Page 86 of What Blooms in Barren Lands

Everybody knows that unrequited love is a gut-wrenching matter, but it is love that is, by its basic premise,unrequitablethat is the real tragedy. Loving someone who has died. Yearning for romance whilst living in solitude. Knowing yourself capable of bottomless parental affection for a child you can never have.The object of such love is simultaneously like a phantom limb, something that is missing yet always there, and like a tumour that grows and grows with pain, a malignant hardening of an emotion that would have been beautiful if only it weren’t forced to stagnate inside you, proliferating like diseased cells until it becomes your destruction.

29

GHOSTS’ SOLITUDE

“Are you ready to go, Ren?” Einar’s large, warm hands covered my shoulders completely.

He planted a kiss on the top of my head, careful not to dislodge the quiver of arrows on my back.

“Almost.” I sighed, breathing in the warm, fragrant spring air. “This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.”

We had been resting at a grassy plain, specked by drooping copper ferns, the narrow dirt path disappearing into a forest.

Trees that were perfectly white and completely leafless, serene and skeletal, stood motionless on the downward slope of the plain. Forests of live foliage stretched beyond and over the sloping hills, topped further yet by an imposing mountain range. The rocky tops of the peaks were bare of greenery, rather like balding pates or like pale grey yarmulkes.

The evening was fresh despite the day’s heat, its scent holding a promise of an imminent summer. The buzz of companionable chatter behind us carried on it lightly, echoing into insignificance in the majestic vastness of nature.

“Dead trees? Really?”

“There can be beauty in death.”

“There can be beauty in anything,” he replied pragmatically. “It depends only on who’s looking.”

We rejoined our expedition and trudged on, soon entering the deep forest where the path was lined by fallen pine needles and small round rocks.

There were fifty of us, our numbers down by ten since autumn. Five we had lost in Corte, and five more had decided not to rejoin our clearing squad once the snow had thawed. Others needed much convincing, too, and some only agreed to continue in our efforts under the condition that we would clear the rest of the mountain areas first before descending to any more towns and cities. The logic behind their request was undeniably sound. Furies had a short lifespan, most dying of their own injuries within months of being infected. Even accounting for newly infected people, it was not unreasonable to hope that the longer we gave them, the fewer there would be.

I felt a treacherous itching for a dose of adrenaline from a good hunt after the prolonged inactivity during winter. The mostly deserted mountain huts and refuges were hardly enough to even approach the limits of my skills. Though I admitted this to no one, not even to Einar or Dave, I almost feared that the towns and cities would be virtually empty once we finally got to them. And that I would have no more opportunities to do what I did best. In other words, I was bloodthirsty.

The settlement we reached that evening was among the prettiest we had seen thus far. It consisted of a collection of wooden huts and tents scattered between broadly spreading pine trees that sheltered the dwellings. The ground was very soft underfoot due to layers and layers of years of dry needles. The settlement area was set on a gentle slope, with a ‘buffet’ housed in the largest hut at the top. The trees were sparser there, and the huthad solar panels on its roof. There were wooden tables lined by benches, and we were seated around companionably, residents and visitors, exchanging information and sharing experiences.

“We can use the appliances when it’s sunny,” Raphael said.

He was a small, energetic man with frizzy, fading yellow hair. He looked the way Lucas would have had he lived to forty. Perhaps that was why I liked him instantly. He gave me the impression of being like a lone, sunny dandelion in a field of greenery.

“How good for you!” I smiled at him. “And it’s so calm and beautiful here.”

“Hah, you think so now,mademoiselle.” He wiggled a finger at me. “But when you’re here for months, it can get a little ...claustrophobique, living in the woods. You don’t have a view, cannot see the sky ... But very few infected came our way, which made us decide to stay as long as we have. Untiltheystarted coming ...”

His smile vanished instantly, replaced by a worried frown.

“Who’sthey?” I asked, catching Einar’s alert eye across the table from me.

“Some ...thugson bikes. They ... came twice, taking our supplies. But that isn’t the worst.”

I was opening my mouth to commiserate, but he stopped me, shaking his head.

“The worst is ... about a month ago, they took Yvette and Elise. Those poor, poor girls, and none of us could do anything to stop it.” His eyes glistened sadly. “I can only hope they don’t treat them too badly. Maybe they have more food and they’re safer ...”

Russ, Albert, and the local men around us all went silent, craning their necks to hear our conversation better. Einar exhaled sharply through his nose before recounting ourexperiences with the bikers, a frown gathering on his face like thunderous clouds.

“You’re welcome to partner up with us,” he said, looking directly at Raphael, “and move further up north to one of the vacant settlements we’ve cleared. From what they said, these men are from Bonifacio, so chances are the further away from them you get, the less likely it is that they’ll target you again.”

He then explained the parameters of the standard deal we made with all partnered settlements.

“It goes without saying that we help each other when needed,” Einar continued, and then recounted how we had housed Helga and her people after they got robbed by the bikers.

“Oui, oui... I must discuss with others, but it sounds like a good deal. You seem a fair leader. And, oh, I adore you,mademoiselle.” He smiled and kissed my hand.