Oculum echo, p.14
Oculum Echo, page 14
My friend is kind, but if he only knew how unfit I feel to do this. I’m about to speak, but a quick movement catches my eye. Nearby, one of the UnRuly twitches a finger.
“He’s moving!” I say, pointing.
“The Sleep Cloud is wearing off,” Echo says. “Soon they will wake.”
“They’s all moving!” Cranker says. And he’s right. The UnRuly and Grannie’s Rebels all start to move, a twitch of a hand here, a jiggle of a leg there. The people stretch slowly, moan, whisper, but they’re not really awake. Not yet.
Echo looks at me and says gently, “Well, Miranda1, what is your answer? Will you gather and lead the children of the world?” Then Echo stands up, towering above us.
“Why me? There are surely many who can lead the children of the Ten Domes Project as they wake.”
Echo’s head shakes. “No. There is only you. You are the First One. You are tried, you are tested, you are the First One to survive, to disperse, to lead. I have found you for a reason, Miranda1: to be fair, to be ferocious, to protect, and to teach. Others may join you, but there is only one natural leader for the children of this world, and it is you.”
I look at my friends. If Echo only knew how little I know about this world. I am only full of questions. And there is Black Rain, Dying Fever, war.
And yet … if there are more children in the world, they will be helpless, perhaps more helpless than I.
I have helped to deliver the children of Oculum to this valley. They must be at MedFell Hall by now, safe. As safe as I can make them, anyway.
Grannie will care for them, along with the other adults.
Grannie. She has shown me birth and death, families, beginnings and endings. She has taught me so much about healing, about this world.
I have loved a baby.
I have killed a pig.
I have not given up, day after day.
I bow my head. I think my Mother would want me to take this journey, to gather and lead others like me.
I think Grannie would too.
“We do not have much time, Miranda1, three minutes and two seconds. What is your answer?” Echo says again.
“Echo, how far must I travel?” I ask.
“I cannot say for certain. You are going a long way, for a long time. But the Black Rain will stop one day. This valley will grow your special seeds and plants. The children can flourish here. And you will have Peregrine and Guide with you on your journey. Guide will answer your questions. Peregrine will see the world around you and take letters over great distances, between you and MedFell Hall. Your friends will know how your journey goes.”
“And you, Echo? Will you come with me?”
Echo’s head shakes no. “I cannot come.”
Suddenly, Mannfred and Cranker stand close beside me.
“If you’re going, we’re coming too, Miranda,” Mannfred says.
Cranker nods but whispers, “And festering mercy if we ain’t gone strange in the head.”
I am grateful for my friends and briefly put a hand on Mannfred’s arm. “But where will you be, Echo?” I ask. I can hear my desperation. Echo hesitates, listening.
“I protected you from the rocket, Miranda1. I chose freely, acted gladly, but it means that I cannot go with you on your journey. Take this.” Echo reaches behind an ear and passes me a small object with a tiny wire at the end.
“Put this in your ear,” Echo says. “And Liam-formerly-William2, this is for you.” Echo opens an arm locker and pulls out a box of small, round containers. “These are vials of vaccine and serum. They will help protect people from the fever. Guide will send directions to where you can find more.”
Liam takes the box in wonder. “I promise to use these well, Echo.” He seems truly moved. Then Echo turns to Mannfred and Cranker.
“Friends of Miranda1. She will have Guide and Peregrine on her journey. But she will also need friends who never fail her.”
Mannfred and Cranker both look at their boots, but Mannfred recovers first.
“We been too far together to fail her now, Echo,” he says quietly.
Echo looks down at us. “Miranda1? Your answer?”
“Yes, Echo. I will gather and lead the children of the Ten Domes as best I can,” I say quietly. I look up at the clever machine before me, the kind creature sent from the past to find me. There is a light in Echo’s eyes that I have never seen before.
My Mother never looked at me like that. Regulus didn’t either. Echo is more, much more.
