Keepers of the Flame

by McFadden III, Edward J.

  “I know many things you don’t. I am reborn. Did I not tell you this in the dream?” the girl said.

  Outside, the virals had worked themselves into a fever pitch.

  “You want to tell us your plan?” Tye said. Whoever this girl was, and why she’d been waiting for them, would have to wait.

  An Uruk threw a torch onto the roof, and the old wood caught. Smoke leaked in, and flames lashed through a blackened hole. More torches struck the building, setting it ablaze. Still Hansa seemed unmoved.

  “Shit don’t mean shit,” Milly said. She shifted from foot to foot and bit her nails.

  “But shit does mean shit. Some shit, anyway,” Hansa said.

  Those words coming from her innocent face made something twist inside Tye. He grabbed the child’s shoulders and turned her toward him. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Screw off.” Hansa smiled, and said, “That’s what you tell people, isn’t it?”

  It unnerved him when she saw things she had no business seeing. “Still, that don’t make it right. You’re a young girl and you shouldn’t…”

  She ignored him and headed for the front of the church. “Follow me,” she said, as she disappeared behind the altar into the sacristy.

  Milly looked at Tye, laughed and followed.

  Tye stood there for several seconds, rooted in stubbornness. Had that little shit just ignored him? Some things never change. He looked up at the widening hole in the roof, flames licking the inside of the church. But some things do change.

  He chased after Hansa and Milly and found them in the sacristy kneeling before an open trap door in the floor. Hansa said, “It leads to a tunnel which dumps out on the side of a hill to the east.”

  “What does a church need this for?” Milly said.

  “Same reason we need it. The church wasn’t always popular. They were blamed for many things down in these parts over the centuries,” Hansa said.

  Tye still had trouble processing her child-like voice with her sophisticated speech. Almost like a robot. That made Tye pause, and he laughed aloud.

  “You all right? Don’t go cracking on me now,” Milly said.

  Tye jumped into the tunnel and helped Milly and Hansa down into the blackness. He prepared to light a torch when a cellphone beeped. He froze, unable to process a sound he hadn’t heard since before The Day. Another beep, but this time it elongated into a squeal, and Hansa’s hand filled with white light. She had just turned on a flashlight app.

  Milly reached out her hand, transfixed in the glow.

  “Where did you get that?” Tye said.

  “It was my mom’s. They said I could keep it,” Hansa said.

  “How does the battery still work?” Tye asked.

  “I don’t know. There’s no service because most of the satellites no longer function.”

  “Can I see it?” Tye said.

  “No.”

  Tye accepted that answer, an answer he rarely accepted from anyone, even those he loved.

  They snaked through hard packed dirt and around boulders, past tree roots and the lairs of every ground dwelling rodent known to mankind. Twice Milly had to be stopped from shooting over-aggressive mice. So far they hadn’t needed the gun and Tye wanted to keep that little surprise in his back pocket in case they got jammed up.

  It was slow going, and when they walked under the crowd of virals the ground shook and dirt rained down. Then they were past them, inching slowly uphill toward the exit. The time had come for an honest talk with Hansa. He needed more information before he rejoined his people.

  “Don’t do it,” Hansa said.

  “Do what?” Milly said.

  “Tye was going to take your gun, point it at me and make me answer his questions.”

  Milly turned her accusing eyes on him. “That true?”

  Tye had a horrible idea, but fought to suppress it. “Hansa, do you understand the difference between thinking something and doing it?”

  The child said nothing. She stared forward and didn’t slow down.

  “People have thoughts they never act on. Thoughts that come without being asked for,” Tye said. “Just random brain activity sorting out random thoughts and emotions.”

  “Thoughts you might be ashamed of,” Milly added.

  Hansa didn’t reply.

  Tye understood why the child had been in the middle of nowhere surrounded by beasts. “Before, you said ‘they said I could keep it.’ Who is they?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The tunnel ended and stone steps led up into blackness. Hansa’s light went out with a zip and a beep. They waited several minutes, listening for pursuit, but there were no sounds except insects buzzing, frogs croaking, and crickets playing their tiny violin legs.

