Fervor

by Chantal Boudreau

  Sam and Fiona froze. With a nervous look at her small companion, Fiona answered him. She couldn’t lie, but she could limit what she told him. She would, however, have to make it convincing, or even someone as trusting as Nathan would start to wonder what exactly was going on.

  “Just something that washed up on the beach. Sam thought that Sarah and I would like it.”

  Nathan laughed, with a glimmer in his eyes. He reached over and flicked the Little’s chin.

  “Spoiling the ladies now are we, little buddy? How am I supposed to compete with someone who’s both cute and generous? What is it – some sort of jewellery box?”

  Sam raised his eyebrows, unsure how to answer without giving too much away. Thankfully, Fiona could think faster on her feet.

  “I’m not sure what type of box it is, but it is brightly coloured, and cute in its own way, just like Sam here. I’m sure it could have a variety of uses, if we think on it a bit. I would say we could count it as another one of his wondrous finds,” she stated with a grin.

  “Well then, I guess I best return to my circuit. Maybe I’ll get lucky and stumble upon something that will impress our girls more than your gift did. Of course, you, Mister Finder, have a real advantage over me,” Nathan chuckled on the inside. Then, after mussing Sam’s hair the way that he often did, their Watcher strode off into the woods.

  The two relaxed and Sam slid the box into his pocket. They didn’t want to repeat a similar scene with Francis when they entered the house.

  “He’s gone,” Fiona remarked. “But that doesn’t mean this is over. If Sarah’s right, then they may know about this, and what does that mean for us?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. If they are using him as their eyes, only time will tell what they intend on doing about this. At least he didn’t get to see what was inside it.”

  With another glance in the direction that Nathan had headed off in, the two turned and walked into the house.

  Dissidence

  Sarah, Fiona, and Sam gathered around the newest message in Fiona’s room, counting on the fact that Francis was much less likely to interrupt them in there. He had taken to avoiding the older girl whenever he could after months of trying to re-establish any friendship that had been developing between them, but failing to meet this objective. He had not let her cold shoulder put him off at first, treading lightly around her, but remaining persistent. Eventually he had become discouraged and had given up any efforts at reconciliation.

  The three used the same tactics at getting the small box open as they had the first time that they had received a message from Elliot. This time the note did not bear anyone’s name. It was addressed to S, S, and F., but the hand-writing looked familiar, and the letter was much longer this time around. Fiona read it to the two Littles.

  “I’m sorry for the length of time that it has taken me to get back to you, but it was necessary, I assure you. I had the opportunity to accept a transfer that took me temporarily away from the coast, but brought me much closer to an item that I hope will someday allow me to bring you your freedom. It is one that the scholars were having some of the technicians construct for them. This innovative magical device is something to help deal with some of the troublesome side-effects associated with the connection. It has other abilities, with the right magic to fuel it, but I will have to do some more investigating before I will know the full extent of its many functions.”

  “A magical device? I wonder what he meant by troublesome side effects,” Sarah mused.

  “There’s more,” Fiona told them, raising the paper before her. “It also says that this has strengthened his belief that he will be able to assist us in righting the wrongs that have been done to us, but that he still has much more to uncover, and many more obstacles to overcome before he will be prepared to go the distance. He writes that the device is well guarded, and that he will have great difficulty coming up with a means of liberating it in order to bring it to us. He says that he has no one there that he is sure that he can trust, so he is forced to work alone, but he will keep working on our behalf. He goes on to mention that it may take him a fair amount of time, but he will continue to send us messages when he can, to keep us updated.” She paused, biting her lip in her typical nervous fashion.

  “I’m just happy that nothing bad happened to him,” Sam sighed. “I was ready to give up on ever hearing from him again – to concede to this fate that has been thrust upon us.”

  “That’s not all of it,” Fiona insisted. She took a deep breath.

