Today’s post comes from Phil Yeats. Last week, Phil
(using his Alan Kemister pen name) published his most recent novel. Tilting
at Windmills, the second in the Barrettsport
Mysteries series of soft-boiled police detective stories set in an
imaginary Nova Scotia coastal community is available on Amazon.
***
A Waif’s
Treasure
by Phil Yeats
Mary
gently shook the youth sleeping on the open ground near the communal fire.
“Shh, Daniel,” she whispered, placing her index finger before her lips. “Get
dressed and follow me.”
He slipped from under his rough blanket,
rolled it, and secured it with a strap. He wrapped his arms around her and
hugged her tightly before reaching for his ragged clothes.
She sighed. Those little expressions of
affection kept them sane in the cruel world they inhabited.
They’d been together for several years,
orphaned children dumped into the unforgiving wilderness where they’d survive
by scavenging or die. After six months struggling to avoid starvation, they
were rounded up by the Protectors, marauding
thugs who enslaved them, branding them as human cattle before setting them to
work. Daniel and Mary scavenged the dusty plain and adjacent badlands for
anything the Protectors could sell during dry periods. In the infrequent rainy
spells, they tended crops of quick growing grasses festooned with blue flowers.
Daniel followed Mary in the half-light
that accompanied dawn. An hour later, she pushed aside some sage and squeezed
through a narrow opening in the rock. As Dan’s eyes adjusted to the dim light,
he realized they’d entered a narrow cavern.
Mary peered into the gloom before
turning back toward the entrance. “I’ve returned as promised.”
A girl crawled from a crevice near the
opening to the outside world. She stood, eyes darting furtively, ready to bolt
at the slightest provocation. She was very young, barely pubescent, and wearing
meagre fragments of cloth that made Mary’s tattered clothes appear majestic.
Mary took one step toward her and
extended her hands palm up. “I brought my friend Dan. We’ll help you avoid our
fate. Together, we can get you to the city and someone who’ll protect you. But
you must trust us.”
She crouched and extracted something
from her crevice. “It’s too frightening.”
“Please, show Dan your treasure.”
With shaking hands, she held out a clear
glass sphere containing a miniature scene. It was attached to a shiny black
base. She overturned it, and the sphere filled with white specks that sparkled
in the cavern’s dim light.
She smiled as she offered it to Dan.
After Dan took it, she reached out and fingered the scars left by the hot
branding iron the Protectors applied to his forehead. Mary’s forehead was
similarly disfigured, but the girl’s was untouched. Was she trading her
treasure for a promise to protect her from branding?
Minimal exploration proved this cave,
like others scavengers discovered, contained the possessions of refugees from
the global chaos in the 2050s. Decades later, their long-abandoned possessions
supported the meagre lives of another generation of outcasts.
Dan and Mary loaded their two-wheeled
cart with items they could trade. At the cave entrance, Mary addressed the
barefoot girl. “We’ll leave tonight when it’s dark. You know where to meet us?”
The girl nodded without comment. She’d
crouched by the entrance fiddling with her treasure while Dan and Mary filled
their cart.
“Don’t forget to bring it,” Mary said as
she pulled the cart into the heat of the outside world. Dan followed
shouldering a large iron bar he would trade with the camp cook for food they’d
need on their journey.
The girl peered outside, nodded again.
“Thank you.”
She appeared as Dan and Mary reached the
rendezvous point. Mary passed her a ragged old shirt to cover her semi-nakedness,
and they strode eastward on a two-day trek to the walled city.
At dawn on their third day, they
gathered outside the city gates waiting for the morning watch. When the gates
opened, they registered for outcasts’ passes and queued at the trading center. With
their chit for credits earned, they headed for the professor’s house.
The professor, a frontier town legend,
was a renowned collector of unusual stuff. He paid handsomely for relics from
the lost era.
The professor barely glanced at the
girl’s treasure before hustling Dan’s two companions to a bathroom. They’d soak
in a warm bath, a luxury unheard of in their normal existence.
When the professor returned, he picked
up the girl’s treasure. “Do you recognize it?”
Dan shook his head. “Never seen anything
like it, but it mesmerizes our friend. It must have magical powers.”
The professor laughed as he extracted an
old text from his bookshelf. He leafed through the pages stopping at an
illustration. “Snow globe. A popular ornament in more civilized times. They’ve
always fascinated young girls.”
***
The Spot Writers—Our Members:
Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/
Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/
Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com
Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento