The Troubled Sky

by Caitlin Gallacher-Turner

The earth trembled beneath her feet. She shivered at the cold touch of the moist air against her bare arms. Rectangular slabs of stone, about thirty hands high, stood in a perfect circle around her. In the center of the stones lay a round, flat altar. She sat upon it and drew her knees up to her chest and shivered again when, in the distance, she heard the howl of a wolf. Cira felt a cold, salty tear run down her nose. She was cold and scared. Where was she?

A branch snapped in the forest behind her and she jumped at the sound. She could hear a rhythmic rustling of leaves—the sound of someone walking. She backed away from the source of the sound until she felt her back against one of the cold, stone monoliths. She quickly scurried to the other side of the stone.

A hand touched her shoulder.

Cira screamed. She ran back into the circle, away from the hand. She made for the other side, hoping to escape into the woods. A shrouded figure appeared before her. Before she could run in the other direction the figure slowly raised a gloved hand and Cira felt herself flung upon the ground.

"Stop running. It will do you no good."

She could not place the voice. "Who are you?" she whispered.

"A guardian."

If Cira had had the strength she would have screamed and had she thought it would have done any good, she would have tried to escape again. Instead she simply lay on her back letting the tears run down her face while she tried to speak around the sobs which were bubbling uncontrollably in her throat.

"What do you want?" she sobbed in misery. "I have done nothing! My family is clean! I swear to you!"

The raspy voice softened slightly. "A guardian cares nothing of these technicalities. We have our duty, given to us by our creator. It is our duty to find those like you so that He might find you. Beyond that we have no other consideration."

"But my family," she managed around her frightened tears, "none of them have it. None of them."

"They do. This much I can tell you."

"But none of them were called!" she screamed.

The voice became harsh and commanding once more. "That does not matter. Gifted come from gifted. Therefore your family must be gifted. But even if they are not, this does not change the fact that you are."

Cira sobbed openly now. The guardian waited silently until her crying had almost ceased.

"Go back," it commanded.

"And then what?" Cira dared to ask. "What will happen to me then?"

"We do not know and we do not care. I have done my duty. You may go."

As the forest and the stone circle disappeared from her vision, Cira heard a scream. Not her scream, the scream of the guardians. Why they screamed she did not know, nor did she care, for when she opened her eyes, light from the flickering fire welcomed her and she heard the thunder from the sky, and she was home.

.

She heard the sound of shuffling feet as her mother came into the room to poke at the weak fire. She looked over her shoulder at Cira.

"Should be getting up now," Tana admonished. "There is work for you to do."

Cira groaned and pushed away the blanket as she sat up on her pallet. "I know." She rubbed her eyes in an attempt to get rid of the weariness. She felt her mother watching her.

"Cira?" she asked in a concerned tone. "Cira? What is wrong?" 

Cira tried to put on what she hoped was an innocently confused look. "Wrong? Nothing is wrong. What are you talking about?" 

Tana sighed and sat down next to Cira. She slipped her arm around her daughter's shoulders. "You just look worried, that is all. Did you sleep well? You didn't have any bad dreams did you?" 

Cira looked into her mother's eyes. There was terror there. Every parent among their people worried in this way when their children turned thirteen; that was when the gifted were found. Everyone knew of the test that was conducted with every child found with the gift. 

Cira had turned thirteen three days ago.

"Mother, it's really nothing. I just had a hard time sleeping."

She had seen a child be given the test once when she was very young. The purpose of the test was to determine the strongly gifted from the weak. When a child showed signs of being gifted, they were brought before Lord Sarus, whereupon he would then unleash his power upon them. The child, then, had to either use their untrained power to instinctively protect themselves, or be killed. Those who survived the ordeal were taken from their families and given a home inside the palace walls where they were then trained to use their gift to serve the Lord Sarus and their people.

Cira felt her mother take her firmly by the shoulders.

"Cira?" she whispered hoarsely. "Promise me that is all it was." 

Cira bit her lips and stared at the floor of the hut, watching the light from the dying fire dance across the damp wooden planks. 

"Cira look at me," her mother demanded.

She looked up into her mother's pale face and dark eyes. She tried to contain her tears. She opened her mouth to speak but all that came past her lips was a wordless cry of pain and terror. Before the first tears had welled in her eyes, her mother had pulled her close into her warm embrace. Mother and daughter clung to each other while they rocked back and forth, each crying their own devastated cries.

Conclusion—»