Farling

Farling

Part one: Terra Beta

“Epoch? Has Morn ever told you much of the time before?” Farling often asked questions more like invitations to her present imaginings and this instance was no different. “A little” replied Epoch “but it all seems quite strange; hard to understand. Do you remember it much?” Farling paused and resumed her glance in an upward trajectory as though the answer lay somewhere in the clouds. “Only from what she’s told me,” Farling mused “I was too young to really remember it but I sometimes see things, you know… memories.”

The two children were making their way slowly through the bracken ferns beneath the familiar canopy of trees that boarded Glenhaven. Farling was pensive this particular afternoon. There were questions in her bright blue eyes, framed by that tufty fringe a mite beneath her hairline and the two small crescent moons tattooed on her temples. Epoch was a vision of the same as all children of Glenhaven were, cropped hair, a beige linen tunic, sandals, those distinctive markings on either side of their eyes. Although Epoch did not wear Farlings brooding inquisitiveness, his was less refined.

“Do you remember seeing the sky fires? Asked Epoch his voice a small chorus of curiosity. “you know the ones Morn says were the beginning?” Epoch had heard the story many times but seemed to never grow weary of it. Both Farling and Epoch were young and Morn had measured all the children’s ages in solar rotations as was the custom on Terra Beta, Farling 3650, ten ‘first earth’ years, and Epoch 2555, making him seven. “I was still too young” Farling replied, “but she told me all about it, she told me that the people of the first earth had machines they put in the sky and they used them for everything!” Like what? Asked Epoch rather intrigued to hear Farlings take on the widely told tale. “Like everything, talking to each other, making their other machines run, knowing things about everything. Then one day, because there were so many, they all starting crashing into each other and falling from the sky! Morn said it looked like a million fireflies dying all at once.” “What happened then?” Epoch almost breathed the question. Farling had certainly inherited Morn’s gift of a grand delivery. “Then the people couldn’t do all the things they used to, so they became really angry and started hurting each other. That’s when Morn brought us here to Glenhaven so we could be safe.”

Epoch looked up to the sky as though to imagine what it might have looked like as the children both continued through the undergrowth that had begun to clear. Both he and Farling had been tasked with gathering food for the others which was a common afternoon excursion. Farling enjoyed foraging for nuts and berries and observing the small comings and goings of the forest that slowly changed each rotation. Neither Farling nor Epoch had ever ventured far and certainly, neither had ever been beyond the wall that lay at the farther edge of the woods to the south of Glenhaven. Today that would all change.

“Do you remember your mother Epoch?” Asked Farling in the same curious tone as though wanting Epoch to join her again in her daydream. “Morn is our mother Farling”, Epoch replied nervously looking slightly behind him as though the forest had ears and was listening. “She’s our new earth mother yes, but not our first earth mother our real mother.” Epoch’s nerves eased slightly, after all, Farling was older and if she was comfortable to talk about it then maybe it was okay, but this didn’t come without a reminder of the rules. “I don’t remember her I think I was too young and Morn says we’re not to talk about our mothers or our family from before she says it’s for our own good.” Farling continued the conversation as though Epoch had not offered a warning with his answer and despite his tentativeness. “I began to forget what my real mother looked like but Morn gave me this.” Farling reached into the small stitched pocket on the right side of her tunic and pulled out what looked like a shiny rope with a small amulet attached to the end. It was shaped like one of the trees in the orchard at the east end of Glenhaven, round and with an upside-down triangular dip in the top and its foliage coming to a point where it meets the trunk. “What’s that?” Epoch stopped suddenly to gaze at the strange object. “It’s called a ‘lock it’” explained Farling. Epoch admired its color. It was like that of the sun disappearing over the fields in the west after its rotation.

Farling fumbled with the object and clicked a little latch that saw the object half again whilst remaining tethered. Inside was a small image of a beautiful woman in smart clothing. She was smiling and it was a smile of happiness of someone who had everything, someone who had not lived through the destruction that forced children like Farling and Epoch to be brought to safety. “That’s my mother,” said Farling, “Morn gave it to me when I told her I’d forgotten what she looked like. She told me it was our little secret ” Epoch understood Farlings willingness to talk about these things. After all, it was Morn who gave her the object. Epoch felt confused. Why would Morn forbid the children to talk about their families, their mothers and then give Farling the object with an image of her mother in it? It was not uncommon for the children to not find solid ground with their mother on Terra Beta. Some were becoming old enough to question Morns sovereignty in their hearts but any willingness to challenge her outwardly was well stifled. Her anger was swift but swift also was her love. She told the children that she had been tasked to instruct them, to protect them to raise them as her own. Farling returned the object to her pocket and both children continued on their journey.

