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

by T. Wyse

  Crow remained silent, but her head swayed slightly. Her mouth and nose bore crisper lines, the cloak pulled away more from her neck.

  “You can see all of this, I take it?”

  Crow remained silent, arms still clasped and unseen, but her head cocked ever so slightly.

  “Maybe it all means that we can do this peacefully.” She stole an aching glance at the glyphs again.

  “Peace.” The creature hissed the familiar red cloud. A deeper, earthen tone dripped from the cloud like drizzle.

  “Need. You.” Crow began to point, but Amelie gave a quick wave, which stopped her.

  “Yes, I get that. Believe me, I get that.” She tried to find the explanation of Aspects in the glyphic notes, but the chaos still ached against her brain.

  “Come.” Crow waved her hands out in front of her, revealing tiny but fully fleshed hands. “Rules. Come. Feed.” The three words burst out in three coughing clouds, a quickened and gasping desperation and excitement tinging them.

  “No. I’m trying to say, I think…I think there must be another way. I don’t know why you chose me from all of this, but…”

  “Chose.” The words came with quizzical red lines, the fainted hiss of silver dribbled down from the lower curves.

  “Yes, when you came after me.” Amelie’s green lines squiggled now too, branching off into nowhere.

  “No.” And for the first time Crow turned her unformed face to Amelie. “You.” The tiny cloaked hand pointed at her again.

  “Yes, but you have to understand. You must see all this. You can think, you can choose, so why did you…”

  “Think.” The wiggling red lines squirmed out. “Think,” it repeated, and the lines shimmered with the faintest stripes of green.

  “Y-Yes, to choose and think. You see the world, you choose what you do, I…” She searched. What was the phrase? “You think, therefore you are.”

  “No.” And with that the thin shimmering green passed.

  Amelie began to speak again, but the words trickled down her mouth unsaid.

  “I,” Crow began, a final burst of green. “I see. Not know.”

  “I move. Not choose.” The trembling hands again submerged into the folded cloth.

  “I think.” Crow’s shaking hands grasped the sides of the cowl, peeling it back. “I am…not.” Tendons snapped and black blood yawned forth as she scalped the cloth from her head. Her face was shaped from her neck to her nose, but above that was an uncertain absence. Crow’s eyes to the back of her skull looked as if some creature had simply taken a merciless and rough bite.

  “Need. You.” The black oozing face turned to Amelie, bobbing with unsure strength. “Come.”

  Amelie found herself awake, the morning light just peeking over the horizon.

  Again, a failure followed her from the dreaming world, though it haunted her less than the humming memory of the lines flashing before her. There was always tomorrow. Certainly she was making some kind of progress.

  She didn’t find Kokopelli at the foot of the bed, though any desire she had to question him about either occurrence thawed as her feet touched the warm floor. He lay there outside of the curtains, his back twisted in a position that would certainly have cracked a normal cat’s spine. Yet his paws twitched, and she could swear that he bore a smile on his shagged face.

  She wondered if he dreamt of the great white cat, of walking the world in wide strides of silver paws, of goodness and of meaning.

  Maybe not.

  She crept out to her small cubicle and began to change into her earthen tones. The throbbing in her arm waited until she had unwrapped the bandage to flare into riotous life, the round and reddened oval naked beneath her gaze. Stupidly she touched it, and it beat and throbbed in response with ugly life.

  She was glad when it disappeared into the sleeve, though it burned and itched and ached underneath. She discarded the cloth into the lowest drawer of the bed stand and did her best to squash the thought of it.

  With her wounded arm hanging limp she fought again with her hair. Twice she forgot herself and ran the hard surface along the itch of her arm only to wince sharply at the cramping agony that rewarded her.

  Not daring to risk a third such encounter, she surrendered her hair for the day, having at least straightened it vaguely, and she surveyed the crops. The bird’s eye gave little note of any change. The trees perhaps reached higher, the crops perhaps fatter, but only seeing them from the ground could instill any solid observation or pride.

