Fiction Land by Haywood RR

Author:Haywood, RR
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 1899 Inc Ltd
Published: 2023-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

We stay on the main track heading north.

It gets colder too. I don’t know how, seeing as we’re on the same landmass within the same season, but I figure maybe we’re passing into a micro-climate.

The geography and landscape changes, with heathland broken by rocky outcroppings and small hills of slate and stone. The land undulates. Rising and falling with an ever-increasing sense of being in the true wilderness, which is only magnified when we don’t see anyone else for a few hours.

It’s still nice, and I sit up the front with Alice while the others stay covered and warm in the back. Dozing lightly.

‘You want to sleep?’ I ask Alice.

‘I’m good,’ she says, handling the reins like she’s been doing it her whole life. I think about what the old lady said and Nietzsche and Freud before that, and how this might be the right time to broach a question about her past.

Except I don’t. Not because she put invisible rules on me, but because the kid has obviously been through some bad times, and she needs to process that in her own time without pressure from me.

Plus, who the hell am I to try and help with such a thing? I’m a paranoid guy predisposed to mental health issues who is trained to kill other people.

‘You’re not worried, are you?’ Alice asks, breaking my thoughts as I look at her. ‘About the fortune teller. She was full of shit.’

I shake my head and we roll on ever closer to the north shore.

‘I mean. We’ve all got secrets,’ Alice adds a few moments later.

I don’t say anything. I watch the world go by and look at our horses, Stephen and King, who I think are both girl horses. But whatever.

‘I really like Rachel,’ Alice announces a bit later.

I nod to show I agree, and we keep going.

‘And Svetty’s so pretty.’

I nod again as Alice shoots me a look.

‘And L’s great fun. But Rachel though. She’s lovely,’ she shoots me another look. I look back at her, wondering what her point is. She just laughs and we drive on. ‘Do you remember your mom or dad?’ she asks me.

‘Nope,’ I say. Realising I don’t know their names or anything about them. ‘You?’

She shrugs. ‘Kinda.’

A flash of something on her face. I don’t press it.

‘You said skills are teachable.’

I nod again.

‘Can you teach me how to fight?’

I think about it for a second and try and understand how I would do that, or where I would start from.

‘For defence,’ she says, taking my silence as reluctance.

‘Sure,’ I say.

She grins at me. ‘Can I ask a question? Have you ever killed anyone?’

‘In my story? Yes.’

‘How many?’

I shrug. ‘Couple of dozen maybe.’

‘Oh my god, seriously? What, with guns or by hand?’

‘Both. But it’s not real. I mean. No, Ender Therapy says to us it is real, so it did happen, but I tell myself they weren’t real people.’

She nods. Getting what I mean.

‘You?’ I ask.

‘Have I killed someone?’ she asks with a smile. ‘No. Wish I had though,’ she adds in a quieter voice.

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