Free Out of Exodia by Debra Chapoton Page B

allows me to hold
the baby. Gresham isn’t ready yet to be held by a father he doesn’t
know. Walking? Yes, though it’s more of a lurching stumble. And
he’s not talking yet, not even a mama , according to Raul. The boys
are barely ten months apart. Two babies.
    In the midst of our self-conscious
reunion Harmon has pitched his tent nearby. He holds a flap open
and beckons us to enter. He offers his aid as shepherd to unharness
the sheep and find them a place to graze. The women who were eager
to coo over my sons—Mira, her friends, and Lydia—have disappeared.
I glance around before I duck into the tent behind my family—my old
family—who left Exodia a year ago in the darkest grief imaginable.
Gresham knows nothing of the loss of a grandmother and five aunts.
His only concern while we speak reverently of them is to totter
around the tent and press his fingers through the holes.
    Eli cries and Kassandra turns away to
nurse him. She sits back to back with Katie and braces herself
against her sister as she gets as comfortable as she can to feed
our son. A year apart and we are strangers again.
    “ I saw it in the stars,”
Raul begins, “that hundreds left the black city.” I nod, he
continues, “Ten plagues, yes?”
    “ Something like that,” I
murmur. “I had to kill the Executive President’s son.” Kassandra
tightens her hold on the baby, keeps her eye on Gresham as he nears
the tent’s doorway. A fissure of light stripes the entrance with
dancing particles of dust. He draws his tiny hand back and forth
through the light.
    I outline the year’s events: the
tainted food, the rashes, the acid rain, the hail, the darkness
that fell on the last full day in Exodia—the day I killed Jamie.
How we crossed the condemned bridge.
    “ They chased after you and
fell from the bridge?”
    “ I blew it up.”
    “ They all died?”
    “ All who Truslow sent.
There could be another army he’ll send around, but we’ve been
attacked by others.”
    Katie clucks her tongue for Gresham’s
attention, draws him to her, and cuddles him in her lap. The
favorite aunt. The only aunt on the Luna side.
    Raul is pensive. He taps his chin. “You
don’t need to worry about Truslow. Tell me about these new
attackers.”
    I recap their first appearance, Lydia’s
kidnapping, our rescue mission, how their city is underground. I
dare to ask him, “Do we need to worry about them attacking us
again?”
    I trust that he’s seen the story in the
sky. “No,” he answers. “They are vanquished.”
    I tell him about the hardships on this
journey: the lack of food and water. I tell him how we’ve been
saved from thirst and starvation and I dare to add my growing
belief that we are in the safety and care of One who provides all
that we need.
    Katie and Kassandra hold my sons with a
stillness that unsettles me. The tent grows suddenly too warm, but
Raul is pleased with me. His eyes shine moist with understanding.
“Bram,” he says, comfortable with my original name, “I’m delighted
to hear how the hand of God has rescued the Reds. I understand more
from the stars. I know that God is greater than all the other
gods.”
    What other gods is he talking about? My
skin prickles with heat and I want to tell him what I’ve done. A
cord of apprehension ties my tongue so that I only mumble, “I’ve
built it.”
    But he understands. “Daughters,” he
strokes the baby’s head, “stay here while I go with
Bram.”

 

 
     
    Chapter 8 A Soul’s Kiss
     
    From the ninth page of the
second Ledger:
    He was not rebuked for his
sacrifices.
     
    “ THEY BICKER AND fight and
disagree all the time.” I complain to Raul as he walks beside me,
pulling one of the sheep carts by hand. My emotions are closer to
the surface than I want them to be. “And they’ve forgotten why they
were subjugated in the first place—the religious persecution. The
Suppression.” We skirt the smaller hangars and follow an old
service road out to a secluded area