She frowned as she tried to put all the pieces together in her mind.
Well, the Zoremones do something to me, and I am purple, so maybe I am a Rhecknaw?
Parklon wandered back into the room. He cleared his throat and peered at his feet when he spoke to her. “So… er, how’s it going?” he asked.
“I can’t be from there!” She flashed him a horrified glance.
“Did you read them all?” he asked as he sat down opposite her.
“I think I’ve read enough.” She was quite devastated by it all and had no idea who she really was. Even being the purple sheep of Derobmi seemed preferable to being part of Rhecknaw.
“Well,” he said, pausing for a moment before he glanced at her. “Look, I’m not supposed to do this, but why don’t you keep these books? You might want to read them one day.” He looked as distraught as she felt.
“If this is true, I’d better read fast before I run into a walking Zoremone,” she muttered.
Questions ran through her mind.
How could this even be possible?
“It just can’t be true! I was born in Derobmi General Hospital, and my mom’s green.” She paused for a few seconds. “And I have her eyes!”
Parklon quickly glanced up and stared into her eyes.
“Of course,” he muttered as he grabbed the ‘Rhecknaw Book of Biology and Medicine’. He flipped through the book and read for a minute, then exclaimed. “Ah ha!”
She frowned at him. “Ah ha?” she asked
“It says here, eye color: violet. The Rhecknaws don’t have green eyes.” His blue eyes lit up with excitement.
“Huh?”
“Don’t you see? You can’t be a Rhecknaw, or at least not all Rhecknaw. Your eyes are from Derobmi, meaning that at least half of you is too.”
She frowned while she scrubbed a coffee cup ring off the table with a napkin.
She glanced up to find Parklon watching her and grinning.
“What?” she grumbled at him.
“Well, it’s just you do have some other Derobmi traits besides your eyes.” He grinned at her.
She peered at the napkin and stopped scrubbing the table with it. “Hmph!” she said, folding her arms. “Shuddup,” she mumbled. Then she processed what he’d said.
“So what happens to half Rhecknaws? Does that mean mom had an affair?”
“Well, I don’t know what happens to half Rhecknaws. As far as I know, you’re the first one in history.” He paused. “Is your mom a bit of a goer, then?” he asked.
She had no idea what ‘a goer’ was, but she was certain her mother wasn’t one.
“No. I don’t know. We’re going to have to find out. There’s something weird about all of this.”
He dropped the book on the table, and a flaky piece of paper fell out of it and floated to the ground. She reached down and picked it up without really looking at it.
“But how is all this supposed to help the sick kids?” she asked, waving the scrap of paper at him.
His eyes widened, and he appeared to be looking past her. She glanced over her shoulder, trying to see what he was reacting to. When she turned back to face him, he snatched the scrap of paper out of her hand.
“Look at this!” he said excitedly.
She glanced down. The paper was an aging newspaper story. It looked like a front page of a newspaper from a very long time ago. The print was faded, but she could still make out most of it:
VILLAGE LOST TO DISEASE!
THE MYSTERIOUS SICKNESS PLAGUING THE RURAL COMMUNITIES OF RHECKNAW HAS SPREAD THROUGH AN ENTIRE VILLAGE ON THE EASTERN BORDERS.
THE SMALL FISHING VILLAGE OF CARLAID WAS STRUCK WITH THE DISEASE LATE LAST WEEK AND REPORTS TODAY SHOW THAT OVER SEVENTY PER CENT OF THE POPULATION OF CARLAID ARE NOW INFECTED.
THE VILLAGE OF CARLAID HAS BEEN QUARANTINED AND ALL ROADS PASSING THROUGH IT HAVE BEEN BARRICADED. RHECKNAW OFFICIALS CLAIM TO HAVE BEEN WORKING ON A CURE AND SAY THAT THE DISEASE SCIENTISTS ARE CALLING DEREHTOB WILL BE UNDER CONTROL VERY SOON.
