by Teresa Grabs
The hallway was short. Shorter than the building, which she guessed meant either nothing was down here, or something special was down here. She opened the first metal door on the right-hand side of the hallway next to the stairs and nearly dropped her lantern. Books. Inside the room, lying flat on a metal shelf wrapping itself around the room were books. Actual books. Echo ran from room to room flinging their door open. Each room held a collection of books held in perpetual honor. Bakerton had not allowed many books, but what they had, she loved. She loved reading. She licked her lips with anticipation as she returned to the first room, stepped inside, set her lantern down on a wood table in the middle of the room and picked up the first book on the shelf. She carried it to the table as if it were a ticking bomb, ready to explode with the slightest jolt. She set it down on the table next to the lantern, blew a light layer of dust off its cover and read its title, “Remember.”
Fifteen
Echo read of people living across the Austero Plains. The book spoke of places called Seattle, London, Paris, Sydney, and New York, but these names held no meaning for her. She read that night until her eyelids grew heavy and she could no longer keep them open. Echo staggered upstairs carrying her lantern, collapsed on her rug by the fireplace, and dreamt of cities like Hope and Bakerton stretching forever filled with people living their lives. In the morning, she fetched some water and rushed back down to the metal vaults to continue reading.
Remember was also filled with pictures of plants and animals that she had never seen or heard about. Why had her teachers never told her of these before? Why had she never seen them before? What happened to them? It took her three days to finish Remember, and none of her questions were answered. Every day began the same now. Fetch water then return to the metal vaults. Winter winds soon nipped through her new clothes and reminded her of the coming winter. She could not allow herself to be consumed by her new discovery, and so when she finished her first room of books, she forced herself to continue exploring the city looking for anything that would help her stay warm during the coming storms.
Echo searched the nearby buildings further for three days but found very little and nothing of use for keeping out the cold winds. Early morning on the fourth day, she woke to a dusting of snow covering the floor outside the fireplace’s heat range and a blanket covering the streets and buildings. The city looked alive; as if it had just put on its coat for a special event. She smiled as she shivered standing by her gate admiring her new city. The caver’s skin was wrapped around her shoulders, but even then, the decreased temperature was clear.
“Have to find something today.”
She laughed as she watched her little breath clouds float into nothing. That’s when she saw the caver prints in the snow. Her eyebrows raised, and she smiled. She never considered that the snow would lead her to more food. And now more warm clothing. Her heart raced. She sprinted to the office, grabbed two spears, and returned to the hunt. She never thought she missed the hunt, but her heart was alive again. Joy, excitement, and anticipation filled the emptiness left by Charlie. Out in the street, she carried one spear ready to strike and the other ready to defend if necessary. A very large, old, grey caver who was near death had taken refuge in a building not too far from her home. It didn’t even have the strength to growl or try to defend itself. It looked at her, and she looked at it. It didn’t move as she aimed. It didn’t move when she stepped closer. The old caver found a swift, merciful death at her hands. Echo pulled the knife from her pants pocket and skinned the old bear. The caver’s life was not taken in vain as five days later she wore her new warm, grey coat and leg wrappings out into the city and continued exploring during the day. She returned to the cold, metal world of the library’s archives at night.
The books in the basement told of a life she had never known. One that those in her dreams lived in. A world filled with trees, flowing water, and very different looking animals. Stories of large animals with giant ears and man-eating striped cats often turned her dreams into nightmares. Other books told of people called farmers who grew food from the ground or raised animals for meat and something called eggs. The books entertained her for weeks as winter storms passed and covered the city in thick blankets of white snow. When the first four rooms of books were read, spring was braking, and the days grew long again.
There was something different about the last room. It only held one small case with two books sitting on cloth pillows. These books were special. Whoever lived in Hope last held these books in the highest regard. One was bound like all the others and printed on paper, but the second book appeared to be sewn together on thick sheets that reminded her of the dried backing of the caver’s skin. She took the first book back upstairs to read by the fireplace.
“The Fall of Man,” she read aloud.
Echo paused, thinking about the title and the other books downstairs. Man. There are citizens and soon-to-be citizens in her world. Where would the farmers fit into her world? Food producers, yes, but who eats food from the ground? Man. Does that mean everyone? Did the people in her dreams think of everyone as the same? She read the title again and opened the book.
The first page was a picture of a park with children playing and trees in the background. It made her smile and remember the park by the state building in Bakerton. No one could play there though. She envied the children in the picture. She wanted to run around, laugh, and not have to worry about anghenbeast, running out of water, getting hurt, or dying. She wanted to be free; like she was before the citizen fitness exam. Just her, her friends, her family, and her job.
