(Following is an excerpt from my novel, The Last Butterfly, that I’m workshopping this week at Colgate University in New York…feeling excited to reconnect with these characters…finally going to finish my edits/plot-hole fixes! It’s told in the voice of Luna, a 15 year old who lives in the deadzone of what was once central Indiana, in the year 2196.)
May 16, 2196
I thought he was a bad man, come to kill me in my sleep. Or rape me. I opened my mouth to scream, and a hard hand clamped my mouth shut. It was a man, a tall man looming over me in the darkness.
Then I saw it was Reece, whispering to be quiet. He’d climbed in my window, silently, like a cat.
I was dreaming. I thought I was dreaming.
Until he said my name, said to come with him, hurry.
“There’s not much time, Luna, hurry. Shh. Don’t wake Augusta.”
“Where’s your Papa?” he hissed, then shook his head when I began to answer. “Never mind. See if your Mama is sleeping,” he whispered. “Don’t wake her.”
I peeked through the doorway in the adjoining room. Mama slept with Stella curled on one side and Thor on the other.
We crept silently past Mama, through the dome, and out into the yard. A thousand stars lit the clear night. I looked up at Reece. He looked stronger, taller, thinner. His hair was loose, and past his shoulders now.
I threw my arms around him, felt myself dissolving in tears of joy at seeing him again. He wrapped his arms around me, hugged me tight to his hard bony chest. He smelled of sweat and dirt and fire. “I don’t have much time,” he said. He took hold of my upper arms and pushed me gently away.
“Luna, I have to go, I can’t stay. I came to warn you. I was going to tell Daniel, or Chan—where is everyone?” I started to tell him everything, how Bart and Crimson and David left, about the bone, about Chan and Nikki and Lev and Antonia leaving the colony.
He cut me off. “Where’s your Papa?”
“How did you know he’s gone?”
“It doesn’t matter—I looked through the windows, all of them. Is my father the only man here?”
“He’s supposed to be on watch,” I said.
“Well, he’s watching with his eyes closed,” Reece said, he smiled a little, a flash of his old joking self.
“Don’t you want to see him? And Grammie? Why are we whispering?”
His dark eyes met mine. “There’s no time, I have to go or I’ll be missed. “ He looked old, suddenly, and hard. Dangerous. “I don’t want anyone tracking me here. Soldiers have no hearts, Luna, even in the Freedom League. They’d kill your chickens and take the goats, take all your food, and probably do – horrible things…” He took a deep breath, and then kissed the top of my head. “People do horrible things, Luna,” he whispered.
He thrust me away again. His voice was edged with panic. “Just listen, okay? No more talking. You have to tell everyone what I’m telling you, and you have to get it right.”
And then he told me how South Bend was in Junt’s control, how the Junt army had slaughtered everyone, and taken control of the IonoWave.
“But– Chan! Nikki! Lev—they’re going there! To work, to earn freehold –“
“There’s no time, Luna. I have to go! You need to leave here, right away. Leave and head south. Indianapolis is still safe, and fortified. There are Junt guerillas heading south. They’ll do more than kill your chickens, do you understand?” He shook my shoulders. “If they find you, they’ll kill you all. You can’t be here! Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“I have to go. I have to get back before I’m missed.”
“But…” I began, dazed. “Don’t, please, don’t go!”
“Take this.” He pulled a big, sheathed knife from his pocket. “Tie this onto you. If someone tries to take you, stab him in the eye, or in the balls. Then run, hear me? Run!”
“Reece, you’re scaring me. Stay with us! Come with us!”
He shook his head. His long dark hair shone in the starlight. “You don’t understand. I’ve pledged my service. We have to try to stop them, Luna. I have to go. Please. Wake everyone when I’ve gone. And then go! Go south.” His words spilled out in a rush. “Don’t let my father come after me. Tell him I love him. Tell Grammie…” his deep voice caught. He pulled me into his arms for just a moment. One of those long moments, where time stretches out. I felt his heart beating hard in his chest.
“I love you, Luna,” he whispered. I looked up at him, wordless. He kissed me hard, on the mouth. I tasted salt. I gripped onto his arm. He wrenched himself away, pulling free from my grasp. I dropped the knife.
He bent and picked it up. His face was wet with tears. “Don’t let this go,” he said, handing the knife to me again. “Wait five minutes. Then wake everyone, and go!”
“But Papa’s in Greenfield,” I said.
“If he’s not back when you’ve packed, go without him,” Reece said. “Just go.”
He left me then, alone under the black sweep of the sky, the amaranth dancing in the soft breeze, the goats and chickens stirring softly, the crickets chirping.
If I hadn’t had the knife to prove he’d come, no one would have believed it.
eeo 