusty saw.
“I’ll tell you why,” Vern butted in. “It’s because there’s hardly any food left. Unless somebody shows up who can magically refill our pantry, we’ve got to do something.”
Vern argued but was surprised when he didn’t shock them into action.
“The farm master never showed up, did he?” Will asked.
“I don’t think so,” Aoi replied.
“Vern,” Will said, returning his attention. “Chucky and I have already started up the farm. It won’t be long until fruit starts coming in, then the vegetables after that.”
Vern crossed his arms and scowled. His sudden shift made his stomach rumble again.
“We might not make it that long! I’m talking about for this week. We need something, and unless somebody tramps around in the woods hunting for animals we’re going to be in trouble!”
“That’s a good idea. Why don’t you go do that? It shouldn’t be hard for you to catch something,” Roselyn said.
“Oh.” Vern realized she was probably right. He could just go out and nab something and the problem would be solved. They’d seen deer out in the woods before. Still, that might cover the steak, but he still needed some bread to go with it.
“OK, I’ll do it,” Vern declared. “I’ll organize a group of hunters and we’ll go looking for deer, and I won’t come back till I have one. But I’ll need some flour to make bread too.”
The idea of fresh meat caught everyone’s attention and for the first time. Vern had expected at any second to
hear more stomach rumbling. Instead, he noticed Mira had snuck up behind him.
“You know, Bogger has some flour left in his store. If you gave me some of the meat, I’m sure I could get some flour for it,” Will noted.
“You’d probably need Kevin and Jeana to cook it, which they’d be happy to do as long as they got a piece,” Roselyn added.
Some of the wind got knocked out of Vern’s sails when he realized what a small percentage of the animal he would keep. He might be lucky to get one day’s meal out of it, and then he’d have to go out again the next day for more. It started to sound like a job as he continued to ponder it.
“Just think, depending on how much you catch, we’d all have you to thank,” Mira said, putting her hand on his shoulder. She had something sly and devilish about her, but her point did hit home. If he took charge of the hunters, he’d be the one making the difference between a thriving town and a starving pit of despair. Nodding, Vern decided he’d get started right away, before his stomach started to voice any more concerns.
“I’ll be back,” he said, turning away to prepare himself for the task at hand. He was excited about making a contribution to the community that everyone could appreciate. Who knows, if he did well enough, they might be able to have a great feast to commemorate the completion of the new outpost. Back behind him, he heard Mira voice her satisfaction.
“One hunter and one trader. Check and check. Let’s see, is anyone left?”
There was one person left without a task, and she sat on a hill overlooking the valley and the mountains. It was sunset, and the light from the web sprawled out over the atmosphere and chased away the sun. Behind her, a demolished home lay in ruins, broken pieces and debris scattered everywhere. This was the home she had never seen, the place of the family she had never lived with.
Approaching footsteps on clinking glass got Clara’s attention, but she didn’t need to move to see who was coming. In the time it took to blink, she cast her mind’s eye back toward the home and saw her sister navigating the darkness.