Conduits

Chapter Thirty-One

They raced the sun and beat the blazing ball with time enough to spare. Overhead the sky was the color of a deep purple bruise. The moon held sway, waxed to full. Stars sparkled playfully for one last romp around the yard before the bell to come in for the day.

Tink's orchard sat in twilight. The tall fruit baring canopies overlapped to create a bleak dome, the ground carpeted with gloom. Perfect for escaping the sun, pleasant to work under, but a dark place during a moonlit hour. Shadows there had teeth and claws. Little noises roared to the bellow of monsters.

Clara and Wendy snuck under while a guard on the wall yawned long and stretched wide, waiting for his shift change, eyes to any threats beyond, unwise to trouble within. The two teenage conduits wove their way between the thick trunks of trees, eyes scanning the shadows, feet careful treading across the cracking fall leaves underfoot. Thankfully, slippered feet created little noise for tired ears to hear while high above the muffling leafy branches.

Wendy asked several times who Clara was looking for. And Clara told her with heavy and heavier sighs, "Waiting. Not looking. I'll know when we find him... or her."

"Everyone is a sleep," Wendy said, letting out her own yawn. No one kept as a battery, locked in a cage when not being drained to burn out, would find trust easily. Though Clara could not see her, she knew Wendy's face wore a cynical scowl, and rightly so.

"Everyone but us and one," Clara responded, squinting at the shadows that swayed with the gentle gust of wind.

Moonlight fell through slits in the crisscrossing boughs of the canopies. If Clara unfocused her vision, the silvery light mixed with the damp early morning air fell in swirls of pixy lights. It reminded her of the Field and made her sad.

At least I have enough light to see b—

Leaves shifted behind her and Wendy. Then came a brief sound...gone as quickly. Not boots treading over the fallen foliage. Boots kicking the ground... a deliberate motion meant not to startle but to warn of someone's advancement.

At the same time, both Wendy and Clara turned toward each other. They shared a curious glance. Who is coming? Should we hide? Wendy's eyes glistened with the spirit light of morning.

Clara shifted her eyes in the direction of the leaves shuffling sound.

The outline of a newcomer stood a fair distance away. If not for the sparse light of pre-morning, this person would have folded in with the shadows. By the set of the shoulders and the posture, this person was a man. He allowed the girls to notice him and waited for them to invite him into their company.

"Think that's the person you're here to see, Clara?" Wendy asked timidly.

In response, Clara rolled a shoulder and cocked her head to one side. Her muscles and joints shifted and popped. She took a single step forward, just a simple extending of the foot, lightly touching the ground with her slippered toes before nodding her head permissibly. Come and be welcomed the gesture spoke.

Wendy gasped and took two steps back when the newcomer disentangled himself from the shadows and walked forward. Clara understood where Wendy's reaction came from. She saw the rancher jeans and collared work shirt, standard follower wardrobe for a man. If Clara had not grabbed her shoulder, Wendy would've run all the way back to the conduit house, never looking back, thinking she'd been caught past curfew without a follower escort. Clara noted the scar across the young man's nose, the persistent shrug in his steep-slopping shoulders, asking the world to leave him be, ignore him, pass on by. It was impossible for her to hold off the smile spreading across her face and wished her cheeks were not warming. She used all her self-control to keep from shying away from this young man. Even after Roos' betrayal, he still made Clara a little weak in the knees, started a flutter in places she wished never to speak of.