The Stuff of Stars (The Seekers Book 2) Page 4

  Our neighbors stocked the boat with fruits that would last but a few days, and smoked meats and grain that would sustain us much longer. Strong young men hauled casks of fresh water over the mountain trail and secured them to the deck with thick ropes. I lovingly placed my charts and notes, my new instruments, and an ample supply of paper and quill pens into a pouch my mother had stitched from otter skin treated with oil—waterproof to survive the storms at sea.

  The time had come to set off.

  When Thomas, Nathaniel and I first left Little Pond to seek the keep, I worried we’d never return. I suspected danger but, blinded by my youth and the lure of adventure, I was unfazed. Now, as we sailed away, I had no such illusions, yet I was unprepared for the sight of land receding into the distance. Soon all I’d ever known had vanished—no elders to guide me, no vicars to offer spiritual guidance or threaten to split us apart, no pursuing deacons, no hope of finding the keep. Only the green water, the lapping of the waves on our hull, and the dome of the sky overhead, the universe so much larger than what I’d viewed from the keep’s observatory.

  As I finish this, my first log entry at sea, daylight flickers on the horizon. With the shoreline a memory, I’ll use my newfound skills to guide our ship by the sun. If the day turns overcast, I’ll navigate by dead reckoning and faith, calling on the light for guidance to lead us to the distant shore.

  The new day dawns at last, and I’m struck by my new reality. Everything I’ve known is gone, leaving Nathaniel and I afloat on an endless sea. Our newest adventure has begun.

  ***

  I flipped through and skimmed the rest. How enamored I’d become with my knots and compass, with my chronometer and sextant, and the numbers that combined to mark off another day’s progress on the charts. I’d grown excited as the days sailed became greater than the estimated days remaining, but once my countdown reached zero with no land in sight, my mood had darkened and my words bemoaned my fate.

  ***

  By dead reckoning, we should have arrived by now. By the readings on the sextant and the time on the chronometer, we still should be close. Yet no land appears.

  Did I err in my calculations? Or did some demon from the darkness lead me astray?

  Some days, a stinging spray breaks over the bow and surges along the deck. I tie the waterproof pouch more tightly about my waist and cling to the rail, staring into the teeth of a northwest wind, and trying to penetrate the mist. I feel seasick occasionally, especially when the sea breeze is up and the ship plunges heavily over the crests of the waves.

  Then Nathaniel tells me his vision to keep my spirits up, how one day soon we’ll spot the shining city rising from the mist. He speaks as if he’s already been there, promising a place grander than the keep. I bask in his energy and forget my queasiness for a time. But still the sea goes on, and the endless waves break across our bow.

  Oh, where is the land?

  Or is the shining city I viewed on the screen just another of the keepmasters’ tales?

  ***

  Enough! I clapped the log closed and pressed down on its cover with my thumbs, as if afraid it might spring back open on its own. What a fool I’d been. How simple-minded my planning, all my calculations for naught.

  I tucked away the log in its waterproof pouch, my eyes too heavy to read more. Then I lay down beside Nathaniel and drifted off toward sleep.

  ***

  I dreamed I floated alone on the sea. Not on the deck of a boat but on my back, arms extended out to the sides. Above me spread an infinite sky, the kind I remembered from the keep’s observatory—stars so dense they massed in clouds, and planets of unimaginable brightness. The sky was so clear I believed I could count the millions of suns in the galaxy, one at a time.

  I scanned the stars and picked out the many constellations I’d learned. I found the hunter, Orion, with his sword and bow, and the three stars in a row forming his belt. I followed the belt to the dog star, Sirius, brightest in the sky. I located the big dipper and tracked the stars at the end of the ladle to Polaris, the north star that had helped guide my way on our voyage. Perhaps it would guide me now.

  Suddenly, I needed to calculate my exact longitude and latitude, the magic numbers signifying my position on this earth. I splashed about in the water, groping for my chronometer and sextant, but they were nowhere to be found.

