by R. K. Gold
“Where were you before? That Jomi guy seems to care an awful lot about you.”
“I was with a foster parent. Had a few after the war.”
Pace nodded. “Lewis and Brody had their fair share too. They were only two when the war ended.” He reclined in the seat.
“And Jomi, he’s always looked out for me a bit.” Yael rubbed her nose.
“It seemed that way. Why didn’t you want to go back with him?”
“I already told you; I’m looking for my family.”
“Yeah, I heard that.” He dusted off a book, examined the cover, then tossed it on the ground. "But, it sounds like you just ran away from one."
“Excuse me?”
"I just mean, you can find a family anywhere if you know where to look." He nodded to Dean, who was hunched in a wooden chair too small for him. "Armstrong found me a little over seven years ago. I've been with Dean for the last four. Lewis and Brody actually tried stealing from us two years ago when we first crossed paths." He and Dean both chuckled. The insects outside the inn buzzed as the celebrations moved inside. “They’re now the closest family I got.”
14
When day broke, they set out for the northern towns on foot. Yael’s shins stung immediately, like each time her heel connected with the concrete, road spiders crawled under her skin. She was used to the uneven stone and dirt roads in the south. "We should hit Hizen by mid-afternoon," Pace said. Hizen was a satellite town of Wydser. Many people who worked in the market district but couldn't afford to live there chose to take up residency instead of living in the lower ring. Lewis clung to Dean's shoulders while Brody tried to yank him down. Wooden hand carts rolled into town, overflowing with goods, and horse-drawn carriages rolled out. Long metal vans filled with soldiers in beige and green sped off to the north. Pedestrians waved and tossed their hats in the air as they drove by. The vehicles were rectangular without any covering and thin cylinder railings along the side. Smoke pumped from two brass vents flanking the driver.
Brody tossed Pace and his brother some bread, while Dean broke off pieces for himself and Yael, giving her the larger of the two halves. She offered to swap, but he insisted. Lewis took his turn carrying his and his brother's belongings. Pace remained in front and Dean in the rear. The roads north were just as paved as the ones in the capital. She missed the music in Eselport and the food. Her nostrils tingled from the thought of the fried dough by the ocean—and the heavily seasoned seafood glazed in butter. Her bread suddenly tasted dry, and wanted to dip it in her thoughts, pulling it back with a healthy serving of blackened fish.
Things weren't always as strict with Ms. White. When their sales were good, and the monthly payments from the capital were on time, she was quick to spend on Yael and Elias, even though Elias never contributed. He was too busy studying for school. “I can’t make judge if I don’t get to Wydser,” he would always say when his mom asked him to take a shift at the market. Yael could picture his cheeks puffing out and his face turning red if she told him she saw the university.
“My feet hurt.” Lewis sat in the grass and took off his boots. He rubbed his soles with his thumbs. “How much longer we got?”
“The more we sit around, the longer it’ll be,” Pace replied, but Brody had already plopped beside his brother, and Dean put his pack down. He handed Yael some water. Her lips were chapped, and she became incredibly aware of how dry her mouth was.
“Just a quick break.” Dean’s voice went up as he sat beside the twins. Pace tapped his foot against the road and looked over his shoulder. There was no one around since they passed the last farm.
“Ten minutes,” Pace conceded and sat in the grass. He pulled out individual blades and tore them apart as he restlessly tapped his foot.
Dean lay on his back and rested his head in his hands. Yael sat beside him and pulled at her split ends.
“What’re you doing?” His eyes were closed.
“What do you mean?”
“You never stop moving, do ya? You need to be careful, or you’ll turn into him.” With his eyes closed, he pointed right at Pace, who was back on his feet, stretching his legs.
“I’m not doing anything,” Yael let go of her hair and put her hands on her lap for two seconds before picking at her cuticles.
“Lie down with me.” Dean opened one eye.
