Freda: Volume III in the New Eden series (14 page)

“Um, yeah, I think so.”

“Hurry now. They’ll know what to do. If they don’t, run and find Kitta’s mother.”

“Um, okay.”

“Go! Now!”

The three boys jump at Garrett’s shout, and with awkward tugging and grunting they lift Jaden onto the biggest boy’s shoulders, and they rush back up the path we’d just come down.

The three of us stand there in the silence after they’ve left, staring at each other. None of us knows quite what to say, but I can see Garrett is as haunted by the strange place as I am. Kitta is fortunate she stayed outside. Did Garrett see the bones and skull as well? I want to ask, but I don’t dare give voice to what I’d seen. Something in my heart tells me that just seeing it was bad enough. Speaking of it would be to summon the demon that created this place.

“Freda!” A call from around the corner is followed by someone rushing along the rough path behind us. “Freda!”

Tynan’s voice is unmistakeable, and I’m glad to hear it. When he shouts my name a third time, he exorcises the grisly memories of just a few minutes earlier. My legs stop quivering, and my laboring heart calms itself as he approaches. I can feel Kitta staring at me, but I ignore her.

“Over here,” I call to him, but it’s clear he’d already seen us.

He pushes between two small pines and shoves a branch out of his face, coming straight to me and ignoring the other two and this strange place. With a stern stare, he reaches out. “You shouldn’t be here. Come on.”

Before I can stammer out a reply, Garrett says, “Tynan. I’m surprised to see you here.”

“I’m not at all surprised you’re here,” Tynan says without looking at him.

“Leave her be, Tynan.” Garrett half-steps forward, looming over us all. I often forget how tall he is.

“Shut up,” Tynan snaps. “What are you going to do, hit me? You know fighting between Southshawans and your kind has been banned.” Tynan keeps his hand extended toward me, but his eyes are focused in a sideways stare at Garrett.

“Just turn around and go,” Garrett growls.

Kitta pulls him back. “Garrett...”

Tynan waves a dismissive hand in Kitta’s direction as he says, “You can have that one if you want, but I won’t let some filthy mutant corrupt Freda.”

Kitta gasps, but Garrett seems unmoved.

I say, “Tynan, don’t use that word.”

He looks hard at me but ignores my scolding. He points at the ancient ruins across the concrete meadow and shakes his head. “Don’t go there. That’s everything the Founders warned us about. It’s what God punished the people for. There’s nothing for you there. I know Dane put some ideas into your head, Freda, but I also know your faith is strong enough to hold onto the truth.”

“No one put ideas into my head. I see the world as it is, and I’m capable of understanding the truth without a husband to tell me what to think.”

“Certainly not that husband,” Tynan replies with a grimace like he’s got spoiled fish in his mouth.

I shouldn’t have told him about Dane’s loss of faith, about our relationship constructed more of shared responsibility than love these days. “Dane may have his faults—”

“I think he’s proved that time and again.”

Garrett steps forward. “Go away, Tynan. And take your Southshaw god with you. We don’t need that crap that you and your friends believe.”

I look to Kitta, but she doesn’t seem bothered at all by what Garrett has just said. Kitta and her family always attended chapel. They said proper grace before each meal. And now she’s letting an outsider drain her of that? She should have enough room in her heart for both Garrett and God. Is she letting Garrett push God out?

Tynan growls, “You mean you don’t need truth.”

“We don’t need you,” Kitta says, showing real anger for perhaps the first time in her life.

Tynan straightens himself and drops his outstretched hand at his side. “I am the truth,” he says. “You can ignore it if you want. But I know this: Truth is always true no matter what some people try to teach you. And the truth is that that place—” he points behind me to the concrete meadow and ancient ruins— “is cursed. It’s the result of every evil the ancients indulged, the remnants of the arrogance of humanity. They forgot about God. They wanted to take God’s place in the world.”

It’s like he’s speaking words I used to know but had forgotten. He may be overstating it, but there is truth in what he says. The War happened, and the people who built this town were part of it. Those ruins don’t just represent an ancient culture. They are the actual skeleton of a dead civilization, killed by its own hubris and inattention to the truth. They are the bones left behind to remind us of the evil that could overtake us if we don’t remain diligent.

Kitta says, “Look at it, though. It’s not what we were told it would be. There’s no Radiation. Our skin hasn’t melted from our bones. I haven’t seen one lake of molten rock.”

Garrett adds, “Because none of that was true. It was all lies, Tynan.”

“Lies? Are you saying the War didn’t happen? That it wasn’t people who caused it?”

“It happened,” Garrett admits. “And people caused it. Just like people caused the destruction of Tawtrukk.” There is so much poison in his tone, I feel a little sick just at hearing him.

Tynan scowls. “Darius was wrong to use the Bomb,” he says. “And perhaps the Founders were wrong to keep that one Bomb, even as a symbol.”

I’m glad to hear him say, finally, that Darius was wrong about something. I remember the section of Prophecies that described the Bomb and how to use it, if the need ever arose. Those pages were filled with drawings and arrows and symbols that neither Dane nor I could understand. There were instructions for retrieving the solar cell the Founders had hidden away in a secret place in Semper’s house. There were instructions for connecting red wires to blue wires, setting timers and arming detonators.

Dane’s father destroyed the original solar cell so the Bomb could never be used, but Dane accidentally found another when he went into that ancient house hidden in the woods. He found a child’s toy, a little box that made music when the sun shined on it. Darius was able to use that innocent, beautiful little relic to destroy everything we knew and loved.

Garrett says something that I miss as I’m buried by my own thoughts. Tynan replies, and Kitta says angry words that sound wrong in her pretty voice.

Dane was supposed to stay away from ancient houses like that. What if he had never gone in? He would never have found that toy, and Darius would never have been able to blow up the bomb.

Maybe Darius was right about the meaning of Prophecies. Maybe the thirteenth Semper did bring about the destruction of the world.

I feel the lesson here is just out of my reach. Dane allowed himself to be seduced by curiosity, but he forgot that it was curiosity that drove the ancients to pursue the technology that killed them all.

He found what he thought was an innocent, ancient toy. And it brought about the destruction of the world.

Kitta steps to me, right in front of me, close. Her eyes are only inches from mine. She takes my hands in hers, their old softness calloused over with the toil of the last few months. She says, “Freda, please.”

“Please what?” I don’t want her to be so close. Garrett looms behind her, tall and imposing. I wish they’d stop pressuring me.

“Please... don’t listen to Tynan. He doesn’t care about you like I do.”

Tynan says, “That’s true. I care about you, Freda. Just not like she does.”

I hear his meaning under the words. How he watched me when I walked with my mother. How he adored me from afar. How he mourned losing me to the Wifing. How he caressed my hands in the darkness.

I shouldn’t care about him in the same way, but a part of me has started to. I shouldn’t want to learn about the ancients, but a part of me has started to.

Tynan grabs my hand and pulls me away, back toward the road.

“Let her go,” Garrett says as he grabs at Tynan’s arm.

Tynan pushes Garrett hard, and in an instant they’re toe to toe, nose to nose, both threatening but neither striking.

Kitta shouts, “Stop it!” and grabs at Garrett to pull him away. He doesn’t move, and the two men stand like bulls, eye to eye, ready to destroy each other.

I say quietly, “Please, stop.”

Neither moves, but both relax, just a bit.

“Fighting won’t solve anything,” I say. “It never did.”

“It’s this place,” Tynan hisses. “Like I said.”

Garrett backs away into Kitta’s arms. “Maybe it is,” he says. “And maybe it’s something else.”

I don’t know what it may be, but I need to get away from here. I wish they would give each other a chance. Garrett would see that Tynan means well, even if he is rough in his manners. Tynan would see that Tawtrukkers aren’t to be feared or hated.

“I need to be by myself for a while,” I say, and I shake my hand from Tynan’s grasp.

I start walking away, back up the path we came down, and Tynan begins to follow. “I’ll come with you,” he says.

I stop and put out my hand. “No. I need to be by myself.” I look into his eyes, where something smolders.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” he says.

“I’ll be fine,” I answer. “I just need to pray on things for a while, on my own.”

Garrett scoffs, “Pray on things? Praying is what caused this whole disaster. Darius did everything in the name of god, and—”

“No,” I say quietly. “Darius did a lot of awful things. But praying was not one of them.”

I point at the ruins across the concrete meadow. “I don’t know if that’s a place we need to stay away from or not, but I’m not going there now. It feels... like walking into a tomb.”

The image of that skull, leering accusations at me from the ashy darkness, fills my mind.

“Don’t follow me,” I conclude, looking at each of the three in turn, then walk up the hill, pushing my way through the forest. My hands tremble as I walk, and tears fill my eyes as my mind whirls. Ahead, the sounds of refugees call me forward, but I stop at a big tree and fall to my knees in its shadow.

I want to pray, but the thoughts that rise toward God are less reverent than I intend.

CHAPTER 15

As we’ve descended out of the mountains, the weather has warmed considerably and the pine-studded slopes have softened to beautiful hills of golden-brown grass dotted with small knots of ancient, gnarled oaks. From time to time we crest a hill and see a wide horizon ahead, an expansive plain fading into a distant haze. It often feels like we’re wading wast-deep through the rolling waves of a golden sea. When we look back, the granite mountains frown down on us with their white, snow-encrusted peaks.

