He must be used to this chore, because even though he was a slight, thin boy, he hauled the giant milk pail a lot less precariously than Kieli had. After a moment, he looked down with a sulky expression and mumbled in an undertone, “Um…I’m sorry about before.” Kieli blinked for a second. Then she let out a little laugh before she could help it. “Don’t worry about it. He doesn’t worry about that kind of thing.” Kieli let her eyes wander off to the side. She could see a young man there, sitting against the wall right underneath the window of the room they were staying in, the one with the view of the whole quee flock. His long legs were sprawled out on the ground, and he leaned his back against the wall with the radio perched on his lap, gazing carelessly in front of him. “…How come his eyes are so bad?” the boy asked hesitantly, looking in the same direction as Kieli. “Mmm…Maybe because he’s worked so hard for so long, I guess,” Kieli answered with a wry smile, still watching Harvey out of the corner of her eye. Ishul gave a little hum in response that could have meant anything and then said, “Okay, I’m off.” With a curt little nod, he jogged off toward the building, carrying the milk pail in both gloved hands. Kieli watched his retreating back with a smile. He sort of reminded her of Harvey as a kid: a redhead with a little bit of a sassy streak. Well, she suddenly had time on her hands now that her job had been stolen…She relaxed her hands from the pail-handle shape they’d been frozen in and walked over to Harvey. “Whatcha looking at?” After a long pause during which Harvey kept staring at nothing for a while, he shifted his not-quite-focused gaze to her. But he still just looked vaguely up at her with a blank expression on his face, so Kieli got persistent. “Harvey,” she asked again, “whatcha looking at?” “…Ah.” This time he finally showed a response, as though he’d only just now realized somebody was talking to him. “A bird.” His face softened a little as he answered, turning his gaze back to the empty air. Kieli followed its path, raising her face to the sky, too. A pale, sand-colored bird almost the exact same color as the sky was soaring overhead with its wings spread wide. “Can you see it?” Harvey smiled wryly and shook his head. “I was…following. The sound of it moving,” he said. It came out a little stilted, as if he was stringing the words together with an effort. They’d been here several days now. Harvey spent a lot of his time like this, sitting somewhere outside with the broken radio and casually listening to the sounds of nature. From what Kieli could tell, he could hardly see at all anymore. “It must be one of those migratory birds from the Sand Ocean. I remember you were the one who told me those birds only had one leg, Harvey,” Kieli said as she watched it circle in the sky. Maybe it’d gotten separated from its flock; it was the one and only bird who’d made a home here. The kind of one-legged bird that normally migrated across the Sand Ocean. Once, a long time ago, the Corporal had explained to her that they almost never slept: they only stopped on the end of a sand-proofing wall or the tip of a ship’s sail to rest their wings for a while before taking right back off again. “Harvey, do you like those birds? You watched them a lot while we were on the ship, too.” “Huh…did I?” Harvey tilted his head with an ambiguous expression on his face. After another long pause, he went, “Ah…” It was a dubious answer that didn’t really tell Kieli whether he’d remembered or not. Harvey was like this all the time lately. He loafed idly all day long. All the force had gone out of him, or more like his biological reactions had gone really weak. When she talked about the past with him, a lot of the time he could remember only bits and pieces of it, and sometimes he even forgot things she’d said just a few minutes ago. It was just as though he were following in the Corporal’s footsteps, and it made Kieli very uneasy. She remembered that time in the capital, when he’d abruptly just stopped moving like a puppet with its strings cut. When the ghost girl had guided her to touch the inside of Harvey’s horribly hurt body, his battered left optic nerve had eaten its way deeper into his brain than it should, and it’d looked as if it was still encroaching on the rest of his nerves. Back then, though, he’d still had the will to live. That silent boy inside of Harvey had fought for all he was worth to keep him intact, so that he could settle everything he needed to take care of. But what would happen when everything binding Harvey to this world was settled…? “Kieli.” A quiet voice broke into her thoughts. Harvey’s eyes were still fixed vaguely ahead of him. He murmured without looking at Kieli, “What can you see? From here. Tell me.” Kieli pulled herself back together and smiled, sitting down next to Harvey and wrapping her arms around her knees. The far-northern wind stroked her cheeks. It felt chilly, but milder than usual today, really. The brisk, dry air and the feel of the wall at her back were comfortable. “I can see a flock of quee. Quee look like a horse and a sheep at the same time, but their fur is stiffer and warmer-looking, and they’re really gentle and cute. The women are out milking them. The kids are chasing them around. One of the quee is sitting down, and little Litta is taking a nap leaning up against its stomach. She’s always sleeping, isn’t she? And past them are the quee shed and a fence, and past that…” Kieli let her gaze drift to the landscape beyond the fence and narrowed her eyes. “There’s a wide landscape. It goes on and on…A big red-brown wilderness spreads out to the skyline. It’s almost the same color as your hair, Harvey. Some patches of ice are reflecting the sun, and it’s really pretty the way they twinkle. I didn’t know there was a place this beautiful on this planet…” Kieli broke off there. She turned to look at Harvey next to her. Harvey was sitting with his head hanging, his face buried between his knees. “What’s wrong? Do you feel sick?” she asked him, leaning her face in close. Harvey shook his head without lifting it from his knees. She heard a low mumble coming from in between them. “I was just thinking, there are still places like that…” He was covering his face with his hand, and his voice came out muffled. “That there’s still a wider world that I don’t know. This planet is bigger…I thought I’d walked every inch of the world. But there’s still a path left that goes on farther than I ever thought, and the places I thought I knew are so small…” Kieli listened closely to his scratchy voice. A single clear drop of water plopped down from between Harvey’s knees and soaked into the dry, cracked wilderness ground. “And it just…made me feel happy…” His back trembled slightly. His head was still bowed; Kieli wound her arms around him and hugged tightly as she agreed. “Yeah…Yeah.” She choked the words over and over. Kieli was sure this man—this man who was happy the planet was bigger than he’d thought, who was happy there was a wider world he didn’t know, who was so willing to say so—must have loved this planet more than anyone else. This planet had hounded him for so long, had hurt him without allowing him to either live or die. It’d been completely used up by the War until it was just a wilderness that would never give birth to anything again, and even still it had been precious to him. He could still feel that way. Kieli loved him with all her heart, and that was the way he thought. That was the man she’d fallen in love with. He could hear children playing. “Over here, over here! You’re going the wrong way!” “Hey, It! This way!” A kid blindfolded with a bandanna was running around chasing the other kids, who clapped their hands to lead him. Harvey guessed it was that “blind man’s bluff” game. “Corporal, can you hear them…?” The radio never let out even a scrap of static anymore, but Harvey still found himself talking to it. Old habits died hard. He had no past of his own, and there was almost nothing of the view in front of him left in his memory, but he was sure the Corporal would’ve waxed nostalgic if he’d seen it. This place smelled like the countryside before the War. It was something completely apart from both the pre-War metropolises’ high-level civilization and the dilapidation of post-War towns. Someplace utterly simple, where the flow of time was slow. As he listened to the children’s voices, another scene gradually rose up in his mind’s eye and overlapped with them. A golden-haired girl, a slate-eyed boy, and another boy a little older than them, a tall one with sandy hair. The sandy-haired one wore the blindfold. He wandered in uncertain circles with both hands outstretched in front of him, and the golden-haired girl and the slate-eyed boy jeered as they ran around him. In truth they’d all been different ages before they died, and they’d all lived in different eras and different places, too. What Harvey was seeing could never have happened in reality. If they’d lived normal lives and died normal deaths, the people these children became would never have crossed paths. The boy playing “It” grabbed the boy with the slate eyes and lifted him up high while he flailed and squawked. The golden-haired girl laughed hysterically at the sight. It’s all finished now… Those words came home to him again as he sighed. Each of them had resolved their respective lives. After all, that’s the issue they’d all had to resolve, the score they’d had to settle: ending what hadn’t been able to end itself. This is things working out for the best…It is, right…? The older boy put the younger one back down on the ground and took off his blindfold. The children stopped playing and all turned to wave at Harvey at the same time, smiling at him. Ephraim! Come on, play with us! called two of them innocently. The slate-eyed boy, on the other hand, scowled defiantly and said, Fine, I guess I’ll let you join us. Harvey gave a wry smile at that. For a moment he almost found himself walking over to them. He could probably have peace if he just went over there without thinking about anything. If he could join them and play like a child, he was sure it would be fun. He started to stand up, but then he slid back down the wall to sit down again. “Sorry…” Harvey hung his head and buried his face between his knees, mumbling an almost silent apology to his people. Is it okay if I stay on this side a little longer, just a little longer? Is it okay if I stay with Kieli just a little longer…? I want us to really get to live in that house in Easterbury and have a quiet life like the people here do. I need only a little while. Just a little longer. …And then I’ll go over to that side, too, all right? Oh, except we don’t have souls anymore, so I guess there’s no “that side” for us, huh? “Ahaha…” A tired, self-mocking laugh escaped him. He was awfully sleepy, and his thoughts started getting fragmented. His back slipped further along the wall and his body sank to the ground. The inside of his head felt awfully heavy, but it felt so good at the same time that he almost gave in to it. Before long the time would come for him to settle that score with himself, too. The time would come for him to meet his end. But… If there’s anyone on this planet with the power to perform miracles, please let me stay with her just a little longer… When she finished helping Ner’s mother make cheese and came back outside, Kieli stopped short at the sight of Harvey crashed out on the ground below their window. “Harvey!” She ran up to him and crouched down, picking up the radio that had slid off his lap before cradling his limp head. “Mm…” Harvey opened his eyes and blinked slowly once. Twice. “I almost fell asleep…” Kieli gave a sigh of at least temporary relief at the sound of his groggy mumble. That scared me… “How about you come sleep in the bedroom?” “Okay…” Kieli lent him her shoulder and tried to haul him to his feet, but even as he was agreeing with her, Harvey leaned his head on her arm and let his eyes flutter sleepily closed again. His copper-colored hair had grown out quite a bit; when the wind stirred it, it fell across his sunken cheek with its sore like iron rust. Just when she thought he really had fallen asleep, Harvey lifted his lids again just slightly and let his unfocused gaze wander around the ground nearby as he spoke in a halting, scratchy voice. It was the same old voice Kieli loved. The low voice that rumbled in his throat a little and always sounded a little offhanded. “I’m really sleepy, but I haven’t slept in so long. I’m kinda scared…I feel like…I’ll have weird dreams…” Kieli combed her fingers through the coppery hair resting on her arm and leaned her face down close to his ear. “I’ll stay right next to you. I’ll keep watch and make sure you don’t have any scary dreams. So it’s okay for you to sleep…” She touched the back of his hand where it lay slack on the ground. It still had the awful sore like iron rust that matched the one on his cheek, and it had been so wrecked for so long, but it had hung in there and kept on working anyway. It was exactly like that boy—just as slim and frail as the copper-haired boy who’d worked so hard with his young hands to put the world back together. Kieli wrapped it in her own and squeezed. “But, Kieli…I want to…stay with you still…” His long, bony fingers gripped hers. Kieli flipped his hand over so that they were palm to palm and squeezed back tightly. She brushed his ear lightly with her lips as she whispered, “I am with you. I’m right here with you. You’ve worked hard enough, Harvey. You’ve worked hard all this time, and it’s enough. You can sleep now. I’ll be here, so it’s okay…” Her voice shook with tears. One tear spilled over and fell down to Harvey’s face, sliding down his cheek just as if it were his. She couldn’t tell him to hang in there any longer. It was all right for him to stop working his wrecked hand and wrecked body so hard now. He could sleep as long as he wanted to. Because from now on it was her turn to lead him by the hand. It’s okay; I won’t let go. I never have, and I never will. The cold, brisk northern spring wind, the voices of the kids playing in the pasture, and the peaceful lowing of the quee washed gently over them from the distance. “…eli, I…” His mostly blind copper and dark brown eyes both looked up at her, and he gave a faint, soft smile. His lips moved just a fraction, murmuring something. Kieli leaned down and bent her ear to his broken voice. “…glad I met you. I’m glad I lived in this age…And for this planet that let me meet you, let me live long enough to meet you…everybody who ever protected you…this whole planet. I…” This whole planet. I… Those were his final words. And with that, he closed his eyes as serenely as a child safe in his own bed with his mother watching over him, and his breath evened out into the rhythm of sleep. That day, it seemed the long-overdue spring had finally come to the capital here in the north of the continent. Soft rays of sunlight filtered down from between the thin, sandy clouds, and the wind carried spring’s mild scent. Life was sure to get easier for the people in the shelters when the cold eased, which excited Julius, too. “Dad!” He caught sight of his father standing under the tented roof of the Security Forces’ makeshift headquarters, having some sort of meeting with an aide. When Julius ran over, his father turned away from the map they were poring over and looked at him. “We’ve started handing out soup at the shelters. It’s warm today, so it looks like we’ve got enough blankets, too.” “Good, thanks. You’ve been working hard.” Julius smiled and shook his head at the thanks. “It’s nothing.” He’d recently assumed command when they put him in a position of responsibility for things like taking care of the wounded and distributing supplies in the shelters. He finally had a job where he could be useful. He was busy running around all the time, but his days were fulfilling. “But…” The way he hedged a little bit before going on made his father give him a funny look. “The Elders apparently don’t like the soup, and they’re being kind of a pain about it…” “Those stubborn old coots,” his father muttered caustically. He shrugged at Julius and sighed. “If they don’t want to eat it, they don’t have to. We’re short on provisions anyway. Leave them be.” “But…” Julius winced. There were sure to be complaints if they did that, too. “I’ll go talk to them.” A voice suddenly came to his rescue. Father Sigri was standing next to him, wearing a faint, wry smile. His right arm was finally out of the sling. “We must respect the elderly; you know that.” “Funny, I seem to remember you saying, ‘Forget about a few senile old fools who were practically dead anyway.’” Father Sigri shrugged off his dad’s light jab equally lightly. “They’re just a bunch of old folks now, with no authority and no power. We young people ought to be charitable,” he answered. His tone was friendly, but the remark itself was just as casually caustic as Julius’s father’s had been earlier. The two men shared a smirk. A week had gone by since the day the mysterious decay phenomenon attacked capital headquarters. The monsters roaming the capital had been swallowed up by the wave of decay and turned to part of some mysterious substance like the roots of a giant tree, and the Church headquarters, where a thicket of steeples from the past civilization had stood, was thoroughly transformed. Now it was a little grove completely overtaken by great petrified trees. Julius looked up at it, visible farther up in the mountain range from the slums in the lower strata of the capital. Against the sandy sky, a little warmer now that spring was beginning, there were the spires: all covered in decades’ worth, no, centuries’ worth of thick red rust. They’d appeared out of nowhere here in the center of the planet, and yet looking at them, it seemed so clear that they’d been there since the genesis of the world long ago—guardian spirits that had watched over their planet for thousands and thousands of years. The Church officials and pilgrims who’d been caught up in the crisis had evacuated headquarters and were temporarily living in shelters built down here, where there hadn’t been too much damage. It was the poor people in the slums who’d helped them. They’d readily welcomed high-level priests and common pilgrims alike, and shared their goods, too, even though they couldn’t have had enough for themselves to begin with. It was the exact reverse of what had happened in the tumultuous time after the War, when the Church had shared its goods with the poor and helped the cities rebuild, but Julius wanted to believe that the two phenomena were rooted in the same desire to help one another—that all human hearts held the same basic kindness deep down. A lot of people said that a girl’s voice had guided their escape from the maze that headquarters had become, or that they’d seen a girl guiding them out. Some of them even said she was the Holy Mother and offered her prayers of thanks. However…they still didn’t know what had become of that girl, or of the redheaded Undying Julius knew must have been with her. Rescue teams had made a sweep of the capital, picking up anyone who’d been left behind, but those two remained unaccounted for. Father Sigri gave Julius’s shoulder a light slap. The Elder was probably thinking about the same thing he was as they both looked up at headquarters. “Well,” his father said lightly, “shall we start rebuilding?” “Yes…” Father Sigri agreed with a wry smile. “Now then, I suppose I’ll go talk to the old folks,” he joked, and walked easily off toward the provisional headquarters. Julius stared. So even Father Sigri makes jokes sometimes. It was kind of an odd thought. “You and I will only keep getting busier, too,” his father said with a laugh, stretching and cracking his neck left and right. His expression wasn’t tired, though—in fact, his face glowed with excitement like a child’s. His father was always most alive at times like these. He didn’t like being forced by the authorities to walk down a boring, flat road nearly as well as taking the lead himself and carving a new road. Julius took pride in his father for that. “Julius.” “Hmm?” “Do you think there’s no god on this planet?” “Mmm…” Julius shielded his eyes against the hazy sunlight overhead and looked up at headquarters for a while, thinking. At this point he honestly didn’t know whether there was a mystical power in those headquarters, or whether there had been once. Still… “I don’t know whether it’s God or not…but I do think there must be some power watching over this planet. Maybe it’s an imperfect power; maybe it’s warped and unfair. Maybe it’s an unstable power that isn’t guaranteed to help you when it counts…But…” As he answered, Julius’s face broke into a smile. A big one that welled up from deep inside and took over his whole face. But there’s definitely a power out there that can perform miracles. Julius believed in that. In miracles, just like the one two years ago that had brought the two of them back after they’d been stranded in the Sand Ocean. “It has to be there, because I know the planet has to be protecting those two…” And then he couldn’t take it anymore; his legs just started moving. He took off running up the slope, waving wildly. There were two figures, one tall and one short, making their way down the slope from headquarters. The smaller one, a girl, caught sight of Julius and waved back at him. Walking slowly hand in hand toward him against the backdrop of the rusty petrified forest, they seemed to sparkle in the sand-colored sunshine like new life rising up out of the end of the world. Julius waved his arm hard and shouted, sending up a prayer that his voice would reach them even though they were still far away. “Welcome home!” His voice was whisked far off into bright sand-colored sky.
Chapter 128
21 min read