  A shuffling black form startled her, flapping frantically against the window. It finally perched on the sill in front of her, glaring at her through a square red lens.

  “No peace, right.” She sighed. “Back to it then?” she queried the intruder who had been joined by two others.

  Savoring the feeling of the warm white clay beneath her feet, she returned to her alcove and gave a final glance at Kokopelli’s sleeping form. Well, at least someone was satisfied. She tossed the brush onto the bed and headed down the narrow stairs.

  The sound of numerous other bodies landing on windows greeted her departure.

  Stupid, stupid, things; but persistent things, patient things. Always waiting, watching.

  Sparing a little time for her facilities, she stomped to the cafeteria. Stunned students sparsely filled the hallways as before, none of them being awake enough to notice her arrival from the tower.

  Brown dots filled the commons room, and idle chatter echoed in the dome. Even the walkways above were littered with bodies, leaning over the railing and adding to the noise. Melissan and E had apparently moved on, not being comfortable with the crowded state of their previously intimate room.

  Amelie lit her torch, and proceeded towards her usual table. Four blue wisps waited for her there.

  "So you're out of the loop, you haven't heard the news!" Wendy exclaimed, not even waiting for Amelie to be fully seated.

  "Well what's the news?" She asked, three of the four faces seemed wracked with giddy excitement.

  "Turns out the stars last night, well The Professor got inspired." Wendy grinned. "He was up most of the night with a crew of the greasejocks, and they managed to do what they've been trying to for ages."

  "What's that?" Amelie asked, her interest piquing.

  "Well, for now it means we're going to have full plumbing capacity." Wendy couldn't quite handle her excitement at the prospect. "Which means showers, and laundry!" She squealed.

  "Which is good, cause the lot of you are pretty filthy." Melissan made a friendly jab.

  "And who knows, we might not have to use these lamps to light the cafeteria up by Saturday." Craig added, the thought of power being more interesting to him than the water apparently.

  "What day is it today?" Amelie asked, genuinely having lost track.

  "Oh." Craig said, realizing something. "Sorry." He winced.

  "We have day markers in the dorms, so we don't forget." Wendy explained. "It's Thursday today." She smiled. She stated the date, the month, but Amelie knew that those statements were somehow unimportant, and wrong.

  "That reminds me actually." Melissan declared. "We're going to have to figure out how to get you into the rotation for showers and laundry, without giving away your sleeping arrangements." The older girl paused, thinking. "I guess we can just sneak you in during the day, that's the joy of the cleaning crew. You'll just have to promise to work twice as hard in the afternoon, what with our fieldtrip to the library, and clean clothes and showering in the morning." She grinned.

  "I promise!" Amelie declared excitedly.

  Their food arrived. It was another of the vegetable mash loaves. Amelie gnawed on her wedge pensively, noticing that the table the greasejocks frequented was spilling out of the cafeteria with an impatient haste.

  "Wow, they're going fast." Amelie remarked, crumbs on her face.

  "Well, for once I'm a big fan." Craig grinned.

  "Me too." Wendy echoed his grin. "Don't even care that they all got fir
st dibs on the water this morning. I can wait until tonight."

  "That's not the only surprise either!" Craig added, his wedge finished.

  "Oh?" Amelie asked, wondering what could possibly parallel the plumbing.

  "Corn!" He smiled.

  "Well, not exactly." Wendy warned, her wedge now also finished.

  "Yeah well, it'll be something new at least." He dismissed. "We've got a batch of the baby cobs, and we'll probably have it in the lunch stew, and a little in the evening." He smiled.

  Corn and a decent scrub? The weight of the dream world dissolved with the promised trivialities.

  "We might as well start on the second floor then." Melissan declared once the meal was finished. Amelie followed behind like a duckling, the second floor a complete stranger to her still.

  The supply room sat almost smack in the centre of the floor, the room sharing a wall with the curved roof of the commons. Amelie stole a peek at the view below, the walkway being open on both sides. The air flowed hot but stifled, choosing to roar past the third floor’s walkway and only trickle through the second.

