Authors: L.M. McCleary
I sat on
a hill of sand and continued to gaze out into the distance. “He said he removed
everything that could bring the memories back.” I thought aloud, “He removed
everything…” I turned my attention to the mare that was currently stabled as
though she could suddenly will my horse into being. “Are you…still alive?” I
sobbed quietly as I hoisted myself up. What do I do now? I can’t confront Dr.
Krastanov
about it; who knows what he might do to me right
now. I heard the vials in my satchel clink together and I thought unto my
father. “Would…he possibly know how to find him?” I continued to talk to myself
as though in a serious discussion - a habit I hadn’t done since the days after
Kay had left me. “He
is
in charge of missing people…”
I
gathered my composure and sighed heavily, willing the emotions away to at least
a temporary respite and I stumbled through the sands to the brown horse that
was available; perhaps she was a replacement? I attempted to pat her softly but
she seemed to shrink back from my touch and her beady eyes watched me
constantly. I swallowed hard as I removed her tether and lifted myself upon her
back; I didn’t enjoy the idea of riding a different horse…I just wanted mine
back. I shifted uncomfortably and the mare huffed at my weight as I tried to
point her northward. She struggled with my direction at first, flailing her
head and backing up but I held onto her tightly, speaking softly into her ears
in an attempt to calm her. She eventually soothed and I dug my heels in and
urged her forward. As we galloped into the wasteland I took a last glance
behind me, hoping that wherever
Ponika
would be, he
would be safe.
CHAPTER 2
I was waiting in the shadow of a cliff, watching the perpetual sandstorm rage
in the distance. I wasn’t going to risk getting lost within it; not today. The
Pirates shouldn’t be long now, though. I attempted to pat the horse I rode on
but she would sway her head when I did. Thankfully she was being patient…for
now. I had already spent fifteen minutes trying to restrain her as she wanted
to bolt off into the desert, with or without me. She still pranced ever so
slightly as we waited, though; those Pirates really needed to show up soon. The
sun was already close to sleeping when I finally saw a swirling vortex rush
through the wasteland. Kay was right; they
can
move incredibly fast. The
tornado of sand stopped briefly outside of the Outpost and a few figures were
clearly seen within it. Moments later, the Outpost’s storm started to recede
and the vortex kicked up again, blazing through the field and I kicked my horse
forward; this was the chance I was waiting for. She jumped left and right for a
minute, shaking her head but as I continued to urge her she finally charged
forward, blasting through the wasteland and arriving in the path the Pirates
had inadvertently cleared for us. She continued running, albeit slower this
time, and it had appeared that we made it just in time. The sands immediately
closed in behind me and the winds were quickly starting to swirl around my face
as the trail attempted to close in on us. I tried to urge my horse further even
faster but she rarely listened; she was hard to control and would attempt to
nip at me if she saw my hand anywhere near her face. Her gait was slowing as
sand started to blow into my face, the path quickly becoming ensconced in sand.
“If you don’t go any faster then you’ll suffer just as much as me.” I breathed
into her ear, “The town ahead is full of food and shade; maybe you should keep
that in mind.” I patted the horse’s neck and while she still seemed to shy away
from my touch, I did feel her quicken at my words. We could still see the path
ahead through the dust in our eyes, although barely. I no longer tried to urge
her faster; she would do this of her own accord, regardless of what I might
suggest. Instead, I held on tightly and ensured my bandana was tied on properly
as the whirling sand threatened to swallow us whole. The world ahead was once
again ablaze in heat, making it difficult to see much of anything with the
sandstorm nipping at our heels.
I ducked
my head down behind my mare and took quick, short breaths. “We can do this,” I
chanted to myself. “I didn’t come all this way just to fail now.” By the time I
looked back up again I could see the small specks of buildings in the distance
and I giggled in relief.
“Great
job, girl.” I patted her neck and she glanced back at me with big, angry eyes.
“Okay…sorry.” As the mare charged forward toward the Outpost I mumbled to
myself
, “you’d think I would learn that by now.” I sat
upright, letting my body hang loose as I focused on the town’s ever increasing
size in my view. The sandstorm seemed to be receding from my face now and I
lowered my bandana, looking behind me. It still raged as hard as it ever had
before, but it seemed to become slower as we got closer to town.
“That
must be why it seemed to close so quickly from the wasteland…to keep people
like me out. It doesn’t matter too much once the Outpost is within sight.” I
returned my gaze to the town ahead, making out its mud huts quite clearly now
on my left. “How exactly does that work, though…?” I wondered aloud, “how can a
sandstorm follow directions?”
We had
barely even entered the Outpost when my horse suddenly started to buck and bray
beneath me. “Woah,
woah
…” I could barely even respond
as I started to slide off her back. Being a smaller horse, I managed to jump
off her and land on my feet quite easily and she took no time in running off as
I did so. I wasn’t sure where she was headed, but I never saw her again.
Perhaps she knew the place or knew where the good oats were hiding?
“Or
maybe she just hated you.” I mumbled to myself as I gathered my bearings. “Not
everyone is
Ponika
.” The words hurt my heart.
I
wandered through the rows and rows of thatched huts and small tents, each
section looking the exact same as the last. People wandered past me in large
crowds and stared at me in a studious manner; was it because they didn’t
recognize me? Or was it something else…? Their gazes caused me to do myself
a
once-over, inspecting for anything out of sight. I even
felt my face, wondering if something could have happened to it during Dr.
