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Stories from the Verse
Con Verse Lea
Chapter 23: Takano 65
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 128
The wall Boronir described, thin twisted metal forming many holes connecting metal poles, sounded like a chain-link fence. Since he said the road passed beneath it and continued into tall vegetables on the other side, there was apparently a gate he couldn’t understand beyond which were some kind of trees, perhaps a forest, perhaps an orchard. The presence of the fence suggested that there was something on one side that wasn’t supposed to cross to the other, and since this side of the fence seemed to be cultivated cropland, the best guess was that animals were being fenced out, although whether they were domestic herds or wild beasts wasn’t clear. Anyway, it did not sound like the place to go.
It was early the next morning when Lauren gathered everyone and announced that she was going to ask God to direct them, and they should be packed and ready to leave. Some scattered back to their campsites while others watched in visible anticipation. Lauren, meanwhile, had taken several deep breaths then extended her arms, as Tommy had seen her do before, beginning to rotate and saying in a fairly loud clear voice, “Seek and you shall find; I seek a suitable campground for these people.” She stopped turning and stood; Tommy wondered what would happen next.
There was a beep. Absently Tommy checked her phone.
“Whoa,” she said. The phone was fully charged, and she had received a message.
“What?” Lauren asked. Tommy stared at her phone for a moment until Lauren repeated, perhaps more insistently, “What?”
“It’s a map,” she said.
“A map?”
“My map program is giving me directions to--somewhere, it doesn’t really say where, but the GPS is working and the phone seems to be connected to the network, and someone--or something--has sent me a map to follow.”
“Well then,” Lauren said optimistically, “let’s follow it.”
Having already packed, Tommy grabbed her gear and started down the road. It occurred to her that this was the road taken by Boronir’s group, the road that led to the fence and the forest beyond, but then, she couldn’t see more than a couple miles ahead on the map, so maybe they weren’t going as far as that.
Anyway, she could hope.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #463: Characters Unsettled. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
