Out of Exodia (10 page)

I’m sure I must be dreaming. I blink
away the tears and look again. They’re entering the airport from
the east side, the gated way, the only untrampled path. Raul easily
swings the iron aside and leads the group toward the mass of
waiting Reds who have no idea that they’re approaching. I wave my
hand though the Lunas aren’t looking up here. My people are,
though, and they stretch their necks to look in the direction I’ve
pointed. They’re quick to fear outsiders, but Mira has directed
Harmon and Lydia to reach them first. I want to run to Gresham, but
now my legs are as sluggish as my tongue. Harmon yells to the crowd
to tell them who these visitors are. The uninterested fall back,
the curious reach out a hand in welcome, Lydia kneels down to greet
my son, and, this I can hardly believe, Mira lifts a baby from
Kassandra’s arms.

This is what Barrett knew and never
told me. He’d made the detour past Usala’s Rock and on to the
ranch, collected the ledger papers I’d left there—they’d become
divorce papers—and he’d seen Kassandra. He told me Raul and Katie
worked the ranch while Kassandra tended Gresham and he told me
something else: that they’d both grown fat. I knew then that it was
a clue, but I ignored it.

My feet still stick tightly to the
floor. Dozens of pairs of eyes look up at me. I try to swallow, but
can’t. At last Lydia waves me down, smiling that brave wonderful
smile of hers.

* * *

Whispered explanations
morphed into rippling gossip once Mira and
Jenny
told Onita and Marilyn, who
turned to the women beside them who in turn passed the news outward
that this was Bram’s family. It didn’t matter that a few facts got
corrupted and names were mixed up. Once it was obvious that they
weren’t leaving the airport today most of the Reds wandered away
from the awkward scene.

Bram received Raul with a sad nod of
his head, then he lengthened the greeting into an elaborate bow
and, strangely, kissed his former father-in-law on the cheek. Katie
grumbled a hello when Bram looked at her. Kassandra grabbed up the
baby and reached for Gresham’s hand.

“
Hello, Dalton.” Her voice
was a mix of acid and honey.

“
He goes by his real name
now,” Lydia said. “Bram.”

Kassandra glanced at Lydia while
Dalton, now Bram to everyone, stood mute. “See how Gresham’s
grown?” She shifted her poisonous gaze back to him. “And this is
your second son, Eli.”

Bram put his palm on the baby’s head,
stroked the soft fuzz of black hair, and ran his fingers down Eli’s
chubby cheek. He looked so much like Gresham had the last time he’d
seen his firstborn, only Eli was twice as big, maybe three months
old. He drew in a faltering breath and choked out a low greeting to
the baby. Then he squatted down to be eye level with Gresham who
sat wedged in the cart. He offered a smile. The toddler poked his
fingers into Bram’s beard and giggled. The sheep that pulled
Gresham’s cart jostled the toddler and he laughed some
more.

“
My father made us come,”
Kassandra spit the words over his head. “He read it in the
stars—how you brought everyone out of Exodia. How you’re wandering
aimlessly.”

“
I didn’t say aimlessly,
Kassandra.” Raul spoke with deliberate impatience. “Dal-, Bram, I
knew you’d be close enough for us to travel a day and a half to see
you. I needed to hear for myself all that has happened.”

* * *

Kassandra allows me to hold
the baby. Gresham isn’t ready yet to be held by a father he doesn’t
know. Walking? Yes, though it’s more of a lurching stumble. And
he’s not talking yet, not even a
mama
, according to Raul. The boys
are barely ten months apart. Two babies.

In the midst of our self-conscious
reunion Harmon has pitched his tent nearby. He holds a flap open
and beckons us to enter. He offers his aid as shepherd to unharness
the sheep and find them a place to graze. The women who were eager
to coo over my sons—Mira, her friends, and Lydia—have disappeared.
I glance around before I duck into the tent behind my family—my old
family—who left Exodia a year ago in the darkest grief imaginable.
Gresham knows nothing of the loss of a grandmother and five aunts.
His only concern while we speak reverently of them is to totter
around the tent and press his fingers through the holes.

Eli cries and Kassandra turns away to
nurse him. She sits back to back with Katie and braces herself
against her sister as she gets as comfortable as she can to feed
our son. A year apart and we are strangers again.

“
I saw it in the stars,”
Raul begins, “that hundreds left the black city.” I nod, he
continues, “Ten plagues, yes?”

“
Something like that,” I
murmur. “I had to kill the Executive President’s son.” Kassandra
tightens her hold on the baby, keeps her eye on Gresham as he nears
the tent’s doorway. A fissure of light stripes the entrance with
dancing particles of dust. He draws his tiny hand back and forth
through the light.

I outline the year’s events: the
tainted food, the rashes, the acid rain, the hail, the darkness
that fell on the last full day in Exodia—the day I killed Jamie.
How we crossed the condemned bridge.

“
They chased after you and
fell from the bridge?”

“
I blew it up.”

“
They all died?”

“
All who Truslow sent.
There could be another army he’ll send around, but we’ve been
attacked by others.”

Katie clucks her tongue for Gresham’s
attention, draws him to her, and cuddles him in her lap. The
favorite aunt. The only aunt on the Luna side.

Raul is pensive. He taps his chin. “You
don’t need to worry about Truslow. Tell me about these new
attackers.”

I recap their first appearance, Lydia’s
kidnapping, our rescue mission, how their city is underground. I
dare to ask him, “Do we need to worry about them attacking us
again?”