  “There is little that I can do for the moment, but I have a few leads, and I promise that I will do everything within my power to follow up on them. I know that I am asking a lot, but I need you to hang on, even if it seems to take longer than you might be willing to tolerate. I swear that I won’t lose faith if you don’t. There are solutions. I just have to strive for them. Until then, keep looking out for one another and be patient. E.”

  Sarah was grinning from ear to ear.

  “He hasn’t come to harm, and he hasn’t deserted us. Right now I feel like the luckiest Fixer on Fervor.”

  “Why do you think that the scholars would be constructing this device?” Sam considered. “Now that they have this experiment of theirs underway, what else is there for them to do?”

  “Maybe there were unexpected imperfections to their plans,” the smaller girl hypothesized. “Maybe they had to find a way to rectify them, or their experiment wouldn’t work properly.”

  “I don’t know,” Fiona responded, sounding doubtful. “Why would they need to add more people on Fervor to the connection? You said they needed to keep the Controls for comparison, and they’re the only ones on Fervor who aren’t Connected. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe it isn’t meant to be used now,” Sam murmured. “Maybe it is meant for whenever this experiment is done, and that could be many years from now. Of course, that’s not something that we can really figure out without knowing what else it can do. Elliot seems to think that the things that he mentioned were only the tip of the iceberg.”

  “I wish we could get Francis to tell us more,” Sarah said quietly. “I know that there’s so much that he does know that he’s withholding from us. He’s scared that we’ll find out eventually, and he continues to build his walls thicker and thicker to make sure that he can keep us out. It just gets worse every time he comes back from his meetings with the other Tellers. I’m worried. I know he says that it is important that we have our privacy, and that we can’t have that without having strong walls to keep things in, and to block others out when we want to. But maybe, just maybe, there comes a point when you block too much out, and once you know what it’s like to be Connected, I think that there is a danger to separating yourself too much. I’ve seen it in Francis. He’s lonely, but it’s all self-imposed. He’s hurting himself, and he’s doing it because he thinks that’s what’s best for us. Maybe we should tell him about all of this. Maybe if we shared with him, then he would share with us. Maybe...”

  “No,” Fiona interrupted abruptly. “This stays amongst the three of us. We can’t trust Nathan because he is their eyes. It’s nothing against him. You know how much we all like him, and he would never knowingly betray us, but the fact is, it wouldn’t be a conscious choice on his part. The same should apply to Francis, all feelings aside and even if they conflict. Francis is as much their hands and mouth as Nathan is their eyes, and just like Nathan, because of his association with them, he can’t be trusted.”

  Sam and Sarah were both fairly certain that the older girl did not see Francis as guiltless the way she perceived Nathan, but she did make a good point. As frustrating as it was to Sarah, who really believed that if they included the Teller and that if they showed him how much they already knew, he would stop fighting them and start working with them, she wasn’t about to act on this belief if Sam and Fiona weren’t in agreement.

  When Fiona left to hide Elliot’s message in the old hover along with the fir
st one, Sarah pulled Sam inside her walls within the connection, and closed her door behind him.

  “She’s wrong about Francis,” the smaller girl insisted, her thoughts noticeably forceful. Sam preferred her usual lighter approach, but he could sense that she was particularly anxious. “Neither of you know him the way that I do. He doesn’t like where he is. He feels trapped, like he’s had to choose between two evils, and he’s done his best to select the lesser one, but he would desperately like to have another option. He knows that the knowledge that he has been burdened with has damaged him, and he doesn’t want to see that happen to us.”

  “You aren’t going to change her mind, Sarah. She was walking the line before Francis used me to test Nathan, and that pushed her the wrong way. She made her decision about him at that point, and I know that you don’t agree with her, but I’m still undecided. There may be other options available to him, but he just can’t see them because he won’t stray from these Directives,” Sam argued.

  “Anymore than we can. That’s not fair, Sam. Neither of you are being fair. You both expect more from him than you would expect from the rest of us. He’s just as much a victim of this as we are. He’s only a boy. You two are wrong about him. I know you are – at the moment. If we don’t make an effort to reach out to him however...”

