Hope in Ruins Book III: The Fountain and the City of Salt

Chapter 7: Henrietta and the Garden

MICA

Mica's mind, fuzzy with something strange and gauzy, slowly surfaced up from a deep sleep. A bright light turned the backs of her eyelids red and green and blue.

"Ah, good, you're awake," a voice said.

She couldn't remember anything after the tower when she had sent Ben and Anda and Stephen sailing through the air towards the safety of the water. She had felt them land with a splash, felt their lungs hold

on to air as they plummeted to the bottom of the black river, and then she had lost control of the last kiln. It had crashed to the roof with a terrible noise, and the wave of power from the three Human Elements had engulfed her and covered her with cold.

Then a dark nothing had engulfed her for... how long?

Mica tried to move, but she couldn't. Her hands were at her side. Her hands ached like they'd been burned, but she could feel bandages wrapping around her hands. Everything else hurt, but it was the ache of recovery, not the sharp, snapping pain of ripped and broken flesh. Cold metal constraints crisscrossed up and down her body. She felt as if a giant spider hugged her and restricted her movement with its many crooked legs.

"The surgery went well," the voice said. "You were quite banged up, but they managed to put you back together. Your hands were the worst, though. They might itch, but at least they were able to heal the burns. I was hoping to talk to you before we started."

Why did she know that voice?

Slowly Mica opened her eyes. Fear filled her belly as she stared into the brilliant eyes of Henrietta Loraine, the Eternal Mother. Her presence filled Mica's vision like smoke and darkness. Her eyes, too large and too white with dark dilated pupils, were set deep in her face. They smoldered. As if someone had set burning coals for eyes into a sun-bleached skull. She was taller and thinner than the last time Mica had seen her during the Re-Incarnate Day Celebration, but she was, unmistakably, always and forever, Henrietta Loraine.

"Morning," Loraine said. "You put up quite a fight. I was impressed. I've never met a Human Element with such... power. Or control." As she spoke, she stretched her neck like she was working a knot out of her muscles. Her shoulders stretched tight against her uniform like she was a skeleton beneath her clothing and nothing more. "We've been waiting a long time for someone like you."

"Where am I?" Mica asked, and her voice rasped from disuse.

"You're safe. With me. Your mind," Loraine said, running a finger around Mica's now shaved head, "is unlike anything we've ever seen before. We'll study you. We'll learn everything we can from that beautiful brain of yours. And, when we're done with all the tests and scans and can't learn anything else from out here, we'll just pop your head open and see what else we can learn. Sound good, Subject 1?" she said and flicked Mica's forehead with her fingers.

Mica struggled against the metal crossing her body. Loraine only smiled. "Don't bother. Oh, and we have a Blind going, so you can't use your abilities."

Fear settled over Mica like a fine mist, but then she had a thought.

"You didn't get them."

Loraine's face changed. The satisfied smiled cracked just enough for Mica to see a sliver of panic.

"They got away," Mica said.

"Not for long." Loraine's eyes narrowed to dark drops of shining oil. "Put her out. Then get started in the morning."

Another face, a woman with kind but tired eyes, appeared at Mica's side, and something cool and prickly slid into her veins. Mica screamed and struggled.

"No, no! Stop it! Stop. Don't... don't...."

Everything went hazy and white.

Then black.

Then there was nothing.

No stars.

No warmth or water or light.

Nothing.

"Mica."

A strange sensation. Like waking up to complete darkness and not being sure if your own eyes are open or not.

"Mica, honey."

I know that voice.... why do I know that voice?

Blinking and trying to see in pitch black.

Shapes and pulses of color. Nothing solid or real.

"Honey, open your eyes." The voice said. A smile in the voice, like... blue star flowers out back.

Blue stars on the door.

Home.

Mica opened her eyes and caught her breath.

The smell of earth and green and wind. A breeze across her face, lifting her hair from her shoulders to tangle around her face. Sunset beams of gold and bronze and bone white.

And... radishes!

The garden!

Winter squashes. Carrots. Onions. The scent of root and leaf and water. The feel of dirt beneath her bare feet. A cool breeze shifted her clothes and brushed past her cheek. Mica looked up.

A woman stood before her. Her hair lifted in the breeze like the branches of a willow tree. Her hands open to Mica, no longer clutched in fear. A smile warmed her face. Their home stood behind her.

"Mica, honey, it's me."

"Mom?"

"Yes. Mica, it's me. You made it," she said. Her tears caught the pinky-gold sunlight and glinted in the corners of her eyes.

"But... am I...."

"No, you're not dead," her mother said. "You're very much alive."

"But, where am I? How did you... you're gone," Mica said with a knot like fear and relief and joy all tangled together in her throat.

"No. Mica, I am alive. I was taken and brought here, to the Capital, Windrose. Here they made me a Watcher."

"They turned you into one of those things?"

"They couldn't turn me into anything I wasn't already. Like you."

Everything was so strange and solid and... something else she couldn't put a finger on.

Mica ran a hand through her tangling hair. She shouldn't have hair: her head had just been shaved. "This isn't real. This can't be home. There is no home anymore. Where are we?" she demanded.

"You and I are in Windrose. Loraine has you, and she has given you a massive dose of the Calm, so you can't use your abilities right now. But I can. She doesn't know about me." She raised her hands and gestured around her. "This is all part of my gift, my ability. As well as being a Watcher, I, like my brother, can give and manipulate memories. This is a memory. One I come to often."

"You're... you're really alive?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you come back?" Mica asked. She could feel the tears starting in her eyes.

"Oh, honey, I couldn't. I wanted to, but I was trapped here. I found my brother, your uncle Seth, and I told him to keep you safe. Did he find you?"

"My uncle? No. I didn't know I had an uncle."

"Well, it doesn't matter now. I've been waiting for you. Now that you're here, it has begun. Oh, Mica, I've missed you so much!"

She held her hands out to Mica, and Mica let herself run through the garden to her mother.