She nodded, feeling separated from her body. A Mara soul floating about the room. She pinched herself, it was blasphemous to suggest a soul could separate from the mind before rebirth. Souls were caged within the brain, then ground into powder to be planted, then into the tree, then into the earth again when they fell. Unless they were found for usefulness. She ran her fingers across the wooden table in front of her.
Usefulness.
But the mulched souls – where did they go? Mara had heard rumor of plant food, and she heard rumor of the ocean. No one knew for sure what happened after a mulching. Not the rest of society anyway. Trust that the government knows better than the citizen.
Mara shivered at the thought and wished she could take the movement back. The man’s smile deepened at her shiver.
He thinks I’m frightened of him. I guess it wouldn’t be a total lie.
“You’ll perform just as we’ve discussed. You will not warn them about your chip, and you will not warn them to this conversation. Do you understand?”
All Mara could do was agree silently.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mara tapped her flashlight against the back of her thigh as they climbed onto the bus. It had been a quiet walk back, the others lost in their own reflection. In awe of the greatness they had just performed that day. Of the planting. Rebirth. Souls moving forward in the circle of life.
Folklore. A fairy tale. Things the Questioners had whispered as Mara faded. Had they been true? What was the truth? Mara could not be sure of the faintest thing anymore. She could not even be certain of her own name in the darkness.
Sierra.
Nothing was certain. What of her mother?
She settled into her seat next to the window and slid the case under the bench. The red haired man said the Citizens of Change would confuse her, and was that not what they had done? The others stepped on the bus, quiet as they entered, but soon talking erupted amongst seat partners.
Mara whispered. “Tango.”
He turned his head and the early evening moonlight kissed his face. Pale and otherworldly as always. “Sierra?”
“I’ve done something bad. So very bad.”
He looked at her, questions in his eyes. Those intelligent eyes he had shown her alone that evening. He sighed. “Whatever it is, nothing can be done about it right now. If at all.”
Mara nodded, knowing he was right. When they reached the city later and her chip was removed, she could somehow get a message to Tayla. But, by the time Tayla got a message to the people of the forest, it would be too late for whatever the city had planned.
“It’s too late. But I can try to fix it, can’t I?”
“You can always try, Mara.” Tango startled her as he mouthed her name. He leaned close to her, his mouth millimeters from her ear. “Albus Darnell.”
Tango turned to the front of the bus, closed his eyes, and pulled his cap down. Within minutes Mara heard the heavy breaths of a sleeping man. Sounds she had not heard in years comforted her into her own exhausted slumber.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mara bent the corner of the blind. She did this the moment she stepped in the door, without so much as kicking off her boots before she clomped across her bed. Next, she stripped and showered.
She half-expected to see Tayla waiting when she stepped out of the bathroom. More than expecting, she hoped to see her mother waiting for her. Instead, she stood alone with her pajamas sticking to her damp skin.
She checked under her bed, in the closet, and even in the largest kitchen cupboard. No one waited for her. They had not seen the signal. Or, they had, but could not respond fast enough.
She spent most of the night tossing and turning, her eyes on the door. She left her apartment unlocked, which meant she spent half of that time waiting for Tayla, the other half waiting for a break-in. Which was technically what Tayla had done the night she had contacted Mara.
Mara fell into a deep sleep an hour before she had to wake up for work. Sweat-drenched from an uneasy night, she showered quickly, and then filled a mug with coffee. For the first time she could remember since her last years of school, she drained the cup.
Mara was welcomed back to work with pats on the back from officemates and superiors. Entirely normal behavior when a coworker returned from planting. Discreet questions were thrown her way, followed by Mara looking around and then telling the asker she was sworn to secrecy. They pretended to be surprised and even offended to not receive any secrets, but it was a ritual. She played part in it herself with many other planter returns.
