Shadows of Glass (13 page)

My foot hits something and I nearly trip and fall, but I am able to keep my feet as
I catch my hand against a tree. I look down and see a stout branch, nearly as long
as my arm and as thick as my leg, on the ground. I pick it up. It is heavy but I am
able to brace it beneath my arm as I continue on, now dashing from tree to tree as
the rover did.

I have to get to him before he gets into the tall grass. If I don’t, his friends might
see me. He might see me or hear me, but as long as I have the shelter of the trees
I have a chance of stopping him.

The goat either senses me coming or decides he must help himself because he makes
a desperate lunge from the rover’s arm and slips to the ground. The rover dives for
him and catches his leg while the goat cries out in frustration. The rover holds on
as I come up behind him. I take the branch into both hands and without thinking of
anything beyond saving the goat, and saving us from further attack, I bring it crashing
down on his head with all my strength.

He turns to face me, and his eyes widen in shock as he puts a hand up to his head.
He falls to the ground like a stone, reaches for me, and then his arm collapses onto
the ground beside him. The goat jumps to its feet and takes off for the safety of
its friends in the pen.

What have I done? I throw the branch aside as if it burns me and I drop to my knees
next to the rover. His smell sickens me; it is so oppressive it is as if I could touch
it. His hair is dark and matted; still the blood that pours from the back of his head
shows up clearly to my shiner eyes. I tentatively put my hand out, reaching for his
skull, afraid that at any moment he will grab me and that he isn’t really …

Dead. He has to be dead. There is so much blood and he is so very still. I put my
fingertips on the back of his head and feel a piece of his skull move beneath his
hair. I pull my hand away and see that my fingers are covered with blood. I killed
him; no, I murdered him in my anger and fear.

What have I done? I stagger back a few steps and suddenly my stomach heaves. I put
my hands on my knees as I bend over and empty up the contents of my stomach. It’s
the goat meat I ate this afternoon. I killed someone for wanting to do the very same
thing I had done myself. Once again I killed someone. I killed the filcher who tried
to rape me and now I’ve killed a rover for trying to steal from me. Where will I draw
the line?

I look at him again. At his dark hair, at the scruffy beard, at the hook of his nose,
and realize that beneath the dirt and hair he’s not that old, maybe ten years older
than me at the most. As I look at him I realize I will never forget his face. Never.
It will haunt me until the day I die.

What have I done? It’s one thing to kill or be killed, or so I told myself after the
filcher’s death, but it’s quite another to murder someone because you don’t like what
he’s is doing. When did killing get to be so easy for me?

What have I done?

9

I
run.
I am filled with such panic, such desperation, such fear and shame that I want to
get as far away from the scene of my crime as I can. I have no idea where I am going,
except it is away. Away from everything.

The problem is you cannot run back into the past. You cannot turn back the clock and
run to the time before everything went wrong. You cannot undo what has been done no
matter how bad you want to. I stop running when the stitch in my side becomes so painful
that I cannot breathe and I have to stop. I bend over, put my hands on my knees, and
suck in a lungful of fresh, damp air.

The price is too high. First Alex, then my grandfather, then Peggy, and then countless
others. I hold myself responsible for all these deaths but now …

What have I done?

I finally catch my breath and take a look around me. The dome is not as close as it
was. I ran away from it and the madness that gripped me in its shadow. As long as
it is in sight I should be able to find my way back to the others after my mad dash.
I’m not sure if I want to. To go back means I will have to admit my guilt. If only
I could just pretend like it didn’t happen. Unfortunately, life is not that easy.
Pretending won’t change the facts, and I am certain every time I close my eyes I will
see the results of my foolishness.

The dome glows from within, a warm beacon against the cold night. There is no definition
of what is within, there is just light. How many generations of survivors have looked
at the dome from the outside and wondered what was within, just as I wondered what
was beyond the glass walls of my prison. Perhaps my father was right, perhaps he was
protecting all of us instead of just the royals. And then it hits me. When the comet
came, those who were left outside surely came and beat against the glass, begging
to be let in. Their bones are probably still there, somewhere, lost in the grass and
the trees that finally came back when the fires were gone. The tunnel that James,
Adam, Jon, and Alcide explore was probably built by someone trying to get in.

I look up at the sky. Smoke still trails from within and I cannot help but wonder
what kind of devastation there was that left a hole in the dome and still smolders
and burns. What of the people? What happened to our friends?

The clouds are mostly gone now; just a few remain. Behind the dome I see another glowing
orb, like a smaller replica, hanging in the sky as if a giant had hung a lamp on a
peg.

It is the moon. Something I have always known about, like the sun, but never thought
to see. My crime takes all the wonder from it. I am too undeserving to look at such
a beautiful sight, but I cannot seem to tear my eyes away. If I were to stand on its
surface would I see the dome glowing back at me?

I stand on a muddy wide track that reminds me of the promenade inside the dome. It
is as straight and the width is consistent. It must have been a road in the past.
It still is used as one. I see tracks: the imprints of bare feet, shoes, and hoof
prints that are much larger than the ponies leave. They head to the dome and back
again. I look to the left and see how it winds into a forest. Does it go all the way
through? Is there a town somewhere, and people who lead a somewhat normal life, whatever
that is? My thoughts on normal have changed drastically in the past few days.

On the other side of the road from where I came is a wide stretch of deep grass and
beyond that is darkness. I can smell the tang of salt in the air and hear the crash
of the waves. The stars are out again, just like they were the night before. Hundreds,
no, thousands, hundreds of thousands. More than I could ever count, a number that
does not even exist in my base of knowledge.

And one of them is moving. Or is it my imagination? I blink and look again. It isn’t
hard to find it since it is the lowest star in the sky, and it moves very slowly as
it seems to grow larger. As it gets closer another light appears, and then another
one that is a bright red. It is heading straight for the dome, and without thought
I take a course that will lead me to it.

