Through The Veil (20 page)

Marcus examined the lightening sky. “We need to get going,
though, if we are going to make it to Cottonwood by nightfall.”

Drake nodded and drew the paint horse over to Lori. “This is
Isabelle. She’s a sweet lady and has a great disposition. She’ll take good care
of you. She’s strong and sturdy and remains calm under the worst circumstances.
Trust her to carry you safely if you run into any trouble.”

“Thanks, Drake.” Lori reached over to rub the horse’s
muzzle. “Hello, Isabelle. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden, so try to be
patient with me.” She put her foot into the stirrup and swung onto her back.

She watched Marcus attach his pack onto the saddle and swing
onto the palomino’s back. “What’s his name?”

“This is Jasper.” He patted the horse on the side of its
neck. “He’s been my ride for a long time.”

“Do they ever react to your wings?”

Marcus laughed. “No. Quite honestly, Isabelle will probably
have more of an issue with you since you don’t have them. They’ve always known
us with wings so it’s not unusual for them.”

“I guess that’s true. I’m still not used to them. I forget
you’ve had them your entire adult life.”

They urged their horses out of the barn and toward the wall.
Lori twisted around in her saddle looking for their exit. “Okay I give. How do
we get out of here?”

Marcus gestured to where a young man with red hair and a
slightly darker shade of green wings than Drake’s worked a wheel. He’d been
watching them warily, but his focus appeared to be mainly on Marcus.

“Hello, Shane,” Marcus said quietly, but the man quickly
nodded and turned his back to them.

Shane had to be related to Drake somehow, but he had to have
been really young when the Veil fell. He cranked a wheel and a door opened into
the courtyard outside of the walls. She never would have guessed its location
if she hadn’t seen it open herself.

They rode through and she turned to watch as the doors
closed behind them. Once closed, again they disappeared into the wall. “That’s
really amazing.”

Marcus grinned at her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
She didn’t understand all the unspoken emotions between him and the men at the
farm.

“So the man working the gate, is he related to Drake?”

“Yes, that’s Shane.” Another one of those looks of raw pain
crossed his expression. “He’s actually the youngest member of our village. He
was only two years old when the Veil fell. I don’t remember how many kids there
were originally, but Drake, Shane, and their sister were the only ones who
survived out of a large family. Their sister basically raised Shane, although,
I guess it’s more accurate to say the entire village did that. He was such a
cute little thing and the first one to get his wings.” His affection for the
boy echoed through his voice. “Toddlers are unstable enough on their feet. You
add in wings and they tumble and bumble all over the place.” A flash of longing
crossed his face as he grinned a little sadly at the memory of it. He would
have made a great father.

“In the ES, the government doesn’t disclose anything about
what really happened after the Veil. Has Malcolm ever studied the sterility? Does
he know why no one can conceive any longer?” She wanted to believe that maybe
she could still hope to someday have kids, a family, a legacy to leave behind.

“Yeah, he has. Actually, that’s one of the things that he’s
really focused on. He says that everyone appears to have working parts, but
something is naturally blocking reproduction. In the same way that we all still
have germs and viruses, but no one ever gets sick anymore. Bethany attributes
it to Mother Earth and that somehow she’s put us in a sort of stasis while she
recovers from the damage that man has done to her.”

Lori had never been exposed to a religion based on the earth
before so it seemed a bit bizarre to think of the earth exerting her power.
“What do you think? Do you believe that?” she asked him.

Marcus shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. Can anyone
explain what happened when the Veil fell? When it happened, the natural order
of things completely changed. Adults died, but left no bodies. No one gets sick
anymore, but we don’t have the ability to create a future generation.” As he
became more worked up, he talked more and more using his hands and arms to
gesture. “If there’s some entity in the earth manipulating it all, why wouldn’t
she just kill us all when the Veil fell? As it is now, humanity will die out
over time anyway.”

“Did you ever wonder what it would be like to have
children?”

His expression completely shut down and his shoulders
stiffened.