She looked again at the picture, but this time, really looked. They were all dressed differently. Unique. They were individuals allowed to pick what they wanted, go where they wanted, and play what they wanted. Those children were free. She was not. She had never been free. Johnny still wasn’t free. She winced thinking of Johnny. She tried keeping him from her mind. It was too painful. She looked back to the picture and thought of Johnny running around, laughing, and climbing the trees. Tears trickled down her cheeks. She wiped them before they could drip on the book.
◆◆◆
Over the next week, as Echo read of the violent storms that ravaged towns across the world and of the violence that broke out in cities over decreased supplies, her stomach began to ache. It ached from the many empty nights it experienced. It ached for those in the book that died because there was nothing left. Her heart ached seeing images of once vibrant cities now in rubble as leaders destroyed each other for what rations they were holding for their people. Many nights she ran from her library into the street and screamed. Wanting an answer for why people were so mean to each other. It was a world she never knew. There was no violence in her city. No one wanted for anything. Bakerton cared for its citizens. When she turned the last page and closed the book, she wept for all those who died. She cried for the two boys in her dreams. She cried for the old man and the woman who taught her how to find food and survive. Were they survivors? She had never experienced so much death and destruction as she had in reading that book. She picked up the book, walked downstairs to its metal tomb, and slammed it down on the empty pillow.
“I won’t!” she screamed, looking at the other book.
Echo stormed up the stairs back to her world. A world without death and destruction. A world where people cared about each other. They did care, didn’t they?
“Doesn’t matter. I care. I’m a city of one, and I care.” She walked out of her library and to the top of the tallest building she had explored in this part of the city. “I CARE!” she screamed down into the city, sending greeners darting from the open back to the safety of the shadows.
Upon the roof, Echo laughed as tears flowed. She closed her eyes, tilted her face toward the sun, and took a few slow, deep breaths. She sighed as her head dropped and she opened her eyes; she looked to the city below. Her world had changed again. No, she had changed again. She didn’t know when it happened, or why it happened, bu
t it did. This was not the city in the first book. These were not the ones that were free. Children did not play in these streets, did they? This city was too much like her city. Planned. Rigid. Oh, there was more individuality here than in her city, but nothing here looked like what was described in the Fall of Man. The boys in her dream were the survivors of the world that the book described. She knew that now.
“I’m so stupid,” she said, smacking her head. “The younger boy said they would have to move to Hope if they couldn’t find any fish.” She shook her head thinking how slow she could sometimes be.
Echo sighed. She knew what she had to do, but part of her didn’t want to. She didn’t want to read any more about death, destruction, and the struggle to survive. She knew too much of those already. She longed for the world of the first four rooms. A world where there were animals, plants, laughter, and freedom. She sighed again and resigned herself to the fact that the only way forward was to return to the cold world of the basement and read the second book.
Upstairs, near her nighttime fire, after a hearty dinner of greener and young carrots, she settled in with the second book titled City of Hope. This book was much shorter, but taller than the first one. It told a heartwarming tale of redemption in Hope. The city was planned by many leaders who wanted to provide somewhere safe for what remained of the population. There were several cities across the world just like Hope. She wondered if those cities had fared better than Hope. She imagined leaving Hope and finding a city with lots of people that would accept her. She could talk to people again, and not have to worry about anything. Hope wasn’t perfect, and life was still hard, but it seemed like people were thriving here. Nothing in the book spoke of why the people left or when they left. She drifted off to sleep still holding the book. As the book slipped out of her hands, it fell to the ground and opened to a labeled map of the city. She laid on the caver’s skin rug and snored.
◆◆◆
Songbirds woke her from her slumber, and she yawned as she stretched, tugging at her bed covers. It was a warm morning, but the cool breeze invigorated her soul, encouraging it to rise and face the day. Echo opened her eyes and squealed. She was back in her dream home. She hadn’t visited for ages. In fact, she couldn’t remember dreaming for months. She jumped out of bed and found herself fully dressed as usual. There was all kind of activity going on outside. People were hustling and bustling where the old stone well usually stood. Wagons and carts filled with goods tied down with ropes sat out front. Some children were running around, and some were crying. Parents tried to calm them by saying they would see each other in Hope. Everyone ignored Echo as if she were not even there. She didn’t recognize any of the people by the front of the house, and so she walked up the trail and turned off into the forest where she first met the old man.
He was there, by the creek, just as she hoped he would be.
“Well, now,” he said. “Haven’t seen you for ages.”
Echo chuckled and smiled. “Yeah, sorry.”
“Grab ya a line, and let’s get some lunch. Ya, look like ya have a story to tell.”
Echo started to cry as she picked up a fishing pole and set the hook in the water. The old man tilted his head, watching her cry, and simply nodded his head. Neither spoke until they had caught and prepared three fish. Echo skewered the fish on sticks and set them by the fire. The old man said nothing, simply sat, and waited. Waited for the story to win the fight that had been building inside, silenced by her will to move forward. Only forward. Never looking behind. As the story overflowed into the summer breeze, the old man sat and listened. She cried as she told him of her promise to Matthew, finding Michael on the rocks, the anghenbeast at the cave, and of Charlie’s death. All through the story, the old man simply nodded. She told him of the library, and the first four rooms. Her voice faltered as she began speaking of the last two books.
