Manuscript: Wayside, Chapter 12

At the sixth bell, all of the orphans sat down for their evening meal with Mr. and Mrs. Viccars. Grim chewed his food, roast chicken with boiled potatoes, without tasting it. The Finders would be headed to Caravan soon and the thought of missing the encounter was so distracting to Grim that Mrs. Viccars had addressed him twice before Cane nudged him in the ribs and brought it to his attention that she was talking to him.

“Oh. Sorry, ma’am. Did you ask me something?” He said, rubbing the side where Cane had planted his elbow between his bones.

Mrs. Viccars dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “Mr. Andrews said he saw you and young Cane at the bazaar today. I was asking if you enjoyed it.”

“Oh,” he shared a glance with Cane. “Yes. Yes it was pretty amazing. All that...stuff. Very cool.”

“They don’t come often enough, these days. So many people in the city now, we never seem to estimate supplies properly anymore, do we Mr. Viccars?” Mrs. Viccars gave a graceful nod to her husband, who was dissecting a piece of roast chicken with surgical precision.

He looked up from his patient. “Oh now dear, they probably have other cities to visit, I should think. We’re not likely their only business. I mean, after all, no cross-peen hammers. Clearly all snatched up by other clients.”

“Are there other cities like Wayside?” Cane asked between bites of bread.

“Oh, that’s doubtful, my lad,” said Mr. Viccars. “I meant cities on the other side. They go back and forth you know.”

“Has anyone gone out and explored the wastes for other cities?” the girl Maggie, who was now the senior resident of the orphanage, prompted.

Mr. Viccars repressed a burp and thumped his sternum with a fist and his wife shot him a reproachful look that he ignored. “Oh, I shouldn’t say so. Much too dangerous, you know. Besides, the wastes go on forever and there’s no way of telling which way you’re going once you can’t see the light from the city. Not to mention all the beasties out there.”

Maggie clicked her tongue. “Nothing goes on forever. That’s impossible.”

Mr. Viccars shrugged.

The rest of dinner passed without incident, and at the evening bell the orphans and caretakers all headed to the library to do whatever it was they usually did of an evening.

Some of the children sat in groups, playing games or sharing stories, while Mr. and Mrs. Viccars sat by the fireplace. Mr. Viccars smoked a fragrant pipe that Grim enjoyed smelling from a distance, and Mrs. Viccars knitted a formless orange something and hummed to herself. Cane positioned himself in his usual spot at a small table and continued scrounging through the Viccars geography section, trying to find something that resonated in his memory.

Grim waited until Mr. and Mrs. Viccars had finished their evening sit -- they rarely hung about for longer than an hour -- and then pulled a squeaky chair up to Cane’s cluttered workspace.

Cane looked up with a small jump. “Oh. Grim. Sorry, I was reading about Germany.”

“And?” Grim prompted.

“And...it sounds like a nice place.” Cane closed the book with a look of remorse. “But that’s about it.”

“Sorry.” Grim thrummed the table with his fingers. “Look, I need a favor. It’s kind of a big one.”

Cane’s eyes grew wide. “Really? Is it dangerous? Do I have to do something bad?”

Grim smirked. “Uh, no. Nothing like that. Except—“

Cane sat on the edge of his chair.

Grim leaned in. “I just need you to tell a little white lie, that’s all.” Grim looked around like a secret agent checking to see if he was being followed. “I’ve got to sneak out of the orphanage tonight.”

“I want to come!” Cane burst out, his voice echoing through the room. A couple of girls who were playing a game of jacks in the corner looked up.

Grim hissed through his teeth and Cane, admonished, pulled his knees up to his chin. “You can’t come. I need you to stay here and cover for me. I can’t trust anyone else with the job, see?”

Cane nodded enthusiastically, holding his knees.

Grim gave him a sly smile. “If Mr. or Mrs. Viccars come to check on us in the dormitory tonight, just tell them I went to get a drink of water or use the toilet or something. You can do that, right?”

Cane returned the smile. “Yeah, sure. Of course I can. You can count on me, Grim.”

“I know I can, Cane. That’s why we’re friends.” He patted Cane on the back and got up.

Cane reopened his book, but before Grim could walk away he looked up, confusion painted on his face. “Hey, where are you going, anyway?”

Grim winced. “Ah. Um.” He was reluctant to tell the truth, but he had trusted Cane this far and his friend was, after all, sticking his neck out for him. “I’m going to Caravan.”

“You’re what?!” Cane shouted. The girls looked up from their game for the second time.

