Forsada: Volume II in the New Eden series (14 page)

Shack chews on his lip a moment before continuing. He steps to stand in the side door and turns to face me. Or, more accurately, he turns to face his memory.

“I crept to the door and looked through. My mom was crying. There.” He points right to where I’m standing. “My dad… I saw it. He picked up a log from the fireplace—not one from the fire, just a log—and lifted it over his head. She put up her arms, but when he hit her I heard a crack and saw the bone come right though the skin.”

He points to the floor and steps into the room. “She collapsed—just fell straight down, really—and her hand was just dangling there. I ran out and yelled at him to stop, but he hit me pretty hard, and I fell across the room, here.” He walks over to near the corner where he’d crouched before. “I remember it hurt really bad. Then he kicked her, hard, two or three times. He reached down to grab her good arm and pull her up so he could hit her again.”

He looks at me, and I can see the terror of the four year old in his eyes. My mouth is dry, and I can barely breathe. He saw all this? As a little kid? No wonder he’s so angry sometimes. No wonder he won’t ever forgive his father.

I whisper the question: “Did he kill her?”

“No,” Shack says, shaking his head. “No. Just as he was pulling her up, the door burst open. An angel—at least, that’s what I’ve told myself all these years—an angel crashed in, knocked my father back against the wall, hit him once or twice and knocked him cold. My mother was unconscious. So all the screaming and crashing and bashing about suddenly became silent. That’s when the angel turned to me. I scurried behind a rocking chair we had, here, in this corner.” He steps into the corner and crouches again.

“But the angel moved it aside, and he looked down at me. I’ll never forget it. His skin was totally white, but he wore black all over. His eyes were pale blue, and he looked like a statue come to life. His voice was very soft, and he told me that my mother wasn’t dead. That she was almost dead, but they had to take her away so she could live. And she couldn’t come back again. But that I shouldn’t worry because they could make her all right.”

He trails off, his eyes wild with the memories again. He swallows hard and sniffles, blinks a few times.

“They?” My voice is cracked and horse, and without breath.

“What?” He blinks and looks at me as if I’d just come into the room.

“You said ‘they.’ You said that he said—the angel—that ‘they’ needed to take her away.”

“Yes. They.”

“But there was only one.”

“Yeah—”

“And then what?”

He doesn’t move, still crouched in the corner as if he’s hiding behind that old rocking chair. “Then he picked her up, very gently, careful of the broken arm, and carried her out into the night.”

“So she didn’t disappear.”

“Not exactly. But sort of.”

“Oh, Shack.” I so want to give him a hug, to hold him and comfort him. But part of me is scared, too.

Suddenly I realize why I feel scared. “Oh, Shack,” I whisper again, goose bumps popping all over my skin, “you don’t think that was a… a spirit, do you?”

Before he can answer, a voice calls from outside. “Hello?” Immediately behind it comes Garrett, stooping through the gaping doorway as he comes inside. Twilight is settling outside, and the dimness of the cabin gives him a gray, grim look.

He smiles when he sees me, then stops in mid-step when he notices Shack crouching in the corner. His smile disappears. Neither of them has been back to this cabin since their father moved them out as children. This was the last place they saw their mother, the last place they felt love for their father. The two stare at each other, and I wonder if perhaps Garrett wasn’t actually asleep that night like Shack said.

Another voice invades the silence of the ruins. “Hello? Lupay? Garrett!”

It’s not Micktuk, or Ginger, or any other Tawtrukker. I can’t believe it. He’s finally here. A giddy joy skips my heart as I look to the door and watch Dane enter. He steps into the dim room, shorter than I remember. His brown hair is long and uncombed, and his clothing is simple and rough, like when I saw him in Subterra. His eyes look tired, and although he smiles when he sees me, it’s not the grin of a lovesick boy but the sad smile of apology.

I can’t help but smile at him anyway. He’s finally here. We can finally fight Darius with the weight of Southshaw on our side. For weeks I’ve been playing a guessing game—how many of Darius’ army will turn to Dane when he arrives with their brothers, their sons, their neighbors? How many follow Darius out of some sick faith, or a sense of duty to their leader, all the while thinking Dane is dead? They’ll come to him, and this war will be over, and we can go back to being just Tawtrukk again.

“You’re late,” I accuse, but I can’t bluff anger through this goofy grin.

“I know,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”

Before either of us can say more, a young woman appears behind him. Freda is dressed in similarly rough, hardy, simple clothes. Her long, mouse-brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and her pale face looks… I don’t know. Underfed. She’s thin, and I wonder if maybe she’s sick. This is not the Semper and First Wife I expected. This is not how I expected them to arrive.

