The Keeper's Shadow (48 page)

Kira, though, had been too devastated by her losses. Lumpy could think of no better way to help her than putting the Novakin in her care. Accompanied by a group of Apsara, she has left for Newlight, taking the sleeping Alandra to the children who will one day hopefully free them both. Isodel, the Governor's wife, had agreed to stand in Council until Kira is ready to return.

Roan shudders as he remembers the horror of trying to pry Stowe from Willum. The more he'd attempted to comfort her, though, the more distant she'd become. He'd wanted so much to be close, to mourn as a family the final passing of their parents and their newfound cousin, Willum. Roan knew how much Willum had meant to her. He wished she could have shared more of her pain…but perhaps that was untrue. Perhaps he'd welcomed her distance because he'd needed it as well. Perhaps that was the only way they would be able to heal.

After the final battle, he'd gone down into the City to walk through its streets. Over and around the numberless bodies. The smell of death in the square where the giant Apogee had been mounted was appalling. Rats darted amidst the corpses and flies…swarms of flies…

He wondered if the Dreamfield had been sealed soon enough for some of these people to find their place within it. It seemed a shallow hope. The loss was overwhelming, the senselessness of it…the stories of their lives crowded one after the other behind his eyes in an eternally changing kaleidoscope of despair until he could no longer remember who he was, what he had come for, why it had seemed so important.

“The Council is waiting. Decisions have to be made,” Lumpy had said, putting his arm around Roan's shoulder. But Roan had refused to move. He was afraid to take a step. The future yawned before him empty, devoid of purpose. “Please, Roan.”

Lumpy's face had been so full of sorrow, his eyes swollen, his voice swallowing back the pain.

Roan is aware of how selfish he seemed when he asked his friends and sister to let him go. It was the hardest thing he's ever done, deserting Lumpy and Mabatan and Stowe. But he needed to know the meaning of what had happened with the Friend and the Overshadower—what he had done, what he had felt, what he had become.

The journey over water to this island had been difficult, but paled beside what he'd been through. What he was going through now. Amongst the giant trees, lovingly preserved by the Wazya, he stood day after day, paralyzed at the grave of his great-grandfather, Roan of the Parting.

“Before he died, Roan told Aithuna his greatest hope was that one day you would stand in this spot, and offer him the prayer of Longlight. It was what he lived out his life for.”

“I don't know. I don't know if I can.”

“We have time,” the Carrier of the Wazya had said lightly, much the way his daughter would, with no trace of disappointment. And so Roan stood, one day folding into the next, wondering if he could find it in himself to forgive his great-grandfather's discovery of the Dirt and his trust of Darius and the destruction it had wrought. Each day, just as Roan found the thread, the possibility of forgiveness, it was snapped from him by a memory—his sister howling over Willum, or Mabatan's empty eyes, or the buzzing flies over the endless corpses, whose lives he knew better than his own.

Until one day, after he lost count of the days, the thread of forgiveness merged with the memories and he knew somehow that they were the same.

And lowering his head, Roan began the prayer of passing, striving to keep all of it alive in his heart.

That the love you bestowed might bear fruit

I stay behind.

That the spirit you shared be borne witness

I stay behind.

That your light burn bright in my heart

I stay behind.

I stay behind and imagine your flight.

Roan picks up a pebble and places it on one of the larger stones that mark his ancestor's grave. Then he breathes as if for the first time and inhales the fragrance of the giant firs.

Surrounded by a chorus of white crickets, he listens intently to their song. A song that, with Khutumi's help, Roan of Longlight hopes one day to understand.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
HANKS TO
Pamela Robertson, Barbara Pulling, Guillermo Verdecchia, Susan Madsen, Elina Levina, and Teri Snelgrove, for their wise words and support. Elizabeth Dancoes has been instrumental in the creation of this book, as she has with the entire Longlight Legacy. I am forever, and gratefully, in her debt.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

D
ENNIS
F
OON
has written four other acclaimed novels for young adults:
Double or Nothing
, the award-winning
Skud
, and the first two books in
The Longlight Legacy
—
The Dirt Eaters
and
Freewalker.

He has written over 20 stage plays that continue to be produced internationally in numerous languages and for which he has received the British Theatre Award, two Chalmers awards, and the International Arts for Young Audiences Award. He has received the Gemini Award, two WGC Top Ten Awards, and the Robert Wagner Award for his screenplays, which include
Little Criminals, White Lies
,
Torso,
and
Terry
.

Dennis lives with his family in Vancouver, BC.

Text © 2006 Dennis Foon

Edited by Pam Robertson
Copy edited by Elizabeth McLean
Cover and interior design by Irvin Cheung/iCheung Design
Cover illustration by Susan Madsen

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This edition published in 2012 by
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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities.

Cataloging in Publication
Foon, Dennis, 1951 –
      The keeper's shadow / by Dennis Foon.

(The Longlight legacy)
ISBN-13: 978-1-55451-028-3 (bound)
ISBN-10: 1-55451-028-7 (bound)
ISBN-13: 978-1-55451-027-6 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-55451-027-9 (pbk.)

      I. Title. II. Series: Foon, Dennis, 1951 – Longlight legacy; 3

PS8561.O62K43                 2006 jC813'.54                      C2006-901780-8

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