The Bedrock

by Shelbi Wescott

  Elijah stopped and waited for the room to absorb the details of his story.

  The enormity of the loss—men who’d survived the apocalypse, but didn’t survive an ambush—weighed on everyone.

  “We’re so sorry,” Grant sighed. He seemed distraught and he could only repeat an apology. “What a loss. We understand the—”

  “Was it a trap?” Darla interrupted Grant’s apologies and kept prodding to Elijah, wanting more. “The ghost town and the SOS, could it have all been to lure you? When was the last time you’d had contact with the group before the SOS?”

  Lark couldn’t see the faces of the people in the room, but she imagined that Elijah shrugged. She wondered what the man looked like but imagined him tall and with a long black beard—it seemed close. The man seemed non-committal about Darla’s suggestions. “Crossed my mind. Seems like the eradication theory then has evolved from chasing to setting up camp and waiting. Don’t know if that’s efficient.”

  “So, we are to presume that the same people who took the village and disappeared its occupants… also killed fifty of your trained travelers with ease?” Darla asked.

  Elijah sniffed. “That’s what you are to presume? No, that’s what happened.”

  “Why?” It was her mom who asked the question that time, but apparently it was one question too many as Elijah growled. Lucy pushed through. “Look, Land Teams haven’t been running raids for fifteen years…and even if they are…they wouldn’t, they told us…” she stammered, trying to find the words. “I negotiated that deal myself.”

  Lark’s understanding was limited. She memorized the facts she knew she’d need later and let the smaller details slough off.

  “I don’t have answers. If I did, I wouldn’t be intruding upon your sanctuary, would I? But the last time we saw each other, it was my understanding that we all took a few oaths,” Elijah said, his voice growing and filling the room. He was getting more comfortable; maybe it was the wine. “So maybe you should ask me what brings me here ….eighteen hundred miles from home…into the belly of this little social experiment.”

  “What brings you here today, Elijah?” Lucy asked. She sounded tired.

  “The raids are back. Disappearances of entire cities that no one should know exist…Land Teams heading inland again. And…it’s like before…they’re on the move. And we think the target is…you.”

  When Elijah stopped, the dining room was silent.

  “That’s a quick and simple no. This is the first we’ve heard of this,” Darla said to fill the void. “There’s been no activity in this area—our scouts maintain we’re off the radar and to our knowledge, the Islands…”

  “Stop. It’s frustrating to listen to you lie. No, see, I don’t believe you,” Elijah said. He laughed but it was without joy. Lark could hear his defensiveness bubbling. “Let me keep going with my story.” He cleared his throat, kept them rapt, and continued, “Two escaped. Two girls…twelve and thirteen…stayed long enough to learn a few details. These are not the soldiers of fifteen years ago. And they had a single mission—looking for children. Sound familiar?”

  The way Elijah added sound familiar to his story made Lark’s skin crawl.

  The stranger kept talking. “This was a highly trained army of youthful militants…regimented and on the hunt with a singular mission.”

  “That’s unsurprising,” Darla replied. “With time, of course, the Islands would perfect their military…”

  Islands, that was the second time someone mentioned islands, and Lark filed the unknowns away.

  “No,” Grant said. One word, enough to stop everyone. “Oh no. I see where this leads. There’s only one place where this leads.” Her dad was the one she always went to first if she needed something; he could hardly resist an impassioned plea or a well-crafted argument. But he’d shifted away from that kindness in the past few years as the weariness of the Colony outpaced his desire to control anyone.

  Silence fluttered through the group and Lark’s trained ears knew exactly what that meant. She picked a spot on the floor and focused on it, breathing slowly, concentrating on every word.

  “So,” Elijah said next, no one elaborated so Lark was in the dark about what her father’s big revelation could be. “The third act of this fine tale…my girls return home, unharmed but shaken, taking the river home…and on their fourth night, they are approached by a girl.” Elijah stopped his story and Lark waited for more. “And that girl…says she’s come from Islands with a message for Lucy and Grant.”