Echo gently puts a huge metal hand on my head. “All the hopes of the past and future go with you, Miranda1. I could not have had a better purpose than to find you.”
Echo touches my cheek for a moment … then Echo turns and runs away.
“Wait!” I call.
But Echo doesn’t look back. The ground shakes with each leap Echo takes away from us. A few seconds later, there is a flash of sunlight on metal on the distant mountainside. Echo’s video drone falcon circles high above, a dot in the air.
Then Echo is gone.
“Mercy, what just happened?” Cranker asks, puzzled.
“The detonator. Echo will be damaged beyond fixing,” Liam says quietly.
Mannfred looks in the distance and sighs. “I think Echo would have been a friend worth knowing,” he says sadly.
Goodbye, Echo, I say to myself. I hope I’m worthy of your purpose.
A tiny voice suddenly comes from the object in my hand. I look at it. I’d forgotten about it.
I slowly raise the object and put it in my ear, as Echo had said.
Hello? Hello? Is this Miranda1? Can you hear me? Please answer if you can hear me!
I hear a voice, a woman’s voice, in my ear.
“Yes? This is Miranda1. I hear you,” I say. Mannfred looks at me, startled, and I point at the small device in my ear. “A woman, a voice is talking to me,” I whisper.
Miranda1? Is that you? Thank goodness. Hello! I’m sorry that we lost Echo1. That was a good intelligence. So good. Too good. Echo1 knew the explosive material in the detonator was deadly. But Peregrine1 and I will help you on your journey. I’m Guide. Let me start at the beginning, there’s so much you need to know …
Mannfred
I look at the mountain, but Echo’s gone, along with the Peregrine falcon machine.
We all look in the distance for a moment, sorry. I seen the Mothers in Oculum, fighting for their children. But this Echo was something else again, a special creature to come so far to find us.
So far to help us. Who else would do that?
Liam speaks first. “Come on, we can’t stay here. We won’t see Echo again. Let’s get to MedFell Hall before everyone on the battlefield really wakes up.” He climbs into the wagon.
“But Grannie and Georgas? They’re here somewhere. Shouldn’t we find them?” I say.
Cranker agrees, but Miranda says, “No, we have to leave. They can take care of themselves, and besides, they may come to terms.”
“Terms?” Cranker says.
“Yes, terms of surrender. Or terms of not war, anyway,” Liam says.
More people in the battlefield begin to move. They twitch and jerk, some moan a little and rub their legs like they’re numb. It’s clear we got to go before they really wake up, so we climb into the wagon, and the good little mule pulls us toward MedFell Hall.
It’s a while to get down the valley.
Miranda got that voice from Echo in her ear. She listens, looks off into nothing. Lost to us for now, anyway. Seems the woman speaking, Guide, is telling her much. Bragg and the other two sleep in the wagon while Liam drives.
So Cranker and me watch out the back of the wagon. A few people in the battlefield stand up, wobble, some fall over. They all look awful shaky, Grannie’s Rebels and the UnRuly alike. Some stagger a bit, then sit again. Not one of them up to a fight for a while. Maybe they’ll get to talking instead of fighting. Terms, like Liam said.
Without his rocket or Grannie’s gun, Elias can’t hurt anyone like he could, but I worry about Grannie and Georgas.
I hope they come through okay. We don’t see any fighting behind us, but we might be too far. And, like I say, they all got the wobbles anyway.
Slowly, the big white castle of MedFell Hall gets closer and closer. Littluns all colors and ages wave down at us from the high walls, calling and cheering like they own the place, though they only been here a few hours ahead of us. When we finally get through the gates, everyone falls all over us — the dogs too. All the Littluns from Oculum, the City, our three Littluns from home, even some grown folks I don’t know who live at the castle. They come from the castle and the buildings, gardens, and barns, and they’re loud and happy to see us. The girl comes and hands me Lisle, then has a special smile for me, which makes my cheeks burn.
Not sure why.
I carry Lisle around in the blue sling for a while, happy to have her with me again. There are lots of arms here who want to hold the baby, and I pass her along.
