Children of the Silent Season (Heartbeat of the World Book 1)

by T. Wyse

  Amelie looked behind them a moment, the contents of the darkened rooms weighing on the back of her mind.

  "Oh." Meldice noticed Amelie's flitting gaze to the left and right. "Dining room," She motioned to the right without looking back. "Sitting room and music room." She motioned to her left again without looking in the direction of the shadowed rooms. "We didn’t use them much." The statement failed to satiate Amelie's somewhat passing curiosity as to their contents.

  They passed through the row of columns, fully into the bright room beyond. The slope of skylights shone as a glass halo to the room. She couldn't help but smile with the overwhelming cheer and hope that the room seemed to radiate. "This is where we take meals." Meldice nodded, sharing a slight smile. "Little early for that yet." She nodded conclusively. "Kitchen, to the right." Meldice motioned, adding a further nod in its direction. "Left goes to the cellar. Consider both off-limits unless instructed otherwise."

  Sounds of busied motion came from the kitchen, of gently clacking plates together.

  “Just mother.” Meldice shrugged. “Just remember: stay out.”

  Meldice’s gentle hand guided Amelie forward, past the kitchen door. The older girl paused at the double doors, however, and peered in. Muffled puffs of words exchanged in inscrutable tones, the clanking not slowing or halting.

  Amelie hobbled over to the glass, but was disappointed by the view. It was a clearer picture than the front hall, and unobscured by any drapery, but that did nothing for the bland nothing that lay outside. The most interesting thing was the squat stone wall, and beyond that a flat plane of blue meeting brown.

  “Not so much now.” Meldice returned to her side, nodding quickly. “But hey, it’s about potential. Imagine a few weeks from now some green, then maybe yellow, then who knows. Let’s go. Should just make it.” The hand again ushered Amelie, this time to the door.

  Amelie halted with the door’s opening, and a great lingering sigh of outside air rushed in, flowing over her. She almost fell to her weakened knees with relief as the inside pressure lessened from her ears, and her oldest friend lapped at her hair like a mother cat.

  “Uh, wow.” Meldice had frozen in place seeing Amelie’s awed relief.

  “Wait, sorry. Could you hold it like that for just…” Amelie paused, reaching out with her sight, and then gently adjusting Meldice’s grip on the door, narrowing the parting ever so slightly. The air’s needled breath blew her hair horizontally before finally settling into a disinterested hiss.

  “Okay, now we can go.” Amelie grinned, and pushed the door open gently, her hair now immaculately straightened.

  “I…wow.” Meldice gaped, staggering behind her a couple steps. There was a white blur of motion as the door closed behind them, and the little cat was again by their side.

  “I wish my hair did that.” Meldice muttered.

  “I wish my hair did that.” Amelie grinned. In the sunlight that subtle sparkle in Meldice’s bangs revealed itself a luminous black-lit purple.

  “Oh, oh, can you still see it?” The girl grabbed at her bangs, still trotting forward on the path. “I thought the black wouldn’t cover it up, but everyone’s too polite to say anything. Ugh.” She sighed. “Yeah, used to be purple till… well, till recently.”

  “Well I can’t dye mine. It just doesn’t work.” Amelie remembered sitting with Victoria acting as a mad alchemist, implements of arcane experimentation all around them. All of the dyes and bleaches and potions and poisons had simply slid off of her hair, leaving it untouched and leaving her host all the more angry with each failure.

  “Fair enough.” There was movement behind them, the sounds of feet. “We’d better get going.”

  There were no new secrets to the back of the house while on foot, but Amelie was so elated to be out and free that she savored every detail. There was a wall here, matching the front, forming some symmetrical rampart around the house, but a simpler gate stood at the back, giving a peek to the world beyond.

  Another fence of cruder and purposeful construction rose taller than the ornamental one. It matched the littler fence’s borders, but stretched so far away in volume that she could only surmise the tiny line of darker brown in the distance was its end.

