Fervor (36 page)

“
Sam?”

Groggily, she searched for the Finder first thing, wanting a resolution to the situation involving Francis.

“
Sam, we’re done. Now you have to help me find Francis so that I can fix him. You promised.”

“
How are you going to manage that, Sarah? You can barely keep your eyes open. Even if we do reach him, what good to him will you be,”
Sam objected.

“
Sam, please,”
she begged, leaning forward and clutching at his tunic.
“I have to find him. I have to fix him. If you won’t help me do this, then I had better go pack my things and set off in the direction that I think he might have gone.”

“
Don’t be ridiculous,”
Sam scoffed.
“It’s pouring out there, and you won’t have any chance of catching up to him let alone finding him. You’d be better off waiting until morning when you’re well rested.”

“
And when I’ll be expected to go back out there and finish working on the hover. I’m dead serious, Sam. I need this like you need to breathe. I have to know where he is, I have to know that he’s okay, and I have to try and fix him, right now.”

Sam already knew that the errant young man was far from okay, and he was not so sure that Sarah was capable of fixing him even when she was well rested and at her full strength. Still, he decided it was better to humour her rather than have to fight with her and restrain her to keep her from wandering off into the rainy night. He heard Nathan and Fiona laughing in the kitchen — a sound that still persisted despite communicating through the connection — and knew that they would not approve of this. Nathan saw Francis as a despicable traitor at the moment – worse than Royce — and Fiona would be happy to see Francis rot in hell. They certainly did not share Sarah’s dedication to the man who had been their Teller, unwarranted or not.

“
Alright. I’ll do this, but not here. Let’s go to your room. It’s quieter there, and more comfortable.”
Not the reasons he wanted to go there, but truthful nonetheless.
“I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any guarantees. Even if I do find him, he may still insist on blocking you out.”

The pair crept stealthily into her room and settled into place side by side on Sarah’s bed. With an apprehensive expression, she grasped his hand and waited. Releasing a soft sigh, Sam began his search.

He knew where to begin, having followed Francis sporadically during the day. There was something familiar to Sam about the path that Francis was taking, but he was not sure why. Their ex-Teller had long left the general area and was not headed towards the Hub. It was somewhere else – somewhere accompanied by an uneasy feeling. He tried to remember where that was, but Sam was no Keeper, so it did not come to him immediately. Sarah was following behind him in the connection and experienced the same awareness.

“
Where is he going?”
she demanded fretfully.
“We’re not supposed to be here. Why would he be going somewhere where we are not supposed to go?”

Sam shrugged mentally.

“
Sarah, I can’t explain why he’s doing anything that he’s doing right now. He’s not acting rationally. He’s not acting like Francis. I wish I could give you some answers, but I can’t.”

As they neared the ex-Teller, Sarah seemed to cringe.

“
What’s wrong with his walls? He’s gotten worse, hasn’t he? He’s much more broken than he used to be. It’s not just because of what happened with Fiona, is it? It’s because Elliot took his gift away.”

Her words were frantic as she struggled to get near Francis. Then suddenly, he was gone.

“
Where did he go?”
she gasped.

Sam had no idea. He had never lost anyone in the connection before. They had grown faint, and sometimes had been beyond his reach, but never just disappeared.

“
Go back,”
Sam insisted.
“Leave me alone to look for him. He must have slipped away from us somehow. I’ll be able to focus better on finding him if I’m alone. I’ll come back for you when I find him.”
He had done that with Elliot when he had first appeared on the beach, and he hoped that he could do it again with Francis.

Sarah obeyed, distancing herself from Sam and returning closer to home. Sam began searching. He started in the area where he had last seen Francis and then moved away from there, looking desperately for the young man, but he could not find him. In fact, after a short while, when his panic subsided a little, Sam had to acknowledge that he was not going to find him no matter how hard he tried. His instincts told him loud and clear that Francis was no longer there in the connection to be found.

Sam paused before rejoining Sarah, returning to the location where they had lost Francis in the first place. He wracked his brains to figure out where he was and why it bothered him so much. Finally it came to him – Francis had gone to the High Barrens.

There was a part of Fervor that did not have sandy beaches and rocky shores and it was called the High Barrens. Instead, along that stretch of the island there were sheer cliffs that dropped off into the ocean. It had always been off limits to the children because it was considered to be too dangerous a place to venture. Sam suddenly felt queasy.