  Then something changed. I felt myself—or the essence of myself—begin to expand. I became no longer merely Orah but the sea itself, and more—the whole world and all of the people upon it.

  I relished the feeling of weightlessness, the sense of being pure mind. No need for chronometer or sextant now, or any other device. As I gazed at the sky, I saw not just stars but a myriad of numbers. I knew the speed of the wind, the direction of the currents I floated in. No moon? No problem. I sensed it on the far side of the world, its precise angle and location. I knew the speed at which it orbited around the Earth, my precise position on this planet without need to calculate, and my place in the universe as well. I knew all the answers to the hardest questions I’d ever asked. I just... knew.

  ***

  As I emerged from my dream, I considered that if the dreamers had ascended to a higher state of consciousness as the mentor claimed, perhaps I might speak to them now by reaching out with my mind.

  I paused to listen.

  I heard Nathaniel’s measured breathing beside me, the beating of my own heart, but nothing more.

  Then my breathing slowed to match Nathaniel’s, and the images faded away.

  Chapter 5 – A Cry in the Night

  I awoke before daylight and stared at the ceiling, trying to see through the foamed panels to the stars of my dreams. After the long weeks at sea, I needed more sleep, but no sleep came. Beside me, Nathaniel snored softly. Afraid to disturb him, I slipped out of bed, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and went to check outside. Yesterday had been a fuzzy day, swaddled in scrim, muddled by exhaustion, hunger and thirst. Would the world look better today?

  I hesitated at the door. After months confined to a cell in Temple City, I’d developed a fear of being locked away and worried we might be prisoners now. I tested the latch, pressing the handle so lightly it made no sound. The door swung wide.

  I padded through the assembly hall, now dark except for a few bulbs hung from wires in the rafters, and went out the front entrance. Once outdoors, I inhaled the cool night air. Overhead, the stars blazed brightly across the dome of the sky, and a crescent moon prepared to set on the horizon. I connected the points of light into my favorite constellations. Pictures appeared in my mind—hunters and bears and a flying horse, old friends I’d learned to love in the keep’s observatory. Thankfully, the night sky had stayed the same.

  Even in this strange new land, stars remained stars, nothing more.

  An onshore breeze blew across the shantytown, bringing a hint of salt air. As it traveled inland, it mingled with other familiar smells—pine trees and moist earth, and the smoke of smoldering fires burning low.

  Comforted that earth, sea and sky had returned to normal, with no whiff of dreamers in the air, I turned to head back inside, but before I reentered the commons, a cry disturbed the night. I followed the sound to a nearby shanty, where candlelight flickered through an open door.

  Inside, Kara held the little boy Timmy in her arms, rocking him back and forth and whispering soothing words. When she recognized me, she motioned to join her.

  “Is he all right?” I whispered.

  “Just frightened. He’s afraid to fall asleep.”

  “Why?”

  “He worries that if he dreams, he’ll never awaken. Like the dreamers.”

  I squatted on the ground next to the boy and stroked his arm. “When I was little, about the same age as you, my father died. Like you, I was afraid to sleep, worried I’d never wake up.”

  Timmy became still. His eyes grew larger. “What did you do?”

  “My mother sang me a magic song that made me feel better
. Would you like to hear it?”

  He nodded.

  “There’s one thing I ask: the magic only works if you come so near you can listen to the beating of my heart.”

  The little boy shimmied over and sat on my knee, but hesitated to get closer. I stayed silent until he snuggled in, his ear to my breast. He stared up at me, his eyes as bright as the hooded kerosene lamp that glowed each night as I stood watch on our boat.

  Then I sang the song my mother had taught me, with words that calmed when I was most afraid. Like the day I stood in the vicars’ chamber, facing the teaching alone, or that morning I pressed my cheek to the pine needle floor and prayed the deacons wouldn’t find me. After the arch vicar threatened to split us apart, I sang this song to Nathaniel through the peephole separating our cells—a way to comfort us both.

