Army of the Goddess

Chapter 2 - Remembrances-2

He didn't have time to dwell on these things. He had to get to that bus.

“Holton, there you are!”

Jenny's voice stopped him in his tracks.

“You didn't say goodbye this morning. Shame on you,” she scolded, though a teasing smile belied her intention.

“Sorry. I'm running behind. I'll be back around in a few months.”

The curvy brunette caught his arm and jerked him back a step. She grinned. “You let Canna know how lucky she is to have you. If I had my way, you'd never go back to the frigid North. You could stay right here with me where it's warm.”

“Oh, Jenny,” he sighed with regret. If they had met sooner… He loved Canna dearly, but she was ever so slightly like his mother in some ways, and Jenny was nothing like his mother in any way whatsoever. She was refreshing, and visits with her were regenerative. He wanted to find excuses to come more often.

“I'll see you soon,” he promised, accepting a firm embrace, her plumps breasts pressed against his chest and her breath steamy against his neck.

She whispered in his ear, “I'll be here when you get back. Write me.”

Holton released himself and turned to wave down the bus as it tried to pull away from the depot. Only because there was a seat remaining did the driver allow him on, asking him to sign the register before the engine hummed again, pulling the wheels in a forward motion.

Holton collapsed into the seat with relief.

+++

Jon Irons kissed his mother on the cheek and gave his father's back a firm and loving slap. It was time for him to head off again, to rebuild his life. He'd come home to his parents when Gammerton had evacuated preceding the tidal surges. Now Gammerton Island remained mostly underwater, the topsoil of the island washed away by the Ocean. There was no space to rebuild the village or to grow food. He had no other home.

He walked away from them, heading for the travel depot at the town center. After putting in his name for volunteer duty, he'd been recruited to work on the new facility to house the communit factory in Bexan. Trucks of crew and supplies waited for him at the depot.

“There you are, Jon!” Kyle greeted eagerly, his oblong face and side eyes doling out more enthusiasm than seemed natural to Jon. “Morning! Ready to hit the road?”

Jon took mental quick stock of what he'd packed for the duration of the trip. His thin trunk held the bulk of his wardrobe, mostly chambray work shirts and unbleached algodon pants, and his backpack held his mementos and contact book, along with sandwiches, honey cakes, and an insulated mug of hot black tea that his mother had packed for him. He felt like a teenager heading out for his first service day.

“I've got everything I need for now.”

“Wonderful. Let's hit the pavement. Come on, boys. Jon, these are my sons Gray and Almit. I talked them into volunteering with me, so we're now a team. They couldn't wait to get away from their sister for a few weeks before the next session of classes,” Kyle stated as the four climbed into the large cab of the dray. The flat bed was loaded with paper bags of cement mix and a pallet of curved terra cotta roof tiles used on nearly every roof on the planet to collect potable water. Tools for these projects filled in the spaces and everything was tied down with flat sections of bandrope to prevent any loss or damage.

The engine started with a more vigorous hum than other vehicles, the engine larger and more powerful to pull the load. Jon could feel the thrust vibrate up through his feet, into his legs and body, a vibration that didn't cease until they stopped along the way for a brief rest. A tall venting pipe emitted a cloud of water vapor, a by-product of the steam part of the powerful engine. The combination of solar and steam made for a machine capable of hauling several tons of material.

In Duchene, a common rest stop along the well-traveled road to Bexan, a food stand served hot lunch to travelers. Jon took advantage of the warm soup and bread as he sat in the open-air pavilion next to the stand, trying to find a pocket out of the prevailing wind of the open flatland. Soon they would reach the Levianthus forest that surrounded the urban hub of Bexan, the now largest community on Bona Dea due to the influx of both refugees and industry training volunteers. Those majestic hardwood giants would block the northern gusts brought down by the dipping jet stream. At the moment, there was only a trace of the spring green canopy on the edge of the horizon. That forest was a least one hour away, and the fact that he could see the trees at all was a testament to their cloud-scratching stature.

“News for you, sir?” offered a young man circling the pavilion with a cache of machine-pressed parchments in hand. Jon accepted a copy, surprised by the thickness of the folded papers, and perused the reading for a brief respite from watching the road continually widen from pencil thin to four meters in front of the truck.

Among the headlines and titles were scattered several color photos. Of course, the first one that caught his eye was a photo of Axandra, his old lover and now Protectress. Instantly his jaw slackened and dragged his eyes into a somber expression. She had just left, disappeared without any warning and little explanation. There was only the few preceding days after he found her half-conscious on the beach—when he'd been shaken by the strangest sensation—and then she stepped out of his life leaving only a cryptic letter in her wake.