  Lark almost made a noise—she stopped herself from an audible gasp, clasping her hand over her mouth. Her parents? There was someone out there looking for her parents?

  “What else do you know about her?” Lucy asked, alarmed. “Are we in danger?”

  Elijah responded to her alarm with a steady stream of mocking laughter. “That’s good. A good little actress. Bravo, Lucy. But no…here’s where we need to understand each other. You’ll accept the extra presence around your space for some time. My men in the mountains stay until we get to the bottom of this,” Elijah stated after the beat was over. “They’ve been instructed to inspect the entire Colony. I’ve already talked to the Fathers…they are still delightful, as always…” his sarcasm was without subtlety, “and if you don’t produce the girl by tonight, you’re going to lose your Colony protection. Rules are rules.”

  Lark didn’t understand.

  With growing anxiety, she realized this was not eavesdropping on petty gossip and ferreting out basic thievery, and perhaps she was over her head. Spying on a stranger seemed fun, but Lark was born in the Colony, raised in the Colony, kept in the Colony, and knew nothing of Islands or girls or what could exist eighteen hundred miles away.

  The tone in that space shifted. Lark felt the ripple of panic in the atmosphere and she began to regret her location—she felt exposed and unable to escape without the others taking notice. It felt like a professional failure.

  “I see,” Darla said evenly. “This all rings real familiar, doesn’t it Elijah? I’m positive your presence here, halfway across the land, is all your old resentments bubbled over into conspiracy theories. How could you possibly think we’d break our treaties when we were the ones who demanded them? And what is this? Are you trying to draw attention? You are here, on our doorstep, risking our location because you think…we’re hiding a girl…from the Islands?”

  Lark knew of islands from books although she’d never even seen the ocean. Their Colony was landlocked and she didn’t understand—she didn’t know how to understand—she didn’t know what to picture in her head.

  “Oh God,” Elijah responded with a laugh. “It’s like some Greek tragedy in this place. Look at all y’all…acting some mighty convincing roles tonight as if we don’t have the means to already know you’re lying…”

  “Elijah,” Theo cautioned the guest next. “You can insult us all you want…but we don’t know what you’re talking about…”

  “Teddy…” Elijah said and he was bright and mirthless, and using Theo’s old nickname, long since abandoned. “Man, how old were you? Fifteen?” The man’s chair squeaked. “Darla, he’s grown up well. Was it worth it? Did it happen as you imagined? Where’s your queen of the mountains? Or did she leave you, too…”

  “We don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and your cruelty is unnecessary,” Darla responded, but her voice was thin.

  “Is that how you want to play this?” Elijah asked with a boasting sneer. The tone of it made Lark’s skin dot with goose bumps; she recognized the menace the way he talked to them, goaded them, no longer attempting to play polite.

  More chairs squeaked and no one said anything for a long beat until the man continued.

  Elijah cleared his throat.

  “This army was a ground crew, working a grid. You’re prepared to hide from view from the sky…but what will you do if they work a map on foot? You can’t fight that. Nomadic colonies are the only answer…because everything stationa
ry is disappearing. You understand? So, here’s what I have, all on the table. I have an entire missing settlement. And I have a dead caravan and two surviving kids who tell me there’s an Island girl out there looking for you. And I’ve got some Children of the Lake willing to show me where they think Orin of the Willamette found a girl half-dead a few weeks ago. One of his orphans let it slip. But you’re all coy. Haven’t heard a thing? I see your faces…there’s not enough confusion about why I’d come all this way…and I’ve got two days that says wherever you’ve got the girl, we’ll find her. And if we find that you are harboring the enemy, for any reason, without communication and disclosure…those Fathers out there, whom you love so much, agree that the liability is too much and you’re in violation. And this little experiment of yours is over. They’re leaving. And I’ve been instructed to escort you back to the Bayou…”

  Something sucked the air out of the room.

  Lark’s ears began to ring and she scowled and pushed against the silence and the pressure. No, she didn’t understand. She swallowed and her ears popped and she waited for the room to settle. The flood of information was too much, too rich, and too overwhelming.