  Tye climbed the steps and pushed on the trapdoor at the top. It didn’t budge. “How much dirt is on top of this?” he asked.

  Hansa said nothing.

  Tye drew out his bolas, and Milly her Glock. He settled on the top step and braced his shoulders against the trapdoor and spaced his feet out on the top step and coiled for a push. He heaved, and the hatch inched upward. Dirt and rocks fell like rain, and he pushed again, and again.

  After six tries the door fell back on its hinges and he exited into the starlit night. Tye held up his hand for the others to wait as he searched the area and spun his bolas. Down the hill about two hundred yards, a hundred Uruks surrounded the burning church. They were chanting something in their guttural speech.

  The gray haze of dusk crept across the land as the others surfaced, and it was still hot, yet Tye felt chilled. “You told us that was sacred ground,” he said.

  “Not when I left,” Hansa said. She touched Tye’s cheek and caressed his face. “I’ll find another place next time.”

  “Next time?” Milly said.

  A huge fireball lit the night as the church exploded. A massive concussion wave knocked Tye and the rest to the ground, and all the virals were incinerated. Pieces of wood crashed to the earth, giant chunks of black ash fell like deadly snow, and the flames rose high into the fading darkness.

  Hansa stared at the blaze, a crooked grin running away from her face. “They were chanting ‘death to the turtle.’”

  Chapter Eleven

  Year 2068, Respite

  Dark clouds rolled without aim, the air thick with the coming rain. Waves crashed against the cliff face, and to Randy it sounded like thunder. Palm leaves rattled in the steady wind, and the air smelt of salt and smoke. He hid in a thicket of tree ferns with Hazel, waiting for Natalie to take her final walk as a trainee. If she jumped from the precipice and made it back to shore, she’d be a fire guard.

  “Eight years from now, we’ll be jumping,” Hazel said. She looked so much like her mother, Tris, with her keen blue eyes and mischievous grin. Randy looked nothing like his parents, Milly and Curso.

  “If we make it that far,” Randy said.

  “A lot of stuff can happen in eight years,” Hazel said.

  “Makes you wonder why we still do all this,” Randy said. He wanted to be a fire guard and nothing would ever change that. Why anyone else on Respite still cared, he didn’t understand.

  “People still believe. It’s not like the fire isn’t needed, but…”

  “But it doesn’t need a twenty-four-hour honor guard,” he said.

  “Depends on what you believe,” Hazel said.

  “I suppose it does.”

  “Finding the boat changed nothing for most people. They didn’t want to leave,” Hazel said. “Many want their children to be fire guards still.”

  Another awkward pause as the third generation felt embarrassed for the second, who’d learned everything they knew from the first. “You ever feel cheated? Like your dad cared more about himself than he did for you?” Randy said.

  “All the time, but at least I’ve got mom,” Hazel said. Randy and his father, Curso, weren’t close.

  “I hoped my dad went with my ma, but he didn’t. He had to stay
behind to take care of me because I needed it,” Randy said.

  “Sure. I think your mom didn’t want Curso around so she used you as an excuse,” Hazel said.

  It started to rain and Natalie ran. Hazel looked to the wave tops, then back at Natalie. “She’s got it timed perfect so far,” Hazel said. The skinny girl pumped her legs and threw herself forward in an awkward gait that made her look off-balance. A big set of waves came in and she slowed, adjusting her timing.

  Natalie threw a wink their way as she flew by, then jumped and disappeared over the edge.

  Hazel sprang forward, and Randy yelled, “No. Don’t let them see you.”

  She skidded to a halt and watched Natalie land atop a wave and disappear below the churning sea. The rain came hard, smacking leaves and rock. Hazel ran to the cover of a large maple tree, hiding within the folds of the spidery trunk beneath a thick covering of spiked green leaves.

  Randy joined her. “Looks like she did fine. Now we have another person who can tell us what to do.”

  “At least your mom isn’t around to pester you. Mine trails after me like Sam after Frodo,” she said.