  There were artifacts and things inside of the white cobbled wall that seemed to indicate a grander state of the backyard. A tiled path formed of broken shale rocks formed a ghostly labyrinth through now completely absent plants. There were old pieces of equipment, both metal and wood, none bearing any obvious methodology or use.

  Her eyes were caught a moment downwards, to the foundations of the house.

  Where neatly laden brick rose above it, the foundation stuck out like teeth jutting displeasingly from the gums. It was made of ugly plaster, darkened by dampness and an apparent aversion to being shown in the sunlight. It was cracked and flawed fundamentally, but it did its job, it supported the illusory house's grandeur above.

  "Used to be hedges covering that up. Pretty and flowering." Meldice mused, seeing Amelie's gaze. "This whole place used to be a garden, one of my mother's hobbies."

  "Are you the painter then?" Amelie asked, following the older girl to the gate.

  "No, that's my mother too." Meldice nodded somberly, opening the gate. "For my required higher art form I play the piano." She made an exaggerated motion of her hands upon keys. Meldice lead Amelie on a trodden down path of silted dirt, leading to the gate.

  Oddly respectful of the borders of the ornamental wall, the wind’s wildness washed over the two of them to Amelie’s delight. Her hair writhed happily, and then settled on a rhythmic, pulsing waveform.

  Footprints in the padded down pathways crisscrossed into a makeshift road, and continued out into the ghostly fields beyond. Bulges of darkened soil rose up between the roads, giving a structured miniature setting of rolling hills and valleys. There were figures too, tiny humans so far away that they were devoid of distinction and colour.

  Towards the back of the borders stood a large barn of sorts. It lay completely in ruin, though it was a more natural ruin than the state of the houses that had been wrecked in the wake of the wave. Beside the barn stood a stand of three small sheds, surely houses for livestock or such. There was a strand of trees that did little to cover up the presence of the three smaller buildings, their foliage having been stripped away.

  "Are those the toilets?" Amelie shaded her eyes, trying to make out the details of the three shacks.

  "Oh?" Meldice caught Amelie's gaze and followed it. "Uh, no." She grabbed Amelie's hand and lead her down the white wall's perimeter, to the left of where they had exited the gate. Kokopelli’s figure followed them prowling on the wall’s top. "No, those aren't toilets." Her voice was strange, disturbed a little. “Those are, um, from when the house was first built, long long time ago.”

  They proceeded to a trinity of deep wooden shacks, much smaller than the ones on the horizon, though strangely more honest.

  "Those are our bathroom facilities." Meldice said with an uncomfortable grimace. "They aren't much, but they're all we've got. The plumbing doesn't work anymore of course, so we had to use dugout holes."

  Amelie headed towards the three sentinel structures, not sure of any reason behind them, or any distinction between. She decided finally, that any of the three would be an equally foul experience, and assigned one at random.

  She was no stranger to the use of facilities like this, having gone on numerous trips with her parents into the tourist wild. The experience was still an ugly one, but it seemed thankfully less overwhelmingly foul than the ones she had known.

  She rejoined Meldice outside, her business concluded. Meldice passed her a wet cloth and a small piece of soap. "Here, use these to clean your hands. It hasn't rained yet, so we have the wells for water." Amelie recalled the stagnant looking pit of water she had seen in the front yard near the playground equipment; not exactly what one might call antiseptic.

  "Do you boil it?" Amelie asked thoughtfully, scrubbing h
er hands. "The water I mean."

  "Oh. No." Meldice answered. "It's a funny thing, that." She replied quickly. "The groundwater's actually completely pure, like mountain spring pure. It's MUDDY, yes, but it's totally safe to drink."

  Amelie looked at the older girl with skepticism.

  "No, really. One of the people that came by, other than mister M’grevor, was a scientist lady. She talked about a group of people in a school that survived. She gave the water a look, had a microscope and everything. It’s totally safe to drink, there isn't any bacteria even."

  "Really?" Amelie asked, looking at the wet cloth. "How many groups are there out there?" She wondered aloud. Kokopelli returned to her side, apparently satisfied with his rudimentary patrol.

  “Like I said: we haven’t met many. She was an early satellite from the school, she was heading out east to meet family. She mentioned the school, and then Mr. M’grevor’s group, then there’s some others at a mill somewhere.” Meldice probed her memory. “You should’ve seen the lady though. She had these things like snowshoes, stomped a path coming and going. She was amazing. I didn’t even get her name.” She sighed.

  They arrived at the gate again, and Meldice stopped her gently.

  "Oh um, I don't think anyone else will recognize you." Meldice said to Amelie's back.

  Amelie stopped, stunned. Kokopelli froze as well. "Recognize me?" Amelie asked.

  "Yeah you're Amelie Beren, that flying girl!" Meldice beamed. "I've always been dying to meet you, I remember all the papers and the television talking about you, how it was like some higher-evolution of the brain and whatnot."

  Amelie recalled the media attention, and betrayed a distasted look. She recalled those stupid television shows, all of the examinations and tests.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," Meldice apparently saw the ugliness in her face, "I guess you get it a lot."

  “No, no, that’s fine. It’s not you.” She nodded, turning to face the girl. “It’s just this next part never goes well.”

  “What part?” Meldice cocked her head.

  “The part where you want to see something for yourself.” Amelie stared at her feet. “It’s just something that I know, that I can understand…”

  “Oh no, it’s okay. I’m happy to take it on faith.” Meldice grinned.

  “I’m sure you’re curious.” Amelie noted the restrained half lie in Meldice’s throat.

  A dirty strand of fabric presented itself on the gate’s hinge, and she plucked it out gently between two fingers. “People think I can…I could…” She tried not to choke on the words before continuing “fly like a bird, but that’s not how it works.” She relaxed herself, and closed her eyes against the sighted world beyond. The labyrinth of currents and gusts, the flow of the entire house entered her perceptions, and in that dinned state she traced her hand carefully to just the right spot, and freed the little string to fly.

  Meldice watched the string twirl and knot itself in the wind, whereupon it gently threaded itself in the left loop of the ribbon in her hair.

  "Hah, wow that was neat." Meldice grinned, giving the string back to her.

  "I didn't direct it to go there, I can't tell the wind where to go, or how fast to go, I can only understand and perceive it and where it will go, when it will change."

  "So it's like just gliding then." Meldice concluded, looking at Amelie with a finality and quizzicality.

  "No, gliding is like..." she thought, trying to remember exactly how she'd explained it, and how the scientists had told her it all worked. "It sort of looks like I can 'control' where I go and where things go, because the wind is so wild and 'infinite'." That was the word, or near-infinite, or something to that effect. "It's about time and place." She concluded.

  "Can you make it go over the roof of the house?" Meldice grinned.

  She again allowed her mind to yawn outwards, tracing the darting and mixing over the roof. “Yes.” She concluded, taking a few steps towards the old wooden fence, and leaning over it, holding the string low to the ground. She released it and it darted and glided, dipping and bobbing about the fence before finally landing in a shooting breeze wherein it was sent tumbling over the roof of the house, and up into the atmosphere beyond.

  "Amazing!" Meldice exclaimed with glee. "Thank you." she smiled sincerely. "Even if they would've recognized you, I don't think anyone would care. Everyone's pretty tired these days, from working the garden." Meldice motioned to the rows of rutted earth.

  Amelie trailed behind Meldice, seeing distorted shapes of movement through the glass. Most of the empty chairs now sat filled with moving bodies. Her steps faltered a moment, but she steeled herself and caught the door before it shut again after Meldice.

  The twelve chairs now sat filled, and the lit room seemed all the brighter for it. Amelie ate a breakfast consisting of tartly sweetened canned fruit and ration biscuits. Kokopelli gnawed contemplatively on a small portion of canned meat, a saucer of mucky water meant to wash it down. It was here that Amelie met the other occupants of the house. The conversation at the table was friendly but mostly constrained to the introductions between them. Each offered Amelie a short introduction and a quick explanation of how they had arrived to be guests at the house.

  There was a single married couple, Amelie recognized them both from the day at the underpass. The husband, Randal, seemed fairly collected and rational. His wife, Karen, participated in the conversation, but regarded Amelie with a kind of subtle and irritated suspicion that she did little to conceal. Randal had given a knowing nod to her when she had joined the table, but she felt it would be a potentially stinging topic to ask what had happened after her recollection ended.

  Randal claimed to have been an accountant, Karen a data entry clerk at the same firm. They mentioned only that they followed M'grevor through the sands, and had arrived two days earlier, with Amelie. There was something in the way he had ended his story, heightened in the way Karen regarded her that hinted at some concealed and further truth.

  There was a pair of college-aged girls, introducing themselves as Andrea and Kimberly. They were both 'general' students at a college about an hour's drive from Amelie's hometown. They had been driving in a side street of a small farming town when the wave had hit. Seeing the wall coming, they had taken shelter by breaking into a musty old general store, long since closed. They had hid in the storage basement of the place, and when they returned topside, they found the entire structure of the store gone, including everything around them.

  They had taken all of the supplies they could carry, including some hiking bags, and had set off into the unknown, not entirely knowing what to look for. Their car had disappeared along with the town. They had found Donna's house purely by chance close to the end of the day, and had been welcomed as guests.

  The two women both seemed strangely chipper, brimming with optimistic excitement about the state of the crops. They had apparently been the earliest risers of the bunch, and most dedicated to the work ahead.

  There was also a single, older, man, Roger. He was an elder, perhaps older than sixty, yet had a determined strength to him, and twinkling pale green eyes. He was a retired building engineer. He was the most forthcoming with talk about his life previous, sparing seemingly few details into the construction projects he had been involved in.

  He had been chaperoning for his grandson's field trip, to a historic town located in the subtleties of the countryside. He had lingered a moment, in a mill that seemed strangely out of place, and the wave had hit. He confessed that he was simply dumbfounded and unknowing as to what had happened, and still was inconclusive as to the events that had led him here. He had searched the area in an ever increasing circle, then had spent the night, a terrible night he added, inside the structure of the old stoned mill. He had resolved after that night that he would locate others, even if it meant abandoning his futile search. He had followed foot tracks in the soil to this house, and had arrived the day after the wave.

  There was Mrs. Woolley,
and Meldice of course. Something which had caught Amelie's eye early on was that they both wore dresses of surreal formality, having changed from the clothes they had worn earlier. Both had straightened their hair, and had the appearance of being completely washed. They were a stark contrast, with their sparkling clean, billowing dresses, to the other occupants at the table.

  The others all had clean faces and hands, and about half of them seemed to make an effort to look as sane and collected as possible, but their clothes were in filthy disrepair when compared to the two hosts. The formality didn't bother anyone, and Amelie thought best not to mention it. If anything it seemed to help brighten the expressions of those at the table.

  Everyone responded to their hosts with smiling demeanor, especially Roger, who was delighted with Meldice's sunny disposition. The exception was Karen, who retained a dour sullenness, offering only passing replies when probed.

  Amelie relaxed in her chair, the fruit and crackers quickly finished, and she closed her eyes and simply observed. She followed their tones and breaths, their laughter resonating in their lungs as they shared their words. She let herself melt into nothingness, the language a refreshing mist upon her face, as she observed them. Alone and never alone, her woolen socks barely gracing the floor.

  Meldice rose first and began collecting plates in a stack, the conversation still lively but ever alien to Amelie. She rose, thinking to begin help where she could, and finding no place in the words around her.

  “No, don’t worry about it.” Meldice moved in to block Amelie’s chair from releasing her.

  “I should try. I can carry stuff from here to there.” Amelie muttered, Meldice leaning in close, the stack of plates trembling in her hands.

  “I told you before: don’t go in the kitchen. She barely trusts me in there, and she’ll tear your skin off if you go in there and break something.”

  “I just want to help.” Amelie yawned her eyes wide and met Meldice’s gaze.