Sentience, page 25
part #1 of Farm Land Series
She will not do you harm? he asked when I told him about our swim in the sea.
I don’t think so, I said, but I promise I will be careful.
When do you start for home?
As soon as I can, I said. I want to persuade Hathor to come with me. She is alone, and could be of use to the village, just as the village could help to heal her. I paused. Skye, I said. Is it true that Bracken wishes me to take on her role after her?
He smiled. Bracken didn’t tell you that, did she?
No, Thorn did.
It is true… although I think she would have waited to break the idea to you once you had returned.
I don’t want to replace her. I cannot lead the village.
Bracken thinks you can, he said, as do many of us. It’s not just the bravery and spirit you showed in rescuing Leaf, Holt. Your powers as a Reacher are unsurpassed. You have the qualities we look for in a leader.
But I cannot replace Bracken.
It would not be until Bracken either left this life, or was tired of her role as leader, said Skye. She doesn’t mean to simply abandon her mantle to you without guidance. The best leaders we have had learnt from previous leaders. She means to help you. You would be her adopted daughter and the natural heir to her position, but she would not step down until you were ready. Do not fear, when the time comes, you will be ready, as will she.
You are a Reacher too, I said. Did you never think to lead our people?
Skye shook his head. When our father disappeared, he said, Bracken came to me and asked me to become leader. I told her I wasn’t suited to the position, and didn’t want it. She has always had greater powers than me. She was just scared to use them, scared to fail. I never wanted to lead, but I will support you, as I have always supported her.
Why didn’t you want to lead?
Leaders need to talk to people, he said. I’m not so good at that.
You talk plenty to me.
I heard his amusement. You are a special case.
But you would be good at it, better than me.
He sighed. I wouldn’t.
Why?
I don’t want to make those kinds of decisions, Holt. I don’t envy you them, either, but you are like Bracken, and you can weigh up what is right and what is not. When my father disappeared, I wanted to go after him. Bracken wanted to, too, but she knew it would put more people in danger, and would not succeed. She stopped me going, and I hated her for it, but now I see she was right. It wasn’t what my father would have wanted either. But my first impulse was to go to him, and had I done that, the whole village might have been lost. Bracken, and you, are capable of putting the village first, and ignoring what you want.
You could do that too, I protested.
Perhaps, but I think my heart will always rule my head, and that’s not good in a leader. We’ve always let the most experienced person in a team lead on a task, and that’s enough for me. But counselling new arrivals, guiding everyone, talking all the time, making choices that may help or harm… that’s not for me. Bracken is good at all those things, and you will be too, given time.
I could breathe again. Alright, I said. But I still don’t see I am suited to this.
It is better for a leader to come to their position with doubts, said Skye, for only a fool would take up such responsibility thinking they were entirely ready for it. A leader is a person like everyone else, and you will make mistakes, but you will learn from them. A good leader will always harbour doubts about their abilities, and that, more than anything else, reminds them they are one of the people they lead, part of the community they serve. I would be more worried if you said you were ready now and today, rather than expressing concerns.
Yes, I said. I think I understand.
Good, he said. Then don’t let this hold you back from coming to us. If you don’t get back here soon, I doubt there will be enough jobs to keep me busy.
I laughed. Bracken said you were most productive, I said, do you miss me so much?
More than you can ever know. A part of my own self has gone missing. I feel as though I have lost a limb. When I can hold you once more, I will be whole again.
When the day comes that I return… I said, starting to tell him about our child.
And then I stopped.
I could not tell him like this; eons from the village, alone and out in the wilderness where he couldn’t protect me. I couldn’t make this joyous news into a weapon that would strike more fear into his heart. I could not cause him more pain.
If I kept this news a secret, for now, I could tell him when I returned. Then, he could hear this happy news without fear of losing me and our child.
What is it? he asked.
Nothing, I said swiftly. I was just thinking of the day I will come back to you. I wish it was today.
It cannot come too soon for me.
You must promise, if you don’t hear from me, that you will still stay here, Skye, I said. I will make my way back as fast as I can, but I might not always be able to find a place safe enough to leave my body to Reach.
I don’t like it, he said. But I will not start out unless I don’t hear from you for seven days together.
I will be coming through the forests, I said, to the other side of the Farmers’ plantations. If you start out, come that way. I will not return to the river. But please, don’t put yourself in danger. I want to come back to you, not to a life without you.
I understand.
I must go, I said. But I will be home, soon.
I love you, Holt.
I love you, Skye, I said.