The day moved along as any other day. Scanning old records into the system, historical document shredding, short trips to the water cooler where she listened to the others discuss the screen events of the previous night. She perked up when a duo mentioned the program Tango had shown her, but they made no mention of the artwork, and Mara’s attention soon went elsewhere. Not on her work, where it should have been, but she spent most of her day gazing out the window toward the forest. Falling behind on paperwork would be forgiven because it was yet another ritual for returning planters. No one would question her gaze, knowing she had just spent a day in the fresh, wild air. Dirt in her hands, sun at her back, birds in the sky.
Mara was sure it was not a ritual to wonder where one’s mother was. And not a ritual to hope that one’s mother would be safe from the city, on the first day back from planting.
Dia Strongholder, alive.
Did her father know? Should she tell him? She should not, not until she heard from Tayla that the people in the cave were safe. Her family. The ones she had just found. The ones that could tell her who she was. Where she came from. The ones she had handed over.
Mara squinted for a better view of the forest, expecting an owl to fly over the bare mountain above the reborn. How many more years before the trees expanded and covered the mountain? She would hate to be on that bus, riding so high. Above the fog.
Maybe the forest would not expand up the mountain. The mountain had looked rocky and barren once she had been close. Not as though it had fallen bald, but had been born that way.
A tickle formed at the back of Mara’s mind, something just out of reach. Before the thought could turn into something substantial, her boss, Jacobi, stood in her doorway. “Mara.”
“Sir.” She stood and waited for a scalding on her lackluster performance that day.
“You’ve been moved,” he said, disdain in his voice.
“I’m sorry?” Mara had already moved that year. “Up?”
“You could say that,” he said, and she grabbed the worn crate from under the corner of her desk. She knew the drill. She could pack fast. Jacobi cleared his throat. “Not your office. Your home.”
“My home?” Worry filled Mara, her nice apartment was granted based on ERLs. What had she done to lose it? She had not been promoted or fired, nor was she getting married.
Jacobi handed her a chip. “Your new home information. Enjoy.”
He stepped out, taking with him his tone that did not sound as though he wished anyone joy. She slid the chip into her pocket tablet. First to appear, were her new address and door key code. Next, was her new allowance, balance significantly higher. Lastly, appeared an image file. Double tap.
‘Thank You’ in impressive blue handwriting.
Thank you? She had done a terrible thing. They were going to contact the Citizens of Change and take their leaders, interrogate them, give them a chance to change sides. Everyone else would be acclimated back into society. Everyone who was not mulched that was. There would be no change.
Maybe they had not reacted yet. Maybe, Mara still had time to speak to Tayla. Maybe. She would go straight to her old apartment after work and pack. She would stay, Tayla would come that evening, she was sure of it.
…
But her belongings had already been moved into her new home. She no longer could return to her old apartment. It had been scrubbed and reassigned that morning. It had been too much to hope that
Tayla would come to Mara; the front office already knew what she looked like.
Instead, Mara went directly to her new apartment after work. It was much larger than her former home, but just as muted and tan. No signs of the forest within her new home. No useful souls anywhere. Furniture made from iron and metal. Firm padding.
In the center of it all was a magnificent view of the reborn from her extra-large living room window.
Admiring that view was where the man with red hair found her the first evening. Forehead leaning against the cool glass, Mara was lost in her own personal bubble of stress. Worries bounced around for a mother who might still be alive, people hiding from genocide, and an uncle she had just discovered.
He entered without knocking, and as if it were his apartment, he took the lead showing her to the couch. Together they watched the sun lower in the sky until it perched like a head on the neck of the mountain.
“This is all because of you,” he said, checking his watch. He pulled a silver flask from his pocket, took a sip, and then offered it to Mara. She shook her head because it seemed like one of the few times she could disagree.
“What is because of me?”
“Watch.” The red haired man did not take his eyes from the window. Mara looked too, and in a moment, a beautiful illusion presented before them.
The sun rose away from the earth and bled the day back in time. But it was not the day bleeding. And it was not the sun rising. The mountain behind the forest sunk into the ground, dust raising into the air, and in that moment, Mara knew what she had done.
