A Thread of Time: Firesetter, Book 1 (6 page)

Chapter 7

Ailana

Amyr had a spell just before morning.  I
heard him choking and thrashing in the depths of my sleep.  Even if I hadn’t
heard him, I would have awaken.  I always knew when he was suffering.  It was
almost as if an alarm would begin to sound deep within my soul.

“What is it?” Pellen mumbled, reaching for
me as I stirred.  The foolish man thought it was because of him that I had
awakened, that I might want him now in the light of the early dawn.

“Amyr,” I cried, slapping at my husband’s
arms and rushing across the room to my child. 

He had gone still.  If he was breathing, I
couldn’t hear it.  Laying my head upon his chest, I searched for the sound of
his heart, willing for it to beat, begging it to stir. 

“Amyr!” Pellen yelled, now rushing to my
side, trying to awaken the boy with the sound of his voice.  “Amyr!” 

Pellen reached in the boy’s mouth, lest
his tongue again be blocking his throat.  Then, he slapped at my child’s face
and his chest. 

My son coughed, his cheek red with the
imprint of Pellen’s hand.  His eyelids rolled back and in the dim light of the
dawn, the boy’s eyes swirled with a thousand different colors. 

Amyr jolted a little, as if his heart had
suddenly tripped again.  He gasped, before heaving a long, heavy sigh.

“I’m alright, Mama,” he whispered wearily,
closing his brilliant eyes to this world.  “I am here with you now.  I am back
again.”

“My child,” I wept, now pulling his head
to my breast, willing him to breathe, to live, and to grow.  Would that he was
still inside me, safe and protected in my womb, instead of in this harsh world
in a body that fought to stay.

“We have to do something,” Pellen declared
angrily, as if there was a remedy we hadn’t tried.  “We have to find a doctor
who will help.  There must be some kind of cure.  In the motherland…”

“No!” I shouted, causing Amyr’s eyes to
fly open once again.  “I will not go there.  I will not take him across the
ocean to certain death.”

Pellen turned away.  He went back to our
blankets by the fire, which was only a small cluster of orange embers in the
center of the hearth.  He lay down and feigned sleep, although I knew he
remained awake.  His breathing was too strong, too determined, too filled with hate. 

“Go back to sleep, Mama.”  Amyr pushed
himself from me.  Rolling over, his voice became muffled by his pillow.  “There
is nothing more which you can do tonight.  Leave me be.  I am so tired.”

I abandoned my son to his wishes and
returned to my husband’s side, my own heart filled with both grief and hate.  I
hated this life.  I hated the cold morning air and the fire that was too weak
to warm me.  I hated the dawn for it meant that soon I would have to arise and
once again, pick up my needles and thread. 

I hated my husband for his sad face, his
bent back, his cowed demeanor, and most of all, his inability to heal my son
and fix the wrongs in our tiny world. 

And, I hated my son.  I hated his
sickness, and the way his every breath controlled the beatings of my heart.  I
hated myself at the same time, for what mother would ever wish her child dead,
especially when the child was so beautiful, so kind, and so extraordinarily
good?

“Ailana,” my cousin called, storming into
my room that next morning, a fine man’s coat tossed over her arm.  “The
gentleman wants this today, and I have far too many others to do.”

“And, you think I don’t?”  I picked up a
dress from my bundle and shook it in her direction. 

“Please Ailana!”  Embo tossed the coat at
me.  It landed on the floor at my feet, kicking up a cloud of dust, lint, and
stray threads before settling in a puddle.  “Clean that before you return it to
me.”  She turned on heel and slammed the front door.

“Kari-fa!  How I hate the woman!” I swore,
kicking the coat, which I most certainly would not do.

I wouldn’t touch it.  All morning I sewed
the items in my basket, in between tending the fire, and seeing to the house. 
My child was fast asleep.  Often when his night was so difficult, he would
sleep all through one day and into the next, while I had no choice but to toil
despite my fatigue.

Pellen would return hungry from his shop
and I had nothing to give him.  Barely a cup was left of the bone soup,
certainly not enough to feed three.  My bread box was similarly empty with only
a hard heel of black bread and a few crumbs of something green with mold. 

Pellen would eat it.  He’d scrape off the
mold and toast whatever remained over the fire, while giving the black bread
heel to Amyr, who would savor it as if it was a delicacy.

