Chasing Shadows (Saving Galerance, Book 1) (4 page)

Logan raised the unlit torch in the air and held the Snapper
dust tightly between his thumb and index finger. Then, with a small snap, he
deftly sent the torch alight, pulling his hand safely out of the line of fire.

“Norabel,” Logan whispered when he saw her standing amongst
them. “You alright?”

She nodded, as if in a daze, and took a quick look up to her
right. There was still no movement in the trees. If someone was trying to shoot
them down, they would have probably done it already.

“You look a little peaky,” Archer commented, staring into
her face.

She turned away and looked over to Mason, knowing that she
had to tell him what had happened. But, if she told him now, he might give the
order to leave the load right then and there, and she would never get the
Albatross Seed back to Iris. On the other hand, this was their safety she was
gambling with. It would be selfish to make the decision to stay all on her own.

Norabel heard a quiet clink, and looked down to see that
Mason had successfully cut off the lock and had discarded it on the floor.

“Uh, Mason?” Norabel asked timidly. “I need to talk to you.”

“Later,” he whispered. “Let’s pack up first.”

With one ceremonious sweep, Mason took off the basket’s lid,
revealing the hoard of goods underneath. Norabel leaned over and peered inside,
running her eyes over the objects that were lying on top. However, she knew she
couldn’t search for the Albatross Seed now. So she grabbed the pack that Mason
was handing to each of them, and started stuffing as many objects into it as
she could. A little while later, they had grabbed nearly everything that the
basket contained, aside from a few jars of pickled food that had broken during
the trip, and had them all hoisted on their backs.

Before they left, Logan threw his torch on the emptied
basket, leaving it to burn safely on the road. Then the four of them silently
headed back towards Breccan.

When they had walked a safe half-mile away, Norabel jogged
ahead to where Mason was leading their group. The extra strain that the pack
put on her shoulders threatened to thin her air-supply, but she knew from
experience that it would take more than this to induce an attack.

“Mason,” she whispered, standing close to him so the others
couldn’t hear. “I have to talk to you.”

“So talk,” he answered almost playfully. He was always in a
good mood after a successful job.

She struggled to keep up with him as she said, “When I was
on the cart, someone shot an arrow down at…”

Mason stopped walking and spun towards her. “What?” he
demanded in a furious whisper.

He glanced back briefly to where Logan and Archer were
following a few paces behind. He must have decided that he didn’t want them
hearing this conversation, for he grabbed Norabel’s arm and nudged her ahead on
the road.

With his hand still grasped around her upper arm, he
whispered into her ear, “Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“I tried,” she defended.

“Well if someone’s shooting arrows at you, you should have
tried harder!” he scolded.

He was pushing her along the road at such a fast pace that
she had to try and quietly regain her breath before speaking again.

“That’s the thing,” she told him. “I don’t know if they were
actually shooting at me. I was having trouble cutting the last rope. The blade
was getting too dull, and the rope wasn’t relenting. But then the arrow came
down and sliced right through it. I didn’t know whether it was a coincidence,
or whether they were actually trying to help me. But the arrow didn’t look like
it belonged to the Pax.”

Mason was silent as he took this all in. His eyes darted to
the side of the road, but he made no comment.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“I’m
thinking
,” he responded roughly.

Finally he let go of her arm. She could feel the coldness
hitting her skin where his warm fingers used to be.

“Don’t tell them about this,” he advised her, flicking his
eyes back to where Logan and Archer were walking.

“Why not?”

“I’ll tell them later. Just, for now, don’t say anything.”

She nodded and slowed her step so that Mason could walk in
front of her. Logan came up a moment later and fell in step beside her, but she
chose not to utter a word for the rest of the walk back to their drop-off
point.

They had chosen to always drop off their recaptured goods in
one of the caves that lied in the western face of the Breccan Mountains. They
would then wait there for a man named Malachy. He was what they called their
Head Whisperer. It was his job to return many of the stolen items back to whom
they belonged.

