In the Summertime
Part One
This is the final story in the series begun by “Into the Wilderness,” and continued with “Out in the Cold” and “Out of the Wilderness.”
Rone thought that perhaps nothing had looked so inviting as the grass in the midday light. His son, not yet five years old, was out playing in the yard, building a fort out of sticks, telling tales to himself of distant adventures and life in the wilderness. When he came inside, he would want to hear more stories about the wilderness, and his mother would tell him that he would have to wait until bedtime.
When Rone saw his son playing in the grass, he felt a lump in his throat and he had to keep himself from crying, for he was so happy that he began to feel scared and sad. He felt uneasy, for he’d known too much of the world to believe that happiness like this was anything but fragile.
In some ways, it had been easier as a young man. He hadn’t had to worry like this. It was easier when the worst that could happen to you was that you died and left nobody behind.
A soft hand touched his shoulder and he turned around to see his wife, Astor. She smiled at him. “We need to get ready,” she told him. “Go and call Jonam.”
“We can give him five more minutes,” he said. “He looks so engrossed out there.”
“You can spend that five minutes out there with your son,” she said. And she kissed him unexpectedly.
As she walked away, Rone shook his head. He was sure that nothing he did managed to surprise her, but even after nine years of marriage he never knew what she would do next. He didn’t understand how every time she smiled at him it was like it was the first time they’d ever met – when he had found her family out in the wilderness. Sometimes he wondered how it was that she could ever have married him. For he knew that there was nothing written in the world which promised him happiness and there was no reason why he and Astor and their child should not suffer.
When he stepped outside, he could hear Jonam calling to himself, oblivious to the sound of the door.
“Jonam,” Rone said. The boy kept playing but looked up. “Yes, Father?” he said as his father walked across the lawn and squatted down so they could be eye to eye.
“We’re going to need to get ready in a few minutes to go into the town. You don’t want to miss the festival, do you? There’ll be a parade and the warden will give a speech.”
The boy wrinkled his nose. “A speech?” he asked. “Will it be boring?”
Rone tried to suppress a smile. “I can’t tell you that,” he said. “But I can tell you that your grandfather’s name will be mentioned – likely more than once.”
The boy perked up at this. “What is the parade like?” he asked.
“Some of the local militia will march in their uniforms. The firemen, too. The selectmen and the warden will ride along in a carriage. But mainly it will be old men in their old uniforms. Veterans from the Tulip Wars and the Frontier War. You know Old Codyar? He’ll be there. Some of the men are missing a leg or an arm. You mustn’t stare at them or mention it.”
“Will you march in the parade?”
“No.”
“But you and Mother were there with grandfather when he came back from the wilderness. You told me about the Bloodless Revolution.”
“We didn’t see any actual fighting,” Rone told his son. “Besides, that wasn’t very long ago. People don’t want to remember it. Not just yet.”
“It wasn’t?” asked Jonam. “It seems like it was ages ago.”
“That’s because you are not yet five years old,” said Rone. “It was twice your lifetime ago.”
“That’s a long time,” Jonam assured him. “I’m not as young as I was.”
Rone struggled to maintain composure, but luckily Astor called out at that moment. “What are you two up to out there? We need to get ready to go.” As Jonam looked at his mother, Rone chuckled behind his son’s back.
It took them nearly half an hour to get ready, because Jonam decided he had to relieve himself three times. Rone was convinced that he had merely forgotten to do it the first two times, but Astor told him not to make an issue of it. “He’s excited, Rone. He’s never been to a parade before.”
They made their way to the center of town. The streets were packed with families. Children raced about dressed in orange and blue and yellow. Older children waved small orange and blue and yellow flags. Jonam saw two of his friends and made as if to dart off, but his father caught him by the back of his orange and blue and yellow collar.
“You can go play with Mateo and Rodyard for five minutes, but you need to be back here when the bell rings. Your mother and I will be here by the candle shop. I want you back here in five minutes.”
His son nodded without looking at him and Rone held him a second longer than he wanted to, just to make sure Jonam got the message. When he let go, his son was around the corner in a moment. Luckily, Mateo and Rodyard’s parents found them and they took up a place together in front of the candle shop.
“Mateo wanted to know why we don’t have the parade every year,” said Gilly, Mateo’s mother. “I told him it’s the Quintennial. Five hundred years since the founding of our country.”
