Aster Wood and the Child of Elyso (Book 4)

by J B Cantwell

  I tried to clear my own mind, tried to feel within me some sense of what was going on back on Aeso. Had there been any more battles? Was what remained of Stonemore’s population able to remain hidden, as Kiron had hoped?

  “Aster?” Cait’s voice was small and lonely on the other side of the couch.

  “Yeah?”

  “How long until I can see Rhainn-y?”

  I didn’t answer, didn’t know what to say. I might not be able to feel what was happening a universe away, but I could feel the pain and loneliness in the little girl on the other end of the sofa.

  Finally, I made an attempt to answer.

  “Soon, I think,” I said. “We’re going to find my dad. He has the gold we need. When we get it from him, we can all go back to Aeso together.”

  She laid quietly for a time, and I could tell she was turning over my words in her head. Finally, she responded.

  “I don’t want to go back to Aeso. Can you bring Rhainn-y back here? It’s safer here.”

  Now it was my turn to be silent. The truth was, I didn’t even know for sure if Rhainn was still alive. Though a part of me felt certain that he must be, that the Coyle and the Corentin must have realized that he was someone of importance to me. The good feelings that had made me feel so settled since coming into this falling down house suddenly evaporated as I imagined what uses they might put Rhainn to. To torment me. To hurt me. A prize I desperately wanted to their minds. An innocent kid I had promised to save to my mind.

  “I think the best thing for now is that we all stick together,” I said. Now that I was back with my family, I was starting to feel like I would never want to leave them again. I wondered what it would be like for them, landing on Aeso and facing the evil I knew awaited me. “But you’re right, it is dangerous. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” My eyes had slowly adjusted to the darkness, and the walls of the room, the trappings of a once safe life, started to come into view. “But listen. If it ends up that you have to come back with me, I’ll hide you. Remember like how I hid you in that little cave? You were safe there, right?”

  I could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “That was where I met Lissa and the cat.”

  I laughed. Pahana, the largest panther I’d ever seen, full of more magic than any other animal I had ever come into contact with, Cait simply referred to as a “cat.”

  “Yes,” I said. “If you end up coming back with me, we’ll hide you again.”

  “With Lissa?” she asked, and I was surprised by the hunger in her voice. I had always thought Larissa to be abrupt and terse.

  “Sure, if that’s what you want.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  We didn’t talk again, and eventually I heard her breath become even and soft as she faded into sleep.

  But I didn’t.

  The conversation had reminded me of my purpose here, to find the gold and then return as soon as possible. And I hadn’t counted on having to face my father to do so.

  Now it was his face that floated in the darkness above me, and hope combined with fear to swirl around in my stomach. It seemed like every step I took closer to him, I understood him less and less, and the desire I felt to see him again fought with the alarm bells going off in my head.

  What would it be like, coming face to face? Would he be happy to see me? Or would he treat me like he had treated Grandma, brushing me aside as he went about his business?

  I tried to imagine each scenario, prepare for how I might feel if any of those things happened, but then I realized that nothing would satisfy me. There was nothing he could do to make up for the rejection I had felt for so many years. But if he walked away from me again, proving me right wouldn’t help me, either.

  And then there was the other question, the newest one on the long list of things I wanted to learn the answers to.

  Why had he hidden the map in the attic?

  The sound of pattering rain started up again, and for a moment I looked around the room, half-expecting to see it pouring in. But as the deluge intensified, the structure stood strong, enough to protect us for the night, at least.

  Suddenly, I felt like I understood a part of Jade I hadn’t previously considered. She had wanted so desperately for Almara to comfort her, to take away all the misery in her heart that his own actions had created. But he hadn’t been able to do that. At the very end, the way he looked at her before he leapt into the chasm, maybe he had understood. Maybe he had recognized both her and the mistakes he had made that had affected her so deeply.

  Almara was gone now, and she would never know. She would never feel the closure of understanding his mind. She would never know if the man who leapt to his death did it to save his daughter, or if he had done it to stifle, once and for all, the dominating voices of his madness.

  As I finally started to fall asleep, I wondered if I might get the chance that Jade had lost when Almara had leapt to his death. Maybe, when I finally found my father, I would know for certain whether he was truly insane. And if he would see me, as Almara had seemingly seen Jade in those last moments, as someone worth fighting for.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Noooo!”

  I startled awake, staring around through a haze of sleep. The morning light came down through the opening in the staircase, a wide shaft shining into the dark basement.

  Cait was breathing hard at the other end of the couch, gripped in what must have been a terrifying dream. Mom and Grandma were nowhere to be seen.

  I sat up, grabbing one of her feet, trying to shake her awake, free her from her nightmare.

  “No! Rhainn!” she yelled, her eyes squeezed shut.

  She sat bolt upright, her fists clenching the rough blanket. She stared around in a panic, searching for her imaginary pursuer.

  “It’s okay,” I said, patting her leg. “It was just a dream.”

  But my words weren’t enough, and her eyes stared through me in a daze. She backed up against the armrest of the couch, clutching the blanket up to her chest as if I were about to attack.

  “Cait, it’s me. It’s Aster.”

  A flicker of recognition flashed across her face, but the fear was too great, and it snuffed out the light. She opened her mouth and screamed.

  “No!” I said, moving towards her. But my approach only made things worse. “Cait, it’s just me!” Her screams were so loud I wasn’t sure if she could hear me at all.

  Mom thundered down the staircase. She stopped at the bottom, staring.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  I shrugged and started to answer, but she ignored me and raced over to Cait.

  “Honey, honey,” she cooed.

  She moved around and sat on the couch facing her, her hands on her shoulders. Cait fought, tried to get away, her howls of fear only intensifying.

  “Hey, now,” Mom said. I was impressed she was able to stay so calm. My own heart was pounding about a thousand times a second. She wrapped her arms around Cait and pulled her close. “Everything’s okay.” Cait struggled against her grip, fighting for release. But Mom didn’t falter. “You’re safe here, honey,” she went on. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

  Slowly, Cait settled. I got up from the couch, still alarmed and wanting to help, but feeling useless. Mom gave me a look, not of rebuke, but of confusion.

  “What happened?” she asked again.

  “It was a nightmare, I think.” My voice was winded, and I realized I was panting. I tried to slow my breath, to calm myself down. Cait had been looking at me as if I’d been the devil himself.

  As her screaming ebbed and her breathing started to slow, the tears began. Soon she was sobbing like a baby in my mother’s arms. Mom tucked her chin over Cait’s head and slowly rocked her back and forth.

  “It’s okay now, baby,” she said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  I was amazed. How did Mom always know how to calm people down? I had tried to copy her, had traces of her within me as I had tra
veled with Jade and Rhainn and Cait. But just now, when I had been in a real panic, I had frozen up, unable to be of any help to anyone.

  As my own breathing calmed, I knelt down beside them, putting one hand on Cait’s back.

  “Cait?”

  Her sad blue eyes peeked out at me, but she immediately buried her face again.

  “Cait, what happened?” I asked.

  But whatever she had dreamed about had been too much for her. She melted into Mom, refusing to face me.

  My heart clenched in my chest, hurt by her rejection.

  What had she dreamt of?

  Eventually, when it became clear that calming Cait was going to take a while, Mom looked up.

  “Why don’t you head upstairs with Grandma?” she said. “She’s got some breakfast up there.” She looked back down at the still trembling girl in her arms. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll take care of her.”

  I felt, oddly, that I had done something wrong. No, not just something wrong. Something terrible. Yet I had done nothing at all except fight back my own nightmares as the night had dragged on.

  I turned, defeated, and headed towards the stairs.

  Grandma was waiting at the top.

  “What’s going on down there?” she asked as I made my way up.

  “Nightmare,” I said, my eyes on my feet. I didn’t want to talk about it, but not just because I hadn’t been able to calm her myself.

  It had been the way she had looked at me. With terror.

  “Must have been some nightmare,” she said as I brushed past her.

  “Yeah,” was all I said.

  The kitchen, where yesterday it had been a disaster of corrosion and debris, was now unrecognizable. I stopped, staring.

  “Your ma,” Grandma said. “Chalk it up to nervous energy.”

  Mom had cleared off the debris from the kitchen counter and scrubbed it until it practically shone in the morning light. As I sat down on the single, half-broken stool, I could have been in any other suburban house. Except, of course, for the fact that the roof was missing over our heads. The sky above was clear and bright, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the knowledge that we would be traveling without the threat of rain, at least for a little while. That was one less thing Cait would have to worry about after the night she had had.

  Laid out across the counter were a variety of breakfast options, all government issue. Grandma had survived so long out in the country mostly because she was able to grow much of her own food, and had developed a system for water purification that kept her independent. But she was still entitled to government rations just like every other citizen. Occasionally, the trucks would come through the countryside on their way between cities. As they made their way, the drivers all had a list of places to stop, smaller townships where there had been a few holdouts, people unwilling to give up everything in exchange from the protection the great buildings offered. My guess was that they had to make fewer and fewer stops as the years had gone by, but they were still willing to leave their boxes for Grandma at the end of the long gravel drive that led to the farm.

  I had never eaten these with Grandma before; she had always cooked fresh food from scratch. She must have saved these rations up over the years, perfectly preserved in their foil-lined packaging. I sat down to a plate of sausage and eggs, with a side of freeze-dried berries for dessert. Meat was uncommon in the city, though not unheard of. Still, I was glad to have the sausage, and I vaguely wondered if it was actually a vegetable protein made to look and taste like meat.

  In the city we ate a combination of foods like these, which were brought in from big factories that surrounded the most densely populated areas, and the fresh food produced by the growing towers that lined our streets. Every inch of the buildings that wasn’t glass was covered with a solar film that took in the energy of the sun during the day and pumped it back through the interior systems at night, keeping the crops lit for twenty four hours straight. I had once taken a school field trip inside one of the massive buildings to learn about how our food was grown, and I had been astounded by the labyrinth of hydroponic tubes that seemed to stretch for miles in a twisted mass. Tomatoes. Strawberries. Floor after floor of salad greens and soybeans. And all of it protected from the rain and the pollution of the outside world.

  The towers were our lives. Without them, the entire population would starve. It used to be that the higher up you lived in a building, the wealthier you had to be. But no longer. Now, the tall buildings that had once housed banks and businesses and penthouses were all designated for growing food, and the people lived in the shade down below.

  Grandma finished up her own breakfast as I was starting mine, and I watched her draw out a towel from the back of a drawer and start cleaning her plate with it. Then, as if she were tidying up back home, she opened one of the few standing cabinets and stacked it neatly where she had found it. She turned back with the towel and began wiping the crumbs she had created off the counter. When she glanced up to check that I was eating, she caught my eye, realizing I had been watching her.

  “You never know,” she said, shrugging. “May as well not trash the place just because we stayed here a night. Could be some other traveler needs these things again someday.”

  She had a point, and yet the chances of such a situation ever occurring again in the future were so slim I still wondered what compelled her to do it. I guess it was just her habits, ingrained within her after so many decades of performing the same actions again and again, no matter the circumstances.

  The stairs creaked and I whipped around in my seat. Mom had Cait’s hand in hers, and Cait’s eyes darted around the room as her head cleared the banister. When she saw me, she froze. Mom leaned down, whispering to her, and whatever she said must have convinced her, because she started climbing again.

  I slid out of my seat, taking my plate to the other end of the counter and leaving the space open for Cait to sit down. She climbed up on the rungs of the chair and sat, refusing to look me in the eye.

  Grandma looked back and forth between the two of us, her confusion returning.

  “There,” Mom said, breathing an audible sigh of relief. I got the impression it had been no easy feat to convince Cait to accompany her back into my presence. “Cathy, can you get Cait a plate of food?”

  Grandma seemed to shake herself out of her thoughts, and a moment later Cait was presented with the same breakfast I had been. Grandma didn’t ask further questions, which I was grateful for. Instead, she directed the conversation elsewhere, leaning back against the far counter and sipping from a mug of what had to be government issue coffee.

  “We’re about four hours out, I’d say,” she said.

  Mom nodded, taking the last little bit of sausage from the serving plate and popping it into her mouth. She eyeballed Cait.

  “Do you want the first shift or shall I take it?” Grandma asked, trying again.

  “I’ll drive,” Mom said, chewing thoughtfully. “I remember the way. It wasn’t that long ago that I came through here.”

  That’s right. Mom had been through Denver just a few months back, searching for Dad

  “How did you find him anyways?” I asked. “The first time.”

  Her gaze shifted from Cait’s face to mine.

  “It was his old friend from college, Duncan,” she said. “You never knew him, but he worked for many years with your father. Occasionally, he and I would touch base, trade information about Jack and you. Jack would sometimes turn up to see Duncan, always without warning, so we tried to stay in touch in case he came through. Always wanted to keep him updated.”

  I knew Mom must have always hoped that, if she were able to get information to Dad about my condition, that he might return. That the idea of his sick son, battling against disease without him by his side, would be enough to put him back on track. Back on his meds. Back to reality.

  But, of course, he never had shown up. Not to check on me. Not to inquire. I guessed that whatever inf
ormation this Duncan had been passing along to Dad through the years hadn’t made a dent in his resolve to stay away.

  “Duncan always knew where to find your father, better than anyone else at least,” she continued. “He told me that Jack had settled above Denver in an abandoned house. Though why anyone would ever choose to live at that elevation is beyond me. He would only return on occasion to take his collected rations.”

  I thought about this as I picked at my eggs. I had never known where Dad had gone, only that he wasn’t with us anymore. Now that I found out he had been living in Denver all this time, his behavior made even less sense. It was crazy of him to stay in Denver. It was right at the altitude where the majority of the poisoned atmosphere had settled, like a fog of smog that had hung right around five thousand feet for the past thirty years. The city itself had been abandoned long ago.

  So why would he stay? Why choose a ghost town to make your home in? And it wasn’t only a ghost town. It was a place that would eventually kill him as the toxins in the air slowly built up in his system.

  It didn’t make any sense.

  After it became clear that Cait had little intention of eating, Mom cleared away the food and finished the tidying Grandma had begun, so that when we were ready to leave the place fifteen minutes later, it was as clean as it had been in probably thirty years. Grandma led the way as we stepped out into the morning, ready to move on.

  The neighborhood was even spookier during the day than it had been at night, and immediately my skin began tingling with nerves. The crumbling houses, once the homes of countless citizens, now looked as though a bomb had gone off nearby. Walls were eroded after years of rain exposure. Roofs were collapsed in almost every case. The street was cracked and littered with potholes, and not a single blade of vegetation remained among the once-tended garden beds.