We started as nearly four thousand, but now we’re less than half that. Sickness and injuries killed many, and many others simply stopped walking along the way, trying to make a home where they ran out of strength. It’s hard to blame them. The land is fertile and lush, embroidered with hundreds of streams spilling down out of the mountains. Enormous herds of deer, sheep, and even cattle wander the hillsides. Wild cattle! They are as docile as the dairy cows we left behind in Southshaw, watching and chewing as we walk by.

Since that awful day that Jaden was hurt in the ruins, we haven’t seen any other towns. Just rotted shells of lonely farm houses and barns as the road winds through the hills. That day, I stopped repeating the stories from my little prayer book. Now, the people share their stories with me. Memories of their childhoods in Tawtrukk or Southshaw, stories of their first loves, or of the beautiful things they remember from their homes. I walk with Kitta and Garrett sometimes, with Tynan others. But often I leave them and walk among people I don’t know, listening as witness to their pasts.

When I’m alone with Tynan, he asks pointed questions about Prophecies. I’ve drawn the maps for him, told him about Reunion Mountain and the iron fleet, the white stone crossed with black, and the Radio. These are secrets between us, and although I wonder sometimes if I should be sharing so much with him, it feels good. His conviction keeps my faith from wasting away, which is important because I still lead the prayers for the Southshawan faithful before each evening meal. Each night, it gets harder.

“Hot today, isn’t it?” Garrett’s voice startles me. I’ve been walking in my thoughts, looking at the landscape but seeing that leering skull everywhere I look, from the pitted gray boulders lumped by the road, to the oak leaves trembling in the breeze.

“Oh” I stammer. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

“I think we’re just about out of the hills,” he says with a cheer that matches the sunshine.

“It’s too bad,” I say without thinking much. “I like these hills.”

“Me, too. You know what? I was thinking I might head up to the front and see what’s going on.” I can tell he wants me to come with him.

I should go. Really, I should have gone days ago, but I’ve stayed here because my people need me. Or, that’s the excuse I’ve given myself. With every day that Dane doesn’t come looking for me, I feel further from him. And closer to Tynan, who stays near me almost all the time. I’ve seen Dane from afar a few times, but he’s always busy with others, and I’m always surrounded by children.

“It’s been a while since I saw Lupay,” Garrett says, but he hasn’t mentioned Lupay in days. I think maybe she’s become more a painful reminder of his brother’s death than anything else. Garrett has found love and a new family with Kitta, and Lupay is finding her own way to forget Shack.

I smile and nod. “I’m sure she’d be happy to see you.” He wants me to mention Dane. I try very hard not to look at Tynan, walking some distance ahead of us.

“And you could talk with your parents,” Garrett hints hopefully. “I know they’ve got a lot to do, what with managing food distribution and all that, but I bet they miss you.”

“I’m sure they’re very busy,” I say, dismissing the idea. Garrett’s starting to annoy me.

“I’m sure they’d be thrilled that you came to see them,” Garrett argues. “How long has it been—”

“They’re very busy,” I say, unhappy to cut him off with a finality that says the discussion is over. But I’d be unhappier to keep listening to him.

“Well, I know Dane would like to—”

“If Dane wants to see me, he knows where I am.”

Garrett’s face turns sour, and he’s quiet for a minute as we walk up a long, easy slope over the hard, dry grass trampled by the hundreds and hundreds of feet that went before us. Perspiration gathers on my neck in the sun’s baking heat.

As we reach the top of the rise, Garrett grumbles, “Like you said, he’s very busy.”

The top of this hill reveals an amazing sight. Although we could see the plain in the distance before, we never faced it directly. Lower hills always obscured some part of it. This hill slopes gently away, the tall grass soft like a golden velvet drape, until it’s cut off by the perfect flatness of the plain that stretches out for miles and miles and miles before us. The transition from hill to plain is abrupt, but the velvety golden grasses continue all across the vast expanse, with scrunched, curvy green ribbons of rivers lain across.

Our refugees are spreading out at the bottom of the hill for a lunch rest. Nearly two thousand people lounge in the soft soil and grass in the sunshine, their conversation like the low hum of a beehive. They make a patchwork quilt of gray and brown all across the bottom of the hill.

For the first time I really see what is left of us. A mere hundred or so Subterrans remain; half of those that came with us perished from disease or left us to settle along the trail. The rest are about half and half, Southshaw and Tawtrukk. Each has its purists that separate themselves, but mostly the people blend in a swirl of individuals and families that have been stirred together by the brutal realities of survival. I’ve met dozens of Tawtrukk widows who have taken Southshaw men, either to overcome their loneliness or out of practical necessity. They all share an uneasy understanding to ignore the past as much as possible. None of us can forget the past, but for the sake of survival we must try to conquer it. That’s what I’ve worked for the past week as I’ve walked and talked with the people. And it’s helped.

