Tremors: A Stone Braide Chronicles Story Read online

  Simeon backed off with hands raised. “Backus, this isn’t the time to fight among us. This is the time to unite for the cause.”

  Backus continued to stare at Father while addressing Simeon. “If this idiot had listened in the first place, this could have been avoided. I’m tired of cleaning up his messes.”

  “My messes?” Father growled. “You killed her!” He launched himself at Backus as the man raised his knife. They stumbled a few times and fell to the barn floor. Simeon continued trying to reason with them.

  The men rolled over. Backus gasped. The fight seemed to go out of Father and he fell away. Backus lay on the barn floor with the knife through his heart.

  Selah covered a gasp with her hand. She watched as the area around the knife turned crimson and blood spread out across his shirt in an ever-widening circle. The man’s eyes were open, and his mouth gaped with the shape of the last sound he’d uttered.

  Dead bodies were a fact of life in the Boroughs. Selah had seen many in just her short lifetime. But she had never seen her father be the cause of one. This would remain her secret forever—otherwise she’d have to admit she was spying on Father to have seen it happen.

  Father scrambled away. He and Simeon stood over the body.

  Simeon bent to shut the man’s eyes. “I knew something like this was bound to happen if he came back. The bad blood between you two was just too much.”

  “I’m not sorry he’s dead,” Father said, a blank expression on his face. “The only thing is—”

  Simeon gave a flip of his hand. “I understand. No need to explain. We’d better bury the body before we draw any undue attention.”

  Father looked pensive. “Do we have the ability to do genetic testing with him out of the picture?”

  “Yes, but do we want to let others in on this?” Simeon looked around. He walked to a workbench piled with tarps and grabbed one.

  Father shook his head. “No, but it could save us time.” He helped Simeon wrap the body.

  Selah stared. Was this a dream? The two of them were continuing on with their conversation as though nothing had happened. Meanwhile they were wrapping up a dead body. She wanted to pinch herself to see if this was one of her strange dreams but feared the noise she’d make.

  A rustling to her right caught her attention. Selah slowly moved her head. A rat scurried along the right wall no more than a foot from her arm! Selah carefully tightened her whole body into a ball and squeezed her eyes shut briefly. Please, oh please, don’t come any closer.

  “We’ve got plenty of years to get it right.” Simeon smiled and reached for another tarp.

  “We’d be on better footing if we knew who the initiator was,” Father said as they wrapped the additional tarp around the body and secured it with a length of rope.

  The rat crinkled its nose at Selah. Sweat popped out on her forehead. The furry rodent must have heard her tell Cleon she’d eat a raw rat if she told on him. She couldn’t move. She pursed her lips, trying to blow hard little breaths to make it move away, and almost fainted from hyperventilating. The rat sniffed in her direction but kept traveling along the wall. She let her head rest on the floor and turned to look through the slit between the boards.

  Simeon walked to the water barrel and grabbed a dipperful. “He got away and no one was able to identify him. We’ve searched for a lot of years to no avail.” He wiped his mouth and returned the dipper to the hook.

  Father leaned forward. “Do you realize what kind of concerted effort there was to block us from knowing who or where she was for so long?”

  She? What part of the conversation had she missed? Who was “she”? It was going to take weeks of following them around to get enough of this story before she understood what she was marrying into. This didn’t seem to have anything to do with her.

  “Yes, but our enhancements came at just the right time. You were able to be there from the beginning,” Simeon said.

  “This will help to strengthen our empire. Who said we couldn’t succeed here? Controlling the petrol and the most prevalent arrival area were strokes of genius on your part,” Father said. “I’m glad you talked me into coming here.”

  Both men grabbed an end of the tarp and hauled it out of the barn. Selah heard it hit the wagon. Father came back inside and retrieved two shovels from the tool rack. She wondered where they were going to bury the body. Would it be feeding the corn or one of the other grain crops?