  Randy looked at the ground. She could manipulate his feelings so easy, make him feel like a puppet. Not only did she know what buttons to push, she knew his entire control panel.

  “You seen your dad?” she said.

  Randy nodded. “Last night.”

  “What did he have to say?” she said.

  She knew Curso hadn’t spoken since Milly left, but Randy’d learned that if he wanted to be around Hazel, he had to take what he got. Even if there had been more than sixteen girls his age on the island, Randy believed she’d still be the only one that counted. “Do you miss your father?” Randy said.

  “What do you suppose they’re doing out there while my mother works to feed Respite?” Hazel said. “You think they’re doing the horizontal mambo?”

  “Why do you try so hard to push me away?” Old lady Pendaltine said Hazel treated him badly because she liked him.

  Hazel said, “Leave if you don’t like it.”

  “My mother’s been gone for two-and-a-half years and my dad acts like she’s dead. You happy now?”

  Hazel said nothing as she stared at the ground.

  It poured and water seeped through the tree canopy. Laughing and yelling carried on the breeze as everyone ran to the Womb for the sacrifice ceremony. He was supposed to be back at Citi with the other kids, but Randy and Hazel just couldn’t abide by that. He smiled at her. Despite everything, she always stuck with him. She smiled back with that goofy look on her face that said she wanted to hit him.

  “You think we’ll ever see them again? Your mom and my dad?” Hazel said.

  “I think about that a lot.” Randy moved closer to her, and the heat between them was palpable. His breath steamed as he said, “Come with me up to the ear and listen when the guards turn the radio on tomorrow.”

  “Don’t think so,” she said. “They let you listen?”

  “No. I sneak up there and hide. I think Master Aragorn knows, but he lets me because… you know.”

  They were the offspring of Milly and Peter, two of Respite’s most famous citizens, both of which came from families that were the underpinning of Respite.

  Randy moved closer and leaned in to kiss her.

  She pulled back, eyes blazing, jaw set, but it didn’t placate him. He thrust his head forward with an awkward lurch and pecked her on the lips.

  Hazel punched him and broke his nose.

  Randy’s nose ached, and he took no solace in the knowledge that Hazel probably felt bad about hitting him. He was certain her grandfather Ben laughed for an hour when she told him the story. The storm raged into the night, and water spouts erupted around the island. Randy looked out onto the balcony that overlooked the sea. The Hendricks family owned several properties in Citi, but Randy and Curso had the nicest place.

  Randy battened down the door and shutters. Wind roared, and rain leaked through cracks and gaps in the old wood, soaking the floor. His father was asleep, so he snuck out into the hallway. It was late, but he was sure Hazel was up. He wanted to apologize for kissing her without permission and he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he got it off his chest.

  The Hasten family also had multiple properties in Citi, and Hazel and Tris got old man Ben Hasten’s place when he moved into his jungle treehouse. At the end of the hall he inched his way around the back of the building along the patios that overlooked the sea. Everyone was battened down for the storm.

  When he got to Hazel’s place, he peered through the gaps in the window shutters. Hazel’s grandfather, Ben Hasten, snored loudly. Tris had the night shift at the animal pens, and she never left Hazel home alone at night. Hazel told him when she’d asked why she couldn’t stay home alone Tris had said, “I’m not worried about you, I’m worried about Respite.”

  “Hazel,” he whispered. “Hazel.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Meet me at Great Rock,” Randy said.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Please.”

  “OK.”

  Randy watched Hazel get up and try to slip past her grandfather where he lay on Tris’ bamboo cot. She’d almost made it past the fossil when his hand shot out and grabbed her leg.

  Hazel screamed and fell back onto her cot.

  “Where you think you’re going?” His voice was slurred and Randy was sure he’d been hitting the berry wine.

  “Nowhere.” Hazel didn’t sound convincing.

  “Nowhere. Just like your ma. She used to sneak out to meet that shit turd father of yours.”

  Hazel said nothing.

  “That where you’re going? To hook up with Randy? Make sure you didn’t hurt him?” That last part he did in his baby-talk voice.

  “What do you care?” She broke free of his grasp and headed for the door.

