by Jason Letts
Her voice rose and she stepped closer to him. The frustration and the ridiculousness of it revolted her. But being so bold had its price though, and a terrible softness in his eyes warned her it was coming.
“Well, if you can’t do it then it looks like we won’t be needing you anymore. Why don’t you just pack up your things and leave? I’ll tell the gatekeeper to wave you through. Are you sure you can’t help us?” Smirking, he cleared the way to the door.
Mira brought her suddenly demure eyes to the floor, receding into herself until she felt as fragile as a glass vase. His terrible meaning was all too clear to her.
“No, I can do it. I just need a little more time is all,” she whispered, slinking back and bumping into her chair.
“Are you sure?” Crimshaw gloated, smiling. “Your parents will be very happy to hear that. They’re counting on you, Mira, counting on you to get this job done for us. This work, it looks like you’re building a ship, but what you’re really doing is holding their lives in your hands. They’re out there, waiting for you, aren’t they?”
Crimshaw sidled up to a shelf and peered into a small glass case. It was a snow globe with mist swirling about inside. A small bottle with some liquid sat next to it. Together, they contained the powers of her parents and were her only proof that they lived. Tapping on the globe, he drove his point home to Mira.
“I’ll make the revisions, just leave them alone!” she begged, slinking back in her chair.
“There’s no time like the present. Better get to work on it,” he sniped, heading for the exit.
When he shut the door behind him, the only light in the room came from a hole in the ceiling. A tree branch swayed over it in the sea breeze, creating shifting shapes in the light on Mira’s desk. She sat there feeling dejected, torn, and confused. Of all the awful things she thought fighting could bring her, she never thought she would be forced to help the one she set out to vanquish.
Putting her hand to her forehead, a few deep breaths helped her calm down. She couldn’t figure out how all of her hopes had led her to such an insufferable nightmare. Which of her decisions chained her to this chair? Vowing to fight on after the fall of the Shade army, yearning to become class leader, or wanting to escape from Cloud Cottage and the walls of mist in the first place?
Maybe she had never had any control at all. What if they had all just been bounced around with no meaning or purpose behind any of it? Cities and towns had been destroyed, the lives of her friends came to a swift, brutal end, and her family had grown even further apart. After she had set out with the one intention of reuniting them, she had managed to only splinter and tear at their bonds with sickening precision.
The last time she saw her parents, they disparaged her and attacked her under the Warlord’s influence. He stoked their resentment, which had already existed somewhere under the surface. The last time she saw her sister, she was writhing in agony under the assault of a distant tormenter. Just when Clara finally discovered she didn’t have to be an agent of destruction, because someone still believed she could be a force of good, it all got taken away. Now fighting for her family meant helping the one who divided them, and she would do so even as their anguished cries echoed in her mind.
“Mira.” The sound of her name seemed to slip from her memories and tickle her ear anew. Blinking heavily, she thought she’d gotten too entangled in thoughts of the past and decided to shrug it off and get back to work.
“Mira.” It came again, and this time Mira was sure she hadn’t imagined it. This whisper, haunting and melodic, called to her. Looking around, she was still perfectly alone in her room.
Giving up on it, she set her face into her palm and turned to the papers lying on the desk. As she reached over to pull them closer, she noticed the light twisting in front of her. The shadow of the branch rocking back and forth seemed to catch on something and distort it. The lingering, stretching shadows washed amongst those of the branches, and only after staring hard for a few moments did she realize that they composed a face.
Caught in an endless gasp, the daze and the wonder at what she saw wiped her mind clean. She could see the eyes drowsily hiding amongst the shadows and the mouth whispering her name. The face looked a lot like hers but wasn’t.
“Clara, is that you? Hello? Are you alive?” she asked, begging for a response.
“Mira, I been lookin’ for ya. So long. So weak.”
Mira didn’t know what to say next. Should she apologize or ask questions about her location? Then one thought struck her that seemed to trump all others.
“You came to me twice before like this. I thought you wanted me to find you, but then you attacked me when I did. Why did you do that?” she asked.
“That itty part still missed my family. You believed it was there even when I didn’t.”
From just these few words, Mira started to get a sense of what happened. She knew Clara’s power was to create a mental projection, an image of herself she could send out into the world. But the Warlord had never been able to completely squelch the part of her that remembered where she belonged. It had taken nearly all of her focus to create the sharp tip of her sword, the only part or her that was physically tangible, but at times there was a tiny bit left over for the part that wanted to reach out. That’s when Mira had seen her.
“I wished I…” Clara went on, but Mira had already succumbed to a wave of guilt for her question.
“No, Clara, I’m sorry. It’s not right of me to be dredging up that stuff now. I just feel so bad for what happened to you because of me. You were being beaten and we couldn’t do anything about it,” she said, her eyes welling up.
“Ehh, this body don’t mean a hill of beans to me. It’s only what comes outta your noggin’ that counts. Don’t worry yourself none ’bout it. Ain’t nobody can hold me down,” the face in the drifting light said, though it lacked conviction.
Mira saw Clara smile faintly, and she felt even more emotional because of it. This was the first time she’d spoken to her sister not as an enemy but as a friend.
“So tell me where you are. How is it you’re able to talk to me now?” Mira asked, absorbed.
“I don’t rightly know where I am. In a cave somewheres. But the blonde came and I started to get my head back,” Clara drawled.
“Wait, blonde? What blonde?”
“Your buddy, the blonde. With the, you know, spinny hair.”
Putting her hand to her open mouth, Mira couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“You mean Roselyn? We watched her die. How did she find you? What happened to her? Are Mary and Will there too? What did she tell you?”
Mira reeled off her questions so rapidly she wondered if her dazed sister would be able to catch them all. But as it turned out, Clara couldn’t answer any of them.
“Don’t ask me! The girl ain’t said a darn thing yet. I reckon she can’t.”
“You’re kidding!” Mira blurted, blown back in her chair.
Mira thought the others had to know about this immediately. Finding out Roselyn was still alive would be completely unbelievable. And yet she couldn’t fathom how it had worked out this way. The Warlord had taken his hand to Roselyn just like he did to Rowland, and yet somehow she had survived.
“Hello?” Clara asked, annoyed.
“It must’ve been the rockets! They weakened him just enough to take her voice but not her life. Gosh, what a terrible loss for her. The two were one and the same. You’ve got to tell her though. Tell her about where we are. Chucky, Aoi, Vern, and I are trapped in a slave camp by the seacoast. There’s some sort of ship being built for the Warlord. We don’t really know what’s going on. You have to tell her.”
“I’ll take a crack at it,” Clara mumbled.
“Do you think you’ll see her again?” Mira asked.
“I see her everyday. She brings me food and throws their drugs in the stream.”
“Wait, you’re sick or they’re drugging you?” Mira asked, getting con
fused. “Can you leave your cave? If you could come help us, we could find our parents! No wait, I think I hear someone coming!”
A deathly ill feeling struck Mira as she heard footsteps outside the door. If Crimshaw had been listening in on their conversation, there’s no telling the trouble she could be in. Frozen, she listened to the footsteps plodding closer until the door flew open.
Chucky came in and hid behind the door, swinging it closed without a sound. He seemed on edge, and Mira had to worry about what brought him here. Glancing quickly, she noticed the face of her sister in the shadows and light had vanished. She had revealed so much though, and now Mira felt the pounding impulse to get everyone together to tell them.
Turning to her, Chucky had the same kind of heart-pounding excitement. He rushed over to her spot on the desk, his face caught between joy and terror. His shaking hands told her how nervous he was too, and his eyes said it was about what was happening right then with her.
“What’s going on? Why are you here?” she asked.
Without a word, he reached into his pocket, which looked soggy and slimy. Pulling it back out, he cupped something, and oil dribbled in between his fingers. Mira watched him open his hand on the corner of the desk and move it to reveal a strawberry hidden within a slick glob of amber goop. The smile on his face radiated exuberance.
“I took it from the farm, Mira! I could’ve sworn I was going to get caught, and you have no idea how scared I was, but the farm master just let me through. Who ever thought this oil would actually come in handy for something? Can you believe it?” he stammered.
“Wow, Chucky, oh this is so great! And I believe I was the one who thought it would be good for something, if I remember correctly. What a relief this’ll be if we can turn it into a regular thing.”
Chucky swallowed hard at her last point while Mira held up the strawberry and tried to wipe away some of the oil. A quick glance at Chucky told her he still felt apprehensive, and it wasn’t hard for her to guess why. Even though he had grown stronger, in some ways he still held those shy tendencies from when she first met him.
“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll be able to keep it up as long as you’re careful. Will we even be able to eat this thing though after we get the oil off of it? Maybe we’ll have to cut around the outsides or something. I think this would work much better with a banana or something where we can peel away the outside,” she babbled, inspecting the fruit, only now giving a quick look back to Chucky, who didn’t look quite so happy. “But this is amazing though. You did an incredible job. This is going to help us so much.”
The biggest smile she could produce seemed to do little to put the life back in his cheeks. Mira was thinking about what sort of chemical structure the oil had and how much of it would seep into the fruit. She looked at it hard.
“It was a present for you,” he said, rocking back and forth a little bit.
“Thanks, that’s very thoughtful. You’ll never guess what just happened to me though.”
She couldn’t contain her excitement, wishing she could tell the three of them about Roselyn and her sister right away. How could she get them together the fastest? These papers could wait until the next workday anyway, and so she started to put them away.
“Actually I’ve got something to tell you too,” Chucky began. “I’ve been meaning to for a long time, but I just never knew how. But things just seem so bad, and what if something happens to one of us? I see Vern and Aoi, and it makes me think. Well anyway, I just need you to know something in case we don’t make it out of here.”
Mira finished packing the papers into a drawer and she suddenly popped up to look him in the eyes. She had moved closer to him on her way to the door. He swallowed hard and took a stilted, wheezing breath.
“I love you,” he said.
“Aww, that’s so sweet. I love you guys too. We’re all in this together! Now come on, I’ve got a big announcement!”
She moved around him and had her hand on the door. Pulling it open, she gestured to him to follow. By the time she’d started to scamper away, Chucky had only made it to the entrance. Before leaving, he looked back at the small workspace and the abandoned strawberry sitting in oil on the desk.
Racing through the camp, Mira could hear Chucky’s feet plodding along behind. She cruised along the sandy path past forlorn looking inhabitants in front of shabby structures. The thought of telling her friends about all these new developments spurred her on, and for a moment she felt as carefree as when she used to run through the woods behind Cloud Cottage.
Slipping into some brush, she came upon Vika in her backyard. She was sewing in the sun with her ever-present children around her. Knoll, the latest edition to her family, was sleeping under the awning. His handmade wooden crib looked as much like a cell or a cage for an animal. Knowing better than to waste her breath by hollering from far away, Mira came right up to Vika and got her attention.
“Do you know where Vern and Aoi are?” she asked.
“They’re inside patching my wall,” Vika replied, catching Mira’s infectious smile.
“That shouldn’t have taken very long,” Mira added, already moving toward the back door. Chucky emerged from the brush and swooped in right behind her on her way in. Their eyes caught the infant, who seemed to get bigger by the day. The crib wouldn’t hold him for much longer.
Smiling brightly as she pushed through the door, it dropped off her face when she saw Vern and Aoi quickly pull away from each other.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Mira stopped abruptly, feeling embarrassed she had caught them kissing. Chucky bumped into her from behind, forcing her to enter the room.
“We weren’t expecting you,” Vern said, clearing his throat.
He sat close to Aoi on a bench set against the wall. Blushing, she couldn’t bear to look at them yet.
“I know. It’s just that something incredible happened and we had to come and find you,” Mira explained.
“What is it?” Vern asked.
Aoi slowly brought her eyes to Mira’s while Chucky slumped into a chair at the table and set his head in his hand. Mira stood still for a moment, searching for the right way to proceed.
“Chucky found a way to steal food from the farm! He covers it in his oil, allowing him to slip it past the guards.”
“Yes!” Vern sighed, expressing unfathomable relief. He sprung from his seat and drifted into the table’s other chair, slapping Chucky on the back with joyous laughter. “I knew you’d come through for us. Look at that, things are starting to look up around here!”
“It was only a strawberry, but now we know it works he should be able to smuggle more stuff. I’ve got to say I’m impressed,” Mira added.
A smile crept onto Chucky’s lips from the attention. He lightened up, shrugging and trying to down play their praise.
“Thanks, but it was just a lucky guess. I’ll do my best to see what I can get out of there, but I can’t guarantee it’ll even be an everyday thing. Don’t think we’ll be gorging ourselves like pigs at the trough,” he added.
Even though her announcement seemed like a godsend, Mira could tell when her friends noticed she was still standing in front of them.
“Actually that’s not all, not nearly. Something just happened that I couldn’t have dreamed of. It’s like one of those things you wish for so bad and then it happens and everything just seems to fit together better and make a little more sense.”
“Well, what is it?” Vern asked impatiently.
“I spoke to my sister today. She came to me through the light on my desk and told me she’s out there somewhere in a cave. They’d been drugging her, but someone came to help her.”
“That’s incredible,” Aoi smiled.
“I knew people were out there still trying to put up a fight,” Vern added.
“But the one who found her wasn’t just anyone. It was Roselyn.”
“No way!” Chucky roared, his jaw on the floor. Vern’s eyes looked like they would pop out of h
is head, and Aoi rose to her feet.
“Really? Do you really know for sure she’s still alive?” Aoi asked Mira.
“I watched her die,” Vern nodded.
“Clara recognized her from when she fought against us. She knows exactly who she is. But there’s something else too. Roselyn can’t speak now,” Mira explained.
“What is Roselyn without her voice?” Aoi sulked.
“Whoa, just give me a minute to let this sink in,” Vern stammered, leaning back in the chair and rubbing his face with his hands. Chucky, misty-eyed, just stared blankly at the table.
“But they’re together? Wherever your sister and Roselyn are, they’re together. What about Mary and Will? Are they OK?” Vern went on.
“Clara has no idea. I just hope she comes and finds me again soon. There are so many more questions I have to ask her.”
“I hope they can hold on long enough for us to get to them,” Chucky added.
Vern, starting to get frustrated, got up from his seat and took a step before turning back to his friends.
“There’s got to be something we can do now. We can’t still be stuck! I mean, Clara was the Warlord’s second in command. She must be able to tell us something about how we can get to them. Or better yet, maybe she knows some weakness about him we could use! I can’t be wrong here, right?”
“I’ll have to ask her,” Mira stammered as Vika carried Knoll inside the hut. For Mira, thinking about the Warlord always took some of the wind out of her sails. She couldn’t believe there wasn’t a way to defeat him, and yet his power and his army of the corrupted made him too strong. Catching the long looks on her friends’ faces, Mira realized how these fantastic revelations only made it harder to be here in this pitiful trap.
“Sometimes I think about that moment when we were so close to him,” Aoi began. “When I stare off into space or just lose focus for a moment, the Warlord’s right there in front of me, crippled from the rockets, his clothing shredded away, but the same raging look on his face. There must’ve been something I could’ve done, but I didn’t and now we’re here.
