Fervor (2 page)

One step at a time,”
Sam thought.
“Back to the start – back to my first question and work my way forward.”

Francis nodded, and that made the younger boy shudder. He could not think anything without someone else knowing it, or so it seemed. Was it going to be like that from now on? Had he lost all privacy? Was he going to lose his sense of self? There were just more questions, and so far, very few answers.

“
If the Directives that the adults left behind for us to follow speak the truth, eventually, we will be able to block others out completely so that we can preserve who we are and share only what we want to. But it will be something that we will all have to learn, and it will take a lot of practice. That’s why they left some of us disconnected, to mediate, to help maintain order until we sort all of this out. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to be them in the long run. They are the Controls. When we finally get this working properly, when things are running smoothly for everyone in the connection, they’re going to feel isolated and excluded. They won’t feel like they belong on Fervor anymore, and we don’t have any way off,”
Francis assured him.

“
What about the hovers?”
Sam asked. He noticed that if he managed to hone in on Francis’s mind with enough clarity, he could hear feedback from his own thoughts reverberating in the background. It was eerie.

“
None of us who were left behind can use them
,” the blond boy thought with a patronizing edge. “
I don’t have the magical training to run one of those things – do you? Anyone old enough to know how to use them is gone now. I think that they arranged it that way on purpose. They set it up to keep us here. They didn’t want us to be able to leave
.”

Francis’s demeanour, which had come across as so peaceful and pleasant despite the oddness about him, seemed to fold in on itself, and for a moment he regarded Sam with an air of melancholy. Then he snapped out of it, and giving Sam that same quirky smile, he offered up a distraction.

“
I can see how that might present us with a problem. We have to get to the Hub for the Gathering, and without the hovers, we’re going to have to walk. That’s a very long walk.”

Sam grimaced at this idea. He had been to the Hub, a massive and centrally positioned communal building on the island, only once in his short life, and it had taken more than half a day’s travel by hover. If they walked, it would take them several days to get there.

“
Why do we have to go? What is this Gathering?”
Sam did not want to have to make that trip unless there was no other option.

“
You want answers? That’s the only place you’re going to find them. I can give you some, but I’ll only be skimming the surface. I’m your Teller, but I only have leave to tell you so much for the moment. I told you that there would be a lot to learn, and that’s where it’s going to start. Believe me, you want to go.”

Sam gritted his teeth. There it was again. Any time he tried to put up a fight – any time he tried to offer any resistance – it hit him, the blond boy’s words hanging over his shoulders like a heavy yoke, a burden that Sam could not possibly hope to escape. If Francis told Sam to believe him, then Sam would. If Francis told Sam that he wanted him to do something, then Sam did. If there were going to be any battle of wills, for some reason, Francis would always come up the winner.

“
Why are you here, Francis? Why are you taking me there? What
is
a Teller?”

Sam wanted to keep it simple and ask only one question at a time, but he found that the thoughts were all tied together, and he could not separate them. It was not as straight forward as talking, this connection. It was difficult to limit what you were thinking at someone.

“
That’s going to take a lot more explaining than you might imagine. Let’s get you ready to go and I can give you some of the details along the way. We have someone else that we have to stop for who will be coming with us to the Hub. She’s a Little like you. She’s not that far away. I can introduce you now, if you like,”
Francis suggested. The older boy’s eyes went vacant, as if he were staring off into the distance, but that distance lay beyond the confining and bare walls of Sam’s room. “
Sarah? Sarah, are you still there? I’m with Sam, just like I told you that I would be. We’ll be coming for you soon.”

“
Francis?”
Sam could barely make out the girl’s thoughts, like he was eavesdropping on a private conversation, and only because the older boy was allowing him the privilege. Her thoughts were even more tremulous than Sam’s. “
I’m scared. It’s so dark, and I can’t move without bumping into things. Are you sure Sasha won’t be back?”

“
She won’t be back, Sarah. She’s not on Fervor anymore. Stay where you are. Sam and I can’t be your eyes for you until we get there. We’ll be leaving here soon. Sam just has to gather his things.”
Francis’s thoughts always seemed so self-assured, like he had done this before, like he didn’t have the same kind of questions that Sam and Sarah had. That in itself bothered Sam.

“
Sam?”

He felt the mental tendril extending towards him from the girl, hesitantly. There was something softer and more fragile to the touch of her thoughts that was not there when Francis spoke to him via the connection.

“
You’re going to help Francis to be my eyes? You can see like he can?”

Answering Sarah was much different from answering Francis. Francis was right there, and the older boy kept his mind wide open to him. To reply to the girl, Sam had to push his thoughts through a tunnel of sorts, a flimsy tunnel that kept out some of the commotion, so that they could hear each other specifically. Her own fear made Sam’s feel insignificant. He wanted to make her more comfortable.

“
I can see, but I can’t hear anymore except through the connection. Don’t worry. I’ll help Francis to find you, Sarah. You’ll be safe soon.”

Sam was not sure why, but he honestly meant that. He was fairly sure he knew exactly where she was, and that he would be able to take Francis to her.

“
Gather your things – anything that you really want to take with you – because we won’t be coming back here,”
Francis instructed Sam, glancing around the plainly furnished room.
“They’ll be assigning us to a house, and it won’t be this one. Not enough room for the six of us here.”

