Alesia grasped the front of Bonnie’s dress, twisted it around her fist, and held it tightly under her chin. Bonnie’s eyes widened, and she struggled to keep her balance. Alesia hardened her gaze and drew Bonnie’s dress tighter. “If I’m not worthy of love, so be it, but I’ll make my own destiny. You’d be well advised to do the same. Don’t settle for what this life offers you. Go out and get what you want.”
She released Bonnie’s dress and rushed from the room to get away before her tears escaped. Everything Bonnie had said was true. There weren’t enough young men to go around. With no wealth to offer a potential mate, the prospect of any orphan girl living a happy life was grim. Alesia was determined that she would not be a baby-making machine for a man she didn’t love.
She hurried into the kitchen to pack a lunch. Her stomach had been too tied in knots for her to eat dinner after the selection ball and too full of butterflies to eat breakfast before the baron’s arrival. Sundown was still hours away. She’d need her strength for pulling weeds the rest of the day. She spread a cloth on the counter, placed a biscuit, tomato, and two raw carrots onto it, then tied the corners. As she grasped the handle to open the door, her mistress spoke up.
“He’ll be coming with full payment this evening. You had better be here, or you’ll have more trouble than you can handle. I’ve raised you for all these years, and I have a legal right to due compensation. Don’t think of running off. The baron will have alerted the guards, and they’ll have their eyes out for you. Any woman caught hiding you will be hanged as a thief. You know that, and so does everyone in the village. Keep it in mind. You’re a good girl. You wouldn’t want to endanger anyone by asking them to take you in.”
Alesia gritted her teeth but held her tongue. Lashing out now would serve no useful purpose and only delay her further.
“You have to accept your fate and make the best of it, like all of us. These are hard times we live in. We can’t have what we want. We must compromise in order to survive. The baron is old, he’ll probably be dead inside ten years, and you’ll be free. Bed him often enough and you might hurry him along. Perhaps your first child will be a son, and he’ll turn you loose out of gratitude.” The old woman cackled like a witch.
Alesia didn’t turn around. She merely pushed the door open and headed toward the Smith’s field.
Chapter Two
Gil awoke to a particularly loud boom and lay thinking about the woman from his dream while he waited to see if the warning alarm would sound. She was no one he knew. He couldn’t even see her face for the misty haze surrounding her, but the way she had felt in his arms was still fresh in his mind.
“Bloody bastards!” You can never give me a moment’s peace. Not even long enough to finish a dream.
The Window in the corridor was pulsing with energy again, translating impulses from the Reality on the other side into tangible electromagnetic waves in Gil’s universe. He could feel it like static electricity making the hairs on his arms stand at attention. Every time the Window pulsed, it triggered the dream. It was as if someone was beaming a transmission through, directly into his mind. A signal, a message, maybe it’s not a dream. Of course it’s a dream.
Red and green LEDs flashed on the Alternate-Reality Junction Locater sitting on his nightstand, indicating activity occurring in the Window. Gil glanced at the screen, but the data gave no clue about the nature of the energy pulses, just like always. It has to be random fluctuations. No one is there.
The reality of being alone was always the most bitter during the middle of the night, not that he ever got to sleep through the night any longer. Solitude had taken on a whole new meaning since his colleagues had escaped. Living without a companion among a large community of friends had been difficult, but not hopeless. There were always possibilities. One particularly promising possibility was named Amanda. Had the escape gone according to plan, Gil knew for certain they’d be married by now. She professed her love for him in no uncertain terms on the eve before everyone slipped away, but that was more than a year ago, and he hadn’t seen her since.
The warning alarm didn’t sound, indicating that the protective Barrier Sphere system was functioning normally, keeping all threats out of the compound. Apparently, the attack hadn’t hit a vital area. His latest adjustment to the Emitter frequency still had his enemy off balance. They’d stumble upon a way to defeat his tweaks eventually, but for the moment he was safe. If they knew anything about the weapon systems they co-opted, I’d already be dead. Gil rolled over and adjusted his pillow but knew he’d never get back to sleep. After half an hour of tossing and turning, he climbed out of bed and got dressed.
