For those of you who have read Fadeout, and even if you haven't, here's a sneak peek at the first chapter of Remembered, And Carillians for the Machine Book 2!
Chapter 1: Silas
The wet twigs and leaves slipped with
every step Silas Durant took, often overstraining his leg muscles which tried
so hard to keep his body upright. It had been two weeks on the run and he would
have thought his muscles would be used to it by now. He glanced back at his
sister Malina. Her eyes stared off at the distant trees. A bell rang probably
from a nearby town, but she was not looking in the direction the sound was coming
from. She was just staring at the last spot her eyes happened to look. The
downhill slope they had been following seemed to have no obvious effect on her.
Silas rubbed the sweat from his brow and then checked Malina’s forehead. She
was sweating too, just not as much as he was, although she wasn’t breathing
heavily despite the fact that they had been running for eight hours straight
since early morning.
“We’ll stop at the bottom of this hill,”
Silas said. There had to be some kind of stream or river nearby. He thought he
could hear water trickling somewhere downhill. They would also have to find
something to eat. Silas wasn’t sure how long he could make three slices of
bread and a block of cheese last, but it was all that was left now after two
weeks of careful rationing.
“Come on,” Silas said. He stepped and
his foot slipped farther than he expected. His other leg slid into the dirt and
his hands sank an inch in mud when they tried to stop his fall. Silas let out a
laugh. That had to look awkward, but when he glanced up at Malina, she didn’t
smile or look concerned. It made Silas feel alone, utterly alone when she did
that. She was his sister, but all of her memories were taken out of her mind,
removed to be sold for energy. She didn’t remember him, she didn’t even
remember herself and he had to carry all of their memories by himself.
Silas quickly checked the pillowcase with
the food tied to his back. He could feel the smooth surface of the glass e-mem
resting against his back. The pillowcase was clean, which also meant the only
memory Malina had left was safe too. The first chance he got he would find a
way to get her memories and hopefully one day he would find a way to stick them
back into her mind. But her memories were locked up in the Cartiam, the one
place he was trying so hard to escape from. How would he ever get back there
before her memories were shipped and lost forever?
He started to push himself up, but when
he turned his noticed Malina’s right foot was soaked in blood.
“What happened?” Silas asked.
Malina turned her eyes to him at the
sound of his voice.
He reached out and gently lifted her
foot. Several leaves and a stick came up with it and Silas wiped all but the
stick away. The angle of the stick appeared to pierce through her shoe into her
foot and Silas couldn’t remove the shoe without taking out the stick first.
“I’m going to take it out fast, okay?”
Silas didn’t look up because he didn’t want to see how calm her eyes would be.
She never complained and now he wondered if he had been pushing her too hard.
Silas took a ragged breath and closed
his fingers around the stick. With a quick tug he jerked it out of the shoe and
gritted his teeth against the flow of blood from the hole in her shoe. He undid
the laces and inspected her foot as well as he could. The stick had poked
through the center of her arch, but the top of Malina’s foot was still whole.
There was both old and new blood on her sock which meant that she had been
running with the stick in her foot for a while and he hadn’t noticed.
“I’m sorry.”
She didn’t say anything. Much like she
hadn’t said anything about the stick. He tried to think back if she’d sighed or
grunted or made any sound over the last few miles that he should have paid more
attention to, but he couldn’t remember. It would be up to him from now on. He
would have to pay more attention, especially now that he knew she wouldn’t warn
him if she was in pain.
Silas took off his cleanest sock and
wrapped it around Malina’s foot. Then he put her sock and shoe back on and
pushed himself up. Once they found the water he would clean her up and then
they would take the remainder of the day to rest.
“Lean on me,” Silas said when he
straightened. He wrapped his arm around her waist and took a few steps with
her. Malina walked on both feet almost as if there was nothing wrong, but she
didn’t seem to step as hard on her hurt foot as she did with her other foot.
Silas tried pulling her weight on him when she did need to step on her bad foot
and they slowly followed the sound of the water until the little creek came
into view.
He found the safest route down the creek
bank and helped Malina down. The mud was thick and oozed around his shoes and
the water seemed to fill the air with the taste of cleanliness. Leading her to
the nearest flat rock, Silas had her sit while he removed her shoe and the
socks and placed her foot into the water.
The mid-spring water was cold and made
his fingers go numb while they were gently rubbing her foot and scrubbing the
socks. After hanging the socks up to dry, Silas inspected Malina’s foot again.
It wasn’t bleeding and the hole didn’t look nearly as big as the amount of
blood in the socks had suggested. But there was a large bruise, dark and puffy,
that covered the sole of her foot.
“Look,” Silas said and pointed to the
foot. “You need to tell me when it hurts. Okay?”
Malina’s brown eyes stared at him, like
a little child who didn’t speak the same language.