I trust that he’s seen the story in the
sky. “No,” he answers. “They are vanquished.”

I tell him about the hardships on this
journey: the lack of food and water. I tell him how we’ve been
saved from thirst and starvation and I dare to add my growing
belief that we are in the safety and care of One who provides all
that we need.

Katie and Kassandra hold my sons with a
stillness that unsettles me. The tent grows suddenly too warm, but
Raul is pleased with me. His eyes shine moist with understanding.
“Bram,” he says, comfortable with my original name, “I’m delighted
to hear how the hand of God has rescued the Reds. I understand more
from the stars. I know that God is greater than all the other
gods.”

What other gods is he talking about? My
skin prickles with heat and I want to tell him what I’ve done. A
cord of apprehension ties my tongue so that I only mumble, “I’ve
built it.”

But he understands. “Daughters,” he
strokes the baby’s head, “stay here while I go with
Bram.”

Chapter 8 A Soul’s Kiss

From the ninth page of the
second Ledger:

He was not rebuked for his
sacrifices.

“
THEY BICKER AND fight and
disagree all the time.” I complain to Raul as he walks beside me,
pulling one of the sheep carts by hand. My emotions are closer to
the surface than I want them to be. “And they’ve forgotten why they
were subjugated in the first place—the religious persecution. The
Suppression.” We skirt the smaller hangars and follow an old
service road out to a secluded area I’d spotted from the tower.
It’s just beyond the graveyard we’d made for the seventeen heroes
of our battle with the cave-dwellers. I’d been here once before in
the middle of the night. “And they come to me expecting magic. I’ve
broken up fights, settled disputes, provided water from rocks,
found shelter … the list goes on.”

“
It’s a heavy burden,” Raul
agrees, patting me on the back in that fatherly way he has. “Who
have you put in charge to assist you?”

“
Well, Harmon helps a lot,
but—” I stutter and stop. We lift the cart over some rough terrain
and continue into a park-like setting. We pass two sobbing women
coming back from the graves. They keep their heads down, fingers
rubbing hard against the bellies of the white figurines they hold.
No words pass between us.

We continue past the graves where not
even simple slabs or wooden posts mark the tombs. I recount the
strange battle to Raul. The cart rolls roughly along a deer path
and we stop next to a pile of rocks.

Raul’s laughter makes me smile. “This
is it, Bram? This is your altar? Surely you could’ve done better
than this, even in the dark.”

The pile is comprised of discarded
stones, ones which were too sharp, too light, too small for what I
constructed. Raul’s laughter abruptly stops when he looks a little
further and sees what I really built. The altar is long and wide
and waist high. Every rock fits tightly, mortar free.

“
Oh.” Raul pulls the cart a
few more feet and runs his hand along the hearth. “Flat stones
here.”

As if his words appear upon
the altar’s top, I see the letters tip and sway and
flat stones here
changes, swirls out words like
father, fear, self
, and
heart
, until finally
every letter realigns into
tents of
healers
.

I say the strange phrase aloud and
Raul’s eyes widen, he hits his chest, and gasps. “We camped last
night,” he hurries the words, “and the sky was clear. The stars
were humbled by the moon. I pictured them as tents. Tents of
healers.”

He giggles like Gresham and pulls back
the cover on the cart. “Here’s what you sacrifice on the
altar.”

Things to burn. We pile them across the
flat stones and Raul exclaims, “Praise to God for rescuing you from
Truslow. Praise to Him for freeing the people.” I repeat his words,
feeling flakes of joy sprinkle around my heart. I make my own
sacrifice of thanksgiving on the secret altar. We make a fire and
watch until there’s nothing but ashes.

We pray aloud and then to ourselves. We
rise from our knees when a chilled breeze swipes the last of the
ashes up and away. I have a question for Raul. “The tents of
healers?” He hasn’t explained it yet.

“
What you’ve been doing,
Bram, is not good. These people who come to you to solve their
problems will only wear you out. The work is too much for you. You
can’t handle it alone. Listen to me. God is with you. You’re his
representative, but here’s my advice: select capable men from all
the people—men who fear God. Make sure they’re trustworthy, honest,
then appoint them as officials over a specific number of people.
Give them a marked tent. Then they can serve as judges or rather
healers.”

“
Tents of healers,” I say
again, tumbling the idea over and around.

“
They can decide the simple
cases and bring the tougher decisions to you. That will make your
load lighter. See?”

“
Will you go with
us?”

He shakes his head. “Enjoy the rest of
the day with your sons, Bram. We’re returning to the ranch in the
morning. And if I read the stars correctly, you’ll be heading west
tomorrow.”

“
West?” That can’t be
right, but he simply nods his head and leaves me to wonder. I speed
up my pace to get back to my sons.

* * *

Bram found Kassandra and Katie standing
outside the tent, both with their arms crossed, speaking softly to
Lydia’s mother, Jenny. Katie scowled at Bram as he approached, but
Kassandra dropped her arms and reached for the tent flap. She put a
finger to her lips and held the cloth back as Bram ducked inside.
Both of his sons were sleeping on blankets spread in the center of
the tent. He knelt down and feathered their precious heads with
soft kisses and whispered confessions. Kassandra let the flap fall
back and in the privacy of the warm shelter Bram cried quietly
while he watched the boys sleep.

Kassandra moved away from the tent when
she saw Lydia ambling toward them. She found her father resting on
the cart a little ways away.

“
So where did you two go?”
She posted herself at an angle so she could keep an eye on the
tent.