by S. J. West
I looked away from Jace and shooed Blue off my legs.
“We better get going,” I replied, not wanting to get any more personal than we already had.
As far as I was concerned, the sooner we got to the Southern Kingdom, the better. Maybe someone there could cure Jace and make him realize his feelings for me weren’t real.
Maybe…
CHAPTER FIVE
We didn’t talk much the rest of the day. I think I became too self-conscious about Jace’s confession of love, and he became increasingly embarrassed by it. If the world were a perfect place, I would probably be flattered by Jace’s supposed feelings, even though they were based on falsehoods. What girl my age wouldn’t be over the moon with a gorgeous guy professing his undying love to her? Too bad he wasn’t the guy I wanted saying those words to me.
The world was far from perfect, and all I could think about was getting to Ash. I felt like half of me was missing without him walking by my side. We had been each other’s constant companions for five long years, enduring the world made for us by our elders as well as we could without losing our minds. To just be suddenly cut off from him made me want to ask whatever higher power there was in the universe one simple question: why?
Why divide us from one another at such a crucial time in our lives? Hadn’t we suffered enough? What was the point in making me spend time with Jace?
But I suppose that was the important question. What was the point?
I wasn’t afforded the luxury of time to contemplate my own question.
Jace stopped suddenly. I turned to him and saw pain etched across his face like a mask.
“Are we close to this Fairmont?” he asked in a low voice, like the sound of his own words might amplify his suffering.
We were still at least ten miles from Fairmont, but I was certain Jace wasn’t going to make it that far. I would be lucky to get him another mile down the road.
“It’s still at least a couple of hours away,” I said, contemplating whether or not it was time for Jace and me to go our separate ways. He looked weak. I feared he wouldn’t be able to defend himself very well if I left him on his own. “But I was thinking we might just go ahead and find a place to stop for the night. I’m so tired I don’t think I can make it that far anyway. I saw a sign for a place called Meadowdale a little ways back. Do you mind if we backtrack a little? Maybe we can find somewhere there to rest tonight.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Jace said.
“Do what?”
“Pretend it’s you who needs to stop,” he replied.
“Ok, so I’m not a great liar,” I admitted. “But I am tired, and you don’t look too good. It’s been a long day for all of us. Let’s just go find somewhere close by to stay for the night.”
The exit for Meadowdale led to a road, which was only paved for a few hundred feet. The rest of it was gravel, which was a lot harder to walk on. Eventually, the gravel road connected to another paved road that ran from east to west. Unfortunately, I saw no immediate signs of a nearby building to spend the night in.
“I suppose one way is as good as the other,” I told Jace, looking up and down the road.
“Let’s go this way,” Jace nodded to the west. “I think I see something.”
I followed his gaze but saw nothing special, just brown grass, bare trees, and hills.
“I don’t see anything,” I admitted. “What do you see?”
“There’s a faint glow, just over that hill,” Jace pointed to the largest hill of three to the west.
I tried my best to see what he was talking about but couldn’t find anything.
“You must have better eyes than I do because I don’t see a glow.”
“You really don’t see it?” He turned to me with a confused look on his face.
“No, but it doesn’t matter. Like I said, one way is as good as another. Let’s go check it out.”
As we walked closer to the hill Jace had pointed out, I wasn’t sure if the faint daylight remaining was playing tricks on my eyes or if there actually was a faint glow coming from the other side of the hill. The closer we got, the more certain I became Jace was right.
“We should be careful,” I told Jace, glancing down at Blue to see if he sensed any danger around us.
“Maybe it’s one of those traveling trading camps you mentioned.”
“No, they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves like that. They keep hidden. Most of the time you don’t even know they’re there until you run up on them.”
“Then what do you think it is?”
I shrugged. “Don’t have a clue.”
We made our way up the hill. Blue was the first of us to reach the top. Once there, he sat staring down at something, not bothering to keep an eye on our progress behind him. Whatever he saw seemed to have him mesmerized. After we reached the top, I understood Blue’s reaction.
It was like looking at a moment from the past frozen in time. An incandescent dome of light, at least eight feet tall and just as wide, covered the scene, seeming to preserve it against any outside interference. A little girl no older than seven or eight with short blonde hair brought up in pigtails atop her head stood within the middle of the dome on a patch of greener than green grass. She was dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans and a pink T-shirt with a large white sparkly butterfly design imprinted on the front. Her arms were stretched out like she was reaching for someone, and her stance was one of running. Her mouth was open, frozen in a silent scream.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Jace asked, just as awestruck as I was by what we were seeing, his headache forgotten.
“Never.”
We were silent for a moment, neither of us knowing what to do. The decision ended up not being ours to make.
Blue raced down the hill.
“Blue, come back!” I yelled, but it was too late. By the time the words left my mouth, he was already halfway to the bottom.
Jace and I ran after him down the steep slope, being careful not to slip.