“Have some, Mama,” my good child would
say, breaking the tiny piece in two.  My sickly angel would share the last
crumb even if it meant he would die instead.

I would shake my head.  “You need it more
than I.”  And, I would eat nothing, for I was healthy despite my lack of food. 

Embo might bring me a bit of dried fish
later, in exchange for mending her gentleman’s coat.  I might find a spare root
in between my garden weeds, with which I could turn the two of them into a
soup.  The hunger never bothered me anymore.  In fact, the memory alone of the
large banquets at my grandmother’s table would turn my stomach inside out, or
roil it with bile. 

Instead, I pushed those images from my
mind and concentrated on my sewing, while listening for the steady intake of my
child’s breath.  In and out.  In and out.  He slept peacefully until the
gunshots sounded in the distance.  Heavy booms rocked the house as if thunder
was directly overhead even though the day was clear and the sky empty, save a
single forlorn cloud. 

My front door swung open, causing me to
shriek with fright, but it was only Jan come running from next door.

“They’re here!” my niece gasped
breathlessly.  “The neighbor says it is the Duke’s army come to take us from
our village and enslave us in their work camps.  We need to hide!”

“Hide where?  Hide how?  How do you know
this, child?”  I tossed the sewing aside, glancing at Amyr, whose eyes were
still heavily closed. 

“Everyone is running to the forest!”  Jan
jumped up and down like a petulant child, while the sounds of more guns echoed
across the street.  “Mama is packing us a bag.  You best do it too.  Five
minutes, Mama says, and we must be gone.”

A bag of what?  I had nothing worth
keeping other than the rags on my back, or this gentleman’s coat which I could
wrap around Amyr.  But, how could I carry him to the forest, and what of my
husband?  If the Duke’s army was truly here, Pellen might already be dead.

“I can carry Amyr,” Jan offered, answering
the question before it left my lips.  “I have to hurry now to help Mama, but
I’ll return and hoist him upon my back.”

The door slammed again and still Amyr
didn’t stir.  Someone screamed in the alley, and I froze.  I couldn’t run away
to hide in the forest among the trees.  I had lived like this once before,
vowing never again to sleep where there was no roof above my head. 

Grandmother’s voice spoke, although only I
could hear her in the back of my brain.

“You are strong, Ailana.  You are like
me.  You will fight and you will survive no matter the cost.”

“What of my son, Grandmother?” I asked. 

Amyr coughed then, interrupting my silent
conversation.  At the same time, the fire crackled, a flame suddenly shooting
upward, sending light and heat across the room. 

I tamped it down and rose to my feet,
standing over Amyr on the couch.  What of this child, this useless, sickly boy
who was too weak to walk?

If we stayed and the army came, surely they
would kill him first.  However, if I took him to the forest, his presence would
weigh the others down.  We’d have to carry him everywhere.  He might have a
spell and call out when we must be quiet.  He might kill us all simply by
trying to save his life. 

My son, my love, my heart was a burden and
not worth the price of a village full of souls.  Despite his beauty and his
wit, he would never be what he had been intended.

I could do him a favor and all of us, if I
took his life now, here on the couch while he slept unaware.  He would pass
from this mad world and this bad time to a better place.

I told myself this.  I rationalized the
murder of my beloved child, knowing full and well that I would have to live
forever with this choice.  But, would I rather see him slain by a gunshot, or
waste away only to be eaten by the forest creatures?  No.  I would kill him
now.  I, who gave him life, would take it back.

He stirred just then, his brilliant eyes
flickering open as if he had heard my thoughts.  He stared at me, all the
colors of the rainbow shining upon my face. 

“I have no choice,” I wept, clutching the
pillow with which I meant to quell his breath.  “Go quietly, my love.  Don’t
make this more difficult than it is.”

I pressed the pillow upon his face and with
all my strength I held it fast.  He was weak, his muscles small and unused.  I
did not expect him to fight me.  I thought he would go limp and his chest to
rattle with a final gasp.  I did not expect my husband to race through the door
and pull me away.

“What are you doing, Ailana?”  Pellen
tossed me on the floor with a strength I never knew he had. 

“Leave him!  Let him die!  Pellen,
please.”