“We’ve been through more than a few governments since then,” said her husband, who Rone always suspected of having Anti-Bloodless sympathies. Most citizens had celebrated the transition, especially since it had restored self-governance, home rule, local justice, and had lifted the various tyrannies which had been imposed in the previous decades. Rone could remember just how poor the country had grown. Most people were surprised at how much it had prospered just in the last decade. Commerce had been opened up again and the prisons emptied of political prisoners. Members of the Old Revolutionary Party, also known as the King’s Party, had fled the country, along with their king. The old system of government had been restored.
But many citizens were still quietly sympathetic to the old revolutionaries, who had been quite popular when they had taken power and deposed the old stewards. Whenever something went wrong, these citizens blamed the new government and especially the wilders – those folk who had gone out into the wilderness before the Second Revolution and who had returned with Rone.
Rone liked Mateo’s father, though. He was pleased to see the man dressed in orange and blue and yellow. The colors of the Old Revolutionary Party had been purple and green and black.
Five minutes passed. Then another five. Just before the parade was about to start, Mateo and Rodyard came dashing back with Jonam in tow. Sure enough, their clothes were sweaty and slightly stained with grass. The parade started. Astor held her son to keep him from darting out in front of any horses. Rone held his hands behind his back and occasionally saluted one of the passersby whom he knew.
When the rear of the parade came by, the citizens who had been lining the street filled in behind and carried up the rear, with each block of citizens filling in behind the last. In this way, they made their way down to the village green, where the warden was to give the speech.
As they passed the final block, someone called to them. Rone and Astor were walking along the righthand side of the column with their son in between. They turned to look.
A tall, thin woman with dark hair which was almost unkempt, and expensive clothing which was almost disheveled called at them. Rone made as if to pull Jonam forward, but the boy slipped out of his hand.
“Little boy,” the woman called. Jonam stopped and fell out of the column. His parents jumped out to get on either side of him.
She looked at Rone and there was something malicious in her eye and she smiled at him and he felt a stab of fear shoot through him as he moved to grab Jonam and pull him away. His son seemed entranced by this strange woman.
“You do not know who you are, do you?” asked the woman. “Do you, little boy? You don’t know what your parents have done? Who they are? Where do you think the food you eat comes from?”
“I don’t know,” said the boy.
“Jonam,” said Astor firmly.
“From the bones of other little boys and girls,” said the woman.
Jonam’s eyes opened wide. She swept her hands around her.
“Look at all of this,” she said. “This parade. These people. These houses. This town. This country. You think something like this could just come to be? It rests on blood and secrets. You know the stories you’ve been told? Lies. You know the warden’s about to give a speech? Lies.”
Rone grabbed his son and lifted him up onto his shoulders. He and his wife began to walk away quickly.
“Don’t look at her Jonam,” said Rone, but the boy was already turning. The woman was following them.
“Stay away from us,” said Astor.
“You heard me, boy,” the woman called. “Lies. All that you have has been stolen. All that you have has been taken from someone else. There are little children just like you starving.”
“Why?” cried Jonam.
“Because of you,” she screamed at them.
He started to cry. “Why? Whose fault is it?”
“Yours,” she called.
“But I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said.
“You can’t help it,” she screamed.
People were beginning to stare. Astor whirled around. She slipped one hand into the long sleeve of her dress and brought it back out holding a long knife.
“I told you to stay away from us,” she said in a clear voice. “I may speak with more grace than most, but make no mistake – I come from rougher parts. We weren’t much in the way of manners there. If you come near us again, I’ll kill you. You’ve threatened my son once. If I struck you down right now, every court in this land would let me walk free.”
“I know you come from the wilderness,” said the strange woman so quietly Rone could barely hear what she said.
“Then you will know with whom you are speaking,” said Astor. “And you will know that my people…”
“I know who you are,” snapped the woman. She stopped. But she smiled eerily at them. She waved goodbye and stood there watching them. They left her in the road and hurried to the green, where they found Mateo’s and Rodyard’s families.
“Where were you?” asked Gilly.
“An old acquaintance wanted to talk,” said Rone. His wife gave him a quick glance but said nothing. The speech began, but neither Rone, nor his wife, nor Jonam would remember much of it later.
On the way back, Jonam kept looking around to see if the strange woman was anywhere. He held his mother’s hand. His parents surreptitiously scanned the horizon. Luckily, she had disappeared.
