Insurrection: Alliance, #1

By Kadee Carder

Collapsing to my knees, I leaned my forehead against the rough, cold metal. The bars held me up from the grave. Their words rang again and again. I was a thief. I am a thief. And I have stolen the futures of the greatest people I know.

***

Strange noises. Dazzling beaches. A secret military base. Saylor must navigate these mysterious elements -- or die trying.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Addison Multimedia
• Release date: Jan 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215492024

Kadee Carder

Fierce yet sparkly, I rally seekers to thrive in their stories. The goal is magic, the medium is ink, and the fuel is coffee. And sometimes pizza. I teach English on the university level when I'm not dancing around the living room with my family, lifting heavy at the gym, traveling the planet, or watching superhero shows.

Book preview

Prologue

****

Ten years before I was born, the sun released a thick plasma cloud of electrostatic and electromagnetic radiation, traveling the ninety-three million miles to earth. Soaking through the atmosphere, The Flare neutralized all forms of electronic technology. Satellites and communication abilities were the first to go, causing every building around the globe to fall dark and silent. Planes dropped from the sky. The infamous Internet disappeared in a clicking pop. Cell phones, computers, lights, generators, bank accounts, most automobiles, running water, air conditioning, and the hustling bustle of the modern world ground to a jarring halt. A hush fell across the planet, and then mass hysteria ensued.

Global economics transformed overnight as citizens of Earth scrambled to survive. With a shifting of power and a united effort from the more advanced countries, a new world order established. Those who could live off the land with tactile abilities flourished, profiting abundantly. Labor camps were created in rural areas, emptying large cities. Towering skyscrapers offered more shade than purpose, while belongings were traded for food. Illness, disease, and lack of food ravaged families and communities.

But scientists, mathematicians, politicians, and poets all came together to rebuild. Government-funded homes were established for the many orphaned children, schools once again opened their doors, and each country found its new rhythm in a period of reconstruction. They were intrepid. Kicking dust off their feet and scratching out plans that had disappeared in the blink of an eye, twenty-six years later, humanity found a new way to thrive.

Part One

Chapter One

Until This End

If you’re reading this , I suppose something terrible has happened to me. Whether shrouded in darkness, buried in dust, or fading into the hushed background, my story may be ending here in this cinderblock cell.

Images from these past weeks keep rolling through my mind: days upon days at sea, a squall line nearly finishing us, groans of hunger, brilliant sunrises, and flecks of stardust shimmering at night. How did we lose ourselves? How did we not see the ship before they overtook us? Time has gathered its discarded hours while I sat here paused in silence, a mere whisper of a heartbeat away from my last breath.

Ten whole days have passed since Micah—left. Since she was taken from the cell. I need to admit the facts. Micah had been here with me for about a day after the fogginess in my head wore off. I guess we made too much noise kicking around the cots, yelling for help, and threatening the empty forest looming in front of us. Five or six soldiers came and took her, their shadows filling the room. They pulled her, kicking, punching, and hollering, away from the cell and into the night. I still keep thinking I hear her voice floating on the breeze. I’d call out for her, but my throat is parched and papery. And my head aches, on and off, throbbing with a rhythmic pulse, my ears popping. I almost can’t hear the thunderous crunch of my heart breaking.

Also, and probably most important, dinner tasted super fun tonight. Nothing on earth compares with flavorless sausage in a thick skin you have to gnaw through. I guess all that chewing burns the calories, right? And those stale biscuits, those were incredible. The food was almost as good as dinner back at the home.

Remember those days back at the home? Micah, Denise, Patricia, and I sitting at our end of the dinner table, organized according to age, height, weight, eye color, and apparent mental incapacity.

Look at me, yammering on and on. It’s typical, I guess. Just tell the story, fumblebucket.

On a Friday last August , Micah ran up to me with the photo. I remember the day because it was my sixteenth birthday and I was digging holes for a fence. Micah spent Friday afternoons studying at the library, which four out of five times meant fixing up old cars with two Hispanic brothers from her English class who lived the next block over. She must have sprinted all the way from wherever she had been, because her round cheeks flushed and her short mouse-brown hair hung in sweaty, tangled strands, framing her jubilant face. Shining eyes reflected a triumphant, auburn sparkle, and she had this goofy smile on her face, waving a magazine around.

Saylor! Look at this! Micah panted.

What? I asked, straightening my back and squinting up at her lanky frame towering a full head and shoulders above mine. I yanked off a heavy leather glove and wiped my dripping forehead. I’d been out in the far backyard of the Oak Point Girls’ Home for two hours and had finished three of the ten holes required for the day. The dusty smell of clumpy dirt and salty sweat clung to the air around me like a sloth sleeping in a tree.

It’s that boat! Micah tossed her rumpled green backpack on the ground and opened the magazine to a dog-eared page, pointing to a picture.

What boat? Trickles of tired sweat dripped down my face and neck as I followed to where her finger pointed. There it was. The beautiful, swaying boat, moored in the harbor for years instead of crashing through waves and recounting tales under the light of the moon. For sale.

No way!

Yeah! I hadn’t seen her this excited, or out of breath, in months.

How did you find this? I took the gleaming magazine, trying not to get any fingerprints on the glossy photo. In a quick gesture she tucked her hair behind her ears with both hands.

Dudette, doesn’t matter. Some rack at the bookstore. Anyhow— she panted and shrugged, —why don’t you buy it? You’ve got money saved up, right?

I looked at her like she was speaking Russian.

You think I can buy a boat! You think I do this in the afternoon for Vee, I said, gesturing to the earthy mound beside me, and still have time to pile up me gold doubloons? I cocked my arm and jumped like a jigging leprechaun. Ha! Girl, you are crazy. Shaking my head, I gazed at that charming boat: a dark, stained, wood hull; bands of navy, white, and green trim wrapping around her like a belt; two smooth, cream-colored sails; and a small octagonal window poised mid-ship. The boat embodied a classic, continent-discovering, sea-monster-hunting, pirate-battling, walk-the-planking revelation. My heart beat faster, a swift ticking resonating in my mind.

Micah stood next to me, looking down over my shoulder, her shadow dulling the shine on the page. I could hear her breathing growing slower. We both just stared at the picture for a few minutes before she leaned over to pick up her backpack.

I know you don’t have much money, Micah said, lowering her voice to a whisper. I thought you might want to see the picture. For years you’ve talked about how amazing the boat is...

Yeah. I interrupted before she could say the words for me. Sunbeams hammered my burned neck and another drop of sweat rolled down my temple, landing on the page. The boat. Freedom. Freedom from this labor fest, this graveyard. I have always been fascinated with sailing but never had the opportunities to learn the terms of the trade. Sailing equals money; a poor girl who wants to take sailing lessons creates a balance-due account. I guess I viewed this boat as a dream, or an answer. If the stars lined up just right for me, I could seize this dream. Micah and I talked about Someday all the time: going and finding real jobs, being done with this false childhood. Stars above whispered I would have to move them myself.

Micah stepped toward the home, throwing her pack over her shoulder.

Keep the mag, she said without looking back. It might inspire you. Her footsteps faded away in the swoosh of the grass and dirt under foot, and a vivid dream began to form in my hands, stirring up the dust I had long ago buried under chores, muffled screams, and lost hope.

I later tore out the page and put it in my worn leather wallet. The picture haunted me in the days and nights following. Sometimes I would take the picture out while I brushed my teeth and stare at it, then look up at myself in the cracked mirror. My blue eyes, full of expectation, would always stare back at my thin and pointy nose, asking me to take my little blonde head away from this place. I had been growing out my hair and it fell halfway down my back like a straw sheet. While I brushed the thick blanket on my head every morning, I imagined having the fair, open sky above me, the ocean-blue beneath, instead of crusty tan walls and chipped gray cement floors.

A few weeks following the discovery of the magazine ad, the four of us sat at the long black table in the school cafeteria next to the big windows facing the courtyard. Red plastic seats creaked underneath us, nearly inaudible in the din of students smacking on their lunches and yelling about which one of their classes was the most boring, and how and why Brian’s hair was so amazing.

