Words were on Gareth’s lips before he fully understood her question. What did Belcher want him to do? Ever since he had appeared, he had wanted to face and kill Gareth. From the first instant, their minds touched. Every event had drawn him closer to the valley and Belcher. Worse, Gareth was doing exactly what Belcher wanted. At every turn, he had chosen to do what the other wanted.
Hanging his head, Gareth admitted, “You’re right.”
“About what?” Ann asked.
“He’s manipulated me from the beginning. Like a fool, I’ve allowed it.”
“You’re no fool.”
“I have been acting like one.” Gareth glanced at Ramos. “Do you think it was an accident we captured him so easily? No, he was bait. Bait intended to draw us, or me, to my end.”
“This boy they call Master is really that intelligent?”
“Yes. Until now he has called every emotion, decided the next move, and defeated my father without a single stumble. I’ve fallen into his every trap.”
“You have done nothing wrong, Gareth.”
“I’ve done everything wrong, don’t you see? I’m here. Rushing in to save the day like some hero in an old tale. Running right to him. After he kills me, there is nothing to stand in his way of doing whatever he wants. Nothing and nobody. Worse, I’m even bringing Tad right to him.”
“Was that his idea?”
“I don’t think he knows about Tad, yet. But what will he do when he learns of him? Will he want him as one of his followers?”
Ann held Tad closer as if to protect him. “What do we do?”
Gareth tried to sound positive and as if he knew. “We do what he does not expect.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ann still held Tad in her arms as she looked at Gareth in the moonlight. “Do you have any idea of what that is?”
“He wants me to charge into that valley ready to fight him. He’s waiting, his traps set. I doubt if I’d last the morning if I went there.”
“So what will you do? Sail back to your little island and hide? Join your family hoping for the best?”
Gareth shrugged, but a sly smile escaped. He jutted his chin at the mountains. “You’re right. There is no place around here to hide. He’ll seek me out no matter where I go.”
“Then what will you do? Abandon us?”
His smile grew more intense, but behind it was a touch of cynical intensity. “Remember that pass through the mountains you told me about? The one he came through?”
“Of course.”
“Belcher came from there.”
“I know that,” her voice grew more frustrated with each word.
“We have no idea of what’s across that pass. We know he came from there and that he brought at least four other boys with sensitive powers with him. I wonder why he crossed the mountains and came here. What happened over there that made him undertake a dangerous and hard trip?”
Ann obviously had never thought of the idea. Her jaw went slack, and her eyes held that far-off look that indicates deep concentration. Ann pulled herself back and said, “What good will that do? I mean going there.”
Gareth shrugged but maintained a sly smile he didn’t try to hide. “You know what? I don’t know what good it will do. But if Belcher is left unchecked our whole world loses. No, loses is not the right word. It dies, along with thousands of good people and it may not end there.”
“Why? Why is Belcher so determined to ruin everything?”
“The answer may lie across that pass.”
Ann said, “I have to ask. Are you sure you’re not just running away?”
“Am I scared? For my family and me? The simple answer is yes I am. Look, if I go to that valley and try to fight him, I’ll lose. He wants me there. Hell, he has almost forced me to attack him.”
“What changed?”
“He came to me when I went after Ramos, but you already know that. When I asked him why he acted this way, he answered. But his answer was coated in his fury, the kind of unreasonable unfounded anger of a young child. He wanted to kill Ramos because I ‘ruined’ him and because Ramos ‘likes’ me.”
“Likes you? What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure, but we’ll take Ramos with us and maybe find out.”
Ann looked at Tad, then away. “You’re assuming I’m going with you.”
“I don’t expect you’re going to back out when it gets hard. Yes, I’m depending on you.”
She pulled her blanket around her shoulders and turned away, ending anything else he might still want to say. Gareth looked up at the stars while thinking.
He almost missed her whisper. “We need to get an early start to cross that pass.”
Gareth woke hours later feeling no more rested than when he’d fallen asleep. It was still dark, but Ann was up and moving around quietly. She was gathering her things and rolling her blanket. She was not building a fire, which was telling. She wanted to depart. Gareth stood on sore and stiff legs. His head felt bloated, and his confidence that had been so high last night was suddenly lower than his knees.
She grunted at him in greeting. Gareth grunted back as he woke Ramos. He reached out with his mental tendril tethered to Ramos and questioned. The boy was sleepy and hungry. Below those basic needs were others. He found warmth and security, or the analogies of each. Underlying the fear and confusion came those new responses.
Pulling back, Gareth felt even more confused. He had not said a kind word to Ramos since his capture and certainly had never communicated any love or respect. It was confusing. He watched Ann mix her medicine with water.
Tad was awake and moving slowly, like all small boys when they wake before dawn and are prompted by adults to hurry. The sky was becoming lighter although there was no sign of the sun as yet.
Ann said, “We need food and clothing. It will be cold in the mountains.”
“It’ll take days to go back and gather what we need. But I have an idea,” Gareth said but explained no further. He’d need to request the help of the Brotherhood later, or the help of one Brother he thought of as a friend.
Before departing, Gareth closed his eyes and allowed his mind to seek out the world, or what he knew of it. In the din of thousands of people thinking, he found humor, peace, love, irritation, and anger. But little hate, fear, or murderous thoughts. Even among the criminal aspects of society there was more good than not.
However, in his short foray into the masses, he did identify a wife who contemplated poisoning a husband who beat her. Did he have the right to share her secret thoughts with others? Should he? Did he have the right?
That had been the subject discussed most often with his father. The fine line where actions should be taken, and where they should not. If he asked the husband or one like him, they would say he should warn them. If he asked wives who were beaten by their husbands, he would receive a very different answer. Which was right? Was there a right? Yet doing nothing was a choice, too.
“Gareth, are you going to sit there all day long?”
He opened his eyes to find Ann packed and ready to move. Gareth held up an index finger and closed his eyes again. This time, he searched for the Brother he wanted to speak with but found nothing. He was still sleeping, and although Gareth could wake him, he refrained.
Neither of the boys complained about being hungry. The fish last night had filled them but before long, as all growing boys do, they would complain. The last of the food they brought with them was nearly gone.
He said, “Strangely, I’m looking forward to this.”