The sun had finished its rotation and though the days continued long when the moon was high in the east, a twilight soon set across the canopy of trees the children ambled slowly beneath. Farling and Epoch had not gathered much for supper and feared Morns disapproval on their return. They had ventured far this time distracted by their talk. They entered a clearing in the trees and there it was. The great stone wall that kept them safe from outsiders who Morn had warned meant only harm to the children, but more so to the strangers. After all, it was important that they knew what waited for them in the wilds, what she had saved them from.

Proceeding the time of the event, that Morn explained divided ‘first earth’ from its new evolution ‘Terra Beta’, there came a new threat. Signaled by the activity of the machines colliding above the earth, ‘satellites’ as Morn called them, a new and mysterious personage had made itself manifest; ‘the strangers’. Morn did not say where they came from, or who they were, but she believed they were responsible for starting the chain reaction of collisions that filled the sky with fire. To her, and what she told the children, their intentions were sinister and the children were safe as long as they remained inside the wall, inside Glenhaven.

“Look Farling,” Epoch almost shouted with surprise and excitement “it’s the wall; the great wall!” Both children rushed to see it up close. The wall was bluestone, and although tall, six or so lengths of Farling's height, it did not overreach the trees. “Epoch look!” Farling motioned to their right several yards. “There’s a tree on the wall.” A large tree had fallen, as trees often do, coming to rest on an angle at the top of the wall. “Epoch let’s quickly look over the top maybe there are some fresh berries just the other side?” Epoch couldn’t hide the look of fear that suddenly captured his face. “Farling you know what’s out there, you’ve heard Morn talk about the lights, and the machines that roar, the strangers! We can’t go across there.” But Farling was already climbing the tree.

Morn had often attempted to stifle Farling's adventurous spirit but it had been to no avail. Before long Farling was at the top of the wall and Epoch was right behind her. The climb down was less tricky than you would imagine as trees were growing close to the outer side of the wall. Less was at stake, or so it seemed, and despite what the children had been told, in gaining access to Glenhaven than having the ability to leave it. The children clambered down branches and through the dense foliage of the Ashwood and Spruce. “Now if you see lights Farling make sure you look away, they hypnotize you with their machines; the strangers!” Epoch said shakily, re-informing Farling in case she had not been listening to the warnings given by Morn. Finally, they found their feet in the soil at the base of the outside of the wall.

Part 2: Terra Alpha (First earth)

The contents of the three-quarter full mug had more than gone cold and by its environment, one could assume it was laced with dust, not sprinkles of chocolate as was special agent Chalmers preferred vice. But he was oblivious to all of the familiar comings and goings that had become custom to his small office that might as well have been the mailroom. A few small cubicles of tired agents working on a tired case, but today the sleepy hollow was about to be lit up like a Christmas tree. Chalmers had the phone so stuck to his ear so tight that there was every chance you could hear the conversation through his other one. After a long and intense three minutes, he slammed the phone down on the receiver hard enough for the office to stop whatever it was they were doing. He didn’t have to say it loud but the three words, for the agents on the case of Whilemena Close, could very well reverberate throughout the halls of time, space, and all eternity they carried such weight and tambour.

“We’ve got her”, special agent Peter Chalmers almost singing the words. Words that he may as well have been rehearsing for the last 10 years. He and the others, who quickly gathered round, had been in pursuit of Close who was wanted in four states for tax evasion, collusion, and coercion, but the worst of her crimes was the suspected abduction of seven young children throughout Wisconsin and southern Iowa. She came to the attention of the FBI through a series of talks she gave throughout the Midwest, campaigns for the UFO doomsday cult ‘The children of the new earth’ she led ahead of her more passive and less vocal followers at the time. Details of their religion were convoluted at best as she had been profiled as having paranoid schizophrenia, apocalyptic delusions, delusions of grandeur, and long-term abuse of hallucinogens. The list continued to grow as the case grew old.

“Are you sure it’s her?” Chalmers partner Max Withers chimed in an excited crackle in his voice. “A social worker almost ran two kids down on the way back from visiting one of the reservations way out in the Appalachians. These kids look like they were straight out of Dune.” Chalmers had waited so long for this moment he didn’t know how to feel. “She said the kids were standing there in the middle of the road staring into the headlights, she almost hit them. They were going on about strangers and satellites and all kinds of weird stuff”

“How do you know it’s her?” Max fired back. “The kid had the locket Max she had to locket…”