  Selah rested her head on her hands and crossed her legs. She’d stay up here at least until the wagon left. She’d started out wanting information to help bolster her cause to remain single, and now her brain swam with facts she didn’t understand. And she couldn’t get that dead man’s image from her mind. Sure, she had seen dead people before, but the operative word was they had already been dead, and none of them had been killed by her own father.

  Selah leaned up on one elbow and rubbed her forehead. She had to think.

  Something grabbed at her ankle. Selah muffled a scream and kicked. Was the rat back?

  Cleon burst out laughing. “Hold it! You nearly kicked my eye out.” He sat in the open doorway to the hay chute going down the outside of the barn.

  Selah plopped onto her back. Her heart pounded against her ribs. “You scared the life out of me.” She kicked at him again. “You need to be horsewhipped.”

  Cleon laughed again. “That’s less than you’re going to get if you’re caught spying on Father. You know I heard you sneeze.”

  Selah sat up. “Oh no! Was that why you made that noise?”

  “What else was I supposed to do? Let you be discovered? I never dreamed you’d go to these lengths. Don’t you understand someone is trying to kidnap or kill you?”

  “After listening to their conversation, I don’t believe a single word of that story Father gave us at midday. They never mentioned it. Not once,” Selah said. “You need to help me sort this out.”

  Cleon shook his head. “You need to let this go and just get married.”

  Selah pursed her lips. “Not without a fight. Are you going to help me?”

  “I don’t know, but I do know you need to get out of here before Father gets back. He didn’t look too happy.”

  Selah jumped to her feet. “Did you see the body?”

  “No, I was in the other barn. What body?”

  “That third man!” She balked at relaying the details. “He fell on his knife and died.”

  Cleon grimaced. “Another reason to not get caught in here.” He motioned her out of the barn by way of the chute. They often used it as an amusement. Sliding to the bottom sometimes had a downside with slivers, but it was a fast and easy exit that usually went unnoticed.

  Selah moved to sit on the stone wall separating the house from the fields as she watched Cleon scurry around the other side of the barn and out of sight. He was such a good brother. She knew he didn’t want to be part of Father’s plan, but he had no choice.

  After having spent the better part of her childhood walking the glades back and forth between their homestead and the beach, she resented the two babysitters she’d suddenly acquired. They were going to follow her everywhere. And spying on Father had created many more questions while not supplying a single answer about her upcoming wedding or how to get out of it. She sighed. Actually, it had shown her there was little to no chance she’d get out of being married in the next few months.

  Well, she might as well enjoy her last months of freedom. She felt almost invincible. What could Father do to her for breaking the rules? Ground her by keeping her from getting married? That would never happen. Selah decided to alleviate her frustration by turning it into a game.

  She shivered with a tremor of delight as a plan came instantly to mind. She didn’t see a downside to it, and Father would be none the wiser. She could outsmart both of her brothers and slip away to the beach without getting caught.

  Tomorrow her plan would begin.

  1

  Selah crouched amid the towering
pampas grass. Feathery seed plumes swayed in the breeze, pushing wisps of dark brown hair across her face, tangling her locks in the sticky seed pods. She blinked through watering eyes, stripped a rawhide lace from the bottom of her leather vest, and tied a haphazard ponytail. There’d be no falling asleep today . . . no chaotic dreams, no visions of the past to blur her resolve.

  Her focus wandered to the beach as she fingered her favorite kapo. The throwing knife acted as a sort of touchstone . . . a feeling of security amid the present chaos.

  Sometimes she felt such anger . . . No matter. Tomorrow on her Birth Remembrance, she would attain the eighteenth year of life and her rights as an adult, which included hunting. Determination swelled in her. Maybe if she could prove her worth. She’d just hang around awhile, and if the opportunity arose . . .

  A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. A rust-red rabbit lingered near the edge of the tender grass on the high side of the sandy beach. Twice she thought about impaling it, and twice it meandered behind one of the many ancient metal debris fields littering this section of beach. Why take out her anger on a helpless animal? Although it would make a delightful Remembrance meal.

  Still, she wasn’t here to catch rabbits. She hoped to catch a Lander. The odds of an arrival today, after what happened yesterday, were slim to none. Regardless of her father’s refusal to allow her in the hunt, she’d show them all. In her mind it was one last act of defiance before she was shipped off to her death sentence.

  A rustling sounded behind her. She turned to see her younger brother Dane wading through the waving sea of grass. Selah pressed her fingers against her lips and motioned to the nine-year-old. She pointed in the rabbit’s direction. Dane loved following her because she tolerated him, whereas her older brothers badgered and chased him. Selah felt she owed him a huge dose of gratitude. Until he came along, she’d been the youngest and suffered the same indignities.

  Dane grinned as he crept up beside her. “Mother said for you to come home right now!”

  Selah ignored the message and concentrated on distracting Dane from gleaning her original purpose.

  Crouching low, Dane used his stubby little fingers to part the curtain of grass and peeked through.

  “Rabbit!” He squealed and darted forward.

  Selah snatched the back of his leather tunic as his feet launched into empty air. Jerking him back from the abyss, she thudded him to the ground beside her. Fear pounded her chest as she tightened her embrace on him.

  “What were you thinking? You’d better thank Mother for stitching your vest so well it held when I grabbed you.” Selah’s arms shook as she thought about what could have happened. It would have killed her father to lose a son. “Do you realize you could have gotten killed pulling a stunt like that?”

  Dane looked at her wide-eyed, sucked in a huge breath, and scrunched up his eyebrows. “What did I do? I wanted to see the rabbit.”

  Selah reached out and parted the thick wall of grass. “Do you see this? How many times have I told you to tread lightly on this part of the beach?”

  Dane craned his head to look beyond her. His eyes widened as he stared into the deep pit obscured by the grass shield, one of the leftover vestiges of the destroyed city. “I didn’t know that was down there.”

  “That’s okay. You’ll learn.” Selah’s anger faded as she retrieved her dropped kapo and slid it into its pouch. Dane was still too young to be responsible. She was thankful for her fast reflexes.

  “You shouldn’t be catching rabbits,” Dane said. “I’m telling.”

  Selah sighed and attempted to hide a grin. His command of the language always included telling on one of them to their parents.

  Unlike most others in the Borough who ate from their farm stock of cows or wild deer, her father and brothers ate food mostly from the sea. But it was better to let Dane think she was trying to bag rabbits than to have him run home and tell Mother she was stalking Landers.

  “You’re supposed to be my soldier. You promised to keep my secrets.” She tousled his yellow curls. His fair coloring took after their father’s blond hair and brown eyes, as did her other two brothers, while she favored her mother’s dark hair, olive skin, and green eyes. The boys turned fire-coal red in the sun while she acquired a delicious bronze.

  “Father says rabbits have disease from the Sorrows, and we can’t eat them.” Dane shook his head as though it would emphasize his point. He had no idea what he was talking about, but it amused Selah that he imitated Father so well.

  The Time of Sorrows had begun with a single spectacular flash in time, 150 years ago and two hundred miles to the north. Three devices called suitcase nukes had destroyed Washington, DC, leaving nothing but a big hole in the ground and radiation that spread for hundreds of miles, affecting all life. Animals surviving the radiation suffered genetic mutations, souring their meat, as her father called it.

  But Selah had discovered a species of rabbit with sweet, clean meat. She refused to share the tidbit, or her abundance of game would rapidly grow scarce. When she caught a rabbit, she always skinned it and buried the evidence before taking the meat home. Father refused to acknowledge her prowess. He called her foolish. Yet she often wondered why he never stopped her or Mother from eating it.

  “Do you think Mother or I would feed you something bad?” she asked Dane now.

  He put his index finger to his chin, mimicking what Father did while thinking through a particularly daunting situation, waited a few seconds, then shook his head. What a little man.

  Selah squeezed him again and watched the rabbit’s tail bounce out of sight down the beach. Her gaze diverted from down the beach to across the water. On the horizon something bobbed in the sea. Her heart rate ticked up a beat. The only vessels ever to come by sea carried Landers.

  Without looking back, she patted Dane on the arm. “Run home. Tell Mother I’ll be along shortly.” She knew at that very moment it was a promise she wasn’t going to keep. But delivering the message would send him home. It looked like today might be her chance to join the family’s second business.

  “Mother said to come home right now!” Dane said again.

  Selah turned and shooed him with a flip of her hand and a pretend fist. Dane grinned and scurried off in the other direction. Her promise quickly forgotten, she worked her way around the pits of concrete and steel rubble down to the shoreline. Gray-green waves slapped at the sand, then pulled back into the surf, leaving fingers of white foam that seemed to beckon her. Within the hour, another vessel would turn into kindling, smashing itself against the sunken remnants of the city once known as Norfolk, Virginia.

  Selah climbed onto her favorite rock at the edge of the waves where the algae surface had begun to dry in the morning sun and low tide. She stood on the flattop and surveyed her world. In Dominion Borough, her clan controlled the prime sea fishing area out to the horizon in the east, south to the oil-drilling platform belonging to Waterside Borough, and north to the sea-bound wind farm belonging to Rolke Borough.

  She turned from the sea and took a reassuring glance at the ruins of the Dominion building, the namesake of her Borough. Probably majestic in ancient days, the decaying concrete and rusted steel shell presented a sad commentary of the past. Nature had worked hard to obliterate man’s ancient invasion. Kudzu vines twisted throughout the broken and missing windows, clinging to the porous surfaces, obliterating the building’s shape, and turning it into a skyward mound of vegetation with the word Dominion as a capstone. Despite annoying brothers or the uncertainty of her future, this place made her feel safe.

  She peered intently at the forested area around the building’s base. Any of her family coming down to the sea for fishing would come from that direction. If her brothers didn’t show up, she could catch this Lander on her own.

  She jumped from the rock and walked to the edge of the receding surf. Seaweed-laden water slapped at the stone outcroppings along this section of the ragged shoreline, leaving behind soggy vestiges of the
plant and sending up a misty spray that clung to her skin and wet her lips. She tasted brine and smelled fish tainted with a dose of rotting plants, while a gritty mixture of water and sand caressed her bare toes, enveloping them in warmth.

  Seeing the boat bob in the sea made her chest tighten in anticipation.

  It wouldn’t take long for the swells to push the fragile vessel into the tangle of building carcasses. This protected cove had faced north until the tsunami washed away the land on its east side. And effects of the volcanic eruption had caused the sea to rise, encroaching on the cityscape and putting many buildings in permanent watery graves.

  She judged the conditions—maybe a half hour or so. No sense standing here. She retreated to a rubble outcropping farther back on the beach, stabbed one of her kapos vertically into the soft sand to use for timekeeping, and went about the work of collecting clams. There would be seafood for dinner tonight. The thought gagged her, but it would please Father. She glanced up every few minutes to measure the boat’s progress. If she could capture a Lander herself, Father would have to recognize her worth to the family business.

  This would make the eleventh vessel coming ashore this moon cycle. The survivors were unconscious when they arrived, and waking them brought disorientation and later ranting of a final Kingdom. They each possessed a curious tattoo. It resembled a wing that started at their left temple and stretched up and over their eye almost to the center of their foreheads. On many Landers, after they’d spent a day on solid ground, the tattoo faded into oblivion. As the mark faded, so did the memories and their worth. Landers retaining the mark were the prized possession sought after by the Company.

  The Company was a business entity squirreled away in an underground colony called the Mountain, forty-eight miles west of Washington, DC. They were rumored to be ancestors of the original government before the Sorrows, but no one remembered for sure anymore. People only cared about buying coal, oil, and gas and selling Landers. Selah didn’t understand their value.