Pellen hastened to pull the boy upright
and slapped at his face, bidding the child to wake again and breathe.  Amyr
made a noise, a small intake of breath, a moan and once again, a bright flame
shot upward from the hearth.

“No!  Let him go!”  I wept, although I
knew not why.  What sort of mother was I that begged for my own beloved child’s
death?

Jan called to us just then, bidding us to
hurry before the army arrived on our street.  As if in a dream, I watched my
husband carry my son to the door.

“Are you coming?” he demanded.  “Get
yourself up, Ailana.  Let’s go.”

I couldn’t.  I wouldn’t.  My legs refused
to stand.

“Fine.  You stay.  After what you have
done to Amyr, you deserve to die.”

“He would be better off dead!” I shouted. 
“All of us would be better off if he was dead.  Admit it, Pellen.  You have
thought the same yourself.”

“He’s our son.  I will protect him with my
life even if it means I shall draw my last breath.”

“You will,” I declared with a foresight I
didn’t know I had.  “You don’t know who he is.  You don’t know why he lives, or
why he is here again.”

This stopped Pellen in his tracks. 
Despite his haste to depart, he turned to me and demanded to know what I had
meant.

“Have you gone insane, Ailana?  Of course,
I know who is.  He is our beloved son, conceived in marriage, conceived in
love.”

“No, you’re wrong,” I announced before
Pellen slammed shut the door.  “He was never conceived in love and neither was
he ever your son.”

Chapter 8

Jan

“Where is Ailana?” my mother called to
Pellen as he lifted Amyr through the hole in the fence.  I was already waiting
on the other side to catch him.

“She is not coming.”

“What?” my mother gasped, as I gazed at
the others who crouched alongside the wall.  Some were already sidling around
the corner, or crawling through the bent path of overgrown grass.  I was
anxious to follow them, to run with them to the freedom that awaited, to begin
an adventure outside our village and the only world I had known.

Instead, I held out my arms for Amyr,
hefting him upon my back, wrapping his legs around my waist, softly snorting
and pawing the ground as if I was his horse.  I had carried him like this
before.  His weight was not more than a basket of fish on a day that I had done
well, and certainly, he was easier to carry and less smelly.

“Hold tightly, cousin,” I called loping
along after the crowd.  “We’re going exploring in the woods.  You are a great
hunter and a brave warrior of our people, while I am your trusty and
swift-footed steed.”

“Doesn’t she understand what will happen
if she stays?” my mother called to Uncle as he began to follow me.  “Go back
and fetch her.  Implore her not to be a fool.”

“I have already done so, but she is out of
her head,” Pellen replied, prompting my mother to climb back through the fence
herself.  “You won’t be able to convince her, Embo.  Save yourself.  Don’t
worry after her.  I will use my energy to save my son.  Give him to me, Jan. 
He is too heavy for you to carry long.”  Coming up beside me, Uncle removed
Amyr from my back.

Suddenly alone, I hesitated, undecided if
I should return to assist my mother and Auntie.

“Stay here, Jan,” Uncle said, just as the
bushes rustled beside me.

“Hi!” that street boy, Dov called, a large
grin spread across his face.  “Are you coming?”  He held out his hand.

“To where?”  I looked back at the hole in
the fence.

“The hideout, of course.  This will be fun!”

“Jan,” Uncle called again, just as loud
voices began to shout.  Their calls echoed off the buildings and were
accompanied by that now familiar sound of heavy trucks. 

“Let’s go,” Dov cried, reaching for my
hand.  Though he was small, he was surprisingly strong as he pulled me into the
woods, following Uncle and Amyr.

“What of my mother?  What of Auntie?”

“Too late,” the boy said.  “There is
nothing to be done.” 

Although, my knees were weak and my feet
stumbled on nearly every step.  I let the child lead me as my mind went numb. 
How long our journey took, or how far we traveled beneath the canopy of the
trees, I couldn’t begin to recount.  All I knew was at the end, I fell into the
safety of Pellen’s arms, surrounded by a few others from our village.

It was already dark then, and cold, for no
one would light a fire, lest it attract the army’s attention.  Instead,
throughout that first night, we huddled together in small groups, sheltered
behind fallen logs and large tree trunks, or buried beneath moss and brush. 

It was not an adventure as I had hoped,
but a long cold night in a dark hellish place.  Every sound sent a spike of
fear down my spine even if it was only the scampering of a squirrel across the
limbs above us, or the whisper of a night owl’s wings. 

