Hostage

by Rachel Manija Brown

  HOSTAGE

  The Change Quartet: Book Two

  Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Book View Café Edition

  January 20, 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-471-0

  Copyright © 2015 Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Judith Tarr, whose Lipizzan Horse Camp for writers inspired us in so many ways.

  Chapter One. Las Anclas.

  Ross

  Ross Juarez bolted out of bed.

  His feet skidded, and he crashed into the wall. The pain came as a relief. The wall was solid. Real.

  He pressed his palms against the cool plaster. He was in his bedroom, on his feet. Not writhing on the blood-soaked dirt beneath a chiming crystal tree.

  The room seemed small, the walls close. He tried to focus on the stars overhead, but instead he saw the flaws and bubbles in the glass ceiling. If it fell in, it would shatter into a thousand crystalline shards.

  Ross fled the house, nearly tripping over the tabby cat on the landing. He bolted across the street, and fetched up in Mia’s yard.

  He leaned against a barrel, shoved his sweaty hair out of his eyes, and gazed at the comforting golden glow of her windows. Mia was awake, and happily at work. Seeing her would make him feel better. But if he went in, she’d be upset because she couldn’t fix his nightmares.

  Ross was the only one who could.

  When the blood-red singing tree had first invaded his mind in dreams, he’d had to visit it in person to establish his side of their mental link, so he could communicate with it, then learn how to shut it out.

  But after the battle against King Voske’s army two months ago, he had again begun dreaming of the soft pop of exploding seed-pods, of shards piercing his skin, of barely noticeable pain becoming unbearable agony as tiny needles grew into razor-edged knives and branched through his body. And always, as he lay dying, he looked up at leaves like knives and branches like swords, glittering in the moonlight and black as coal.

  The scarlet tree that had grown from his blood contained his own memories, but those dark trees had grown from the bodies of Voske’s soldiers, who’d worn night-black camouflage – soldiers whom he’d used his own tree to kill. Ever since, the obsidian trees had forced their way into Ross’s dreams to share the memories of the agonizing deaths they’d been born from.

  The worst part wasn’t the pain. It was waking up, and remembering his guilt.

  Ross couldn’t go on like this. He had to face those singing trees.

  He pushed himself away from the barrel. Confronting the trees would be risky, but at least he’d be awake, not dreaming and helpless.

  Out of habit, he headed toward the town hall, with its secret tunnel that led to the mill at the juncture of two city walls. But after the battle, sentries had been posted at the mill, along with extra guards along the walls. He needed a different route.

  Ross hurried through the sleeping town until he came to the Vardams’ orchard. He could use the fruit trees as cover, then climb over the wall in the time it took the sentries, who always looked outward, to make their fifty steps in the other direction.

  He hooked his good hand around a branch and pulled himself into an apple tree. A mother raccoon hissed from a neighboring bough, then scampered across a swinging vine bridge into another tree, followed by her litter of kits. The raccoon family vanished into an elaborate two-story home of hardened mud and fallen branches.

  The hot Santa Ana wind whipped stinging dust into his face. He smothered a sneeze, then checked the sentries, who did not miss a step. The rustling leaves had covered the sound.

  When the sentries passed, he wedged his fingers and toes into hollows in the wall. Halfway up, he grabbed a slippery knob of stone, and set his foot onto an adobe outcropping. It broke off under his foot. Ross slid. He caught himself painfully, scrabbled for a new foothold, then inched upward until he could haul himself over the top.

  He dashed into the cornfield, then crouched to catch his breath. An opossum hurried past, an ear of blue corn in its jaws.

  Ross forced himself to move. He sensed his own singing tree; its chimes called to him in his mind. But he had only sight to guide him through the abandoned cornfields. Now that the area had been declared off-limits, tall weeds grew in the cracked earth and tumbleweeds rolled everywhere.

  Soon he saw the jagged black fingers rising above the corn stalks, blotting out the stars. Globes of dark glass hung from faceted branches. Just one crystal shard had cost him much of the use of his left hand, and each seed-pod contained hundreds of them.

