***
Thomas sat on his haunches and tracked the shadow receding along the ground until it exposed his friends to the sun. Neither stirred. He stepped closer and nudged them with the toe of his boot.
"Time to go."
Orah sat up, stretched her arms over her head and turned to the warmth from above.
"Praise the sun, giver of life. What a day."
"I thought you vowed never to say that again."
"I know, Thomas, but it feels so good to see the light."
The exhilaration of the night's flight had faded, and daylight exposed the worry on her face. She rose stiffly and surveyed her surroundings.
"But where?" she said. "Where can we go that we'll be safe?"
Thomas shrugged. "I got us out of Temple City. I thought the two of you could figure out the rest."
Nathaniel stumbled to his feet and tried to rub away sleep. "Where are we?"
Thomas waved his arms and circled about. "We're in the Ponds, I'd guess about a day's walk from home."
Nathaniel gazed at the road ahead. "Little Pond. I'd love to see it, but won't the vicars look there? They may be waiting already."
Thomas frowned. "I did the best I could. I could only think of two places that gave us any hope-the keep and Little Pond. The keep was too far away. And a part of me wanted to see home again."
Orah touched her palm to his cheek.
"You did well, Thomas. The deacons have been searching Riverbend. We'd have run right into them if we got that far."
Thomas held his head still, savoring his reward, but the sun was racing across the sky.
"They'll be after us by now. We need to keep moving. But where?"
Nathaniel strode forward. Thomas could see the resolve gathering in his eyes.
"We'll go to the granite mountains, to the pass I found and from there to the ocean. No one will look for us there."
Orah glanced up as she brushed mud and dried leaves from her clothing.
"Winter's coming. We'll need provisions and tools to survive. And I don't know about you, but my clothing's wet and I'm chilled to the bone."
Thomas watched the minds of his friends churn, planning as they'd so often done. He was relieved to be free of that responsibility.
"We'll go to our special place," Nathaniel said, "staying on back trails. From there, we can scout out Little Pond and check for deacons, then sneak in to gather supplies. We can rest in the shelter before heading to the mountains. We'll need all our strength to scale those peaks."
Thomas looked at him skeptically. "And then what?"
Nathaniel shrugged. "I don't know. Winter by the ocean, build a shelter or find a cave, catch fish to eat and wait till spring."
Thomas cocked his head to one side. "And when it's warmer... .?"
Orah came to Nathaniel's side and hooked her arm around his. She smiled at Thomas and winked.
"Maybe we'll build a boat and sail off to the new land."
"You've both gone daft in those cells. We'd have no chance."
"That's what you said about finding the keep."
Dreamers. He had to pick dreamers for friends. But there were no better options. He flashed his grin.
"All right then. Let's do it. I never liked kitchen work anyway."
What did it matter? He'd made his choice on the steps of the Temple of Truth, on that near-perfect September day that seemed so long ago. And now the consequences of that decision were at hand. Better to die in the mountains or on the ocean than in the hands of the vicars. Better to die with his friends.
Choices
It was past midnight when they limped into the clearing outside Little Pond. Getting there had taken longer than expected. Even familiar woods are hard to navigate in the dark, and their dash from Temple City had left them bone-weary.
Orah stared at the remains of their childhood sanctuary and sighed. Her legs throbbed, and her damp clothing offered little protection from the cold. But the branches that wrapped the Not Tree would provide little shelter-their needles had turned brown and fallen, leaving walls that were tattered and bare.
As she gazed at the naked trees surrounding the clearing, so near to home she could sense it, a question crept into her mind.
"Does anyone know what date it is?"
Nathaniel's eyelids sagged, almost covering his eyes, and the rest of him sagged as well. "The leaves are down and it's cold. That's all I know."
"The last of November," Thomas said.
"Festival already. Time's passed strangely this year,"
Thomas shuddered. "This time last year, I was heading to my teaching."
An unexpected gust kicked up. Orah wrapped her arms about herself and rubbed, then became captivated as the branches on the shelter fluttered in the breeze.
"I'd love to go home to my mother, sleep for a week and then meet for festival. But if we thought that way, we'd be back in Temple City before we knew it. Thomas would get his own cell. And Nathaniel and I would be separated, so far apart we'd never see each other again."
She gave a shiver, and Nathaniel draped an arm about her shoulders. She could feel his warmth, but there was little strength left in him. When he spoke, he hardly had energy to get the words out.
"Let's get some rest. We'll need to be up before dawn if we're to slip into the village unseen."
She nodded, then turned and embraced him. She clung fast as if to allow no space for vicars or deacons or walls to come between them ever again. When they separated, she noticed Thomas standing apart and went to him.
"Whatever happens, Thomas, thank you, even if it's only for a short time."
Then they entered the shelter and huddled together for warmth.
***
Orah was first to awake, startled to consciousness by a yearning to be someplace familiar, someplace safe and secure. The frozen ground had been unkind to her limbs, and the wind whistling through the branches had disturbed her sleep. She sat up, peered into the darkness and remembered-someplace familiar, but never again safe and secure.
She went outside so as not to disturb her friends and settled on the flat rock. Her eyes wandered, following the dried leaves that skittered across the ground, then staring up at the treetops as they swayed in the moonlight. As if searching for hope.
Then she heard a sound on the path to the clearing, leaves being crunched, twigs being snapped. She caught sight of a solitary figure approaching through the trees but she remained still and unnaturally calm. Deacons would come in greater numbers, not alone.
The figure became more distinct, the gait familiar. It moved deliberately, shoulders hunched, until it breached the tree line and entered the clearing. Nathaniel's father.
"Orah. Thank the light I've found you."
She stood to meet him as he came forward to embrace her.
He glanced about fearfully. "Where's Nathaniel?"
Thomas heard their voices and stuck his head out from the shelter. "What is it, Orah?"
She gestured to Nathaniel's father. When Thomas recognized him, he scrambled out to greet him as well.
She tilted her head toward the tattered frame.
"He's in the shelter sleeping. Come, Thomas. Let's leave father and son to talk alone."
The older man thanked her, then bent stiffly and crawled inside.
***
Nathaniel awoke to no sound, but rather to a presence nearby, a specter kneeling over him praying. One eye opened, then the other. A vision of his father? He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"What... ?"
"I've come to warn you, Nathaniel. I have only a short time. There are deacons in the village. They intend to-"
"But how did you find us?"
"Have you forgotten who built this shelter?"
"I didn't think you remembered."
"I'm still your father and always will be."
Nathaniel grabbed him in a strong embrace. They clutched each other for a dozen heartbeats.
When they parted, the two studied each other in the rays of moonlight that filtered through the branches, trying to measure how each had changed, trying to understand the moment.
His father spoke first. "You've become a man, Nathaniel."
"I've been gone less than a year."
"I don't mean by time but by experience. I can see it in you."
"The vicars haven't changed me. Their darkness doesn't frighten me anymore."
"Not in that way, Nathaniel. There's a seriousness about you, like one who's faced death and made a choice."
Nathaniel looked away, embarrassed. When he turned back, a moonbeam had slipped through the branches and crossed his father's face, revealing a right cheek discolored and an eye half-closed. He reached out to stroke the wound.
"What happened?"
His father winced and pulled back. "A misunderstanding with a deacon."
"I thought the Temple doesn't harm its children."
His father bowed his head and stared at the ground. "I've never seen them like that, not even during my teaching. You must have done something terrible to make them so angry."
"It's not we who've done something terrible. It's the Temple of Light."
Nathaniel told him about the first keeper, discovered in the cells of Temple City, and the search for the keep. He described the wonders there, a way to ask questions of the wisest people from a thousand years ago, from a time the Temple called the darkness, and a way to listen to their answers. He told of how much had been lost, the discovery of medicines, the music, a way to see a million suns and travel to the stars-all lost.
