UTOPIAN: Book Three of the Newcomer Trilogy

UTOPIAN

The Newcomer Trilogy (Book 3)

Copyright © 2015 Shayn Bloom. All rights reserved.

For more information about the author and trilogy:

http://shaynbloom.blogspot.com/

Edited and formatted by Kye Fehrenbach.

Cover design by Ronnell Porter.

This is a fictional piece. All names, characters, places, and occurrences are products of imaginative impulse. Any similarities characters have to actual persons, alive or dead, is coincidental. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

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Table of Contents

1. The Dreamcatcher Son

2. The New Holan

3. The Sponsors

4. The Training

5. Annie

6. The Ultimatum

7. Utopian

8. The View From the Sky

9. The Battle

10. The Crown

11. The Wedding

12. The Reckoning

13. The Birthday Boy

14. The End

May compassion find you well,

Your flame and torch so new

Revelation must bring the spell,

So light can find its hue

Who can believe in heaven or hell?

Both are too good to be true

Saints and sinners I heard tell,

So rarely find their due

Find yourself to find those who fell,

Utopian must always do

For beauty is the sound of a bell,

And you’ll find wings for you

– Dreamdrifter psalm

1. The Dreamcatcher Son

Twilight rolled the world into its warm embrace.

It would go on hugging the horizon until the last remains of light were squeezed from the day. Sprinkles of light that dazzled like pearls were interspersed amongst the passing trees, their loving gleam becoming evanescent in the motion that sprang around the truck as it plunged along the dusty old road.

Blinking, I pulled myself away from the window where I had been resting my head. Even a moment’s rest on this journey was going to be impossible. Leaning against the back of my chair, I relaxed before allowing my eyes to dart through the window again. My surroundings were becoming familiar.

Biting my lip, I sighed. Not far now.

Nope, my fiancé replied. We’re closing in.

They still tailing?

Glancing into the rearview mirror, Ash squinted against the dying sun. Yeah, but they’re keeping a tidy distance. Afraid to rear-end us, maybe?

I tried to stop myself and failed, remarking, I can’t think of two people less likely to be afraid of such a thing.

Ash grinned appreciatively, but didn’t lose his composure in a laugh. His honeyed skin was catching what remained of the light beyond his window, illuminating the shyer highlights of his dirty blond hair so that they accentuated his golden features. My fiancé was one of those rare creatures who was effortlessly beautiful.

His biggest gift, however – a few choice moments excepted – was grace.

Mine was tenacity, and an unrelenting ability to uncover truths as I wanted to find them; as though I had buried them myself. Such skills were invaluable in a life like mine, where every shred of happy existence had been fought for in order to create a fabric of contentment from the tired old squares. I had never learned to sew.

Stop thinking, Ash instructed. It’s not helping your nerves.

I involuntarily crossed my arms. I’m not nervous.

Liar, he said. "It’s him that’s doing it, isn’t it?"

Nodding wordlessly, I surrendered to the window once more. Indeed, Ash couldn’t have figured me out more completely. No genius award was required to guess what my mind would likely be traversing as we approached our destination, but nevertheless his guess was correct and my guilt alive and well.

Todd Arrowheart was plaguing my consciousness.

But seeing as how my last encounter with him had not only been awkward but also conflicted, my emotions could hardly be misplaced. Todd had requested that I leave Ash for him. Not only had he made the request, but he had outlined a succinct and well-constructed argument detailing how such a move would be advantageous not only to me, but also to Alexi. Todd had casually left himself out of the equation, or perhaps strategically done so.

We journeyed on through the countryside, passing rolling fields of grass and the occasional barn. Here and there, animals would be dotted on the landscape, looking up as we passed. Oh, farm animals – what an idyllic life they must lead. What had happened to my idyllic life? It was here a moment ago – well, maybe several moments ago…

Nevertheless, it was history now.

Swiping my long brown hair over my ear to keep the wind from grabbing it, I thought back to my teenage self: my short pixie cut, helplessly iconoclastic clothes and my general demeanor of excitement. Had I ever really been that person? Or had it all been faked? Sometimes I thought that questions without answers weren’t worth thinking about. So I stopped thinking just then.

Ash was right again. Damn.

In the distance above the trees, a white spire could just be glimpsed. It was so bright it nearly vanished amid the backdrop of failing sky. But there was no doubt in my heart. We were arriving at Everest. Arriving home after what had only been a short time away. Regardless, it had felt like ages and ages.

The spire revealed a tower room beneath it, and – upon driving further – a large white house appeared under both. Everest was an odd building, purchased by Ash’s grandfather, Wilhelm Wildecore and his wife, Regina, many years ago – long before Ash was born. It was the kind of house that had obviously started small, but had been enlarged over the course of decades as tastes changed and ambitions heightened. Not unlike my childhood home – built around an ancient cabin as it was – but that house could never eclipse Everest. For one, Everest was home now. My only home.