If Francis really were no longer part of the connection, there were two possible reasons why. He may have found some way to subvert his access to the connection again, something like the Languorite, or whatever devices the scholars had been using to begin with. Of course, Sam was sure that the ex-Teller did not have the Languorite with him because he had seen Elliot use it on Nathan. As far as Sam knew, there was nothing else like it on Fervor.

The other possibility was that Francis was no longer part of the connection because Francis was no longer part of anything.

Sam rushed back to Sarah, almost in an attempt to escape everything that had just come to light. When he reached her, however, his heart filled with dread as he realized that it now fell upon his shoulders to share his impressions with his Fixer friend, and she would not react well to what he would have to tell her.

“
Did you find him? Can you take me to him again?”
she asked excitedly.

“
No, Sarah,”
Sam confessed.
“I can’t take you to him again. He’s gone.”

She froze up a little, confused.

“
Gone? Do you mean he left Fervor?”

“
No, not in the usual sense anyway. I mean he’s simply not there anymore, Sarah. If he had somehow managed to leave Fervor, I still should have been able to find him – he couldn’t have gotten far enough away to avoid me. Like with Elliot. He was on the Mainland, but I still managed to guide you to him the first time that we went looking for him,”
he thought at her, trying to be kind about it. It was difficult, because Sam had already fought through his panic and was now starting to feel numb.

“
If he didn’t leave Fervor, then how can he not be there anymore?”
Sarah questioned, bewildered. She had not considered the possibilities that Sam had.

“
He was at the High Barrens, Sarah,”
Sam explained as delicately as possible.
“He’s gone.”

There was an instant backlash of denial from the petite girl.

“
No, no, no! You just didn’t look hard enough. You have to go back! You have to look longer. You have to find him for me,”
she pleaded tearfully.

“
I’m sure,”
he sighed.
“He’s not part of the connection anymore.”

“
You’re wrong,”
Sarah sobbed.
“You have to be wrong. I never had the chance to fix him. Please, Sam. Tell me that you’re wrong.”

Sam looped his arm around her sympathetically. He felt badly about this, and he knew that Sarah would be feeling much, much worse. She still cared about Francis, no matter what he had done. It saddened Sam as well that Francis would likely not be missed by the others

“
I’m sorry, Sarah,”
was all the solace that he could offer her. He had never lost anyone this way before. It was a very strange feeling.

“
Why?” she wailed. “Why wouldn’t he let me fix him before all of this happened? He was special. It should never have ended this way. Why wouldn’t he let me fix him?”

She dropped her head into Sam’s lap, weeping loudly. A few moments later there was a knock at the door.

“
Sarah? Are you okay?”

It was Elliot.

“
I’m here with her,” Sam replied. “I have this handled.”
Not well
, he thought,
but handled
.

“
Oh – alright. That’s good.”

The technician was relieved at not having to sort out some emotional outburst from the girl. He still felt very awkward around the children, and Elliot figured that it was some delayed response to what had happened earlier in the day. The Finder had already decided that telling Elliot, Fiona, and Nathan about Francis could wait until morning. Sam had Sarah to deal with for now, and he would have to try and comfort her himself. Fiona wouldn’t understand, and Nathan had always been wary about how he should behave around Sarah, viewing her as more fragile than the others.

Sam spent the rest of the evening just letting her cling to him for consolation as she cried. He stroked her hair the way that Francis used to, and continuously reassured her that it was not her fault. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep, still lying in his lap.

The High Barrens

Sam woke before Sarah did the next morning, which was not a big surprise considering how exhausted she had been when she had finally fallen asleep. He was glad. He had somewhere to go and something to do, and it would be easier for him to leave with her asleep. Leaving as quietly as he could manage so as not to disturb her, he headed out of her room and into his own. He gathered up several of his things in his backpack and crept into the kitchen.

He collected supplies for his trip from the cupboards, since he could not necessarily guarantee that he would find what he would need en route, and he guessed that he would be gone for at least two days. He would not be able to match the outrageous pace Francis had maintained as he had made his way barefoot to the forbidden grounds. Sam realized that this meant that the others might take the hover and leave without him, but he needed answers and it was a pull that he could not resist.

He tried to be stealthy as he moved to slip out of the kitchen again, and to sneak over to the front door, but Fiona was there as he opened the kitchen door.

“
What are you doing up this early, Sam?” she asked casually. Then she took note of the backpack. Her expression darkened. “Where are you going?”