Guys, this peanut butter and jelly isn’t cutting it, Micah said from my left, where she always sits, picking off bite-sized portions of the sandwich, throwing them in the air one at a time and catching them in her mouth.

You’re a mess. Across the table, Patricia wrinkled her nose, disgusted. She is always a sunset of insightful glances. Coffee-brown eyes complement her smooth, bronze skin (I suppose we should all have good tans because we’re always working outside, but some of us aren’t so lucky. They call me the albino of the group. Harrumph.), helping her to con any guy out of a couple bucks for extra food at lunch, such as she had ten minutes before we sat down. She has the appetite of a troll but is as wispy as a fairy.

Should have saved your lunch money instead of buying a—what was it? A carbinator? Denise twirled a golden french fry in her left hand, between her thumb and first finger.

It’s a carburetor, Micah said. And you know what it’s called. Don’t play dumb. Brian isn’t around.

Uh, but I can give you a hard time about it. She dipped the fry in a pile of ketchup then tossed it between her upturned lips. Denise’s chocolate-milk skin and pixie-like, wiry black hair bobbed while she shuffled in her seat to the rhythm of her chewing. She’s the same height as me, five feet and three inches tall, and her silhouette, similar to mine, includes contour and grace, but also a few extra pounds of cloud and sunshine, as she likes to say. She is a living dance, with a twinkle in her hazel eyes and a song ready to sing.

I’ll take your fries if you aren’t careful, Micah threatened.

Try me, if you want to risk your hands.

A duel then!

En garde! Micah whipped a french fry out of the paper bucket in front of Denise and the two of them started flopping around the golden sticks as if they were buccaneers.

Did you know I can’t stand eating imperfect french fries? Patricia continued, ignoring them.

What are you talking about? I asked, watching their potato-to-the-death.

"I prefer the square ones. Cubed. Oh, those are the good ones, the crispy, crunchy, golden morsels of heaven. I don’t like the burned or tapered down ones. I like the perfect fries."

So I can have this one? Micah snagged a limp, brown fry from the side of the pile.

Patricia almost choked on leftover potato pieces in her mouth. I can’t explain why I feel the way I do about fries. I want the good ones.

Hey, speaking of—well, this is unrelated. I spoke up. But yesterday at work something weird happened. As we were closing, Mr. Finch pulled up in the drive-thru with his boat. I started asking him questions about sailing, and he said I should ask Hector, the machine-guy who works in the back. Finch said Hector has his own little motorboat, and his parents used to go sailing with him on it until they died.

Mega-sad story, Saylor. Patricia interrupted.

I’m getting to the interesting part, I retorted. She nibbled on her sandwich as a response, her eyes drifting around to the chaos of the cafeteria.

So, on my break I went to ask Hector if he could give me some tips on, you know, boats and nautical things.

As long as you used the correct terminology, Your Dictionary-ness, Micah said.

Shaking my head, I grabbed my cheeks, widening my eyes until they felt as big as the moon. I know. I mentally slapped myself on the forehead. Anyway, he responded with, ‘A boat ees like a hole een the water where you throw money.’ And I said, ‘I guess, but it’s a handy hole’.

Pausing at my own joke, I opened my mouth wide, hoping they’d find the humor, but then dropped all hope. They sat blinking, chewing. Nautical puns weren’t their style I suppose. Now as I’m thinking about it, most of my puns weren’t their style.

Well. I picked up my story. Anyway, then Hector said, ‘Boats are handy—for zee strong of heart’.

Maybe you can ask him again, Denise said. She wiped her hands on a greasy napkin.

Nah, I don’t think he was interested at all. My hair fell in a curtain around my face, blocking out the noises around me. It is kind of awkward, with some teenage girl asking about boating and things.

You don’t have time for anything else anyway, with your super-long chore list, Denise added. Oh! Hey! How did you all do on the science quiz?

I shook my head while the others groaned and announced their scores. Don’t care. Zip it, lock it, throw away the key, I chanted, acting out the motions with my hands, tossing the key over my shoulder.