“Father,” said Jonam at one point.
“Yes, Jonam.”
“Who was that scary woman?”
“A woman who doesn’t like to see other people happy,” said Rone. “She won’t hurt you.”
“How do you know she won’t hurt me?” asked Jonam.
“Your mother and I won’t let her.”
The boy was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “Why does she hate me?”
Astor looked over their son’s head and met her husband’s gaze. “She doesn’t hate you,” said Astor, but Jonam interrupted her, saying, “Yes, she does! I saw her.”
Rone mouthed to his wife, “I suppose it was always going to come to this eventually.”
“He’s too young,” she mouthed back.
But they had no choice. Jonam knew now something which he hadn’t known before and he could never again be the little boy who didn’t know that there existed in the world that which desired him harm.
They stopped walking. Rone squatted down in front of his son and held him so that he could look the boy in the eyes.
“First of all,” he said. “Don’t interrupt your mother. Jonam, you know the story of how your mother and I came back from the wilderness. You know about your grandfather and how he died. You know that I grew up here and that I went out into the wilderness to find your mother’s people. You know how they returned to bring civilization back to the kingdoms of the world.”
“And they did,” said Jonam. “The Bloodless Revolution.”
“Yes, well, even though it was bloodless, there are still those who aren’t happy about it. People don’t like to talk about it much, especially on a day like today, but it’s true. The people who murdered your grandfather are still around. Some of them might want to hurt your mother and I, or maybe even you.”
“Is she one of the people who murdered Grandfather?”
Rone paused and looked away for a while. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I don’t think so.”
“Then why does she hate me?” he asked. “Does it have to do with the bones of the other little children?”
Rone stood up, because his knees were getting tired and because he started to think they might not want to stay on the road too late. Darkness was already falling. They didn’t have much farther to go.
“Let’s walk,” he told his son. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
He held one of his son’s hands and Astor held the other and they walked together towards their home. As they walked, his mind began spinning. He and his wife had carried weapons ever since her father had been killed, but things had been calm for years. Should they start taking more precautions? Maybe they should move to be with the rest of her family.
“Jonam, you know that we are lucky to live here?” he asked his son. “And that there are people in other parts of the world who are not so lucky, whose lives are hard and who do not know the peace and plenty we know here?”
“Yes. Are they in the wilderness?”
“No. Most of them live in other parts of the world. Ours is a peaceful nation, and has tried to do what it can for those lands, but there isn’t much we can do.”
“Why? Why are they poor? Why do they suffer?”
“It’s too difficult to explain,” said his father. “It’s too complicated. But if I said that the world isn’t always a nice place and that sometimes things happen a certain way and there isn’t much we can do about them, especially big things, would you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there are some people in the world who think it’s our fault. That those of us here in this kingdom, who live in peace and plenty, that our happiness is because of the suffering of those less fortunate.”
“What does fortunate mean?”
“Lucky. Some people think it’s our fault that they suffer. Even though we can’t do much to help them.”
“Is it?” the boy asked, looking up at his father. “Is it our fault?”
“No. But some people think that. Or they like to think it.”
“Why? Why would they want to think something like that?”
“Oh, some people need a reason to hate. They want to hate and they come up with a reason. Other people just need an explanation. It only makes sense to them that if some people are happy and some people aren’t, that one caused the other. It doesn’t work like that. It never works like that. But some people believe that the happiness of our people is the cause of the suffering of others, or they believe that their suffering is the cause of our happiness.”
“But it isn’t?”
“No,” said Astor. “Not at all.”
They couldn’t tell if the boy was convinced or not, but he stopped asking questions. They could tell he was mulling it over. He didn’t speak again until they reached the door of their house, but he gripped their hands tighter.
“Is she going to come back?” he asked when they got inside. “Does she know where we live?”
“No,” said Rone quickly.
The boy was silent for quite some time. Then he asked, “Are you going to have another child?”
Rone and Astor exchanged a glance. “Maybe,” said Astor. “Do you want a little brother or sister?”
“Both,” said Jonam, and they couldn’t help smiling.
It took three-quarters of an hour to get Jonam to bed and Rone didn’t think the boy had really fallen asleep. After he locked the door that night, he moved a shelf in front of it. Then he went around and tried the windows. They were all shut fast and locked on the inside. Still, he wasn’t satisfied.
