Freda: Volume III in the New Eden series (12 page)

“Now, Joseph,” Tynan warns, “don’t say such things. Freda isn’t one of them, she’s—”

“Watch yourself, boy. I saw her. She fought with them against us.”

Other voices murmur agreement around us. Now I am beginning to feel afraid.

“I never fought anyone,” I say, trying to keep panic and defensiveness from creeping into my voice. “I asked Darius for peace. I asked him to end his war.”

“We were gonna end it,” Joseph rasps. “You was exiled, you and your mutant-loving husband. You’re nobody.”

I don’t want to get into a fight with him. If I could just show him that I want to help him, that we can all move on together, maybe he could see the truth. “Sir, please,” I say, “it’s not the way you think. I’ve come here to help you—”

“Get gone before I find the strength to get my knife,” he growls. “No one here wants your help.”

Tynan says, “That’s no way to talk to a Southshaw girl,” and he turns so his body is squarely between me and the others who are now sitting up. A couple of them shamble to their feet, stooped and exhausted but still strong enough to overcome us both if they wanted to attack.

“Let’s go,” Tynan mumbles, and we quickly turn and make our way back into the darkness as the thirsty eyes watch.

Once outside the ring of slumbering bodies, we walk briskly back to the stream in silence.

“I’m sorry about that,” Tynan says to me, anger smoldering under his words again.

“It’s not your fault,” I say. “They’re hurt. They’re sick. They’re—”

“That’s no excuse. They should understand that you were led into your actions, that you’re not responsible.”

I don’t like the sound of that. It sounds like he agrees with that man, that he thinks I shouldn’t have been asking Darius for peace. Before I can respond he grabs my elbow and turns me downstream.

“Come on. You should get back to the front of the line, where it’s safe.”

“No,” I protest, wrenching my arm from his grasp and turning the other way. “These aren’t the only people who need help. If they don’t want me, I can spend my time elsewhere.”

“Freda, you shouldn’t—”

“You don’t have to come with me.”

I stomp into the darkness, along the bank of the stream, leaving him standing there. I glance off into the woods at the glow where Joseph and the others have lain back down.

Tynan charges quickly after me and catches my arm again, spinning me around to face him.

“I want to come with you,” he says. “I want to stay with you.” These aren’t angry words. They’re direct and singed with the kind of urgency that’s driven by desire, not rage.

This passionate outburst and his iron grip on my arm startle me. With a lithe swiftness he releases my arm, then takes my hands gently in his. As suddenly as he grabbed me, he calms to a restrained stillness, caressing my hands with his coarse fingertips. He pauses, like he wants to say something but is embarrassed about it. This is such a confusing change from just a moment ago that I’m not sure whether to pull away or not. It’s his focused study of my hands and his unhidden affection that keep me from moving. I should pull away, but I don’t want to.

I wait, and he frowns as his fingertips explore my hands, from my jagged fingernails to the creases across my palms. His calloused skin is rough but not unfriendly. When his fingers caress the thins of my wrists, his words from earlier tonight, which had been tickling my thoughts since our first touch, come back to me.

I blurt out, “What did you mean, at long last?”

He sighs and continues to run his fingertips up my arm, pushing my sleeve back. It’s wildly inappropriate, especially here in the dark where no one can see us, but his touch is so gentle and loving that shivers crawl over my whole body. It’s been a long time since I was touched with such raw, undisguised desire.

“At long last,” he says. “When I worked in my father’s fields, I used to see you walking with your mother. I always wanted to talk to you, but I never had the courage.”

I try to think of where his father’s fields may have been. My mother and I walked all over Southshaw. He could have lived anywhere.

When he doesn’t say any more, I prod him. “Never had the courage? Why? Until six months ago, I was just a girl. I was nobody.” That was the day of my wedding, but there’s no need for me to say that out loud just now. We both know it, and bringing it up might make him release my hand, might make him back away. And I wouldn’t want that because then he wouldn’t explain his meaning. I breathe short and shallow, suddenly embarrassed by the big clouds of steam puffing out of my mouth into the moonlight.

“Yes,” he replies, “when you married Dane.” His voice is slow and quiet. “I know.” He stares at my bare forearms as his fingers caress my soft skin and his steady voice carves away my composure.

He says, “I wasn’t afraid of you. I was afraid of my father.” Tynan turns his eyes to mine and grins, then returns his gaze to my hands. “He wouldn’t let me talk to you.”

“Why not?” My words fall into the night like pine needles shaken off a dead tree.

“He had his reasons.”

