Ember squinted as purple confusion swirled and wove itself into her thoughts. Her gaze landed on a shiny little bijou dangling from Michelle’s neck. The shape reminded her of a single clover leaf. ‘Silver. It’s silver. There’s a lot more silver out here than I thought, and that’s not good. Silver is not good.’ Her thoughts wandered back to the night of the fight. Her heart sank as the fog in her head grew thicker. ‘Don’t think about that right now. You thought about it enough earlier. And you know, thinking about something you can’t control isn’t going to change it. Try to enjoy enjoying for now, if you can. Everything is going to fall apart the moment you get back, and you know it. This may be your last chance to be happy for a long time.’
She shook herself back into the external world. “My tongue? Uh, yeah, I guess so.”
She stuck it out, then went cross-eyed trying to see it. Michelle did some human equivalent to a chuff, and lifted Ember’s chin to get a better look. Ember’s mind went numb. She curled back her lips, trying to keep her whiskers from touching Michelle’s skin. A lump formed in her stomach as she realized what Michelle was looking at.
“You chew on it a lot, don’t you? Why?” Michelle asked, releasing her.
A lingering feverishness took shape where Michelle’s fingers had been. Ember licked her lips, then pulled her tongue back into her mouth where it belonged. “It, er, helps me think and calms me down. I think. I don’t know. I’m not really supposed to do it, but sometimes I bite it without even realizing it.”
“I thought so.”
After an awkward, lengthy pause, Michelle asked several other questions, each more confusing than the last. They were questions like “do you ever change moods faster than what most of your family would consider normal?” and “is there a special routine you have to follow to feel secure?”
As Ember replied to each one in turn, anxiety crept a little closer. It seemed like the questions were calculated to target and expose all of her weaknesses, which would then lead to Michelle looking down on her like everyone else. Yet she answered them as honestly as she could, hoping her honesty might somehow help her fix herself.
“Do you ever find yourself repeating words or phrases in your head, or even out loud?”
Ember blinked the tiredness from her eyes and tried to stop herself from shivering, yet the harder she tried, the more violently she shook. “That’s not normal? Even the way I think is messed up?”
Michelle reached toward Ember’s face, but stopped before her fingers could make contact. Instead, she held out the warm thing and wrapped it back around Ember. “Not messed up, just different. But I think everyone thinks a little differently, so in a way, I guess it is normal.”
She nestled farther into her warm thing, tail twitching. The shivering still wouldn’t stop. “I don’t understand. What does any of this have to do with anything? What are you trying to do? What are you trying to say?”
“I’m getting to that. I just have a few more questions. What about your friends? Do you have any, and if you do, how would you describe your relationship with them?”
Ember swallowed and buried her face beneath the warm blue covering. ‘Go ahead. Give her your vulnerabilities. Everything she could ever need to destroy you. Maybe she can use all this to fix me too. I don’t know. I just want this to be over.’
“There’s just my mate and my sister,” she said, barely louder than a whisper. “I guess my parents and my mentor too. Maybe my aunt, Fern, but . . . but probably not anymore. I don’t even know what else to say, other than that they’re the only ones who care beyond tolerating me. And even then, my dad, and C- . . . Commander Aspen kept trying to fix me, but they couldn’t. And now so many bad things have happened. I don’t know what to do.”
Her tail thrashed harder. “Everyone treats me like a kitten, and part of me wonders if they’re right. I’ll say things, and everyone looks at me like I’m crazy, so much so that I’m not even allowed to mention my colors anymore. And then there are times when I’ll do something or think about something, and it’s like my senses just . . . turn off. Sometimes my eyes even kind of stop seeing, open or not. And then someone will yell at me, and I’ll come back, and they’ll have to repeat themselves and they’ll sound really angry, and I don’t know what to say.”
‘Why did I tell her that? Of course it’s not going to help. Now she’s going to be mad, isn’t she? No one is supposed to know about my colors. Why did I mention my colors. That was stupid. Fluffheaded Ember, stop! Stop it now; you’re hurting yourself and everyone else, so just stop talking.’