“Children would be nice,” his voice lowered. “But I accepted
a long time ago that a family wasn’t in the cards for me.”

Obviously not wanting to discuss it anymore, he kicked his
horse into a faster pace. “Come on. We need to speed up a bit if we want to
arrive before nightfall.”

They settled into a faster pace along a well-traveled forest
path. Eventually Marcus relaxed back into their easy
comradery
and Lori was careful to stay away from the subject of families. The Veil had
left many people scarred. It was better not to pick at those scabs because in
the end, they could talk it to death, but that didn’t change the fact that
they’d all lost a lot.

The day provided for a quiet, comfortable ride and they took
the time to exchange stories about their lives. Marcus stopped every forty-five
minutes or so to let her stretch her legs, always staying vigilant about their
surroundings. She knew he worried about another Predator coming upon them, but
the ride remained Predator-free.

They stopped for a picnic lunch which they ate in a forest
glade filled with wildflowers and a babbling brook. The mist still hung above
them, but it just added a mystical, fairy tale-like layer to the scenery. Lori
wouldn’t have blinked an eye at finding a twinkling fairy floating around her
head.

Instead, she found her purple winged, full-sized Warrior who
decided that their picnic presented the perfect time for a little romance. It
didn’t go beyond heavy kissing because of the threat of Predators, but as she
lay on the blanket underneath the weeping willow tree looking up at his
beautiful face, she decided she’d much rather have this winged fantasy any day.

They passed another village that afternoon, but only stopped
briefly since they needed to get on to their final destination. Like Marcus’s
village, tree houses provided the main source of shelter for the villagers
there.

They were surprised to meet up with Brooklyn and Garrison on
the road late in the day. They were returning from checking the outlying
families who hadn’t responded when the issues with the Predators arose.

Brooklyn paced as she explained, “They’ve just disappeared.
No signs of them anywhere. No blood. No indication that anything’s gone wrong.
They’ve all just gone. The refrigerators are still stocked. Clothing is still
in the drawers. It’s the most bizarre thing and I don’t think it’s good.” She’d
stopped pacing and cast a worried glance at Garrison.

He looked serious too. It didn’t fit with his normal
personality. “How do thirteen people just disappear like that? We couldn’t find
any Predator tracks, but something happened to those people. We can’t find any
trace of them telepathically either. It’s completely bizarre.”

Marcus nodded. “Something isn’t right in all this. Get back
and report it to Bethany. And be careful. Watch your backs.”

“You, too.” Everyone jumped on their horses and they
continued toward their individual destinations.

* * *

When they arrived at Cottonwood late that evening, Lori had
expected it to be in the trees like the other two villages, but it wasn’t. Like
they’d done in the ES, this village had taken advantage of an existing structure
on the ground to create their manufacturing system. As Lori looked out over the
valley below them, she tried to place where they were at in the old United
States.

Cottonwood was much larger than either of the two villages
she’d been exposed to so far. They were obviously on the edge of an old town,
although with the new moist environment, almost every building had been
overtaken by deep green foliage. Even more overgrown structures rose in the
distance.

They’d built a wall similar to what surrounded the farm to
protect the village from the Predators. A large structure dominated the middle
of it which had to be the manufacturing facility. “What town did this used to
be?”

“Johnson City, Tennessee.”

From their perch above the city, Lori could see quite a few
people bustling around the town. “How many people live here?”

“There are approximately 250 who work within the clothing
manufacturing plant, but there’s another 500 who work the cotton fields along
with managing the silkworm and wool ventures.”

“All of that is done here? That’s a lot of different fabrics
made at one place.”

He nodded. “With so many fewer people, we’ve learned to
streamline and simplify so we don’t overwork them.”

“Do you have other facilities like this throughout the WS
for different industries?” Lori asked.

Marcus nodded. “The substructure for an entire society is
huge. It took us so long to figure out how to make it all work. Luckily, we had
the supplies and the stock in stores left over from civilization from before
while we figured it out to get us by. Otherwise we would have starved or died
from exposure.” He shook his head. “Our system went through more than its share
of hiccups, but I think we’ve learned and improved a lot over the years.”