When we reached the bottom, I saw Blue raise one of his front legs and extend the pads of his paw toward the dome of light before I could reach out and pull his paw away. Fortunately, the dome turned out to be a purely physical barrier. Blue’s paw lay flat against it, preventing him from getting any closer to the girl.
“What do you think it is?” I asked Jace.
“I’m not sure,” he said, studying the cascading movement of incandescent light against the dome’s exterior. Tentatively, he extended his hand out and touched it.
“It’s smooth, like glass,” he said, running his hand over the barrier, causing the lights to dance in a new rhythm. It reminded me of a TV show I saw once documenting the shimmering lights of the northern skies, the aurora borealis. “Put your hand on it.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to touch it, but since Jace and even Blue already had, it might look like I was afraid if I didn’t. I definitely couldn’t have either of them thinking that.
I raised my hand and pressed my palm toward the dome. Unlike what happened to Jace and Blue, my hand didn’t stop on the surface but passed through it crossing over to the other side. I yanked it back out, cradling it against my chest at the wrist with my other hand.
I looked up at Jace. His eyes were wide in wonder.
“How’d you do that?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“I don’t know,” I whispered, unable to think of any possible explanation why I had been able to breach the confines of the dome to enter its interior.
When I looked back at the girl trapped inside, I saw she was no longer alone.
“Who the hell is that?” Jace asked, alarmed by the sudden appearance of the man standing beside the little girl.
The man had blond wavy hair and was dressed in a white button-down shirt and dark blue pants. He smiled at me when our eyes met. He made a motion with his hand, beckoning me to come closer.
The stranger looked from me to Jace to me
again with an easy smile. I saw his mouth move like he was speaking but couldn’t hear anything he said. He repeated it again more slowly, and I was able to read his lips this time to tell what he wanted.
“He just said, ‘Please come talk with me, Skye,’ ” I told Jace.
“Yeah, I saw.” Jace didn’t sound at all happy. “I don’t like this. I think we should leave.”
Part of me wanted to do what Jace was suggesting, but I knew I needed to go into the dome and find out what the stranger wanted. If there was any chance I could help the poor little girl trapped inside the bubble, I had to try.
Before Jace could stop me, I walked through the barrier of the dome.
The warm air underneath the dome smelled fresh, like spring, forcing memories of happier times with my parents to flash through my mind. The soft, green grass felt like a cushion beneath my feet as I walked across it toward the stranger and girl frozen in time.
“Hello,” the stranger said. His voice was surprisingly friendly and soothing. “My name is Simon, Skye. I’m here to help you.”
I raised a dubious eyebrow at him.
“I’ve heard those words before. You don’t happen to know a woman named Rose do you?” I asked, not really expecting a truthful answer but hoping for one.
“Yes, I do,” he replied, looking somewhat abashed at the mention of the woman’s name. “She asked me to tell you she’s sorry for what she did, but we needed to get Ash help and you weren’t helping matters. Rose only resorted to violence because that’s what you pushed her to.”
“Can you tell me if Ash is ok? Did she get him help like she said she would?” My heart raced at the prospect of knowing Ash’s condition.
“He’s fine and recovering. He’ll be waiting for you in the Southern Kingdom, just as Rose promised.”
I didn’t know Simon at all, but for some inexplicable reason I felt sure he was telling me the truth.
“Do you know what’s going on here?” I asked him, looking down at the little girl. “Why is she like this?”
“I put her here,” Simon replied, sounding somewhat proud of himself.
“Why would you trap her like this?”
Simon looked at me, his head cocked slightly. “She would have died otherwise. I had to keep her safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“She was in a breeding camp with her parents,” Simon began to explain. “It was targeted by a nuclear weapon ten years ago and ended up killing everyone in it. Everyone died except for her, and that’s only because I protected her.”
“What made her more important than the other people who were with her?” I asked, feeling a righteous anger for the dead. “Why didn’t you save them all?”
Simon looked at me, taken aback by my reproof.
“It wasn’t their destiny,” he answered. “They had lived out their lives. She hadn’t. She has a lot to do before it’s her time to leave this world.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I just do,” he answered nonchalantly with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Can you…unfreeze her or whatever?”
“Yes.” He smiled at me. “I was just waiting for the right time. Now that you’re here, she’s ready to continue her journey.”
“You almost sound like you were expecting me to come here,” I said. “How do you and Rose seem to know where I’ll be, even before I do?”
“Your quest is important to us. We’re simply doing our part to help you succeed.”
“Succeed in what? Getting to the Southern Kingdom?”
“That…among other things,” he said mysteriously with a nod of certainty.
“I don’t guess you would tell me what these other things are?”
“No, I can’t do that. I can only help when I’m allowed to help. No more.”
“Allowed by who?”
Simon’s smile grew wider. “I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to answer that question.”
“Is there anything you can tell me?” I asked, not bothering to hide my growing agitation.
“Be mindful of things around you,” he cautioned. “Things you might chalk up to being miracles have a far simpler explanation, maybe not quite as easy to believe, but certainly easier to call upon when you need them to happen again.”
“Could you just tell me what you’re talking about instead of just almost saying it?”
Simon laughed. “No, I can’t say much more than that. There are certain things you’ll just have to discover on your own. Although, you should already have a clue to what I’m talking about.”
I saw Simon’s eyes flicker toward Blue and Jace before looking back at me.
“You’re smart,” he said, like he knew me, “figure it out.”
It was obvious I wasn’t going to get a clear answer from Simon, so I focused my attention on the little girl.
“What’s her name?”
“Zoe.”
“She looks like she’s reaching out toward someone.”
“Her mother.” Simon’s voice faltered.
“Will she remember anything?” I asked, looking up at Simon. “Does she know how much time has passed?”
“Somewhat. Her consciousness isn’t in the same stasis as her body. She’s always been aware of her surroundings and things happening around her. But the passage of time has been different for her. A year to Zoe would be like a day to us. To do it any other way would have driven her mad.”
“So, she knows we’re here?”
“Yes, she’s listened to everything we’ve said.”
“She knows that her mother and all the other people she used to know are dead?”
“Yes, she’s known that for quite a while.”
I knelt down in front of Zoe, not wanting to tower over and possibly frighten her when Simon brought her out of the moment she had been frozen in.
“She’ll be extremely hungry for the next few weeks,” Simon informed me.
“Why?” I asked, looking up at him.
“It’ll become apparent.”
Without any warning, Simon and the dome vanished.
Zoe screamed.
When I looked back at her, she was covering her face with her hands, crying. Her knees hit the green grass beneath her as grief overtook her small form. I instantly took off my jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, engulfing her in its warmth. Her small pigtails bobbed, keeping time with each of her heartbreaking sobs.
Jace and Blue walked up to us.
“What happened?” Jace whispered, resting on his knees beside me.
Blue whined and lay down beside Zoe.
I quickly told Jace everything Simon had said to me.
“She was in that thing for ten years?” he asked, pity clear in his voice.
“Yeah, she’s actually as old as I am,” I suddenly realized.
As I sat watching Zoe purge herself of pent up sorrow, I wasn’t sure which one of our lives I would have chosen for myself. Would I have preferred being frozen in time, protected from what the outside world had become, like a princess in a fairy tale? Or the life I had lived, wandering from place to place, doing whatever was necessary to survive? Neither was an ideal existence.
The three of us sat there helplessly as Zoe continued to cry. I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to suddenly find yourself alone, fully realizing your family and friends were long dead.
A few minutes later Zoe’s sobs slowed. She lowered her hands from her tearstained face but didn’t look at us immediately. Blue lowered his head onto her lap and looked up at her with his one amber eye. Tentatively, Zoe started to pet Blue’s fur between his ears. Without moving her head, she raised her dark blue eyes up to look at Jace and me warily.
Silly though it seemed given the situation, I felt as though I should introduce myself.
“Zoe, my name is Skye,” I flicked my eyes in Jace’s direction, “and this is Jace.”
“I know,” she said, raising her head to look at us directly. Her voice was sweet, on
e only the innocent have. “Simon told me you would be coming for me.”
“Oh.” In my talk with Simon, he had never mentioned he knew Jace’s name, but the information didn’t surprise me much. It seemed like he and Rose knew more about us than we did.
“Did he tell you anything else?” I asked, curious to see if Simon might have divulged any important information to Zoe during her ten year sojourn within the dome.
“Only that I could trust you and that you would be my friends.”
“He’s right,” Jace said, his voice a gentle comfort. “You can trust us. We would never do anything to harm you.”
Zoe sniffed, fresh tears glistened in her eyes before her head snapped up like she had just remembered something important.
“We need to get out of here,” she said, scrambling to her feet.
Jace and I both stood.
“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Harvesters.” Zoe looked behind her, fear in her eyes. “They’ve been waiting for the dome to fall. We gotta go before they come back!”
Jace and I ran for our backpacks.
Blue let out a series of warning barks in the direction of the hill we had climbed.
Instinctively, my eyes found the source of Blue’s distress.
Three Harvesters stood at the top of the hill watching us.
CHAPTER SIX
“Take Zoe and run,” Jace said to me in a low voice, keeping his eyes on our unwanted intruders.
“If I leave, they’ll kill you,” I argued.
“If you don’t leave, they’ll kill us all,” he argued back.
I knew he was right. But even if Zoe and I tried to run, we would all most likely be captured or killed by the Harvesters eventually. They were too strong and too fast. We would never make it, even with whatever head start Jace might be able to provide.
“There’s no way you can take on three Harvesters by yourself,” I told Jace.
“I’ll try to hold them off as long as I can,” he replied, ignoring the fact that I was right. “But you’re wasting time standing here.” He looked down at me. “You need to take Zoe and run. Now.”
