Craft (10 page)

“She’s definitely not any part of
sunshine,” she said.

“Is that why you’re running away?” he
asked.

Ellie was surprised at his guess. She
had not thought he would assume she was running away. She had not
assumed he would think much about her reasons at all. “I’m not
running away. I just want to see town,” Ellie said.

“But you are sneaking off to do it,
aren’t you?” he asked.

“A little,” she said.

“You are or you aren’t,” he
said.

“My sisters don’t think enough of me
to take me, so I’m taking myself, okay?” she said.

“Don’t you get along with your
sisters?” he asked.

“It’s complicated,” Ellie said with a
sigh.

“I understand,” Thane
replied.

Thane let the issue of Neveah rest
without pressing for details as others might have. Ellie was not
certain if it was because of his desire to not hear backstory or
because he genuinely understood. They went back to being silent.
This time, neither felt compelled to break the silence. They kept
walking, their pace steady and unyielding. It was more a march than
a walk – a march to take town by storm. Both of them were
determined to get out of the woods as soon as possible.

Caw occasionally flew off Ellie’s
shoulder, to chase down a bug or stretch his wings, but other than
his flights, the woods remained boring and very much unlike the
adventures Ellie had long plotted in her head. There was no
rescuing of princes in distress, no brave or noble act on her part.
There was simply sweat, heat and the feeling of constant motion as
she walked. The woods were very different in the light of day, not
nearly as frightening as the darkness had lent them to be. She was
just a girl on a long walk and not an adventurer headed toward the
unknown.

It was noon when Ellie heard a
long-distance shout she knew too well. It drifted on the wind and
whispered in Ellie’s ears. Neveah was calling her name. Thane heard
the call as well and turned to look for the source, expecting a
Bumbalow to be directly behind them. He was tense at the thought.
His expression was full of fear. The woods were empty. The
emptiness only added to his fear. He could tell he was not the only
one who heard the call.

Ellie’s heart started to beat faster
at the call, and her face filled with pale color. Neveah had
discovered her absence. She was calling on Ellie to clean
something, or fetch something, and was irritated by the fact that
Ellie was not answering. Neveah’s irritation would only increase
with the unanswered call. It was any wonder it had taken her until
noon to call. Neveah had probably slept in late after a long day of
crafting wards. Ellie started walking faster. Her purposeful march
turned into something between a slow jog and a fast walk. Thane
matched her stride easily.

“What was that?” Thane
asked.

“My sister’s calling me. She’s not as
close as you’re thinking,” Ellie said. “Probably still at the
house.”

Thane was impressed at the idea. “You
can do that? Call from such a long distance?” Thane
asked.

“Yes. Neveah’s fond of that kind of
crafting…it means she doesn’t have to come looking for me,” Ellie
said. “It’s 'cause she’s so lazy.”

“If she’s still at the house, then why
are we walking so fast?” Thane asked.

“The more distance I put between me
and her, the better,” Ellie said. “She’s got wicked craft I don’t
want to see the sour end of. You don’t want to see the sour end of
it, either.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Thane
said.

“You should,” Ellie agreed.

Thane took her threat seriously. He
kept turning back to look at the woods behind him as Neveah’s voice
called out with increasing frustration and anger. It was apparent
from the call that Ellie was right. Neveah was not the sort to
cross.

They walked at a quick pace until
Ellie couldn’t hear her sister anymore. It took a while. Even after
Neveah’s voice had faded, Ellie was convinced she heard the sound
of it in the wind and rustling through the trees. It haunted her
every step. It made her task feel all the more rebellious and
dangerous. The fear that Neveah would track her down was a lasting
one. Her fear took some of the charm out of the adventure. For the
first time, her adventure felt deadly.

It was afternoon when railroad tracks
first appeared out of the forest. Neveah’s voice had long since
faded. Ellie stopped walking when she saw the weed-choked rails.
Large trees bent toward the tracks, creating a tunnel for the
trains that moved along the rails. Ellie had never seen something
so lonely and so hopeful. She knew the tracks had to lead to town,
but that was not what impressed her the most. It was the stories
the tracks told without having to say a word. They told stories of
their creation by strong people, goods shipped along the backs of
the iron horses, and people traveling from one place to the next on
a journey home.

Thane walked ahead for several feet
before he realized Ellie was not with him anymore. He turned back
to look at her. He was startled by her thoughtful expression,
startled because there was also a weight of sadness.

“What are you doing?” Thane
asked.

Ellie answered him slowly. “You gotta
imagine how many trains have moved along on these rails…how many
places they’ve seen. Those trains have seen more than I’ll ever see
in my whole life, and they just keep rolling on. They don’t care
about the history they’ve seen,” Ellie said. Her eyes turned
wistful and infinitely sadder. The reason behind her sadness could
not be hidden. She had to speak her thoughts. “My momma first left
us on a train,” she added. “She talks about them sometimes…when she
comes to visit.”

Thane suddenly had more backstory than
Ellie had intended to give away. Her admission of her mother’s
abandonment made him awkward.

“Oh,” Thane said.

“You ever been on a train?” Ellie
asked.

“No,” Thane admitted. “I always
fly.”

Ellie refocused on Thane. Her eyes
were wide. She immediately assumed he meant fly with craft. “You
can do that?” Ellie asked.

“On an airplane,” Thane
corrected.

“Oh…” Ellie said.

Ellie had never been interested in
planes the way she was trains. Airplanes did not hold the same kind
of mystery. They did not tell the same stories. They did not have
such a strong connection to her past.