Grim shushed him again. “Keep it down, damn it. I’m going to Caravan with Murphy and Osborne. They’re going to ask about Noura Naysmith and I want to find out what they know.”

“Oh. Yeah, ok. You sure I can’t come?” Cane looked crestfallen.

Grim sighed. “I promise you can come next time, Cane. I just really need you to be my lookout tonight.”

Cane gave another acquiescing nod. Grim smiled at him and he and returned to his book.

Grim spread word with the rest of the kids that he was really tired and was going to bed a little early, and then proceeded to the boy’s dorm, which was blessedly empty. He stuffed an extra pillow under the sheets to create the illusion of what, he hoped, would look to the casual passerby like a sleeping boy. He unlatched the window and crept out into the courtyard. He felt electric, like a cat burglar on a heist, as he eased shut the window and darted between shadows of the green on his way to the entrance hall doors. Just before he reached for the handle leading to the main hallway he heard the clip-clop of footsteps in the hallway beyond and ducked into a dark corner just in time to see Mrs. Viccars crossing by the large windows on her way to the girl’s dormitory.

Grim breathed his relief. He waited for several heartbeats, and opened the door, traversing the hall to the front door. He opened it with the slightest creak and snuck out into the front garden undetected.

People still wandered the streets at this hour, and Grim’s presence went more or less unnoticed. He jogged through the Pages, where the last of the scholars were clearing out of the great library, and instead of heading down to the Market and the front gates, he took Murphy’s advice and turned, heading through the Antiques district to one of the side gates.

Most of the people in this district were already settled in their homes for the evening, but there were more cats about at this time of night, and Grim suddenly wondered, as yellow eyes flashed at him from an alley, whether the cats of Wayside were lost, or whether they, like the Caravaners, simply came and went from the wastes at their own discretion.

A signpost indicated that the West Gate was ahead. Grim supposed they had just assigned directions to the gates to help mark them, as direction seemed rather arbitrary when there were no stable landmarks in the wastes other than the city itself. He guessed that made the main gate the North gate, but couldn’t recall anyone ever calling it that.

There was a single guard on duty at the gate. Unlike the main gates, the West gate was really more like a utility exit and while it too was made of the same black iron, it had no towers and was significantly smaller – about fifteen feet from its lower support bar to the decorative yet vicious looking spearheads that crested it. Grim was pretty sure that he could slip through the bars, but the guard’s patrol wasn’t wide. Grim was confident that, without a diversion, the guard would see him trying to get through.

“Damn,” he muttered to himself, looking around for something to cause a distraction.

“I could help you there.” A voice whispered in his ear, and Grim jumped clear out of his skin. A hand covered his mouth as he tried to shout, and suddenly there was a familiar icy tugging as Grim’s perspective suddenly shifted five feet to his right and he found himself in an alleyway, still within sight of the gate.

Grim spun, and there stood Ophelia, grinning from ear to ear at him. She was dressed, much to Grim’s surprise, in a gray tunic and vest that practically blended in to the Wasteland dust, and she wore an equally camouflaging head scarf.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” Grim whispered, in as shock as anger in seeing the girl again.

Ophelia rolled her eyes. “I told you. We’re going to be friends.”

“Yeah, but last time you said that you also slapped the taste out of my mouth,” Grim said, through clenched teeth.

Ophelia blew a quiet raspberry. “You deserved it. Besides, you need my help getting passed that guard, right?”

Grim peeked out of the alleyway. The guard’s path had not changed. Sneaking past him certainly seemed like it was going to be otherwise impossible.

He sighed. “I guess. So just take us straight to Caravan, right? No sense in walking through the Wastes if we don’t have to. You can just do that crazy teleporting thing.”

Ophelia shook her head. “It doesn’t quite work like that. Or at least not that far. I can get us through the gate, but the camp is a little ways out, I’m afraid.”

“So we can just, like, hop across, right? Little jumps or something?” Grim was getting worried that he was going to miss the meeting.

Ophelia crossed her arms. “I’m not a subway car. Besides, it takes some energy to shift, especially without traveling across the barrier each time, and you can’t do that. Probably kill you.”

“Wha—“ Grim began, but Ophelia continued before he could say what he was thinking.

“Anyway. It’s not that far a walk and it seems like it would be a nice night, if that sort of thing existed on this side.” Ophelia looked up at the empty sky.

“Do—“

“So are you ready, or what?” Ophelia tapped her foot on the cobble street. A cat popped its ginger head out from a nearby trash can to investigate.