  She paused in mid-sentence and whipped her head around, listening attentively.

  “Oh no,” she mumbled getting to her feet and creeping towards the general direction of the door, her hands outstretched before her.

  Sam clambered off the bed as well and joined her, taking her arm to guide her. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Royce is home.” The Control had been away for three days now. This was definitely outside of the Directives, and that meant that there was going to be trouble. “He and Francis are arguing, and it sounds like it’s going to be messy.”

  The small boy didn’t need any more prompting than that. He reached out for Nathan and knocked. A few moments later, the Watcher responded.

  “What’s up, little buddy?”

  “I think you need to come home. Royce came back and he and Francis are at odds, according to Sarah. She thinks that it could get bad,” Sam informed him.

  “Hang on. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Nathan said.

  Sam led Sarah out of Fiona’s bedroom to find a full-fledged stand-off between the two older boys by the front door. Fiona was already there, watching from just outside of the kitchen. The Teller and the Control were both leaning forward in a threatening manner, their expressions angry and their faces red. They both appeared to be shouting, or at least, that was what Sam would have guessed from their sharp intakes of breath and the way that they shook as they spoke.

  “What are they saying?” he whispered to Sarah. Francis had his walls sealed up as solid as they could get during his dispute with the black-haired boy. For some reason, he did not want to allow the others into his thoughts while he and the Control screamed at each other.

  “Francis was yelling about how leaving the house for several days without cause is against the Directives, and that Royce can’t be doing that,” she reported. “And then Royce snapped that he had cause, so Francis could stuff it. After that, Francis said that if Royce had something that required him to be away for so long, then Francis would know about it. That was when Royce gave him that really mean look, and growled that Francis wouldn’t know about it because it was a Control thing, and none of Francis’s business. I think that made Francis really mad, because he shouted that anything that involves anyone in the house-family is his business, and he knows that there’s nothing in the Directives that require the Controls to converge... converge? That means get together right? Like the Tellers having their meetings.”

  “Yeah, that’s what it means,” Sam told her. “Royce looks fit to be tied, and Francis doesn’t look much better. I hope Nathan gets here soon. He may just have to play referee.”

  “You called Nathan?” Sarah questioned, a little startled. “Do you think that that’s a good idea?”

  “Better that he step in than see them come to blows,” the smaller boy stated with a mental shrug. “Royce looks like he’s ready to rip Francis’s head off. I thought he had reserved that kind of hostility for me.”

  “I don’t know if it is more out of ego or a fear of a loss of control, but Royce has decided to challenge whatever authority that Francis is supposed to have, and he’s obviously stomping on Francis’s toes in the process,” the other Little sighed. “This is as much a battle of wills as anything else. Before Francis broadened his walls because of the argument, I got a sense of fear from him, but I don’t know if he is worried that Royce will physically hurt him, or just concerned that he will beat him down with mind games. Royce has a huge advantage over the rest of us, when it comes to confronting Francis. He can resist Francis all he wants to and he can choose to ignore the Directives. Francis can predict how the rest of us would react to any given situation, but he can’t predict what Royce will do. Maybe that’s why he’s scared.”

  Fiona had stepped forward, looking somewhat disconcerted by the escalating aggression between the two boys. She had dropped her walls, and Sam could tell that she was very upset. She would expect something like this from Royce, but definitely not from Francis.

  “Calm down,” she implored, speaking inside and out. “You won’t settle anything like this. You need to sort this out like civilized people. Maybe it’s just a matter of a misunderstanding.”