  He was well out of range of the black trees. Still, he didn’t feel safe. Crystal leaves should have clashed together, ringing out a threat, but the trees were silent. It was as if they wanted him to come closer.

  Closing his eyes, he visualized a concrete wall with a small steel door. The door led to his own tree in the center of the obsidian grove. Ross opened the door a crack. His tree glowed a deep ruby red, an ember within coals. He gave the mental door the smallest of pushes, and—

  Glass shattered and popped as every seed-pod in the black grove exploded. Needles of pain stung Ross’s face, his throat, his bare hands. He’d missed one of those black trees in the dark night!

  He grabbed his belt knife, knowing he could never cut all the shards out of his flesh before they took root . . .

  Ross forced his eyes open and unclenched his fingers. There was blood on his hand, but only from where he’d scraped it against the wall. The left was unmarked.

  He slammed the door in his mind. The pain vanished.

  Ross bolted back to the wall, checked for sentries, and climbed as fast as he could. He caught his breath in a tree laden with pomegranates the size of crystalline seed-pods. They tossed in the wind, and one bumped against his shoulder. Ross jerked away, then fled the orchard. He didn’t slow until he reached Mia’s cottage, his footsteps heavy.

  Before he could knock, the door popped open. “Ross! I heard you coming.”

  As he stepped inside, Mia adjusted a blanket she’d flung over a corner of her worktable. Sometimes she didn’t like people seeing her projects until they were done.

  After Ross had nearly died in the battle, Mia’s father, Dr. Lee, had ordered him not to do anything strenuous, so he’d been assigned to assist Mia with engineering projects and mechanical repairs. He and Mia quickly discovered that they had to divide their working space, or he could never find his tools and she got annoyed at him for rearranging hers. His side of the table was neatly organized, hers a chaos only she could understand.

  Mia’s shiny black hair swung tousled against her cheek. Her glasses slid down her nose, which was smudged with the blue paint that also marked her fingers. She absently shoved her glasses back up, leaving another blue streak. Though his knees were watery and his throat dry from his run, he couldn’t help smiling at how cute she was.

  She didn’t smile back. “You went outside the walls, didn’t you? Ross, you promised not to go there alone.”

  “I had to go over the wall, and it’s a tough climb. With one hand, I couldn’t have helped you.”

  Mia shot a glance at the lump hiding under the blanket. Then she folded her arms. “I’ll make a grappling hook for myself. For next time. If there’s a next time. How did it go?”

  It would only upset her if he told her how the trees had nearly tricked him into cutting into his own flesh. Just thinking about it was making his heart race. “It was fine.”

  “It was fine? You don’t look like it was fine. It was horrible! Wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Ross admitted. “But in kind of an interesting way. They knew exactly how t
o scare me.”

  Mia grabbed his sleeve, her eyes flashing wide. “So you could communicate with them?”

  “Well, they were definitely communicating with me.” He breathed out. In. “Let me see if I got through to them.”

  Ross took another deep breath, bracing himself for an onslaught of pain and fear and nightmare images. He wished he could hold on to Mia, but, well, why shouldn’t he? She already knew he was afraid, and it didn’t make her think any less of him.

  “Do you mind?” Ross beckoned to her.

  She didn’t hesitate a heartbeat—she came straight to him, her steady brown gaze so trusting. He put his arms around her and bent to rest his cheek against her silky hair. No matter how often they touched, the first contact always came as a shock. But he’d gotten to like that shock.

  He tightened his arms, holding Mia close, shut his eyes, and stepped into the world inside his mind. There was his wall of concrete, and there was his door of polished steel. Cracks widened around the door, and dust sifted down.

  But Ross could feel Mia in his arms, warm and breathing, and that gave him strength and confidence. He visualized the cracks filled in with fresh cement, made it harden in the blink of an eye, and kicked the wall to be sure. There was no response from the trees.

  He opened his eyes. “Yeah. I think I can keep them out now.”