Bragg wakes up long after we get through the gates. Some of the people who live here take Liam and Bragg and the sick adults to a “healer’s barn,” they call it. Good, clean, quiet place to get well. Liam tends to the sick there; he’s happiest doing that and no one asks anything else of him. He’s a good Medicus.
Then the Littluns show us the kitchen! Cranker, me, Miranda, we sit and eat. What food too. Bread, greens, chicken soup, barley water. I try to catch Cranker’s eye, but he’s too busy eating to notice me. Miranda’s too busy listening to that Guide in her ear to pay attention to anything else.
Then Cranker and me visit the washhouse and clean off the muck and dust of the last months. I sit in a warm tub of water for a long time, Cranker in a tub beside me.
“Feels weird, Mann. I been covered in muck so long, forgot I had skin under it,” Cranker says. He leans back in the water, looks happy. And it does feel weird. Strange to see his face so clean too.
“Remember when we left our village? Feels like a lifetime ago,” I say. I feel sleepy, warm, clean, and full for the first time in … I don’t know. Months.
Cranker nods. “Yeah. Last thing we did was take a bath.”
We look at each other and then comes a sudden laugh from both of us. The thought of our little village, taking our last bath there, all that’s happened to us since … it’s too much to say. We were different boys when we started out. Cranker gets the hiccups from laughing, so we stop.
I lean back in the bath.
“What happens now?” I ask.
“We do what we promised Echo. We get ready for a long trip with Miranda. We follow that big machine bird if it ever comes back, Miranda and her Guide, to find more domes. More Littluns like the ones from Oculum. Sounds like an adventure to me.” Cranker grins. He got a sprout of hair on his chin, first I noticed it.
My friend turning into a man right before my eyes. What does he see when he looks at me, I wonder?
That night, I sleep in a bed made of hay and sacking, with a blanket, a pillow, and a roof overhead. I sleep like I never slept before. There’s rooms for everyone here in the castle and buildings. All the Littluns got beds, food, comfort, and safety at last. Me and Cranker too. We’re fed, clean, well-rested in no time.
.
* * *
Things been pretty good here are MedFell Hall ever since.
After we came through the gates, the last of us to reach the castle, the people who live here locked those gates. The adults here are good. A few men and women who keep the goats and hens, the gardens, the buildings, doing and making. They were very happy to see us all, I can tell you. They been taking good care of us.
The adults outside the gates? That’s a different thing.
Grannie and her Rebels built a camp against the walls outside the castle. The Shiny Man set up defenses, soldiers and such. Me and Cranker lean over the walls and say hello to Grannie and Georgas each day. They’re always happy to see us. The people here lower food and water, supplies of that sort, over the wall to them. Or open the gates for quick hand over of supplies and news.
Grannie and her Rebels are safe enough and keep us safe too.
The UnRuly got a bigger camp down the valley, marked by that shell of a dead rocket at their gate. They keep a close eye on MedFell Hall and everyone in it.
But a strange thing’s happening.
The UnRuly are ready to talk. They are talking terms. They all woke up from the battlefield too weary to fight for a long while, and they’re a little changed.
They can see there’s food, water and shelter in the valley, enough for everyone. They can see that these things are good. Without that rocket, without Grannie’s gun, Elias don’t seem so bent on killing everyone and everything. Or he’s not bent on it right now.
Each day, a group from Grannie’s Rebels go meet the UnRuly down the valley. This is the start of what the Shiny Man calls “Peace Talks.” The Shiny Man, Grannie, and the others offer the UnRuly some special, hardy seeds from Oculum and a place to grow them. They offer a safe place to settle near MedFell Hall with fresh water and good soil. They give the UnRuly some of Echo’s precious medicine against the Dying Fever, and no one else gets sick.
Grannie’s Rebels offer a stop to the fighting and battles if the UnRuly want to turn their hand to growing things, building a community, instead.
Then Bragg surprises us all.
