Sketch #4

Inch long thorns scratched gashes across bare skin and worried ear length hair. Teal stumbled on a loose rock and crashed down the steep bank and through the thin sheet of ice on the water. “Fuck!” Now drenched, the stolen jacket and boots did little to help her and she was quick in discarding them. A sudden howl in the distance made her abruptly grateful for the river and its obsfucating properties. Barefooted and pale skinned, clad in nothing but a rugged pair of cut off jeans and a worn gray sweatshirt, Teal fit in well with the winter landscape.

“Deceiving sadists,” she hissed as new-found Talents wavered in and out of control, alternately shocking her with cold and soothing her with comfort. She would have killed for greater control. Or better, to have never known about the Talent in the first place. And best, that the government had never known she had Talent. She slid around boulders and was as pleased as circumstances permitted to note both that the rocks were large enough to block a clear view down stream, and that the water was now moving fast enough to break up the ice without her slicing her legs up slogging through it.

A slippery patch of riverbed dunked her again, sending her skidding fifteen feet through the icy currents. Only the immense concentration required to sustain her life in the cold, and a overwhelming fear of re-capture, prevented a loud and long bout of cursing when she regained her tenuous footing. How long now? How long had it been since she had been free? Almost as soon as the thought crossed her mind an answer came. From a frustrated mind upstream she got a clear impression of ...years? They had been holding her for years? Teal’s mind blanked as realization hit her. She was doing it again. Damn, how to keep them out of her head! She knew good and true that they could track her by that alone. The thoroughly trained soldiers in the Council’s research facilities were well versed in the subtle signs of Talent, and would be able to follow her from the vague and unintentional tugging of her mind brushing theirs. Of course, even that was a secondary concern; the dogs needed nothing so tenuous as a careless flutter of thought to find her. Simply her scraping on the rocks as she wedged through would point her trail clearly.

The rush of water was now making it nearly impossible to stand up and the slope of the land was increasing. Her feet were sliced to ribbons and she could only hope, with the soldiers and dogs gaining on her, that the sudden rush meant a large local waterfall. It would either kill her or free her, at least temporarily, to fall from such a height.

When it finally came it was so abrupt that all she could do was close her eyes and desperately hope that everything she had heard was true. In her days as a Hunter she had more than once heard the older Talented advise suspect children to use their imagination in emergency situations. To envision exactly what they wanted, and then pray, really hard. This advice had only stuck in her head because it seemed so strange to hear someone advise another to pray. Prayer, along with religion, were both trappings of another age. Unfortunately no advice was given on exactly what sort of stuff one should envision, and as she wasn’t even supposed to have been there, Teal could hardly have asked for specifics. Even had she thought it important at the time.

As her body slid through the rocks and off the unexpected cliff, Teal drew upon the vaugly remembered dreams of her childhood and imagined herself wrapped in rainbows. Protected from the stone and anything else so material and solid: one with the air. She clenched her eyes and her fists until the water, and the cold, and the hunt, was the dream. The only thing existing in her reality was the shimmering cocoon of color.

“Awkward,” the voice came from everywhere. “Very, very awkward. But your skin is still in one piece, and those nitwits up above seem to have withdrawn for reinforcements. Or better strategy. Results are what counts, eh?” The intrusion banished the colors like a suddenly popped bubble, and general reality rushed in. The fact that she had been tracking through a frozen river for the better part of five hours wearing a ripped sweatshirt and shorts that barely covered her ass, and then taken a trip down a waterfall onto jagged stone that should have broken her like blown glass on cement, came to her attention with stunning clarity and Teal found that it was all she could manage to breathe. Add to this the fact that it felt as though someone was attempting to remove her eyes, through the back of her skull, and even breathing became questionable. Teal made no sound of protest, nor did she attempt to open her eyes as strong arms hauled her into a rough grip and the world fell again away.

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Teal sat up abruptly and scanned the room. No one was there. A chair, dresser, and the bed she lay in, were all the ornament the small room contained. The panic that had been her first response to restored consciousness was assuaged by the closed shutters and carved wooden furniture, that no matter where she was, it wasn’t where she had been. Comfort enough.

Sliding sore legs out from under the warm quilt was a hardship she would have preferred to put off, but circumstances dictated otherwise. Clothes obviously not her own were neatly folded on the dresser, and while the ankle length wool skirt and loose blouse were neither easy to hide in, nor practical for escape, they were warm and available. Considerable more than could be said for naked skin.

