Fervor (37 page)

“
I have a special finding trip that I have to make.” He wasn’t planning to elaborate. He wanted to make his escape before Nathan and Elliot got up as well.

“
What kind of special finding trip? Why would you need your backpack to go there?”

Sam hesitated, reluctant to tell her anything. Then, to make matters worse, Nathan appeared as well. Sam sighed.

“
I’m going to look for Francis,” he admitted.

“
So you can bring him back here?” Fiona exclaimed. “No!”

“
How far away is he, that you need your backpack?”
Nathan added.

“
I wasn’t intending on bringing him back here. I just want to figure out exactly what happened to him, and why he went there,”
Sam replied.

“
Went where?”

Sam could see Nathan was growing concerned over the direction of this conversation.

“
The High Barrens,”
the Finder confessed, shifting the backpack up onto his shoulders and reaching for the doorknob. Fiona immediately looked horrified.

“
You can’t go there,”
she insisted.
“It’s off-limits.”

“
Why would Francis go there?”
Nathan questioned.
“It’s dangerous.”

“
That’s what I want to find out,”
Sam explained.

“
Why don’t you just ask him then?
” Fiona grumbled, rolling her eyes.
“Following him all the way out there is crazy. He’s not worth the risk.”

“
I can’t just ask him.”
Sam just wanted to go. He had been hoping to avoid this kind of interrogation. He dropped his gaze.
“He’s not part of the connection anymore.”

Fiona frowned.

“
What do you mean, ‘he’s not part of the connection anymore’? You can’t just leave it when you feel like it.”

Sam did not answer. If she did not understand, then he was happy to leave it at that. He did not need to explain to Nathan, however. The young man put his hands on the Keeper’s shoulders.

“
Let him go, Fiona,”
he thought quietly.

As Sam opened the door, Nathan asked,
“Does Sarah know?”

Sam nodded.

“
She was very upset, to say the least. She likely won’t be any better when she wakes up. I did my best to comfort her, but that was Francis’s thing, not mine. You have to convince her that she needs to pull herself together in order to fix the hover. Remind her that she made a promise to Elliot. That might be enough.”

“
I’ll take care of her,”
Nathan assured him.

“
If you can keep her on track, she’ll likely have the fixing done before I get back. If you feel the need to leave without me, I’ll understand.”

“
We’d never leave without you, Sam. I meant what I said yesterday, you are still family, gift or not. If Elliot wants to leave without you, he’ll have to leave without me, too,”
Nathan murmured.

“
That’s not going to happen either,”
Fiona stated forcefully, gripping Nathan’s arm tightly.
“Nobody gets left behind. You do what you have to do, Sam. We’ll be waiting here for you when you get back.”

Sam gave her another acknowledging nod, and then started out on what would no doubt be a long and lonely trip. Or at least, that’s what he thought it would be. Within a couple of hours after taking his leave, when he actually found himself wallowing in grief in the silence that surrounded him, Sarah made contact.

“
You should have woken me, Sam. It wasn’t fair of you to leave without saying goodbye.”

She had followed Sam through the connection the evening before as he had tracked Francis and had remembered the route well enough to locate Sam there now.

“
You have your business to take care of, and I have mine. You should get back to working on the hover.”

“
We haven’t started yet,”
she thought.
“I’m waiting for Elliot. Besides, with you gone, there’s no rush now. Elliot’s fit to be tied. He said what you are doing is irresponsible and inconsiderate.”

“
I didn’t expect him to understand. He’s never felt the Finder itch. Francis left me with a lot of unanswered questions.”

Sam also believed that he personally was partially at fault for his current circumstances. He wondered if he had been less of a coward and had been willing to peek into Francis’s tormented mind, he might have been able to prevent this. At least he might have had a better idea as to why the ex-Teller had chosen to head for the High Barrens, of all places. He could not allow himself to be weighed down by feelings of guilt at the moment, however, and the compulsions that drove him would not let this rest.

“
I’ll be checking in on you, Sam. You’re the only real friend that I have left. I can’t afford to lose you, too.”

Her sadness was heavy and stifling. As much as Sam wanted to offer her more solace, he also wanted to avoid getting caught up in her emotion.

“
Sure, Sarah. You can let the others know how I’m faring. I still have quite a distance to cover, though, and it’s easier to follow his path if I don’t have any other distractions. You pay attention to helping Elliot, and we can get in touch again when you’re done.”

As much as he wanted to spare himself from her emotion, he also wanted to keep her distanced from his. He still had no idea what he would find at the High Barrens, and if it was disturbing enough, when she linked with him in the connection, he would not be able to hide that from her.

“
Promise me you’ll be careful,”
she whispered.
“Stay away from the cliffs.”

“
I’ll be careful,”
he thought softly in return.
“I promise.”