Stupid no-fraternization rule. If I ever find you guys, I have some choice words for whoever came up with that. I wonder who Amanda married. I certainly wasn’t the only one who was interested. She probably got with—no. I have to stop torturing myself over things I can’t change.
The Window was still pulsing, calling to him like the faint voice of a desperate friend lost in the distance. He didn’t bother grabbing any of his instruments to take further readings. He knew from experience there was no point. Whatever was translating through the Window into his Reality had no discernible pattern or identifiable source. The disturbance it caused set off his detectors, but beyond that, it might as well have been the cries of a ghost. Gil stepped into the corridor outside the dorm rooms and sauntered along to the relative position that corresponded to the Window location. There was no visible component to the Window, but he could feel the pulsations. At least they registered in his mind as a physical sensation.
Could this really be a form of communication? If so, why were none of my colleagues able to feel it? And why does it always coordinate with the dream? Questions upon questions and never any answers.
Gil made his way outside. Cool night air filled his lungs, suddenly sharpening his senses, bringing him fully awake. The booming on the Barrier sounded somehow more ominous from outside the building and always managed to unnerve him, even though logically he knew the old stone structure couldn’t withstand a single hit. He strolled through gate in the compound wall and headed toward the Barrier Emitter Housing Facility. It was a ring-shaped metal building that ran all the way around the outside perimeter of the ancient fortress and the point from which the Barrier Sphere energy shield originated.
The night sky was alight with energy weapon fire, all directed at him. Bolts of every color in the spectrum rained down from orbital weapon platforms and blossomed into beautiful multicolored flowers as they impacted the Barrier. The United World Brotherhood had been pounding it with everything they could get their hands on for the five years since the world’s scientific community pulled off their rebellion, but so far the Barrier had held firm.
The Brotherhood had executed the bloodiest coup d’état the world had ever known in the name of returning humanity to a nontechnological age. The pacifist governments of the world had been unprepared to defend against the simultaneous global attacks and unwilling to meet them with military force, opting to negotiate a solution instead.
Once the previous world leaders had all been slaughtered, the Brotherhood began dismantling everything that used advanced technology. When Gil and his colleagues raised the Barrier around the fortress, the Brotherhood realized that they had no way to get inside without using technology.
Gil didn’t want to gloat but couldn’t help himself. The very people the Brotherhood despised were the people they needed in order to destroy him: scientists, engineers, intellectuals. With no clear concept of how the technology worked, the Brotherhood had struggled along using brute force in their attempt to break through. They had only just begun to have any real success, and that was only because he was the last man standing against them.
Long rows of electronic equipment stretched out for the entire length of the circular building. Access panels and Emitter array covers were strewn haphazardly around. It took too much time to remove and replace the covers every time he had to m
ake a repair, so he had given up and cast them aside. The futility of maintaining the equipment had not escaped him. He was merely prolonging the inevitable, hoping for a miracle that he felt certain would never come. If his colleagues could have come back and rescued him, they would have done so by now. Amanda wouldn’t have let them abandon him to die, regardless of the cost. They were obviously unable to reestablish the Doorway back after it closed.
Gil strolled along, checking for weak Emitter Nodes and any other components that might have been stressed by the near-constant bombardment. After replacing a few parts, he made his way back inside to the control room to calibrate them.
Amanda’s picture greeted him when he got to his workstation. He plucked it from his desk and placed it face down on top of a file cabinet, then went back to work. He’d return it to its proper place later in the day, as he had a hundred times before, but he couldn’t bear to look at her for the moment. He had to occupy his mind with other things, or he’d begin wondering who she was taking to her bed at night and if they had a child yet. Gil slammed his keyboard drawer shut, grabbed his coffee cup, and pushed back from his desk. He drew the cup back, intending to smash his monitor with it, but took a deep breath instead. It’s my favorite cup, no sense breaking it. He set the cup back onto the desk, but his fingers stuck to the handle for an instant after he released it, sending it crashing to the floor.