Sometime during the darkness, we heard the
sound of footsteps trampling about the woods and the whispering of men’s voices
as they passed by.  Brush rustled as it was pushed aside and beams of light
illuminated the trees above our heads.  I didn’t breathe until they
disappeared, and I didn’t move a muscle no matter how my limbs ached. 

I clutched tightly to Dov as if he was my
own brother, for now, like him I was orphaned and alone.  Next to me, Pellen
held Amyr upon his lap, my cousin’s head laying tightly against his father’s
chest.

“Don’t be afraid,” my uncle murmured.  “I
will always protect you.”

“I am not afraid,” Amyr whispered softly,
his eyes hard and cold like the dark forest.  “They can do nothing to me that
hasn’t been done.”

“We’re safe with Amyr,” Dov whispered
beside me.  “He’ll protect us.”

Amyr?  Protect us?  My weak and sickly
cousin?

The street boy smiled and clasped my
hand.  “He always does.”

In the morning, some wanted to walk again,
while others thought it better if we remained hidden where we were. 

“Duke Korelesk’s army won’t stay in the
village forever,” a woman assured us.  “They’ll depart after they have looted
our things.”

“We need to walk westward,” a man
disagreed.  “It is not far to the ocean and from there we can build a boat. 
The motherland will welcome us.  This country doesn’t want us anymore.” 

“We’ll die in the transit,” a third
declared.  “Who here can walk all the way to the ocean?  We are already nothing
more than skin and bones from lack of food.  And, if we were to get there, who
here can build a boat to cross it?  We haven’t a stick of wood or a nail to
fasten it together.  The ocean is enormous, the water a cruel master, and the
wind, his mistress.”

“We have no choice,” my uncle Pellen
interrupted.  “The motherland is the only place where we will be safe.”

“I have a boat,” I almost announced, but
Dov tugged my hand sharply and bid me to be quiet. 

“Your boat won’t fit everyone here,” he
hissed.  “It will only be enough for you and I, your uncle and cousin.”

“My mother and Auntie?”

Dov shook his head.  “The Duke’s army has
taken them away.  That’s what they do in every village.  Or, they kill them.” 
His voice went soft, as if he wished to bite back the words, to save me from
their meaning.

“Is that what happened to your parents?”

“Mhm.  But, I came here.”  He squeezed my
hand again as if to show he had done this all for me.

Pellen and the other adults argued back and
forth while the sun rose above the treetops.  Odd rays of light shone down
through the forest, illuminating the brush like a torch from another world. 

The light almost seemed to make a
staircase to the outer space where my brother lived.  I imagined Taul stepping
into those golden beams and magically, rising upward to the stars.  From there,
he would board a ship that would take him to a warm and happy planet.  Or, he
might live there on that ship, sailing from star to star as I dreamed of
sailing upon the sea, both of us searching for a place we would be safe.

“Jan,” Pellen whispered while the other
villagers continued to argue.  “Where is your boat now?  Do you think we can
sneak over to it tonight?”

I turned to my uncle, to tell him I
thought so, when instead, my eyes were drawn to my cousin’s face.  Amyr had his
chin tipped upward and his eyes were open as if he was staring at the sun. 
Their color was as silver as the rays, echoing the light which seemed to circle
about his body like a shimmering aura. 

“Amyr!” I gasped.  “What has happened to
you?”

Amyr blinked and the aura instantly
disappeared, making me doubt that it had ever been there.

“It’s not far from here, is it, Jan?”
Pellen continued, obviously not having seen the light surrounding his son.  “Do
you think you can find the wharf in the dark?”

“I can find it,” Dov declared.  “And, I
can help to sail the boat.”

“Then, it is decided.”  Pellen set Amyr
down beside Dov, slowly rising to his feet.  His knees creaked as he leaned
forward, reaching with a hand to rub the small of his back.  “I am unused to
sitting all night upon the forest floor.”  He smiled apologetically, although
no one faulted him for ailing in this way.  “I shall go find something for you
children to eat.  Jan, I know you want to come hunting, but I would prefer you
stayed here to look after the boys.”