“There they are,” Garrett says as he points to a spot a little off to the left.

“I see the horses,” Kitta agrees. “Let’s go. It’s been so long since we saw Dane and Lupay and the others.”

They start down the slope before I can say anything, but now that I see the horses, I realize I really do want to see Dane and my parents and the others. When we were apart, it was easy to think I didn’t care about being with Dane. I was needed where I was, and he was needed where he was.

I begin to follow Kitta down the slope, but Tynan stands defiant and just stares out over the people.

“It’s sad,” he mutters. I’m the only one close enough to hear.

I stop, go to him, and ask quietly, “What do you mean?”

“Look at them. So quick to forget everything we believe.”

After a week with him, I know he still has some way to go before he accepts Tawtrukkers as equals. Where I see a beautiful swirl of forgiveness and acceptance, he sees an infection spreading through the Southshaw people. He’s been civil with, but not friendly to, the Southshaw men he fought alongside who have taken up with Tawtrukk widows. Tynan has helped when I’ve asked, but not cheerfully.

“Not everything we used to believe was true,” I reply.

“Tawtrukkers aren’t like us. They’re outcast,” Tynan says. “God chose the Founders and led them to Southshaw.”

He’s hinted at these thoughts from time to time, but seeing the people as one in this way is bringing the thoughts out. He’s not holding anything back now.

“God chose us, not them, Freda. He provided for us and kept us safe. His laws allowed us to survive and thrive while everyone else on the Earth perished.”

“The Tawtrukkers didn’t perish.”

“Neither did the deer or the coyotes or the rattlesnakes,” Tynan says. “Would you say a rattlesnake is equal to a Southshawan? Should I take a rattlesnake as my wife?”

His ridiculous analogy does have a perverse logic underneath it, but I know he’s wrong. Mere survival is not proof of anything, but Tawtrukkers are people, not animals. Lupay’s courage, Garrett’s honesty, Micktuk’s wisdom, Susannah’s grace... in many ways, the Tawtrukkers are more noble than Southshawans, and I have come to believe that God also provided for them and led them to their own haven after the War.

“Well? Should I take a rattlesnake as my wife?”

“No, of course not,” I huff. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“That’s right. I shouldn’t marry a snake. I should only have a Southshaw woman for my wife.”

He turns his head to gaze at me, letting his admiration glow in his stare.

“One Southshaw woman in particular,” he adds with quiet determination. He turns his body to face me and moves close.

The adoration and unrestrained desire in his eyes draw me in, like he’s lassoed my soul. Dane has sometimes looked at me with the admiration, but he’s never shown that kind of inextinguishable longing. It’s intoxicating, and I feel like he’s looking right into my thoughts, tearing away my layers until he sees right into my inner self. I feel totally exposed to him. Naked. I want this feeling, but it terrifies me.

I step back. “Tynan,” I blurt, “we... we’re so... everyone can see us here.”

He pauses and retreats, staring unashamed into my eyes. The green of his eyes is hued with the golden reflection of the plain, glinting with an undisguised hunger. “Freda,” he whispers, and I want so much for him to take my hands and pull me to him, “you deserve a better husband.”

I shouldn’t want him to hold me now, but I do want it. And I can’t. His lips are drawn tight in a confident grin behind his rough beard. His hands rest at his sides, sleeves rolled up exposing lean, muscled forearms. I shouldn’t want those arms around me. I shouldn’t want those lips on mine. I can’t want those things. I have already chosen someone else.

“We should go,” I say, and I turn quickly to follow the others.

“Freda! Wait.”

I keep walking, and Tynan catches up to stride beside me through the trampled grass.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” I lie.

“Of course I do. But love can make a man forget his manners.”

“Oh ha ha,” I laugh. “Your manners are just fine.”

Love.
The sun burns the back of my neck and scorches my hair and makes me want to run away so I don’t give in to the wrong feelings that burn my insides like the sun burns my outsides.

“No,” he says as we stroll down the hillside without visible urgency. “I should be patient. If it’s in God’s plan for us to be together, then I must let it happen the way He intends.”

“And if it’s not in His plan?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm and detached.

“Then I shall live out the rest of my life wishing it were, praying that it will be, and waiting for my prayers to be answered.”

He slips his hand around mine, and although I relish the grip of his rough, strong fingers, I lift my hand from his and slip it into my pocket, drawing myself a little away from him as we walk.