Welcome back to my post-post-apocalyptic novel, Ada’s Children, and thanks for reading! If you’re new to the story, please don’t be surprised that it’s paywalled. The Prologue and first three chapters are free, and you can start reading them here. The previous chapter, “Revelation,” is here, but it’s split into two parts.
The last time we were with Jun and Sila, they had just been caught by Lytta, the Angel of Wrath, as they escaped from the Land. The chapter ended with them both drifting off into a peaceful, drug-induced sleep.
SILA dreamed of movement, of being carried, her face warming and cooling as she was borne from sun to shade. At one point she thought she was awake, looking up into the same kind face that had held Jun down, only this time it was shrouded by a hood, its shoulders draped in a cloak. One of Ada’s Helpers.
The sensation of movement changed to the swaying of a horse, only she seemed to be slung like baggage over its back. Then just dreams, of riding with Jun across a limitless prairie, with nothing between them and an impossibly far horizon.
She swam up from the depths of sleep as the horse came to a halt. She opened her eyes and saw only Shadow’s legs and bare ground. This wasn’t right. The horse shifted its weight, jostling her rib cage. She craned her neck, and there was Jun, slung over the back of his own horse, along with his baggage. How did they get this way? She couldn’t remember. And where were they?
She tried to slide off Shadow’s back, but the lower half of her body had fallen asleep. She crumpled like a doll when her feet hit the ground.
Giggling came from her right. “Look what Ada’s Helpers dragged in!”
She knew that voice. It was her sister, Ina, and a friend, setting down the pot filled with water they carried between them. That reminded Sila of something, but she couldn’t think what. Ina must have been hauling the water up from the creek near their village. No, Sila’s no longer. She and Jun shouldn’t be here. She looked over her shoulder and there it was, her old village, Little Kit’s ramshackle hut at the farthest outskirts.
“Ada’s Helpers?” was all she could think to ask.
Ina gestured toward the forest where two robed figures were disappearing into the trees.
Sila remembered everything now, the Howling Forest, Lytta, the gap in the fence. They’d come so close to escaping! She pounded the ground with her fist.
That seemed to jolt Ina’s friend from her awestruck stupor. She threw down her end of the pole holding the pot and ran for the village.
Sila rose unsteadily to her feet, the feeling having mostly returned to her legs. Nothing seemed broken from falling off her horse, but she realized she was parched. “Please, could I have a sip of that water?”
“I don’t know why I should help you. You’re not supposed to be here.”
Sila walked over to her. Ina’s lower lip was trembling. Sila cupped her cheek. “I’m sorry I had to leave you. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice.” She folded her sister in her arms as the girl began to cry. “Besides, in another year or two, you’ll take a mate and move to his village and forget all about me.”
“I’ll never forget you. At least that way, we could have seen each other every year at the Rendezvous.”
Jun gave a groan, and Sila went to help him from his horse. When he was on his feet, Ina brought them each a dipper of water. Sila drank greedily and splashed her face. That felt better.
“You tried to get through the Howling Forest?” Ina asked. There was only one reason for the helpers to return them half-conscious to the village—they hadn’t known Jun and Sila were shunned.
“Nearly made it, too,” Jun said. “Next time, we will.”
“You’re going to try again?”
Sila nodded. “We have to. If you could only see what we saw…” She stopped, not knowing how to describe any of it. She’d sound as crazy as Little Kit.
She heard voices from behind them. A crowd had gathered at the entrance to the village, Sila’s mother and father among them. For just a moment, Sila wondered where Brina was, then remembered—she didn’t live here anymore. But Ori was there, standing off to the side.
“Ina,” their mother said, “come away from there.” She wouldn’t look at Sila.
“But she’s my sister!”
“She is shunned!” their father shouted. “Come here, now.”
Ina gave Sila another hug, letting the embrace stretch on. With a last squeeze of Sila’s hand, she left them and went to stand with her parents.
“We should go,” Jun said, moving toward his horse. “They left us with our baggage, at least.”
The crowd parted, and Auntie Val stepped toward them, Luri and another Wise Woman at her side.
She stopped a few paces away. “Usually the shunned approach a village of the People only on pain of death. But if Ada’s helpers brought you here, you cannot be faulted.”
“Thank you, Auntie Val.”
“And this means you must have braved the Howling Forest.” Something in the way she looked made Sila think she was curious about what they’d seen.
Jun nodded. “We did.”
“This puts us in an awkward position. Ada commands us to welcome those returned from a first or second attempt to enter the forest, and to ease whatever troubles caused them to leave their village in the first place. Such we have attempted with Kitran, though he returned so addled, it has done little good. But you both seem in your right minds.”
Sila and Jun both nodded.
“Then Lytta had mercy upon you. We will take this as a sign that we should do the same. Sila, you still have time to drink the tea.” Sila’s mother gasped, her father glowered, and Ina’s eyes went wide. Ori looked shocked as well. “If you do this, and Jun takes a place in another village, we will declare you no longer shunned.”
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