“
Six?”
Sam was puzzled. How did Francis know all of this? It had only ever been Sam and Maria in their boxy little house on the hill. It was not much, he had to admit, with its very simple design and lack of adornment, but it had met their basic needs.

In addition to Maria, he had socialized with others at the school, but he had never lived with anyone else. So far, Sam had counted three – him, Francis, and the timid Sarah – who had for some reason been grouped together. Where were the other three going to come from? The blond boy had been anticipating his question.

“
There are three more Bigs, like me, who will be meeting us at the Hub: Nathan, Fiona and Royce. They’ll be part of our house-family, too,”
Francis explained. Just as it had earlier, his expression fell a little, before the older boy realized that he had let his smile slide, and recovered himself.
“And to answer your other question, I know all of this because I’m a Teller. It is the duty of our talent-group. I’ll tell you more about it along the way, but I need you to hurry and take what you think you’ll need.”

Sam scurried around the small two-bedroom bungalow with bare, neutral walls and ordinary shapes, scooping his most valued possessions into the backpack that he had kept in the past for school. He did not have much to show for his eight years. There were no toys, no pictures on the walls, no trinkets, nothing that was not clearly functional in some way. Maria’s obsession with cleanliness had made the place seem almost sterile, as if it had not been bland enough to begin with.

Sam had hesitated for a moment before dumping all of his school things onto the floor to make room for other belongings until he reminded himself that there would be no more school, not in the traditional sense anyway. There were no more minders to take the children there, and no more teachers to teach them. He did keep his sketch pad, and his pencil case, and then he grabbed some clean clothing, shoes, a couple of books, and some food. He also dove into one of the closets and dug through the disorganized pile for a glow torch. He had enough magic in him to make the illuminating device work – it didn’t take that much. It was one of the first things that they had taught them to use at his school. The majority of the appliances and bigger devices he did not know how to use. That worried Sam. He hoped Francis or one of the other three Bigs that were supposed to join him were knowledgeable in their use, or their life on Fervor would be a struggle from here on out.

The quiet as he roamed the house looking for the things that he wanted, and the lack of the familiar rustle and clunk of those items was still frightening to Sam. He was bewildered by the sudden hearing loss and wondered at its cause. He had been able to hear Maria’s warm tone when she bid him goodnight before he had gone to sleep the prior evening. He had even been able to make out the barely audible hiss as she had extinguished the magic that illuminated his room. That ability was just as much a part of the past as Maria apparently was. He shrugged off the urge to crawl into a corner and to sit rocking and hugging his knees, and instead made his way back to Francis who was waiting for him by the front door.

They stepped out into the lukewarm air of late spring, with a soft breeze blowing off the ocean. Francis turned to look at Sam with those mesmerizing pale green eyes, and grinned.

“
The Directives only gave me your location, and even though they did give me all of the members of the house-family’s names, they didn’t list where I could find them. It is up to you to find Sarah now,”
he insisted, touching Sam’s mind good-naturedly with his own.

Sam’s mouth dropped open, and he blinked disconcertedly at the older boy.

“
Me? Why me?”
he thought.

“
The Directives say that we all have to test our gifts now. I’m a Teller, and I’ve already successfully tested my gift on you and Sarah. As far as I can tell, it’s working the way that it is supposed to.”
Francis said this with a hint of a frown, inside and out.
“I know it makes you uncomfortable. I’m sorry. It’s what I have to do. You have to do what you do. You’re supposed to be a Finder. I need you to prove to me that your gift is working. Now find Sarah.”

He said it with such conviction that Sam knew that he was not going to be able to refuse him, and the younger boy was correct. Almost immediately, he felt as though he were possessed, driven to find the girl that he had linked with earlier. Knowing in what direction he had to go to find her, but not being able to explain exactly why, Sam started moving. Francis followed behind him eagerly.

After they had been walking for a few minutes, Francis reached out and touched his mind.

“
Is it okay if I talk to you, or do you need quiet to concentrate? I know that this is supposed to work for you, but I have no idea how. From what the Directives suggest, the only ones who will truly understand your gift will be others in your talent-group. Only Finders will know what it truly means to be a Finder.”

The younger boy paused and looked back at his current companion.
“And only Tellers will know what it truly means to be a Teller,”
Sam thought, trying to hold it in to himself. He believed he saw a momentary flash of hurt – or perhaps it was guilt – in Francis’s eyes. He could not be sure if the blond youth had picked up on his thoughts or not, or if that was just a general response to the topic at hand. With a contained sigh, Sam focussed his mind, briefly, on Francis again.

“
You can talk to me, but if I want to be sure that we’re going the right way, I can’t let it distract me too much. If I do, I’ll have to stop and reach for her again. As long as I can find her mind, I can find her. I guess that means I could find anybody on Fervor, if I knew who I was looking for.”

“
Anybody, that is, who was Connected,”
the older boy corrected him mentally.
“Anybody who isn’t a Control.”

Sam considered asking what Francis meant by that, since it was his second time mentioning these Controls, but he realised that, so far, his Teller had only revealed things to him that the blond youth had decided that Sam needed to know. Since they were looking for her anyway, however, Sam assumed that Francis might be more forthcoming about Sarah.