CHAPTER 13

“What reasons?” I try to remember those walks with my mother. We passed so many farms. As hard as I think, I can’t remember a boy watching us. And why a farmer would think the tailor’s daughter was beneath him—

“His reasons,” Tynan repeats. “Just as Darius had reasons for... doing what he did.” He flicks his glance at my eyes and away again, then says, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Darius had wrong reasons. Is he saying his father had wrong reasons, too? I’m about to ask when Tynan glows with that warm, embarrassed smile again, like the last few minutes hadn’t even happened.

“I’ll never forget the first time. I was nine years old. You were five. I heard your mother singing, and I dropped my rake and ran to the fence to listen. Our fence was set back from the path behind a row of pines, and I remember just catching little glimpses of you both. You were skipping beside her. You wore a bright green dress, the color of summer grass. Your ponytail bounced as you skipped.”

His fingernails brush long strokes along the sensitive skin of my forearm.
These are only memories, Freda. Keep your head.
But his words, and the sincerity of his caresses, and the moonlight dappling his bright eyes—I shouldn’t welcome this breathlessness, the lightheaded warmth in my cheeks. When he steps closer, the silvery wisps of our breath merge and intertwine.
I can allow myself a little of this feeling, just for now, can’t I? I’ll set it straight before it goes too far.

“That was a long time ago,” I breathe.

“Yes,” he answers. “The first time. But there were lots more times between that one and the morning you were called to the... when you left home for the last time.”

He means the Wifing, but he doesn’t want to say the word. I try not to feel guilty for wanting him not to say it, too.

“You wore that beautiful, white gown—”

“It’s the tradition,” I interject. “White is not really my color.”

He pauses and looks into my eyes with a raised eyebrow.

Oh, Freda. White is the color of virtue. How could you say it’s not your color?

I blurt out to correct myself. “It makes me look so pale, like I’m made of snow.”

Tynan smiles. “Any color is your color,” he says with his eyes locked on mine. “Anyway, you walked past, and I was hiding high in one of the pines. I’d been there more than an hour because I didn’t want to miss you. I had to run three miles out of my way, all the way around Stepsin’s Rock, to make it to the ceremony in time. So I wouldn’t overtake you and your parents on the road. But I had to see you that one last time.”

“One last time?”

“I knew Dane would pick you.”

“You did?”

“Dane is far from perfect, but even with all his faults he’s smart.”

I like that Tynan thinks Dane was smart to select me over Kitta.

“And defiant.”

I had never really thought of Dane as defiant before. But now that Tynan has said it out loud, I realize that’s exactly what he is. He liked to wander alone in the woods. He invented things. He disobeyed Laws when he went after Lupay, and he defied Darius’ command to pick Suzee Lummon in the—
wait a minute.

“Defiant?”

“Yes,” Tynan says, a little startled.

“But why would defiance play any part in his selection of me?” Only a handful of people knew that Darius commanded Dane to select the stupid, ugly Suzee Lummon as his wife, and that Dane defied Darius and selected me instead. “Semper-son prays for guidance, and God reveals the selection to him. If that’s how it actually works, then you’re saying Dane defied God.” I leave unsaid but clear between us the question,
are you saying that God did not want me to be First Wife?

Tynan squints at me a moment before he responds.

“Only if God really spoke to him,” he says finally. “But Dane doesn’t really know God. Darius also prayed, and God gave him other plans. I knew Dane was supposed to pick Suzee Lummon. I knew this because my father was very good friends with Suzee’s father.”

And Suzee’s father hated Linkan and hated my father. Which must be why Tynan was not allowed to talk to me.

Tynan continues, “I prayed, too, Freda. I prayed that Dane would pick Suzee and make everyone happy.”

Make everyone happy? Make Darius and Lummon happy, perhaps.

I am a jumble of conflicting emotions. Tynan adored me from afar almost all my life, and here he is declaring it. But he’s also telling me I should not be First Wife. I feel too many things to work it all out. Finally, indignation rises to the top and finds its voice.

“I suppose I don’t remember the Wifing quite the same way,” I say. “As I recall, the people of Southshaw seemed quite satisfied with Dane’s choice.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Tynan hisses with a flash in his eyes. “I just meant that I’d have been a lot happier if you hadn’t been picked. But I knew in my heart that would never happen.”

He returns my sleeves to their rightful place, pulls away, and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“If I were Semper-son, I’d have picked you, too. But for a different reason.” He trudges up the hill, toward the dwindling glow of other campsites.

A different reason? I’m not sure what reason he thinks Dane had. Dane and I are well paired for leadership. And I am sure that Dane loves me, in his way. As much as he can.

I watch Tynan walk along, hunched down against the night’s chill. After a moment, I run after him. I won’t ask him what his reason would have been; instead, I walk beside him in silence, hoping my closeness will make up for whatever I said that hurt him. We walk in the darkness toward another group of campfires a hundred yards away, and I fight the urge to link my arm around his. I don’t want to have that urge, but it’s strong. Almost overwhelming, but not quite. He keeps his hands tight in his pockets until we reach the first campfire.

