A Light From the Ashes Page 2

  For tonight, he had to find a place to make camp. Looking skyward, he saw the clouds blowing inland, a fall storm looking for a place to land. All of the living things were scurrying for cover ahead of the approaching storm. A raccoon ducked under a sea of elephant ears. Sam just glimpsed the end of his tail before he disappeared. A turtle moved slowly across his path, stopping, listening, changing course, going as fast as he could go. Sam would have to build a lean-to of branches and leaves quickly if he hoped to stay dry.

  * * * * *

  Sophie woke in darkness, hearing a scream and recognizing it as her own. She lay still for several moments, jaw clenched, back rigid. She imagined the muscles in her body from top to bottom, willing them to relax and release her piece by piece, trying to calm her breathing. Her fingers found their way to a lock of hair at her forehead, twirling it as she often did to still her mind. She felt like a hot coal thrown out of a fire into the freezing night. Long minutes passed, and her heart continued to race.

  The dream was the same—it was always the same. A man holds her by the throat against a tree, his face merely an inch from hers. She struggles for breath, his hands squeezing tighter, fingers bruising her skin. Suddenly a knife is sheathed under his ribs as the darkness closes in. Gulping in the lost air, she falls next to him, her hand on the ground in his blood when he grabs her by the hair, pulling her head down hard upon the ground. She always hoped the dream would end differently, hoped to redirect the actions in her brain. But every night she was helpless to the tide of dreamed events.

  Knowing it would be at least an hour before she’d find sleep again, Sophie climbed out of the bed and pulled on her threadbare robe, which had lost its lavender luster years before, now a matted gray. Still chilled, she went down the hall to check on her daughter. She tried to tiptoe lightly, but the wood floor creaked under her bare feet, the sound shocking her as much as the cold floor, just as she reached her daughter’s door. She listened first, and hearing no stirrings within, opened the door. Bridget’s breathing was slow and steady. The child held tightly to her scrap of a blanket she’d carried for the four years since she was a baby but had flung herself out of the covers in her sleep. Sophie pulled the several quilts over her, tucking them under her chin. Moving as slowly as possible, she buried her face in her daughter’s curls on the pillow, breathing in her scent slowly. Ending her nightly ritual, she softly kissed each eyelid as Bridget took in one quick breath and then settled into the arms of sleep again.

  Sophie’s feet found their own way to the kitchen through the darkened house. She stopped at the kitchen sink and looked absently out the window to the softly glowing fires along the benches below the mountain, tiny points of light in the looming darkness. Her own dying fire was a mix of orange and black embers in the kitchen fireplace before she stirred them back to life. The full moon cast its light through the thin curtains, making the white sink almost glow before her. She pulled the ladle from the water bucket to fill her glass. Her fingers found the charm of the butterfly necklace—a remnant from her sister and a past life—twisting and playing with its wings absently. Often in her midnight wanderings, she would wish for her sister’s company, a comfort she would never have again. The images of her dream started to fade as she gulped the water, washing down the fear. The process both a cleansing and a redemption.

  Sounds of tiny scratches and scurrying from the corner assaulted her ears, quickening her heartbeat again. Sophie turned quickly to see the firelight reflected in two tiny glowing eyes under the edge of the china cabinet. She set her glass down silently before eyeing the culprit—a crouching gray rat. She grabbed the first thing she could get her hands on, a kitchen knife resting near the sink. Though her throw was swift and her aim was true, the squeaking rodent evaded her attempt on his life. She took up the knife from the floor in frustration but cut her hand by grabbing too quickly in the dark.

  “Damn!” she whispered under her breath. A resentment filled her for having to clean up the blood dripping from her palm. She wished she wasn’t so used to the sight and smell of blood. At times it had seemed to pervade too much of her life—blood flowing to swim beneath the garden symphony of moonlight, heaving whispers languid with red screams, revealing her thousand frantic dreams. Sophie found herself trying to remember when blood had still frightened her. Perhaps that time had never existed. Too young, she’d learned to fight for her survival. Too young, her parents’ blood had been spilled.

  After wrapping her hand with a clean bandage she pulled from the first-aid cabinet, she walked outside. She was tired but restless. The cold air coming down from the mountains was refreshing in her lungs while also making Sophie want to retreat back to the comfort of her quilted bed. She took several deep breaths, wrapping her arms and robe more tightly around herself. She thought of her family again, as she always did after waking from nightmares. She thought of them slumbering beneath the sod somewhere to the west. Did the moonlight wash over their graves as it now washed over her? How would her life be different now if Laurie had survived? She wondered if they would sit on a porch swing somewhere together, watching their children play together in a garden. Bridget had never had other children to play with. Sophie mourned a future that had never been allowed to take its first breath.

  The sharp smell of smoke in the air was often a comfort during her late-night rambles. It reminded her she was not alone in the world. But her own arms around her waist were a poor substitute for the arms of another.

