by Gwendolyn J. Bean
...The next day, they packed up quickly and set out early. The path was fairly flat, and they started off making good time. They’d been walking for as long as it took to get two new blisters when Solene stopped short. Instinctively, Zee’s hand went to the knife in the pocket of her cargo pants. They stood, frozen in silence for several minutes. Zee knew Solene well enough that her posture, the tension she could see pulsing in her body, Solene was scared.
Zee scanned the forest around her, looking for whatever it was.
The forest was surprisingly noisy when they were still enough. She could hear the regular wind in the trees, birds chirping, squirrels foraging, and a distinct lack of river noises. But there was also a hum, a vibration that seemed to come from the earth. Zee smiled at the hum. It was a good sign. Sometimes when she was trying to feel the rain, the hum would get so loud it blocked out everything else and she couldn’t stay focused on the rain. It wasn’t a bad feeling, not at all, but it got in the way.
“I saw a person!” hissed Solene, still frozen.
“What?” Zee gripped the knife harder.
"A person!"
“London camp?” Zee tried to calculate how far they were from London’s base. Solene was trying to do the same calculation. But it didn’t compute. London’s base was miles down the mountain, and Zee and Solene had been walking up for days. The only reason to risk the altitude and leave base camp was to go to the water source, the falls. But London had stopped sending scouts to the falls years ago. There was no one in London who could feel the rain anymore.
But if not London…?
There weren’t that many camps left in the North. Nine base camps and a few off-shoots, as far as Solene knew. If any of the camps were on the move, it meant the water shortage was worse than she thought.
“Should we…?” she asked Zee.
Zee nodded and they moved forward. It was slow and tense, each step carefully planned. After only a few hundred metres, they saw a boy crouched by the river, scooping water into a bucket with his hands. Solene looked around for others. He seemed to be alone.
“Hello,” called Solene.
The boy looked up startled, but smiled when he saw the two women. He started talking excitedly in an old English dialect that made Solene smile too. She didn’t know anyone that spoke it anymore, but her mother used to sing Old English songs when she cooked. Solene loved to hear the strange lilting sounds, almost understandable but deeply unfamiliar at the same time.
She couldn’t understand much, but the boy was excited to have found clean water. He made a face as he described the smell of the city water back home.
The boy was from the city!
“You’re here all the way from the city? Are you alone?” Solene asked, looking around again.
“Naw, aunties’re at camp, ‘n others. All one’s there,” he said, switching to his best impression of New English.
When he got closer, they could see he was much older than they thought from his size. But the city was hard, they knew that. Neither Solene nor Zee had been to the city, it was much too far, but they had heard stories of pollution so bad it made you sick, food only from cans, and everyone fighting to get enough.
The boy gestured for them to follow. He led them down the trail and then veered left to a clearing.
Solene and Zee stopped, this time in shock. They had expected to find a few tents around a campfire, a smaller, more temporary version of home. But the clearing was full of large vehicles, parked end to end in a circle, creating a wall around the inner circle. The vehicles were rough, rusted and patched. And there was a terrible grinding noise from generators lined up outside the camp connected by long cables.
They followed the boy cautiously as he squeezed between the vans with his bucket of water.
On the inside, people were busy in all kinds of ways. Some were hanging laundry, some cooking on electric grills. Some were chopping firewood. Others sat talking and laughing and smoking. There was a guy standing in the centre juggling, although no one seemed to notice. Some were even sleeping, having spread out mats in the shade of the vehicles.
The energy was loud and electric, with a frequency Solene and Zee had never felt before. They watched the guy juggling, mesmerized by the speed of the balls. They cringed at the noise, the chaos of people and machines. It didn’t look anything like home, but it also didn’t look like the stories they had heard of the city. Solene reached for Zee’s hand as they walked into the noise. It was overwhelming and exciting at the same time. And it was nice to forget about the rain for a while.
The boy seemed to have disappeared, and Solene and Zee didn’t quite know what to do.
“Maybe we should go?” whispered Zee.
But Solene wasn’t ready to head back out. She shook her head no. They stood at the edge watching.
Eventually, it was the juggler who noticed them and came over. He started talking quickly, almost as excited as the boy. When he realized they didn’t understand, he gestured them over to some logs under a tree and motioned for them to take off their packs. As soon as they sat, he rushed away, and they weren’t sure if he was coming back. But he returned, carrying three cups full of bright red liquid, an alcohol, he told them. That much they understood.
“Enn,” he said pointing to himself. “Juggler of the camp.” He laughed.
He didn’t speak much New English and they didn’t speak much Old. But they did their best, laughing at almost communicating. Solene asked about the camp of vehicles and the generators and the city and why the group was travelling. She asked so many questions that Enn could barely squeeze in his own questions.
They learned the vehicles were camper vans, with whole houses on the inside where they slept, cooked, bathed, everything. The generators were for lights, but they couldn’t understand what the lights were for. Enn told them, the city was ugly and beautiful at the same time, unlike the forest that was only beautiful. And they left the city – here he floundered, that was harder to explain with the language barrier, and Solene and Zee didn’t understand. Enn put his hand on his heart, and they nodded, knowing only that something bad had caused them to leave.
As they drank and talked, others came over, curious to meet the new people, and soon the whole camp was crowded around, drinking and talking and laughing. Enn took Solene’s hand as he introduced them to the others, and she felt an electricity that confused her.
Soon everyone was asking questions.
Solene explained their camp back home, and the journey to the waterfall. She struggled to explain how she could feel the rain, and she knew they didn’t understand. She asked if they had rain back in the city and how they called the rain, but they just shook their heads, seeming confused by the questions.
With so many people, talking so excitedly, it didn’t matter that they didn’t understand each other. The alcohol was warming, and the group was friendly, and it was nice to forget about the rain, to be around people who didn’t even understand. Solene could feel herself beginning to relax for the first time in ages.
As it got dark, Enn nudged Solene and pointed. She looked where he was pointing. Just then, the lights switched on and the entire inner circle was lit up with tiny lights strung up along each van. Solene gasped. She squeezed Zee’s leg, amazed by the glow of lights on everyone’s faces. It was magical.
By now, it was getting late and most people had disappeared into their camper vans. Only a few people were still sitting around. Solene vaguely wondered where her and Zee were sleeping tonight, since they hadn’t set up camp or even found a good site. But she was quickly distracted when she noticed two people sitting a bit off to the side, kissing softly, and then more insistently, hands roaming under clothing.
[to be continued...]
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