These are smaller fires, closer together but each with fewer people. We walk among sleeping figures, and I say hello to those who sit by the first fire while Tynan lurks near the periphery of the firelight, outside the conversation. I do not know these people, mostly Tawtrukk men and women. We exchange pleasantries and ask after each other’s health. They have eaten well tonight, though they apologize that there’s nothing to share. They are very worried about those who turned around at the lake rather than come with us. They ask if I know how much farther we’re going. Their children are holding up well, but everyone is very tired. They suggest I go another few hundred yards up the hill if I really want to help someone.

After a few minutes, I return to Tynan.

“You could have come and said hello,” I chide.

“I didn’t feel much like talking,” he mumbles, turning uphill again.

“They’re nice people,” I say. “We need to get to know each other if we’re all going to survive and get to... our new home.”

“Which is where? Where are we going?” He stops abruptly and spins me to face him. He studies me, but I can’t see him in the dark. “They have no idea, do they? They’re just walking. We could all be walking right into the Radiation. They’re fools, Freda.”

“No! They’re not.”

“Then tell me. Where are we going?”

“I—I’m not sure. I know they have maps, ancient maps from Subterra—”

“What good are those? Do they say where the Radiation is? What kinds of mutant monsters are out there?” His anger simmers just below a boiling rage. The nearest campfires are a hundred yards away at least.

“We don’t have to worry about the Radiation,” I say softly.

“Ten thousand years, Freda. The whole world, scorched and molten for ten thousand—”

“No,” I interrupt, taking his hands and looking into his eyes to calm him. “No. The westward highway. We have no need to fear the westward highway.”

“What are you talking about? Is this some weird ghost-talk?”

“Don’t call the Subterrans ghosts. They’re people, like you and me.”

“Not like me. And not like you.”

I want to argue with him, but I can help him understand all that later. He just needs to spend some time with them.

“Yes like us, but anyway, no. This isn’t from a Subterran map.”

“Then how do you know?”

“Do not fear the Radiation,” I quote, “for the westward highway was cleansed not with bombs but with biology.”

Tynan doesn’t move, and his breathing settles into a calm, slow rhythm. He stays silent for several seconds, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Has he heard these words before?

“What does that mean?”

“It means the westward highway is safe for us,” I answer.

“And who says?”

There’s no getting around it. Now that I’ve quoted the book, he won’t let me go until he knows the truth.

“Prophecies,” I whisper.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Dane and I read it before it was burned.”

“So you know the way,” he says quietly.

“Yes,” I answer, unsure what way he’s talking about.

“And Dane is leading us there?”

“Yes...”

“So where are we going, Freda?” The words growl their way through clenched teeth and tight lips, and his hands clamp around mine.

“Tynan, you’re hurting me. Please let go.”

He eases his grip but does not let go. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s true,” I plead. “Dane knows the way to Reunion Mountain, but I’m not sure he believes in Prophecies. I don’t know if he’s following the maps or just going the same direction for now.”

“Maps? There were maps?”

“Yes.”

“And what’s this mountain—union mountain?”

“Reunion Mountain,” I correct. “Tynan, please. It’s getting late, and I can tell you more tomorrow. I’m exhausted.

He releases me and paces slowly through the trees, contemplating.

“You have to tell me the whole thing,” he says after a minute. “Freda, I know you believe. You and Dane are the only ones who know the truth, the Lord’s words. It’s your duty to follow the Lord’s instructions. You can’t just let Dane throw them away, like he threw away Southshaw.”

“Dane didn’t—”

“You can’t leave it up to him,” Tynan says. “Dane doesn’t believe. You said it yourself. But you still have faith, Freda. I sense it. I can see it. I hear it in your words. You have to tell me. We can’t abandon God’s word.”

He starts walking back down the hill toward our campsites.

I call after him. “There are more people up here. People who need help.”

“Just Tawtrukk widows and Southshaw outcasts,” he calls back. “They’re not worth your time, Freda.”

“Tynan!”

He pauses and turns. “What?”

“Don’t say anything to anyone. Please.”

“It’s our secret,” he says, and his white smile crescents his black beard. “For now.” He turns and stalks off.

As he disappears into the darkness, I try to clear my head. He’s right that I can’t leave everything in Dane’s hands. Dane will reject what we read in Prophecies. But I’m not sure I can entrust that information to Tynan, either.

Who else can I rely on?

With thoughts whirling around my head, I walk uphill toward the embers of the other fires. If I can help, I will. And I’ll think about Prophecies and Tynan in the morning. We have days and days of walking ahead of us. I have time to think this through.