Dude, Saylor, Patricia prodded. What did you get?

My cheeks reddened. Um...

Micah rescued me. What if I came up to the store and we talked to him together? I’d like to learn more about boat motors. I mean, if we’re going to break out of here together—

Micah! Denise raised her voice and then coughed as a teacher walked around the room, eyeing all the kids, pretending not to listen to the words being said around her. We considered her a spy, one of Vee’s pawns.

Let me pause here for a minute and say I will introduce Vee and her nefarious self soon, but for right now, just consider her equivalent to the smell wafting through the classroom which nobody claims, or like a dead crow on the side of the road, or those sinking feelings when weekends fade toward midnight. But I don’t want to explain about her yet, because she stinks.

Maybe it sounds immature, but our words always seemed to get back to Vee somehow, and teachers were suspect. Micah convinced Denise the government had plotted along, with large payoffs. If ever we talked about the bleak outlook churning at the home, we heard about it later and paid for it in sweat.

Yeah, Friday’s movie at the drive-in was—gripping—about the guys and the—bank—thing. For sure! Denise cackled, slapping the table, to further enhance her cover story. We finished up, chewing the last of our lunch morsels. Drifting across the room, the teacher shifted her attentions before Micah spoke again. We leaned in closer toward each other.

Knowing about boat engines would be handy, Micah said.

The four of us fell silent.

Making eye contact with each one of them, I let the weighty question drift out. Should I ask him?

It’s easy as A, B, C, Denise sang. One, two, three...

Get out of the 1970s, echoed Patricia with a smile. She leaned down for her backpack to pull out a book.

All he can do is avoid your answer, Micah said. Look. If you want to learn about sailing, or boats, what’s wrong with doing so? Nothing.

You think we could learn enough to get away from here? I whispered.

Hey, whoa, back up, Denise said. Her eyes were dark. She narrowed her eyebrows. Saylor. Do you think learning about sailing will make you happy?

Yeah! I replied.

Then don’t rush things. Ask him, learn some vocabulary, and then walk away.

What do you mean? I asked.

I’m just saying—he probably has a reason for being private.

What did he say? Something about ‘strong of heart’? Patricia asked. We don’t have a choice but to be strong of heart. Well, Saylor anyway. She winked at me. "The rest of us get to slack off anytime. I mean, how many chores do you have now?"

Hey thanks. I blinked and paused, counting up the list. Seventy-five.

Wow. Micah chewed on the side of her mouth.

Scrunching up my face in disgust, I mocked her in a falsetto voice. Monitor all trash cans. Empty contents when one inch from top lip. Replace all liners.

She likes to spell things out. Micah nodded.

I only forgot to put another bag in that one time.

And then Denise put in a banana, and someone else put in a bag, and all those flies infiltrated the house! Micah cackled, remembering the event.

Vee hates all of us, Denise piped up. It’s because she has bad hair.

Patricia twirled her hand over her head. Yeah, her little bun thing is awful.

Like a gorilla pooped on her head. I chuckled.

Gross! Patricia shoved my shoulder in a playful punch.

Sometimes I want to run at her with a pair of scissors and slice that thing off. Micah motioned with her hands, acting it out with an invisible Vee in front of her. Micah could level a two-story house if she ever wanted to; she has fire in her bones. The rest of us chimed in, imagining the tussle and struggle, knowing how easy it would be for Micah to win that game. Then I guess we all figured what would be the result: Vee’s infuriated glares and annunciated lectures, and then Micah would be gone, shipped off to some military camp or who-knows-where place to learn responsibility and respect.

Life isn’t easy, Saylor, Denise said, breaking the silence. Little is. Like Vee says, ‘You have quite a life coming to you’.

Swallowing hard, my red plastic lunch tray blurred before my eyes. I just want to get out of the home and the chores and the hammering of hope into the ground. It’s stifling.

We have one and a half years. We can make it, Patricia said, her voice starting to wobble a little.