  * * * * *

  A little boy sat shivering in his damp clothes as he hid in the bushes out of the line of sight of the border guards. He knew he’d be able to get back across the Border farther down away from the guard station, but he hadn’t found much food in the last few days, and his legs were feeling weak. He struggled to stay awake, knowing he needed to get to the creek for water. More than anything, he needed water. He still couldn’t believe he’d knocked over the cup he set out to catch the rainwater the night before. Now he’d not be able to get a drink until he reached the creek. Not unless . . . He turned his face upwards, catching the first few raindrops falling into his mouth. They offered him little relief from his thirst. He was just about to make a run for it when he saw the man with the knapsack approaching the guard station. The boy instinctively crouched lower in the bushes.

  “Hold up there, sir,” the guard called out, holding his rifle across his chest. “What’s your business here?”

  “Well, Harry, I’ll tell ya. A little of this, a little of that.” The man reached in his pack, pulling out an amber-colored bottle. “More this than that.” He handed the bottle to the guard.

  “Sam! It’s been awhile. Too long, I’d say.” The guard gratefully took the bottle from his friend as he set his gun down. “Missed you around here. But mostly I’ve missed this,” he chuckled.

  “Now you pace yourself with that one, Harry. I’ve picked the bar clean and don’t know when I’ll find another one.”

  “But you will, though. Join me for a drink?”

  “Nah, I’ve got to get back. Haven’t seen Gemma in a while.”

  “Your seven years up already?”

  “Yeah. Gotta get back and surprise her, unless she’s been counting the days like I have.”

  “Good luck, my friend. And thanks for this!”

  Sam forced himself to shake hands with the guard before passing through the gates. “Remember, take it slow,” he called over his shoulder. As he rounded a curve in the road, he wiped his hand on his pants.

  The boy waited for the guard to take his bottle inside the guard shack and snuck quietly through the gates. The man called Sam interested him. He had supplies and ways of moving in and out of the Border he hadn’t witnessed before. Surely, he’d have food as well. Dinner would come for the boy in the middle of the night while Sam slept.

  * * * * *

  The walking wind wandered into the stone night with hardly a rustle after the earlier storm. Sam sat in front of the fire, flipping the fish he’d c
aught an hour before. He was only hours away from home but had to stop for the night. The wet branches smoked more than he would have liked, but then he’d always liked the taste of smoked fish anyway.

  “Be sure to give the line enough slack,” his father used to say. “Don’t pull at it too quickly. Gotta let the little devil think he’s gotten away with something.” Then his dad would pat his shoulder. “This is the good stuff, son. Remember that.”

  Sam had heard the boy following him for the past few miles. The first time he’d heard the movement behind him, his heart had jumped into his chest, thinking a patrol was after him, or maybe that he’d be pulled back into working in the lumber camp. It wasn’t unheard of for Corsairs to allow someone to hope for escape, only to drag them back. But whoever it was seemed to stumble every few steps. Not likely a Corsair. After a few miles, Sam had trudged up a rise in the land where he could glance back behind him unnoticed. A small boy, maybe ten in ragged clothes, with dark hair matted on his forehead. Sam had slowed his gait to let him keep up. He heard and saw him drinking from the creek where he’d caught the fish. Sam wanted to help him but figured the boy would speak to him when he was ready. He now looked down at the fish in the fire. Just about done. The boy had still not made his presence known.

  “There’s plenty here for two,” he called out, still staring into the fire.

  No answer.

  “You must be hungry. We’ve walked quite a ways today.”

  The boy stepped tentatively into the firelight.

  “Come get some fish, boy. Pretty good, if I do say so myself.”

  The boy held his hands out. Sam took his own plate and handed it to him. Within a minute or two, the boy had polished off the fish, breathing quickly between bites as if he thought the food would disappear before him.

  “What’s your name?”

  He continued to chew and breathe heavily. His eyes closed, enjoying every hurried bite.

  “You have one?”

  “Ethan,” he finally responded.

  “Ethan, I’m Sam. Where you from?”

  Ethan looked puzzled.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Around. Woods, mostly. Sometimes cabins.”

  “Family?”

  “Hard to remember. Mom and Dad have been gone a long time. The Corsairs took them. I was maybe four or five, I think.” It was a common enough story that Sam had heard too often.

  “You must be at least ten now. Who’s been taking care of you all this time?”

  “There were others like me. We traveled together for a while. But they started stealing things—not food—fighting, using weapons on people. I tried to stop them. Then one morning, I woke up, and they were gone. Been on my own since.”

  “When was that?”

  “Two, three weeks maybe?”

  “Well come and sit down at least. You look worn out.”

  Ethan hesitated. He wondered if he could trust this man who was so friendly with the border guards.

  “Come on now, boy. You’ve nothing to fear from me.”

  There was something behind Sam’s green eyes, some kind of knowing and kindness that softened Ethan’s defenses. His worn out limbs forced him to soften the rest.

  “Pretty tired, I guess.” The boy sat on a large rock near the fire.

  “You can share my camp tonight if you like, that is if you promise not to steal from me.”

  “I don’t steal things.” The boy seemed offended by the comment.

