Seasons Between Us by Alan Dean Foster

Author:Alan Dean Foster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Laksa Media Groups Inc.
Published: 2020-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

Two hours later, Alan sat at the patio table, alone. The table was set just as it would have been when he and Olwen had evenings together. If she’d been converted, he thought using memory triggers might help bring her back to herself. So he’d dressed in a familiar shirt, uncorked a bottle of their homemade dandelion wine, and brought out the short bodega tumblers they’d bought in Tarragona on their honeymoon. He’d poured the wine to let it breathe, and sat waiting, hoping. He remembered taking these measures on more typical nights, when the stakes weren’t so high, when he’d hoped they could just grab a little time together, once the kids were down, and they were both tired, or melancholy, or outright depressed. Maintaining a relationship after the end of the world was not easy. But they had tried. They had managed. They had found moments—even if some of those moments were partially an act, a performance.

Now he felt on the cusp of his most important performance.

He reached for the handheld radio in front of him on the table, made sure it was on. They’d experimented with hiding it but it needed to be in the open to pick up their voices. And it was a good decoy: its presence obscured the thing they really wanted to hide—the Yadaraf Box, mounted beneath the table, just in front of his knees.

He leaned to speak into the radio. “Check two-one,” he said. “Testing.”

“I read you,” Bran said.

A crackle of static, then: “You guys sound like kids playing army.”

“Thanks, Summer.”

Summer was monitoring from the lookout, watching Olwen’s approach. Bran was closer to hand, in the attic of the cottage, from where he could activate the Yadaraf Box with the remote. Both had a clear view of the patio.

“How far is she?” Alan asked.

“At the property line,” Summer said.

“I guess I’ll leave this on now.”

A pause. More static. Then, Bran asked, “What are you going to do?’

“Talk to her. Try to figure out how much of her is left.”

Bran said, “I’ll hold off using the box until we know, to save juice.”

Bran figured if they used all the energy stored from their solar panels and turbine, they could charge the box for about ten minutes. They had to use it right.

“If it sounds like she’s converting you,” Summer said, “I’m going to shoot.”

“Summer.”

“I’m just saying.”

Bran said, “We need to know first, or you may be killing Mum.”

“Quiet,” Summer said. “She’s at the gate.”

It went silent for a few seconds, and Alan thought they’d both signed off, but Summer added in a whisper: “Don’t bottle it, Dad.”

That peculiar British saying. Don’t bottle it. Don’t choke.

“I won’t,” he said.

The wind was blowing, as it always seemed to do in Wales. He closed his eyes, felt the sun on his face, the air at his shirt collar. Heard the rustle of the leaves in the beech trees lining the gravel track that served as their drive. Smelled the gorse and heather. Pictured the dream of

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