  Whispers started, people wondered, pondered. Lark felt the fear radiating around the room and she stifled a shiver.

  “And…” Lucy started, Lark recognizing immediately the fear in her voice, “your bright idea when you heard someone was after us…was to come right here. Draw attention to our location…travel right to our home. Maybe you want the Islands to find us? We don’t have a runaway, but, Elijah, if you just walked into a trap…”

  Elijah didn’t answer.

  Lark couldn’t see the face he made, but she imagined it was petulant or dismissive. He made no attempt to answer her mother’s questions. They lingered in the silence, pregnant with anticipation and tenterhooks. Someone sniffed.

  “Eli.” It was Grant now, bringing in the softer tones. Eli. So familiar. “I trust you used all available precautions. I trust you. We’re just rattled by the accusation. But we need you to trust us. Okay? Now, trust us…we don’t know about an Island girl. It’s…there’s a lot to think about…”

  Darla’s voice chimed in right away. “If raids return we’ll adapt, and we thank you for the warning,” she stated matter-of-factly. “And, I agree, that’s horrible, Eli. For your convoy and their families. That loss. We do know. Elijah. We’ve been friends since the Bayou…” Darla said, her voice softening, “…before we went undercover here. We know what you’ve lost.”

  Lark stopped listening.

  The Bayou. Again. Now she’d heard that word twice.

  Islands. The Bayou.

  The cruel universe had to punctuate the intrigue, sending her mind and senses into a spiral, and it was Theo who added, the most confusing piece of the puzzle by saying, “Yeah. That was the summer Lark was born. I was fifteen. My mom said she’d had to be there for Ethan’s amputation, so I could handle assisting with childbirth…”

  “Before this,” Lucy said. “Before we knew the risks…”

  Ethan.

  Another name she didn’t know.

  Lark’s brain felt as if she’d slipped into a new universe where everything was different. A stranger talked of a time before the Colony, but for Lark there was no before. There’d only been the Colony and nothing but the Colony.

  She could tell that her mother was both angry and afraid, and Lark crawled forward a few spaces and moved to sit down, her back against the wall, her breath heavy. Threads began to align, Lark’s brain worked to adjust what she knew with what she was learning. She wished they’d talk about something less important so she could think.

  “I appreciate you trying to play the nostalgic hosts,” Elijah replied, breaking Lark’s train of thought. “It won’t help your case though. I’m already inclined to think you’re lying…and, yes, the Bayou…that’s another thing. You haven’t even asked me about them. Not one question. You don’t think I noticed—”

  “That’s enough,” Grant said, his voice sharper and louder than Lark was accustomed. “Get to your point, Elijah. You’re gonna search our land for a non-existent enemy…”

  Lark heard the clink of a glass, the shifting of seats.

  “I’m going to prove that you’re liars and uproot you from your home and bring back you back to the Bayou so you can get with the program before the Islands annihilate you. I won’t even try to play politics this time and say it’s a shame and we trusted you but it’s really this simple. You have no business keeping her prisoner and her presence here is a threat whether you think so or not…and we have detailed rules about Islanders…”

  Lark drew in a sharp breath. Prisoner. Impossible.

  “You are making a mistake,” Darla said.

  Elijah thought her statement was funny. “We know the girl was on her way here. We know she made it here. And the moment she made it here…and you didn’t immediately send for us or let the freakshow prophets know, so you broke the rules,” Elijah continued. “And I don’t even really care about the rules as much as I do care about the girl…”

  “Elijah,” Theo took over now and cleared his throat. “There’s no prisoner here. You can inspect the full colony and the outlands because we have nothing to hide. My mother would never violate the agreements we set in place at the start of the colonization…and I can promise you that. You think after the Bayou, after our willingness to stand up for ourselves, we’d risk it? That they,” he paused, no doubt pointing at Lark’s parents, “would risk it? Go, take a look at our land, every outbuilding, every bush, every cottage…”

  “Then she’s not in the Colony. Which is why I’ll start in the Village,” Elijah stated as hit the table with a booming crack, the glasses and china wobbled and shook. “Darla,” he didn’t address Theo, and Lark noted the slight, “these are your rules. You forget why we made them?”