  Hush my child, don’t you cry

  I’ll be here with you

  Though light may fade and darkness fall

  My love will still be true

  ~~~

  So close your eyes and trust in sleep

  And dream of a better day

  Though night may fall, the morn will come

  The light will show the way

  ~~~

  Though you may roam to far off lands

  And trouble comes your way

  You’ll still be here within my heart

  I won’t be far away

  ~~~

  So when you fear the darkness

  Sing this simple rhyme

  This song and I will never die

  If you dream of a better time

  As my voice trailed off, the child fell asleep in my arms.

  After I carried the boy back to his bed and tucked a blanket around him, Kara thanked me for my help and turned to leave.

  I followed her out and grasped her arm. “I’m still thirsty from yesterday, and chilled as well. Is there a place I could get a warm drink?”

  “Yes, from the synthesizers, if I can get them to work.”

  “Will you show me how?”

  She led me back into the domed commons, where she navigated the aisles of tables to the holos. Quicker than I could follow, her hand flicked among the menus until two steaming hot chocolates appeared, one for each of us.

  “First try,” she said. “You bring good luck.”

  I settled down at a table and waited for my drink to cool. “Are all the children afraid like Timmy?”

  “Not all, but most. There aren’t enough adults left to comfort them, so I do my part. I’m the oldest of the techno children, one of the few who remembers clearly the day the dreamers left. It was a happy day for us, a time of celebration, blessed with a perfect blue sky. The synthesizers were programmed to serve us special food, a big feast. Those we now call dreamers were dressed in white as they paraded up the mountain path from the city. Everyone fit enough to make the climb went with them.

  “We were given an examination once we turned thirteen, and only those who passed were deemed strong enough to enter the mountain. I was two weeks shy of that birthday, but I was the smartest in my class. Passing the exam was never an issue, but they refused to let me take it early—rules were rules. I wanted so badly to go with them that I cried and fussed. ‘Not yet,’ they said. ‘Your time will come.’”

  A soft sadness blanketed her features from the pain of times gone by. She took a sip of her drink, a ploy to calm herself and make sure her nearly adult eyes stayed dry.

  “At least I had a chance to say goodbye. For children like Timmy, the dreamers are nothing more than a story... and not a pleasant one. So they imagine the worst.”

  I calculated. Kara was on the threshold of womanhood, perhaps sixteen. That meant the dreamers had left... ascended... three years before. Was it possible...?

  I took a deep breath. “Are the dreamers still alive?”

  “Oh, yes,” Kara said, though her eyes didn’t agree. “Alive of sorts. I find it hard to explain. Even the mentor doesn’t know for sure. Now he gives us medicine to grow our brains, and we study hard so someday we might merge our minds with the machines like them.”

  “Will you succeed?”

  She shrugged. “The mentor says we have to try because without us, the machines will one day fail. The greenies think we’re fools. Even before the day of ascension, they were suspicious of the machines. They learned a different way, to live without them, except when they need what only the machines can provide. Then we trade with them.”

  “Do the greenie children have trouble sleeping as well?”

  “No. The ragged lady claims they sleep well at night because their labor with the land gives them peace.”

  “The ragged lady?”

  “She’s like the mentor, but for the greenies. We call her that, but they know her as the earth mother.”

  A thought struck me, a glimmer of hope. “Do either technos or greenies have the skill to build a boat?”

  Kara shook her head, her hair flying about her eyes. “Not that I know of. I’ve learned nothing about boats, and the greenies stick to the land.”

  I took a chance. “Would the dreamers know?”

  “Yes, of course. The dreamers know about everything, but we children can only listen to recordings of them in the classroom. Nothing in the lessons so far has ever mentioned a boat.”

  “Is there a way to speak to them directly?”

  Kara’s hands flew to her face. Her fingers widened so she looked at me only through the spaces in between.

