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

by T. Wyse

  She woke into the rose coloured world with the abruptness that she had become accustomed to. Her arms and legs still throbbed with exhausted protests, but she tore the blankets away, lest she slip back into the unmitigated dream world.

  “I presume you are awake.” She heard a crackle from the source of the room’s light. “I suppose you are feeling somewhat less blissful this morning?” His purr wasn’t entirely taunting; it had a trace of what must have been regret lingering in his tone.

  She cut through the rose wall, and her bleary eyes locked into an uncertain shadow cutting against the tainted white light of the new day. His figure was demure there, distorted by the swaying blinds, certainly looking more a spiny lizard than any feline she had ever seen.

  “What…” Whether the question was still hers or an echo from the dream she regretfully now remembered in full was irrelevant. The inky discomfort as it flowed out in a whisper was enough that it caught in her throat.

  “Aren’t you…” She cleared the filth away with a gentle cough. “Aren’t you worried about being seen?” She knelt on the floor and crawled to his figure, coming to rest just under him. “Won’t they see you, and realize I’m here?”

  "No," he said with determination. "They know me as much as I do them. If anything seeing me will make them more wary of further investigation. Furthermore, they have no knowledge that we are together."

  “I…” She paused, the black discomfort returning, but no ringing ache accompanied it at least. “I think they might know I’m here,” she whispered. “In the, in the forest I think I saw—”

  “Shhhh. Banish those things from your mind. You are safe, I am here. Do not give it power undue.”

  “But—”

  “We are fine here, at least for now,” he dismissed. “If they knew you were here, it would be obvious within moments I would think. I saw only two this morning, and they didn’t remain once they saw me.”

  "What do we, what should I do?" Her head ached with weight.

  "Stay here." He concluded. "I would be more worried about your fellow humans, should they discover the crops growing here." The shagged face of the cat creature appeared from behind the distorted shadows of the curtain, leaping down onto the floor. "Humanity, especially confused and desperate humanity, is quick to violence, quick to raiding those it sees as more fortunate."

  "You've seen desperate humanity, then?" Her eyes followed the cat-creature's smooth progress across the hardwood floor, he disappeared behind the closed curtain at the foot of the bed.

  "Oh yes." The canopy rustled lightly and he appeared back on the foot of the bed. Amelie made a twitch of nervous surprise. "I've seen enough of these situations to know how your people will act. You think you've come so far, so...civilized." He perched on the end of the bed, bracketed squarely by the bedposts of the open canopy. "Take away the pleasantries, the plumbing, the lights, the distractions, and your people become like cave-dwelling beasts once again."

  "That's not true at all!" Amelie protested. "The people here, are..."

  "The people here aren't hungry, the people here aren't desperate, not yet. A gift of the season is the feeling to prepare, to store just as for winter’s chill" He answered, with a flourishing hiss. "With any amount of fortune you will be sheltered from the ugliness out there in the empty world at the moment, a little princess unknowing of the savagery of her kingdom." He purred with condescension.

  Quick footsteps, fast and light travelled up the hallway, arriving at the door. The sound silenced both of them. There was a quick set of knocks, and then Meldice hurriedly announced, "Breakfast, time to get up!" The footsteps travelled down the hallway a short while, then repeated the words in a muffled form.

  She re-donned her work clothes, once again becoming “Punk,” and she made the trip downstairs, her hunger guiding exhausted limbs with care. There was enough time to trod to the outhouses, and she made the trip with a blurred wariness, letting Kokopelli’s trotting patrol be any alarm.

  When she had returned, and squirmed out of the silted shoes, breakfast had already arrived, and the others had already begun talking amongst themselves. With dragged feet she slid across the floor and slithered into her seat, Roger being the only one to give a quick nod as she arrived beside him.

  The conversation had no real place or acknowledgement of her, and the tired fog prevented her from even following the comforting air again to pass the time. She simply gnawed the fruit and crackers with an empty motion, only really savoring their presence when they were gone from her plate.