“Excuse me?” They didn’t have time to lie down. The starborn was still out there, and each second they sat felt like adding another mile to their journey.
Dean chuckled. “Come on, you gotta be tired.” He patted the empty spot beside him. “Just give it a try.”
Yael scooted closer to him. “Is this some sorta trick?”
“Do you think the world is always out to get you?”
“Isn’t it?”
“I think you tend to find whatever it is you’re looking for, and most people who say they’re looking for happiness are liars.” He closed his eye again and shimmied on the ground. Yael knew what she was looking for, and maybe she thought it would bring her happiness. But what else was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like happiness was a spice she could buy at the market as easy as basil. One couldn’t just declare a search for happiness and find it at the end of a map.
“What are you looking for then?” She put her hands on the ground and leaned back on her elbows. The grass prickled her skin.
“Comfort.” He scrunched his nose. His entire body tensed up, then all at once relaxed, and a smile crept across his face. “A full stomach and a bed to sleep in every night. Or a soft patch of grass and a slice of bread. I’m not that picky.”
“That’s really all you want?” She lay beside him, and her back itched at once. She could see bugs crawling around her.
“It should be all you want too. Isn’t that why you want to find your family?” He moved his hands to his stomach. They rose and fell with each breath. “It was something I never had even in the best of times growing up.”
“In Krate?” Yael asked, and the large boy shivered.
“Never going back there.” He rolled over and locked eyes with Yael. For the first time, she could see just how soft the brown in his eyes looked. They had a calm to them like southern ports after storms when all the airships returned to the sky. "You want nothing more than to find your family, but what if that doesn't bring you happiness?"
Yael narrowed her gaze. What could he mean by that? After hearing about Pace’s past, she assumed the other boys shared a similar story.
“Family can mean different things. I found mine after leaving Krate.”
“But not your real family, right?”
“What that means is up to you.”
“And have you found your comfort?” Yael asked.
"Most days, I do. Sometimes it's as simple as finding a creek to drink from, or shade from an oak." He stretched his arms high over his head and yawned before sitting up. He wiped his eyes and grinned when he opened them to see Yael sitting so close. "Sometimes, it's doing nothing for the sake of doing nothing."
He helped her to her feet just as Pace said, “Let’s go!”
It didn’t take long for Yael’s shins to ache again, but it slowly subsided. “Hey! Hey! Yael!” Lewis poked her back until she finally turned around. “So, what was Eselport like?”
"Nothing like the north." She smiled, thinking of the way the road vibrated when the trolley rolled down Port Street and the shade from the oaks arching over the streets so pedestrians could hide from the summer heat.
"You really get a lot of people from the east, though? Do they have as much money as they say they do?" He rubbed his fingers together.
"I suppose so." Yael shrugged. They undoubtedly spent a lot at the restaurants and inns by the docks. Not to mention Toni always did well when large crowds came in wanting to learn more about the war.
“Why would you ever leave?” He tapped his brother on the shoulder and pointed back at Yael. “She said the eastern continent is loaded.”
Brody walked over
, his eyes wide with new interest. “Is that right?”
“I don’t know about loaded. I know they made a lot of people happy when they decided to spend money.” Yael adjusted her bag. She could smell dampness in the air as the sky darkened.
“Remember the professor from Wuldernt?” Lewis nudged his elbow against his brother, and the two laughed. “He didn’t leave that bathtub for two days. He was sure the whole place would collapse.” Lewis clutched his side as his laughter intensified. “Oh, and the fisherman from Krate, who was so sure he struck gold."
“Sold us everything to hire a crew to dig.” The twins doubled over with laughter as the clouds overhead darkened.
“Okay, okay, that’s enough.” Pace led everyone off the road to the small gathering of trees just as the rain started. Dean held his jacket over his head to block out the rain while the twins zigzagged ahead, trying to dodge the droplets. Dean slowed down for Yael. A single sleeve was enough to keep her dry.
“Thanks,” she said as they reached cover.