  Francis responded to her appeal. He hesitated, glancing her way. His pale greyish-green eyes revealed their customary need to please when dealing with Fiona, almost as though she had the same power over him as he had over everyone but Royce. The Control, on the other hand, ignored her. He made good use of the distraction to reach forward and grab Francis by the collar, yanking him forward with much more force than was necessary. Caught off guard, the blond boy stumbled to his knees, and Royce loomed over him menacingly, keeping a firm hold on him. Fiona, feeling somewhat responsible for Francis’s current vulnerability, surged forward, waving her hands.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” she exclaimed, shrieking it as well. “Royce, let him go! Francis has a point. Aren’t you supposed to be following the Directives, too? What good is fighting amongst ourselves going to serve?” She latched onto one of the black-haired boy’s arms and pulled.

  Royce was not about to be swayed by simple words, not as riled up as he was at that moment. He turned and glared at her, trying to shake her off. When that didn’t work, he released Francis’s collar with his opposite hand, and gave her as harsh a shove as he could manage. Fiona’s grasp had already been loosened by his first efforts, and she lost her hold on him when he pushed, stumbling backwards with little grace and then falling to the floor. Nothing was seriously hurt except her pride, but she stared at both boys with a pained expression from where she lay.

  That was when the door opened and Nathan walked in. His eyes scanned the scene, and a frown settled upon his usually jovial face upon observing Royce and the position in which he held Francis. The crease in his brow deepened twice-fold as he spotted Fiona sprawled upon the floor. Sam was surprised at how the normally good-natured boy bristled. The Big’s relaxed form tensed and seemed to almost double in size as he clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

  “This is over,” he stated coolly, and with such finality. His typical stutter when he spoke aloud had vanished momentarily Royce looked over at him, contemplated the situation, and with a grimace, reluctantly released Francis. Sam felt Sarah’s fingers tense and dig into his arm. She was not as convinced as Nathan was that the dispute had come to an end. There was still the possibility that this could get really ugly.

  “If y-you can’t p-play n-nice with one another, then I suggest y-you g-g-go your separate w-ways for n-now. Y-you have y-your own spaces. G-g-go there, and leave the rest of us in p-peace. We d-don’t want to be a p-part of this b-b-battle.”

  His anger had fad
ed a little, and as a result, his stutter had returned. Royce smirked at him. Giving Francis a solid elbow to the head, he marched past him and disappeared into his room.

  “He said that that was all he wanted in the first place,” Sarah reported. “He said nothing would have happened if the ego-maniac hadn’t gotten in his way. He claims that he wasn’t planning to fight anyone until Francis stuck his nose into places where it doesn’t belong.”

  Francis did not go to his room. Instead, clutching at his cheek where Royce’s elbow had made contact, he got to his feet and strode out into the kitchen. Nathan walked over to where Fiona lay and helped her up. It was clear to Sam that there was some conversation going on between the two Bigs, but just as Francis had been blocking him out during the friction with the Control, Nathan and Fiona weren’t welcoming any intrusions either.

  Sam was starting to think that he preferred things the old way, when he lacked some privacy, but other people couldn’t hide things from him so easily either. Sarah gave his arm a quick squeeze and then released it.

  “Do you think that’s it then? No more fighting?” she asked hopefully.

  “For now,” Sam replied, relaxing a little. “But as much as Nathan wants it to be, I don’t think that this is over.”

  That was when the smaller boy considered what really had just happened, and what sort of impact it had for him. He gazed at the Control’s door. This had been an overt display of rebellion on Royce’s part. Before now, Francis’s instructions had been the only ones that he had been willing to listen to, and not because he was compelled to do so like the others, but for other unknown reasons. That had changed. Royce had made the decision that he wasn’t going to follow the rules anymore if they didn’t suit his purposes.

  This revelation hit Sam like a brick to the side of the head. With the exception of any physical interference that Nathan had been able to offer, Francis had really been the only thing standing between the Finder and the older boy. What Royce had just done was essentially push Francis aside and now, if Nathan was not around, there would not be anything to help assure Sam’s safety. Fiona had claimed that she could deal with Royce, but it seemed now that that was only talk, or at least, it didn’t apply to any time when Royce was enraged over something, and lately that seemed more often than not.