Terry Brooks - Armageddon’s Children

Inseparable, those two, Owl thought. Probably a good thing, since each boy had a steadying effect on the other and neither was much good alone.

She was midway through the piecrust assembly when Cheney scrambled to his feet and stood facing the iron–plated door once again. This time he did not growl, and his posture was alert and un–threatening. That meant Hawk was coming.

Her hands covered with pieces of dough, she called to Sparrow to open the door. Moments later Hawk and the others surged into the room, laughing and joking as they hauled in the boxes of apples and plums and deposited them in the kitchen where some could be separated out and the rest put into cold storage.

Chalk and Fixit reemerged, Sparrow wandered out, and soon all of them were gathered in the common room exchanging information on the day's events. Owl listened from the work space as she finished with the crust and began cutting up apples, watching the expressions on their faces, the excited gestures they made, and the repeated looks they exchanged, taking pleasure in their easy camaraderie.

This was her family, she thought, smiling. The best family she could imagine.

But when Panther started talking about the dead Lizard, the good feelings evaporated and she was reminded anew that she lived in a world where having a family primarily meant having safety in numbers and protection from evil. The word family was just a euphemism. The Ghosts, after all, were a tribe, and the tribe was always under siege.

She finished with the pie, adding cinnamon, sugar, and butter substitute, stuck the pie in the baking oven, and started making their dinner. Forty minutes later, she gathered them around the work space on their collection of chairs and stools and sat them down to eat. They did what she asked, she their surrogate mother, and they her surrogate children. So very different from her days in the compound, where she had been merely tolerated after her parents died.

Here, she believed, she was loved.

When dinner was over, Bear and River cleared the table, and Sparrow helped her with the dishes. They used a little water from the catchment system, just enough to get the job done. They were lucky they lived in a part of the world where there was still a reasonable amount of rainfall. In most places, there was no water at all. But you couldn't be sure it wouldn't be like that here one day.

You really couldn't be sure of anything now.

She had just finished cleaning up when Hawk wandered over to stand next to her. "Tiger says that Persia has the red spot," he said quietly. His dark eyes held her own, troubled and conflicted. "He wants me to get him a few packs of pleneten. I agreed. I had to. Otherwise, he wouldn't have made the trade for the fruit."

"She must be pretty sick. He needs the trade as badly as we do." She folded her hands in her lap. "Will you try to get the pleneten from Tessa?"

He shrugged. "Where else would I get it?"

"We have some. We could give him that."

"We need what we have."

She exhaled softly. "Tessa may not be able to help. She puts herself in danger by doing so."

"I know that."

"When do you see her again?"

"Tomorrow night. I'll ask, see what she can do."

She nodded, studying his young face, thinking he was growing up, that his features were changed even from just six months ago. "We will help Persia even if Tessa can't," she said. "She's only eleven."

Hawk smiled suddenly, a wry twist of his mouth that reflected his amusement with what she had just said. "As opposed to fourteen or sixteen or eighteen, which is so much older?"

She smiled back. "You know what I mean."

"I know you make good apple pie."

"How many other apple pies have you tried besides mine?"

"Zero." He paused. "Can we have our story now?"

She put away the dishes and rolled her wheelchair into the common room.

Her appearance from the kitchen was their signal that story time was about to begin. The talking stopped at once, and everyone quickly gathered around. For all of them, it was the best time of the day, a chance to experience a magic ride to another place and time, to live in a world to which they had never been and someday secretly hoped to go. Each night, Owl told them a story of this world, inventing and reinventing its history and its lore. Sometimes she read from books, too. But she didn't have many of those, and the children liked her made–up stories better anyway.

She leaned back in the wheelchair and looked from face to face, seeing herself in their eyes, a young woman just a little older in years, but infinitely older in experience and wisdom, with brown hair and eyes and ordinary features, not very pretty, but smart and capable and genuinely fond of them.

That they cared for her as much as they did never ceased to amaze her. When she thought of it, after her years alone in the compound, she wanted to cry.

"Tell us about the snakes and the frogs and the plague that the boy visited on the evil King and his soldiers," Panther suggested, leaning forward, black eyes intense.

"No, tell us about the giant and the boy and how the boy killed the giant!" Chalk said.

Sparrow waved her hands for attention. "I want to hear about the girl who found the boy on the river and hid him from the evil King."

They were all variations on the stories she had been told as a child, stories that she remembered imperfectly and embellished to demonstrate the life lessons she thought they should know. Her parents had told her these stories, reading them from a book that had long since disappeared. She thought she might find the book again one day, but so far she hadn't.

Owl put a finger to her lips. "I will tell you a different story tonight, a new one. I will tell you the story of how the boy saved the children from the evil King and his soldiers and led them to the Promised Land."

She had been saving this one, because it was the resolution of so many of the others involving the boy and the evil King. But something made her want to tell it tonight. Perhaps it was the way she Was feeling. Perhaps it was simply that she had kept it to herself long enough. The stories lent strength and promise to their lives when everything around them was so bleak. The gloom weighed heavily on her this night. Persia's sickness and the dead Lizard were just today's darkness; there would be a fresh darkness tomorrow. The stories brought light into that darkness. The stories gave them hope.

She could feel the children edge closer to her as she prepared to speak, could sense the anticipation as they waited. She loved this moment. This was when she felt closest to them, when they were connected to her by their love of words and the stories made from them. The connection was visceral and alive and empowering.

"The evil King had forbidden the boy and his children from leaving their homes for many years," she began, "even after he had suffered over and over again for his stubbornness. No one could reason with him, even after the snakes and the frogs and the deaths of all the firstborn of his people. But one day the

King awoke and decided he had endured enough punishment for his refusal and ordered the boy and his children to leave forever and not return. Why should he refuse them permission? What did he hope to accomplish? If they wanted to leave, then they should be allowed to do so. His Kingdom would be better off once they were gone."

"Took him long enough to catch on," Panther declared.

"Bet he changes his mind," said Sparrow.

"He did change his mind," Owl continued. "But not until the boy and his children had packed their few belongings and set out on the road that would lead them to the Promised Land. They walked and they walked, stopping only to eat and sleep. They traveled as swiftly as they could because they were anxious to reach their new home, but they did not have even an old cycle to ride on or any kind of car. So even though they had been gone for a week, they really hadn't gotten very far."