Drowning in Deception (2 page)

She turned on her heel to sprint back in
the direction she had come, but the instant she rushed forward her body slammed
into something hard. The world momentarily went grey and hazy as she flew
backwards, hitting the ground with a hard thump.

She shook her head and blinked the
fuzziness away. When her eyes came in to focus, she sucked in a quick breath. Sitting
in front of her in a similar predicament was a boy. He was shaking his head and
rubbing one of his shoulders. A wide-eyed girl stooped beside him pulling at
his arm, but never taking her eyes off Clover.

The duo in front of Clover looked to be approximately
her age. But they may have been slightly older or younger. It was hard to tell
because of the way they were dressed. They obviously weren't from Eadin. Their
clothing was dull and drab, in shades of off-white, beige and brown. The boy
wore plain pants and a dirty button-front shirt with the sleeves rolled up to
his elbows. The girl was in a long, gathered, boring brown skirt and a bib
style apron, like the one Clover’s mother sometimes wore when cooking or baking.
The girl’s mousy brown hair was pulled into two loose braids, and the biggest
shock of all was that she was wearing absolutely no make-up. Not even a trace
of lipstick. She was, in Clover’s opinion, very plain looking. Clover wouldn’t
have been caught dead wearing braids, and at the very least, lipstick was a
necessity. The girl’s eyes scanned Clover. Clover followed her stare, looking
down at her own bright blue mini skirt and banana-colored blouse.

They assessed each other silently,
cautiously. Clover suddenly wondered where they could be from, if not from
Eadin. She wasn't aware that any other cities existed in the world, and it had
never even occurred to her to wonder such things. And then as quickly as the
curiosity had come, it disappeared. It didn’t matter who they were or where
they were from. What mattered was getting home.

Her tongue was frozen in her mouth. And
even if she had known what to say, she wasn’t sure they would understand. She
didn’t know if people that dressed as they did even knew how to speak. She
slowly got to her feet, brushing the dirt off her skirt and hands while making
sure to keep a careful eye on the boy and girl in front of her. The boy quickly
followed her lead, getting to his feet, with his eyes narrowed and glued to
Clover’s.

She watched as they grabbed for each
other’s hands in a swift motion, clasping them together at their sides. That’s
when it occurred to her that there were two of them and only one of her. Yes,
she had found fear.  Her throat suddenly felt like it was made of sandpaper.

She had to leave. She needed to get back
to where she would be safe. But the trees were so dense here, and the only way
back was directly through the place where the strange couple were standing.
Then she realized that she might be blocking their path too.

Clover found inspiration in the young
maiden from the story she would write. Just as her main character would do, she
squared her shoulders and told herself to be brave. She tentatively stepped to one
side and gave a slight nod, silently allowing the couple room to pass.

The boy cautiously stepped forward,
leading the girl. Clover’s body tensed as her breath snagged in her sandpaper
throat.

He stepped forward again, his body now
right beside hers. Too close. She could see every strand of his messy, dark
hair, every piece of stubble on his jaw line. And she could see his eyes… They
were wide and dark, locked onto hers with a mix of both fear and warning. They
were wild, like the eyes of a threatened animal that is debating whether to run
or to attack. He had a long jagged scar that ran down almost the full length of
his left cheek. Clover had never seen a scar like that before. It wasn’t
something that could have been caused by a fall or other accident. It was a
mark that screamed of danger.

She inhaled to calm herself and that’s
when the sweet earthy smell of him hit her nose. It was a like a fusion of
freshly tilled soil and sweet cakes just pulled from the oven. It was oddly
comforting and she felt her pulsing heart slow as she let her guard down
slightly.

Just as the corners of her lips started
to rise, the boy reached forward and grabbed the bag from her shoulder. It
happened so quickly that she had no time to react, no time to get a hand onto
her bag to keep him from pulling it away.

“Hey,” she squeaked, barely recognizing
her own voice. “That's mine.”

But they were fast. They were already sprinting
away, the girl being led by the boy, who tightly gripped her hand as he pulled
her along.

“Give it back!” Clover yelled. But they
were gone; swallowed up by the dark shadows of the eerie, dank trees.

She was about to holler again
when she remembered
she wasn’t even supposed to be there. When she had stepped over that long line
of white rocks, she had broken a strict law. If she kept yelling, she may as
well be confessing her guilt, announcing her uncharacteristic criminal behavior
and telling the world she should be punished.

Instead, she crossed her arms, hung
her head, and trekked back toward the boundary line and to the safety of the
city. Her bag was gone, along with all of her favorite things. Her book, which
contained three completed stories, drawings and all, would never be seen again.
She shuffled and kicked her feet through the dirt, feeling like a fool for having
disobeyed the rules. She couldn’t tell anyone what she’d done. She could only
hope her mother wouldn’t ask about her bag or her workbook.

When she finally stepped back
over the line, she glanced around tentatively. There was no one there. There
never was. But without her book, she didn’t want to be there anymore either. Her
latest story was lost too as far as she was concerned, the beautiful maiden having
been kidnapped by two strange people in the woods.

***

Clover wandered slowly toward
home. Wanting to take her mind off what had happened, she meandered through the
bright sun-lit forest before reaching the side roads of the city. Eadin was
such a pleasant place to live. It was clean and the people were all agreeable.  

She walked along the suburban
side roads with their neat little single dwellings and row houses, none of
which was more than three stories high. In fact, there was only one building in
the entire city that was taller; the Watch Tower stood tall and proud in the
city center with its reflective windows and tiered form. The bottom two levels
spanned an area of five city blocks and the next two levels up spanned a little
less, and so on, all the way to the top. It looked like a gigantic square
wedding cake, with the top layer reaching high into the sky.

