Oculum echo, p.15
Oculum Echo, page 15
I got soft, fast.
“No. It’s not too soon. It’s time. I’ve written everything down, everything Guide wants us to know. I’ll be leaving the writings and the WillBook from Echo with Grannie for William1 and Jonatan Briar when they return. If they ever do. Dome two is still asleep, but dome three is ready to disperse, if it hasn’t already. We need to help those children come to the valley. Then we have to cross the ocean before the children in other far-off places start to disperse. The Ten Domes Project is spread across the planet.”
“What’s an ocean?” Cranker asks. Miranda raises an eyebrow.
“Salt water. A lot of it,” she answers. “You should probably know that this won’t be easy, to find all ten domes. There are domes in many places. On land, water, and floating in the sky.” Miranda raises her hand. “Don’t ask about that last one.”
Cranker and me look at each other. Of course we want to ask.
A dome in the sky? What can that mean? Miranda lost her mind? Who is this Guide, anyway? How much can it be trusted, a voice you can’t see?
“We’ll have to get ready,” I say. I feel sorry now how much time we wasted, not getting ready for this trip. Miranda shakes her head.
“It’s done. Grannie, the Shiny Man, and I have everything ready. We have Liam’s mule wagon; it’s all packed for us. Food, supplies, enough for months, all ready to go. Meet me at the gates at dawn with one pack each. Don’t tell anyone. We don’t want a scene. The Shiny Man will meet us along the road in a day or two. He’ll travel with us for a while, anyway.” Then she leaves without another word, and Cranker and me stare at each other.
“Don’t tell anyone?” Cranker says. He scratches his head, looks a little sad.
“I’m saying goodbye to Liam and Grannie, no matter what,” I say. I stuff two large buns into my pockets, and we leave to go find Liam in the healer’s barn and Grannie in the Rebel camp over the wall.
I walk past the basket of puppies by the kitchen door.
I see one pup got its eyes open. It wags its little tail at me, and I will never know why, but I scoop that pup and hide him in my shirt. Then I say goodbye to Ariel and Caliban with a few pats.
“Good dogs,” I tell them, “take care of everyone.” They both wag a tail for me, then settle back to sleep with their puppies. They don’t seem to mind that I’m making off with one of them.
The next morning before anyone else wakes, Miranda, me, and with Cranker driving, ride the little mule wagon through the gates of MedFell Hall and into the valley. It’s a fine fall day, sunny and warm, and I think we all feel hopeful somehow. Cranker hums as he drives, always a good sign. I feel the warmth on my face and the warm little stowaway under my shirt and can’t help but grin. Miranda got that voice in her ear, but she seems calm. Then she eyes the little wiggling bump under my shirt.
“If that dog is coming with us, you have to call him Puck,” she says, then goes back to listening to Guide.
I don’t argue. Puck it is.
The last person we see is Grannie at the edge of the Rebel camp, shawl tight around her shoulders, Lisle in her arms. Both wave goodbye. How old will Lisle be the next time I’m back here? What fields will be sown? What orchards growing?
I lift my hand to them, my heart squeezing tears out my eyes. Goodbye, Grannie. Goodbye, Lisle. My most-mother and most-sister. I look back once, but they’re gone.
Cranker drives the mule and wagon into the valley. He seems happy.
Miranda stares straight ahead, listening to Guide in her ear. She’s humming something though, very soft. I hear the ghost of a song, Grannie’s song, row-row-row your boat.
First I knew Miranda could sing.
And I got a world ahead and a puppy in my shirt. Puck. He licks my face, all wiggle and delight, then settles to sleep against my chest. Little heart thump-thumping against mine.
I’m almost a man, but whatever comes, wherever this next adventure takes us, I’ll always have room for a little more love.
William1
Jonatan Briar and I stand in the mountain pass. A great mystery is before us.
A creature lies at our feet, dead and destroyed.
Made of metal, shining blue and silver, this Being walked upon two legs when it lived. Now it lies in a mud-strewn mountain pass, one great boot rests in a stream, the other lies in wildflowers growing on the bank.
The creature looks peaceful, one hand reaching for the white flowers.
Our horses stand nearby, drinking from the stream and eating the grass, flicking their tails.
“What do you think this is, William1?”
Briar looks at me from the other side of the creature. He and I have been riding from his island home in the north back to MedFell Hall for weeks. Briar’s beard hides his face. I have the start of my own beard, but I doubt it will ever be as full as his.
I can see in his eyes that he is as puzzled as I am, though.
The creature’s body is darkened and warped near its middle, surely what killed it. Although nothing is broken or leaking.
