Read The Singular Six (The Chronicles of Eridia) Page 5
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After gathering together whatever provisions they thought they would need for their trip, Adam and Maggie loaded those provisions into packs on the mules. They offered Granite (he was still in costume) use of one of the packs, but he declined. He had been carrying all his belongings in his backpack for years and saw no reason to stop now.
Adam and Maggie didn’t want to leave the RV out in the open where unscrupulous folk could break into it, so Adam asked around to find out if there was someplace safe they could put it while they were gone. When Rin found out what he wanted, she told him he could put the RV next to the former bowling alley she lived in on the north edge of town.
“I’ll keep a real good watch on it,” she said with a crisp nod. “It’s the least I can do, seeing as how you folks’re taking it upon yourselves to help us out the way you are.”
“Thank you.”
After Rin gave him directions, Adam returned to the RV, grabbed the drawpole, and pulled. With a groan of metal, the RV rolled forward a foot, then stopped and would budge no more no matter how hard Adam tugged or how red his face got.
“Need a hand there?” asked Granite.
“It’s very heavy.”
“No prob. In my stone form I can bench press two tons.”
“You press benches? For what purpose?”
“Uh, forget it.” He concentrated and once again turned to stone. Then he got behind Adam and grabbed hold of the drawpole.
With the two of them pulling together, moving the RV proved much easier, and they slowly made their way along Sweetwater’s dusty streets to Rin’s home. There was a perfect space for the RV on the stretch of bare dirt between the bowling alley’s east side and the field beside it, where Rin and the other six families with whom she shared the building grew most of their food.
When they rejoined Maggie and Freud on Sweetwater’s main street, they were surprised to discover that pretty much the whole town had gathered at a safe distance to see them off. Rin stepped out of the crowd and took Adam’s hand. He stared at her in surprise.
“Thank you again,” she said. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “Thank you for goin’ off to save our girls.”
“I…” Adam glanced at Maggie, who was looking at him with a cocked eyebrow as if to say, “Don’t screw this up.”
“I shall do my best.” The words felt alien, awkward, as if they were the wrong size or shape for his lips and tongue. Why was Maggie doing this to him?
Rin gave him a big smile and then stepped back into the crowd.
And so the quartet—Adam and Maggie and Granite and Freud—headed west down Sweetwater’s main street, a wall of a murmuring residents on either side. Granite grinned and waved at the townsfolk as if he were in a parade. A few of the bolder townsfolk waved back. Maggie watched these exchanges with a smile. Freud’s head swiveled this way and that as he observed the various behavioral traits on display among the masses. All three of them were clearly enjoying themselves to one degree or another.
Adam, on the other hand, felt like a condemned man approaching the gallows.
It was the eyes. All those eyes upon him. He wasn’t used to being on display in front of so many people in broad daylight. And especially not without inspiring fear and hate and disgust. But few of these eyes harbored such emotions. No, these eyes were guardedly hopeful. They expected things of him. And if he didn’t deliver those things, then those eyes would fill with that old familiar hatred, and for once they would be right to do so.
In many ways, he decided, their trust was more terrible than their hatred.
Adam fixed his eyes on the ground ahead of him and strode on in silence, eager to leave Sweetwater behind.