Aftermath

by Meiling Colorado

  So that left him at an impasse, everybody but himself seemed to have found something to make themselves useful, just when he most needed to keep his mind occupied. His Tai chi routine helped, as did his daily visits down to the lake, where he was at last able to swim to his heart's content after all those years in the settlement.

  It just wasn't enough.

  The best thing he could do while he waited for his brother to get it together and officially show him the security set-up here was to take a look around the place himself, and see what he could come up with.

  Dinain was content, more so than he had been in years. The house they had been offered must have belonged to a mechanic at some point, and although a few tools in the garden shed had been irreparably damaged he thought he could salvage quite a lot. He was sure Garand had had a hand in the choice, and he was grateful to his old friend.

  He'd also noticed several cars dotting the streets here and there, so it would seem they had some broken toys he could fix. He actually felt he could be of use, give something back to the community, and as always, he was at his happiest when busy.

  Yes, a lot of things had changed for Dinain in the last couple of weeks.

  He'd hoped that, with Resnan's return and given time Yeshra would thaw toward him, but it seemed that two years was too big a gap to bridge. Or there were too many fences to fix, or God knew what….

  She had been busy, lately, working with the tall doctor, putting her talent to good use, he guessed. And keeping away from Leiren, probably.

  She seemed happy.

  At least she no longer ignored him, and she wasn't hostile, either...it just felt like she was uncomfortable around him.

  This saddened Dinain, but his life was no longer wrapped up in her tides, struggling under the weight of his own guilt. He'd made his peace with himself and, after all, Resnan was alive, thanks to Garand.

  The man had aged in these last two years, and from the look of things life couldn't have been too easy out there. Most of the old soldier's energy had probably gone into keeping Resnan alive, for which he could never thank him enough.

  He looked down at the lay-out of the piped water-project on the rough wooden bench in front of him and nodded in satisfaction. It had taken him a week of burning the mid-night oil, but it was finally finished. He had had help from unexpected sources, too. Some of the people here had shown a lot of interest in the project and proved to be helpful. That kid, Terrell, had a good head for mechanics and an uncanny knack for fixing things, it seemed. He would need it too, judging by the way he kept hurling stuff around the place...good thing Leiren seemed to have that well in hand by now.

  Looking out the window toward the green in front of his house, he could make out the Healer's slim figure surrounded by the kids and young people in her ´study group´.

  Dinain grimaced. A pretty kettle of fish, that.

  A knock on the door of the makeshift garage workshop he had fashioned for himself made him look up and smile in welcome. Benton's frequent visits were one of those things which caused him to be content with his lot, though even he had to admit he seemed to be spending more time than would seem normal keeping an old man company of late. Not that he was complaining. He'd always liked the young man, and they did go way back to the early days and the start of the settlement.

  They had been forced to fight side by side more than once back then, when Benton was little more than a kid with only his widowed brother and baby nephew left for family.

  The boy had been brave, really brave, Dinain remembered. Brave to the point of recklessness it sometimes seemed…bad times, even worse than today, and that was saying something.

  ¨What? All done?¨ Benton chuckled looking down at the rough sketch on the work-table. ¨Whatever will you do now?¨

  ¨I guess the next step is to make it happen, lad.¨

  ¨That would be great. Not that I don't appreciate the lake, but... you know.¨ The younger man shrugged.

  ¨Yes, creature comforts and all that. All it is, Benton, is us pining for the bygones of a civilization that, for better or for worse, has disappeared.¨

  ¨Nothing wrong with that, is it? We're still here, and it's up to us to build the next one.¨

  Dinain pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully, looking at the athletic young man in front of him.

  ¨Let's hope we do a better job than the last time, boy.¨

  He pointed out to the green, where that tall boy of Garand's could now be seen earnestly talking with the wise-woman. ¨With this new generation, if we mess up, they'll blow us out of the water. Permanently.¨

  Benton bit his lip pensively and busied himself checking the lay-out. A full minute went by before he said, ¨I was thinking about that myself a while ago. Everyone seems to have taken these changes, in stride. I can't help but wonder, why? What's happening to us?¨

  ¨The planet has changed, Benton. Maybe we all have, and it's just more obvious in some of us.¨

  ¨What about those like Lillith? She wasn't sick last winter, that I can recall.¨ This was a touchy subject, and he didn't know how open Dinain would be to discussing his daughter with him, however close he thought they might be. Glancing quickly out the window he reflected that he'd also heard some rumors about his nephew and the girl, but he wasn't about to bring that up around her father.