I don’t want to have to ‘make it’! I shook my head. She treats us like free labor! Every second I’m in there I feel hatred beaming my direction from her beady lizard eyes.

Calm down.

I breathed in and clamped my mouth shut.

She doesn’t hate you— Patricia began.

She loathes you! chimed a gleeful Micah.

Hey, thanks.

Micah saluted.

Okay, check it, Patricia said, thoughtful. So I said earlier I like the perfect fries, right?

Right. I nodded. Crunchy morsels of heaven.

I can’t explain my preference about fries. I want the good ones. She bobbed her shoulders up and down, holding up a palm to me. Saylor, you feel the same way about this. I know you hate the way things are run at the home. The group meetings, keeping grades up, getting a job, staying on track with chores and the garden and laundry—it’s enough to make anyone flounder. We understand. All of us. I glanced around the table, and the others nodded, hesitant. Patricia continued. Remember when she lost that huge bet on the horse race? When we were twelve. She went crazy. All that bread we baked and had to sell to help make up her debts. And if anyone said a word—

I shivered. If anyone said anything— I pointed to my chest, —she had to repaint the hallway all by herself.

Patricia bit her bottom lip, holding in a giggle. See! We deal. Micah helped you with that. You have to find a way to endure life when it is hard, and get through it with some kind of acceptance, or you’ll go nutso, too. You don’t want to end up owing your life to some rich man, do you? You don’t want to end up with your nose buried in a calculator, checking off lists in a dusty office, do you? Vee isn’t the example to follow—she’s a bitter piece of leftover mushroom casserole. Make dessert. Be dessert. Strategize.

I like strategy games.

See? Why don’t you find some other way of learning about boats? Why don’t you go to the docks and get a job, or take classes?

I want to, but with work, and homework—

What about model boats?

I don’t want a toy boat! I raised my chin in disgust. Her gaze lowered, silent again. Maybe you’re right. I can see what the library has, I said, smiling and grabbing some fries from the bucket in front of her. And hey, I’ll eat the imperfect fries for you. No sense wasting!

I never said I don’t eat them, I just said I prefer—ah! Micah, Denise, and I started grabbing at her fry basket and she yelled at us, slapping the backs of our hands.

Maybe if I had the guts to ask or had gotten some real-life, hands-on experience before we just headed out for open waters, things would be different. From then on, I scoured countless books about sailing. But was it enough? I could re-assess the timeline forever, I suppose. Maybe if I knew how to swordfight, or had super human strength, or could read minds, or owned all the gold from every sunken treasure in every ocean, things would be much, much different. Now I am alone. Give me a moment to wrap my mind around the idea, while my heart shudders in the falling night air.

Those girls kept me going.

Keep me going.

They keep me going.

They’re not—gone.

When we were all together, we hadn’t a care in the world or a problem we couldn’t handle. We were all a bit defective, and yet fit together as snug as a puzzle. They are my family, my escape.

Well.

They were, anyway.

I feel as if this were all my fault. If we had stayed put, had lived with the hand we had been dealt, then life would be normal and safe and not terrifying.

Chapter Two

Settling Echoes

When they first shoved us inside, the cold, rough concrete floor grated my fingertips. Gray cinderblock surrounds me, except for the fourth front wall, which consists of thick, vertical, iron bars with a floor-to-ceiling gate in the center. I tried rattling the bars, but they are solid and stout, cold to the touch and warm to the fear treading on my own heartstrings. A sidewalk in front of this cell leads to vacancies on both sides of this one. So even if I screamed until my lungs gave out, nobody would come.

Two rusty, creaky cots sit in the back left corner of the cell and are the proud owners of the world’s thinnest, smelliest mattress pads. First- and second-place awards will soon be presented to the grayish-black-striped mold houses for gnats or other creepy-crawly creatures, as the Grossest Bed on Earth and the Nastiest Mattress in the Universe. Both mattresses wink at each other about it. The cots fill almost half of the floor space in here, with a few feet between the metal frame and the front bars. My cot also contained what may have been intended as a pillow, but I imagined what else may have rested its head or feet or slimy body on it and I threw it into the back corner next to the potty bucket-thing. A girl can get a little stir-crazy sitting in a twelve-by-ten-foot cell. Yes, I counted the area with footsteps. Boredom messes with the head, yo.

