“This is the sustenance room,” Marc whispers to me.
Ten steel tables are spread out across the room with two stools at each one. At three of the small tables sits a Keeper and a child. Profile to us with her long, black hair hanging down her back in a single braid, Maya sits alone at another table. Since Marc is her primary Keeper, I assume that he’d be sitting with her if it weren’t for me being here.
At two of the other tables, infants sit in steel high chairs no different than those on Earth. Seated on a stool beside each of them is a Keeper. Pitchers and cups stand on top of the occupied tables, and more utensils are stored on shelves carved in one of the walls.
As everyone in the room sips from their cups, they’re silent. The children—excluding the infants—all have distant, almost hypnotic looks in their eyes. I try to get Maya’s attention with a wave. Although the eyes in her thin face are looking in my general direction, she doesn’t seem to notice me. Marc tugs my shirt and pulls me away from the entrance.
“I don’t want to interrupt them,” he says quietly.
“Why isn’t anybody talking?” I ask.
“During sustenance, the children learn to meditate. It’s a chance for them to share their thoughts with the world they live in and develop their senses of awareness. We teach them to appreciate the sap the trees provide for us. As the energy from the sap flows inside them, they share their gratitude with Krymzyn. Always remember that sap feeds more than just our bodies.”
“It really does,” I say. “I guess I should work on developing my sense of awareness more.”
“It’s a lifelong process,” he replies. “You didn’t have the advantage of starting as a child.”
We walk to the end of the tunnel and step outside through the western entrance to Home. After thanking Marc for the tour, I bid him farewell. Instead of immediately traveling to my habitat, I walk across the field and digest everything I just saw. I pause when I’m about halfway across the meadow to look back at the hills over Home.
I guess I’ve always thought of Home as one step above an orphanage. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It may be a different way of raising children than what I’m used to, but there’s no doubt that it’s a nurturing and safe environment. More importantly, the children are cared for by Keepers who dedicate their entire existences to the education and well-being of the kids.
In Krymzyn, a person’s connection to the world around them is just as important as their relationship with other people. One of the most important lessons at Home, so I just learned, is teaching the children to open their senses of awareness. Maybe not having that foundation is why my mine only seems to reveal itself through Sash.
Even though I’ve accepted that it won’t happen, part of me still clings to the idea of having our daughter live with Sash and me. But after what I just saw, I might finally be able let that go. Baby girl is a child of Krymzyn, not a child of the world I come from. Since Krymzyn is where she’ll live her life, I now believe the best thing for her is to be raised at Home.
Chapter 9
With black veins pulsing under their pale skin, a male and female Murkovin race down a hill. They both lurch forward at the bottom of the slope, but only the female ignites into the light. The male stumbles on a rock, crashes to the ground, and slides on his stomach across the gravelly dirt.
“That one is useless!” the former Watcher of the Delta sneers.
“Give him more time,” the woman replies. “He’ll learn.”
Standing on top of the hill that the two creatures ran down, the woman and former Watcher return their attention to the female Murkovin who successfully blended her light. The fluorescent shape soars across miles and miles of flat land, makes a broad arc, and then returns in their direction. As she rises the slope towards them, her beams evaporate into the body of a young woman in full sprint. She slows near the crest and coasts to a stop in front of them.
“Well done,” the woman says to the female Murkovin. “Your progress is impressive. We’ll travel greater distances on the morrow.”
“Your guidance has been helpful,” the creature replies.
“Return to camp,” the former Watcher orders. “You’ve earned your sap for this morrow.”
After nodding to the man and woman, the female Murkovin jogs down the hill towards the nearby encampment. The man and woman focus again on the Murkovin who fell. Now walking up the hill towards them, the muscular creature wipes blood-soaked dirt from his scratched arms.
“We have fifty who can blend their light,” the former Watcher says to the woman. “We need five hundred.”
“I’ll take care of it,” she replies.
“I’m sure you will,” he says. “There’s no one better for this task than you.”
In the Barrens, the woman knows, his statement is true. Few of her kind ever master the skill of blending their light. Over time, she’d developed the patience and self-control needed to teach others. Immense distances separate the Murkovin, keeping many of them isolated in remote areas of the Barrens. She’ll soon change that.
The woman first learned to travel by sheer accident when she was still a girl. Or maybe it was fate. After the horrific Darkness that took the life of her Ovì finally ended, she pulled her Ovì’s corpse to an area of flat, soft ground. Using only her hands, she clawed and scraped the wet dirt. By the time she dug a hole large enough for a body, her fingers were bloody and raw. Handful by handful, she covered the corpse with dirt.
She found two long lengths of tattered rope inside her cavern. After returning to the sustaining
