Free Water & Storm Country by David Estes Page B

training. She
grants me a lot of independence—and based on what Remy said, more
than some of the other Riders get—and I don’t abuse it, use it only
to further my stamina and strength.
    “A vision about the Soakers?” I say.
    “Yes,” my father says solemnly. “There will
be a battle.”
    I roll my eyes. There’s always a battle.
That’s the dramatic vision from the Man of Wisdom? I look at the
tent wall.
    “Sadie!” my mother snaps, and my head jerks
back to her. She rarely raises her voice at me.
    “What?” I say, knowing I’m about to tread
over the line of insolence, but not caring. “I’ve heard this all
before. His visions, scribbles on countless pieces of bark, tales
of blood and bones and how the world’s ending.” Although I won’t
look at him, at the edge of my vision I see my father’s head dip,
his eyes close. The truth is hard to hear sometimes, but that
doesn’t change that it’s the truth.
    My mother’s hand flashes out so fast I don’t
even have time to flinch before it snaps across my face. My head
jolts to the side and I grimace, but don’t cry out. Showing pain is
weakness.
    Slowly—ever so slowly—I turn back to face my
mother. My cheek stings and my pride feels bruised, but I don’t
cry, don’t so much as let my eyes water.
    There’s hurt in her eyes, but I know it’s not
regret at having slapped me, because I can still see the anger in
her pursed lips. Anger at me. For not thinking very much of my
father, the so-called Man of Wisdom.
    I pretend like I don’t see the hurt or the anger. “What sort of battle?” I ask grudgingly.
    My father’s eyes flash open and he smiles
thinly.
    “One where…” He pauses, as if searching for
the words. There’s blood, and lots of people die, and the world
as we know it is destroyed , I think, regurgitating my father’s
usual predictions. “…you will have a choice to make,” he
finishes.
    My eyes narrow. “Me?” I say. “I’ll be stuck
here with you.” I don’t mean for it to sound so angry, but I guess
lately that’s what I am.
    Father nods, but doesn’t elaborate, which
means that’s all he wants to tell me. Is it a trick? A way for him
to convince me to stay in the tent the next time there’s a
battle?
    “Tell her the rest,” Mother urges.
    Father looks down, clasps his hands in his
lap, runs his thumb over his forefinger. Sighs. Slumps his
shoulders. Why does he look so…is it sadness? Exhaustion? No, it’s
not one or the other—it’s both. He looks defeated.
    “Father?” I say, allowing a hint of
compassion to creep into my voice. Just a hint.
    He lifts his head but his eyes are closed and
he doesn’t stop at eye-level. His chin keeps tilting until he’s
facing the tent roof, and only then does he open his eyes. Almost
as if he can’t look at me when he says whatever it is my mother
wants him to say. And in his eyes…
    There’s defeat.
    And I realize he’s not looking at the tent
roof. No, he’s looking well beyond it, seeing something that we
can’t—the moon or the stars or the black-cloud-riddled sky.
Something beyond.
    “It’s time to ride against the Icers,” he
says to the heavens, and for a moment I don’t comprehend any of his
words, because how can I? They’re so unexpected and make so little
sense that I have to close one eye to even get my brain headed in
the right direction.
    “This must not make much sense to you,” my
mother says. It doesn’t take a Man of Wisdom to read my face. I
shake my head. “Reason it out,” she says, like she has so many
times before.
    I used to get so excited when my mother would
say those words—that she had so much confidence that I could puzzle
through a problem and figure it out on my own. But now her
challenge just frustrates me, because I want to know right now. Why
the Riders would go to the Icers; why my mother seems more intense
than she normally does, so focused on my father’s vision that she’d
slap me; why my father refuses to