Okay, this one is REALLY special to me, I have been writing it for almost two years. it still needs a bunch of polishing and such, so don't be to hard on my baby! Black Fire Book One Of Love and Justice Series Prologue The outside world is void and unknown to us save for a few reports about fifteen years ago from America when the signals in the towers hadn’t gone down. The last we heard from America was they had hit on something like a strong vegetation source or it might have been electric…but then the connection died and we haven’t heard from anyone outside of Europe since. We are alone, trapped in this overruling dominion of the survival of the fittest. I have read on numerous times in school how a hundred years ago the whole world was settled and people resided happily. There were running cars and phones, people had so much food even the poor people were fat. Not that that is something anyone now days finds attractive or even acceptable. If you are fat that means you have too much food and ought to be sharing it with people who are so skinny their rib cage is showing. But our world is still greedy. You’d think this economical fallout would bring the human race together to try to help one another, but no. Everyone keeps all they have for themselves even if it means they grow fat and lazy while people like my brother and I starve and work hard every waking minute. Vegetation is all but destroyed and if not non-existent, at least withered and brown. It is cold where we live in the Loire Valley of France, but I know that the earth has heated greatly in the last hundred years and that is some places it is more often warm than cold. It is the year two thousand one hundred and twelve. The government collapsed years ago in their greed and destruction leaving behind a crumbled system, which allows for more crime to go unseen than good. The mistreatment of the ecosystem has left nature in ruins, the animals mostly dead, and the trees gray skeletons of what they once were. I am not sure about how the rest of the world is faring, but it makes me wonder. Our modes of transportations have disappeared. Oil is non-existent, all used up and no trains, plains, cars, and any other moving vehicle has been left unusable. We have reseeded into the era of poverty. We wear mostly cheap cotton that is thrown out if it doesn’t rate high quality the people who own cotton mills however rarely make mistakes in their weaving so we don’t get new clothes often. They make a pretty good living, selling the best clothing around. Some people have also learnt from the passing generations how to use machinery; a few televisions and phones have been built in replication of the ones that are rusting away. People mesh though. Most rich people in Europe live in Barcelona, however even in our small town a few richer people live, Mr. Porter for example is a market owner and he sells all his goods for a high price. Sadly, all the stuff he sells in crucial to our survival so he doesn’t lose business. There is a family who lives next to our home. Their house isn’t run down whatsoever. Their children are round and happy. They have three meals a day and snacks in between. They keep to themselves though, so no one really knows much about them save for Mr. Porter obviously who calls them his “most loyal customers”. I suppose wealth has everything to do with how low you are willing to go to get what you want. Some people can be seen selling their children to some caravans that sometimes come through to get some money. I remember once a caravan came through Rouen and asked to buy my brother. I declined angrily, so tortured at the thought that anyone would sell a child. In return though, one of my good friends got sold. Farmers are few and far between thus the predators which used to be observed by naturalists far before my time as creatures of magnificence now fill the plates of the hungry families, hunted down by the bravest and most skilled hunters-either that or the most arrogant and foolish boys who are willing to go up against huge bears striving to survive The town itself is run down and a lot of homes are just piles of bricks representing what was years ago and what might still be if the human race wasn’t so destructive and greedy. We have a pub called the Night Owl and if you are friends with the keeper Jael Rou , you can sometimes get some warmed beer for free. But I don’t really indulge in that seeing as I need to keep sober for my brother. And, I’m not legally allowed to drink. Not that that stops anyone around here anymore. If the Ranks tell us we can’t do something, we usually do it cause they always turn around and break their own laws anyway. There is indeed a cotton mill a few miles out of town but no one ever buys from it seeing as something as simple as a sweater is six months of earnings for people as poor as myself who has to work incredibly hard for even a few dollars. Mr. Porter, though, can afford to buy high quality cotton clothing for his children. I assume my neighbors next-door do as well. There is a physician’s office near the far end of town where I don’t go often. The old woman –Halley Sprits- who runs it has so many cures for sicknesses, I always wished I could afford to buy things from her. She once gave me something free to try to help my parents before they died. It didn’t work, but I always liked her since. Otherwise everything aside from the market which I already mentioned before is small stations run out of houses and anything coming from the poor to the poor is usually not worth buying. I suppose that is why everyone is hard pressed to even get out of bed, literally, every day. We have been cornered to a place where no one can get a job for there are none. No one can thus make money and buy the things they need, no one has any real skills aside from a handy few which, when discovered are usually swept away on the caravan to make a living, and therefore no one has anything worth trading amongst for a win-win situation. Perhaps I should join the caravan. I can sing…not that that would do anything useful but urge the horses on and even then…but if I joined, my brother could come too and I hear the Caravan feeds well. Everyone passing through is well clothed and laughing, telling tales of the grandness of Spain. But this would never happen. Becoming a gypsy isn’t what I have in mind as a good, stable, and worthwhile life for my brother. My name is Addison Black. I have one younger brother who I have mentioned several times now. My dad and mom passed away from starvation a while ago when I was thirteen, and we are slowly decaying as well. I am strong yet; I don’t eat very often so I am skinny, but nowhere near starving. I suppose it is the determined spirit my mother told me I had. I have always been told I have an undying will to go on. Jeremiah is sickly, hungry and thin. His bones are weak and his face pale and ghostly. He is all I have, and I know soon, I will reside alone in this impoverished, gluttonous world. The standing form of government is the Ranks. They are cruel, harsh and fat. Filled with the amble amount of food which could easily fill the stomachs of hungry children. They live in warm houses and have heavy coats to ward of the seemingly ever-present cold. They live mostly set apart from the poverty in what used to be Barcelona Spain. However rumors are often spreading that Ranks spies are set in problem areas or towns where Cereus – the Rank King- feels threatened, to keep an eye on things without being discovered. When they are found out though, crowds of angry fathers usually mob the highly unlucky Ranks or so I have heard. I have only seen this happen in Rouen once when some family I have never heard of tried to burn down the cotton mill. These unfortunate people were sent to Barcelona. No one heard what happened to them but any one of us can imagine they were executed. Nevertheless, A Rank spy was sent and once discovered, mobbed by several dads. I guess we all hope this will send a message to Cereus but it only buries us deeper into our own troubles. I know, as does every sensible person who thinks with their brains and not their emotions that we are on the brink of an uprising. A war will soon fill our homes, for not many of us are willing to withstand the misuse much longer At seventeen, I live in the outlying farmland of Paris in a small town called Rouen in the midst of the Loire Valley. In the middle ages it was supposedly a place of royalty and beauty…also the place Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Jeremiah and myself live in the cottage our parents held. It is cold and the roof leaks, there is a kitchen, one bedroom, a drafty, cold bathroom, and a sitting room. Most of our wooden furniture is missing key pieces, which have been fed to the fire. We have about a blanket and a half in the house and that is it. The on the half of the blanket was also something I used to fuel a fire one winter when Jeremiah was so cold in the house he was showing signs of hypothermia. I now stand staring angrily into Mr. Porter’s sagging gray eyes and almost throw the obsidian to the ground. He always, always buys these minerals from people. He has a strange infatuation with shiny objects so him not trading the obsidian for a shirt was obscene. He shakes his head and then looks with repulsiveness at my dirty hands. Once he has inspected these long enough, he glances into my begging eyes. I hoped this might work, looking utterly hopeless- I would only ever give up my dignity and pride for my brother’s sake- but instead, he just looks away. “It don’t equate with a new shirt, girl.” He says chewing his cheek, his teeth rotting with tobacco and his breath smelling like too much beer. I kick the dirt. “Not even a new shirt for a starving boy who will be dead so soon I can return the shirt in mint condition afterwards?” I hiss stepping closer to him. His thin hair falls in his eyes as he shakes his head. “I have my own children to feed.” “Yeah,” I growl, my eyes narrowing as I stare him down. “Children who have never seen a day of hunger in their lives because somehow you always manage to pull through with food that comes out of nowhere.” Knowing Jeremiah had had no need for a hunk of black rock, I simply hand it to Tiffany Swanson as a two for her babies. “Why thank you, Addi.” She smiles kindly at m. At twenty she had gotten married to one of the most impoverished boys in Rouen, had a baby right after then found herself expecting not two months after the first baby was born. I felt horrible for her. Not only was her husband a scum who spent his time and limited money at the pub on watered down beer, but he thought she wasn’t good for anything but repopulating. “You’re welcome.” I say giving her a weak smile and carrying on The lake and rivers are freezing over and we will have no place to fish soon and I will be forced to hunt boar again. Though both fish and boar have grown more and more scarce over the years. Jeremiah will spend another winter cold, as will I. I trek down the icy street, kicking my thick leather boots into the sullen ground while humming a song that I had heard in the pub earlier that day. Feeling the liveliness in the song which I had heard and sung so many times, I soon begin to sing, not caring that people watched as I shouted the song to the sky. A flask in my hand The sun setting low The flute in the band Let the sweet sound blow My soul will now find That place in the trees Where my sorrowful mind Can soon sour free. My heart will cry no longer now My lips will evermore sing For under the pines scented long bow The song of the Swallow doth ring. “Isn’t that a joyous song for such a melancholy girl!” I spin on my heel s and pull my dagger from my hip, never sure who could be following and not wanting to risk being attacked by some drunk idiot. A sigh escapes my lips when I find my lifelong friend…and betrothed… following me, a fox slung over his shoulder. I nod at the catch and wipe the fierce expression from my face. “You going to make a foolish hat out of that or something?” Pete Brady grins a high and mighty smile, his shaggy, dirty blonde hair falling into his striking dark brown eyes. “Who says fox isn’t edible.” I shrug having no argument seeing as I myself can hardly hunt a good meal. His expression grows serious. “Here. Take it. Jeremiah needs this more than we do.” I shake my head. “I can’t, Pete.” I feel tempted but continue to shake my head. “No…your family needs it.” Pete hands the fox to me. “My mother can show you how to make a vest or something from the fur for him.” I can’t refuse, knowing this will extend my brother’s life a little longer, not to mention I rarely win on topics like this, especially when Pete is the one I’m arguing against. “Thank you.” I say, wishing I had kept the obsidian so I could have something in return for him. “Your welcome. How is Jeremiah any how?” My throat tightens at the thought of my six-year-old brother and his slip of a body deteriorating as we speak. “He’s the same.” Is the most I can get out. Pete sighs. “I’m sorry. I wish I could do something.” I hold up the fox with a halfhearted smile. “You have.” Pete tugs on my copper braid, and then passes me. “Need a walk home?” He asks as I catch up. “When don’t you walk me home?” I tease, but nod agreeing, knowing any time a girl can get a safe walk home in our rotting town, she ought to take it. No one can be sure when someone might jump them for anything including the clothes on their back. Pete smiles, and then slows his long strides to match mine. “Have you heard the latest news of the Ranks?” He asks. I shake my head and look up at Pete with an expression of expectance. “No.” “Then you’re one of the only ones. In fact, it’s so bad there is talk of finally rebelling.” He mutters. I stop and turn to face him, my braid swinging in the momentum of my turn and falling over my right shoulder. “Rebelling?” I ask hoarsely, stopping him in his tracks and looking into his angered and tepid eyes, trying to gauge how very serious he was. “Yup.” He mutters, his voice receiving that haunting edge it gets when his blood begins to boil. “I’m almost there, Addison. I cant live this way.” I feel sweat gather at my palms as they wrap tighter around the rope holding the fox. “You’ve been saying that for four years. Can’t you just hold on? Anyhow, everyone knows that anyone who has ever rebelled has been killed. What makes you think you are any different?” “No, Addi, I can’t hold on…there is nothing to hold on to. And I am not different but I’d rather die doing something that made me believe I’d lived a short, meaningful life than die at twenty five or thirty because I’d been starving for too long” Whatever happened must have been bad enough for him to be this close to turning his back on our only promise of safety from being cast into the outside world. “What did they do?” I ask quietly, not willing to look into his eyes, knowing his time to leave had probably come. Pete had been talking to me about his urgency to leave, but I never thought he would actually come so close to doing so. I had considered it…revenge was at my fingertips. Revenge for my sickly brother and dead parents, but I didn’t have it in me to leave Jeremiah to go fight this soon-to-come war. Besides, fighting wasn’t a girl’s job no doubt. Well, at least not a girl with responsibilities at home. I wouldn’t fight if I didn’t have a good reason to. Now days, for a simple girl like me, starving wasn’t a good reason, it was an excuse to go hack someone to pieces. The Ten-Year-Peace existed in the diaries of all the old women whose men had died in that battle as living proof to why we shouldn’t fight. He pauses and looks around to be sure no one was watching. “Ciereus executed a child.” He says angrily. I stop and almost drop the fox. “He what?” “Two days ago a little girl was caught stealing some fabric from a cotton mill in the outlying land of Barcelona, Ciereus had her executed on the spot in front of her family and all of the by passers.” I kick the dirt and begin walking rapidly toward my home. “He’s a snake!” I bellow at the sky. Pete nods, then turns me down my lane just as I am about to pass it in my anger. “Wrong way, Addi.” He says teasingly, trying to mask his own intense fury. I sigh and begin walking in the right direction. “So…are you going to openly rebel?” I ask hesitantly. I see the question reflecting in his eyes and can tell he is undecided. “Please,” I say, “for me…don’t do it. I can’t really make it around here without you.” I steady my voice, never liking it when I begin to sound whiney. “I think you do more good here then if you went out trying to fight.” My request seems to catch him off guard. “Addison…I can’t live like this anymore. I keep telling you that.” He says, pausing as we walk up to my doorstep. “I cannot be a puppet as so many are in this world now. Freedom has long since vanished and we now are chess pieces in Ciereus’s game. Now it’s time I knock out a few of his players. I am going to be nineteen in a few months…it’s time I make a name for myself as someone other than the son of yet another poor, starving man. ” I sigh heavily, unsure what to say. It isn’t my place to talk him out of that. His father can do that if he sees fit, but how do I tell him that he is the only reasonable person left in my life and that he can’t leave. “They’ll kill you.” I say. “If they can kill a little girl, they can kill you. And doesn’t your…faith prevent you from fighting?” Pete nods and opens the door for me. “No, no it doesn’t. And who cares if I die for a cause I believe in?” I nod, not knowing how to respond, and then enter the house, closing the door behind me. “Addison?” A weak voice from the living room calls. “It’s me, Jeremiah.” I say placing the fox on the table. Jeremiah walks weakly into the room, a thin gray blanket pulled around his shoulders. “Where did you get the fox?” He asks running his bony fingers through the fur. “Pete gave it to us.” I say carefully beginning to skin it so as not to damage the fur. “We can make you a vest from the hide…it’ll be better than nothing.” “So Mr. Porter would not take obsidian for a shirt?” Jeremiah asks letting the blanket fall to the ground as he begins to stroke the soft fur on the tail. “No.” I say. “I guess he caught on to the fact there is a whole field full of broken up obsidian which he could walk to…but this will help nonetheless.” I restrain from ranting to Jeremiah about the rebellion, which was on the brink of an outbreak. I wanted to talk to my own flesh and blood about these things sometimes, but then I look down at the only person left and see an innocent, sad, decaying six-year-old and know I simply couldn’t tell him just how bad it was. “You can’t sew.” Jeremiah says smiling at me the gaps in his gums where he had recently lost some baby teeth giving him a cute childish look. “No, but Pete said his mother would help us turn this into something.” The funny thing about Pete and I, which we never think about when we are together, is that in our community, it is tradition that from birth, a boy and a girl are promised to each other. I was promised to Pete. We, on occasion joke about it and say how lucky we are that our parents paired us with attractive partners. There is nothing romantic between us…I still believe there never will be, but if we have to get married, which the preacher, Mr. Joel might make us within the next few years, I take comfort in knowing I at least like Pete and have grown up with him. Pete was my confidant, there were no secrets between us. He was my protector too. I was rarely on my own, for he always was with me making sure I was safe from the drunks of the town. I, in return made sure that all of the less than reputable ladies stayed far away from him. I clean the meat, then, wrapping most of it in brown paper to be eaten later, cook a portion for Jeremiah. I can handle missing a few meals…I do so often I hardly notice, so I cook just enough for him. I have never eaten fox meat, but Jeremiah says it is good, so I cook a few more bites to appease his growling stomach. After he is finished eating, I tuck him into his bed and wrap the blanket and a half around him for warmth. He falls asleep and I clean up the kitchen, humming the song that I had sung earlier. The sun begins to set, promising an all to familiar cold night. I light the one candle we have left, telling myself I will only burn it long enough to navigate to my room, where my bed sits without any blankets for my own warmth. I extinguish the candle once I have made it to my bed, place the waxy mess on my nightstand and slump onto my bed, tucking my knees into my chest hoping to evade the cold air. My mind drifts off to my deceased parents. Words of my father repeat in my mind whenever I think of him. “ ‘I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.’ Our God is great, Addi, don’t you ever forget that.” I always wondered why he had spent so much time telling me how “great” our God was, but I know that despite how many times he had told me, the thought I always fell back on was wondering why a God who formed light and darkness and made peace allowed for such horrible things to go on. This was a thought my dad would have rebuked. But I couldn’t help wondering why God didn’t stop my parents from starving, or why he continues to let my brother die, or why he allowed for the little girl to be executed in Barcelona. All these things were what I considered when God entered my mind. Deep down inside, however, I knew I was wrong. The last days of their life remain a nightmare to me. They lay on their bed, just as Jeremiah does, saying little and eating even less. I could not save them, even by starving myself to give them more food, they still died. I feel hot tears fill my eyes at the thought that I won’t be able to save my baby brother either. The fox will feed him for a week or so, but it will not provide enough nourishment to help him into recovery through the winter. Even the market place owners, though they have more food than us, are starving. The elements are too harsh to support weak vessels. The plants usually die before anyone can eat them. The Ranks and the Cotton farmers are the only ones who live half decent lives. The cotton farmers because they can keep themselves warm as well as sell to the Ranks, and the Ranks because they steal from those with insufficient means. I fall asleep, but rest never comes for the weary and I soon wake up to a gentle hand prodding me. Sun is streaming into my sensitive eyes and as I roll over to see Jeremiah, I feel the cold tension in my joints proving I have yet again slept in an unnatural position. “Hmm?” I ask rubbing my eyes and flinging my feet over the edge of the bed. “I’m hungry.” He says, the blue around his cold lips prominent in the sun. Jeremiah almost burnt the house down a few years ago trying to cook on the hearth for himself. Ever since, I have banned him from being anywhere near a flame, yet in return he is to tell me every time he needs something to eat. Partially why he is so sick is because he has been diagnosed with something called hypoglycemia…I read about it in my mother’s health encyclopedia. It is a case where someone’s blood sugar drops rapidly, the symptoms being weakness, lack of attention, and if the case is bad, vomiting. I wonder what there is to puke up if his stomach is so empty he is getting sick. He gets spacey when he is sick with low blood sugar, so I am comforted that he woke me up before he got even more sick, though I catch the distance in his gaze and know he must eat something soon or I will have a very sick boy on my hands. I leap out of my cold bed and pat his black hair while advancing to the kitchen to cook more of the fox. I worry that one-day I may be out hunting for more food and his blood sugar will drop. If it gets too low with our lack of a food supply…well, he could die if I haven’t enough protein to boost him. Sugar is partially what he needs but we haven’t got the luxury of sugar so I have to feed him extra protein. But I think I’ve saved enough and can fish bit thus bribing Mr. Porter into a few cubes of sugar. The fox sizzling on the fire, I turn my attention to the day’s plans. I need to go fishing before the final ice-over and try to sell anything I catch, the house needs to be swept and the dishes washed. I look at the small stack of cracked dishes on the table. “Jeremiah, are you feeling well enough to wash the dishes today?” I ask hoping he can fit in a small chore. Of course he will say yes even if he feels terrible, but I have learned to look for the expression his face wears when he answers. If he has a hard-set jaw and his arms crossed over his chest in discomfort of his weak body, I know he cannot and quickly make an excuse of why I actually want to do the chore myself. When he nods resolutely and leaps to do the chore soon, I know he is quite capable and whisper silent thanks that it is one less duty I have to see to. He nods and approaches the stack of dishes, careful not to crack them even more. “Here, eat something first, bud…I need to do some stuff around the house and go fish some more before the freeze…I am hoping I can sell it to someone more compassionate. I am also going to see if Pete’s mother will help me with your vest. Then I will come home and do my work. Okay?” He nods and dives into the fox. I smile, happy and assuming today will be a good day. Each day I hope my brother will live to see a change in the impoverished times, I hope I will see a change and that Jeremiah will grow strong, maybe even get married. I laughed at myself. Marriage. Who has time for it? We are all going to die young anyhow so why should anyone make a commitment to feed more people. I cannot deny that the girlish nature in me longs to be a mother, but it is a foolish thought when you think you will just be condemning more people to less food. I know this thought is a hint on the ironic side seeing as everyone in our parts has a promised partner…like Pete and myself or Max and Joan. Once I have seen to it that Jeremiah has eaten his breakfast, I kiss his head then dart into the cold air, my fishing pole in hand and the little money I earned a few days ago from selling one of my coats tucked safely in my gray pants’ pocket. I decided I could buy a small supply of sugar so when Jeremiah gets low-blood-sugar I have something to quickly boost it with. I am tired of him suffering. I am tired of my own suffering as well, but his pain at such a young age masks mine. I have had seventeen years, he has had six. I have lived life, he has been sick and weak since the day our frail mother welcomed him into the world. I approach the fishing pond and cast my line into the water and wait. Waiting. The thing that is the description of my life. Waiting for food. Waiting for freedom. Waiting for the Ranks to stop misusing innocent people. Waiting for Pete to humble a little so he won’t get himself murdered by the Ranks. Waiting for my parents to come back…to relieve me. “Why did you have to leave?” I ask, tears straining my voice. “Why? I can’t do it,” I shout to the wind “I can’t.” Every time I thought of my parents, I had to go somewhere quite so I could have a good ugly cry. It drove me crazy. I hated crying, it was a sign of my own weakness and yet somehow the simplest reminder of my parents made me break down. I could sometimes hear my mother singing, see her floating around the kitchen humming songs all day while she cleaned. I could see my father coming home from work, his brow drenched in sweat from helping clear rubble from town. He was a construction worker, back when we needed them. But I guess ever since he died and left the other workers without someone intelligent enough to work out a game plan, everyone just stopped trying to fix our run down. I remember he had so much pride and even joy right through the middle of all our troubles. He would make mom and I smile even when we felt horrible. Mom and I often spent time sitting on the deck mending clothes and talking about what we imagined a good life being. Mother always said that to her it would be a warm house, a garden full of our own vegetables, lots of food and smiling, clean children. She had the stereotyped dream of every mother I suppose but she told me that someday when I had children that would be my dream as well. My dream was always being able to wake up warm, not feel hungry, have clothes like the Porters and be able to play with Pete without being afraid that we might come across heathen drunks of trigger happy Ranks. Mom and I would often go out and gather herbs early in the morning, which she and I would place around the house to try to overpower the smell of mold, which we could not clean off of the windowsills. I didn’t do that anymore, nor did I hope to dream. Jeremiah often asks me about our mom and dad, I tell him I can’t remember much…this makes me guilty but trying to talk about it is nearly impossible with me. I feel my eyes fill and my shoulders shake as I picture my parents smiling at me as they often did. I feel a hand on my shoulder. A strong hand, which I recognize as Pete’s. My feet mechanically turn around to face him…standing a little too close for my comfort. He sees this and backs up, his kind eyes looking into my watering ones. “They are not coming back, Addison.” He whispers. “You need to be strong, for Jeremiah.” I squeeze my eyes shut and throw the fish-less rod to the ground and push my hair behind my ears, knowing it is no use trying to capture the side bangs into my pony tail. “I know…” I reply washing away all signs of my emotions, these which I always hide. I never let on to my inner most feelings and at the moment I feel venerable because Pete has now seen them for about the second time in our entire lives. “I know. Just speaking my mind…silly, I know.” I say trying to resume my hard, independent countenance which has been my companion since I was born. Pete shakes his head, picks up my rod and begins fishing. “No. Not silly. When Sahara’s husband died, she cried for days. I have never seen my sister so broken. But she moved on and learnt to stand on her own to feet.” “I bet it did not take her years though.” He shook his head. “No, but Sahara has also experienced life in and of itself. She saw the ten-year period before either of us were born where the Claimers were reinforcing peace and over ruling the government…remember Mrs. Phlox has us read the book about it in our history class?” I nod. “Yeah.” “Well, she has seen better times whereas you and I have known nothing more than terror, starvation and grief. It is waxing on us…killing us. She had more to lean on than we do now.” His words bring on a fresh stream of tears. Terror. Starvation. Grief. Is this what my life is going to be forever? I sit down on the frozen moss, not caring that the moisture seeps through my pants, and watch Pete fish, pulling in one trout after another. “How did you know I was here?” I ask staring watching without surprise as his skilled hand has no trouble pulling in fish when I had not been able to. “This fishing hole attracts more than just the finest lady around!” He teases. That is his favorite thing to call me. Fine and lady hardly describe me. I am…pretty and not in a made up way. I remember daddy telling me that I was naturally pretty. But fine is a word descriptive of a rich bejeweled woman with flocks of suitors. And Lady? I laugh. I am more resembling of a man than a woman. I talk with the men; I act like a boy and have the occupations of a boy. The only thing that separates me from the male race is obviously my body and the rare moment that every girl has where she sees a boy and thinks to herself: Ohh! And even then that is only when the caravan brings in visitors. All the handsome boys around here are either married, betrothed or turn out to be drunk like the rest. Aside from that, my upbringing and the culture I live in does not accommodate proper, well brought up ladies with soft hands and pale faces. I try to be feminine when I can, avoiding being intentionally masculine. I don’t purposefully try to be the girl in eight grade who got a hold of a gun and was a crack shot, scaring the boys silly as she shot at their feet telling them if they said one more thing about her brother she would blow them to pieces. I smile remembering that day. I had found a gun lying around town. I didn’t care who it belonged to, I simply stuck it in my pants with my shirt concealing it and kept walking. I went to school that day after leaving Jeremiah with Pete’s mother. My parents had died recently so I was slightly deluded and emotional, not thinking that sticking a gun in a hidden place on my body might be a bad idea. Lunchtime rolled around and we all sat in the dried grass in front of the school, the red bricks faded and the trees having no leaves, even in the fall. Lots of children played on the rusty swing set, but most of us just sat, being too tired to play. A group of boys had come up to me and asked me if I was still changing diapers. I ignored them knowing they were too stupid to come up with any good insults. But one of them hit me where it hurt most. “Too bad your parents had to up and die…poor little Jeremiah is going to suffer, not having a decent mom looking after him.” I stood up then, feeling so mad I could have tackled him, but then I had remembered the gun. I drew it and pointed it at the ground. I always savored their looks. Terror. The boys had been so scarred I thought they wet their pants at one point. I told them if they ever talked about my parents or brothers again they would regret it. When they questioned me, I shot a few rounds close to their feet, then walked away. The teachers punished me, but I didn’t care. “And you think by rebelling…you might achieve another ten year peace?” I ask, thinking that it would be impossible. Pete laughs and pulls in another fish. “I would rather just eliminate the Ranks’s rule, for everyone’s sake so the next generation and every one to follow lives better than we have.” I grin. “If you achieve that, Pete you’ll be a hero and teachers will be making all the kids read history books about you…like, forever.” Pete casts the line again after putting a worm on the hook. “Well, I don’t really want to be a hero…I just want to promise my future children a life that is full of happiness and…well, just a life a child should have. Jeremiah has been wronged; we have been wronged too really. In fact, everyone has been wronged and I am so tired of it that is makes me literally feel pain when I think about this life the Ranks have lowered us to.” I sigh knowing Pete is right. Someone will have to make a change; someone will have to risk their neck for the future. I don’t want it to be my best friend, but inevitably someone’s best friend will have to be sacrificed. “So…you are going to…start a rebellion…like a real one?” I ask. Around here, a rebellion isn’t just vocal fighters. A rebellion isn’t just people flying by the seat of their pants hoping to make a difference. I assume this time though we would try something more strategic. The angle of taking shots in the dark had been tried and they all died. When anyone mentions a rebellion, they mean going into hiding, coming out only to make an impact on the Ranks, to scare them and make it known someone bigger and badder is out there and they have no intention of stopping until either the Ranks have surrendered their authority or one side is dead and the other victorious. “I think so,” He says pulling in another fish and baiting the hook with a worm. “Max and Joan have agreed to join.” I gasp and yank the pole out of his hand, turning to face him. “You what? They what?” He steps aside, feeling too close this time and reclaims the pole. “Someone has to do something! I am tired of being victimized, of everyone around us suffering because of the ranks arrogance and unfair representation of what the world is. Half of the people living in and around the Ranks have no idea that their food and clothes comes from us! They are clueless as to the fact the world around them is starving. They need to know and I am fed up with this crap they like to pull! Aren’t you ready for it to be over?” I sink down into my sitting position and rest my head in my hands. “I want a change, but I don’t want to die in the process, Pete. I have given so much of myself. I am tired of being hungry and cold, I am tired of seeing Jeremiah walking with a shake. I want to see him strong and happy. I want to see color in his face. But I want us to live to see the change, Pete. I want him to be a healthy boy and know what it is like to run around without getting dizzy. I haven’t ever experienced this. He should.” Pete pats my shoulder, holding the pole in his left hand. “I am starting this rebellion, Addison, partially for Jeremiah. I love him too and I want to see him strong and healthy, so this is what I need to do.” His keen eyes scan ahead of us, looking thoughtful as ever. I gasp a little. He wasn’t being an outgoing boy with overachieving ideas…he was doing this for my little brother. I smile a little and tug on his pant leg teasing him. “So this isn’t just spur of the moment boyish testosterone?” Pete chuckles and tugs lightly on my pony tail in return. “Only just a little.” I pick up the sack of fish, which Pete caught and he pulls in the line. “Is your mother available to help me make Jeremiah a vest from the fox hide?” He looks at the shrouded over sun. “Looks about…ten. She should be back from the apothecary. You can come by and see.” “Thanks. I need to trade these fish too. I’ll share the profit with you though cause you caught it.”
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