  Andrea and Kimberly finished more quickly than the rest, and headed out to the back, one splitting off, taking to the outhouses. Meldice removed the plates, and carried them into the kitchen, past the swinging doors, to where the sounds of her mother cleaning had begun.

  A figure appeared suddenly at the gate, its shape swinging open madly. The figure tore towards the door with such frenzied urgency that Amelie almost spilled out of her chair with a defensive reflex as Andrea burst through. The woman was breathless, and her eyes were frantic, wide with a look of pure astonishment. She braced herself on the widened doorway, breathing heavily.

  "What is it girl?" Roger asked, stepping up cautiously to meet the girl. She was breathless, her lungs sputtering with a frantic sparking glow, only able to motion out past the gate. He kicked into his shoes and silently made a purposed stride out past the gate, a few moments beyond it and the poor gate swung wide again as he tore back into the house.

  He stopped dead at the silted mat, and fumbled with his shoes before simply deciding to shout. "Donna! Donna, get out here!" he bellowed with cupped hands towards the kitchen. A muted refusal came from the closed doors. Meldice glanced out.

  “W-Wait, No!” Meldice reached up to stop him, but he broke the taboo of the floor and trudged on dirty shoes, and with her gaping in shock, tore into the kitchen.

  Meldice raised hands in horror over her mouth as he physically led Donna by hooked arm out to the door. She was flushed red, but somehow wasn’t lashing out like a drenched cat as Amelie would have expected.

  “Oh jeez, this better be something big,” Meldice said, voice trembling. Donna struggled with her shoes after Roger had evidently offered to carry her, but she had shoved him and gave a threatening point before he had paused.

  “W-What is it? Can you see?” Randal rose, leaning on the table, squinting. Karen still sat, palm against face, chewing slowly and in silence.

  Amelie squirmed into her shoes, and both Randal and Karen followed. Oddly, Meldice was the last one out the door, and she held the hem of her dress carefully aloft as she followed behind them.

  “This really better be,” she began, and then was silent.

  Beyond the gate, and admittedly somewhat into the distance where there was an expected void of nothingness, was a blob of green. Flecks of green poked up through the earth in an ever diminishing radius around the far blob.

  “Sprouts?” Randal muttered.

  “No, further along than that.” Meldice leaned awkwardly down, still attempting to keep her dress clean. “These are just immature, they’re quite a long way along. What’s odd, though, is down there.” She gestured where Donna and Roger were standing, their silhouettes motioning furiously.

  “Oh no, don’t,” Meldice muttered, and winced as Donna knelt down repeatedly. “Oh, she’s going to kill him when she realizes.” The girl sighed.

  “Come on, Meldice. It’s a miracle. Can’t you appreciate that?” Randal smiled. With those simple words the tension melted away, and they all looked onto the sprinkled green fields with a silent wonderment. Even now the plantlings nearby pulsed and almost twitched with radiant life.

  Donna returned, and Meldice averted her eyes from the brown halo that the woman’s dress had collected. She walked with jagged steps through the garden’s bloom.

  The two arrived with them, and Andrea and Kim materialized too. Donna leaned on the post with awestruck breath, gazing upon the fenced kingdom beyond.
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  “I’ve never seen anything like this. Never,” she stammered finally. “Never heard of anything like this.” She brushed her forehead, dish gloves still on.

  “I, uh, went and grabbed that box. Remember?” Andrea gripped a handled wooden box, and offered it to Donna. “Is it time?”

  Not even turning to respond, Donna leaned down and dug gently at one of the bold sprouts that had grown outside of the mounds. She scrutinized the bulb and then buried it again.

  “Not yet, not here.” She shook her head. “I will try it on the far plants today. The instructions are still inside, correct?”

  “Y-Yes.” Andrea peeked inside the box.

  “Almost time,” Donna repeated, nodding, and then stared out wordlessly into the dotted green world, the wind tickling at the loosed wisps of her sweaty hair.

  “So it’s good…right?” Amelie’s breath cut through the hushed atmosphere.

  Roger gave a bellowing laugh. “It’s great news, the best news since any of us found this house!” he shouted, his hand clasping her shoulder. “Means more than biscuits and preserves to eat soon!”