Her father worked on the top
floor. He was the man in charge up there. On the roof was a landing pad for three
large, dual rotor helichoppers. Every night her father and the other men on the
top floor worked hard keeping their city safe. Many nights they would fly over
the Wall to check the area on the other side. They would make sure the monsters
were not doing anything that might bring harm to the citizens of Eadin. He had
told Clover at times, when her mother wasn’t around, that sometimes he even had
to fight the monsters. She couldn’t imagine anyone as brave or as wonderful as
her heroic father.

After a long time of walking on and
gazing at the perfectly manicured lawns and flowerbeds of the brightly colored
homes, Clover was almost ready to go home. She stopped at the playground near her
house and sat on one of the swings, shuffling her feet in the dirt beneath. She
was feeling better, deciding that maybe her story wasn’t lost forever. It was,
after all, still in her head. All she needed was a new workbook.

A little girl with straight black
hair took the swing beside her. “Hi,” she said to Clover.

“Hi.”

She looked to be about seven or
eight years old, which was just around the age group that Clover liked to write
her stories for.

“What’s your name?” the girl asked.

“Clover. What’s yours?”

The little girl walked backward
and quickly pulled her legs from the ground, causing her to fly past Clover on
her swing. But she didn’t take her eyes off Clover. “I’m Janie.”

“Nice to meet you, Janie.” Clover
remained sitting still, watching the girl fly back and forth.

“My mom told me to come play at
the park. I was bothering her with too many questions.”

“Questions about what?”

Back and forth she went, getting
higher and higher. “Oh, you know. All kinds of things. Why is the sky blue? Who
invented the clock? Why do I have to make my bed every day if I’m just going to
mess it up again each night?”

Clover had to laugh a little. They
were very good questions, and ones she’d never thought to ask.

She found herself answering the
little girl in the way that her mother answered the few questions that she had asked
as a child. “What does it matter? We are safe, happy and healthy. You should be
content with things as they are and not worry about why they are the way they
are.”

Janie flew off her swing, landing
gracefully on her feet. She turned and tilted her head at Clover, squinting one
eye closed from the mid-day sun. “Yeah, that’s what my mom said too.” And she
skipped away toward the slide.

Clover supposed it was the mom
kind of thing to say. As she thought about her own mother, guilt started to
creep up the sides of her neck. She had crossed the boundary line. She could
tell no one of her crime. That meant keeping it from her mother, which in
Clover’s mind was the same thing as lying. And lying was not something that
Clover Swelton did.

It was late afternoon when Clover
finally decided to go home. She approached the house slowly, wondering if it
would show on her face or in her mannerisms that she had broken a law.

The house didn’t appear to be
grinning knowingly at her as she had thought it would. It looked the same as
always; a plain, two-story house, standing in its respective place in line with
all of the other identical, plain, two-story houses that stood along the
street. Theirs was painted a medium green color and the front door was dark
blue. She was relieved to find no one was waiting to take her away to punish
her in whatever way criminals were punished. One thing she knew for certain was
that she didn’t want to find out, and vowed in that moment that she would never
step over the boundary line again.

She located her mother in the
back yard, knitting a blanket.

Knitting was her mother’s chosen
work. She knit sweaters and blankets, and other such woolen things, to give
away to people at the Watch Tower market. That’s how things were in Eadin.
People did only what they enjoyed doing. Their neighbor, Mr. Vandy, liked to
drive. So he owned a car, and was always ready and willing to drive people any
place they needed to go. Sometimes in the winter, when the weather was bad, he
would drive Clover’s father to work. Though, mostly they walked everywhere,
unless their destination was on the other side of the city.

It was a system that worked well.
The people of Eadin had vast interests and there was always someone with the
expertise who was more than willing to get a specific job done. It was as if Eadin
was a giant jigsaw puzzle and each person was a piece that fit into it
perfectly. Clover didn’t know why or how things were this way. But the whys and
the hows didn’t matter, because it worked. Her father always told her that they
were lucky to live in a place where they could do the things they wanted to do,
and where everything they needed was available to them.

Clover’s choice for work was
writing children’s books. Once she had completed the stories in her workbooks, she
would take them to Mrs. Dancoup, whose job was to print them. Mrs. Dancoup had
a special machine that produced wonderful paperback books which included Clover’s
stories right along with her artwork. Her bound books were then given to
whoever wanted to read them.

Clover’s ten-year-old brother,
Sprigg, was in the back yard too, tossing a ball in the air and catching it.
She stopped and watched him for a moment, admiring how his auburn hair slid
down his neck when he looked up. He stopped and flashed her a sideways grin,
and she couldn’t help but smile back. She was proud of her little brother and
had a feeling he would grow into a wonderful, handsome man.

“Hey, Clove. Catch,” he said as
he whipped the ball at her face.

Thankfully, she had good reflexes
and quickly shifted sideways, the ball narrowly missing her eye.

She walked the few steps to
retrieve the ball as she teased, “You little brat!” They had the usual sibling
squabbles, but they never lasted long. Being seven years apart in age, they had
little in common, but Clover adored him. And she believed that he looked up to
her.

“Sprigg. Take that ball and go
play in the field,” her mother scolded, though it sounded more like she was
teasing than angry. Her voice was always chipper and friendly.

His shoulders slumped. “Okay.” He
took the ball from Clover’s outstretched hand and gave her shoulder a nudge
before shuffling away.