"And there's proof the Temple's deceived us in so many other ways."
"I'd like to believe you," his father said, "as I believed you before. But then the vicars came to Little Pond and claimed the darkness had seeped into your bones. They said you were no longer the son I raised."
Nathaniel had never been quick to anger, but now he became enraged. "They lied to you. They've always lied."
"As did you, Nathaniel. You told me you were on a mission for the vicars. Only when they came looking did I learn I'd been misled. Whatever happened, I thought you'd be honest with me."
"If you knew where we were going, you'd have been in danger. I lied to protect you. Forgive me."
His father considered the response. "I forgive you, Nathaniel. It's not the first time the Temple has forced someone to do what they knew to be wrong."
"But do you believe me now?"
His father listened with a loving father's ears but struggled with the answer-too far from what he'd known all his life.
"If it were true, Nathaniel, it would turn our world upside down."
"It's true."
"That the Temple could have done so much harm."
"It's true. I swear.
"And even so, the Temple holds our world together. Is it wise to disrupt the current order?"
Nathaniel's eyes drooped at the corners, making the dark patches beneath them deepen.
"Father, we found... dreams. Without the keep, we can be alive, do our work, be at peace and be... happy, I guess. But what are we without dreams."
A look of anguish came over his father. "It no longer matters. It's too late. They're waiting for you."
Nathaniel tried to respond with defiance, but his father silenced him with a wave.
"I've been gone too long. The vicars and their men are everywhere. I was only able to slip away because of the darkness and the chaos." He looked up, eyes pleading. "You have to run away. They're pulling people from their beds, assembling them by the commons, demanding they wear ceremonial robes. You have to leave, to run as far as you can from Little Pond and never return."
The wind chose that moment to die down. The rattling of the branches ceased, leaving no sound but their breathing.
***
Nathaniel watched until his father merged with the shadows and disappeared. Orah and Thomas were waiting, but he could only look past them to the gap in the trees. All his life, his father had taught him to follow the strength of his convictions. But now, on the cusp of this most important decision, he was urging him to run away.
But to where? The plan to cross the pass through the mountains had been fraught with risk. Now, they'd need to try without provisions. And they might be tracked down and caught on the way, dragged back in shame to the village square.
Or they might go east, sneak through the woods, steal food from remote farmhouses and survive like vagabonds, hoping some sympathetic soul might take them in and hide them in a woodshed or root cellar.
The muscles of his face twitched and tensed, his jaw wavered and stiffened. He'd run once before to the granite mountains-a coward's journey. He'd not run again.
Orah stepped between him and the path to the woods.
"What's wrong?"
He shook off the mood, seeing her as if for the first time.
"There are deacons, Orah. Deacons and vicars everywhere. They're organizing our neighbors for a stoning."
Thomas stifled a cry. "Then there's nowhere we can be safe."
Orah began to comfort him, but Nathaniel intervened.
"You're right, Thomas. Safety's an illusion. There's no safety for us as long as the Temple rules."
Orah turned to the woods as if hoping to see Nathaniel's father returning. "We can take back trails to the mountains."
Nathaniel shook his head.
"Then we can go east, find someplace to hide." She was becoming more agitated. "There must be people who've read our posts and will support us."
"If our friends and neighbors won't support us, who will?'
"Then what can we do?"
"Do you remember the story I told you about the man who toppled the Temple of Light?"
She nodded. "You said it was a work of imagination, not real."
"But the idea is real. You and Thomas should flee to the east, head to Adamsville or Bradford, if you can get that far. Maybe you'll find support. At least you'll have some hope."
Orah's eyes, which had always remained dry, had found their tears in her time in captivity. And now they began to flow.
"Why are you talking like this? Why are you speaking of me and Thomas without you?"
He wandered over to the shelter, grasped one of the poles and tested it-it was firmly planted in the ground. He wanted to sound resolute when he told her. But no amount of time could ease what he had to say. He turned and faced her.