PEOPLE ARE ASKED TO KEEP AN EYE ON THEIR CHILDREN AS IT SEEMS THE ILLNESS BEGINS IN THE YOUNG AND CAN SPREAD TO OLDER FAMILY MEMBERS. SYMPTOMS MAY APPEAR TO TAKE THE FORM OF DEPRESSION OR LAZINESS AND CAN DEVELOP INTO A CATATONIC STATE.
“That’s the disease that’s plaguing Derobmi right now. It is all connected!” Parklon stared at the paper in awe.
“The vaccinations came from Rhecknaw on the shipping records.” He paused for a moment, deep thought brightening his eyes.
Carla studied the newspaper clipping. “This is dated over a hundred years ago. Do we have any archives on Rhecknaw about all this?”
He sighed. “You’re looking at everything we have.” The excitement faded from his eyes as rapidly as it had arrived.
“Well, it’s a start. At least we know where to begin looking,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess so, although I don’t know where we go next. Look, my shift starts in an hour, so you take these,” he said, putting the books in her bag.
“You need to go through them. Maybe the answer is in there, something I missed. In the meantime, I’ll do some research on this illness, because it all has to be connected. You’re not my purple villain, but I’ll bet you are still connected to it one way or another.”
She nodded in agreement. “We can meet up in a couple of days and see how much we’ve found out,” she said, catching his eye. “I think you’re right. I can’t help but feel that all of this is about me.”
Cole had wanted to strangle that blue fool when he had played around with Zoremones.
Doesn’t he realize how dangerous they are?
He spat on the ground. Scientists were always messing with things they knew nothing about. Still, at least he had learnt some useful information from it. Carla wasn’t immune to Zoremones, which was useful to know but a little disappointing, to say the least.
He’d followed them all the way to the Scientific Institute, but he’d given up after that. There was just too much security to get in there unnoticed.
He sat back against a tree and looked across the vibrantly green rolling hills. The warm sun broke through the clouds and softly heated his skin. It was a nice day for a picnic or a day in the country.
He closed his eyes for a moment as a wave of sadness washed over him.
He barely remembered how a nice day in the country felt. The last one had been before Ellie was taken. He hadn’t thought about his sisters in a long time, but the pain was still as fresh a wound as it had been all those years ago.
Ellie had just turned sixteen, and he had been only fourteen. They’d been in the Standish Woods with their father, visiting the lake and meeting some friends there for a picnic.
Their mother had died shortly after little Millie had been born, ten years earlier. His youngest sister, Millie, had her mother’s looks. Straight auburn hair and pouty purple lips, where he and Ellie resembled their father more with wild dark curls and a much lighter violet complexion.
Millie had been chasing butterflies, and he and Ellie had been walking through the woods together, talking about school and their friends. Ellie had stopped abruptly and looked at him, her wide violet eyes looking a little scared.
“Father says I must marry soon,” she had blurted. He hadn’t thought much about it at the time. The Blooming ceremony was normal here, but when she said it, he realized he’d never really thought about it happening to his sisters.
“But surely you’re too young. You’re only just sixteen. Maybe father just meant you should be thinking about it.” He’d reassured her.
Ellie had shaken her head and smiled at him.
“No, I think it’s happening soon, but surely it will be all right. Father wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me,” she’d said.
He’d nodded in agreement. Of course their father would protect them, he always had done.
They’d continued walking and talking, Ellie about her new romance and him about the new bicycle he wanted.
> They’d met with the Dawlish family, which consisted of Mr. Dawlish, a loud and jovial man, Mrs. Dawlish, a quiet and subdued woman with prematurely graying hair and skin that was so dull it seemed gray, not purple. They were accompanied by their four sons of varying ages from seven to seventeen, who were all equally as loud and jovial as their father was.
The sun had been warm and the setting beautiful. Ellie and Mark—the eldest Dawlish—had got on quite well. Meanwhile, Millie had been repeatedly told off for wandering off to play with Teddy Dawlish—the second youngest son—because back then girls had not been allowed to be around boys until at least sixteen years of age.
