Rae's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

The photo of the man on the ridge still burned in Rae's mind. She could not run forever. She needed walls, a roof, a place hidden high where no hunter could climb. Marcus knew such a place. He led them along the fallen redwood until they saw it. A broken stone spire rested on a giant limb far above the ground. Weathered towers. Cracked windows. Half a castle, perched where nothing should perch. "Nobody looks up," Marcus said. Four words. He started climbing. The climb took an hour. Rae carried her daughter on her back. The glowing boy scrambled ahead with his gold hands, laughing. Rawlings came last, sweating, gripping every root. "A castle in a tree," he panted. "You people are insane." He hauled himself onto the limb and lay flat, chest heaving. Then he looked at the old spire and grinned. "But it's ours." Inside, the stone was cool and dry. Old rooms. Thick walls. A high window with no ladder to reach it. Rae set her daughter down on the floor. The girl and the boy ran off together, their small feet slapping stone. For the first time in days, Rae let her shoulders drop. This could work. This could hold. A haven. The thing she had promised every hunted mother out there. Then a winged sausage flapped in through the broken window. The boy shrieked with joy and chased it. His hands flared brighter. Where his light touched the old cracked stones, moss burst green. A dead vine budded. Rae stared. The place was answering him. Rawlings laughed. "Look at that. The kid's growing the walls back." He held out his hand. Rae's daughter grabbed his thick finger and pulled him along. Marcus stood in the doorway, watching his brother stumble after two glowing children. Something in the huge man's face softened. "We can bring the others here," Rae said. "The mothers. Their kids. All of them." She looked at Marcus, then Rawlings. "We have a home now." That night they sat together under the high window. The children slept in a pile, breathing slow. Rae felt full. Safe. Then Rawlings pulled the camera from his pocket. He flipped through the day's photos, smiling. Rae watched over his shoulder. He stopped on one. A picture of the spire, taken from below during the climb. In the corner of the frame, far down on the forest floor, stood a man. Small. Looking up. A dark shape held to his eye. Rae's stomach turned to ice. She grabbed the camera. She had climbed a mountain to hide. And the leader had watched her do it. He knew the tree now. He knew the spire. "He followed us," she whispered. "He knows where the children are." The haven was built. And it was already found.