She winced her way over to the shutters on bandaged feet and peered out over the landscape. From what she could see a community of small cottages lay clustered together, surely no more than thirty. Wooden fences segmented the surrounding land and enclosed a variety of larger wooden structures and ...farm animals? What was going on? The scene could have been out of any old history book on colonial life. A lifestyle that had been totally non-existent anywhere in the world by the early twenty-second century.

Teal closed the shutter and spun back to the room. The wooden furniture was carved, but closer examination showed it to be hand-work, rather than machine. And the wooden walls that she had at first taken to be the signs of some odd, though harmless, eccentricity, proved to actually be wooden logs. Rather than simply sculpted to give the appearance. Sitting down hard, Teal briefly entertained the idea that her entire remembered life had been a delusion dream and she was now returned to sanity. The throbbing pain of her injured feet and legs combined with the continuous ache of overstrained muscles lost no time in convincing her otherwise.

Then why? Why did it appear she had been sucked several hundred years back in time? Why had the army not found her yet? And why had some lunatic interfered in the chase, to help her? Surely it must have been obvious she was being pursued, even an idiot must know the penalty for harboring and/or aiding fleeing criminals.

Teal returned thoughtfully to the window but the view did not add to her enlightenment. Just as she prepared to latch the shutter and turn reluctantly to explore the rest of the apparent cottage, a flicker of light above the village caught her eyes. Entirely different from the shine of sunlight on snow, Teal strained to better view the source. Nothing. But as she stared longer at the apparently empty air between the trees, a slow roiling, as of oil on water, became visible from the corner of her eye. When she tried to look directly at it, there appeared to be nothing but vacant spacer. Blinking and trying to focus further did nothing but bring back the dregs of her vaguely remembered headache.

Momentarily defeated, Teal shrugged, latched the window, and crossed to the door. Reaching for the latch Teal was startled to have the door almost hit her in the face.

“Gracious, I am sorry!” The speaker was a girl of no more than fifteen, if

that, whose soot smudged clothes and dark, dust covered hair spoke of interrupted chores. “Mother wanted to know if you were up yet, she had to go to the neighbors and asked me to check while she was gone. If not we were going to have to look for more damage because simple exhaustion shouldn’t keep you asleep for that long and there wasn’t any trace of poison in your cuts, we didn’t think you had broken bones and your fever went away last night so we were starting to get concerned tha...”

“Do you have a name? And what do you mean ‘that long’?” Teal interrupted not really interested in the run down of her injuries, everything worked now, fastening onto the interesting bit of news.

“Jianca and the five days you were sleeping.” Apparently picking up on Teal’s sudden weakness Jianca grabbed her arm, dangerous in itself, and led her over to a chair in what appeared to be a well-lighted living room. The source of the girl’s labor became clear in the form of a large half-cleaned fireplace.

“If this is the fireplace where is the heat coming from?” Teal asked, deciding for the moment to ignore the unbelievable fact that wherever she was had managed to hide her for a full five days from what must have a been a intense search effort. A feat that huge organized rebellions only rarely managed, much less small farming (farming?) towns.

“Oh,” Jianca waved her hand airily towards another open doorway, ”the kitchen, we only use this one when it gets really cold.”

“Ah.” Teal shifted edgily. The longer she sat in the room watching Jianca dutifully cleaning the fireplace the more uneasy she felt. When the source of her unease hit her she was shocked that it hadn’t been obvious before that. The instincts that were causing all her hair to stand on end were the same instincts she had used to Hunt down the Talented, instincts that only kicked in while in their presence. Parts of the girl’s earlier speech about “exhaustion” and “fever” were staring to make sense. Teal started to speak twice and stopped herself. Finally, taking the old advice “ask and ye shall receive” to heart, she decided to just jump in. “Jianca, what do you know about Talent?”

Jianca gave her a odd look, “It’s supposed to be the activation of parts of the mind that usually are not, active that is. Results in all sorts of stuff that people aren’t ‘supposed’” here requisite eye rolling that almost made Teal smile “to be able to do.” Her face sobered suddenly, “a really good way to get yourself killed, slowly, or imprisoned, which is worse.” Teal shuddered at the conjured memories and nodded.

“Do you know why I am asking?”

Jianca turned back to the fireplace. ”Ummm, I think so. But I’m not supposed to talk about it yet, mom will be back soon.” A baby wailed somewhere in the house. “What rotten timing.” Jianca started to get up, Teal beat her to it.

“Let me help.”