Millie had calmed down when her older brother took her to the lake to paddle and splash around. It had always been best to engage Millie in something messy when she was upset. She instantly forgot about her new friend and played happily for the rest of the day in the water.
Cole had been so naïve back then and completely unaware of what was to come from this day. He’d been happy and secure in his own little world.
A few weeks later Ellie’s engagement was announced. She was to marry Mark Dawlish.
Cole had been happy for her at first because she had seemed so pleased with her future fiancé. Unfortunately, the more time passed, the less happy Ellie became.
It started with simply crying over stupid things, worrying that Mark was in love with someone else or panicking that she’d done something wrong. But as time passed and the date of the wedding drew closer, Ellie’s decline was quite shocking.
She stopped laughing and chatting. Her smiles were all but gone, and her spirit of adventure had disappeared. She went on dates with Mark, sat around the house moping and was getting weaker than Cole had ever seen her. Some days she could barely even get out of bed, and she didn’t eat much at all.
Distressed by his sister’s obvious illness, he had gone to speak to their father about it. Something must be done because Ellie was clearly unwell. His father had listened to him attentively as he had always done, and then he told Cole that Ellie was not ill, she was preparing for her wedding.
Cole hadn’t understood much at the time about his father or marriage, so under the guidance of his father, he did as he was asked. He ignored Ellie’s weakened state.
He was told it was normal, and she would be fine. He was told that once she was married there would be nothing to worry about, and he’d believed that.
He visited her in her room a few times, but it was quite upsetting to see her in such a state, and he wished for her wedding day to arrive soon, so she would be better again and go back to being her old self.
The day of the Blooming finally arrived, and people came to the house to help Ellie prepare. By now, she was very thin, pale and weak, but they dressed her up in a white satin gown and curled her hair for her big day all the same. She was taken to the church in a horse-drawn carriage, looking waifish and small. People cheered as she drove by.
He followed in the family carriage, feeling very concerned for her while she tried to put on a brave smile for all around her.
When they arrived at the church, her father guided her inside. She was marched to the center of a circle made from golden tiles that were embedded in the white, marble floor. At the center of the circle was an altar, where Mark waited for her. Everyone else sat in rows around the circle and watched the ceremony begin.
He could see her hand shaking when it was taken by Mark. Cole had been seated so close to the altar, he could almost reach her. It had seemed so wrong that she should be so ill because of a wedding, and there was a strong sense of pain in the moment. This was not the blissful event he had imagined, watching his sister almost falling over in weakness at the altar.
The ceremony itself was strange. No words of love or unity were spoken. Mark commanded and Ellie submitted in a manner so unlike her. At the end of the ceremony, a purple light joined the two. It pulsed from Ellie’s eyes and into Mark’s.
After the ceremony was over, Mark carried Ellie to a carriage. They drove away to the sounds of cheering for the happy couple, but Cole hadn’t felt happy at all. Ellie had looked worse after her wedding.
Someone had patted him on the back. “It’ll be your turn soon enough.”
Cole had grimaced at the man, and told him he hoped not. It looked awful. The man had chuckled and wandered off to talk to someone else.
Cole had been thankful Millie hadn’t been there to see it. She’d have been most upset by how ill Ellie looked. Girls weren’t allowed to go to public events until much older than little Millie.
He’d worried about Ellie for several days after the ceremony. Even his father’s words wouldn’t calm him. He just knew that something was terribly wrong with it all. Millie had happily accepted that Ellie was in love with her husband, but then Millie hadn’t seen her sister weakened and carried away like that.
After days of waiting for news of Ellie, finally Mark had come to visit his father. They had spoken privately in his father’s office, so Cole had sneaked into the library and listened at the door, where he could hear every word and see both Mark and his father through the crack in the door.
Mark told his father that Ellie had died two days earlier, but her spirit lived on in him, and his father had not even been surprised.