“Yes, Uncle.”  I didn’t mind staying as I
was tired from lack of sleep, during a night filled with fear and freezing
temperatures.  Thoughts of my mother and Auntie swarmed at the back of my mind
threatening my resolve not to break down in tears.

“Keep quiet and well hidden.  I shall be
back as soon as I can.”

I watched as Pellen disappeared among the
trees, wondering if he too would not return. 

“We could go by ourselves,” Dov whispered. 
“If we had to, I mean.”

“He’ll return,” Amyr replied with his
knowing certainty. 

Despite our desperate circumstances, my
cousin had awoken this day in better health.  There was faint color in his
cheeks and he was sitting up unaided.  His odd eyes reflected a spectrum of
green shades like the forest and his wavy black hair seemed to shine with the
remnants of that strange aura.

I wanted to ask him of our mothers, but
took his silence as the response.  Surely, if they would join us, he would have
announced this before.  Instead, I began to plan our journey, our trek to the
river and our voyage to the sea, hoping the wind and tides would take us where
we needed to go. 

“If the wind is kind to us, I think we
should arrive in the motherland in less than a week.”

“I agree,” Dov said.  “The winds will push
us all the way there.  Maybe, a giant wave will come and we will ride it like a
great, galloping horse.”

“What do you think, Amyr?  What does the
future tell of our voyage?”  I looked again to my cousin, whose opinion I
trusted above all.

Amyr closed his eyes.  He yawned and
stretched, his fists balled.

“The winds will be kind,” he said after a
bit.  “But, the sea is always cruel.  We have no choice, though.  If we stay
here, we will surely die.”

We ate a handful of wild berries, tiny
blue ones that would have been better if they ripened another week.  Pellen
apologized as if it was his fault we were without food.  Lifting Amyr into his
arms, he bid us follow the other villagers further into the woodlands. 

Although they tried to keep their voices
low, our neighbors argued incessantly.  If any of the Korelesk army had been
about, surely they would have found us by the loud hissing of their voices. 

Eventually, before nightfall, a shouting
match ensued, whereupon our group broke into two camps.  Those that wanted to
walk to the sea, and those that wanted to turn and fight, decided they were
better off without each other.

It was then that we ducked away.

“They won’t notice us now,” Pellen hissed,
pulling my arm.  In turn, I grabbed Dov’s hand and we scrambled into the brush,
our neighbors argument following us for quite a distance. 

We walked slowly since it was already dusk
and we were exhausted after a sleepless night, as well as a day spent stumbling
over branches and logs with little food in our bellies.  My arms and legs were
scratched in a million places and where they weren’t, mosquitos had sought to
bite.  But, as bad a condition as I was in, poor Pellen looked as if he would
soon collapse. 

“Let me carry Amyr for a while,” I
offered, but Pellen refused, shifting my cousin onto his back.  Amyr’s head lay
upon his father’s shoulder, but his eyes were open as if watching all we
passed.  Every once in a while, they seemed to flicker, a tiny flame igniting
deep inside.  Every once in a while, he would lift his head and smile,
prompting Dov to giggle as if the two shared a secret.

We emerged from the forest up river of the
village when the mother moon was still chasing the child moon from the early
morning sky.  There was just enough light reflecting off the water to send
ghostly shadows across our path.  They teased our tired eyes and fooled our
overwrought minds into thinking they were more than just tricks of light.

“What’s that?” Dov cried, when a night
bird rustled in the trees behind us.

“Is someone there?” Pellen whispered, when
a cat leapt from a doorway into our path.

We made our way to the wharf in our own
ghostly procession where my boat waited patiently, bobbing lazily against the
dock.

“Go aboard,” I told Pellen.  “You can take
Amyr into the cabin.  There is a bunk for him to sleep.  It will be much more
comfortable than these hard benches.

“I’ll help you,” Dov insisted, anxiously
jumping for the dock lines, when suddenly, behind us, we heard a man’s voice. 

“Halt!” he cried, illuminating the night
with his torch.  “Don’t move or I’ll shoot you!  Stay where you are!”

“Who are you?” another voice demanded.

“Go quickly, Jan,” Pellen hissed, as I
climbed upon the foredeck and made to hoist my sail. 

In the meantime, Dov had released all the
lines and gave the boat a push with his foot.  After which, he leapt into the
air, landing squarely in the center of the boat.  We rocked violently for a
moment, as shots followed us from the shore.