“Colors?” Michelle asked.
Ember winced. She peeked out from her covering. “Yes?” she mewled.
“What do you mean when you say ‘colors’? I just want to know. I promise I won’t make fun of you.”
She drew a deep breath. “I see-feel colors. I’m see-feeling a lot of purple right now. C-confusion. And grey. That’s what color I see when my head gets foggy and freezes up. Sometimes it gets so bad I can only think with pictures, and it makes me feel like a fluffhead, which is the only reason I’m telling you this—I can’t think straight.”
‘Stop it, Ember. Stop, stop, stop, now.’
Michelle leaned back and muttered a human word Ember had never heard before.
Ember flinched and buried herself back under the warm thing. “What? What is it? That was wrong, wasn’t it?”
Michelle straightened herself up. “No, it wasn’t wrong at all. It’s called synesthesia, and it’s where two or more senses or sensors inside of you get linked together. It’s not a bad thing, sweetie. You know, Matt doesn’t have synesthesia, and he’s a touch more sociable, but in many ways you two are very similar. I’ve lived with him for fourteen years, and I still can’t imagine what it’s like inside his head. It’s a fascinating place, I’m sure.”
‘Fourteen years? Fourteen winters?’ Ember thought. She lifted her covering enough to see Michelle’s kind face. ‘You don’t seem very old. How long do you humans live?’ She sighed and let the blue fluff cover her eyes once more. ‘I don’t even know what’s going on anymore. Tired again. Sick again. I just wanna go home.’
Michelle continued, “One time I was outside taking a walk with him. From what I could tell, everything around us was silent. At some point I got curious and asked him if he could hear anything, and he gave me a list of over twenty separate sounds that weren’t our voices. The funny thing is, I couldn’t hear any of them until he brought them to my attention, or at least I hadn’t noticed them until that point.”
Ember stopped shivering and shook the soft thing off of her head. Pieces clicked together. All at once, everything felt too warm. ‘So when Dad tells me to ignore something, he’s being serious,’ Ember thought. ‘He really can choose to ignore things, and doesn’t realize I can’t? Is that what it’s like to be normal? It must be nice.’
“I-is there a way to fix me? To make me not hear everything?” Ember asked.
Michelle sighed, and placed her hands on top of her folded legs. She leaned closer, face calm and voice quiet. “Ember, sweetie, you aren’t broken. There’s no way to fix what isn’t broken. I want you to listen to me, and not interrupt until I’m done. Okay?” She reached up and fidgeted with the silver clover leaf on her neck. “The point I’m trying to make here is that everyone is different. We all have our problems, and we all have our flaws. How you think can shape what they are, but the way you experience the world around you isn’t a flaw. It’s a part of you, and even if it’s different, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Ember sat up and shook the now feverish blue thing off of her. Her lower jaw trembled with anxiety as her mind worked to fit together the meaning of Michelle’s words, but the more pieces it snapped into place, the more she dreaded looking at the final picture. “S-so that’s it? I’ll never stop being scared because it’s part of who I am, and nothing I do will ever change that?”
“You’ll never stop being scared of things, but everyone gets afra
id. Fear is normal. How you deal with fear is up to you, but sometimes you need to stay and face it, even if it hurts. Otherwise you might find yourself in a snowstorm without half of your fur.”
Her face burned. She shrunk back, trying to make herself smaller. “Sorry,” Ember said. Tears dripped into her fur, but she didn’t know why she was crying. She tried to make herself stop, but they kept coming. “I know that was fluffheaded. I wasn’t . . . I couldn’t . . . I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t do better, and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry for everything. I just wanted to go home, and . . . and . . .”
“It’s okay. It’s okay. Do you want a hug, sweetie? Or, uhm, do you want me to put my arms around you?” Michelle asked.
Ember nodded and kept trying to blink away her tears. Michelle moved closer. She wrapped her arms around Ember’s body. Ember pushed her head against Michelle’s shoulder, letting the pressure engulf and comfort her. They stayed there until Ember stopped crying, then they pulled away at the same time.