Malachy was the main Breccan ink producer. His job was
uniquely ideal for finding out information because the people that needed ink
the most were Pax officials. This meant that he heard a lot of talk when the
men came in to get their ink, and he knew a great deal about which families had
been raided on a particular day.

However, Malachy was not alone in his job of returning stolen
items back to their owners. He had a network of around fifteen children and
teenagers who kept an open ear out for any raids that might be happening. They
called themselves The Whispers of Breccan, and they were one of the village’s
most well-kept secrets. Not one single Pax official had ever heard of them.
Despite this secrecy, there were a fair amount of people in the village that
knew they existed and even contacted the Whisper network whenever their house
was raided.

Though she knew that anyone that had ever had their home
raided would never give up the secret of the Whispers of Breccan, they were
still gambling with their lives. The second word got out about them, Malachy
and his fifteen little helpers would be in a world of trouble.

When they reached the cave that night, Malachy was not yet
inside. Oftentimes he was late getting to them, for it was harder for him to
sneak past the checkpoints unnoticed.

“Why don’t you check the bags for Iris’s stuff,” Archer
suggested to her while he warmed his hands on the fire that Logan had started
in the corner of the cave.

Norabel had not been paying attention to him, having been
deep in thought about where that mysterious arrow could have come from, and so
did not respond.

“Norry!” Archer said, coming over to her and waving his hand
in front of her face.

She blinked at the movement and then looked over to him in
confusion.

“The thing,” Archer prompted. “The thing that was just so
important that you had to get it back to little Iris.”

“Yes?” she asked.

He threw his hands up in aggravation, saying, “How ‘bout
looking for it now so we didn’t do this thing for nothing!”

“You call this nothing!” Logan huffed, pointing to the
four-loaded bags they had dropped off at the cave wall.

“Well, no,” Archer agreed. “I was only… I mean, she made
such a big deal out of, you know. And now she’s just standing there with a
blank expression on her face, acting like we didn’t just do this thing for
her.”

Norabel turned to him giving him a quiet, “Thank you,”
before going to the first of the bags and looking inside.

“Thank you!” Archer exclaimed while she was searching the
bags. “That wasn’t so hard!”

“Hey Archer,” Logan said, shooting him a sideways look. “Do
you think you could not be so…”

“So what?” he demanded.

Logan chose his word carefully, finally deciding on,
“Boisterous.”

“Boisterous!” he exclaimed. “Well, if I’m boisterous, then
you’re, you’re girlious!”

“That’s not a thing.”

“Yeah it is.”

As the two boys were fighting, Norabel quietly searched the
packs. Her stomach tightened as she reached for the last one, having failed to
find the Albatross Seed in the other three. This time she dumped the contents
of the pack on the ground, trying to better search through it, but could still not
find the Albatross Seed.

They must have destroyed it, she realized. She couldn’t
believe how foolish she had been. Why would they hold onto it? It was outlawed.
Of course they would destroy it. There was no reason for them to keep it, just
because it was precious to a little girl. She couldn’t believe how she had
jumped so quickly into this thing without thinking it through.

Noticing her distress, Mason walked over to where she was
crouched on the floor, asking, “Did you find it?”

For a moment she debated about lying to him, just picking up
any random object and saying it was the one she had been looking for. But she
couldn’t think of which one to choose, and she knew for certain her face would
give away her deceit the moment she tried.

“Is something wrong?” Logan asked, ending his argument with
Archer to come over to them.

“It’s not here,” she whispered out. The second the words
came out, she wanted to take them back. She didn’t know why she had said them.
It was almost like she couldn’t keep them from escaping.

“What? Serious!” Archer exclaimed, throwing his hands up.

She looked through the objects on the ground once more and
nodded.

Mason crouched on the ground next to her so he could look
her in the eye. “Would you mind telling me exactly what it was that was so
important?” he asked, saying the words slowly and seriously. “So important that
the Pax officials, for some reason, didn’t think it was worth their time to
even throw into a basket?”