  The cleaning began with the floors, and thankfully the process was less infuriating than the stomped down filth of the first floor.

  Offshoot hallways crossed the arterial hallway, each ending with a room indicating a communal washroom. Their path progressed down each line, staying clear of the marked dorm rooms, and capped off with the chore of scrubbing the bathrooms down.

  Two thirds of the morning passed to that activity, and at last Melissan declared that it was time to sneak their showers in.

  Each of the bathrooms at the end of the hallways featured six doored shower stalls, and the three made use of them.

  Amelie savored the bite of the heat against her skin as much as she could, but dared not overstay. The guilt of skipping the queue, and the fear of being discovered, shoved her along her path. Her hair drank heavily of the precious pea of shampoo, but it came out dank and sullen and wrapped around her neck in revenge.

  In the old times the breezes would lap away the moisture in her hair like a mother cat, and mere minutes would pass before it was clean and lively and full of sway again. In those days it forgave her for the trespass of water, but those days were evidently gone, and she struggled with a towel Melissan had provided.

  Water splattered over the jacket of the uniform as she fought to wring the water from her hair. She had put the entire thing on, not daring to look at the red oval, and not wanting to be questioned on it.

  And through that struggling moment a crack of light appeared in the swirling chaos that was Amelie.

  A single eye peeked out from under the frustrated cap of the towel, and she froze in shock. Over the sink she had perched on was a long mirror, and in that shining silver world she glimpsed herself.

  The towel slid down onto her shoulders as the other two came to her side, their jackets not on yet. It tumbled off of her shoulders and onto the floor, and a locking chill ran up her body from ankles to the tips of her hair, still clinging against her head.

  She looked into the mirror, and saw not a stranger, not a goat attempting to mimic a sheep. She saw herself.

  The revelation confused her, fascinated her, and she leaned in, gazing at her blank steel blue eyes.

  “What? What is it? What’s wrong?” Melissan was beside her, grabbing her shoulder viciously. “Do you see something? Is it green light? Do you hear anything?”

  “No…” Amelie stared at herself, back not even arched, not forcing the moment.

  “Then what is it? Do you see something in the mirror? Do we need to get—” The girl furiously glanced to the door, poised to escape.

  “It…It doesn’t itch.” Her skin tingled in patches, goose bumps ran up and down, but they left no biting sting as they patched, the realization flowing over her.

  “I don’t…What doesn’t itch?”

  “The uniform, the fabric against my skin. It itched at first, but now…” Amelie moved an arm to her mouth, discovering her reflection like a transfixed ape. “Now it…it feels okay.” The words tumbled out.

  Melissan gave a confused twitch, but released Amelie’s arm.

  She looked into the mirror world, again pondering what it could possibly mean.

  The effect on the other two wasn’t quite as profound, but they were very much transformed. Melissan’s hair dangled with lingering wetness, but it hung with a calm straightness. The string of manic denial seemed a wrong fitting head to this collected visage.

  E looked more like a little girl and less like a monkey. Though still wiry her pigtails now at least drooped in an approximation of soft hair. Her face now shone with a clean pink giving her an overall less crazed look, replacing it with an observant and thoughtful one.

  The three of them proceeded upwards, to the third floor, and made to repeat the process of the second. The layout was the same, but the doors were more sparsely spaced, and the halls ended in more rooms rather than a communal bathroom.

  Something suddenly struck Amelie, so much so that she slowed her pace a little. The skylights above were not the mosaic glass. This added its weight to an already overly thoughtful burden on the swirling hum of her brain.

  “Melissan, um…” Amelie trailed off, her gaze directly above.

  “Yes?” The older girl stopped, leaning on the broom. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s just the skylights.” Amelie nodded upwards slowly, finally making the connection. “How old are they?”

  “Oh um, old as the school I guess.” Melissan shrugged, disinterested.

