The Town Where Echoes Linger by Boris Bacic

Author:Boris Bacic [Bacic, Boris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

30

CALEB

He went to see Heather almost every day. Some days, he would be assigned tasks that made it impossible to go to the abandoned cemetery, and on those days, he would not be able to stop thinking about Heather. He’d completely withdrawn from communicating with the other initiates, except for when he had to, regarding certain duties, classes, etc. He didn’t think anyone would find it strange because he had already been like that.

Even Barak didn’t seem to notice the difference. The distancing between the two of them had either happened too gradually for Barak to notice anything, or he’d found a new friend to replace Caleb. Either way, it worked well for Caleb because he didn’t need to explain his withdrawal.

When with Heather, they talked, and they kissed. He sometimes brought the books from the alleys with him, and the two of them read them together. They told each other about their lives growing up in Elysian Garden and admired the differences between how the men lived versus how the women lived.

“I hope I’m not crossing any lines, but I wanted to ask you something,” Caleb said.

“Go ahead,” Heather said.

They were sitting on the bench at the cemetery, so close their thighs were pressed against each other. Heather was running her fingers through Caleb’s hair, a feeling he’d learned he very much enjoyed. He was holding one hand on Heather’s thigh, gently caressing it.

“I know women in the Fertility House are used to bear children for the community. Have you… um… have you…?”

He looked down, trying to think of the way to ask the question without it sounding offensive.

“You want to know if I’ve slept with anyone yet,” Heather said.

“Y-yes. Yes. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” He looked at his lap and removed his hand from her thigh in embarrassment.

Heather let out her cute, infectious laugh. When Caleb looked at her, she was beaming at him.

She took his face into her hands and gave him a long, hard kiss. There were moments when she was overcome with affection toward Caleb, he’d learned. Moments like these. At first, he’d thought she was smiling at him because he had something on his face or because he was doing something weird. He didn’t even know there was such a thing as smiling because a person was looking at someone they liked.

“Not yet. Most of the girls at the Fertility House don’t enter the breeding phase before the age of eighteen unless they’re personally chosen by the prophet,” Heather said.

A simultaneous load of relief and dread crashed over Caleb. He was seventeen. She was sixteen. They had almost two years before it happened. But when it did happen, what then? Just the thought of someone else touching Heather made Caleb sick to his stomach.

His mind rapidly spun to find a solution to him and Heather staying together.

He could try to move from the initiate rank to a disciple, and then be chosen for the role of seed giver, as the prophet called it, and if he got really lucky, he might be paired with Heather.

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