  “Great!” Mia squeaked, backing up a step so she could see his face.

  Ross enjoyed her enthusiasm. The lingering terror faded enough for him to say, “I was thinking. Since I could talk to those trees, I should be able to talk to others.”

  “Really?”

  “And the singing trees around the ruined city don’t have any reason to hate me. I might be able to get past them to go prospecting there.”

  She bounced on her toes. “That’s fantastic! I’ve wanted to get in there ever since I was a little girl. Could you take me?”

  His fear flooded back. “No!” It came out more harsh than he’d intended. Mia stopped bouncing and looked hurt. He tried to speak gently. “I’ve always prospected alone.”

  “You’ve been taking Yuki prospecting for months now,” Mia pointed out.

  “I’ve been teaching him to prospect.” Ross took Mia’s hand. Again, the shock made his heart stutter and his breath catch. “I might be able to get past the crystal trees, but I don’t know if I could protect another person.”

  “Your ruby tree didn’t hurt me.”

  “Yeah, but that one’s part of me. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t know what the other singing trees will be like.”

  Mia squeezed his hand. “If you go alone, who’s going to protect you?”

  Ross hadn’t had anyone to care for, or who’d cared for him, since his grandmother had died when he was eight.

  Then he’d come to Las Anclas.

  Mia had saved his life during the battle. Some townspeople said she had brought him back from the dead, though she and Dr. Lee had assured him that he’d only stopped breathing for a minute or so. He knew how much she cared about him. But like the touch of her skin against his, every new reminder came as a surprise.

  He trusted her, and he trusted himself to guard her with his life. What he wasn’t sure he could trust was his own strange power.

  Mia was looking at him expectantly.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said.

  It didn’t sound like much to him, but it seemed to satisfy her. She linked her fingers around the back of his head, and pulled him down for a kiss.

  Chapter Two. Las Anclas.

  Jennie

  Jennie Riley straightened her yellow linen skirt, tucked a stray braid behind her ear, and left her bedroom.

  The aroma of peaches and browning butter wafted from the kitchen, along with squeals and giggles. Her younger sister Dee and Dee’s friends Z and Nhi were doing a three-day rotating sleepover, one night per house.

  The night before, Jennie had spotted the Terrible Three doing the Change ritual, in pajamas, as she passed by Dee’s bedroom

  Dee, who had already Changed, was the guide. She stood before the kneeling Z and Nhi, proclaiming, “I lead you into the realm of the Changed! What is your desire, petitioners?”

  “We wish to Change, O guide,” chorused Z and Nhi.

  “Hold your offering and state your heart’s desire,” Dee replied.

  Z reverently lifted a piece of flint from a decorated box. “I want to start fires, like Grandma Wolfe! But I want to be able to control it.”

  Nhi took a feather from the box. “I want to fly.”

  The girls replaced their Change tokens in the box.

  “May you be blessed with a Change,” Dee said solemnly.

  She opened her cupped hands and blew on the dirt they held. It rose up in a tiny dust devil, whirling before the other girls’ envious eyes.

  Jennie had walked on by, amused and a little sad. When she’d been their age, she’d been the guide for her friends and sibs who wanted to Change. Now she knew what being Changed really meant: a blessing from God, yes, but also an occasion for prejudice and a heavy responsibility. She’d taken children who should have been kept safe and led them into battle, solely because they had useful Change powers. And then she’d abandoned them . . .

  Jennie hurried on. In the kitchen, Nhi was speckled with whipped cream from brown braids to bare feet, Z’s auburn curls were sprinkled with sugar, and Dee bent intently over a bowl of batter that swirled furiously by itself. Dee glanced at Jennie, startled, and the batter rose up in a gloppy brown waterspout.

  Nhi yelled, “Dee! Your batter!”

  The batter subsided, mostly back into the bowl.

  “It’s to celebrate the first day of school,” Z explained.

  “We can’t wait!” said Nhi. “The last two months have been so boring.”