After a time in the healer’s barn, he asks to rejoin the UnRuly, and the adults in the castle open the gates for him to leave.
Cranker and me think good riddance to him. But strange thing: Bragg turns out to be a fair bargainer. In Peace Talks with Grannie and the Shiny Man, Bragg helps convince Elias to try farming in the valley. Grannie tells us that Bragg can talk sense to Elias like no one else.
Who saw that? Bragg gained some sense after almost dying? Elias felt bad sinking that bullet in Bragg’s shoulder? Whatever did it, a nod from Bragg is better than a splat of his hot gob on my cheek. I wonder if he’ll be a better man than he was a boy?
Me and Cranker live happy like this for weeks. MedFell is busy, people and Littluns working, hammering, building, and living all over it. It’s a good place. The summer comes, then the cooler nights start. I help Liam with the sick on and off, though he’s got lots of volunteers and helpers from the Littluns from Oculum. There’s always someone who hurt a foot, or a limb, or needs a stitch. No more fever, though, thanks to Echo.
I help with chores in the barns, or I dig and turn soil, get ready for planting next spring. The special seeds and cuttings from Oculum, what the Littluns carried safe with them on their long journey, will be planted year after year. The first plants are already sprouting: beans this year, then something called corn next year, squash and so on. Then the peach trees, the apple trees, and more. It’ll take a lifetime to grow all those plants and trees, but it’ll be food for everyone.
I learn archery, which I like. I help some of the Littluns learn to read their letters, which I don’t like as much.
The castle also got a blacksmith and a forge.
The cheerful smith takes one look at me and laughs. “You’re almost big as me, boy! You should try your hand at the forge!” So I do a little smithy work too. Interesting, heating and bending metal, but hot.
All us Littluns help, or play, or learn and do. Someone is teaching someone else something useful everywhere you look at MedFell Hall.
So life’s good, for a while.
One sad thing, though, our friend William1 left before we got here. We thought we were north, but he and Jonatan Briar went even farther north.
There’s a letter for Miranda from William1, tells why.
It’s important, this letter. She reads it to all of us the second night in the castle. We gather to listen, sit on the grass outside the kitchen gardens.
William1’s letter talks about secrets from the Olden Begones, in an old book in the north. First secret is there’s more domes out there, like Echo said. And second secret is all about a voice coming from the past, technology to help us. That’s why William1 and Briar left to go north, to visit a place of learning and find out more about this voice.
“Would you call Echo a voice from the past?” Cranker asks. I shrug.
“Echo was a voice, yes. But technology, too. Like the name, E.C.H.O. on that rocket,” I say. “That woman, the Guide, in Miranda’s ear is truly a voice, I suppose.” We don’t say more, but if Echo was our help from the past, then it’s even worse that Echo’s gone. This world needs all the help it can get.
Miranda writes everything Guide tells her down on some precious paper she and William3 found with Grannie a while back. It’s a lot to know, whatever that Guide is telling her. Miranda almost got a book written, she holds so much paper wherever she goes.
It looks like a burden. She got a troubled look all the time.
Then one cool night, she finds me and Cranker in the kitchen, which is no surprise.
I grown so much over this summer of good eating that nothing fits me. I’m hungry all the time, and the nice kitchen folk leave out a little extra for me before bed.
The kitchen is warm and cozy. There’s a basket of puppies by the door, since it turns out Caliban is a girl dog under all that shaggy, gray hair. The puppies and their parents sleep beside the fire. Good food and shelter take the edge off for every living thing, even for that one-eyed scoundrel dog and his gray-ghost lady. And their eight wiggling, curious, big-eyed puppies.
Miranda walks into the kitchen, comes over to Cranker and me. She looks older, troubled.
“It’s time. We leave tomorrow,” she says. Awful direct.
“Tomorrow? Ain’t that a little soon?” Cranker says. We’re already used to this life, this comfortable castle of beds and food. We almost forgot our promise to Miranda. And Echo. Seems like a lifetime ago that we made it, not a few months.
