CALLED, Chapter 4

Buried Secrets, Forbidden Truths

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What would you do if the answers you sought were too dangerous to know? When does secrecy protect, and when does it become another form of control?

Let’s explore the weight of secrets because the search for truth is universal.

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JER-32-1297.A-E

Marya’s hands shook as she drained the last of the accelerant from another jug. Even with her head swirling from the terramalt, she knew the weathered old barn would catch fire quickly if she spread it along the perimeter. If she had helped them raze the walls and ceiling, no one would have any reason to look for anything under the foundation.

Would any of this make a difference?

She could see that the war against the Conglomerate was long lost.

What could one old woman do against all that power?

For that matter, what could one little girl do?

Marya had made a promise to keep Clem safe until the time came. Her father said she needed to grow up, but Marya suspected Jonas had planned to use the child somehow. As the solarii passed, Marya came to hate her oath and, even now, only kept it in part. She would keep Clem safe, but she would do whatever she could to see the time never came for whatever Jonas had in mind.

In the end, she chose her promise over breaking her own heart. Casting Clem out of their home had been the only choice then, just as destroying the farm was the only option now.

The only way to keep her safe is to make sure everything under this barn gets destroyed.

She tossed the empty container into a corner. With the perimeter soaked, she turned to the bundle she’d brought down from the house. Notching the basket into the crook of her elbow, she descended into the cellar. She hadn’t been down here in solarii. Without Clem to feed, she and Jeb subsisted on much less, making do with the meager crop of beans and grains they could still collect. From inside an old scarf, she withdrew the stack of notebooks that recorded their great experiment and set them on the shelf. She stroked the binding and looked up to the rafters where she had long ago hidden the pages she’d torn from them.

All of it seemed the work of another lifetime now.