Cole’s heart had stopped beating when he heard his father say that he had expected as much. Then with a shrug and a sad pat on Mark’s shoulder, his father had added that he felt Millie would do much better when she was old enough.
This had been the greatest betrayal and shock Cole had ever felt. At just sixteen, his beloved sister Ellie had been left to die, not just by her husband, but by her father too.
Cole had stormed into the office in a rage and screamed at the two men, who had clearly not been aware of his presence. After being restrained, he had been sent away to a private boy’s school, where education had been about power and misogyny.
Not one word from teachers or friends had changed his opinions on the barbaric evil that resided in their society’s marital rituals.
Oh, he learnt to pretend that he was a changed man, but inside he never changed, and he never forgot his dear Ellie.
After school, he returned home to a fifteen-year-old Millie, who was sweet, pretty and full of life. He knew he had to save her from the same fate as Ellie. Like Ellie, she had been protected from the finer details of what marriage held in store for her, and like Ellie, she was going to be married to death if he didn’t save her.
Cole had heard of a group of women who had escaped the city and lived in the Malaz Mountains, untouched by mankind and safe. He knew he must take Millie there, so he kidnapped his own sister that night and took her to the mountains.
Along the way, he told her the story of Ellie and was surprised at first that she believed him so easily. He should have known better. Millie was a curious little thing, and she’d found out some of it by herself while he was away at school.
They hadn’t really known where they were going, and the mountains had become treacherous. The small amount of supplies that they had brought with them had run out quickly, and after a couple of days, they had both become ill.
Lost in the mountains and barely alive, Cole had been sure they were going to die there.
Near death and with nowhere else to go, he had thought all was lost when a voice had shouted out to him, asking who he was and why he was there. He’d shouted back he was bringing his sister here so she was safe from marriage, then small hands had lifted him onto a rough pallet, and he’d been carried through a forest.
He didn’t remember much. Just one older woman would visit him and speak with him. He was delirious for the most part, but he told her his story as best he could.
She told him he could not stay here. It was not safe for the other women, but that his sister could stay, and they would take care of her. She also told him that he would be hunted by the Rhecknaws now for what he had done and should not return there for his own good.
&nbs
p; He had asked her where he should go, and she simply said, ‘out into the world’.
On the day he left, it had been warm and sunny, and his sister had looked safe and happy.
The rebel group had provided him with supplies and a horse. They wished him the best of luck from afar because most of the women had kept a distance from him, except for the old lady and Millie. He’d hugged Millie goodbye and promised to keep in touch by letter if he could. Then he had got on his horse and ridden away from everything.
From then on, he had run and been chased through many colonies. They wanted the location of the women, of Millie and all the rest of the girls who had escaped Rhecknaw.
To keep their secret, he had run and kept running to protect them. Years had passed and age had wearied his bones, but still he ran. He hadn’t thought it would go on for this long. He hadn’t thought at all. Now he was too old to live happily ever after, too alone to be happy, and he was still scared.
After all this time, he was still frightened of what would happen if they found Millie.
He’d kept in touch with the women by Trell post over the years. They all had special powers that kept them safe.
A few of the women could change their color at will, so they were often sent out to buy supplies and collect letters.
They mostly ventured into Trell territory for such things because they were hidden by the borders of Trell and could easily sneak in undetected to find everything they needed in nearby towns.
The ongoing wars with Rhecknaw stopped the whole group simply moving to Trell. To be purple in Trell was a death sentence.
The mountainous forests provided well for the women and what they couldn’t get there was shipped easily over the borders.
The last letter spoke of an oncoming war with more colonies than just Rhecknaw. Spies from the women’s small colony had heard about it in the Trell capital of Sraw, but Cole paid it no heed. Trells always spoke of war. All they ever wanted to do was fight.
He had been given a mission to guard Carla Mainston by the leaders of the rebel group. His job was to protect her. Now she had reached an age when women fall in love, she was in danger.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Box Set 1: The Squishies Series Page 12