“We should get dogs,” he told his wife. She sighed, but he could tell she might finally agree.
“You knew her?” asked Astor.
They were standing in the kitchen. She was sipping at a glass of water and he was leaning up against the oven. He’d poured a small measure of wine into a cup and this was sitting on the shelf next to him. Rone took a moment to speak.
“Yes,” said Rone. “Yes, I knew her.”
“She seemed to know who we were.”
“Yes. I knew her as a child. She grew up here. She and I were the same age. I haven’t seen her in fifteen years. She left town, said she was leaving this kingdom for good. She did always hate it here. I was surprised to see her again, but I recognized her immediately.”
Astor watched him. “Were the two of you ever…?”
“No!” said Rone quickly. “Of course not. No, she was always very strange. Even as a little girl. She always talked like that, you know. Said this was a terrible place and we were terrible people.”
“What is her story?” asked Astor. “Was her family poor? Did she resent the rest of you?”
“No,” said Rone. “That was always the funny thing. My circumstances were much worse than hers. No, her parents weren’t wealthy, but they did better than most people in the town. She never wanted for anything as a child. No, she really had very little to complain about. Some people just want to complain. She always wanted to complain. I never really understood it, but as I said, we always thought it was strange. She liked things most people hated and she spent a lot of time talking about how much she hated things most people liked. I figured out eventually she just hated us. But we weren’t unkind to her. I didn’t have much to do with her, to tell you the truth. She complained too much and went out of her way to be weird. She dressed in rags, even though her parents could afford to buy clothes. I mostly had to wear what my mother made.”
“She seemed to single us out in particular,” said Astor.
“Yes. She took a disliking to me. But,” said Rone, looking over and meeting Astor’s gaze, “I don’t think it’s because of me. She hates what your father did. She hates me for bringing you back, and she hates your people because of what you represent.”
“How would she…?” began Astor, but Rone starting speaking almost immediately.
“As a boy,” he said with a smile, “you won’t be surprised to hear I always loved the stories about the men and women who fled to the wilderness. I probably talked about those stories too much and I used to play games – I’d pretend I was one of them, or I’d pretend I was out in the wilderness, or I’d pretend that they came back, or I’d pretend…”
“That you would come out to find us,” said Astor with a smile.
“Yes,” said Rone, glancing down at the ground. “Yes.”
“Did you ever pretend you would meet a young woman out there and bring her back with you?” asked Astor.
“I don’t know. Perhaps. I didn’t think much about girls in those days. I was only a little older than Jonam. But this woman – girl, then – her name is Stellant. Stellant. Anyway, she used to make fun of me about it. I thought she was doing it to be mean, because she liked to be mean to everyone, but she had this real anger about it. She really resented the stories about the wilderness. She really seemed to take it personally that I liked them. I never understood why.”
“Were her parents on the other side?” asked Astor.
“I don’t think so. They weren’t very political. She was. I was a boy and it was a story to me, but she seemed to have this idea that there was something wrong with going out into the wilderness and something wrong with what you were trying to do. I think it had to do with the hatred – well, you saw it today – she hated this kingdom and she hated anyone who likes it around here or who liked history. She was full of all this stuff about how if we had it good, it must be our fault. There must be someone somewhere who was miserable because of us. She was sure the world worked that way, even at seven or eight.”
“What do you want to do now?”
Rone twisted his mouth. “I want to go to sleep,” he said. “In the morning, I’ll go out and talk to a few people in town. Find out if anyone knows anything. I think she just showed up for the first time in fifteen years.”
Astor nodded. She was quiet a moment. Rone asked her what she wanted to do.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she said. And there was in her angular face the shadow of her father and her grandfather and Rone could see in her eyes that which her people had followed and that which had kept them true those many years in the wilderness.
“I will talk to him tomorrow,” she said. “He doesn’t have school.”
Jonam had just started at the town’s small school, but his mother had taught him to write and add and subtract a year ago. Like his parents, he’d learned to read on his own. As had always been the plan, Astor was instructing her son on the side, to fill in any holes and increase the rigor of his education beyond what the town school could provide. On many of Jonam’s days off, Astor put aside her own scholarship and pulled out some of the texts which had been preserved in the wilderness and which had been carried back on that perilous journey. He was old enough, in her eyes, to learn to read them.
Read Part Two.