  “No, they can’t be.” Amelie looked directly into the older girl’s eyes. “Because…didn’t your brother break all of the windows in the school, whenever that was?”

  “Oh, that’s true.” Melissan thought a moment. “Actually you’re right!” She exclaimed. “I do recall nobody being allowed to go onto the third floor for a couple days because of glass, funny I didn’t remember.” She shrugged. “Most of the entryway needed to be replaced too.” She chuckled, lost in the memory.

  “Why?” The memory faded, and now Melissan looked a little tired, a little suspicious.

  “N-nothing.” Amelie gazed upwards, a number of black bodies on the skylights above.

  The glass here had been replaced perhaps three years ago, yet it still stood steadfast, still whole? The flurry of remembered lines flashed in the back of her mind, and then for the first time discovered what she was searching for. Kokopelli’s words, or rather the sentiment of them, about the Silent Season being fickle and offering little logic to the observer reverberated in her mind. Yet again for the first time another layer split in that memory, a half-truth unspoken. Another image, the billowing bubble that he had swatted away offered a connection, one that she couldn’t quite place, one that staggered her thoughts.

  She proceeded in ruminating silence, scrubbing and moving along the floor. She had taken half the walkway back for the clean when Melissan stood. She leaned over the railing a moment, then declared: “That’s it for now. Go down to the kitchen.”

  "How d-" Amelie was in the process of asking, then she saw what Melissan had glanced at, and chilling embarrassment filled her stomach. The face of a huge round clock gazed at them prominently rising high above the entryway of the school. She had simply never looked up to see it, never known to look up. The clock declared that it was a little past eleven.

  Melissan chuckled. "Sorry, there's a lot of stuff people take for granted. I guess you didn't know about the clock either." She smiled apologetically. "In any case, get going downstairs." She shooed Amelie away.

  Amelie proceeded towards the stairwell at the end nearest the cafeteria, taking her past the hallway leading to The Professor's tower. Reaching for the door she stole a look down the carpeted hallway, her curiosity hungry for a better peek at the mottled disks. A group of older youths blocked the hall, waiting with crossed arms outside the great wooden doors, and her face flushed red as all eyes locked onto her.
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  She shouldered into the door fiercely with all the urgency of a mouse escaping into its burrow, the predator unsure but the heat of the green glowing eyes very real.

  "You didn't see that. Didn't see anything." Melissan's ghostly voice scolded her. The voice was becoming less convincing, becoming fainter as she learned more.

  "You lucky little cheat!" Craig grinned with good natured accusation.

  Amelie blushed, tugging against the remaining knots of her resolutely limp hair.

  "Wait." Amelie looked to the two facing her, at work peeling the vegetables as they always did. Wendy was sporting a braided bun, Craig's hair was somewhat frizzled, more so than before. "You two are ones to accuse." She glowered sarcastically. Their faces were clean, even their clothes were clean.

  "Well, uh, you know...." Wendy trailed off, guiltily, "since nobody was using them right then, figured why not?" She looked down at the vegetables, losing herself in the work.

  Lyssa didn’t stifle her laugh, and not a hint of annoyance rattled in her chest.

  The woman turned from her steaming pots, producing a different sack. "Now then, to the trickier task." She put the sack down, and folded back its maw. Shrunken leaved packets revealed themselves before the three. In the past Amelie had helped with corn, and even dealt with baby corn prep in one of her mother’s experimental streaks. These cobs weren’t quite baby corn however, being identifiably fatter and taller.

  "Essentially, I need you to peel these, something like bananas." Lyssa demonstrated, cleaning one of the little things with a smart knife motion and a two stroke rip, then holding the miniature cob for them to see. She dropped the prepared one onto a central platter, and turned back to her pots.

  “Amelie, I know you have issues with knives, so maybe you can sit this out,” she added.

  “Let…let me try one.” Amelie snagged the knife with arms free of itch, and made her best emulation of the motions.

  The other two watched, their breaths restrained in overdramatic pause as she carefully sliced the top open, and then tore down both sides with little difficulty.