“Hello, Lupay,” Freda says as she enters and stands just behind Dane’s right shoulder. She smiles, but there’s no life behind it. “I’m glad to see you again. You look well.” Kind words, but they sound hollow in the dying light.

Garrett steps to me, puts his hand on my shoulder. “Loop, there’s something you should know.” He’s so serious. They’re all so serious. This isn’t right. Shack still crouches in the corner, shocked like I am. This isn’t how it should happen.

I knock Garrett’s hand away, suddenly on full alert. I step around him so I can see them all. I point at Dane. “Something’s wrong. Why are you late? Why did you come all the way up here?” I look at Garrett. “Garrett, what’s going on?” I stare at Freda, who looks like she might cry.

No. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen. Dane is supposed to ride up on a horse, in front of a thousand Southshawans, come to do what’s right. He promised. He isn’t supposed to walk into an abandoned ruin like some exile, just him and his scrawny wife. I frown at him in my confusion, and I can see that both he and Freda can hear the questions running through my mind.

“Dane. Where’s your army? They better be outside—”

Before I can walk through the door, a man’s shape fills it, darkened in the dying light. He’s taller than Dane, thicker than the twins. But his bald head and his face are the color of pinked clouds at sunset. He stands in the doorway, blocking the way. He glances once at me, then at Garrett, before coming all the way in. Tom. For a moment I think there might be hope after all, but then I see in his pale blue eyes that there is none.

He comes all the way into the room to stand before me. “Hello, Lupay.”

A strange shout, like a grunt, comes from the corner. Shack. We all turn to look at him. He cowers in terror, his eyes wide and his arms wrapped around his knees, drawn tight to his chest. He stares unblinking at Tom as he gasps incoherent words.

Tom says softly, “Hello again, William. It’s been a long time.”

CHAPTER 13

Micktuk settles the kettle on its hook over his hearth and tries to calm me. Again. “Now, now, Lupay. We can’t change what’s real, yeh?”

“He promised.” I hiss the words the same way I’ve hissed them a dozen times since we left the ruined shack, honeyless.

“Yeh, yeh,” Micktuk says. “But watchoo gonna do bout that? Promises, they’re like windows. They break sometimes.” He rises, the kettle swaying, and pats his hands on his round belly. “Give da man credit. He come, didn’t he?”

I don’t want to give Dane any credit for anything. “It’s his damn uncle that’s taken over Tawtrukk,” I say. “I stayed and helped him take back his beloved Southshaw, and for what? He gives it right back to Darius.”

“Now, that’s not true,” Dane protests.

“No? No? Really?” I know I’m being unfair to him, but I don’t care. “Then where are they all? Where is everyone you said would help?” I turn to his pretty little wife. “And you, you said there were friends. Lots of friends. Your parents, for two. That’s what you said.” I can see the words hurt her, and I feel a little guilty for saying them. But I can’t help myself. “Isn’t that what you said? Well? What happened to all those friends?”

Dane steps in front of her, between us, and puffs himself up. “Don’t talk like—”

“Dane,” Freda says and gently nudges him to the side, “it’s all right.” She looks into my eyes, the green of her eyes tinted orange in the flickering lamplight. I’m reminded of that moment in the Subterra caves when I met her for the first time. When we talked while Dane slept. Then, her face was soft and purple in the weird moss-glow of the cave walls, gentle and feminine. Now the harsh lamp makes her look flushed. The shadows make her look gaunt.

“We tried, Lupay. Really we tried. Gregory and my parents, and others—we gathered everyone we thought would help us. The ones that met you that night, they agreed with us. They wanted to help. But the others…”

Dane shakes his head and sighs. “You have to understand Southshaw. Everyone follows Semper, without question. They all saw me get exiled. In their minds, I was already dead. Darius was Semper.”

“And,” Freda continues, “when it came down to it, none of them was willing to go fight their own friends to defend people they don’t know. People they’re scared of.”

I can’t hide my anger, my frustration. “Mutants, you mean.” I want to stomp, want to knock things over, want to screech out and yell and hit things. But I can’t do that. So I stand and frown and breathe heavily, cross my arms tight.

Really, I’m mad at myself. I’ve been stupid. I let myself believe an army was coming to help. That anyone out there cared about us. If I’d thought about it for one second, I’d have seen the truth. The strong ones, the ones that like fighting are already here. The others already decided not to fight. They’re going to change their minds? To leave their homes and fight against their own people to help us? How could I ever have let myself believe that? Complacent. Stupid.

Freda’s voice is almost a whisper as she says, “Most of them, even the ones who believed Dane to be the rightful Semper, secretly hoped Darius would wipe you all out.” Guilt and sadness fill her eyes, and a tear drips down one cheek.

“We tried, Lupay,” Dane says. The same guilt and sadness shadow his thin face. “Really, we tried.”

“Well,” I say, “I guess trying wasn’t good enough.” The words cut, but I think they may cut me more than Dane. The way both Dane and Freda just stand there and listen to me… I’m not saying anything they didn’t already say to themselves. The look in their faces, I see now, is regret. Regret because they failed.

“Loop, let it go,” Garrett says from across the room. “It is what it is. We can’t change it.” He gives Dane a long look, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking. “Micktuk’s right. Dane didn’t have to come.”

Micktuk grunts approval, then says, “Asides, nothin’s changed since yesterday cept we have three more on our side. So it’s plus, yeh?” He grins a big, white grin which makes him look a little like a crazed jack-o-lantern. It’s meant to cheer me up. It doesn’t.

Garrett stands from where he’d been crouching, off to the side with Shack and Tom. It took the whole walk back for Shack to calm down. While I’ve been beating down Dane and Freda, Tom has been telling Garrett the truth of his mother’s disappearance.

“Well, that’s not quite accurate,” Garrett says, looking at Micktuk. “That’s not the only thing that’s changed.”

He steps over to the fire, where Micktuk has begun cutting up turnips and squash for dinner. This is the first night I’ve felt the chill of winter really seep in through the cabin’s walls.

“You’re not going to like this, Loop,” Garrett says. Everyone turns their attention to him.

“I already don’t like everything,” I reply. It’s true. This has been one crappy evening.

“I know. But you know our little rescues we’ve been doing recently?”

“You mean stopping Southshaw patrols from killing the hillfolk?” The memory of Honey bouncing along on Shack’s shoulders softens me for a moment.

“Right. Well, apparently Darius isn’t happy about it.”

“Finally some good news.” Making Darius unhappy is the best thing I’ve heard all night.

“Loop, he’s going to do something about it.”

“What do you mean?” Garrett often looks serious about little things. I can hear in his voice this is not a little thing.

“The guys from Lodgeholm? They were down by the lake this morning. They came across three Lowers carting fish up from the lake. There was only one Southshawan guard. So of course the Lodgeholmers killed him and brought the prisoners back here.”

“Fresh fish for dinner,” barks Micktuk as he points his big knife at a bucket by the door.

“More good news,” I mumble, unsure what’s coming but certain it’s really bad.

“They had heard Darius screaming about our last one. Not the one this morning, the one a week or so ago. You know how Susannah’s husband knew your name? You know how Susannah said all those things about turning Southshawans to dust by just looking at them?”

“Yeah…”

“Darius has heard those things, too. He knows your name, Loop. He knows a black haired girl and two guys are mucking up his plans.”

“So? More good news. I like that he knows who I am. Let him come get me.” I turn away and walk over to the bucket, pretending to be interested in the fish. Garrett was right. I don’t like this news.

The door opens with a rush of chill, and Susannah and Ginger bustle in, arms piled with firewood. Susannah opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but she shuts it again as she glances around.

Garrett says, “He’s going to start killing his prisoners until the three of us are caught.”

The room is silent but for the crackle of the fire and the bubbling of the water in the kettle. Even Micktuk’s knife has stopped slicing.

“He starts tomorrow. He’s going to bring a bunch of them up to that meadow where we burned up those guys that very first time. Remember? And he’s going to kill them, one by one, unless someone turns us in.”

No one moves for several seconds. Finally, Susannah drops her bundle of wood onto the pile, and the logs clatter over each other. She brushes her hands on her skirt. “Well, no one’s turning themselves in, that’s for sure.” The finality of a mother’s decision.

We all stand in silence. How can we not turn ourselves in? I know both the twins are thinking it. We can’t sit by in our little shack in the woods while our friends are killed in our names. We’ve been complacent, too willing to let ourselves believe that Darius wasn’t hurting people, so maybe he would just keep not hurting them. Too willing to believe that an army would come with Dane and save us. Too willing to enjoy the summer, have our little battles in the woods, and think we were doing something useful.

“Well,” Susannah says, “that would just be suicide.”

