Chapter 56

To Mand, waiting for the farmer to finish his preparations with the horse felt like an eternity.

On the one hand, she was grateful that she didn't have to wait out the morning huddled underneath the little workbench in the shed - the bed in the loft of the warm barn seemed like a luxury compared to doing that. On the other hand, every movement she made had to be slow and calculated as to not draw any attention. 

Part of what made the waiting unbearable was the fact that Mand now had questions about the song that she had now heard both Brenda and Brenda's father (to a much lesser extend) perform. 

Mand's father had always been very vague about where the family lived before the fire. In the few times he did speak about it, only a few times did he mention the island. Wait? Was this the island? Was the song local to here?

She closed her eyes and tried to visualize the few memories that she had of those times. She clearly remembered the inside of their little house. What else? There was a walled garden that she would play in from time to time. 

She thought about the few sights that she had seen since escaping from the ship. Running through the docks and town was just a blur at this point. Certainly the large mountain would have stood out... but she couldn't remember seeing that when she was a child.

Could the song just be more widespread than the island where they lived? It was possible, but Mand hadn't heard any note of it since she was a small child. Then again, how often was it that you ran into someone humming a tune?

Did the song come to this island from somewhere else? From all indications from the intergeneration repair of the tractor, it appeared that Brenda's family had been here a LONG time and may have picked it up from other travelers over the years. 

"Brenda did mention helping other people," Mand thought. "Maybe she picked it up from one of them?"

The man below coughed, reminding Mand to his presence and the fact Brenda's father wasn't fond of her helping runaways from the ships. 

Mand shook her head. No, she had to think about this logically. Brenda's father knew the song, which probably meant that she had gotten it from him. And that meant what?

"Let's get going Jackie boy," she heard the man downstairs finally say, breaking her train of thought. With that, she heard the sound of the stall swinging open, followed by the gentle hoofbeats of what she imagined the horse being led through the barn by Brenda's father.

Even in her sheltered corner in the loft of the barn, a cool breeze blew in when the farmer opened the large barn door. Mand clasped the blankets tight around her, trying to retain the warmth she had built up in the bed overnight. The sun had fully risen now, but hadn't been out long enough yet to warm up the outside air that had been chilled by the spring night.

After a few moments, Mand heard the barn door close, followed by hoofbeats leading away. She was alone in the barn once again. As much as she wanted to get up and move around, she continued to wait until she was sure that the farmer would not be coming back anytime soon.

Satisfied, she pulled herself out of bed and stretched, getting a better look at her surroundings. Brenda's "club" looked like it was a mixture of a storage area for a random assortment of odds and ends that had been banished from the house, and a makeshift play area.

Looking at it in the daylight, the style and design of the bed looked like something that had been in a child's room at some point. The bits of paint that still stuck to the foot and headboards of the bed was a bright pink. Upon closer inspection, Mand thought she could pick out the faded outline of animals that may have served as decoration. Most of the silhouettes were flaked off and unrecognizable, but she was sure one of them had been a horse and another.. a gorilla. 

Mand ran a finger around the silhouette of the gorilla. 

"Val would have loved this place," Mand thought. She could picture her sister thoughtlessly rifling through the various boxes of the farmer's discarded things, picking out and showing off various bits and bobs that she discovered. Mand would have had to chastise her sister of course for poking through someone else's things, but would have probably played along with the exploration with the caveat that they returned everything to exactly where they found it. 

"Of course, Val would have probably still left a mess that I would have to clean up."

Mand missed those times. With their mother gone, Mand had to play a mature and responsible big sister, but it wasn't 100 percent of the time. Even during that first, somewhat miserable, year on the road fending for themselves, they had found little moments to have fun and just be.... well sisters. 

She wondered about their life if they hadn't been metalmancers. There was a good chance that they may have still been in Ulareg, just living a normal life as they could. More importantly, their father would still be alive. 

"We never even got a chance to bury him," she thought. "Dad gave us just enough time to escape the house before the gang broke in to take Val."

Part of her wanted to believe that he was still alive. After all, they didn't actually see him die...

No, that was a foolish thought that was like something out of a fairytale. Mand knew what the gangs were capable of, and no doubt her father had crossed a line when he wouldn't betray his daughters to them. Her and Val were alone now...

No, she was alone now.

Mand snapped back to reality when she heard the barn door open again.