Pace lowered his hood and ran his hands back and forth over his head, shaking out as much rain as he could. He bowed to the tree. “Thank you for your protection,” he said, while the twins crawled up the branches of the neighboring oak.
Dean sat at the trunk and closed his eyes. His massive hands rested on his gut, rising and falling as he deepened his breath. In a matter of seconds, he was asleep.
“He’s talented like that,” Pace said, moving a single stone to the trunk.
“Why’re you doing that?” Yael asked.
Pace smirked. “What? You’ve never offered thanks.”
“To a tree?” She shook her head. “It’s not like they can hear me.”
“You’d be surprised.”
It wasn’t the answer she expected, but the confidence in his voice made her doubt her previous certainty. “Do they ever respond?”
“In their own way. Sometimes good, sometimes not.”
"Sometimes, trying to poison us."
“Exactly.” Pace nodded. “I was always fascinated by the Mother’s forest. You can’t blame it for wanting to protect itself from us. When have we ever served the land the same way it serves us?”
Yael looked back at how the branches reached out to one another like children and their parents running into an embrace. The forest floor was dry under their protection, and a mixture of green foliage and flowers sprouted from the ground. They weren't individual trees but their own family, protecting each other and everything in its embrace. Families watched each other. That's what Pace did for Dean and the twins.
“Hey! Knock it off.” Pace scolded Brody as the twins tried jumping from branch to branch. Brody barely held on after his last leap, while Lewis crashed to the ground. Yael ran over to help him up. He winced until she settled him upright against the trunk.
“Are you okay?” She lifted his shirt to check for cuts as he sipped water.
“Can Dean carry me again?”
They were back on the road as the rain slowed down. Pace bowed to the tree one last time, and Dean collected their things.
Brody grabbed the bags, giving Lewis a break as the unscarred twin pulled at Dean’s arms for a last-ditch effort to get carried.
“Are you sure you’re doing okay?” Yael asked when Dean politely turned him away and patted the top of his head.
“What’s this? It’s nothing, just wanted to hitch a ride.” At once, he stopped limping. “This one time, to distract a couple of visitors from the western continent, Brody convinced me to fall off a roof. Nothing like the inn, but it was still pretty high. They got so confused, one of them ran over to help me, and Brody cleared out their entire carriage. The fastest job we ever pulled and one of the biggest scores too." He smiled as Yael assumed his mind wandered back to that time.
15
A horse and carriage rode by, and perhaps twenty minutes later, three more traveled down the road in the same direction. Each time, they stepped off to the side, giving the vehicles plenty of room to pass. Ahead, they saw homes lining the road—single-story stone cottages with wooden and wire fences blocking off what land they called their own. A loud horn blared through the air, and Yael flinched. She hadn’t heard a call like that since she stood on the docks of Eselport with Jomi watching the airships land.
"Most of the northern shipments to Wydser come through here. Hizen has a web of rails that sprawl across the northern states." Pace pointed to the billowing smoke ahead as a long metal engine chugged along a track towing twelve boxcars.
Yael pivoted on her toes and followed the flapping smoke from the engine when a higher pitch horn tooted, and Dean yanked her off the road. "Pay attention!" a deep voice shouted. A metal car with a triangular tip buzzed by. The narrow brass front shined under the sun, and steam exhaled from the back where two wheels cranked away to power the engine.
A man in a baggy blue tunic and straw hat eyed them as he wandered by. Brody met his gaze and slipped out of sight, hiding behind Dean as effortlessly as a fly behind a curtain. The buildings were taller and closer together as they reached the town proper. More traffic was heading out as farmers walked away on foot, some carrying goods and others pocketing coin purses. Most of the buildings were two or three stories. A group of children scrambled out of a corner store laughing. Yael saw a balding man in a white button down hunched over a typewriter on the second story.