An icy hand clamped around her heart. She knew that Mason
was angry, but he would be even angrier the second she told him the truth. She
gulped and looked down to the ground, which was dancing in the orange flame of
the fire, and quietly admitted, “It was an Albatross Seed.”

Archer was the one to explode first, slamming his foot into
the wall and exclaiming, “I don’t believe this! We risked our necks for a
wretched tree nut!”

Norabel rose to her feet, saying, “It’s not just a nut! It’s
more than that!”

“For crying out loud, Norabel! When are you gonna to grow
up?! The Albatross don’t exist! Invisible people with wings that are supposed
to watch over you every second of the day! Come on! It’s a children’s myth!”

She clenched her jaw and stared defiantly at Archer. “If
they don’t exist, then why did Amias banish all mention of them? You can’t
outlaw something if it doesn’t exist.”

“Well I’d still outlaw you if you didn’t exist!” he
countered.

“Archer,” Logan shouted. “Will you please shut up!”

Archer looked over to where Mason and Logan were standing,
and promptly closed his mouth upon seeing the grave expression on their
leader’s face. Norabel turned to him as well, waiting in painful silence for
the axe to fall on her head. Mason’s expression was still and blank, but she
could see something moving underneath it all, just waiting to burst out. Then,
moving slowly, he turned to the entrance of the cave, looking like he was about
to walk out, when he swiftly turned around and pointed a finger at her.

“You’re still a child, you know that?!” he yelled. “You’re
exactly the same! You need to grow up! Because I don’t need little girls on my
team!” With that, he stormed out of the cave and into the night.

*

Logan raced after his brother, nearly falling on the stray
rocks of the cave entrance as he did so. Scrambling to control his balance, he shot
forward and grabbed Mason by the arm.

“Mason, why is this so hard for you!” he shouted.

Mason shoved his arm free and continued to hurry forward.

“You are being way too hard on her!” Logan continued. “I
don’t see what the big deal is! She was just doing her job. We all were. Now a
lot of people will get back what was taken from them. Who cares why we did it
in the first place!”

“I care!” Mason said gruffly.

Logan reached out for his arm again, trying to stop him.
“Oh, will you please stop moping!” he exclaimed. “Stop holding it against her.
You were kids.” He shook his head and took in a breath. “Just innocent kids
having fun. What was so terrible about that?”

Mason finally tuned to face him, the dull light of the moon
somehow sharpening in his eyes. “Yeah. We were kids. Only I grew up. But
Norabel, she’s…” He glanced back to where they had left the cave. “She’s still
chasing imaginary creatures. Chasing her own shadow and pretending she sees
their wings.”

“She’s not the only one chasing shadows,” Logan stated
sadly. “At least hers don’t make her hate the world.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he challenged.

“It means,” Logan said, taking a step towards his younger
brother, “that if mom and dad were still here, they would tell you to stop
this.”

“Well they’re not here, are they!” he countered.

“And that’s not her fault,” Logan shouted, pointing a finger
back at the cave. “Yes, her beloved Albatross didn’t swoop down and save mom
and dad from being killed, just like they didn’t save her grandfather! You call
her childish, but what do you call what you’re doing?!”

“That’s not,” he started to yell, but stopped himself. “That’s
not what I’m doing,” he said, softer this time.

“Then what
are
you doing?”

“Nothing,” he shook his head. “Just forget it.” He glanced
behind him before admitting, “You’re right. I was too hard on her.” He gulped
and added, “Will you tell her for me?”

“Why don’t you tell her yourself?”

Mason was silent as he stared at the ground, scuffing his
boot against the grass of the meadow.

“Can’t you try to be her friend again?” Logan asked
carefully.

His brother looked up and was about to respond when something
behind Logan drew his attention. “Malachy’s here,” he announced. “We should get
back to the cave.”

Logan’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. He knew his
brother was holding something back from him, and he wished he would finally
just come out and say what it was. But, it seemed as if that wasn’t going to
happen tonight.