Jianca hesitated, “Ummm. Okay, if you’re sure. Through that room in the back. He’s probably just wanting to be picked up, he gets fussy like that.”

Teal nodded and followed the cry through the house, the unfamiliar garments wrapping warm air around her bandaged legs. As she approached the cradle she felt a stab of loneliness and fear so immediate she had to stop to catch her breath and wipe sudden tears from her eyes. Almost as soon as she paused the crying stopped, and lonely fear was replaced with relieved curiosity. Teal found herself peering into blue unfocused eyes before she could help herself. “Yeah,” she whispered as she carefully lifted the empathic infant who was now seriously engaged in an attempt to consume his fist. “you and me both.”

A flare of light startled Teal awake. She first glanced down to the unaccustomed weight in her arms and was relieved to see she had not dropped the baby during her unexpected nap in a nearby rocker, and then up into the face of what must have been his mother. A bulky sweater smoothed over loose well woven pants did little to hide both strength and grace as the woman crossed the room with calm footsteps to face the stranger with her son. The lamp on the wall danced shadows across features made sharp by a severe braid of thick dark hair that bounced along the woman’s hip. Teal wordlessly offered her the baby. Then rose to her feet as her host carefully tucked him back into his cradle, and led Teal out into the kitchen.

“Talented children, especially babies, sleep a lot more than the unTalented will.” She smiled gently, “perhaps that is natures way of giving their poor families some rest.” She turned to the long counter and the various items laid out on it. “My name is Daisi. My brother-in-law brought you here for shelter and safety.” She turned to face Teal, “and you are safe here. The Council’s army can run rings through the woods as long as they like, it will be years before their pet projects have anywhere near the Talent they need to find this place.”

Teal stared at this blunt confession. “Then what I saw,” she waved a encompassing arm towards the wall, “out there was...”

“A Talent born barrier. Everyone here is Talented, so we take turns maintaining it. As long as it is in place no one uninvited will find us, accidentally or on purpose, by any means. Here, slice these.” Daisi handed Teal a plateful of some leafy green vegetables, a pot, and a sharp knife. Teal watched Daisi work on her own pile before starting hers. Slicing vegetables being a new skill, not at all like slicing people. Teal found herself liking this blunt to-the-point woman.

“Aren’t you taking an awfully big risk? I mean, first bringing me here, then leaving me alone with your kids, admitting that you have Talent, that they have Talent...” Teal frowned as something occurred to her. “Wait, you said everyone is Talented, but Talent is not a guaranteed thing. You have to be descended from the original colony, but the Talent itself skips around with no particular pattern. There is no way every child born would be Talented.”

Daisi finished her share of the vegetable and tossed it into the pot. “ For the first, we scanned you while you slept. Just the surface,” she quickly added seeing Teal’s expression, then continued, “and no,” her tone was odd and rather wistful, “not every child born here is Talented. That is both blessing and curse. Blessing because for those who are not, the outside world offers both opportunity and freedom, or at least the freedom not to be hunted because of a trick of birth. Curse because those unTalented children cannot be allowed to stay here. We send them as infants outside to acquaintances and the very few we trust with our existence.

“But most Talented do not manifest at birth, and a few of them cannot even be tested for it until it does manifest. That can happen anywhere from birth to around twenty-five!”

She nodded and rummaged around in a cupboard, “true, so as soon as they manifest, if they do, they are given the option of joining us. If they are Talented themselves there is practically no risk in revealing ourselves. After all who, and why, would they tell?”

Teal gazed at Daisi’s turned back. “That is a hell of a risk.”

“Why? Even if they knew for certain we were here, and they do suspect, how will they find us?”

“They could just nuke the whole place and not worry about specifics.” Teal responded grimly.

Daisi shook her head. “Where did you come from?”

The abrupt change of topic threw Teal for a moment, “pardon?”

“Before you came here. Where were you?”

She was silent for a moment. “Hell, I was in hell.” Teal shook her head, “I can’t imagine your in-law hauled me all that far so somewhere around here is a research facility and army base. The Council is using it to experiment with Talent. I...” Teal twisted her fingers, surprised for a moment how small and delicate they looked, when her memory insisted on covering them with blood. “...was a Hunter.” She looked up. “You know what that means?” Daisi nodded watching her. “I Hunted the Talented. I had instincts, all government Hunters do, it’s part of the requirement for the job. Only now I know what that instinct really means.” She laughed bitterly.

“It is a way of recognizing your own. In children who have not yet developed, it usually shows up anywhere from birth to a few months before manifestation, a precursor to the headaches and fevers that are the other, more immediate, warning signs.

Teal nodded and took a deep breath, “Yeah, so the government gathers all these gun-ho anti-Talent Talents who haven’t yet realized what they are and uses them to sniff out and destroy other Talents. Then, before they manifest, the government makes them ‘disappear’ off to some research facility.”

“Exactly.” Daisi broke some eggs in a bowl and began adding various spices. “That is why they can’t simply ‘nuke’ the entire region. That base, and the others like it, are very, very, top secret. If word got out, that the government was fostering Talent, for any purpose, it would be another war. They will not risk being overthrown. So we sit here in our shelter and keep very quiet, and they pretend we don’t exist.”

“Because they dare not allow the opening ‘nuking’ this region would give for the types of questions that could uncover them.”

“Yes.” Daisi looked at her.

Teal stared back, not sure how she should be reacting. She had been handed all the answers to her questions. Of course this place resembled a colonial town, it had to be mostly self-sufficient and the primitive building structure helped it to blend in with the forest. The army hadn’t found her because they couldn’t, not yet anyway. And she had been rescued because she was Talented, and to keep this place alive and safe the inhabitants were trained to be fanatically loyal to others like them.

“Well,” Teal attempted to put the conversation back onto a more comfortable ground, at least for her, “there is no doubt that your son is a Talent, and I would assume your daughter as well.”

“Yes, and Deyan is undoubtedly Talented,” the corner of her mouth twitched, “and I can from the way you said that, tell that it wasn’t Jianca who informed you so.”

“Ah, no. Deyan made himself quite clear.”

Teal watched in companionable silence as Daisi settled the bowl on a deep shelf over the fireplace and added a handful of what appeared to be pepper to the cauldron simmering over the fire.

“Convenient.”

“What?”

“The pants. Last time a structure like this was used, or so I’ve read, skirts were a real problem. Sweeping through the embers and all.”

Daisi laughed, “Just because we use the methods of the past doesn’t mean we must adopt their mindset as well.”

Over the next few weeks Teal grew to know almost everyone in the village. Most of the adults were appropriately cautious to a outsider, but never rude, and soon became quite friendly. It was the children, however, who constantly astonished her. Raised in a world without fear, they were pestering, loud, noisy brats. Such a far cry from the solemn, skittish and painfully polite young adults of the ‘outer world’ that Teal was soon torn between laughing and crying at their antics. Her savior from the waterfall adopted her as a student and devoted his free time to teaching her about shields, which she practiced by playing nanny to Deyan, a habit that thrilled his older sister whose chore it had previously been.

Teal had known that most Talented weren’t very powerful, not being able to lift much more than a pound, or do more than read surface thoughts from the unsuspecting, but she had never realized that they could use this to manage more ...advanced effects. Out of sheer gratitude Jianca taught her lightweaving. A simple illusion that only existed in the mind of the weaver, the Talented who wanted to see it, and those whose minds the weaver could force it on. It was implied, then later confirmed by Daisi, that that was the most illusion the great majority of Talented could conjure. After all, Talent was all in the mind, basic telekinesis and basic telepathy were pretty much the limits. Of course there was always a few exceptions, but none living that the village was aware of.

The barrier was pure telepathy. Her mentor, Gregori, explained that a working of enough force could actually be anchored after a fashion, so that as long as Talent equivalent to the minimum power used to create it in the first place was focused on it continuously, it would endure uninterrupted. The villagers took turns in shifts of eight maintaining it, five to actually hold it with three always prepared to step in. With five people maintaining it was just about guaranteed that the power would always exceed the minimum, especially since it had been originally erected by a mere two people.

Weeks grew into months and Teal lent a willing hand to any project that seemed to need it. Daisi gave her food and shelter. Teal watched the baby, helped with cooking, other assorted necessary crafts, and deliberately avoided any thought to her past. It was a month shy of spring, and she had been there almost three months when the nightmares started.

Teal lurched upright, the force of her scream still echoing in the room. Without thought she reached for the knife experience placed under her pillow, or in her hand, whenever she had had time to sleep ...before. Swallowing down the panic that welled when she failed to find it, Teal reminded herself that she had deliberately put the knife under the mattress, a precaution against slicing up Jianca, the inevitable first responder to the screams that woke her from sleep. Jianca had failed to learn from past experience not to touch Teal when these nightmares occured, despite the repeated warnings Teal had issued.

The door burst open. “Right on schedule,” was Teal’s rather sour remark as Jianca, mussed hair flying, darted over to the bed.

“Teal! Was it just like last time?”

Teal sighed. “No butterfly.”

“Then was it like the time before?”

Teal cursed Jianca’s speed in picking up on her tricks. The girl couldn’t remember to keep her paws to herself, but when it came to foiling neat verbal escapes she was a natural. “Jian,” was her rather patient reply, “do you remember that talk we had last week with your mother? About not prying where your not invited?”

“Yes, but mother also says that if you don’t talk about your nightmares, they get worse, not better. Maybe if you could roll over onto your face before you started screaming, you wouldn’t wake me up. Then you could keep your nightmares private affairs.” Was the rather tart reply.

“That is quite enough for two in the morning Jianca. Go on back to bed.” Daisi stood in the doorway, a woolen wrap outlining her form in the firelight that blazed from the living room. Jianca took one look at her usually easygoing mothers stern expression, hugged Teal, who winced, and scrambled back out the door. Daisi looked at her levely. “Again?”

Teal began to make a stammered explanation, excuse, lie, anything to make Daisi go away and let her suffer in peace. “I...” She was cut off.

“I don’t care about your secrets, or any crimes you might have committed, either legally or morally. After three months I think I, and certainly the settlement as a whole, am a good enough judge of character to tell yours. I know where you have been, and I can guess about where you came from. I would be more than happy to let the entire matter vanish into the mystery you insist on keeping even your age in. But I also have come to care for you, and if for no other reason than that feel I must speak.

“You are killing yourself.

“Oh not physically, or even mentally. But that spark that drove you to leap off a waterfall, and live, when you hadn’t but the faintest hint of skill, that not only enabled your escape from a Council research facility but kept you alive through it, that allowed the Teal that has made a life in this village to survive, despite the ...horror... of her past, that my friend, is in danger. You speak to no one of what you see in the night, yet you seem incapable of dealing with it yourself. So instead of excorsizing this demon that haunts you, you stuff it farther down, squashing your spirit under it’s weight. Gregory says that because you fear to have others see inside your mind, you refuse to practice telepathy, so that your power remains outside of your control in everything but the most basic of shielding. That would be fine if you planned to remain here with us, we can hold you out of our minds.

“But you won’t stay.

“We are not throwing you out. But you will leave us one day, you have to many shadows in your past to stay here in peace, and you are to stubborn to stay any other way.” Daisi watched her solemnly. Wrapped in dark cloth, outlined by fire, Daisi suddenly reminded Teal of some cold prophetic spirit from old stories, given life by her nightmares.

Teal huddled deeper into her bedsheets, arms locked around her knees. “I...” The words wouldn’t come. She gazed mutely at Daisi, but the shadows hid her expression. Teal was horrified by the stinging in her eyes. She looked down and tried again. “I’m running, but not away... Towards something. I can never remember when it starts, that I have been here before, what I am chasing, but I can’t wait to catch it. I’m not afraid...” Her voice failed her again, she glanced back up at Daisi, standing over her like a spectre, some divine judge. She swallowed hard and continued. “ ...of what I’m chasing, no Hunting. I’m Hunting. I turn a corner and I see my prey, they watch me, the bigger one rises to face me. He lashes out with a handful of something. Pebbles? They think they can defeat me with a few stones? I can’t help myself and laugh. I feel his panicked mind push at me and I laugh harder. Then I kill him.” Teal’s voice had steadily drained as to now be totally devoid of expression. “Because he is not the one I am after, he just happened to be in the way. I drop his body on the ground and wipe the blood off on my pants, they teach that you know, the Council. If there is no danger, and no witnesses, go ahead and use your hands to kill, conserve energy and all that. I move back to where he was trying to hide and shove aside a few bundles of refuse. There she is, just like in the hologram. Not much younger than her protector, but at this age a few years makes all the difference. I don’t know what makes this one so special, but whatever it was enough to have my superiors pull me in, almost never done with a fully trained Hunter, we work better when they simply set us out in the population at large and ask for a occasional head count... Where was I? Oh yeah, I don't know why she is so special, but I figure there is no point in damaging her unnecessarily. I hold out my arms like I’ve seen other people do with very young children, she comes to me without a word and I pick her up and walk out, my gun weighs more than she does. When I reach base I hand her to my superior and leave. Back to my own territory on another continent. Not another thought about it.”

Sometime during her recitation Daisi had left her post by the door and sat on the foot of Teal’s bed. Now she stood up and reached for Teal’s hand. Teal allowed herself to be pulled from the room and seated in the kitchen where she stared aimlessly into the flames while Daisi clattered around in cabinets. Some unknown amount of time later Daisi pressed a warm mug into her hand and slid onto a stool near her.

“Why does this bother you now, child? Why this incident and not any other? I have seen it in your mind, when first you came, that you were one of the best. You are not given to false pride so I know that must be truth. You have killed other children.” Her voice was both sympathetic and matter of fact; “I cannot believe that it is just the children that are the cause of the nightmares, not night after night. Why those children? Why that time?”

Teal took a mouthful of the hot liquid without really tasting it. Her vision alight with dancing fire. “It’s not always children, sometimes it’s teenagers, sometimes adults, sometimes they know why I’m after them, usually they don’t. But that dream is the most frequent, and you’re right. It isn’t because I killed a child, or because I gave someone freely over to those,” she choked for a moment on her own memories, “monsters. It is because of all my many, many victims, she was the only one who trusted me. That she was a child does not excuse it. She was a person, and she trusted me.”

Teal set the mug blindly on the counter and watched the fire waver through her tears. “And I think it only hurts so much now because I have been there, where she must have gone, and I went kicking and screaming, not given over by someone I trusted. I cannot imagine what it must have been for her.

And now I have again come to a place where I am trusted, and again I come out of a place, like my childhood in retrospect, that I don’t really understand. Will I betray you too?” Teal’s tears had dried on her face when she was done talking.

Daisi hugged Teal.

“No.”

Morning light, blown in with a breath of icy air, found Teal sitting as she had been for many hours, cross-legged on a neatly made bed watching the sky through her window. After her little confession she and Daisi had talked for a long time: about the past, the future, and forgiveness. Mostly for oneself. Then Daisi had returned to her room to settle a wakened Deyan, and Teal had returned to her room to settle a wakened conscience.

Daisi had been right. She couldn’t stay. This was her idea of paradise; a pocket of sanity in the middle of a chaotic hell. And she had done nothing to earn it. If she was going to linger in the heaven of her choice, she wasn’t going to do it with a lifetime of guilt hanging over her head. Teal sighed and looked down the length of her legs at the smooth play of muscle under skin as she flexed her toes. Muscles honed on the Hunt, mostly neglected by three and a half years of unthinking slavery, torture really, and beginning to revive after four months of winter farm work. But spring was here now, and despite her rather bleak and dismal outlook on life, she could feel her hope, an alien emotion, rise with the season.

It was exactly one week later at dawn that Teal took her leave of the nameless village. Nameless because, as one grizzled smith had pointed out, “we don’t need one, and no one else needs a handy name to tag us with.” A wild farewell party the previous night kept all the children, and most of the adults, well abed. Those few who might have seen her off anyway knew her well enough to know that such a gesture would be unwelcome. So Daisi watched from behind a curtained window. Teal knew she was there, and Daisi knew that Teal knew, so the sentiment was expressed without crossing lines that Teal desperately needed intact. She needed at least the illusion of invulnerability, even if the self-perceived reality had flown so far from her as to be a dream. But because it was just a illusion she also needed to know that her passing meant something, to someone. Daisi’s steady gaze, and the tears that traced unremarked down her cheeks, gave her that.

Morning light filtered out of the mist that swept into the mountain valleys, turning the land into a surreal world of secrets. Teal thought about how apt that was as she stepped resolutely across the invisible boundary separating the village from the rest of the world. The villagers, her friends (friends?) had given her all the information they had on Talents operating “outside” and where to go to find information on powers that might help her. But to use any of this information Teal would still have to sift and sort through tangled lives and layer upon layer of intrigue, and that was just for the basic contacts. Teal intended to make amends as best she could. She doubted she could shake the Council. But surely, with enough support, clandestine or otherwise, she could do enough to turn the world, just enough, that a bit more light could shine in. That would be enough. An apology to the lives she had, through bigotry and carelessness, blindly destroyed. The best apology she could make.

And, of course, there was that small matter of vengeance. She had made a vow, sworn in blood and agony, to return the favor in kind. She would find a way to destroy this research facility, even if she couldn’t do anything about the others. That she now had to find a way to destroy the facility and preserve the village, not to mention finding the village a new method of protection with the facilities loss, simply made the job more challenging, not impossible. She hitched her pack higher, worn canvas catching on her leather clothes, and slid down the mossy bank to the barely discernible path rambling along beside the water. Following the thawing stream to the future, Teal smiled.