  Randy gasped and placed his hands flat on the wooden shutters, his eye pressed so hard to the boards it hurt.

  Old man Hasten grabbed her again. “You aren’t going no place. Sit down.” Ben threw Hazel back onto her cot. “You have any idea who that boy is? What his grandmother did?”

  “No. Mom always mumbles about them, and you’ve made it clear you hate them, but you’ve never said why.”

  “She did everything she could to control me because she was worried Gary would find out we were…” He looked away. “Friends.”

  “You kissed?”

  “Sort of. I…”

  Hazel said nothing and Randy found that he was breathing heavy.

  “I loved her. Not that I didn’t love grandma, I did, but this was before The Day. Sarah was special.” He scrunched his face in frustration.

  “Then why does your face get red when you talk about her?” Hazel said.

  “Because she didn’t feel the same way about me. She used me. Like Milly uses your father. Drags him into her shit, but never gives him the love she teases.”

  “Milly’s like her mother, huh?”

  “Sarah wasn’t Milly’s real mother,” Ben said.

  Randy would come to find out many people knew this, but his heart sank.

  “Not her mother? So, Sarah wasn’t Randy’s grandmother?” Hazel said.

  Ben paused and didn’t seem to know how to answer. “If you put stock in blood, then no, she isn’t. If you put stock in everything else, then she is.”

  Randy didn’t understand.

  Hazel said nothing.

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t want you seeing that boy, Randy. He’s always skulking around, watching you, asking about you.”

  “I told him to buzz off, but he’s like a fly,” Hazel said.

  Randy chuckled, then put his hand over his mouth.

  The room fell silent and Ben looked his way and Randy flinched even though the old man couldn’t see him through the wooden shutters.

  “Then swat him,” Ben said.

  “I can’t do that, grandpa.”

  �
��Those people aren’t what they seem, Hazel. Your dad didn’t listen when I forbade him to see Milly and look where it’s gotten him.” Ben pulled his granddaughter to him. “They will trade your life if it means saving their own skin. Never forget that. No matter how you feel about this boy, he’s Sarah Hendricks’ grandson, and Milly’s son, and he will betray you.”

  Randy snuck off and went home to bed. He didn’t think Hazel would try to sneak out again on this night, and he didn’t know if he wanted her to.

  The next day in Foundation when Hazel saw the leaf bandage on Randy’s nose, she threw him a bone. “You OK?” They were waiting for Ms. Nancy, who would read the next chapter of sacred text The Sheep Look Up.

  “Doc Hampton said you broke it, but I’m fine,” Randy said. “I’m sorry, Hazel. My dad beat my ass when I told him what I did. He said you never kiss a girl without permission. First time he’s said anything to me in a long time, so thanks for that, I guess. I wanted to tell you last night, then I got you in trouble. It’s just…” His words fled. What he saw in her eyes made him love her even more. He was thrilled she hadn’t stalked off.

  “I didn’t mean to break your nose,” she said. That was as close to an apology he’d ever heard from her.

  A gust of wind ripped through the cave and the reading candle went out. The class inched through the cave toward the entrance like a flock of lost birds, and when they reached it, Hazel gasped. A gale tore at the trees and ripped at the Womb. The roar of the wind increased, and a solitary figure came running across the Womb toward them.

  “Get to the back of the cave. It’s a cyclone,” Fire Master Aragorn said. He rushed into the Foundation, cradling and directing students as he moved to the rear of the cave. Hazel and Randy put their backs to the wall and waited for the commotion to pass, and once it had, they peered out into the maelstrom.

  The Womb was a twister of debris: tree branches, leaves, sand, dirt, and rocks. When a human body streaked by in the chaos, Hazel screamed. Trees cracked, boulders fell, and the crash of the ocean and the applause of thunder roared across Respite.

  “The fire,” said Randy. The Perpetual Flame looked to be almost out, and a thick waterfall cascaded into the fresh water basin causing it to overflow and fill the Womb. A tree collided with the mountainside, and its shards crashed across the cave mouth. Hazel and Randy jumped back, but a branch caught Randy and he went down hard.