Chapter Forty
Freedom
It was hard to leave Skye, to leave the village, to turn my back on people who loved me and who I longed to be with. When all you desire is to be with someone, having to leave is a torture most exquisite. And there is no remedy, but coming home.
I threw myself into the air, fighting back tears which rose in my insubstantial throat. I could not cry. Grief is painful when it cannot speak. There is no release, no relief.
Sorrow firing my soul, anger and frustration in my blood and guilt at having kept my secret from Skye raging in me, I soared into the air, throwing myself into the wind, flying over the roof of the forest, heading for the sparkling mass of the sea.
I rushed towards it, wondering how I could have thought it was a field of flax. I realised the reason I had not understood what it was, was because, in the past, I had not needed to know what it was. I had learnt lessons about my world in little bits, segments swallowed like fruit. I came to learn things when I needed to. I was a creature of the present, of the now.
Such is my life, I thought. I had not planned before. I had learnt what I needed to know in the present, and thought little of the future. That would have to change, not only because Bracken wanted me to follow her as leader, but because I carried a child.
My child would need me to think ahead. I needed to know about the world. I would need to teach my child, one day. Bracken thought ahead. It was one of her greatest qualities. Whilst we all worried on the here and now, she thought of the future. I had to become more like her. The depths of my ignorance troubled me. How could she think I was ready to lead, like her?
But she does not, I told myself as I flew. Bracken saw potential in me, saw the power in me, but she understood I was not ready, not yet. Although daunted by the awesome responsibility she wanted me to take on, I was heartened she thought so much of me.
I dipped my head into the air stream. As I sailed through the dazzling brightness of sunshine, I tried to focus on the next task. I had said I would enter Hathor’s mind.
I was in two minds about the task. I didn’t want to do something wrong, and trigger Hathor into a worse state of changeability, but she was a non-Reacher, and so the possibility of me altering anything for the worse was slim, I hoped.
But, what good could I do her, if she didn’t know I was there?
Inside her mind, I could take control of her, but when I left, the voices in her head would return. Reaching was useful, but it had limits in its practicality. I could not do anything permanent to help her. You will help her by being a friend, I told myself.
I dipped, inverting my body in the air, cresting over treetops as I sailed backwards, turning and twisting in spirals. It was glorious to feel so free. The sheer enjoyment of drifting about the world came as something of a surprise. I had caught glimpses of this bliss in my lessons with Bracken, but I had been concentrating on control then, and had not experienced this pleasure. Of late, I had only Reached when running from flesh-eaters, and any enjoyment in the experience had been hampered by fear. My body throbbed with pain to leave my people, but I could not deny the fierce, open, unbounded sensation of liberty and happiness that came with my flight.
I could soar above the earth. I could walk in light and not fear it. This was a freedom so few people had. I was one of the fortunate.
I came to the beach, dropping to the sands. Out at sea, more long ships were setting out across the water. I wondered which of these islands held the market I had visited. Was it my own island, or a distant shore? How many shores of misery existed? Was there a place where any man might walk with others as his equal, protected by the understanding that the taking of life was wrong? Was there anywhere where a soul with thought and feeling was considered equal to another? A place where I would not be seen as a means to an end, as a lesser being whose life belonged to others?
I knew of one place, one place alone where my life was worth more than a full belly to someone.
There must be others, out there, like us, I thought. All those people on all those ships, all those captives in the Factory… they would join us, if they had the chance.
But how would they ever have that chance? The flesh-eaters were so many, and we so few. We would not convince them of our humanity. They had control over this island, mastery over this world.
I thought of the darkness of my childhood, the terror on my siblings’ faces as they had been herded into the Factory, my mother’s face when she saw the B branded into my arm. I wondered how many children she had borne. How many times she must have endured lying beneath a man pounding on her body, invading all that was hers, and should belong to her alone, only to have his children and have them taken from her, over and over and over again.
How many times can a heart be broken?
Was she still there? Still bearing children? The thought made me feel sick as I thought of the child within my own body.
The people in the Factory would wish to be free, if they had the choice. I wished I could offer them what I had. Even if they could not Reach, they could know what it was to live in the village, surrounded by people who wanted to help them, rather than hurt them. But I was as helpless as Hathor to aid them.
What can one person do for so many? I thought, glancing back at Hathor’s cave. I felt sad, helpless, as I thought of Hathor. What can one person do… for even just one other person?
Bracken, Skye, Thorn, the villagers, they all had such faith in me... And yet, what could I do? How could I lead the village knowing that others like me suffered and died in darkness and silence? And what could I do to help the one, strange friend I had found in the wilderness?