Grim looked at the confusing girl in gray that stood before him and decided that she was going to help him one way or another. He nodded. She smiled and took his hand, then leaned out of the alleyway to track the guard.

“Ok, on three,” she whispered to Grim. “One...”

Grim held his breath.

“Two...”

The guard turned on his heel and faced away from the gate.

Knowledge of what was going to happen didn’t change the fact that shifting was like being hit in the gut by a cannonball made of ice. The air roared in Grim’s ears and took the breath from his lungs and his vision went white like a flash had gone off in his face. When his eyes readjusted he was standing in the dust with Ophelia by his side, the west gate of Wayside behind, the distant glow of the Caravan campfires ahead. Ophelia yanked his arm and they scrambled to the stone wall by the gate just as the guard strolled back into view. A moment later he was gone again.

“What happened to three?” Grim said, still catching his breath.

“Didn’t I say three?” Ophelia grinned.

The white wagons of Caravan and their fires were practically pin-pricks, but Ophelia assured him that it wasn’t that far.

“The Wastes play nasty tricks with distance. Something that looks close could be miles away, and something that seems far could be ten breaths distant. Things shift around out here.”

“How do you get around then?” said Grim.

“Our ancestors learned the ways, and they passed them along. It’s not really something I can put into words. Sort of like shifting.” Ophelia replied keeping her eyes fixed on Caravan.

“Oh yeah. That too. How do you do that?”

“If I told you how it’s done, it wouldn’t make any sense, I promise. Lots of abstraction and visualization and stuff. It would sound very boring.”

Grim doubted that anything that could make you teleport around like that could be boring, but he didn’t argue.

He looked back to see how far they had gone from the gates. They were a surprising distance away now, and suddenly Grim felt nervous being out in the middle of the Wastes like this, even with Ophelia and her powers.

The silence began to spook him. “Osborne said you guys share all your memories. Like one big brain. Is that true?”

Ophelia giggled. “Well, certainly not all of them. We are individual people, you know.” She walked backwards for a moment so she could look back at him. “There are memories we all share, though, yes. Sharing a memory is a sacred thing though. It’s saved for special memories.”

“Oh.” Grim recalled the echoing of his name across the camp during his one night in Caravan. “What about seeing the future and stuff. You can do that, too?”

Ophelia frowned. “Sort of. Not all of it. Only certain things, about certain people.”

“What about me?” Grim asked.

“Well, I said we were going to be friends, right? And I saw you and the wolf.” She turned back towards Caravan and her pace quickening a little. “Who was that boy that you were with at the bazaar?”

“Oh, that’s Cane. Well, we call him Cane. He doesn’t know his real name,” he replied.

Ophelia stopped in her tracks. “Did you name him that?” She said without turning.

Grim shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. He wanted us to give him a name and no one else was saying anything. It seemed sort of right after watching him and that monster in the hill. Ya know, Cane. Like a hurricane. Why?”

Ophelia continued to walk. It was a moment before she responded. “No reason. It’s a good name, I think. Strong. A good choice.”

Grim scratched his head. “Thanks, I guess.”

In a few moments they reached the edge of the camp, and skirted around so as not to alert anyone. The Caravaners seemed comfortable in the Wastes and posted no guards. Grim was pretty sure, based on their handling of Cane and the Draugh, that they didn’t need any.

Ophelia led Grim around the perimeter of the camp, away from the fires, until they reached a large tent. It could have easily housed fifty people, but the shadows cast against the tent walls on the outside were muddled, and Grim could not tell exactly how many people were within. Ophelia crouched by the tent and beckoned Grim to do the same.

Someone cleared their throat and an unfamiliar voice silenced the low mumbling from within.

“We can begin now.” The stentorian voice commanded. “Commander Charles Osborne, Captain of the Waysider Finders, and fellows. I welcome you to our circle.” There were mutters of ascent, and then a shadow stood and gave a small salute.

“Thank you, Grand Lord, for your hospitality and your counsel. You honor us greatly with this arrangement,” Osborne’s shadow said through the canvas. “We have come in regards to the Emere, Noura Naysmith.”

The muddle of voices returned, but at with a resounding clap, the shadow of the Grand Lord silenced the group. “Commander Osborne, Caravan does not have domain over or even eminent knowledge of your Emeres. They come to this realm of their own accord and go at their choosing. Ms. Naysmith is not an exception.”

“She was attacked. Within the Wayside circle.” The murmurs crested again, but ebbed as the Grand Lord responded.

“Then it would have been one of your own that instigated it. Nothing from the Wastes may incur upon the circle. It is utterly impossible.”

“Why, then, would someone from within the city want to kill an Emere?” It was a voice that sounded familiar to Grim.

“Perhaps not kill, Faralen,” said the High Lord. Grim glanced at Ophelia, who smiled back at him.

“Oh!” Ophelia looked suddenly surprised, and there was another mutter, louder this time, around the group in the tent. This time Grim could make out individuals. “Impossible.” “So soon?” “Not yet, though, surely.”

“What?” Grim whispered to Ophelia.

She shushed him softly.

The High Lord’s shadow raised its hands and the arguing died. “We do not know the precise location of your Ms. Naysmith, Commander. She is not likely to be in immediate danger, but Caravan will send an envoy to locate her and verify her safety. But, if our suspicions are correct about the reason for her assault, she will be safer in her world than in yours.”

“What suspicions are these?” asked Osborne.

The tent was still and Ophelia’s brow creased during the silence. Finally the High Lord spoke. “We are not at liberty to discuss this. Suffice to say it is a matter we have been concerned with before, and if the time comes when you and your city will need to be involved, you will be.”

Murphy spoke again. “Oh bollocks with your secrets and mysteries, I’ve got half a mind to --”

“Mr. Fish, you are out of line,” Osborne interrupted. “Thank you, High Lord, for the information. If there is any way we can be of assistance, please let us know.”

“Thank you, Commander Osborne. Ah, and one more thing, please. The boy, Grim Munroe.”

Grim’s heart skipped a beat.

“Grim? What about him?” said Osborne.

“He plays a part in all of this as well. The time may come when he will be a key to Ms. Naysmith’s safety and Wayside’s as well.” The High Lord’s voice held in it the weight of foresight, and Osborne did not respond.

Grim and Ophelia looked at each other. Ophelia did not appear to be shocked by the pronouncement.

“Yes,” the High Lord said with a pleased tone. “He is also currently just outside the tent, listening to this whole conversation. I suggest you all walk back to the city together and collect your thoughts.”

* * *

“Of all the studio irresponsible crap you could have pulled, Grim Munroe.” Grim and the Finders tread the dust between Caravan and Wayside, and Osborne seethed until Grim’s ears were red.

“Ooo, both names,” said Murphy.

“Shut it, Fish. No doubt you put him up to it,” Osborne snipped. “I was under the impression, Grim, that explicitly I told you not to get involved in all of this.”

“I’m already involved in it. I was involved in it when I saved Noura’s life, remember?” Grim muttered.

“You know what I mean,” Osborne spit venom. “Not to mention dragging this poor girl into your shenanigans.”

“Ha!” Grim barked. “She involved herself. Besides, she’s from Caravan. I’m not telling her what to do.”

Osborne turned to Grim and the girl, who walked next to him. She had been actively absent from the conversation up until then.

“Caravan? Who’s your family, young lady?” Osborne pointed back to the camp.

“Caravan is my family, Commander. But if you are asking who my father is, I’m surprised you don’t remember, as you shared our fire when this boy first came to the wastes.” Ophelia replied in a calm tone.

“Ah, Faralen.” Osborne muttered.

“Duke Faralen, yes,” Ophelia nodded.

“Terrific.” Osborne palmed his forehead. “Does your father know you’re going to Wayside?”

Ophelia gave him a wry smile.

“Right.” Osborne sighed. “Grim, you’re not to leave the orphanage again until this business with Noura is resolved.”

“What!”

Osborne continued unabated. “I will give instructions to the Viccars that you may not leave the premises and will send someone around to check on you at interval.”

“But that’s not fair!” Grim’s whole face was red now; Osborne’s absolutism was so far out of line that he couldn’t control himself.

“I’m not your son!” Grim shouted, and the words hung in the air. Murphy and Lee stopped in their tracks, and the look of shock on Osborne’s face almost made Grim regret his words. Still, he was committed now.

“It’s not fair that you treat me like it. I’m not a kid, and definitely not yours.”

Osborne glanced at Murphy, then back to Grim. “I see,” he replied without emotion.

They continued in silence until they reached the west gate. The guard had spotted them and the gate creaked open at their arrival.

They walked until they reached the intersection that delineated the gate road and the Antiques district, and then Osborne stopped. “Mr. Lee, please escort Mr. Munroe back to the Viccars.” He gave a small bow to Ophelia. “Lady Faralen, welcome to our city, please enjoy your stay. The rest of you are dismissed.” Without looking at Grim he shouldered his rifle and walked off towards the Governance.