Krastanov’s
procedure. While my face felt incredibly soft
from the sand that had littered my fingers, I had felt nothing else out of the
ordinary. My clothes were dirty, sure, and my hair was slightly frazzled but
that should not be something worth walking into one another for. I tried to
make the situation less awkward by waving and nodding at the groups, hoping
that a friendly smile could assuage their concerns but it only made them pull
back in shock. As the rows of homes never seemed to end, the behaviour of the
Outpost’s denizens quickly became an irritant.
“Whatever,”
I had said finally to myself. I had no time to worry about their problems
anymore.
I pushed
through groups of women who chittered at the sight of me in hushed tones, so
focused on me that it often created a traffic jam of people as I tried to
squeeze my way forward. My patience was quickly growing thin when I spotted the
tip of a tent in the next row; surely it must be my father’s. As I strolled
through yet another crowd and focused my eyes on the open slit of the tent I
overheard a man beside me make an odd comment as he stared at me in awe.
“A lone
Pirate,” I believe he had whispered and as I continued to rush toward the tent
I couldn’t help but furrow my brow. Was he talking about me?
Mere
steps from my father’s usual whereabouts, I pulled out his vial from my
backpack and attempted to see my face in its contorted reflection. The dark
green of the vial made it difficult at first, but as I turned the bottle over
in my hands I suddenly caught a small speck of something that meant little to
me but must have meant something to others: a strand of long, grey hair that
had been pulled out of my ponytail and dangled loosely near my ear. I grabbed
onto it with my fingers and drew it near to my face, twisting it around to see
how thickly it had been engulfed in some kind of dust or ash.
“From the Facility’s doors?”
I said to myself. I started to scrub it and
the substance came off quite easily for the most part; a few small spots
remained bright white in the sunlight but it was a drastic improvement. I
wasn’t sure what that had to do with Pirates, though, but it was the only thing
that I could see that looked out of place. Removing the ash from my hair
brought back a frightening memory, though. The decrepit man in that haunted
town…was he not angry about silver hair as well?
The
thought formed a pit in my stomach, but I had no time to think on it; Chester
and Kay were my concern. I tried to pat down my clothes and struggled to keep
the stray strand tucked neatly behind my ear.
“Why the
‘lone’ comment though?” I thought aloud. The words were out of my mouth the
second I realized the answer and I chuckled and just what I had done. “Walking
among the people, waving with them and smiling…that is most definitely
not
what
the Pirates I saw had been doing.” I smiled briefly at the notion of being
confused with a Pirate. Oddly enough, it made me swell with excitement; I’m
sure a Pirate’s life must be full of adventure. I saw my beaming reflection in
the vial and became aware once again of my father’s scribbled name on the other
side. I traced my fingers around it and thought quickly on the idea of my dad
shedding some light on the whole Pirate thing. My excitement had waned when I
thought about the more important task at hand, however. I looked up at the open
tent and gathered my breath; the thought of the confrontation ahead filled me
with fear that enveloped my previous enthusiasm. Cradling his vial, I made my
few steps forward as my heart started to beat wildly against the bottle that I
now held to my chest. I stood in the clearing of the tent’s entrance for a
moment, seeing the figure of my father scribbling wildly onto a sheet of paper
but taking no notice of me. My steps towards him crunched on the rough sand
inside the tent, causing him to jump in surprise.
“You’ve returned!” He laughed heartily as he attempted to stand in the
low-hanging tent. “We wondered what happened to you; are you okay? What
happened?” He reached towards me, the same concern on his face that he used to
show when I was a child. I took that as a hopeful sign.
With my father’s large hands on my shoulders, he guided me to the stool that sat
opposite his and urged me to sit, ensuring I was comfortable before returning
to his own. He stared at me eagerly, ignoring the now ferociously-turning vial
that I held in my hands. I looked into his bright green eyes that shone
brilliantly in the few stray speckles of light that escaped his now hanging
lantern. He had the same look on his face as the day he had brought
Ponika
home to me. It was a heart-wrenching look that
reminded me of far too many things that I had loved and lost. It momentarily
distracted me from the entire reason I had rushed to get back here.
“So what happened?” He asked excitedly, “where did you go? How did you even
manage to leave in the first place? Did you ask the Pirates for help? What were
they like?” The questions came at me in rapid succession, leaving me almost
dazed as I decided which one to answer first. In the end, I decided to answer
none of them as I held out his Memory Vial instead. With is eyes now focusing
on it, he appeared mesmerized and the liquid inside sloshed violently in his
presence.
“You need to see this.” I said meekly. Chester didn’t even look at me now as he
gingerly took the vial from me. “Try to think about a wife…a house…a child or a
small village. The vial should take over from there.” He slowly glanced up at
me, his brows furrowed and his lips pursed. “Let it show you the things you
don’t know.”
He gazed into the vial as its swirling liquids shifted into images of us when I
was young. He was reading me a story as I bounced on his lap; I was too young
to remember this vision but my father watched intently. I had hoped that it was
sparking his memories to come back to him. His face seemed to grow more sombre
with each passing memory in the vial.
A new vision now appeared;
a memory of me when I was maybe four or five.
I had fallen while running
after Kay and cut my knee open on the few pieces of tile near the fountain. I
had started crying and my dad was there instantly, holding me in his large
gruff arms and telling me everything would be okay. He wiped my knee and
bandaged it quickly while rocking me on his lap and I threw my arms around his
neck, sobbing into his chest. He carried me home and offered me ice cream;
something our town rarely received and we would always try our best to save it
for a special occasion. My little face had lit up when I saw it and dug in
immediately.
The vision of my father laughed and said, “For my brave little girl,” and he
hugged me as I quickly forgot about my injury. My father was always very
affectionate and I had missed that greatly during the years he had been gone.
Chester’s
eyes seemed to moisten as he watched the scene unfold and he eventually looked
at me. “I have a daughter?” He choked out.