“When you feel pain,” Silas touched the
wound, “You tap me on the shoulder.” He took her hand and rested it on his
shoulder. He let his hand drop, but Malina left hers there a moment longer and
then she placed her hand in her lap.
Silas pulled the pillowcase over his
shoulder and opened it.
“Here,” he said handing her a whole
slice of bread. For himself, he drank some water and tried not to think about
food.
Silas let all his air out in a whoosh. The
plan to keep running wouldn’t be sustainable much longer. When he escaped the
Cartiam with Malina it was thrilling to be free. What he hadn’t counted on was
how hard it was to stay that way. In one sense it was so much harder than he’d
ever dreamed possible. He was in charge of everything: food, clothes, a place
to sleep and any health issues. Never had he imagined how hard it would be to
find food in the forest. There were just leaves, trees, dirt and rocks, none of
which looked anything like the food he’d been served in the cafeteria.
The bell from the town rang again and
Silas refused to let the sound call to him. There would be nothing in the town
but the threat of being caught. Out in these woods they were safe. He had seen
or heard no one over the last two weeks and it was best that way. If only he
knew how to find food it would be perfect.
“I’m going to look around,” Silas said.
“To see how close we are to the town.”
He double checked to make sure her foot
was out of the water and resting in the open before he added, “You stay here.”
Malina stayed as she was and when Silas
peered back at her five minutes later she was still in the same position. There
was something to be said for how well she obeyed him. He should have been
worried. He doubted she would move if the creek flooded. She’d drown where she
sat and still not move. But he’d be back before that could happen.
It was rough going. The ground was
soaked from all the rain that had fallen over the past few days and it was
difficult for Silas to find any secure foothold. Still he managed to hike over
three wooded hills and at the top of the fourth was a road. Not like the old
roads he had seen in the woods every now and then, this one was current. Packed
gravel and tar smoothed the surface of the road. He didn’t have time to inspect
the road more because a rattle of wheels and clopping of hooves sounded near
the bend and he quickly retreated to the nearest trees.
The wheels grew closer and Silas’ heart
thumped louder. He checked his arms and legs to reassure himself they were not
sticking out in plain sight. They weren’t but he pulled them in closer to the
center of the tree just in case. As the wagon passed the tree, Silas inched
along the trunk always keeping the tree between him and the wagon. Once the
wagon was past, Silas peeked at it.
The wagon was pulled by an ox and it
must have belonged to a farmer because it was full of seed bags. On the tail
flap of the wagon sat two boys, both younger than Silas. At first he thought
they must have belonged to the farmer, but when the farmer glanced back both of
the boys ducked so they wouldn’t be seen.
Silas waited until the wagon was almost
out of sight before he started following it. The boys stayed on the wagon until
it was in sight of the town’s first buildings. Together they jumped off and
slipped between the two closest buildings with the farmer unaware of his
passengers. Silas wanted to creep closer and see where the boys went, but it
would require him leaving the comfort of the trees and that was something he
wasn’t willing to do. It made him wonder what they were doing though. Did they
have family or were they more like him?
The more he thought about it, the more
it seemed like those boys were hiding from society too. It was doubtful they
were Carillians too, but just knowing they were there made him feel a bit less
alone in the world. He stayed and watched a few more people mill about the
town. Each person had their mind on their own troubles and didn’t bother with
anyone else. No one was in the habit of questioning random new people. That was
something at least. He wanted to get closer and watch more, but the sun was
close to setting and he didn’t like to leave Malina alone for long periods of
time.
He snuck deeper into the woods before he
broke out into a slow run and jogged back to the creek. It pleased him that he
had been able to find his way back to wherever he needed to go in the woods.
Often when he first left he would take a moment to memorize the trees around
him and when he returned he found there was always something he recognized. He
felt at home in the trees perhaps because they crowded around him and gave the
appearance of the walls he was too used to seeing as a child.
Silas was too busy looking around that
when he burst through the bushes the first thing he saw was Malina sitting on
the rock with a red fox standing a foot from her hand. The fox’s head whipped
up.
“Get away!” Silas yelled and he jumped
down the bank into the shallow creek, cold water splashing up his legs. The fox
jerked and then trotted away into the bushes. His heart pounded as he tried to
walk without slipping.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
Malina looked at him. He wasn’t sure if
she looked a bit pale or not, but her hands were calm and whole. Her foot was
still up on the rock where he left it and aside from the bruise looking a
deeper brown it didn’t appear like the fox had bit her anywhere.
He collected the dried socks and fitted
them over her foot. Then he held out his hand to her and said, “Here let’s find
a place to sleep.”
Malina took his hand and he pulled her
up. He turned her toward the shore, but what he saw stopped him cold. The rock
Malina was sitting on was stained in blood.