  “If only.... I’d give anything to speak with them, to say what I should have said on that day. I’ve begged the mentor to let me try, even for a few seconds, but he says my mind’s not strong enough yet, and I’m needed here. Maybe in a few years....”

  I recalled the long hours I’d spent in the keep, listening to recordings of the ancient keepmasters. Was speaking to the dreamers like communing with the helpers? If so, would my mind be strong enough to learn from them?

  Curiously, Kara’s eyes began to fill, hinting that the dreamers meant more to her than helpers on a screen.

  “Why do you want to speak to them so much?” I said.

  “Because on that day, I was an ungrateful child, demanding they let me go with them, caring only for myself. If I’d known I was seeing them for the last time, I would have told them....”

  The last time. Last times were horrible things: like the last time I spoke to my father; or fearing I’d seen Nathanial for the last time. And now, with our boat destroyed, another awful truth emerged—the parting on the shore may have been the last time I embraced my mother. Last times carried a finality about them, like death.

  I grasped Kara’s hands, forcing her to face me. “What would you have told them?”

  “That I loved them,” she said. “My mother and father. My very own dreamers.”

  Chapter 6 – Seekers Once More

  Still restless after my encounter with Kara, I drew a hot bath while Nathaniel slept. When finished, I wrapped myself in one of the lush towels and dried my hair with another. As I stepped back into the bed chamber, the lights brightened.

  Nathaniel stirred, sensing morning had come, but he seemed loath to confront the day. Was he dreaming of the children dressed in silver, rushing to help us on the shore? Did he wonder as I did if the memory had been real? I recalled my panic when I scanned the shoreline, littered with shards from our shattered boat, and discovered he was nowhere to be found. I knew at once it was real—no dream could be so painful.

  He groped at his side, eyes still closed, scratching the fabric of the bed and searching for me.

  I lowered my voice to sound like a man. “She’s not there.”

  He forced his eyes open and blinked at the light. “Orah?” In his half-awake state, my name sounded more plea than cry.

  He looked so forlorn I curled up next to him and crooned my mother’s song, just as I’d done during those dreadful days imprisoned in Temple City:

  Hush my child, don’t you cry

  I�
��ll be here with you

  Though light may fade and darkness fall

  My love will still be true

  He stretched his arms overhead in a yawn, and then gave me a lingering kiss. “How long have you been awake?”

  “Too long. I couldn’t sleep, but my time hasn’t been wasted. I learned a lot while you were snoring away.”

  He glared at me sideways, knowing me too well. “What have you been up to?”

  “I wandered outside for fresh air and found the girl, Kara, comforting one of the younger children. She told me more about the dreamers. She’s one of the few old enough to recall the day they left, and she remembers some especially well, the two she cared about most in this world.”

  I flashed my I-have-the-answer-and-you-don’t smile, knowing it would annoy him while he waited for his mind to clear.

  “Do you mean... the dreamers were the missing adults, the mothers and fathers of these children?”

  I nodded. “About three years ago, they went off to some kind of festival, a celebration of knowledge. Only those thirteen and older were allowed to go, and then only if they’d passed some kind of test. The festival was high up on the mountain, inside the fortress built into the rock face.”

  “Like the keepmasters taking their knowledge to the keep.” He dragged his fingers through his hair and ruffled his beard, prodding his tired brain to grasp what I’d been saying. “Three years ago? These are the wise ones who made food out of air. They should still be alive.”

  “I pray it’s so. These are the ones we crossed the ocean to meet, people like the keepmasters but more advanced, and not mere recordings on screens.”

  “But if they’re alive, why would they leave their children alone all this time?”

  I fumbled in the closet for clothing, flipping through one, two, three choices and plopping the third on the bed. “That’s the riddle. Kara expected them to return soon, if not the same day. She’s devastated they’re gone, yet she believes she’ll speak to them again someday. In the meantime, the techno children meet them only in their lessons.”