“You were all just kids when you had to learn how to do all
this. In the ES, within months we had the established government back. They
were corrupt, but they already knew how to get things done within a society.”
Honestly, she’d almost wished she’d grown up on this side of the Veil rather
than in the ES. They had such a sense of community here, a mutual purpose.
They’d all had to work together to make it work and that cooperation showed in
everything they did. “You all had no clue and had to learn how to handle this
the hard way. What you all have accomplished is nothing short of amazing.”

He nodded, a gleam of pride in his eyes, but then he glanced
at the sky. “Come on. Dusk is coming.” He began to frown. “Does it seem colder
to you?”

“I hadn’t noticed it, but you’re right.” She looked up at
the mist hanging over them.

As they rode down into the valley, Marcus pulled a wrap out
of his pack. He handed it to her and then put on a shirt for the first time
that she’d ever seen.

Just like a medieval castle, walls surrounded Cottonwood and
they were met by winged guards who gave them access to the interior through a
door like the one at the farm.

As they rode through the gate, a man strode forward to meet
them. He had long, dark, wavy red hair that rested on his shoulders and wings
the color of clouds right before a rainstorm. Even from this distance, his grey
eyes flashed with worry through his wire-rimmed glasses and his shoulders were
stiff with tension. Like Marcus, he’d donned a shirt to ward off the sudden
chill in the air.

Before they’d dismounted, he reported the news. “Marcus, we
have a situation up north. Something’s changed and snowstorms are coming.”

 
“Snowstorms?”
Marcus’s brows flew up in shock. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. No one knows, but we’re getting reports that
the northern villages are getting slammed by these storms and they’re moving
south—fast. We predict the first wave of snow will be here within the next
eight to twelve hours.”

They quickly dismounted from their horses, and two men took
them away as the three of them entered a red brick office building covered in
vines. As they entered into an inviting, very masculine office, the man turned
to Lori and offered her his hand. “I’m so sorry for my rudeness. I’m assuming
you must be Lori. I’m Samson, the one in charge of Cottonwood and all that we
do here. I’m anxious to talk to you about the manufacturing and get your input,
but right now this situation needs our attention more.”

“Of course. There’s absolutely no need to apologize. Please
continue.”

All three of them sat down—Samson behind his desk, Marcus
and Lori in the plush chairs in front of it. Everything here remained more
traditional and reminded Lori more of the ES than what she’d seen of the WS so
far. She wondered if that was because manufacturing provided the basis for
everyday life in this settlement.

“Tell us what’s happening,” Marcus instructed.

Samson ran his hand through his hair and stood. He walked
over to a map on the wall where there were various pins and flags sticking out
of the paper. For Lori’s benefit, he explained the map. “This is the WS and all
the villages so we can keep track of where all our deliveries are and need to
be. This pin,” he pointed to the largest flag, “is Cottonwood. Two days ago, we
sent out a delivery headed for here.” He pointed to the pin furthest north on
the map.

“They made their six-hour check-in point just fine.” He
pointed to another pin on the map. “At the ten-hour check-in point, they
reported colder temperatures, but kept moving on. They stopped for the night
here,” he pointed to another pin further north, “and woke up the next morning
to snow. But because their delivery held a lot of linens, including wool
blankets, they decided to continue on, knowing the villagers were going to need
them because of the freezing temperatures. None of the villages are equipped to
handle snow after all this time. That’s the last we heard from them. They
didn’t make their destination and we have no idea what happened to them. The
last reports we had from the northern villages say that a blizzard-like
snowstorm is headed our way.”

Lori and Marcus exchanged a worried glance. The snowstorm
just reinforced it. Things were changing in the WS because she’d altered
something by coming across the Veil. Sudden awareness churned in her stomach.
She had a limited timetable here with Marcus. Somehow she’d thrown off the
natural balance of his world. She wasn’t meant to be part of his life.