The old man laughed. “Ya think I don’t know about history? Miss, we are living in it. It’s you who don’t belong here.”
Echo looked at him confused, but at the same time, he made sense. This was a dream after all. She knew that, didn’t she? Everything seemed so real, but it was still just a dream. “Why don’t the boys want to go to the city? Why aren’t you leaving with the rest?”
He slapped his knee and laughed even harder. “So, you’ve met Tobias and Kyle, have ya. Them’s my grandsons. They left last week to move to that new city. Won’t find me there! No sir!”
“Why? There’d be food and shelter, and –”
“Why? Miss, that city may look nice and sound nice, but what they want me to give up is too much.”
“What are you giving up? They would make sure you have enough –”
“Now stop right there! That there’s the problem. How do they know how much a man needs? You say they have food, an’ they do, but what if they fixin’ something I don’t want? Could I come back here to my creek and fish?”
Echo looked at the fish and the creek confused. She never thought about it like that before. “I guess not.”
“Well, see then. That’s what I give up. If I let them take care of me, then I give up my freedom. An I ain’t willin’ to do that. Neither were Tobias and Kyle, but they had to go where their mama told ‘em.”
Sixteen
Echo woke in front of dying embers in the fireplace. She rubbed dry, crusted tears from her eyes and stretched. The old man was right, wasn’t he? Having someone else take care of you took away your freedom. Didn’t it? She looked around and yawned. Everything was as it was the night before, except the book. She had not noticed the map the previous night. This one was different than the one on the library wall. She picked up the book and headed to the lower level of the library where the map still hung behind the glass she had been etching with her knife to keep track of where she had already explored.
Standing in front of the map with the open book in her hands, she found the library on the wall map and in the book. The mercantile where she found her pants had been Hanson’s Department Store, and what she thought were offices were more little shops. Some sold flowers and others sold books, art, and even an eyeglass shop. She was in a commercial district, but from the names of the shops, it was the people who owned the shop, not Hope. Now that she had her bearing, she returned upstairs to look at the map in the better light. She laid the book on a table and read the names of all the building labeled on the map. A large building, about twenty blocks further into the city, was labeled Hope City Hall. The name did not sound commercial or residential, but she wasn’t sure if that was the state building or not. She left the book on the table and paced the room, looking, thinking, reasoning.
“What if it is?”
“What if it isn’t?”
She sucked on her bottom lip as she paced.
“Always move forward.”
“But we have everything we need right here.”
Echo’s pace quickened as she debated with herself.
“We have to know.”
“Yes, we do.”
She stopped at the table, resting both hands on it, and stared at the map. She counted the blocks and buildings between her and the Hope City Hall. Twenty. Fifteen more out than she liked to be. She didn’t even like being five blocks away from home but had done what needed to be done. Her hand trembled as she wiped beads of sweat forming on her brow. Twenty blocks. Anything could happen in between.
“I have to try.”
In her old life, Echo would walk anywhere in Bakerton without a care, but here, five blocks pushed the boundary of her anxiety. The idea of going twenty blocks, unless there was a fire or pack of anghenbeast behind her, was unfathomable. Still, it had to be done.
It took her three days to make five new spears, fill two water containers, and convince herself that she must find the Hope City Hall if she was to learn what happened to the people here and what happened to the survivors in other cities.
On the morning of the fourth day, she looked around the library’s great room
and memorized everything as it was in case she never came back. She was tired of making a home, then losing it, but something deep inside drove her forward. Always forward. For Matthew. For Charlie. For Tobias and Kyle. For the old man who didn’t want to lose his freedom to the safety in Hope.
Echo looked at all the things she had collected since she found the library and knew they would not all fit in her backpack. Packing this time was easier. Knife, lantern, water, and food. A few extra spears wrapped in the young caver’s skin and lashed to her bag with the rope she found before winter set in. Everything she needed to survive.
Matthew’s bracelet glinted in the sunlight. It had been ages since she thought of his bracelet or the one on her own arm that had simply become a part of her. She could never really be separated from Bakerton with the mark of an exile on her arm. She tugged at the bracelet, but even with her thinner arms, it would not slip over her wrist.
“Forget it again,” she said. She slipped Matthew’s bracelet into her bag. “It’s the promise between Matthew and me now.”
She picked up her journal that had rested untouched for months. It used to seem so important; a lifeline to her old life and to her dreams, but now, this was her life, and she didn’t seem to dream as much. No, it held no more meaning to her in this life but only served as a memory to a life she once knew. A life she might have had. She paced around the room, tapping the journal on her thigh, and thought. With a decided snort, she walked to the library’s archives and placed it in the first room next to Remember.
