Lawrence Bluewell

2006 Years After Novus

River Colony, Joint Province of Campora, Woodlands, and Claymoore

 It was early when I got up because I was used to waking up an hour or two before sunrise – that was when I usually did my homework, since there was so much to do after school, and I’d also just rather go to sleep early and wake up early. While I could breeze through literature, geography, and biology, math took me especially long to do, and if there was a test that day I had to put in a solid hour of work to warm my brain up or I would fail miserably.

My family was all like that – really, really bad at math, which was weird. We could eyeball measuring things – especially when it came to guessing someone’s shoe size – but when it came to equations and fractions, most of us were pretty useless on both sides of my family. They kept encouraging us to find a partner that was good at math, but I couldn’t name anyone that married into our family that was good at it either.

So the joke that Mrs. Tealwing probably paid for her two horses with the money she earned from tutoring my siblings, cousins and I in math…had a lot of truth in it.

I wasted no time in getting dressed, my clothes already laid out and boots under my bed. I dressed for the run in light clothes before I sat on the floor and pulled on my boots. They were made of some sort of synthetic material that I was told was made to mimic leather but withstand a lot more wear and tear, the fabric soft from years and years of aggressive wearing.

They were special, and I knew that because they were passed down through the Blue clan, the men of which were almost all trained to be shoemakers, which made these special. We trained to custom make shoes for people, which was a lot of freaking work because everyone’s foot was different, so a lot of cutting and shaving and grinding went into making someone the perfect shoes…

But these?

There were like magic. Anyone could wear them, and you just had to stomp your feet and pull on the laces to make them fit your feet. I mean, not anyone, clearly, but...if you were older than ten years old, you could put them on. When I first got them they were really loose because I got them from cousin Hester, but sure enough – even though his feet were almost twice my size – it didn’t take much before the shoes were able to fit me like a glove, and they still did today, even though I had gone up at least four sizes since then.

And I’d wear them for the rest of my life. The only reason Hester gave them to me was because he didn’t have any sons – just eleven daughters, who all had daughters – so he decided that instead of waiting for his toddler grandson to be able to wear them, he gave them to me last year.

They were one of few things in the colony that had seen the outside world, as Big Blue having worn these same boots when he settled the colony at sixteen with his wife.

I took a second to adjust my shoes, reaching down and tugging on the straps by my toes, loosening it a fraction until it was comfortable but fitted. I briefly tapped my toes and heels to the floor, the fabric relaxing slightly in the strange, ‘smart tech’ way that made it clear that they were from the outside of the colony.

I swallowed thickly as I touched the bottom of the boots, where is read in a bright white ‘Property of Trinity M.A.N.’. I was never told specifically what that meant, only that big Blue had won the shoes after a fight with a nightwalker outside the colony, and I mean, how cool is that? My ancestor beat up a nightwalker and got his boots as a reward. I bet that guy told his descendants about it to this day.

I jumped to my feet then, rolling my ankles and going up onto my tippy toes as I stretched, getting mentally prepared for the task at hand while I stretched my calves.

I could make it to Riverside.

I had run there before.

So as long as Mama slept for the next hour, I’d be okay.

She always took a few drops of sleep aid in her nightly tea, had since she lost Joy, so I knew that I’d have at least an hour. As it was Saturday, she usually slept an hour longer than when she’d usually get up at five, but since it was my birthday I knew she’d be up and moving to get ready for the party.

And she’d know pretty fast that I was gone, since I wasn’t going to lie to Mama and leave a deceitful note, and my sisters would only be able to stall so much before she figured out what was going on.

After grabbing my coin bag and zipping it up in a pocket on my thigh, I checked the time – it was just before three in the morning.

I could do this.

I had time.

I quickly tiptoed down the hall to look into my parents bedroom to see both my parents were passed out, the inside dogs sprawled out on their bed as well. I crept into their room to check their alarm clock and saw that Mama had it set for an hour from now, which was exactly what I needed.

I licked my lips and crept back out of the room, going down the stairs and out the back door.

As soon as I was off the porch, I started to jog. The outside dogs ran with me to the fence, watching silently as I left. They weren’t allowed to leave the property unless they were on a leash, and my Dad was the one holding that leash – I couldn’t wait until I was strong enough to be able to walk with them so they could go with me, since right now they’d drag me easily if they wanted.

My jog turned into a sprint then.

