Terror of the Shadow

CHAPTER TWELVE

Morning was like waking up from a dream into an even stranger one. His mind grappled with trying to remember where he was and how he got to be there. All he saw was dark.

The night only served to blur the already unfamiliar surroundings. It was only when Laban finally found the strength to sit up and rub the sleep from his eyes that he realized where he was. He was home.

Truly home.

There would be no more sleeping in communal tents full of noise and men that only over stopped talking to sleep, and even then sometimes a few of them would carry on conversations in their dreams. Now he had a bed and a solid roof to sleep under. The old apartment was in need of more than a little repair and the floor could have used a good scrubbing, but now it was home. For the first time in his life, he felt he actually had one. And for the first time in a very long time, he had a family.

Laban looked over at the bed where his mother had been sleeping. The sheets were disheveled and empty. A shadow moved somewhere in the darkness. Laban nearly fell out of his bed in surprise.

"Mom?" Laban muttered.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said a calm, soft voice. "Did I wake you?"

She emerged from the shadows into the silvery light of the moon streaming through the cracked pane of the window. She grasped the end of her knobby cane in one hand and a small cloth parcel in the other.

"Um... no. It's okay," said Laban. "What are you doing up?"

"I've been awake. I thought I would put together some food for you before you leave."

"You didn't have to make... wait, you have food? How did you get food out of the commissary?"

"The what?"

"Sorry. The place where they... have all the food."

"Oh. I don't know. I just have a few things I had left over from what they gave me last night. Is that... bad?" "No, no, no. That's fine..." Laban yawned. "What did they give you?"

"Oh... mostly just some fruit, but... I don't really know what any of it is."

"Here. Show me. Come sit down," said Laban.

He wrapped his arm around his mother. His heart sank when he felt how truly thin she was. There wasn't much of her left.

He eased her gently down onto her bed, then took her cane and placed it carefully against the wall before sitting down on his own bed opposite her. She unraveled the parcel she held in her hands, revealing a handful of dried fruits. Laban picked out a shriveled, purple berry out of the pile, no bigger than the end of his little finger.

"This one's from a Roshe fruit. There aren't a lot of them left in the wild, apparently, but they grow really well without much water, so they've been growing a bunch of plants in the gardens here." Laban popped the berry into his mouth.

His mother smiled faintly.

"What?" Laban asked.

"You. You're all grown up. You're already so at home in this place... I just feel like a stranger."

"Don't worry, mom," Laban replied. "I'll take care of you."

"I know you will. But you'd better get going, right?"

"Yeah, I do," Laban stood up from the bed. "I'll see you later tonight."

His mother began to bundle up the parcel of fruit again.

"Don't bother," Laban protested. "You really should save all this food for yourself. You need it more than I do."

"I'll be fine. You've got to eat so you can be my big, strong hunter. Besides, I'm sure you'll bring me even more food when you get back."

"Fine. I'll take the Yotinns, but only because those are my favorite," Laban said, picking out dried slices of a fleshy, yellow fruit. "But you have to promise me you'll finish off the rest of it while I'm gone, okay?"

She chuckled and said: "Don't worry about me, Laban. I've taken care of myself for this long. Now get going! Or the other hunters might just leave without you."

"Alright, ma. I'm going."

Laban planted a soft kiss on her forehead before turning towards the door. He had his hand on the knob when she said: "I love you, Laban."

Laban looked back over his shoulder.

"I love you too," he said.