What I can see outside is a tall forest of green trees and thick grass. Salty sea air with its bite and charm meanders about, but no waves pound upon the beach or docks or whatever may be nearby. The scent of the ocean and fresh, earthy grass would be liberating, if I wasn’t here.

Birds chirped earlier this morning but they silence from time to time, their chipper song replaced by some eerie sound, like the monotonous hum of a human-sized mosquito. The sound crescendos and then fades away, and after several moments a few seagulls call out to each other. Hours slip by with a morose silence, ticking away until my fate is decided by whoever put me here.

This old notebook cowered under the mattress, the first few pages covered in pencil scribbles from some past owner. I found it the morning after Micah left. Stifled panic, gripping terror, lonely anxiety, and the fiercest anger I’d ever experienced made me—well, let’s say—energetically reorganize the cell by flinging about any item not nailed down. Clunking against the wall, the thin mattress pad sunk to the floor in awe, and this worn, spiral-bound book flopped toward its freedom, attempting an aerial dive. I captured it, clawing at the empty space, hoping for answers. But since I got nothing else to do, might as well hash out the details, right? Maybe we can discover answers together?

The guard walked by a minute ago, staring at me out of the corner of his eye. He’s wearing a green-and-tan camouflaged military uniform, with thick brown leather boots on his feet, and he carries a lethal-looking black rifle. He has to be at least a foot taller than me. He looks crazy intimidating, but they all do. Morning, noon, and night, they rotate, bringing a metal plate of food, listening, watching, and taking note. Often I pretend to be asleep when I hear the steps approaching.

A seagull just landed on one of the bars of my cell. His little gray head shifted with quick motions, almost like his head were not attached to his neck, as he eyed me. Then, with a snap of feathery wings he flew off, drifting up into the soft winds of the falling dusk.

This quiet breeze reminds me of the night Micah and I decided to take the boat.

Twilight had fallen one evening in April when Micah and I snuck out after a dinner of some curry dish with soppy, grass-like green vegetables and noodles. Gotta love a flavorless, fiery, tongue-numbing meal. We had decided to go see the boat in real life. After doing some reading and making a few fake phone calls with a disguised voice at a public service phone around the corner from the high school, I learned the boat still weighed anchor at the old Oak Point Marina. If anything, taking a little peek at the boat beat staying in and doing homework.

We crept behind the younger kids splashing and chattering in the kitchen, wiping down dishes and stacking them in the cupboards, unaware it was the easiest chore they would ever do at the home. Dodging through the large dining room and behind the scratched wooden tables and chairs, we slid open the glass patio door, ready with any number of excuses for going into the yard after curfew, be it lost homework or forgetting to put some shovels away.

Once free of the stale air inside, we ran along the drive toward the street, slipping into the shadows of the town where crickets sang in rhythm to our flying feet. The sun drifted down past the horizon and the evening breezes whispered around us.

Reaching the marina, we walked down the grassless hill to the pier where a shack sat, covered in newspaper advertisements, cobwebs, and boating gear. A large, round, dusty, orange lifesaver leaned against one side, almost as if keeping the shack standing upright. Micah took the lead. An ancient man sat on a stool inside with his back to us, his shoulders slumped forward, reading under a solitary hanging lantern. I tapped a rusty bell molded into the decaying wood shelf, resulting in a quiet thud. Looking at each other in amusement, and waiting for a minute with no movement from the man, I cleared my throat. Sir.

No response.

HELLO? Micah called out. The man tilted his head as if he heard a fly buzzing. Micah banged her fist on the counter; only then did he turn in surprise.

Eh? he said, standing. Baggy green coveralls matched the wrinkled hands holding the book close to his chest. His hands shook, vibrating the air from his limbs to my soul.

When he said nothing more, I called through the window, Sir, could we look at the sailboat for sale?