  The kids of Las Anclas had thought that school being closed meant freedom. Then they’d discovered that they had to work from dawn to dusk, bringing in the harvest and doing odd jobs while the adults repaired the damage from the battle and rode out on patrol. It was nice to see the kids, for once, excited about school.

  Jennie looked forward to her return to teaching. Every time she patrolled with the Rangers, every time she held a weapon in her hand, the memories rushed back: burning leaves swirling in the smoky air. Voske’s silver hair glinting in the firelight. The smell of charred and trampled pumpkins. Sera Diaz, falling dead at Jennie’s feet.

  Dee poked her. “Jennie? Aren’t you excited about trying the Terrible Three Triple Peach Surprise?”

  Jennie forced herself not to jerk away. “Bring some to the schoolhouse for me,” she said, striving to sound normal. “I have a council meeting first.”

  Sugar drifted down from the spoon in Z’s hand. “Is something exciting happening?”

  I hope not, Jennie thought. “Debriefing about yesterday’s defense drill. Yesterday’s terrible defense drill.”

  “Ugh,” the three girls chorused.

  Dee held out a peach. “Ma says you’re not eating enough.”

  “Thanks.” Jennie gave a mental tug, and the peach flew from Dee’s hand to smack into her palm.

  She headed toward the town hall.

  If a teacher made a mistake in the classroom, nothing worse could happen than parents complaining or kids squabbling or someone graduating without ever really understanding fractions. It couldn’t result in someone’s death. And while students were occasionally injured on teacher-led patrols, in mishaps or fighting animals, none had ever died on one.

  The image flashed again in her mind’s eye: Sera falling, falling . . .

  Jennie pushed away the memory. Sera was gone. Jennie couldn’t fix that. What she could fix was the teenagers’ performance in the battle drills. Her stomach roiled as her mind stubbornly brought her right back around again: in battle, unlike patrols, people inevitably died. And in her duty as a Ranger, when war again came to Las Anclas, she could once again find herself leading children into the fray, with their lives
depending on her commands.

  The uneaten peach vanished from her hand, and Jennie’s fingers tightened on empty air. She looked for the squirrel that had teleported the peach out of her hand, then let out her breath in a laugh. Two squirrels were cooperating to roll the stolen fruit toward a hole in a jacaranda tree.

  But her amusement only lasted until the peach and its furry thieves had vanished. She continued walking, her stomach still churning. Her hands tingled with anxiety.

  She began the calming breathing exercise that Sera had taught her. Then Felicité Wolfe’s voice drifted from the open windows of the town hall.

  “. . . but, Mother, this is a council meeting. And this hat is so fashionable. As council scribe, I need to show respect for my position by looking my best.”

  “There is a time and a place for everything,” Mayor Wolfe replied. “A council meeting is not the place for fashion, and indoors is never the place for a hat.”

  Framed in the window, Felicité clutched protectively at her wide-brimmed hat. “My roots will show. It’ll look like I didn’t make any effort at all!”

  “Darling, no one expects perfection in this heat. But since it’s worrying you, you may take this afternoon off to dye your hair.”

  Mayor Wolfe, impeccably dressed in a subdued, council-appropriate dress – and no hat—held out her hand. Felicité reluctantly surrendered the hat.

  Her golden hair did have dark roots, but Jennie agreed with the mayor. No one but Felicité would care. Jennie fought the impulse to despise Felicité for her petty worries. It wasn’t Felicité’s fault that she had nothing worse than her hair to worry about. Felicité hadn’t failed Sera.

  Stop it.

  Inside the town hall, it was marginally cooler. Defense Chief Tom Preston turned from his conversation with the two judges and the guild chief to give Jennie one of those narrow-eyed scans she knew from the practice field.

  Or the night of the battle.

  Dr. Lee gave her a cheerful wave.

  “Morning, Jennie.” The skin around Sheriff Crow’s brown eye crinkled and the right side of her mouth curved. The skull-like Changed side of her face didn’t move, but her lashless, yellow snake-eye gave Jennie a wink.