What good was I to anyone, when I was as powerless to help the one, as I was to help the many?
I shook myself. I had to convince Hathor to come with me. That was the only way I could help her. I would find a way, take her to be with people again, so the hungry ghosts of grief would haunt her no more.
But first, I had to meet the ghosts.
Chapter Forty-One
The Hungry Ghosts
My mind flowed into Hathor’s holt, and for a moment I watched her as she sat dozing next to the fire. Her spear was at her side, ready, should danger come. My body sat vacant-eyed and motionless where I had left it.
With a little nod to my own courage, I went into the mind of Hathor.
To enter the mind of another is a singular, peculiar experience. The thoughts that stream around a person’s consciousness are often more jumbled than anyone would believe, so it can be a baffling place, but in Hathor’s mind, it was worse. Thoughts and voices surged like the rush of the great river. My thoughts found themselves bombarded; fragmented voices, shouts and whispers all cried out, whirling and swimming in the confusion of her head.
Her sleeping mind was dark and foggy, but it was a tempest of noise. I could not see or feel the people shrieking in her mind, but I could certainly hear them. It was horrific. I wanted to pull myself from her head, never to return, but I swallowed my terror. Hathor lived with this noise every day, and somehow had remained, at least mostly, sane.
I understood something, a thought which came to me clear as the first breath of air riding the rain; Hathor’s mind was the inverse of Bracken’s. Bracken had kept her sorrows locked away in a box inside her mind, but in Hathor’s, that box had been left open. Ghosts flowed in her mind, unbounded and free to haunt and torment her.
I stood in the midst of a great uprising of sound. The jumble of voices and screams, calls and wails, was chaos. Bracken and Skye’s minds had been light, focussed, clear. Hathor’s mind was dark, full of shadows. It was a place of unyielding pain.
Then, I could feel them. Hathor’s people… dashing past, quick as spiders, voices gliding as though carried on the wind… ducking towards me and then away, taunting me with their speed.
Here and there, I heard words amidst the wails and shrieks. These people had once been her friends, but now they spoke as though Hathor was the enemy.
Left us… wailed a voice sailing past me.
Alone… called another from the distant depths of her mind.
I could feel Hathor wince at every word.
Mother! cried the voice of a young woman. Save me!
I felt Hathor’s body twitch. Her hands reached out in agony as she heard the voice of her daughter.
Save me, save me, cried another, a mocking tone in its voice as Hathor’s daughter moaned and vanished under the rising tide of voices.
Around me, wraiths jeered and begged, pleaded and accused, their voices spinning around me in the murky gloom. Hathor made no attempt to answer them. I could not hear her voice in her own mind. And yet, there was something in the hundreds of voices… a fragment of Hathor was in each and every one.
Hathor was not possessed by ghosts. She was possessed by the guilt and grief of her own mind. All the voices crying out were pieces of her voice, shards of her own mind.
Hear me, I said, trying to hold back the relentless voices. Hear me.
The voices did not stop wailing. Hathor was not a Reacher. She was blind and deaf to me. I had to find the core of her thoughts.
My mind followed the voices, rushing from word to word through the shadows. I twisted in spirals through the curves of her mind, flowing through despair and misery, past brief recollections of happier times, snippets of stories and myths, across accusations of betrayal and abandonment.
I came to a tiny core of throbbing energy. One thought, one single thought, radiated from it like the light of a fire in the pitch of night. I am sorry, it said weakly, bleating the words over and over again, as it huddled, trying to protect itself.
I am sorry… I am sorry… I am sorry… I am sorry… I am sorry. Over and over the heart of her mind beat out its doleful knell; the sound of its grief pulsating.
I am sorry… I am sorry…
I crouched at the edge of the core and spread my thoughts over it. For a moment, the other voices were smothered. As their voices died, I felt the core of Hathor’s mind suddenly stop its endless mantra.
Where have they gone? her voice asked.
I was shocked that she knew I was there. No one else, who was not a Reacher, had ever felt me before. But however it had happened, it was good. They are silent, for now, I said. But I cannot stop them talking forever. Only you can do that.
I do not want them to stop, she said. Though I do want them to stop... Silence is peaceful, but if they leave me, I am truly alone.
Your people do not live here, Hathor, I said softly. They are gone. The voices inside you are born from your own pain. You hold yourself captive, not them.
But… I need to hear them, she said. They are people I love. My daughter… Her family.
They are ghosts of your own mind, I said. You have allowed them to take control of you.
It is so quiet, she said, her little core shifting under me. It hasn’t been this quiet for a long time. I feel as though I could sleep.
