The Secret War - 1st novel in the Shadow Series

Chapter 11 .

VAI

I saw Callie for the last time 80 years ago. We spent the afternoon on a tour skiff, gliding over the herds of elephants that lived wild on the Jeddak savannah to the South of the city. Later that night, we were planning to meet up with our extended circle of friends for a celebration, but for now we wanted to be alone.

"Have you decided yet what you will be?" she asked. I knew what she meant, but she clarified anyway. "Now that they won't need you to fight the K'thaktra?"

"I'd like to be an elephant," I said. "Is that possible?"

"I'll be one, too." She leaned in and put her head on my chest. The breeze lifted some of her blonde hair up to tickle my face.

"You'd always lead the rest of us to the best water. The best . . . bushes. Tree bark. Fruit. What else do elephants eat?"

"Palm fronds," I said.

"What delicious palm fronds we would feast upon."

"Fine," I said in mock frustration, "whatever you want." I looked away to try to hide my smile.

"Now we're talking." She stood on her tiptoes for a kiss, so I leaned down and gave her one.

We passed over a small hill where a cluster of elephants stood apart from their herd.

"What's happening there?" Callie asked.

"Skiff, tardo," I said.

The skiff slowed and circled above them. A gray matriarch moved her trunk over a gargantuan bull lying unmoving in the pale grass. There was an eerie silence over the scene. The other animals investigated the deceased male in an elaborately mournful way, hanging their heads, making not a sound. Circling him in a strange procession of swinging trunks and stamping feet.

The silence infected us, too. When Callie finally spoke, it was in the smallest whisper. "Let's go back to the city. It's almost time to meet up with the others anyway."

The horrors of the war that we had lived with for so long had made her hypersensitive to death. I didn't know what those horrors had done to me.

She sat down and faced away from the elephants. I put my hand on her knee.

On the way back to the city, I thought about her question. Had I decided what I wanted to be, now that the war had ended, thus dashing my hopes of growing up to be a killer of the k'thaktra? It was my 16th birthday. I was approaching the age when a person was expected to know. But it was a question I had no answer for.

We went to an outdoor concert with Emilio and Posha and an extended group of friends. Ate cucumber sandwiches Posha had made. Drank cans of mineral infusers. Afterward we all went as a big group—I think there had been 16 of us—to eat at an all night restaurant and talk about the music. It was a pleasant night. Maybe the best I can remember.

I got home and found my dad sitting in the dark. "Nice night?"

"Oh, yes," I replied dreamily.

"Good." His manner was stiff. He sat in his favorite chair with his hands gently gripping the armrests. Something about his motionlessness seemed off. I remember thinking he must have been angry, and braced myself for another confrontation about Callie, and how he disapproved of my friends, and didn't want to see me throw away the opportunities he had worked so hard to create for me. But no confrontation came. After a silence, he said, in a slightly high tone, "Good night, Vai."

"Good night, Dad. Happy birthday," I said, to remind him that he hadn't wished me one.

"Happy birthday."