He stared at my mouth, shifting his lips as I spoke, and interpreted the words. The man extended his right arm to the side and pointed, nodding. Sitting down on the stool, he absorbed back into his reading before we left the stand. Micah pinched her lips together; I wrinkled my forehead in perplexed sympathy.

We walked in the direction he pointed. Silhouetted against the dusky blue of the night, in the lapping of the waves, surrounded by the occasional soft creaking of wood, several boats sat in their slips. Scanning the inventory of the small marina, we spotted her at the same time in the furthest slot, filling the great void with her thirty-foot long, dark wood hull, deep green, navy, and white paint, and waiting masts. Rocking to some quiet song sung by the waves, the forgotten jewel hid among these plain sea vessels. Seeing the ship before my eyes lit a fire in my blood and drained the air from my lungs. If freedom, hope, and adventure had an icon, it manifested in this ship. Wind stirred my hair while the waves lapped the grayed, wooden pier beneath me.

Wow, Micah whispered.

Yeah, my voice answered in awe.

Thing’s old. Unimpressed.

Micah, I chided.

I stepped closer. Micah shadowed right on my heels. Large cobwebs dangled between the emerald wood and the thick ropes binding it in its shallow grave. Bubbling coils of lightning began racing through my ribs and down into my fingers. Why was this boat sitting here, neglected? Why hadn’t the owner used it in so long? A ball of spinning, tangled emotions rose in my chest. I swallowed, hoping for it to fall, but here we were, this great love and I. It sounds weird, I know, but the boat offered opportunity. Docked there since the day I had been taken to Oak Point, the mysterious owner never came back or claimed it after it had gotten lost in a storm.

Beauty radiated from her hull, even though slime and moss covered the strong wood and coated the faded white lettering spelling out her name. Esmerelda. Gusting winds whistled, water splashed, lapping her sides, doves cooed in nearby trees, and the last glittery remnants of daylight danced across the water, arousing my shrouded fantasies. No longer memento or nightmare, no longer a picture in my wallet, Esmerelda existed as wood and steel, canvas and rope, water and fire. She offered lifted oppression, a song of hope.

Oh, man! Micah whispered. She looked at me with a wild expression, confused. The pictures don’t quite do this justice...It’s kind of a hunk of junk.

No, I said, still quiet. I had no words to sift through my sentiments.

It’s a crime! You would have given this boat birthday parties. The owner just lets it sit and grow mold.

I know.

It’s unfair!

I know.

It’s not right!

I know!

We should take it!

In the shadowy light, her usual devious smirk had disappeared.

The words drifted up in the air, glowing letters scribbled among the stars. Almost fourteen years had passed since the ship had been moored here. Could she sail on open seas? The ball of emotion began chanting Micah’s words. The breeze crooned, the murky waves taunted, and the ship seemed to nod in agreement.

Micah and I have been friends ever since I have had memories. Dropped on the doorstep of the local hospital hours after she was born, nurses took Micah to the home weeks later. The two of us dealt with the desolate nights together, shared the loss of knowing who we had come from, and talked through endless possibilities of why we were left behind. Did our parents have no way of providing for us? Were we unassuming repercussions of The Flare? Were our parents alive, or were they missing, dead, or seeking shelter in some abandoned building? Micah would wake me from the night sweats, and I pushed back when she started swinging at the people who’d disappeared before she had any memories to construct.

Vee called us partners in crime. Adults called Micah a troublemaker and blamed it on her baggy jeans, flannel shirts, and crooked pixie haircut. The truth is, Micah hated the home as much as I did and would do anything to get away. Instead of griping, she joked around, slacked off, and attempted to run away every fifth Friday. But she is not a thief. We aren’t bad seeds, just two pieces of coal searching for some fresh air and the right spark.

Her eyes were narrowed, lips set in a tight line.

You can’t be serious! Micah! We can’t just take a boat! I stepped with caution over the creaky, faded gray boards toward the edge of the slip, swatting at some of the spider webs. Even the bugs hadn’t been around to visit in months.

Micah walked past me to the end of the pier, around the walkway to the far side of the boat. With a quick jump she