  ¨Leiren has some theory about that, I suspect. She hasn't said much, that woman never does. But from what I gather she believes Lillith didn't need to be ¨jump-started¨, like they call it here. She already had some kind of talent, like her mother, Leiren herself or that blond doctor who can read minds. It was just latent.¨

  ¨Well, not anymore.¨ chuckled Benton. ¨Last time I saw her she had that boy who comes and helps you, what's his name…Terrell?¨ The other man nodded, ¨Well, she had him ducking for his life. She seemed to be having little trouble brandishing a stick behind his head from the other side of the room. There was nothing latent about that piece of wood flying through the air by itself. I don't know how she does it, but I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of your daughter now, Dinain.¨

  ¨Neither would I, man. It took her teacher a while to break her down but I guess her defiance couldn't last long in the face of Leiren's determination. She has progressed since she stopped trying to deny everything and practices with that fool boy Terrell every day. Now I think about it, he probably deserved to have his head cracked open, to let some common-sense in.¨

  His friend laughed out loud, though Benton detected a certain edge of uneasiness in his tone. Whatever the older man said, he was not a hundred per cent comfortable with the changes happening so close to him. He could certainly relate to that, he thought, as a memory of flames going up his nephew's hands and arms assaulted him.

  ¨Not that its very plentiful around this lot.¨ Dinain gestured towards the group gathered on the green. He caught the younger man's confused look and elaborated gruffly, ¨Common sense, I mean. If it weren't for Leiren they would probably have injured someone by now. Better her than me, that's for sure. She can handle it, I don't think anything scares her. That woman. I can't figure out what's going on in her head most of the time, but then that can be said of most women, right?¨

  ¨Yes, women in general...¨ mused Benton, his eyes lost in thought. Seeing Dinain lifting a bushy eyebrow at him sardonically he snapped out of it. The grey-headed rascal noticed more than was good for him, he thought ruefully, and set his mind to bringing the older man's water-system from paper to reality.

  After all, a shower would be good. Hot water too, and even if it didn't seem like it, the fall was around the corner.

  ¨It's just so unfair!¨ wailed Lillith as she ground the pestle down with rather more force than necessary. Lorenna continued sorting the tinctures on the shelf and seemed to be paying little heed to her fellow-apprentice's tirade. The girl continued regardless.

  ¨Now, we have two of them telling us what to do and, with his medical expertise and her alternative knowledge, we'll never be done with th
eir experiments.¨

  And that was the problem, of course. It wasn't the extra work - she actually loved that – she just felt like a lab rat lately, the kind she had heard they had in the pre-war days. And a hard-worked one, on top of that.

  Emptying the contents of the mortar into a jar carefully, she scrutinized the list of powders the Healer had ordered prepared and made her way to the wall where the herbs were kept, hanging upside down under dust covers or already in jars, classified, shelved, and labeled by Leiren herself. She was nothing if not thorough. And though she allowed them to help her in this time-consuming chore she did the brunt of the work and was painstakingly precise and organized, sometimes maddeningly so. As far as her apprentices were concerned their teacher had definite control-freak tendencies.

  Selecting the herbs she needed, she took one of the carefully tied bunches and made her way back to the work-table.

  Training her talent wasn't so bad, once she had got over her initial shock and began to understand what she was actually doing. Not to mention Ren was there most of the time...she rather liked him witnessing the things she was able to do now, and he seemed to enjoy watching too, she thought, blushing for some reason. As she used the weight cleverly fashioned by her father to get the exact quantities in her instructions she considered that their relationship seemed to have changed somehow. She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, but... And moving objects around with Terrell and little red-headed David was actually fun. Tiring as hell, but fun.

  Although her gift was...slightly different from theirs.

  While they needed an inanimate object to move, she only had to imagine such an object existed and then move it. The difference was subtle, but vast, as Leiren had made sure she understood.

  ¨They displace matter, Lillith. You, on the other hand, seem to visualize what you want and it manifests.¨ This, of course, on the day she got so frustrated after hours of trying to move a wooden bowl placed a yard or so away from her that suddenly a wooden stick had materialized and batted the stupid bowl across the green!

  Thank goodness she hadn't hurt anyone.

  Lillith carefully re-tied the herbs she wouldn't be using and put them back, making sure the labels were still in good condition.

  That day her teacher's usually smooth features had looked close to haggard, and she had considered fleetingly that maybe Leiren was just as tired as she herself felt, then had dismissed the idea peevishly.

  ¨That means, child,¨ the wise-woman had sighed, ¨you need even more control and discipline than they do. You could essentially rip apart the very fabric of reality with one of your tantrums.¨

  Tantrums!

  She snorted, putting the herbs in the mortar and starting the laborious grinding motion.

  She would have a sore wrist tomorrow, all these bloody powders! Discipline and control, control, control.

  She got it, she really did.

  She was dangerous, just as Ren was dangerous, but....it just seemed she had gone from being considered a fairly mature young adult, to a temperamental dip of a girl, barely in control of her emotions. All in the space of a couple of weeks.

  ¨You can't complain.¨

  Lillith jerked up sharply, startled. Lost in her thoughts she had forgotten Lorenna was there.

  ¨At least you get to take it out on Ren or Terrell when practicing your skills. You go home. I live here.¨ muttered the other woman darkly.

  The young girl eyed the hot-tempered red-head speculatively. ¨So, it does irk you too. You never say anything.¨

  ¨There are worse things. This keeps my mind occupied.¨

  The glass bottles clinked as she set them on the shelf next to the beakers.