He forced himself to admit that part of this was his fault. Something strange had happened, and though he was barely adept with his mediocre touch sensitivity, the abrupt alteration of her base emanations had struck him with a prickling sense of discomfort. He didn't know what to say to her or to do about it, so he stepped back from the relationship. Perhaps if he'd taken the time to ask her, if she would have told him the truth—he hoped she would consider the seven years they'd lived together enough to trust him—he might have found a way to comfort her.

But what right did she have to lie to him for all that time about who she really was? It wasn't like she had amnesia. She knew her previous life. She must have known eventually she would have to go back. What would he have done if she had told him to his face that she was actually a long-lost relative of the Matriarch? He didn't know, because he wasn't given the chance. Instead, he found out the day her face appeared on all of the newssheets and placards declaring the date of her installation. And he had felt like a complete fool.

Angry and mortified, he drank until his gut hurt and his head muddied and he could barely remember his own name, let alone care that Axandra had run off. Eventually, his neighbors pulled him out of his stupor. They weren't pleased at being duped either, and together most of Gammerton voiced their disapproval for the woman who would be their queen. Then eventually all the discord went quiet and life resumed as close to normal as possible—until the islanders were told they had to leave their homes behind or die in the floods.

And here he was, sitting on the mainland, trying to start over with all that he owned.

Now he was being told by newssheet that his old lover was engaged to be married. She appeared happy standing next to a short, stocky man with thinning dirty-blonde hair and a crooked smile with deeper dimple on one side than the other. It was an informal photo, captured as the couple exited the theatre after a musical concert sometime in the last month. Jon noted how thin she appeared, and how tired her face appeared, as though she'd aged a half-dozen years in the last nine months. Her dark, wavy hair had lost much of its curl—it used to hang in a mass of springy ringlets—and her cheeks possessed a sunken, hollow appearance, causing her lips to span the width of her face. There was evidence of her on-going recovery in the bandages on her right arm, not so well concealed beneath her teal and plum shoulder wrap. The wedding would take place sometime next month, according to the date in the article, though the exact date was not provided.

“Anything of interest?” Kyle questioned as he found his travel mate among the diners. He came with his own bowl of soup and a large mug of hot tea. “The boys are…exploring.” He nodded toward a far corner where the two sons flirted with some young women at another table. Genuine laughter occurred on both sides of the exchange. “Gregarious youth. So…?”

“In the paper? If you find the Protectress' love life interesting.” Jon attempted to play off his disappointment by heaving in a deep breath and flipping the page over to more innocuous news headings.

“Is she marrying that fellow that's been around the Palace? Good for her. She deserves a little happiness after all the crap that happened to her last year.”

Kyle must have noticed a dangerous spark in Jon's eyes, for he cleared his throat abruptly and added, “If you give a damn about her. She's not much of a leader, but she wasn't raised to be one either. I'm surprised the whole planet hasn't collapsed yet. And with this continuing threat of…what do they call them? Stormflies?”

“That's the term,” Jon concurred.

“If these things are going to take a shot at decimating the capital city, as the reporters keep telling us, then we're going to be in real trouble with a woman who can't get her own life under control. If she's getting married, she's showing the rest of us she's getting organized, and that she believes everything will come out well in the end.”

Jon shook his head at Kyle's statement. “Sure. If you think so.”

“If you don't mind me saying so, you look like you swallowed your own heart. Do you want to tell me about it?”

Jon didn't necessarily want to, but he also didn't know if he could keep it to himself for another two and a half hours in the confines of the truck. “I used to know her, is all,” he replied in a veiled way, enough to release the tightness in his chest but not lay out his entire life story.

Kyle nodded slowly. “Ah. I see.”

“I don't want to talk about it, if you don't mind.”

“Got it,” Kyle acknowledged with gruff basso voice.

The two men fell into silence and finished their soup.

“So, we'd better get a move on if we want to get to Bexan before sunset,” Kyle prompted, his long body stretching upward from the bench with his leftovers. “Let me get the boys corralled and I'll meet you at the truck. You can drive.”

As he gathered up his used utensils, Jon debated whether to take the newssheet with him or not. Taking it meant he could finish the articles after dinner. It also meant he'd have to look at her face again.

He missed her and he was, in some ways, glad she was happy. He also wanted to punch her betrothed in the face to release the stress.

The abandoned sheaf of papers fluttered in the wind, held to the table by random stone.