I quickly came across my grandparents’ house – the parents of my father, my mother’s family in Daisy Fields, the next town over – but I knew that they wouldn’t be much help, not unless I was willing to jump in Grandpa’s arms and beg for protection from my Mama, which I wasn’t.

Not many people were willing to get between a mother and her child, and the only people that were were usually family, and all of mine were on my mother’s side.

Freaking crazy people. Even the ones I considered sane like my Dad’s parents and sisters went along with the crazy because they were nice people and, if no one was drawing blood, they just let it be.

I sucked in a breath as I ran, finding the road to town and getting on it to run as fast as I could away from the direction of my home.

I huffed as I glanced up and saw the bright moon in the sky just above the mountains, because of course it was a full moon. Sweet baby Jesus, I couldn’t get a freaking break. I’m sure my mom and her sisters would have a whole crazy spiel about why that was important for the ceremony. That was probably why she had been cooking that gross smelling tea earlier and put it in the fridge.

Full moons and new moons were always such a freaking thing. They could never just be a phase in the moon cycle.

I gagged at the very thought of it as I continued to run, the dirt road giving way to pavement, the stones new and ones I had helped put down myself with many of the other men in town. The mayor figured if we made our little town look more official, then Riverside would finally have to admit we were our own place, but I didn’t think that was ever going to happen.

I really didn’t get why it was such a big deal anyway.

Riverside was so cool.

They were the third biggest city in the colony, and had pretty much anything you wanted. Our town used to be a campsite, but I guess a bunch of people decided to get together and build a town or whatever, and now that we had a couple hundred, they thought that meant we could finally break away.

But our mail all said Riverside on it.

We were a town currently called Citrus Grove, but had gone by Citrus Field, Citrus Creek, Citrus Meadows because I guess there was a law that once you try to register as one town, if the place you were branching off of rejected you you couldn’t register again, so now we were Citrus Grove and we weren’t going to try and register again.

We were just going to pretend we were independent.

Which was kind of stupid.

But whatever.

I followed main street all the way through town, running across the park beside the library where I worked on the weekend putting away books and then sprinting across the sports field where I saw old man Silver working his push mower across the grass, a pair of his descendants (great, great, great, great – maybe another great - grandsons) picking up the piles of cut grass to dump them in cloth bags.

They all looked toward me and one of the younger boys laughed. “Need some water there, Renny?” One called, and I slowed, panting hard as I turned to go toward them as one of the younger ones took a water bottle out of the bag he wore on his back to hand it to me. I thanked him as I quickly twisted the lid, taking a long drink.

“Who’d you piss off now, boy?” Old man Silver – called Leo, like every single first born male in his freaking family were called, the first born girls named Leona or Leola– asked with a scowl as he pushed his mover toward me. He was a founder of our colony and came by for a week every month to help Miss Leona Silvergrave with her pharmacy. He also liked to go around ‘fixing up’ whatever he could get his hands on, putting Miss Leona’s boys, to work with him. They mowed the park. They painted the school house. He even swept all of main street once with them.

It was probably the only work those two kids saw, their mother otherwise babying them. I don’t even think I had seen them out of their strollers for the first five years of their lives unless Old Silver was with them.

“I’m trying to avoid my mom.” I gasped as I finished my drink, handing it back to the little boy.

Old man Silver’s face brightened up. “Oh, it’s your birthday!” He said cheerfully as he pushed his glasses up his nose, the same style that both his descendants wore as well, though theirs had laces ties around their heads to keep them on since they were basically toddlers and couldn’t be trusted not to let them fall. “Happy birthday, Little Lawrence!”

“REN. It’s Ren now.” I insisted as I reached down to pull on the top of my boots, glancing back the way I came out of fear Mama would be there sprinting after me.

She liked to come up out of nowhere on you.

His gaze was drawn to my boots and I could have sworn his face twitched before he looked back up to me with a sharper, humorless gaze. “I’ll start calling you Ren when you are man, little fairy bait.” The old man said in the same cheerful tone, his eyes dead serious.

I scowled and whipped my head around to glare at him, pointed a finger at him. “Don’t call me a fairy, Silver!”

Suddenly the humor was back when the two almost-toddler by him giggled at me. “Your Mama’s gonna get you if you don’t run!” He laughed as he started pushing again at his mower. “Dawn is only an hour away, and she’ll get you real fast!” He said around his merry laughter, the younger boys joining in as they dragged their cloth bags behind their ancestor to collect the grass clippings.

I groaned and turned to start running again, climbing over the low wall at the end of the field and onto the dirt path there.