“I recognize it, Briar. It is much like my Mother from Oculum. It is much like all the caregivers from Oculum. It must be the same technology.”
Briar gently toes the creature’s boot in the stream.
“So then?” He nods at the shining body, a question in his eyes. The autumn sun is low in the sky, the stream makes a gentle sound at our feet, the flowers scent the air.
A beautiful place to die, I think.
“So then, yes, Briar. It must be what we are both thinking. This is certainly one of the creatures we have just traveled far to read about. One of the E.C.H.O. Technology Systems artificial intelligences. Built by the Encore Creation: Heavy Ordnance company.” All these words still sound strange in my mouth, technology, artificial, Encore. I knew none of them before I read the precious Olden Begones book of secrets on Briar’s island home. The words are all new to me.
Briar kneels down and looks at the Echo’s right boot.
“It’s there,” he says quietly. We both knew it would be.
I join him. There is the mark on the sole of the boot: Echo1.
“So, we are agreed. This is one of the three Echo-creatures.”
“What else could it be?” I say.
We are both still for a few moments, amazed. Such a beautiful intelligence lies here. We have just read the ancient book about the E.C.H.O. Project, and the intelligences built long ago to wake and find us.
And now, impossibly, we have found one.
Dead.
“I agree, Briar. It can only be Echo1. The mark is there on the right boot as proof and so anyone can track it.” We both know the word “Echo” is on the chest plate and cheek as well, but we cannot see either, since Echo1 lies in the stream.
Briar stands up and looks around, then back at me.
“But where are the other two Echos?” He wants me to come up with a reasonable answer. But I can’t. They could be anywhere. The Olden Begones book said that the three Echo intelligences existed but not where to find them. The project was a last minute effort, created by desperate people unsure if it could work. Most important details came after the book was written.
“Well …” I hesitate. Whatever I tell him will be something he has already considered. He does this often, asking me to speak aloud what we are both thinking. I think this is his way of teaching me.
I go on. “Well, the only thing I can say for certain is that Echo1 lies dead at our feet and the others, Echo2 and Echo3, are not here.” We look at each other, and Briar nods. Then he asks next what we are both thinking.
“Yes, William1. But is this the rogue Echo?”
We lock eyes. It is impossible to know if this is the runaway, the renegade, the unprogrammed Echo.
The Echo without a purpose.
I look long at the creature in the stream. Peaceful, ruined, but there is a grace in those fingers that almost touch the flowers on the bank of the stream.
Finally, I shake my head. “Echo1 reaches for the flowers, see? Would a rogue, wild creature reach for flowers?”
Just then the huge falcon wheels overhead.
We’ve seen this falcon on and off over the past few days, circling over this spot. This is the reason we came this way, to see what drew the mighty bird. Briar says that falcons were almost extinct, but once circled dead or dying creatures on the ground. But I think he means dead creatures of flesh and bone that would serve as food, not an intelligence made of metal and steel.
Briar looks at the great falcon above, then down at the destroyed Echo.
“Hmm. Flowers.”
The falcon dips low overhead, circling us, and I hear a strange creak. Somehow familiar. Maybe falcons creak? Perhaps this is their call? I don’t know, since I’ve never seen one before.
“Do you think that great bird has led us here on purpose, for some reason?” I ask. It seems an odd thought, but there’s something so familiar about the falcon. And it does seem to be very intent on Echo1 lying in the stream.
Briar shakes his head. “The book didn’t mention anything about a falcon.” He shrugs and clears his throat.
“Echo1 has clearly been killed by something powerful. It was meant to live for centuries, but it has died here. It’s a mystery, William, one we cannot solve today. Let us hope this is the renegade creature that the book talked about and now it is dead, so it can’t harm anyone. Come, the sun is lowering, we have another hour of travel before we can rest. Tomorrow we’ll make MedFell Hall. We have much to tell them.”
Briar swings into his saddle and waits along the path.
“I need a minute,” I say. Briar nods, looking away.
I stand beside the great body of Echo1, so peaceful in the water, so like my Mother, my Teacher, my caregivers from my old life in Oculum. I feel strange leaving this remarkable piece of technology here, renegade or not. An Echo intelligence, one of three sent from the Olden Begones, in a final act of desperation from a dying civilization.
The Olden Begones book told us that the Echos were sent to help us, to teach us, to show us how to survive the plague, how to plant seeds so they will grow, how to set up fair and free communities so all can prosper. How to avoid the mistakes of the past, their past.
And one day, when the world is more stable, the Olden Begones hoped that the Echo intelligences would show us how to paint works of art, how to make music, how to tell great stories and poems once again.
How to live peacefully.