And not turning ourselves in would feel like murder. I know Shack and Garrett are thinking the same thing. We are stupid and pitiful. They’re right. I should give Dane more credit. He could have just stayed in Southshaw and ignored the whole thing. But here he is, and here Freda is, a hundred miles from their home, powerless but here to help anyway. What did we
really
do all summer while our friends and families slaved for that evil man?

“And then,” Susannah says, “who would be here to fight back?”

A chill runs through me, and Ginger drops her armload of sticks on top of the pile with a noisy clatter like an exclamation point to follow Susannah’s question. “Amen,” she adds.

Shack and Garrett and I look at each other. None of us is sure what to say. I’m not even sure what to think. Susannah answers that question for me.

“Just think,” she says as she walks over to me and takes my hands in hers, “what would have happened if you’d heard this news last night. And then you went and turned yourselves in.” Her rough hands are so gentle, her soft eyes so clear. “Me and my little girls.”

“Honey,” says Shack, and despite the terror filling my heart, I smile at the word.

Of course. If we’d heard this news yesterday and gone to Darius, then Susannah and Honey and her other daughters would be dead now. And so would we. And if we give up now, who dies tomorrow because of it?

“I’ll go,” Dane says.

“What?” I’m shocked by his voice. I’d forgotten he was here. Susannah releases my hands and goes to help Micktuk in preparing the food.

“I’ll go.”

“Darius doesn’t want you.”

“Right. He doesn’t even know I’m alive. It’ll confuse him.”

“Dane,” Freda says with a sigh, “that’s a nice gesture. Really. But think it through.” I wonder how many times she’s said this to him. Probably a lot.

Tom and Shack stand up. Tom says, “Any one of us going would confuse him. But so what? He wouldn’t stay confused. And he wants them, not us.”

I didn’t much like this topic before Dane butted in, and I don’t much like these three coming in here and talking about us like we’re not even here.

“So,” Freda says, “let’s give them to him.”

What the hell? I thought they were on my side. I helped them escape from Subterra, almost got killed by those stupid watchdogs. I went with them back to Southshaw, risked my own neck to help them. Now they’re going to turn us in? Didn’t they hear what Susannah just said?

“Right,” Micktuk grins, and he goes back to slicing the squash and tossing it into a skillet.

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Is this a dream, and I’ll wake up soon? No, this isn’t right. They all don’t get to decide how and when I die.

“Now wait a minute,” I say. “Whose lives are we talking about here? You want us to just walk in and… what?” I stare hard at Freda.

She seems a little unsure and looks to Tom, then at Shack and Garrett and Micktuk in turn. She scowls, thinking something through. Finally, she asks, “Are there others? I mean, how many others are there? It’s not just the six of you, is it?”

“No,” Garrett says, stepping up next to me to face Freda. “There are a dozen more. I mean, there are a lot more if you count little kids and—no offense, Susannah—the moms.”

“It’s okay,” Susannah says with a gentle smile.

“Good.” Freda looks relieved. It seems like she’s thinking there might be a fight, and that sounds good to me.

Garrett’s also intrigued. Which is good. I think Freda’s smart, but I don’t want her planning our attack. Garrett? I’ll go along with any plan he approves.

While Susannah shoos Micktuk away from the pot and takes over the cooking, the rest of us gather under the lantern. Over the next hour, my excitement grows along with the details of the plan. It’s good to be talking about a real fight after four months of scuffles. We’ve been waiting too long.

Later, when the fire’s died and Micktuk has set up Dane and Freda in a nearby vacant house, I lie awake and listen to the sounds of Garrett and Shack breathing. I can’t tell if they’re asleep. I might not sleep at all, all night. This has been such a strange and unexpected day, and tomorrow we might all die, or we might actually end this whole thing. Or both. In the dark, I let my fingertips glide along the handle of my whip coiled at my side, feel the rough leather. Its presence comforts me, like the sound of my friends breathing nearby.

I think of Tom out in the darkness, choosing to sleep under the stars instead of inside. He’s been inside his whole life. I bet he’d even sleep out there if it poured down rain. In a way, I envy him. He’s already lost everything he cares about, except the one thing that he loves most. His freedom.

Maybe, if tomorrow goes well, I can have mine back.

I didn’t expect there to be so many.

Shack, Garrett, and I look down on the blackened meadow from a trail along the ridge. The meadow has had all summer to grow back, but only small hints of green have sprouted in spots. Spread across the southern end of the charred earth wait at least two hundred Southshawan men, sweating in the late summer sunshine.

Before them, facing up the road toward Upper, stand eight prisoners.

“I can’t tell who,” Garrett says, squinting in the clear brightness. “But their hands are tied behind their backs.”