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As Adam approached the city gate, the darkness softened and the first gleam of sunlight painted the clouds, dissolving the blackness into hints of blue. The sunrise was a welcome distraction from his throbbing hands and oppressive fatigue. He loved watching the world come alive like a beautiful woman waking from her sleep. It renewed within him springs of hope.
“Adam, were you out there all night? Alone?” The gatekeeper shook his head. “One of these days the mountain people will get to you and you’ll regret being so reckless.”
“I appreciate your concern. I think you may be right. Last night was ...”
“Did something happen out there? You look ... rough.”
“I just need rest,” Adam said.
“Were you at the collapse site last night?”
Adam nodded.
“Were you the one who rescued Jacqueline Steadman?”
“We helped a lot of people. I don’t know who Jacquel—”
“She was trapped under a pile of gold debris and everyone gave up on her except one man. She said his name was Adam.”
“Oh, yeah, that was me. I was—”
“Adam, do you know who she is? That’s Royce Steadman’s daughter. Steadman owns all the gold mines in the north quarter. And he’s looking for you. One of his men came by here last night asking if you left the city. Do you realize what that means? If you saved his daughter’s life, you’ll never have to work again. You’re about to have wealth beyond anything you ever imagined!”
A surge of adrenaline awakened Adam from his fatigue. “Did the man tell you that?”
“He said, ‘Mr. Steadman wishes to express his gratitude.’ But I know what that means. Steadman once gave a guy twenty bars of gold because he had helped a boy who was being bullied. He’s a generous man. And they say he never forgets an act of kindness.”
A stick in an eddy, Adam thought, smiling.
The gatekeeper gripped Adam’s shoulder. “He told me if I saw you to send you directly to the Steadman estate. If I were you, I’d skip breakfast—skip everything and head straight over there.”
Adam smiled. “If I went now, I’m afraid I’d make a fool of myself. I’m kind of ... out of sorts. I’ll get some sleep then go this afternoon.”
A few hours earlier, Adam would have been elated to hear about Jacqueline and her father. But the little girl’s words held his heart and soul captive. He’d been warned that the mountain people were con artists. But how could she know about him—about his family? A world of forgotten desires about home reawakened, and nothing else seemed to matter.
Adam had never been so glad to arrive at the Northridge neighborhood. His gold and a soft bed awaited just blocks away.
But when he turned down his street, howls and cries shattered the morning peace and echoed through the row of houses. He ran to the crowd gathering on his front lawn.
“What happened?” he asked.
The circle opened to reveal the source of the screams. George’s pale, lifeless body lay motionless. His wife knelt over him, sobbing.
A neighbor laid his hand on Adam’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Adam. I know you were close.”
Adam struggled to find words. “He was the first friend I ever had. He ... What happened? How did ... Was it a looter?”
“I don’t think so. Your house was the only one hit. It had to be the mountain people. They must have gotten into the city somehow before the gates closed yesterday. They were targeting you, Adam. George tried to stop them, but ...” The man looked down at George’s body and shook his head.
George’s first and last acts toward Adam had been deeds of friendship—welcoming him into this place when he was alone and defending Adam’s home in his death.
Adam’s arrival into this world had replayed in his head a hundred times since his conversation with Kailyn. Images of George colored those memories. Adam could still taste that first orange George had given him and recalled how George’s unending ramblings had somehow calmed him that day.
Bereft of words, Adam knelt beside the broken old woman and held her.
The authorities arrived and took the body. One by one the others left until only Adam and the widow remained. When her tears ran dry, she stood and touched Adam’s face.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and with sagging shoulders and faltering steps, entered her house.
Adam turned to his own home. The front window was shattered, the door ajar. Do I even want to see the inside?
In his bedroom, the gold-framed bed his weary bones so craved was gone, and with it, the stockpile of gold he had labored all these years to build. The cold, empty shell of his house mirrored his empty soul. He had nothing now but his maps.
The maps! He ran to the closet and retrieved the chest where he had hidden them along with the gold bands he had received from George.
Empty! He fell to his knees, curled into a ball, and wept.
Hour after hour pressed down on him as he peeled back the layers of his grief. Losing his wealth hurt, but infinitely worse, losing the maps. Without them, the door to home had slammed shut forever. He was heartbroken about George. But beneath all those sorrows lay the deepest grief—the crushing reality of the emptiness and utter futility of his life.
Nothing he did mattered. He couldn’t imagine anything he could ever do would matter. His efforts to save the city from disintegration had been futile. He had no idea where he was from, and he had nowhere to go. It wasn’t only this world that was half-real. He had become part of this empty place, and his very life lacked substance. That day at the pond was the last important moment he remembered. He might as well have lived no life at all.
He tried to console himself with thoughts of Jacqueline. She said she wanted to see him again. And the gold he lost amounted to pennies compared to the reward he would receive from Royce Steadman. But right now the only thing that seemed to matter was that empty chest looming in the corner. Why did they have to take the maps?
An hour later Adam walked out the city’s west gate, wondering if he had lost his mind. Each step darkened his world, as if he were leaving life itself behind. Everything he loved remained in the city. But he hated his life there. He refused to look back, knowing if he did, he would be caught forever. He no longer wanted the calm of the eddy. He would take his chances in the current.
He found a road leading westward. It progressively narrowed, like a dead-end path that becomes more overgrown the farther it goes. Clearly, no one had traversed this road in a long time—for good reason, no doubt. But if there was even the remotest chance the cottage was real, he had to find it.
Soon the path disappeared altogether. Adam stood in an untouched wilderness. As he traveled westward, the forest grew darker—and colder, though the sun hung high. Climbing through the crisscross of fallen timber made the trek increasingly arduous.