But now one Echo intelligence is already dead, and the other two roam somewhere, anywhere, on the planet. Which one is the damaged renegade which escaped its Makers before it was finished, powerful but without a purpose?
I look down at Echo1. This one?
Then I go and gather flat rocks the size of my hand. I find a place above the stream on the dry bank and place the rocks carefully to spell three words: Echo1 lies here.
I pick a few of the white flowers and place them in the creature’s outstretched hand.
Then I stand in the water and clasp my hands.
“Echo1, I wish I had known you when you lived. I wish you had lived for many centuries, as your Makers intended.”
Briar’s horse clomps its foot, and my horse noses my shoulder. It’s time to go.
“I hope you died for something important. We will know Echo2 and Echo3 when we find them because we have found you. Thank you, Echo1.”
I kneel and touch Echo1’s head.
Goodbye, Echo1. I will not forget you lie here, alone.
Then I climb onto my horse, and Briar and I ride south.
I think about the warm kitchens at MedFell Hall, and how I can’t wait to bathe. I think about Miranda1 and all I have to tell her one day. I hope she and the others have been safe with Grannie at her brother’s farm. One day soon, I will ask Briar to take me back to see her, to see all the children of Oculum. And to see Mannfred and Cranker too.
I have so much to tell them.
I look back once and the great falcon swoops low over Echo1, then soars into the sky. The last I see of it, the huge bird is a dot heading west in the orange twilight. Then it’s gone.
For some reason, I think it will not be back.
As we ride, Briar discusses what we have seen and learned.
I pretend to listen, but I can only think about what we have left behind us.
High above, Echo1 lies in the mountain pass, with the knowledge and hope of those who came before. An echo of all that is gone, a warning, and a gift. Briar thinks Echo1 is a loving message from the Olden Begones: they wanted us to live.
They made a lot of mistakes, but perhaps he’s right?
So then, we must live.
Acknowledgements
When Oculum was published in 2018, I thought I had written a stand-alone dystopian story for middle-grade readers.
But books take on a life of their own. Thank you to everyone who read Oculum then asked me the question that sends every writer back to their keyboard: What happens next?What?
The answer is Oculum Echo, book two in The Children of Oculum series!
As always, thank you to my wonderful publisher Barry Jowett at DCB Young Readers, and to Marc Côté, publisher of parent company Cormorant Books, for their continued faith in me. Also thank you to Chantelle Cho, Sarah Cooper, Tannice Goddard, Sarah Jensen, Luckshika Rajaratnam, and Tiana Trudell, my publishing family. And extra kudos to artist Emily Weedon for the beautiful cover; Echo1 lives!
When you enter the world of Oculum this time, you’ll see that my writerly crystal ball was extremely prescient. Like the first book, Oculum Echo continues to explore themes of inequity, pandemic and climate collapse, but in this second book the children also run from war. When I delivered this manuscript to my publisher in 2021, I was not expecting more real-world bombs, or families fleeing to safety. But 2022 brings yet another war.
Children’s books provide worlds in which young readers can safely explore difficult issues; I created the character of gentle Echo1 as a guide through that world. You’ll meet some of my deepest literary and science fiction influences in Echo1, from Mary Shelley’s creature, to Star Trek’s Data, to Martha Wells’s Murder Bot, and more. I hope Echo1’s quest resonates with you.
Many thanks as always to Paul, Sarah, and Ben, and to beta readers and early supporters: Doris Montanera, Kathleen Foley, Rebecca Upjohn, Monica Kulling, Ric Waugh, Michael Kot, Andrea Gutsche, Meredyth Young, Andrea Strachan, Karen Upper, Helen Kubiw, Jordi, and Neco. Special thanks also to both Baye Hunter and Iris Wilde, creative friends who invite me into their beautiful spaces to write.
Finally, deepest gratitude to Peter Skilleter, gifted teacher and pivotal influence, this book is dedicated to him.
Philippa Dowding
Philippa Dowding has won many magazine industry awards and has had poetry and short fiction published in journals across North America. Her children’s books have been nominated for numerous literary awards in Canada, in the U.S., and Europe, including the SYRCA Diamond Willow, OLA Silver Birch Express, OLA Red Maple, Rocky Mountain and Hackmatack awards. In 2017, Myles and the Monster Outside was an OLA Silver Birch Express Honour Book. In 2021, she won the Governor General’s Literary Award, and in 2022 she won the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award, both for Firefly.
We acknowledge the sacred land on which Cormorant Books operates. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibway and allied nations to peaceably share and steward the resources around the Great Lakes. Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island.
We are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.
Philippa Dowding, Oculum Echo