“We expected to find a unit, but you uncovered an entire village. There were too many to question. Too many to mulch without turning the earth red with blood. It was simpler to bury them where they stood. Let the earth claim them and decide what their fate should be.”
A sob escaped from Mara’s lips. “You told me…”
“Mara. Mara.” The man with red hair placed an arm around her and lifted her chin in his fingers. “They are all a lesson. And you helped teach that lesson.”
Mara wanted to cry out that her mother was out there, a whole world, a country full of people who did not want to fall. People who did not believe in rebirth. Some still believed their souls returned to the heavens. And a belief was not a threat.
Instead, she only could find one sentence. “There were innocent children out there.”
“No one is innocent,” he said, standing and stepping away from the couch. He left his flask in front of her on the table. “They would have grown up to be just as detrimental to society’s health as their parents. This was all because of you. You handed them over. You did the right thing.”
The man with the red hair stepped out the door, closing it snugly behind him.
“But, I didn’t do anything,” Mara whispered, staring at the smoke filled sky.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next day was the day of rest, which was beneficial timing because Mara could not climb out of bed. Her limbs were heavy, her head spun, her stomach heaved. She had downed the red haired man’s flask after he left her apartment. It did not take long before she fell to the floor. She spent the night crawling between the bedroom and bathroom. It was her first experience with things that came out of flasks.
…
In the months since, it has not been her last.
…
She spends her days at work, quietly going through the motions, just as she had been in the years leading up to her first rotation as a planter. Not one to question, not one to have opinions.
Mara just is. There. Muted life. Tan. Fading into the walls.
She spends most of her credits on more things that go into flasks. They know her by name at the drink store. They call her Sierra. Mara does not drink. Sierra does.
Every night she lays in bed, curtains drawn wide open onto The Reborn Forest, no longer shadowed by the mountain.
Every night she sips her flask.
Every night she studies art in the background of a screen program a ghost told her about, under twilight filtered through thin, white trees.
A note from the author
This story has been through countless revisions over the past two years, starting as a one-thousand-word short story taking the reader through the typical day of a planter in the Reborn Forest. In the original telling, the world was seen directly through the eyes of Mara, though we never learned who she was or anything of her history. After reflection of Mara’s life, I knew she had to do more than plant and go home.
Mara is a victim of the silent generation. The one that is afraid to take control, the generation that is afraid to speak, stand up or fight for what they believe in. And because of her decision to sit back and let others pull her strings and make no choices of her own, in a way she makes the biggest decision of all when it comes to the future of those around her. Mara’s story takes place a few hundred years from now, but I’ll leave it up to each of us to decide if we are living Mara’s life right now, or if we are the masters of our own destinies.
Are we spectators or players in the world around us?
About the Author
Renee Bradshaw is a military veteran and holds a BA in English Literature. She currently lives in Cheyenne Wyoming with her husband, two children and their many stuffed animals. When Renee is not writing, she can be found reading, crocheting, or out on various children’s activities and nature expeditions.
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Acknowledgments
I am fortunate to be surrounded by friends and family who not only allow me the time to write, but also encourage me to follow my dreams.
Chris, Lily and Willow, your love and belief in me is more than I ever could have imagined.
My alpha reader and writing buddy Dawn Paul is always there for me, whether it is a 6AM frantic texting conversation about the importance of a past versus present verb in a particular sentence, or what writing music is best to listen to do a certain scene. I wouldn’t be as far as I am today without you.
My local writing buddies Heather Pfortmiller and Shyla Freeland. NaNoWriMo is immensely less stressful when you have people on the other side of your laptop monitor throwing back cups of coffee with you.
My cheerleaders Pam Brooks, Suzanne Bradshaw, Angela Wilson, Bonnie Merryman, and Cindy Oberdick. You guys might not realize it, but your words of encouragement keep me going.
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