While he did not regret encouraging her to let him be, for both their sakes, he did miss the company. Sam liked solitude in smaller doses, but after several hours by himself it started to close in on him. He longed for his house-family, and even though there were several walled minds within easy reach because of the connection, he had not felt this alone in years. He was grateful when Sarah eventually touched his mind a second time, in the early afternoon.

“
Are you still there, Sam? You haven’t actually reached the High Barrens yet, have you?”

“
Not yet. I’m guessing it won’t be until dusk. I stopped mid-morning to do a little finding at a school, and there’s no way that I can match Francis’s pace.”

Sam still found it hard to believe how much ground that the young man had covered over a shorter interval with no boots. He had been moving like a man possessed.

“
Did you finish the hover?”

“
Not yet. It was too damp for some of the final touches. Elliot says that they will have to wait until tomorrow,”
she replied. Sam wondered if that was an exaggeration on Elliot’s part, to justify waiting the extra day for Sam.
“So will you be back tomorrow?”

“
I’ll try, but no guarantees, Sarah. I don’t dare search the High Barrens at twilight, so I’ll start at break of day. It depends on how long it takes me to find what I’m looking for, whatever that is,”
Sam offered.

“
Hurry back,”
Sarah pleaded.
“Elliot is grouchy and Fiona and Nathan aren’t interested in anything but each other right now. I really miss Francis and I’m lonely without you.”

“
I know. I’m sorry that I have to do this. Hang tight,”
he said.
“I’ll talk to you when I’m done with my finding tomorrow. It will probably be safest if I do it without distractions.”

She sighed, and broke off the link.

Sam had calculated correctly, and as the sun was setting, he finally reached the fence that marked the perimeter of the area that was considered off-limits. Someone had bashed through the wire mesh with a large rock, no doubt Francis. There was still enough light to venture in and do some exploring, but he likely would not make it back while there was an appropriate amount of visibility and Sam had promised Sarah that he would be careful, so it would have to wait. To make matters worse, a fog was starting to roll in off of the water, a common phenomenon on Fervor. That was yet another reason to stay put for the moment, on the safer side of the fence.

The night was a chill one, and Sam had nothing in the way of shelter. While he was fully capable of entering any building on Fervor that he wanted to now, nothing had been built within close proximity of the High Barrens, with good reason. There was no point in having any of the children living in tempting view of something that was supposed to be taboo, not considering the sparse population of the island, and the large quantity of space available to them.

From what Sam had seen through the fence, the area had offered little in the way of scenery. The ground was rocky with meagre foliage. It was bare of trees, exposing it to harsh winds and salt spray from the ocean, allowing for little to actually succeed in growing there.

Sam spent the night huddled in some long grass not far from the fence. He slept very lightly since he was frightened at having to endure the night and the howling wind all alone. Every time he awoke, shivering and tense, he cursed the compulsion in him to see this through. He even found himself brushing away tears a few times from the corners of his eyes, an embarrassment to him even if there was nobody around to see them. He curled in on himself a little more, and blamed the wind for making his eyes water.

When dawn finally lit up the horizon past the cliffs, coloring it with warm hues of pink and orange, Sam shook himself free from the grass that now had him entangled and approached the hole in the fence. He examined it carefully in the growing sunlight, noting that some of the sharper out-juts bore several strands of bloody fibres similar in texture and colour to the neutral-coloured tunics the children all wore. He wondered if this were possibly evidence of Francis’s passing into the forbidden zone. If this had come from him, he had made his way through the fence in a great hurry, and not bothered to bash and bend back any of the more hazardous protrusions. Sam was much more cautious. Grasping the rock that had likely been the ex-Teller’s tool, he slammed at the pointy wire bits until they were rounded nubs that no longer posed any threat to anyone. Dropping the rock to one side, he took a deep breath, and stepped through.

Merely being on the other side of the fence made Sam uncomfortable. Not because of any residual effects from the Directives, but just a matter of general conditioning. Since as long as he could remember having Maria in his life, she had driven home the fact that certain places were not to be entered without the accompaniment of a minder or teacher and a select few places, like the High Barrens, were completely forbidden. He had often wondered why. And had he lived much closer to the boundary of the area, his curiosity might just have propelled him past any need that he had to obey the rules.

Maybe, he considered, that was what had happened with Royce. Perhaps he had dared to venture into one of those forbidden locations and found something that he wished he had not.

Sam glanced down at the ground. It had been muddy that night, the rain pouring down as Francis had plunged through the hole in the fence and run along the edge of the cliffs. Sam could still make out some of his footprints. The young man’s bare feet had left toe indentations that were fairly deep and the impressions had not completely washed away. In fact, they had dried that way, allowing the Finder to track Francis’s path exactly.