He wondered at the cold silence. Then it came to him—no birds. He looked around. Not even the birds ventured this far.
He hadn’t noticed it before, but now it was undeniable—a growing sense of dread filled him like a slow leak filling a ship. His soul listed.
He looked back toward the city, but without the road for a guide, he wasn’t even sure what direction the city lay. Every passing hour made his departure feel more irreversible. There was no going back. Once again, his home, his security, his friends—all left behind. The unknown that lay ahead loomed like a dark void ready to swallow him up.
He needed to summon courage. For the first time in years, he tried to imagine his brother being with him. But the stubborn memories refused to emerge. He had no idea what his brother would say or do.
A deep longing to belong somewhere coupled with the terror of losing everything a second time slowed his pace. Pangs of regret at his decision to leave squeezed like a knot being pulled tight in his chest.
Then he shook his head. Get a grip Adam. Remember why you left the city. Trembling, he plodded forward.
Despite his determination, the compulsion to abandon the quest persisted. The relentless thought nagged, Go back! Go back! The strength of the impulse astonished him.
Faces emerged from twisted vines. Gnarled trees glowered at him like frozen demons ready to animate at any moment. Telling himself it was all in his mind didn’t help. It only added yet another layer of fear. Was sanity itself slipping away?
On the other hand, what if his hesitancy was the sanest of his thoughts? He was abandoning security and plunging into dangers about which he had been warned. Was he gaining freedom from an empty life, or walking blindly into a trap like a fool?
The cold penetrated his clothes and chilled him to the bone. He heard footsteps behind him and stopped short, listening. Silence. Turning, he scoured the area but saw no movement. Could it have been the sound of his own footfalls echoing off the trees?
Something touched his ankle. He kicked in a frantic reflex to shake it off. But it held on, squeezing tighter. A snake? No. A vine had wrapped itself around his leg.
He pulled it off and pushed ahead until another vine took hold. The brush before him thickened into a tangle. He searched for a way through, but the foliage had created an impenetrable wall.
Something unnatural was happening. Or was nature itself against him? Or was it protecting him—warning him?
Whatever it was, this excursion into the unknown was clearly over. But in his meandering effort to find a way through, he had lost his bearings. He made his best guess on the direction of the city and began making his way “home.”
A cool breath swept across his face. What was that? He stood perfectly still. The air was ... moving.
The stillness of this world that had seemed so strange at the pond was now such a fact of life that air movement seemed an absurdity. Yet, standing still as a statue, somehow the air caressed his face, his arms, his entire body as if he were running or falling.
Goosebumps covered his skin. Every nerve in his body alert. Never before had he felt so small as the very atmosphere moved upon him.
He ventured a tentative step. The breath strengthened. He took another. With every step it increased. Soon he could hardly keep his footing.
As the mighty breath howled in his face, a new word formed itself in his mind. Wind. A strange term, yet it seemed to fit somehow. Had a silent voice spoken this word to him? Or was this a memory from his world?
Sweat beaded on his forehead and he wiped it with his sleeve. After a few minutes of struggle, he turned back to take shelter behind a nearby tree. When he faced westward, the breath, or wind, stopped. Relieved that it had passed, he turned once more toward the city. But when he did, the wind gusted again and halted his steps.
His irrational fears—imagined noises and faces in the trees—evaporated, replaced by a different kind of dread. A force so much greater than he—the world’s invisible blanket, great enough to surround and protect the planet from the deadly hostilities of space, yet close enough to fill his lungs a thousand times an hour, sustaining his life. And now it moved upon him. He would not resist it.
Then he noticed a bright blue substance smeared on his shirtsleeve. He had never seen any tree sap or plant residue anything like this color. As he searched around him for the source, another strong gust arose and he lost his footing. He gripped a sturdy vine to steady himself, and the vine snapped in his fist. Amazed at his own strength, he pulled at another. It gave way like a burnt rope.
He tore at the living prison, shredding branches, vines, and roots. But almost as quickly as he destroyed them, new ones grew in their place, entangling his legs, blocking his way, and pushing him back toward the city.
The wind gusted harder. With a shout like a war cry, he cut into the tangle like a machine.
Finally, he broke through. He started to run, but a backward glance revealed the vines were not chasing him. Instead, they withered and receded to the east.
He sat to catch his breath, wiping sweat and blue residue from his face. What just happened? He took hold of a branch above him and gave it a tug. The branch didn’t move. His strength was back to normal.
Both the wind and foliage seemed to have wills of their own, but with opposite purposes. The wind pushed him toward the cottage, and the plants blocked his way. But which should he trust? In this wind-versus-world contest, which force was working to keep him from something good, and which was working to protect him from danger?
One thing he did know—there were no answers about his family in the city. The cottage at least might hold answers.
He continued westward, keeping a wary eye on the forest around him. The only friendly thing about his surroundings now seemed to be the fruit trees. He stopped whenever he came across one, but the farther he traveled, the fewer he found. Was he leaving his food supply behind?
The wind drove him on.
At last, Adam emerged from the forest and lifted his eyes to survey a sprawling valley that stood between him and the elusive cabin. Still a long way to go, but it would be easier traveling in this grassy, gently sloping valley.
Just a stone’s throw into the meadow, he saw a young man reclining against a rock.
“Hey there,” he called.
The man didn’t respond.
He must be asleep.
Approaching from behind, he scuffed his feet to wake the man up without startling him.
He still didn’t move.
“Hey, friend ...” Adam touched his shoulder.
The man turned slightly and slid sideways to the ground.