  “That’s enough,” Lucy said with such dismissive anger that Lark could picture her impertinent face perfectly—the slant of her eyes, nostrils flared, jaw locked tight.

  Lark processed the coded conversation with the entire schema she possessed, but she knew right away as a spy she’d yet to land a goldmine quite like this. This was a bonafide mystery and the stakes seemed high. As the worry and questions stormed about, Lark couldn’t help but suppress a growing frown. Pride and fear fought for a stronghold.

  “Right, so, we’ll curtail my exploratory mission and set up a perimeter to be on the lookout for the girl. You’re free to wait. I can’t imagine you’re eager to start the journey home so soon,” Theo started again. “We appreciate—”

  “I’m no fool,” Elijah interrupted.

  “We hardly consider you one,” Darla responded quickly but with a harsh bite intended to keep him at bay.

  Lark’s back started to ache but she remained with her eyes forward, determined to hear every last syllable.

  “If she’s inside your colony, we will find her,” the strange guest said in an ominous tone. His chair scooted backward and in a whoosh all the other chairs began to vibrate across the wooden floor, too, moving quickly. Lark scrambled along the wall and crawled to the far edge of the section, pausing as the room held its breath. “And if she’s outside the colony, we will find her. Why don’t you ever learn? Your lies, no matter how noble you tell yourself they are, are still lies, Darla,” Elijah seethed. Lark closed her eyes. “Lucy. Grant. I’m sure I’ll see you around. How about when I get back home I just tell them you’re the same.”

  Them. Another pronoun.

  “Who’s they?” Lucy asked in a soft voice and Lark perked up at the chance to discover answers.

  “Now you want to know who’s there? No, it’s too late to wonder. You picked your hell, remember.”

  “Don’t come into the home I created and spew your Bayou logic in here. I knew you were blood-thirsty, Eli, but I never thought you were stupid.” It was Darla’s turn to pound the table and she did in earnest. “The Fathers might be pacifists, but I’m
not, and I’ve had enough of you being here, accusing, lying, threatening…and for what? Because you don’t understand this?” She pounded the table again.

  “There she is,” Elijah laughed in a taunting cackle. “I knew age wouldn’t kill that bite.”

  “Leave,” Darla commanded.

  “You think you’re hurting us?” Elijah challenged. Voices lifted around the room and died away—no one wanted to truly end or enter the fray. “That runaway will lead the Islands to your door. I am here to protect you.”

  “There’s no threat,” Darla repeated, seething now. “You’ll be uprooting our lives here for nothing.”

  “We’re not lying—” Theo tried but he was shot down almost immediately.

  “No, you are lying and however well intentioned you think it is? You’re about to make a huge mistake. She was tracked here, Lucy,” Elijah changed his attention to her mother. “You want to give me that scornful look like I don’t know the truth? I knew you…”

  Lark hated the way her mother’s name sounded on the tongue of the stranger. She bristled at its vitriol.

  “Grant.” Elijah shifted his focus again. He lowered his voice, deep and friendly. “I know you. Where is the girl? End the charade and come home.”

  Lark heard the click of a gun.

  And then the click of three more.

  She pictured the standoff, a triangle of weapons and mounting emotions. And the shuffling around the table seemed to prove her right—the whole mood of the room tilted toward panic, and Lark lamented that she now would have to stay out of the way of flying bullets. She knew it was too late to crawl away and so all she could do was flatten herself against the floor.

  “You’ll lose this gun battle and start a war. And over what? You don’t even know who that girl is… you have a secondhand story and a real itch you need to scratch, but neither of those things are my problem,” Darla shouted. She cleared her throat and the force of it echoed. “If someone told you we knew about a runaway it was a venomous claim and you are not a venomous man, Eli. Your accusations on our integrity are unfounded. We haven’t had one murder or loss in our home for…”