  “Oh yeah, that’s right.” Sam chuckled. “Well, come on now. Here’s some bread to go with the fish. A few days old, but still good.”

  Ethan practically inhaled that as well.

  “You’re a regular Lost Boy, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not lost.” Another bite. “I know where I am.”

  “No, it’s from an old story,” Sam explained. “The Lost Boys lived in Neverland and followed around another boy named Peter Pan who could never grow up. They fought Captain Hook and the pirates.”

  “What are pirates?”

  “Long ago they roamed the seas, pillaging and stealing from any vessel they encountered. In the story of Peter Pan, he’s the cause of Captain Hook losing his hand, so the captain is always seeking vengeance.”

  Ethan’s eyes lit up with wonder and renewed energy from the nourishment as he listened to the pirate stories.

  “If you’re going to follow me, I guess that makes me Peter Pan.” Sam smiled to himself. “I kind of like that.”

  As the evening wore on, with their bellies full of fish, the two new friends looked out over the darkened valley toward the mountains not far to the west. Tiny points of orange light dotted the landscape, fires like stars draped across the valley.

  “Sam?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you ever wonder what it was like Before?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What do you think it was like?”

  “I’ve talked to some of the Old Ones about it. My adopted father, Zacharias, lived Before. He’s told me a few things.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  The fire popped and hissed between them. Sam squinted to see the boy through the flames.

  “Many people died in the Disaster. We can’t say precisely how many. All means of calculating the loss or communicating it were destroyed. Only a surge of sound, a blinding light, and then immediate darkness, as if some giant switch were flipped that turned off the world.”

  “What’s a switch?”

  “They used to have buttons that could turn a light on and off by just flipping it.”

  “Like lighting a match?”

  “Not exactly. The Old Ones talk of how it was before the darkness. Before the switch was flipped. They remember times when the electricity in their houses would temporarily go out. There was a silence that would come over a house when it didn’t have electricity coursing through it like blood, making the machines run like a pumping heart.”

  “I wish I could see a machine. And hear one. What else happened?”

  “Before the final silence, the storms had grown in number and intensity with only days in between, then hours, then seconds, blending into one great storm with no foreseeable ending. Animals had stopped exhibiting their signs of warning before the storms, they were so overwhelmed.”

  “And after?”

  “After the Disaster, everything just stopped as if the whole earth had stopped spinning on its axis. People and animals alike walked more quietly for a time. Those who had to speak only spoke in whispers, afraid to be the first to crack the eerie silence. It was more silent than any they had ever heard before, and the darkness blacker than the night sky. This greater darkness that covered the land was more than the absence of light. People became like children stumbling with no points of reference. So they started building fires. Eventually, it came to be that every household would light a fire either in their houses or outside, for cooking, heating water, staying warm. And then the darkness was lighted only by the fires of survival in those left alive as it is now.”

  Ethan saw Sam looking intently at the valley. He appeared to be searching for something. “What are you looking at?” the boy asked.

  “I’m watching for her fire.”

  “Whose?”

  “Gemma’s, the girl I’m going back to meet.”

  “How can you tell which one is hers? There are so many fires in the valley.”

  “Hers is different.” Sam took a deep breath, and Ethan waited for him to finish his thought.

  “Ever since we were children, she always started her fire before anyone else—before it was even dusk. And her fire always seemed to be larger and brighter than it needed to be.”

  “So you just look for the bigger fire? Still, it must be hard to spot it from this distance.”

  “Any time I’m out in the woods like this, I can’t sleep until I see her fire. Even when I was at the lumber camp, sometimes I’d climb up in a tree after dinner and look over the valley to see
it. There’s solace in it, I suppose.”

  “Have you ever had a sleepless night, Sam?”

  “Many, boy. But never for lack of finding her fire.”

  2

  HOMECOMING

  A nother sunrise pierced Sophie’s tired eyes, her sleepless night blending into an early morning. She’d seen too many sunrises lately. Standing at her bedroom window, she gazed at the fog rising from the fields, a blanket colder than the bed she’d left behind. In the glint of early morning, a ray of sunlight caught the faded red flag raised from the side of the old mailbox at the end of the drive. Another message.

  Her heart beat faster, wondering what her task would be this time. She had been a member of the Watch since she’d come to Boswell. Just as their name implied, the small band of people from the surrounding villages watched government officials and activities, reporting to each other on Corsair army troop movements, changes of guard stations, or any other matters of interest or concern. But in recent months, as more Corsairs arrived in the villages and an added strictness to the law started to prevail, the Watch captains had decided it was time to increase their subversive activity. Sabotage became the order of the day. Though their efforts were small and merely a nuisance at first, with each successive attack they gained confidence and momentum.

  As children of revolutionaries, the blood of rebellion ran hot in their veins even more than a decade after the end of the Second Revolution. Each had lost someone to the Triumvirate’s harsh punishments after the war, and some had lost everything. Sophie was no different. It was the memory of those she’d lost which fueled her actions and stilled her nerves. No matter what her captain would ask of her, she knew she’d comply willingly.