Chasing Shadows (Saving Galerance, Book 1) (16 page)

“What do you mean?” Norabel asked, wondering if he could possibly
be talking about all these things her eyes could never forget.

“About Ashlin,” he clarified, smiling.

Norabel felt her heart drop. He didn’t see any of those
things anymore. Ashlin had taken over his mind, and his childhood memories of
her were more lost than ever.

“I wasn’t thinking about Ashlin,” she said, looking down to
the ground.

“You’re not mad at her for saying what she did?” he asked,
keeping the topic on his favorite girl.

She shook her head gently. “It wasn’t her decision.”

Mason tweaked his mouth and shook his head, realizing she
was talking about him.

“Are you mad at me then?” he asked, stuffing his hands into
his pockets.

“Have I ever gotten mad at you, Mason?”

“Just this past week,” he reminded her. “When I wouldn’t
believe you about Ashlin lying about her transfer to Breccan.”

Norabel closed her eyes. She had walked right into that one.
It was the only time she had ever stood up to him.

“Well I’m not mad at you now,” she said. Then, gesturing up
to the hills, she answered his first question, saying, “I was just thinking
about the family of marmots that used to live in the rocks up there. It’s a bit
of a silly thought, I know, but I was wondering if the kids were all grown up
with families of their own.”

Mason gave out a dry laugh. “Only you could think about
something like that.” He shook his head. “Bugs, marmots, and sunlight, and here
we are trying to start a revolution.”

“I think about other things as well,” she defended.

“Like what?”

“Like bowl making, and whistling, and how that pink juice
that runs off from a watermelon always sticks to the skin on your wrist for the
longest time.”

She gave him a grin to let him know she was only joking, and
he shook his head, grinning as well.

“You’re from a different world, Norabel,” he said, looking
down at her.

She couldn’t tell if he had meant this as a compliment or
not, but she felt her face heat up under his gaze. She looked down in mild embarrassment,
but when she glanced up, she found that Mason had grown serious once more.

“Sometimes I think you should stay there,” he admitted under
his breath.

His words stung her, and she couldn’t find her voice to
respond. With a parting nod of his head, he walked away, leaving Norabel to her
darkening thoughts of revolution, treason, and lost friendship.

*

Hunter’s eyes swam with light. At first he forgot where he
was, what had happened to him, and what could still happen. All he saw and felt
was the warm light coming in through a green canopy of trees, and cool grass underneath
his palms and between his fingers. He closed his eyes before the images could
become any clearer, and allowed his imagination to fill in the rest.

He was home. It was someplace he had not yet been to, but in
the future he would find it and call it his own. And it would be green and lush
and cool in the summertime, with a mountain stream going through the woods
nearby, and birds would be singing as he would teach his son how to climb
trees. And his wife…

A breeze blew and ruffled the blades of grass poking through
his fingers, and he imagined it was her hand, cool and slender, lovingly
weaving her fingers through his. His wife. His to hold every day. His to
protect and to feed and to amuse and to worry and to love. His own…

The fantasy in his head was killed as he heard the sound of
people approaching. The real world came crashing down on him, and he could feel
the tug of rope around his wrists, binding his hands. Another line cut across
his middle, and the rough bark of a tree pressed into his back, holding him
prisoner.

He did not open his eyes as the voices grew nearer, hoping
to delay the inevitable for at least a little longer.

“What do you think we should do?” he heard one of them
whisper.

“He did appear to want to help Jade when he found him on the
road.”

“That doesn’t matter,” a deeper voice countered. “He’s a
pox. And we have to treat them all the same. Now I told you to get back to
camp.”

“Can we really just kill him, dad?”

Hunter heard the sound of a sword being taken out of a
sheath.

“He’d kill us all if he got the chance,” the deeper voice
said. “Now go!”

He heard the man step closer to him, and when he felt his
blade lightly touch his shoulder, he opened his eyes.

“I’m not a Pax,” Hunter exclaimed suddenly, throwing the man
off guard for a moment.

“Excuse me?” he demanded, gripping tighter to his sword.

“I’m not a Pax,” Hunter insisted. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Not a Pax! Then what do you call this?” the man asked,
jabbing his sword on the Pax arm band that was wrapped around his right arm.
“And that horse we found you riding?” he added, pointing behind him with his
blade to where they had tethered his horse.

“Protection,” Hunter answered, having to think quickly. “I
stole them because I thought it would be safer to travel if it looked like I
was a Pax official. I didn’t think anyone else would be out here.”

Hunter looked at the other two people that had come with the
first man. They were boys, really. Teenagers of around fifteen or sixteen.
Their eyes were fixed on Hunter in wary curiosity.

“You stole them from the Pax,” the man with the sword
recounted skeptically. “Now why would you go and do a thing like that? For a
laugh? Or maybe you’re just plain stupid.”

“I’m in love,” Hunter blurted out, the words finding him
more than the other way around.

This caused the man to pause and narrow his eyes.

Hunter’s face filled with desperation as he explained,
“That’s why I stole the horse. I was on my way to meet the girl I love. She was
transferred somewhere else, and I couldn’t stand living away from her. So
please…please don’t kill me. At least let me see her one last time.”

“In love, huh?” the man shook his head and chuckled.
“Alright. If you’re so in love, then what’s the young girl’s name?”

Hunter didn’t allow any time for the man’s suspicions to
rise as he immediately said in earnestness, “Her name’s Norabel.”

“Norabel,” the man repeated.

Hunter felt a strange sensation of guilt and anxiousness
creep up inside of him. He felt bad for using Norabel’s name in his lie, for
she was such a person of honesty. But the anxiousness came from the sudden
realization that he didn’t just want to convince his captors of his fantasy, he
actually wanted it to be true.

“Well, tell me about her,” the man said, prodding him with
his sword.

“W-what?” Hunter stuttered, confused.

“If you’re so in love with this girl, then tell me about
her,” the man challenged. Then he lowered his head, whispering, “Or are you
just feeding me lies?”

“I’m not lie…”

“What color is her hair?” he interrupted him. “Her eyes? How
tall is she? What’s she do for a living? Where does she…”

“Her hair’s the color of snow,” Hunter cut in. “And her eyes
are a soft blue.” His own eyes glazed as he continued. “She’s shorter than me
by several inches, but when she’s happy she likes to stand on her tiptoes and
her eyes almost reach up to mine. She works as a potter for a living, making
bowls. Sometimes she can’t get the clay off her hands, and when I hold them up
to my face after she’s come from work, they smell like wet earth and clean
soil.”

“Alright,” the man said, growing aggravated. “So you’re a
convincing liar who’s obviously been in love at one point in his life.”

“If you don’t believe me, check my pocket,” he urged.
“There’s a clay sculpture of a bird that she gave me once. She had gotten clay
on my hands while I still had to work. She had felt so bad about it that the
next day she gave me that bird as a present.”

The man turned to where his son stood, saying, “Check his
pockets.”

The son’s eyes widened in confusion and apprehension,
looking to his father for clarification.

“If you’re gonna stay here against my orders, you had better
make yourself useful,” he scolded his son.

He kept his sword on Hunter’s chest as the boy timidly
stepped up to him. Then, bending down, he carefully stretched his hand into his
pocket. His face was scrunched in anxiousness, but when he pulled his hand out
and looked at the smooth, clay bird inside, his expression changed to one of
curious wonder.

“For my friend, she said when she gave me that,” Hunter told
him, shifting his attention from the father to the son. Then he shook his head,
saying, “I can’t tell you how much it hurts when the girl you’re in love with
calls you her friend.”

“Yeah?” the son asked, trying to sound tough.

“It really just made me try harder though.”

The boy let a smile crack on his face, and his eyes betrayed
some sign of recognition that told Hunter maybe this kid
did
know what
it was like to pine for a girl.

“A clay bird in your pocket means nothing,” the father said,
taking it from his son.

“If you won’t believe that,” Hunter said, “then you won’t
believe anything else I say. Your mind’s already made up about me. But, if you
kill me, you’ll be killing an enemy of the Pax. And I don’t think you want
that.”

The man looked down at the clay bird and then tossed it back
to him so that it bounced off his chest and landed in his lap.

“Come on boys,” the man announced, turning away from him. “We’re
going back to camp.”

The boy next to Hunter got to his feet and gave him one last
inquisitive look before following his father back into the woods.

It was dark when a knock sounded on Norabel’s door. She
jumped at the sound, wondering who it could be. The team wasn’t supposed to
start the stable job until later that night. Did something go wrong, she
wondered. Did someone catch them gathering together and get suspicious? Or
maybe they realized that they would need her to come after all.

Norabel hurried to the door as quickly as possible, but when
she opened it, she did not find Mason standing there, about to ask her for her
help. Instead it was Fletcher’s grim face that greeted her in the dark. He was
holding a pile of clothes up to his chest, and at first Norabel could do
nothing but stare at them in confusion.

“Hope you’ve got soap,” he said, taking a whiff of the dirty
clothes. He pushed past her in the doorway and into her house. “I’ve already
eaten,” he said, taking in a loud sniff. “That family across the street sure
knows how to feed a growing man.”

Fletcher looked around and came into her small living room.
It was sparsely furnished with two plain chairs, a wooden chest, and a faded
blue rug that lay in the center like a tattered flag that had ripped from its
moorings. Stepping into the room, he dropped the clothes on the floor.

“It’s already dark outside,” he said, motioning to the
window. “But you can probably bring the basin in and do the wash right here.”

He looked at her expectantly, and she said nothing as she
went to her back door. There was a full water basin outside, used specifically
for washing clothes. Norabel had a hard time lifting it, but once she got it
inside, she slid it across the rough wooden floor and in front of the pile of
clothes.

Fletcher gave her a satisfied nod and then sat down in a
chair as he watched her get to work.

“You’re quiet tonight,” he commented. “You haven’t even said
one word since I got here.”

“Good evening Fletcher,” she said politely, staring down at
the wash in her hands. “How was your day?”

He stretched in the chair, saying, “Wretching exhausting,
thanks for asking. The life of a Pax official is not an easy one. It’s hard
work knocking on doors, searching strangers for stuff they shouldn’t have.” He
yawned, adding, “Especially when the old man I’m paired with is a wretched…”

He trailed away and looked down to where Norabel was
kneeling on the floor, hard at work.

“I remember him,” she stated calmly, scrubbing away at a
dirt stain on a pair of pants. “He seemed to me like the kind of man that
wouldn’t give anyone the time of day unless they earned his respect first.”

“Exactly!” Fletcher exclaimed, waving his hand in the air.
“It’s all about honor with him! Oh, show respect,” he said in a mocking voice.
“Wear your pride on your sleeve. An honorable man has his boots polished and
his hair combed. A good soldier never enters a room with his left leg.” He
gripped his head in his hands. “Well if I just want to get a wretched pint at
the pub, I don’t care what my wretched boots look like, or which one goes in
first!”

He sighed and slouched down further in his chair. Norabel
could tell that he wasn’t just putting on a show. This seemed to really bother
him. Yes, Fletcher might do some horribly selfish things, but that didn’t mean
there wasn’t someone else out there giving him a hard time as well.

“My boss didn’t like me when I first started my job as a
potter,” Norabel told him, choosing to stare down at the clothes in her hands.
“One of the reasons was because I didn’t know the first thing about how to make
a bowl. He had to teach me everything.”

“But then you tried your think happy thoughts thing and he
grew to love you,” Fletcher mocked dryly.

“No,” she shook her head. “Actually I snuck into the Potter’s
Workhouse one night and forced myself to make bowl after bowl until I got it
right. When he came back in the morning, nearly the whole place was filled with
them. Then I told him that I didn’t need to be trained anymore, and that he
could go about his day as usual.”

Fletcher laughed. “I’ll bet he was surprised. Wish I could do
something that would shock the wretch out of my boss.”

“Does he polish his boots every morning?” she asked. She was
finished with a pair of pants, and hung them on the free chair to dry in front
of the fire.

“Yeah,” he said, crossing his legs in front of him. “He’s a
real girl about it.”

“Why don’t you polish each one of his boots before he gets
up? And greet him early that day with polished boots yourself so he can put two
and two together without you having to say it was you.”

“Hmm,” he mumbled, pressing his palm into his tired eyes. “That
would be something.” He took his hand away from his face and straightened in
his chair. “Course, he’d kill me if he knew I snuck into his rooms.” He sniffed
and got to his feet. “Nice try, though.”

Fletcher then left the living room and started to rummage
around her house. She had left her coin purse on the kitchen table, and he
immediately pocketed that. She didn’t look up to see what else he might take.
It wouldn’t make things any better to see it happening, not when there was
nothing she could do.

She kept her eyes glued to her washing, but her ears followed
him around the house, listening intently to every sound he made. First he went
to the kitchen, then down the hallway towards her bedroom. The floorboards
creaked as he slowly came back into the living room, circling around. Her
shoulders were stiff as she heard him stop right behind her. There was silence
for a few moments. She wondered what he was doing.
Please make him go away,
she begged her guardian.
Please tell him to go,
she implored Fletcher’s
own guardian, hoping beyond belief that her pleas might somehow be answered.

Suddenly she had to stifle a gasp as his hands came down on
her shoulders. His thumbs pressed into her upper back, rubbing them in circles
as if he was trying to give her a massage.

“You know, I like you Norabel,” he said softly.

He was standing above her, but his voice sounded so close.
Her hands froze and she clenched her mouth shut, trying to keep her body from
shaking. The bitter soap from the wash stung her nose, making her head burn.

“You actually try talking with me,” he said, continuing to
kneed her shoulders. He bent his head down so that he could whisper the words
into her ear. “But I’m curious as to how you think this is going to end.”

Norabel gulped and shut her eyes closed, trying to get her
courage back. She imagined her guardian standing in between her and Fletcher,
and it was really
his
hands she felt on her back.

“Because I’m not just gonna go away because you’re nice to
me.” His hands slid across her dress and cupped her shoulders. “Don’t get me
wrong, it’s a smart move on your part.” He moved his head to the other side of
her face and whispered, “But it’s not going to make me go. It’s just gonna make
this a less…violent ordeal.”

Norabel did not dare utter a word or make any kind of
movement as she waited for something to happen. Fletcher was stationary behind
her, and the skin on the back of her neck was crawling, just begging him to go
away.

Suddenly he let go of her and took a step back, saying,
“What’s that I see?”

Norabel let out a breath of relief, only to have her back
tighten with terror when she saw what he was going for.

“It’s your FPS box,” he said, holding the silver container
up in his hands. “What’s say we light some right now, hmm? How ‘bout it
Norabel? Immense pleasure? It’ll make us feel like we’re on top of the world.”

She took in a shivering breath and forced herself to speak.
“I don’t want to use that stuff. You can take mine if you like.”

Fletcher’s eyes flashed in anger. “What was that?” he
snapped. “No?”

She looked down into the dirty water at her reflection.
You’re
still with me, right?

Then, opening her shaky mouth, she whispered, “No. I won’t
do it.”

“Stand up on your feet and tell me no,” he demanded, taking
a few strides across the room so he was only an arm length away.

Norabel gripped her cold hands on either side of the washbasin
and used it as support to get to her feet. She willed herself to look back at
him as she stood there.

“Oh-ho!” Fletcher exclaimed. “She
does
have some
fight in her!”

She was caught off guard as his hand suddenly came down on
the side of her head. The hard impact stung, and Norabel struggled to keep the
water from her eyes.

“That’s what happens when you fight back,” he yelled,
speaking the words so close to her face that she could smell the pungent odor
of the cheese he had had for dinner.

Then, going back to his chair, he sat down in a swift, angry
motion. “Keep cleaning,” he ordered, pointing to the wash. “You’re not done
yet.”

As Norabel lowered herself back to the floor, she could feel
that things had changed. Before, Fletcher had been an inconvenience that took a
bite out of her food and her time. But now things had escalated. Now he was
dangerous. And there was no going back. Every time she would see him in the
future, he was always going to be dangerous.

That next day was the last before worked ceased on the two
mandatory “Toil-Free” days of the week. When Norabel woke up, she was glad that
she only had to go to one more day of work before she got a rest. She had
stayed up late last night, cleaning Fletcher’s clothes and then drying the
living room from the water that had spilt from the basin. The left side of her
face stung as she washed it that morning, and her reflection in the water’s surface
showed that she had a red mark reaching from the side of her eye to her
hair-line.

Norabel tried to ignore it as she got ready. The stable job
was last night, and she dearly hoped that everyone was alright. Though she
wouldn’t be able to seek them out personally, she knew that news of the stable
raid would be going throughout the village, and she would know pretty soon if
one of her friends had been captured or not.

As she walked down the dirt roads to work that morning, she
told herself not to hang her head because of the mark on her face. She was
determined to act as if nothing was wrong, as if she had merely gotten this
bruise accidentally by hitting her head on the table.

However, her cheery outlook didn’t last long as she saw the
checkpoint ahead of her in the road. She hadn’t seen Hunter since that day at
the summer festival, and she was beginning to really miss him. A thought struck
her that, if she could tell anyone the truth about what Fletcher was doing to
her, it was him. He was the only one with the power to do anything about it.

There was a person ahead of her in the checkpoint line, but
as she heard them rudely shuffled along with a brisk command, she felt her
hopes sinking. Hunter was still not there. An irrational thought sprang up in
her mind that maybe he wasn’t coming back because of her; that maybe she had
driven him away with the stunt she had pulled with the berries. But she shook
her head of that notion, telling herself that she was being too self-important.
Hunter wouldn’t go and change his job just because of something she did.

Still, she couldn’t help but worry about him, and when she
stepped up to the checkpoint herself, she decided to ask the man there about
it.

“Excuse me,” she said after she had given the man her name
to check off. “Do you know what’s happened to Hunter?”

The man stared back at her as cold as a stone.

“Do you know if he’s been assigned a new position?” she
inquired further.

“Well, seeing as how that’s none of your business as a
commoner,” the officer said, leaning towards her, “I suggest you move on your
way before I put a flag next to your name.”

Norabel nodded obediently and quietly moved to the other
side of the checkpoint. She couldn’t stand up to him anymore than she could
stand up to Fletcher.

When she arrived at work that morning, she found her
co-worker, Delia, speaking with a friend outside the Potter’s Workhouse. She had
been hoping to go straight back to her workshop without having to pass anyone,
but Delia and her friend were standing in such a way that Norabel would need to
go in between them in order to get inside.

“I can’t believe it!” the friend said in awe, staring up at
Delia in admiration. “You and Creason actually tried it?”

Delia gave a proud nod of her head. “You would not believe
how it makes you feel. Oh,” she sighed, “it’s like, it’s like…something, you
know?”

“No, I don’t know,” the girl replied, enviously.

“You should try it then. You’ve got a box, same as everybody
else.”

By now Norabel was standing in front of them, waiting to
excuse herself so she could squeeze by, but she couldn’t just walk away and say
nothing. They were obviously talking about FPS and Pleasure Powder. She
wondered if they knew just how bad it was for them.

“You shouldn’t use that stuff. It’s not good for you,”
Norabel said, directing her words at the friend.

Delia’s eyes narrowed in on her. “How would you know? You
never do anything, Norabel.”

“What do you mean, not good for you?” the friend asked.

“Don’t listen to her,” Delia said, hitting her in the arm.
“She’s just trying to spoil all your fun. Her idea of having a good time is
making bowls!”

Norabel ignored her, saying, “There was a man at the steel
workshop that used the same powder, and he became addicted to it. What he
didn’t realize was that the powder dulls your mind so you can’t think as
clearly. It got so bad that, one day while he was working, he nearly burned his
hand off.”

The friend gasped and put a hand up to her mouth.

“Why would you say such a rotten thing?” Delia scolded
Norabel.

“Because it’s true,” she answered openly. “And I don’t want
to hear about it happening to anyone else.”