Ellie refocused on the tracks. She
shook her head, to clear her mind of the past, and ran to the
rails, to see them up close. They were as simple and wonderful as
she had imagined. They had a purpose and they served it
beautifully. She jumped up on the rusted rail closest to her with
happy abandon. She started balancing on the rail, her bare feet
placed carefully as she walked. Thane walked in the middle of the
tracks, not so apt at balancing acts.

“When I was little, I used to dream
about jumping on a train and not looking back,” Thane admitted
after a time.

Ellie had the same daydream several
times in her life. She wondered what could possibly make Thane have
the same dream. “Why?” Ellie asked.

Thane looked down at the ground. His
expression was as weighted down as hers had been when contemplating
the rails. “It’s complicated,” he said.

Ellie understood his answer: family.
He was not as close to his family as she had imagined. She did not
ask him about it. She left him to his pain.

“Where would you go if you did jump a
train?” Ellie asked.

“That would be the beauty of it,”
Thane said. “No plan, no rules…just the open freedom of wherever
the train took you. You wouldn’t have to worry about ‘where.’ You
could just go.”

Ellie jumped off the rail and started
walking backwards next to Thane. She looked at the tracks in the
distance thoughtfully. She saw the beauty in his plan; it was the
same plan her momma had followed through on years ago.

“You could see the whole country that
way,” Ellie said. “No one bossing you around or making you do
chores without crafting…” she said.

Ellie smiled at the idea. Thane also
seemed enjoy the concept, though he did not smile. He was too
serious about the idea to smile. He was too serious about never
having to look a plan in the face again. He tucked his hands in his
pockets and stared at the tracks, his face wistful.

Caw landed on Ellie’s shoulder, a
grasshopper in his beak; a gift for Ellie. She touched his wing in
greeting, though she ignored the grasshopper. Her mind was still
lost in the idea of hopping on a train and never looking back. It
was something she did not feel brave enough to do, but it was
something she wanted almost as much as seeing town. It would
provide her with an even grander adventure than the one she was on.
There would be nothing to stop her adventures, no feud, no Neveah,
no risk of punishment. Nothing.

Still lost in the excitement of the
idea, a sound exploded through the forest. It echoed to her three
times, each time a little quieter than the one preceding it. It
startled the animals around them into silence. Ellie jumped at the
unexpected sound, but did not know what it truly meant. It was just
another unfamiliar sound in a world of unfamiliar things. Thane was
well aware of the implications of the sound. He knew a gunshot when
he heard it.

He grabbed Ellie’s hand without
thinking and pulled her away from the openness of the tracks. His
face was instantly full of tension and fear. Ellie trusted the fear
she saw on his face. She let him pull her after him without
resisting the touch.

They ran to the edge of the forest and
crawled under a huge bush to hide. Another shot rang out with a
sharp ‘crack!’. Caw took flight out of fearful instinct. Ellie
tried to catch him, fearing he would be the shooter’s next target,
but she was not quick enough. She moved to follow him, but Thane
forced her to stay hidden in the bush with the hand he had gripping
her arm. Thane’s eyes remained focused forward, even as she
struggled to free herself from his grip. Caw flew out of
sight.

Aware there was no catching a bird in
the sky Ellie focused her attention in the same direction Thane was
looking. She tried to understand the source of the noise. Was it
dark craft she had never encountered before? Was it a monster? She
did not have to wait long for an answer.

Two men stepped into view. They were
both carrying rifles and wearing forest camouflage from head to
toe. One of the men had a massive beard touched with grey, while
the other had a dark brown goatee groomed to perfection. The goatee
did not hide the man’s weak chin and thin lips. Both men had long
scraggly hair and narrow, brown eyes. They looked so similar that
Ellie did not doubt they were father and son.

“Did you get 'em?” the older man asked
the younger.

“Yeah, they won’t be trespassing again
anytime soon. Not with dirt nap they’s taking,” the younger said
with a hearty laugh.

He hefted his rifle suggestively with
his laugh. The older man laughed as well. He lit a cigarette in
celebration of stopping the trespassers.

“That’ll teach those lot to bring
their feuding on my property,” the older man said. “Damn witchcraft
nonsense. Should burn 'em like they did in the old
days.”

Ellie was startled by his words. She
had read stories about people burning people who could do craft,
but the stories of craft, and the people who had burned them, had
sounded so ridiculous she had taken it for fiction. She had not
imagined a world where people would actually burn a person for
craft, not unless they were involved in the feuding somehow. She
could not imagine a world where men would hunt crafters down with
rifles simply for trespassing.

Ellie was not left to her fear and
disbelief for long. With a squawk of agitated anger and fear, Caw
landed between Ellie and Thane. The bird looked harassed and eager
for the affection of Ellie. He wanted proof that everything was
okay. Thane and Ellie looked at Caw, then at each other. Ellie
tried to shush Caw as he called out again but his fear was too
great. The angry caw rippled across the space. Thane’s eyes widened
at the bird’s call. They both turned in unison to look at the pair
of men in front of them.

The younger man’s eyes had narrowed
dangerously. He held his rifle in a firmer grip as he looked in the
direction of where Ellie and Thane were hiding. It was obvious he
had heard Caw, though it was not as obvious if he knew they were
there as well. The older man was also looking in their direction,
but he was too busy with his cigarette to pay the sound as much
attention. His glance was one of mere curiosity, unlike his son’s,
which was determined and suspicious. His son wanted someone else to
‘take a dirt nap.’

“Did you hear something?” the younger
man asked.

“Just a bird looking for a meal,” the
older man said, dismissing the sound.

“There was something else,” the
younger man said, adamant at what he had heard. “Sounded like a
person breathing.”

“You think the Coopers brought more
with them than just the pair?” the older man asked.