“Better?” Michelle asked.
“A little. Thank you. But if I really think differently, and I can’t change it, what am I going to do? You say I’m not broken, but you’re the first creature I’ve met to tell me that. How am I supposed to believe you when almost everyone I’ve ever known has said behind my back, or even to my face, that there’s something wrong with me? And it’s not just them, I . . . I kind of agree. Something that’s supposed be inside of me is missing. I can feel it’s missing. Everyone else seems to have it, and I don’t know what it is. You know a lot of things. Do you know what part of me I’m missing?”
Michelle rested her elbows against her knees. “No, I don’t, but I’ll tell you this much; everyone else is just as lost, and confused, and uncertain as you are. Most just pretend not to be. Honestly sweetie, I think everyone is born with a few pieces missing. It’s up to each of us to find them. You just have to keep looking.”
Ember glanced down at her grey, mechanical paws. She wiped away her tears and smiled bittersweetly. “Thanks. I’ll try, I guess.”
Ember got up and walked over to the large black structures sitting against the wall. She examined them for a moment, then jumped onto the largest and longest of them. Her paws sank into the soft material. It felt strange against her pads. Past the cushioned backing of the structure, the wall extended inward, and a series of vertical, wood-colored strips concealed a light of some kind. Ember propped herself up against the backing and nosed the strips away. A transparent panel revealed a snow-coated clearing with a few small trees scattered around it. The heavier drift of that morning had eased into a gentle snowfall. Human tracks of varying sizes covered the ground, streaks of brown and grey amidst the brightness. Sunlight broke through the clouds overhead, making the landscape glisten like Eastern gemstones. Icicles sparkled from the trees, and flurries shimmered like pyrite. It was the magic of her first winter all over again, this time without the cold.
She sucked in a long, slow breath, then let it out in a gentle “wow.” When she did, the panel fogged up. She snorted and pressed a paw against the patch of condensation. The glass cooled her toes. When she pulled it away, it left a smudged, paw-shaped mark through which she could see the outside world.
‘It doesn’t matter what anyone else says or thinks anymore, Em. If she’s right, I’m not broken, and I’m going to see my family again. Everything is going to be okay. No one can take these things away from you because you’re going to make them reality, Ember, no matter how hard you have to try. I’m going to find my missing pieces, and I’m going to come back home. Don’t worry, Hyrees, I’m coming for you. Don’t do anything fluffheaded, and everything will get better.’
Michelle walked up behind her and pushed aside the wood-like flaps. It smudged her paw print even more but made looking out easier. Ember rested her chin against the cushion. For the first time in days, shimmering misty oranges filled her head. Instead of being the dull shade of sadness, it was vibrant and hopeful, like the first light of dawn. Together they watched in silence as the snow gradually covered up more and more of the footprints. Ember closed her eyes. A cozy kind of tiredness sent soft blue-green to play with the oranges, painting an abstract picture of beautiful colors across her mind’s eye.
“Hey, Ember,” Michelle said.
The sudden noise snapped her away from her two-toned rainbow.
“I was thinking, since Matt is also on the spectrum, he might be able to help give you some tips to make your life a little easier. His side job is helping others like himself and you. He has some great advice for how to cope with the difficulties you’ve been facing, and how to find and better use your strengths. He usually works with people, but I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to help an appala. I could ask him, if you want.”
“That would be nice,” Ember replied, “but, uhm, what spectrum is he on? You said ‘also,’ so are you saying I’m on it too? What does it mean? I don’t understand.”
Michelle chuckled. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, sweetie. But for now, would you like to get Thai back up and working again?”
Ember’s face lit up. “Yes, please.”
“Then that are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
Chapter 13
Cloud
Cloud gnawed on a half-frozen minnow. He’d found it floating at the edge of the creek and had decided not to let it go to waste. There was something about their tiny scales and strong flavor that helped him focus.
‘A break. Wait, do I really need a break? What am I thinking? I can’t afford to take breaks. Lives are at stake and I’m wasting my time. Lupine can go bite a fox. I need to check on Fledge and see how the next test piece is coming along. It should be done by now. And if it’s not, I can help her with the setting process. Hopefully she hasn’t burnt it again. If she’s tending the fire properly, the bowl should do its job.’
He swallowed the rest of the minnow, then licked the hole in his gums where his upper right fang had been. He stood up. Sunlight glinting off the icy creek edge burned a little spot of light into his vision. He sighed and blinked it away.
What snow remained on the forest floor looked more like grey slime mold than any form of water. It made the world seem even more dead than before. Dead and sick. He coughed, sniffed back the congestion in his nose, then fumbled his way back to the Glade.
A group of toms worked together to shove abatis sticks into a new ‘outer wall,’ which Lupine had insisted on building. He tried to ignore their surprised stares.
Farlight trotted up to him. “Sir, what are you doing back so soon, if you don’t mind me asking?” he said as Cloud entered the inner Glade.
When he didn’t reply, Farlight followed after him. “Sir, please.”
A few leaps away, several gatherers and clayworkers used stones to sharpen the ends of branches. They lowered their heads in respect as he passed by.
“What do you want, Farlight?” Cloud asked through gritted teeth.
“The same thing I keep telling Hyrees. For you to take care of yourself. You’re not so different, you and my brother. You both—”
Cloud stopped. The already blazing fever in his forehead grew hotter. “That’s enough, Farlight. I’m busy right now. We’ll do your lessons later.”
“You’re both hurting yourselves without thinking about the consequences. Living in the moment. Not planning for the future. The colony needs you at your strongest, and you’re both getting weaker by the day. So listen to me.”
“I said that’s enough!” Cloud snapped. “Why do you even think I’m doing all this? I am planning to win a war, because this is our future. And it’ll be the end of it for some of us if I don’t.”
Farlight didn’t back away or even flinch. Instead, he stepped closer. “You might be my mentor, but you have no right to speak to me like that. Until further notice, you’re only allowed to work from midday to sunset. This includes both your work as a border guard and work on the guard pieces. You can still tell others what to do a
nd train me outside of your work time, but no actual work.”
Cloud growled. It turned into a cough. “That was good practice, but you’re not the commander yet. Go play with Kivyress. I have important things to get done.”
“No, I’m not the commander, but I am a commander. Lupine has given me charge over two toms he’s worried about. I think you already know who these lucky cats are, so I’ll spare you the names.”
Cloud’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about? He can’t do something like that without consulting the council first.” He sneezed, then turned and strode toward Lupine’s den.
“He did consult the council.”
“I’m part of the council. I’m his advisor. I didn’t permit this.”
Lupine slunk out of the den as Cloud approached the entrance. “W-we met without you,” he said. “It’s completely allowed to have a council meeting about a member without inviting them, including a-a-a chief advisor. You know that. Let’s be honest, Cloud—you don’t think I’m a good commander. A-a-and, as is often the case, you’re probably right. So you get a different commander and Farlight gets real-life practice. Sorry it had to come to this, Cloud, but it-it’s the best I can do.”
“But—”
“I-if you have any problems with this, t-t-tell your commander. It was his idea.”
Cloud narrowed his eyes and glared at Lupine, then at Farlight. He turned toward the furthest fire pit. “It’s between midday and sunset. I’m not going to waste my time dealing with this right now. I’ve got things to do, and even less time to do it now, thanks to you two.”
He sniffled a few times as he walked across the Glade. The congestion stopping up his sinuses made his head stuffy and him tired.
‘Tahg, that kitten’s got a lot of nerve.’ He sighed. ‘He really is going to make a good commander. Come on tomcat, get it together. This is only temporary. Once Lupine steps down, and Farlight is running everything, we can go. He won’t need me. And then I’ll never have to worry about any of this nonsense again. In fact, this just proves I was right about him.’
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