Brilliant.
***
Mr. Smith sat in a chair on the front porch of his cottage, watching the young women working in his field. Alesia waved to him as she headed out to join them. He threw up a bony, feeble arm and motioned for her to come to him. She hadn’t expected to see him outside.
He must be feeling better.
He grinned broadly as she approached. “Well, young lady, I didn’t think I’d see you today.”
Alesia curtsied. “You look much better. Mrs. Smith’s treatments must be helping.”
“Yep. Her herbal potions taste so bad I had to get better so she’d quit making me drink them. What are you doing here? I thought you’d be off making wedding preparations.”
She sighed and pressed her eyes closed for a moment. “I thought I’d...” She clasped one hand over her face and motioned to the field with the other. “Has Baron Volga already told everyone in the village?” Alesia drew a sharp breath and dropped her hands to her side, determined not to cry in front of the old man.
Mr. Smith shook his head and sat up straight. “The baron? What about your young man, um, Marco? You’ve told me so much about him I thought for sure he’d pick you at the ball.”
She turned her gaze to the ground, unable to look Mr. Smith in the eye any longer. Regardless of her determination, a tear trickled down her cheek. “Marco chose to court Miranda Tillman.”
Mr. Smith slapped his palm on his thigh. “Well, that boy is a damn fool. He’ll have his hands full with her. Lazy as the day is long, and a spoiled rotten brat to boot.”
Alesia stepped closer to Mr. Smith’s cottage and grasped the porch railing to steady herself. “Miranda’s mother had four sons, so you can see Marco’s incentive.”
Mr. Smith caught his head with his hands and raked his fingers through his thin white hair. “I still say he made a mistake. She’ll cost him more in the long run than you ever would, and I don’t mean wealth. Life is about happiness. You have to choose the person who can share that with you and help it grow. It’s a damn shame about the baron. You’re such a good girl. You deserve so much better than him.”
“Women aren’t given many choices in this life.”
His eyes began to glisten. “Oh, honey, that breaks my heart. If I wasn’t so old, I’d get my sword and go put that bastard in the ground.”
Alesia shook her head, still unable to meet his gaze. “I couldn’t let you do that. There’s no sense worrying over me. I’ll be just fine. I’m going around back to say hello to Blue. I have an apple core for him.” She pulled the apple core from her apron, held it up where he could see, and forced a smile.
Mr. Smith nodded. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.”
She waved good-bye to Mr. Smith and headed to the back.
Don’t settle for what this life offers you. Go out and get what you want. That’s what I told Bonnie. I said I’d make my own destiny. That’s what I have to do.
Just beyond the barn lay the perimeter wall that surrounded the village. It was the only real obstacle standing between Alesia and her freedom. Now that the baron had made a down payment for her, the guards wouldn’t let her leave through the gate. Behind the Smith’s barn, an oak tree with low-hanging limbs grew close to the perimeter wall. Some of its branches extended over to the outside. She could easily climb it, scoot across a branch, and drop down on top of the wall, but getting down would require a rope. She had an idea where to get one.
She couldn’t bolt straight for the wall; the girls working the field would be bound to see her, but she couldn’t wait until nightfall either because if she didn’t keep her appointment with the baron, the whole village would be searching for her.
There were also forest creatures to consider, the ones the wall had been constructed to keep out. Traveling through the forest in a group with armed escorts was relatively safe, but a person alone and unarmed was a different story altogether. No matter. While not desirable, being eaten by an animal was still preferable to marrying the baron.
Alesia gave the apple core to the horse, then slipped inside the barn. An array of tools hung neatly in a row along one wall, with a rope on a hook at the end. An oil lamp, with a small canvas bag containing two flint stones tied to it, dangled just beside the rope. She found a broken shovel handle leaning in the corner that would be handy as a weapon and an empty feed sack. She put the lamp inside the sack, wrapped it tightly, and used her apron to tie the bundle together.
Alesia didn’t know what the items she was taking were worth. Mrs. Smith had mentioned that she fancied Alesia’s bonnet. Her hand mirror was practical and possibly valuable. She removed her bonnet, hung it from the hook, and placed the mirror inside, hoping the Smiths would consider it a fair trade.
One plank on the back of the barn was loose. Alesia pushed it out far enough to slip through. She peeked around the edge, looking toward the field. All of the girls were working hard, pulling weeds and facing away from her. With a bit of luck, no one would turn around. She hooked her arm through a loop in the apron cord so she could carry the lamp and still have use of her hands. Two more minutes and no one would ever see her again. She took one last glance at the field workers, making sure no one was looking, then hurried toward the tree. It only took a moment to climb the oak and shimmy out to the wall. She tossed the shovel handle to the ground, tied off the rope, and rappelled down to freedom.
Alesia dropped onto the ground, grabbed the shovel handle, and ran quickly into the forest. She ducked and weaved to avoid low-hanging branches, being careful not to damage the oil lamp swaddled inside the feed sack. An occasional branch slapped her face as she ran, but she had to get far from the village as quickly as possible before anyone noticed she was missing.
Laughter welled up from deep inside and burst forth into the wilderness. In a few short hours, she’d be well beyond the baron’s grasp and would never have to concern herself with him again. Mr. Smith probably wouldn’t bother looking for her when she didn’t come back from feeding the horse. He’d most likely assume that she had gone on her way without saying good-bye. No one would know she was missing until evening, and they wouldn’t venture into the forest after dark. Her life was her own now to live as she pleased.
Something was waiting for her at the fortress on the hill. Even as that thought occurred to her, an odd sense of loss began to grow inside her. Alesia’s destiny lay ahead, but a nagging sensation that she was leaving something behind kept urging her to go back.
***
The sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, and Alesia’s abundance of energy rapidly drained away. Sprinting th
rough the forest proved far more tiresome than she would have thought. The gentle incline of the landscape didn’t feel so gentle to her aching legs. They refused to run any longer. She settled for walking and watched the sun slip closer to the ground with every step. Only occasional glimpses of the castle were visible through the canopy of the forest, but as long as she kept heading uphill, she knew she was going the right direction.
Marco had looked so dashing in his dress uniform the night before that she had nearly melted when he entered the ballroom. Thoughts of him taking her into his arms and dancing the night away had filled her mind leading up to the selection ball. She had impatiently awaited her twenty-first birthday when she’d be old enough to attend. He had all but told her that he planned to ask for her hand on that magical night. When the moment had finally come, she stood hand outstretched waiting for him, but he passed her by, grasped Miranda Tillman’s gloved hand, and kissed her knuckles.
The world began to drop from beneath Alesia’s feet the way it had at that terrible moment the night before. She found herself flat on the ground, staring into a deep ravine. A narrow, fast-moving brook flowed along the bottom, which served to heighten her awareness of the dryness in her throat. The bank was too steep to safely reach the water, so she followed it until she found a spot to climb down without worry of slipping. The water was pure and refreshing and chilled her throat going down. She splashed her hot face, reveling in the relief provided by the cold mountain stream.
As the last remnants of twilight faded away and night blanketed the forest, stillness and silence befell her. Something was missing. Something she hadn’t even noticed until it was gone. It was like the mellow thrumming of the village orchestra had been coming from off in the distance and suddenly stopped. The vibrations that had ceased left her skin tingling. She rubbed her arms, trying to soothe away the sensation. Nothing is different. There was no silent music. I’m letting my imagination play tricks on me. It’s just cold chills, that’s all.
The Fabric Of Reality Page 2