  “Now, no good in getting ahead of ourselves,” Mrs. Woolley scolded the man. “Perhaps I won’t have you flayed for dragging me out here though.” She grabbed the case from Andrea and marched back into the house with decided purpose. “Come, Meldice. We have things to finish.”

  Amelie watched the two arrive at the door and make a flurried attempt at beating the soil from the woman’s dress. Thankfully it seemed to peel off willingly enough and coughed a great silt cloud that swirled into the air and tucked out above the house.

  The others filtered out into the fields, and Karen to the outhouse, but Randal stayed beside Amelie. When he was sure everyone was out of earshot, he said with a deliberate restraint to his air: “So, is this a blessing of some kind? Some fertilizing earthen magic?”

  “I don’t know,” Amelie replied, eyes still gazing out into that splotch of tall green trembling in the wind. She glanced over at him and immediately she ached for all the tired desperation she found within them. Surely he would be satisfied with any amount of declaration on her part, the only other speaking witness to the event, but still…

  “I’m sorry,” was all she could offer, before averting her eyes in frustrated shame over to the white cat patrolling the fence.

  "I told her, you know. Donna, that is." he said with nervous confusion. “About the sprouts popping up like that, about the silver stuff. She said I was seeing things.” He chuckled to himself. “I don’t know how nobody noticed until now.”

  “Everyone’s tired,” Amelie offered, and glanced up again, but his gaze was unerringly out into the field now, too.

  “Don’t know what she’ll think. Don’t know what I should think, in all honesty.”

  "I think she's happy, excited even." Amelie smiled at him, hoping this would be reassurance.

  “Yeah, happy,” he muttered, glancing at the outhouses. “For now. Maybe Karen will believe me at least.”

  Amelie watched Kokopelli become a white speck on the fence, feeling a sense of dizzied worry. The vertigo grew as the distance increased, and she wobbled on already unsure feet.

  “Whoa, okay.” Randal’s hand was gently at her back. “Tell you what: today I want you to go easy. I think you went a little too hard yesterday, and in light of all this, I think we can all go a little easier today.”

  “It’s okay, it wasn’t that,” she muttered.

  “Nope.” He shook his head and locked eyes with her, his breath measured and consistent, his lungs glowing pure. “Promise you’ll take it easy.”

  “I…Okay.” She sighed. Karen was nearing them again, and there was no point in struggling against it.

  She was again given her sack of seeds to hug, and they waded out past the miniature jungle of flowering plants to the edge of their workspace. There was wonderful fragrance, but also a hushed stillness, giving it more a sterile museum feeling than any crop she had known.

  The plan was much the same as before, measuring stick and rows of mounds. Donna bobbed in and around the jungle with Andrea in tow, carrying the box under an arm and a parchment that was perpetually open.

  Donna operated some kind of green nozzled device that Amelie’s stolen glances couldn’t tell much about. Randal, despite his earlier urgings, worked about at pace as before, and she felt it inappropriate to interrupt him as he sweated and his lungs burned bright.

  They managed to complete two sets for the morning’s work before the call for lunch resounded.

  Oddly they passed Andrea and Donna on their way to the door. The two were both staring at the parchment again in silence, then Donna tapped the machine gently and it let out a sputtering choking cough before growing still again. This repeated three times before she and Randal broke into the lit room, kicking their shoes off.

  They took their seats into a buzzing excitement among those sitting. The dishes clanked and the hot air swirled inside the kitchen beyond, but it was Meldice’s lonely shape cutting a silhouette.

  The young innkeeper appeared, hair much more unkempt than before and the bow wilting with a haphazard knot. She produced the plates of the usual fare, though the servings were noticeably larger.

  The buzz paused, and the occupants glanced at the two empty spots, Meldice having served her own plate and sat down last.

  “It’s fine, go ahead,” Meldice sighed, staring out the glass at the shape of the two, still pattering with the object.

