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Stories from the Verse
Con Verse Lea
Chapter 57: Takano 75
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 144
Tommy had read a few chapters of Genesis--familiar territory, really, but it had been a while since she’d heard it and wasn’t sure whether she had ever read it for herself--when Lauren brought her some of the cooked fish on one of the pottery plates they had made. She picked at it absently as she continued to read, getting into parts that were less familiar, and realized how much of this she didn’t know, probably had never heard. She read for perhaps an hour, then decided to take a break, closed the book, and retreated into the nest to rest. The light was dimmer in here than even under the trees of the shady campsite, but it was comfortable. It struck her that they didn’t have any real chairs, and logs and rocks were not really the most comfortable seats she had occupied.
It bothered her still, though, that Lauren had given up her Bible, and no longer had one. “Jesus,” she said, “Lauren needs Bibles.”
Absently, she picked up her computer. To her surprise, it turned on immediately, and showed a page for ordering Bibles. That was foolish; they had already established that the system didn’t make deliveries outside the human habitation. That wasn’t exactly true, though--the system delivered animal feed and plant fertilizer, at least. It just didn’t deliver human meals. She pushed the button to order a Bible.
The screen shut off. She was surprised it had worked at all; the battery should be quite dead. She couldn’t confirm her order, but she didn’t really expect much.
She laid back on the soft floor and stared at the woven ceiling. She had learned so much over the past week or so, and the fact that she managed to catch a fish this morning proved some of it was sticking.
Lauren came to the doorway. “You decent?” she called.
Not that it much mattered, Tommy thought, but it was polite. “Yes.” Lauren entered.
“I need to get everyone together in one place, so I can talk to them all at once. I’m not sure where to do that. If I had a boat,” she joked, “I could gather them on the shore of the lake. I don’t, though.”
“Well,” Tommy suggested, “we can probably squeeze everyone in our campsite, and you can stand on one of the rocks or logs or something.”
Lauren nodded. “Yes, I guess that will have to do. Now the question is, when?”
“That’s tough,” Tommy said. “I would say before dinner, but people eat at different times, and it takes time to catch, clean, and cook just about anything. But then, after dinner it starts to get dark, and we don’t have flashlights.”
“And I don’t actually know how to make torches,” Lauren said, “so you’ve got a good point there. I haven’t tried to use any of my light spells since we got outside. I guess tomorrow at midday would be best. I’ll go let the leaders know.”
With that, Lauren left. Tommy wondered what it was she wanted to say that she couldn’t simply tell the leaders to pass on; but between fishing and reading she was a bit tired, and drifted into a nap.
When she awoke, she smelled something cooking, so she roused herself and went outside to find Lauren using her frying pan to prepare chunks cut from some kind of bird, smaller than a turkey but at this point unidentifiable.
“Good, you’re awake. I hate to wake people. Dinner is almost ready. I think it’s pheasant, but I was never particularly good at game birds.”
“Thank you,” Tommy said, and helped herself to a plate of fowl.
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 #470: Verser Turnings. 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:
