The Other Side: A Second Chance

Chapter 138: Wagon Ride through Downaway

The wagon rolled smoothly over the roughly packed dirt road, filling the air with the sound of the occasional crunch of a rock and a snort from Ruby as she pulled us along under the rays of the beating sun. The air was dry, the wind practically nonexistent; if it weren’t for the vibrant green grass along the rolling hills around us in either direction, you would think we were in a desert. Or at least, that’s how it felt to me.

Father had Varis, and I pitched a tarp over the wagon to serve as sunblock; while helpful, it did little to stop the sweat. To help make us feel more comfortable, sitting in the back of the wagon, I focused on spell resilience, dampening the uncomfortable sensation from the heat. What fascinated me about this spell is that it didn’t remove the effects of what the heat was doing to us; it just numbed it. For instance, say we were stranded in a desert. Casting this spell wouldn’t protect you from the effects of heat stroke; as said, it would just numb you to them. The benefit is that you’re comfortable and can still focus; the downside is just don’t forget about it.

Years ago, casting a spell like this on multiple people would’ve required my full attention. Now, it was an afterthought. Now, if only I had a spell that could stop me from sweating all over. Even with the dress Anne got me, I was still sweating bullets. Father had said that the newspaper mentioned something about this year’s summer being going to reach record temperatures, and gods, I wasn’t looking forward to that.

Thankfully, by the time Ruby was pulling us away from our home, the light breeze from motion, my magic, and the shade from the sunblock made the trip not so bad. While Father sat at the front of the cart guiding Ruby along, Varis and I rested in the back.

My brother leaned back against the side of the wagon, his feet resting on a large storage chest where Father kept all the repair tools. His brown jacket hung over the side, revealing his white-collared button-up and brown suspenders. In both hands, he held a book and read it casually without saying a word.

Curious, I couldn’t help but lean forward and look at the cover of the book he was reading. “Enora’s Last War, a Modern Take on the Twilight Conflict, Rodger Bribbleham.” An interesting choice of reading material, I wondered. I had taken several peeks at that book a few times at the library when father and I had ventured into town. I hadn’t bothered to read the entire thing yet, as the history of prior wars and tactics wasn’t entirely of interest to me. At least, not the niddy gritty specifics of it all.

To Varis, however, he ate those books up. My brother has an interesting history with books. Back then, he hated the concept of reading. Whenever Isa asked us to open a book, he would always moan. It wasn’t until three, or was it four? I think it was four years ago that Isa tasked my brother with a book report for one of our “end of the year” projects. She dropped this massive history book on him called “Men of the Frost, a Detailed Account of the Frostland March,” by Henora Shoemaker.

As expected, he fumed at the idea of reading such a massive book and then writing about it. Fast forward a week, and when he finally decided to work at it, he became hooked. So much so that only a week later, he was already turning in his report to Isa, and to our surprise. He asked her for another recommendation. Next thing I knew, my brother was a bookworm like me. Probably even more so.

I leaned back in the wagon with a small sigh. I looked back toward our house, now sinking behind a hill as we moved further away. It was a quiet little home, a bit smaller than our old house back in Oren, but similar in design. Two stories, a basement, a shed outback. Enough room to house my father, brother, and me. We had a guest bedroom for visitors, but it was rare for anyone to stop by.

The only people who would visit us were Isa and Terry Rosewall, though Terry rarely stayed—lived out in the Midwest of Iona, somewhere in the central regions known as the low plains. A region mostly flat with rolling hills and the occasional thicket of wilderness. It was the border region between the east and west of Iona, which Isa had taught us was currently undergoing a colonial expansion known as the Sunset Migration to the west. She explained that the Ionan Parliament decreed that the formal rights of the west coast belonged to the pilgrims who had first set foot on Ionan lands after crossing the Web Way, or some nonsense like that. It was simply a political excuse to grab more land.

To put it simply, we lived in the middle of nowhere. Compared to Oren's, our home was now farther from anyone. The nearest town, Downway, was two hours away by cart. So whenever Father left for work, Varis and I were usually the only ones left to man the house. So even though the house was physically small, when it’s just the two of us, the place feels vast and empty.

So moments like this, traveling all together in the cart, bits like this were rare nowadays. Being all in the cart reminded me of my birthday trip years ago to the Heinland mountains. I only wish that my mother and Isa were here. Speaking of which, I wonder what that serelli is up to, anyway. Last time I saw her was about… last year, I think. My sense of time gets all muddled when many days bleed together.

I think it was last year, yeah. It was my eleventh birthday when she stopped in. I wish she were still my teacher so I could see her more often. When I became ten, Isa had me perform her final exam, and by the gods, a final exam that was. I swear, a test like that would be criminal to give any girl my age. It felt like a college entry exam. She said she gives this to all her students, but I don’t know, I feel like she singled me out with that one. Varis certainly didn’t seem to have as much trouble.

Then again… my brother is a nerd

now.After I finished the test, Isa told me she no longer had anything she could teach me. Oddly, I felt so sad when she told me that. You’d think that anyone else would’ve been overjoyed to hear that they completed school, but it felt like my time with her was coming to an end, and well, in a way it was. Isa wasn’t my teacher anymore; she was just a friend. More than that, she felt like a family member, like an older aunt.

Now, she’s probably off teaching some other kids, or traveling the world, or whatever Isa does. She’s still hardly told us anything about her past. Every story she’s started for Varis and me somehow always got interrupted. Next time I see her, be it a family event or whatever, I’m going to corner her and force her to tell me a story. Okay, that seems creepy, maybe I won’t do that.

I rested my head against the edge of the cart and looked up at the sunblock. I then shifted my gaze out toward the cloudy blue sky and the horizon of rolling green hills. If there’s one thing I didn’t like about Iona, it's the lack of sprawling mountains…

It was around the afternoon when we finally arrived in the town of Downaway. At some point along the way, I had dozed off in the back of the wagon, and it wasn’t until the sudden jerk of the cart climbing up onto smooth pavement that I began to stir.

“Ah, you’re finally awake,” Varis said, closing his book before stowing it away in his bag. “I was about to kick you if you hadn’t sat up just now.”

I grumbled incoherently and ran a hand through my hair, smoothing it out. Thankfully, it hadn’t gotten too messy during my nap. “I’d magic you to sleep if you did that,” I said with a yawn.

Varis smirked. “Sure you would, I doubt you even know a spell like that.”

I straightened up, crossed my legs, and gave my brother a tired look. “Wanna find out?” I asked.

“Hey,” Father said from over his shoulder. “No fighting, and definitely no magic. We’re pulling into town.”

Varis and I both looked forward and poked our heads around our father to see the town as it came into view. Rooftops of houses and shops could be seen peeking over the hill’s crest ahead, towers of white and grey smoke from chimneys drifted lazily into the sky before catching the wind and drifting far off to the east. The sounds of striders, beasts of burden, and the occasional horn of an automobile created an ambiance of business as we entered the small town.

Gradually, the scenery of rolling hills and copses shifted to that of small farmsteads, homes, and then businesses. In only a few moments, we’d gone from calm isolation to being surrounded by people on all sides. Housewives tended to chores on their porches and yards, while vendors tended to their displays outside their shops, and vendors could be seen unloading their goods from their carts into those stores. A newsboy stood on the street corner shouting to those who would listen while a police officer scolded a group of youngsters off to the side. All of it was familiar and comforting. It reminded me of home, of Oren, and judging by my father and brother’s expressions. I wasn’t the only one sensing this.

Unlike Oren, Downaway wasn’t nearly as colorful. The general vibe and feel may have been similar, yet the architecture of the drab houses, dull businesses, even the signs advertising products, and the like. All of it seemed monochrome and bland. During my time in Iona so far, that seemed to be how things were. Everything looked to have been built with purpose and utility, a product mass-produced and shipped. There was little in the way of style and or art; every house looked the same, and businesses appeared cookie-cutter. It was admittedly quite uninspiring.

Isa had said this was due to the Sunset Migration and the Ionans encouraging their people to move. When I had said that the buildings appeared cookie-cutter, as if they were copied and pasted, that wasn’t entirely an exaggeration. Mages and archineers, funded by the regional government, had been tasked with mass-producing homes and other structures using their abilities. Essentially, magically 3D-printing buildings, which, in the end, resulted in many of them looking the same. For the mages and archineers, it was easier and faster to do so this way. Yet to those who moved into those replicated homes and shops, they were nothing but soulless clones, empty husks made to serve a singular purpose.

That isn’t to say that some people didn’t try to breathe life into what’s here. Some of the businesses and homes we passed by were painted and decorated with flags or flowers, like lighthouses of color among a sea of nothing.

“I forget,” Varis said, stroking his chin. “Is the library open on Dawnsday?” He asked.

I pursed my lips for a moment, then shook my head. “No, they aren’t open on rest days. Tomorrow is Sailday, it’ll be open then.”

“We aren’t making any pit stops, anyway,” Father said from over his shoulder. “We’re heading straight to the magrail, then we’re going to Belpre.”

Varis huffed. “Roots, I was hoping to get a second book.”

“Language, boy,” Father growled. “I’m sure they’ll have something for you on the train, or you can nap.”

I frowned. Maybe the nap in the cart was a bad idea.

As we neared the station, the number of pedestrians and traffic practically quadrupled. The sounds of striders calling, the honking of automobiles, and the whistles of traffic officers sounded in tandem every few seconds. Our wagon was nearly brought to a stop every few paces as traffic slowed to a crawl in this section of town.

Nearby, two men on the side of the road argued. Their voices, loud and obnoxious, were hard to make out in their heavily accented Ionan. We were stuck on that road for nearly ten minutes, crawling forward by inches. During that period, I learned my fair share of unique Ionana swear words as the two men soon expanded to three, with an akumari woman stepping in and joining one of the men as she began shouting at the other.

It was at that point that I was gradually becoming invested in this rare bit of reality entertainment before the wagon lurched forward as traffic finally cleared. Sadly, I wouldn’t know the ending or even the cause of that roadside debacle as our wagon pulled further away from it.

Minutes later, my father pulled us up to the magrail station, and we could see why traffic was so tied up. Outside the station, dozens, if not a hundred or so, boys and girls, no older than fifteen or even sixteen, stood outside the station at full attention. All of them dressed in tan shirts and army-green pants; immediately, I knew what they were. Young recruits.

Trucks and other transports carrying more arrived just ahead of us, dropping off more men and some women, who then quickly ran over to join those waiting outside the station. Watching them, I glanced at my father. “We’re not riding with all of them, are we?” I asked, not looking forward to sharing a train with potentially hundreds of young recruits.

Father sighed softly and shook his head. “No, unless they too are heading west to Belpre, that I doubt. Most likely, they’ll be taking the next train to Bekker, that’s out east.”

I nodded and looked to my brother, who was watching the group intensely as we rolled on by. His brow knitted slightly as they drifted past, and then his eyes met mine. For a brief moment, we shared a look before he broke contact and sat back in his spot, and sighed.

“Something wrong?” I asked with an arched brow.

Varis shook his head and cracked open his book again. “No, I’m okay.” I knew he lied, though I didn’t press him.

Moments later, Father found a spot to park our wagon, and we began to dismount. Ruby chirped her goodbye as we hopped off the wagon, and I smiled and stepped around to the front. “We won’t be gone long, girl,” I said to the strider and patted her on the neck. Ruby cooed and leaned over to nuzzle her scaly face against mine, her sheer size nearly tipping me over as she brushed over me.

“Oh, she’ll be coming along,” Father said while smoothing down his pants. “Roots take me, I’m not walking around everywhere on foot in Belpre. We’ll be paying the fee to bring her and the cart along.”

I smiled and turned back to the strider. “You hear that, girl? Guess you’re coming with us!”

Ruby’s eyes glistened, and she bared her razor-sharp teeth, the equivalent of a smile for a strider, though honestly, even to this day, such an expression scared me. She began to breathe heavily, as if she were a large, excited dog.

Giving Ruby another pat on her neck, I spun away and followed my father and brother as we made our way into the station on our way to see mother again.

“You’ve heard their voices. The calls from the dead. Since the beginning of this Great War, their cries can be heard from the battlefields, our hospitals, and morgues. It is through them that the gods speak to us and admonish us for what we’ve done! Do you not see? Have you not noticed their silence since the start of this needless bloodshed? The gods are silent, and it’s only through our dead we’ve now come to understand this…” – Slyondron Amirate, Shal Gamchu, 12th, Meridian, 1944