  They all began, hungry, but all transfixed on the two outside in their repetitious plotting. They didn’t return into the house until Amelie’s plate was half empty, and Donna charged in first muttering, “I think that’s it, I think we’ve got it.” Nodding at those assembled, and for the first time she joined the table in her work clothes.

  “So what is that thing?” Amelie asked Andrea after finishing. Donna had disappeared into the kitchen, finishing first among them.

  “Oh that, it’s…I’m not exactly sure what it is.” Andrea shrugged. “The instructions are pretty, uh, well, they assume some knowledge. They use a lot of language in an odd way, I think it might have been written for the Macca people.”

  “Macca people?” Amelie slid over to a vacant seat by Andrea.

  “It’s a school, Machka…something. It’s a technical high school I think. Roger?”

  “Machka something is about all I remember I’m afraid.” He grinned, still savoring some of the canned fish.

  “Well, it’s a funny place. The lady who brought it here was pretty odd herself. What was her name?” Andrea glanced around.

  “Eunice? I think it started with an E. She didn’t even say it more than once.” He shrugged. “Came and went.”

  “Anyways, they’ve sent some people out to gather and share information and apparently dispense tools. She just happened on the house while heading out east.” Andrea continued, “The thing acts sort of like a pollinator. Usually bugs would do the job, but there aren’t bugs or weeds or anything, so you have to do it by hand. Would be a pretty miserable job but the tube sort of inhales, sifts, and then exhales in directed puffs. So it’s kind of like a vacuum, but with a set of tiny brushes. I barely get it and I’m the one reading the instructions.”

  “In any case, Donna thinks we’ve got it, so fingers crossed, right?” Andrea grinned.

  “We’d better get going, sun’s getting low.” Randal tapped Amelie’s chair, and followed her out. Roger began scooping his rations up faster, being the last one at the table, and by the time they had passed the gate again he was close behind them.

  Amelie saw Donna again in the blob of green, but there was a frenzied deliberation about her movements now. She went row by row, first giving a mark to certain plants among them, and then furiously applying the merrily humming thing to the row, only to return and have it sputter and cough repeatedly on the row once more.

  She returned to the stomping, steeping and planting routine, and was glad to see that t
he lighter mood had passed on to Randal as well. With that lightened feeling the hours of the afternoon slipped by, the ache in her arms only a quiet ring against the hopeful hum.

  “Oh hell,” Randal said, breaking through the happy spell.

  She froze, the limp bag of seeds shifting over and yawning a spill into the earth. She gathered the escapees with a scowl and made a half turn to see what he was looking at.

  “Don’t look. Leave it, just come, now.” He tore over to her, and grabbed her arm to help her move faster, the bag landing hard and spilling out even more.

  She managed to grasp the sight, and froze in her tracks, dragging ruts into the dirt. Four crows lined the fence. Their piercing red eyes regarded her with glowing malevolence, their heads bobbing in robotic chaos linked to one another by some invisible clockwork.

  His face was locked on the four things, and giving them a wide berth, he hoisted her over the fence. Never unlocking his gaze, he leapt over the fence and stood between her and the intruders. He stretched his arms out wide, looking like some foolish scarecrow. “Keep going. Go slow. Just stay behind me.”

  She did, and made sure to keep herself eclipsed. They were still motionless on the fence, though they had turned to face the funny man.

  “I get it, I see them now.” He said, air trembling in his lungs. “Those aren’t…aren’t crows.” They backed away more, passing beyond the wild jungle. “Can you run to the house? Try to stay in the line, but can you get there do you think?”

  “Y-Yes. There’s…only four right?” Where was Kokopelli? Her heart swam. She had seen him during the day, but her attention had primarily been on Donna and that stupid metal tube.

  They passed Roger with the wheelbarrow loaded, and seeing the two of them made him drop the handles. “What is it? Why are you walking like that?”

  Randal still backed up, arms splayed. “Here, stand beside me.”

  The two of them sheltered her, slowly backing up, and they passed slowly beyond the gate.

  “Damnit…damnit go. Go!” Randal screamed. Four new bodies fluttered down and landed on either side of the ornate wall.