Turning the steering wheel of Humdinger – the name we had given to Ash’s used Ford half ton – Ash turned into the driveway. The white building sat nearly three acres away. Everest was surrounded by several acres of open grassland, ending in trees in every direction. The only exception was the entrance, and no other construction could be glimpsed from Everest’s large wooden deck.

I often thought, when coming here in my youth before I lived here, that it would be a great property to have horses on. The absence of a fence was the only real obstacle, and I happened to know that the purses of the Holurn – also known as the combined salaries of Cassie and Julian at the International Bureau of Dreamdrifters – were stretched tight as it was. Shame, really. We didn’t even have a dog!

Ash parked Humdinger against the porch in between a small, ancient convertible and a miniature school bus sitting on cement blocks. Gratian and Caleb pulled in on the other side of the convertible and I heard doors opening. Getting out myself, I swatted my hair back before looking sadly down at the tires of my Celica. They had been slashed to shreds by the Justices. No permanent damage to the car, but a shame nonetheless. Looking up, I saw Gratian grinning at me as he stood by his car door.

Similar tastes, eh Annie?

I forced a smile on my face. You bet. True, his flashy new Miata far outpaced my old Celica, especially now, but there was no doubt the designers of each had shared the basic concept. Mine’s not running so well.

That side too, then? he replied, looking down.

Come on, everyone, Ash called, climbing the porch steps. Let’s see what Todd’s been up to.

Falling in line behind Caleb, I was about to follow him when something caught my eye. A large piece of granite was sticking out of the grass about twenty yards away, clear in the middle of the field. It was so obvious to the naked eye, so usual in a place so unpopulated, and such a strikingly beautiful rock that I was forced to pause, my vision leveled on it.

Caleb cocked his ginger head at me, his green eyes questioning. Everything okay, Annie? You just went stock still.

I know, I breathed, my eyes failing to meet his for their captor out on the grass. I know, I’m sorry.

Ash was half turned from the middle of the deck. Annie?

You go on! I said, sounding way more cheery than I felt. I – I just want to see something. Go on, all of you – see how the place is holding up! I didn’t believe the happy tone in my voice, so I’m guessing they didn’t either. Regardless, all three continued into the house without further question, pulling the glass door shut behind them. I was grateful for that. I wanted complete silence.

And I was getting it.

For a moment, I didn’t move. I just stood with my eyes closed, allowing the October breeze to buffet my hair this way and that. I was thinking something, but I didn’t know what. I just knew that my mind needed some time. I was thinking about thinking – yeah, that was it. Or else procrastinating my inevitable guilt.

Heart heavy, it allowed blood back into my feet. They carried me, ever so slowly, to the granite outcrop. For a moment, I couldn’t lower my eyes to see what it said. But after gathering myself, from my brain to my bones to my heart, I summoned the willpower.

And looked:

Adia Lorraine Arrowheart

1981 – 2023

Her Heart Flew Higher.

Kneeling beside the grave, I bowed my head to the grass surrounding her. Kissing the ground gently, I knelt back on my knees and closed my eyes. I wasn’t crying. Having my son stolen away from me had cost every tear I had. In some ways, I had already mourned Adia. Still, seeing her grave here, sitting beside her, and feeling that her body was beneath this earth touched me.

I was speaking before I knew it.

My teacher, I whispered, reaching out a hand to feel the dark earth. I… But my voice trailed off, stolen as it was by my heart. Should I apologize? I had been so cruel to her in life, so reckless with my words and anger. And yet, all along, Adia had believed in me. Believed in my salvation – in the salvation of the Newcomer, and therefore mankind. She had been there when I thought Caleb had died. She had held my quaking body, comforting it with the greater power of her own.

Utopian.

She had been Utopian.

The most powerful in the Holurn, Ash had said. I remembered the electrical current of her hug, how her understanding seemed to fill my soul. We had been so similar in so many ways. Both defined by guilt for those whose deaths we felt responsible for. For Adia, it had been the lives of friends and family so terribly sacrificed during the Second Great Manifestation. For me, it had been the loss of my brother, Alexi. Adia and I had even shared a subconscious mind, a phenomenon I still didn’t understand.

I shook my head violently, erasing the thought. No. No, I would not think of such things now – now that my friend had passed on. Now that she was free. Free to fly anywhere, with no chains of guilt to hold her down.

I promise, I began, but my voice broke. Was it emotion? Or had that swift October wind just blown the words from me? I promise, I started again, my teacher, that I will fulfill your prophecy, the Newcomer prophecy. I promise on my life I will! I was surprised by the muster in my tone, by the force in my voice, by the throb in my heart. For some reason my right hand had balled into a fist. Realizing this, I let it relax again, breathing in deeply as though to let the truth of my pronouncement sink into my skin. Closing my eyes so that the buffeting wind wouldn’t catch hair in my eyes, I took several more deep breaths, the anxiety inside me alive and writhing.

Then I stood.

A determined woman.

I knew now what had to be done. I had known for a while, it seemed, ever since my engagement breakfast at Gratian’s house. Still, the blood in my veins pounded harder than ever before, and the muscle of my resolve was not to be played