As the lights get closer I realize that they are part of something much larger. I
see a long cylinder with another oblong shape beneath it that blocks out the stars.
There are many more lights, a white one at the front tip and a red one at the back
and then several beneath in the box, shining like candles in window.

I run down the road that leads to the dome. The shapes become more distinguished.
The top one is one large mass and silvery white, like a cloud. The one beneath looks
more like a house with a walkway and banister all the way around it. If it’s a house,
then there must be people and I suddenly am afraid.

I stop to survey my surroundings. I recognize the place where we came up because of
the large metal catwalk attached to the cliff. I realize the thing, whatever it is,
is making its way to the catwalk.

As I look up I see two shapes launch from the front of the house. They look like huge
birds and they spread their wings and soar upward on the wind that blows in from the
sea. The air currents catch the wings and they float right for the dome while the
big thing with the house beneath comes straight for the catwalk. What is it? Surely
there are people on it. Who are they? Where do they come from? Are they part of the
rovers or someone else entirely?

I dash into the long grass and drop down to my stomach to peer between the stalks
as I hear shouts coming from the air above me. A laugh rings out and I realize that
it belongs to a girl, and then a man’s voice says, “Quiet!”

I understood him. That means he speaks the same language as me. But who are they?
What do they want? Why are they here? From where I hide in the grass I cannot see
the two who fly above me. I slowly turn around and look up. To my surprise they are
standing right on top of the dome. One of them has a lamp and they use it to send
a signal back to the thing in the sky, in the same way that we would signal each other
in a long tunnel.

My mind is spinning. Of all the things that have happened to me in the past few days,
this has to be the most remarkable and the most confounding. It is almost beyond my
comprehension. If I did not see it with my own eyes, I would not believe it myself.

Will my friends believe me when I tell them about people with wings who can fly and
houses that float in the sky? As much as I wanted to get away from everyone before,
now I wish with all my might that Pace and the rest were with me.

I hear a creak and a sound like steam releasing from an engine. I turn again and see
the house and the contraption that holds it floating slowly to the catwalk. It is
right before me now, as big as a building, bigger than any one thing I’ve ever seen.
It is so immense that it would fill up the dome and it definitely would fill up the
cavern where I lived. I can plainly see people moving about on the deck around the
building. A metal ladder unfurls from the side and hits the catwalk with a clang.
Someone scrambles down it with a rope attached to his waist and ties the rope to the
catwalk. He gives the rope a good yank, jumps up and down on the catwalk, and then
gives a thumbs up sign to those above. I hear an engine start and then a slow
creak-creak
as the rope is winched and the thing is pulled to the catwalk. Another line is thrown
from the back of the deck to the man and he ties it to the catwalk also. The house
settles into place, parallel to the catwalk, and a panel opens on the side. A wide
set of steps folds out and into place so that all the people on board have to do is
walk down the steps and onto the catwalk. I see words painted in bright blue letters
on the thing above the house.
U.S.S.S. QUEST
and above it a rectangle with red and white stripes and white dots on a small blue
square in one corner.

I am so overwhelmed with what I see that I cannot gather a thought into my head. Three
people come down the steps and stand on the catwalk. One has a long tube in his hand
and he puts it to his eye and looks up at the dome. His hair is bright gold and he
is tall and straight like my father. He wears a pair of light brown pants made of
hide and a white shirt that is open at the neck. His skin is dark, like brass, which
seems strange with his golden hair.

The other two men, who are dressed similarly in dark pants and shirts, much like the
bluecoats wear, move off the catwalk and stand at each end of it with something in
their hands. I recognize what they hold. They are the weapons my father is afraid
of. Just like the ones he traded the boys and girls, including Jon’s friend, for.

A man and a woman join the first man on the catwalk.

“The storm must have knocked down that crane,” the man who just arrived says. He has
dark hair and a short beard and a pair of glasses perched on the end of his nose.
His clothes are neat and well kept, just like the blond man. He speaks English, like
me, but the accent is strange. There is a different cadence to the words that makes
me want to hear more.

“Do you think the storm is responsible to the damage inside also?” the woman asks.
Her hair is pale blond. She has it twisted up on her head and she wears a white blouse
with a pin at the neck and a long dark skirt. The man with the gold hair hands her
the tube and she puts it to her eye, just as he did. It must help them see distant
things.

“Hardly,” the dark-haired man replies. “Remember, we saw the smoke long before the
storm.”

“If there’s smoke, that means there’s got to be an opening now,” the tall man with
the golden hair says. “Because there surely wasn’t one a week ago.”

They were here a week ago? A sudden image flashes into my mind. Of me, lying on my
back on the rooftops looking at the dome and the sight of a long dark shadow passing
overhead. It must have been this airship, and now they are back. But why?

What should I do? Should I talk to these people? The thought of rising up from the
ground terrifies me. They have weapons, weapons that can pierce me from a great distance.
There is no doubt in my mind that they could injure and possibly kill me before I
could even open my mouth.

“Hopefully we can find Beau,” the woman’s voice says as she hands the tube to the
second man.

“If he’s still alive,” golden-haired man says. “I wouldn’t put it past those demons
to eat him.”

“Lyon, don’t say such a thing,” the woman’s voice rises in protest. “That’s a horrible
thought.”

“I am certain he is fine my dear sweet Jane,” he replies. “Bring Bella out, perhaps
she can roust him out of his hiding place.”

Beau is their dog. That explains why he took to Jon so quickly. And these people seem
much more civilized, much more the type to put a nice leather collar on their dog
with his name inscribed on it. But that still doesn’t help me. If I could get back
to my friends and have Jon bring them Beau then maybe they would help us.