  Lillith smiled dubiously and eyed her warily. Something was eating the tall woman and, since Lorenna wasn't exactly known for her self-control, she didn't want to be around when the dam burst.

  Little did the young girl know but the flame-haired apprentice was closer to bursting into tears than to losing her infamous temper.

  She had never felt so displaced before than in this new society quickly forming around her. Where, exactly, did a medicine woman fit in, even one as good as she herself was turning out to be?

  Everyone was turning up with wonderful, mind-boggling talents which would soon render her hard-earned knowledge useless…who needed a Lorenna when that hot blond doctor could read your mind and fix the problem, right?

  As for her undoubted skill at healing, young Lillith would probably soon be able to materialize the correct plant cure without even having to go foraging for it.

  She had to face it, her future prospects in this brave new world were dim at best.

  As for the rest….

  She had started off on this expedition a confident, goal-driven woman. Even throwing Serbell into the equation she had felt she had every possibility of success as far as claiming Benton's heart. And his body, of course. Smiling sourly to herself she reflected on the havoc just a few weeks had wreaked on all her plans.

  She didn't really understand what was going on between him and Serbell- at times they seemed to be totally oblivious to the other's presence, and at others the sexual tension between them was so palpable, their body language so intense, that only good manners stopped people from telling them to go get a room.

  She knew one thing, though. She might have been reduced to playing second fiddle, or even third she thought disgustedly, as far as Leiren's attention went, but she was damned if she was going to chase after a man as well.

  Lorenna didn't know if it was pride or a last-ditch attempt to salvage her dignity, but she was done.

  Michael.

  His name was Michael.

  She had been told he used to be considered attractive.

  At this moment holding on to his name was all Yeshra could do to remind herself of the humanity of the pitiful shape huddled in the corner.

  She closed her eyes with a shudder, feeling Sri's calming vibe from outside the house. She didn't need her gift to understand the man in front of her was unstable, just as she didn't need Resnan's nose to tell her the room stank of rotten food and unwashed humanity, like the lair of a wild beast.

  This was all wrong.

  The shivering heap cowering in front of her didn't feel human.

  She had been warned, but she had been sure that if she focused on the man, the essence of the human being....

  For the first time Yeshra wondered if she hadn't bitten off more than she could chew here. Maybe Leiren could help them out with this, even if Sri was loath to take her away from the younger kids.

  Dry tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth she hunched her narrow shoulders and took another hesitant step forward.

  She really, really didn't want to draw any closer.

  Nor did she have to, thank goodness.

  Her gift didn't need direct contact, just an awareness of the other's presence. This was the reason Sri had asked her to accompany him on his daily check-up, if it could be described as such a thing, of this man – the only other adult to survive the ´jump-start´ apart from poor ill-fated Rose, Leni's mother.

  Because no-one could come near him.

  At first, before they knew better, they told themselves it was their choice. That they were just trying to keep him calm. After all, the poor man would scream and froth at the mouth whenever someone tried to approach him. He still lived in the same cottage in the outskirts of the village, of course, the one he had lived in with his wife, Sue. She hadn't survived the virus, but nobody had a chance of comforting him or even telling him yet.

  They had left food for him and made sure his needs were met, always keeping a safe distance. Meanwhile he watched them from afar, looking more and more like a wild-man, or a crazed prophet, depending on your point of view, as the weeks went by.

  Sri had tried...but there were no thoughts that he could read. Nothing but jumbled images and flashes of things that no-one could relate to this man's past history.

  Those couldn't be h
is memories. Most of those images were violent and truly horrifying, and everyone knew Michael to be a gentle man. A man well-adapted to the natural environment they lived in, possibly because he had always lived close to the land. He was probably one of the least traumatized people found in the whole village. He had been a valued member of their community, as had his wife, whatever Quentin had to say.

  Once it was obvious Michael wasn't getting any better in his isolation many of his friends had tried to visit him.

  They found they couldn't make it past the door.

  The door itself was always open, and they could see him, glinting eyes peering through long jet-black hair that used to be a silky ebony mane and was now knotted up in clumped-up tangles, backed up against the furthest wall whenever they came. As soon as they tried to talk to him they were hit by such a strong wave of aversion that only the very bravest of them was able to venture more than a few steps beyond the threshold. And even that would set Michael off again, gibbering and howling, hooked bronzed fingers clawing at the wall.

  Most thought he was obviously crazy, mentally unhinged from the shock to his structural integrity. By then of course, they knew enough about the changes undergone by the ´jump-starters´ to understand that Michael had a Talent, and must be using it to keep everyone away.

  Why, nobody knew, but it was clear the man was suffering. They had no idea what his Talent was, but it obviously could not be called a Gift in his case. And no-one there had been able to help him.

  After witnessing Yeshra's gift in action for a couple of weeks, and how her soft touch and focused demeanor complemented his work while assisting him, Sri had decided to try his luck, and had asked for her help. She could feel the energy force of all things around her, without need for words, or even a thinking process being present, so he thought maybe she could help him detect what was wrong with this poor man.

  And it looked like he might have been right, thought Yeshra.