Yael’s pulse pounded in her chest as her head swiveled side to side. New faces in new clothes looked to the ground or the sky when the new girl walked by. It was the kind of place anyone could disappear in plain sight. In fact, it felt like they wanted people to.
“She won’t be out tonight,” Dean said when Yael looked over her shoulder at a book shop.
“Where’s the Sanctuary?” she asked.
“I doubt she’ll be there,” Dean chimed in as Pace took off ahead. While most of the population congregated around a tavern and the music already began to play, a quiet blue building across the street with closed shutters opened its door for Pace.
“I think I’d like to look for myself.” Yael walked ahead. The crowd gathering across the street sang to one another. They locked arms and swayed back and forth as two people hopped on a table in the center of the bar to dance circles around one another. Heavy boots stomped on the off beats. The northern states had no clue how to dance. Jomi could twirl Yael to a brass band in a crowded, uneven stone street over the sound of airships docking in the harbor, and they would still hit the right beats more than this crowd. Not that Ms. White would let her out that late if it left her too tired to work the market the next day.
She was the only one in the center of the paved road, and her ears perked up when she heard a metal clank in the unoccupied residence to her left. The hair on the back of her neck rose, and her gut told her to turn around, but she could feel a sack of stones yanking at her lungs when she hesitated. She couldn’t turn back. It wasn’t her home, and it wasn't her town. She didn't know if anyone would be in the sanctuary. Still, she knew the closest link to her real family might be there presenting an offering to the Mother.
The road curved right and went downhill. She saw a stone arch similar to the entrance in Wydser, but the street was narrower, and the buildings were so close together, a person could crawl from one to the other through the windows. Tuffs of grass poked from the cracks in the sidewalk, pushing back at the concrete, trying to flip the tiles over. Imagine how many cities a forest could flip.
She reached the end of the road and expected to see a similar sight to Wydser’s sanctuary, but there were no fountains, no ponds, and no statues. A single tree stood in the center of a round plaza. The dust settled on all the stones, and most of the branches drooped low. While some offerings laid at the trunk in neatly stacked parcels, piled rocks, and various tokens, most of the ground surrounding the area was littered with dirty clothes, broken glasses, and rotten fruit. Flies buzzed around the spoils, and their hums echoed off the round stone walls.
&
nbsp; The starborn wasn’t there. She didn’t expect her to be, not after Dean’s comment, but she had to see for herself. She circled the tree, looking up through its branches at the early evening sky, and put her hand on the trunk. It stood alone and forgotten. Some took care of it, others ignored it to the point they disregarded their trash. It had no family and no legs to carry it away. The rotten fruit clogged her nostrils, causing the back of her throat to close, like a turtle protecting itself in a shell.
On her way back to the group, she stopped by the quiet building across the inn's street. Pace and the others were nowhere to be seen. She started across the street, expecting to maybe recognize the twins in the crowd, putting their hands in pockets that weren’t theirs.
“Yael!” she heard a familiar voice call out and saw Pace running to her. “There you are.” He stopped in front of her and dropped his hands to his knees. His back rose and fell rapidly from shallow breaths.
“Where’d you go?” Yael asked, and Pace tilted his head up. His brows furrowed.
“Me? I went running after you when Dean said you took off.”
“Just to go to the sanctuary.” She pointed back down the road.
Pace shook his head. “Thought you left town to find the starborn. He said he told you she wouldn’t be there.”
“I just had to see for myself,” Yael replied. The last person to ever run after her was Jomi. “I’m okay.” She pulled at the hem of her poncho.
“Yeah, I can see that.” He winced as he stood to his full height. “I don’t know if you remember what Armstrong told us before taking off, but we're on the brink of war." His voice dropped to a whisper, “We have to stick together and stay safe. The Emerlia border isn’t much further north.”
“I needed to see if the starborn was in the sanctuary for myself. We traveled all this way to find her. You want to find her too.” She pointed at his chest.
“She never stops here, Yael. I’m sure you saw why.”
