Off in the distance they saw a long line of people walking toward the mountain. They were heavily bundled with clothing, and wore thicker and more clothing then should be necessary in this early of the autumn. They approached the base of the mountain where the thick red, orange, and red forest waited at the base of the mountain. They were older and tall. There were a few old male guards leading and pulling up the rear of the line. Theodore could tell they were guards by the large pikes they held, the wicked curved blade visible even from this distance.

“They leave from here about once every few months,” Melinda said. “There are usually around thirty of them not including the guards.”

“How often do you come to watch out here?” Theodore asked.

“Almost every day to look at the mountain,” Melinda said. She was talking with her normal voice, no longer fearful of being overheard.

“I always wondered where you went,” Samuel said with a long sigh.

“I thought you were with the younger kids in the evening,” Trident said. Theodore had thought the same thing. She would disappear each evening after dinner and not return until after dark, sneaking in through the back of the tent. When they asked she did not tell them what she had been doing.

Melinda again did not answer. They watched in silence as the long line of children and guards walked toward the base of the mountain. They made what seemed slow progress. The children were not used to measuring speed across such distances. The air was surprisingly clear of dust. The cool air cleared the dust a bit, pushing it higher into the sky where it hung like a second set of clouds.

“I needed to show you because I have no idea what they are doing or why they are doing it,” Melinda said. “Where do you suppose they are heading?”

“No idea, do you recognize anyone?” Theodore asked, squinting to try to make out some of the tiny forms as they trekked across the ground. From this distance and from the amount of clothing piled over their small bodies, it was impossible to make out any of the forms. They all had the dust scarves wrapped around their face, leaving only the wrapped back of their head and their clothed bodies to see their forms.

They stared for some time at the long line of children and guards, all of them looking for a feature that reminded them of someone from the camp.

“That must be Deidre,” Samuel finally said. They looked at where he was pointing. He was at the head of the line, the same older child that tormented them with the cudgel. He walked with almost a skip every other step, and they saw that the figure had that strange, slow gate. He was a big boy and while he was not fast, his large steps more than made up for his slight limp.

“Do you think they are they coming back?” Theodore asked, worried for Deidre and the rest of the children. Like the rest of them, he was unsure of where they were heading, or why they were leaving the camp.

“I do not think so,” Trident said. “Whenever the older children leave, we have never seen them return. Not once. Wherever they go, it is forever.”

“They did promise us freedom,” Theodore said. “If we worked hard and did the chores and listened to the older children. Those were the stories they told us when we were young, when the old women still cared for us before the older children took over.”

Melinda laughed an evil laugh at Theodore. “I can’t believe you think the old women cared for us. You are such a silly boy on this point. They did not care for us. They never cared for us. They barely feed the children when they come here. They only watched over us long enough for the older children to take over our care, and for them to disregard us. It is time you accept that. You are an orphan with nobody who cares for you except for the people right here. The faster you accept that the better off you will be.”

The words hurt Theodore. This was not the first time that Melinda or one of his other tent mates had pointed out his particular blindness in this area. He knew he was ridiculous to believe this, but he believed in the good of the world. There were rules and there was good in the world, and he knew that even the old men who guarded the village were there not only to watch the children but to protect them from the dangers. He always felt secure with his group and with the camp. Even when the older children would seemingly torture him, he thought that there was something there, that they did it to protect them in their own misguided way.

The tent mates watched the forms slowly snake their way toward the base of the forest. Once the last of them passed through the canopy of the forest they disappeared from sight.

“They’ll be many hours before they’re visible again for a brief time,” Melinda said. “I have watched them far into the morning in the hopes of catching a glimpse of where they go. They reappear briefly on that tiny road past the forest—you can see it with the oversized boulders. The road leads into the snowy parts of the mountain. You can catch them there if you return late in the morning. They must walk throughout the night. It must be very cold up there.”

“Very strange,” Samuel said. “This does not make much sense. Where are they going and why did they leave at night? It gets dark and cold there. If there happens to be a storm, I can see them getting stuck for a long time up there.”

There was the sound of footsteps behind them, and they all turned to see an old woman approaching them.

“What do you think you are doing here?” an old woman said in an almost cackle. Her voice broke as she spoke and there were deep layers of anger. Her accent was strong and it was difficult to understand her. The wrath in her voice was not as difficult to hear.

Melinda stepped to the front of the group and stood with her arms angled on her waist looking straight at the old woman. She looked so old and powerful when she stood like that. Theodore wanted to lose himself in her strength, to be protected from all the evils in the world, including the old women who did not know or care about the children.

“A better question is what are they doing,” Melinda said, she threw her thumb over her shoulder to indicate the line of people that were no longer visible.”

“What are you talking about?” the old woman asked, sounding not as confident as she had when she approached.

Samuel stepped forward next to Melinda. He did not have to do much to appear threatening. His size alone said all that needed to be saying.

“This is unacceptable,” the old woman said. Her face was heavily lined and she wore too much clothing for such a warm evening. She walked with the help of a wooden cane. Small, distorted faces were carved along the entire length of the cane. She walked straight even though she had the cane. She wore long thick robes that covered her entire body up to the bottom of her chin. Wrapped around her mouth was a heavy scarf that might have been gray at one point but was now dyed orange from the orange dust that plagued them. Theodore remembered a time when he was a child where there had not been orange dust. He was not sure if that was a true memory or just another imagined happening. He also remembered parents, but he knew that was something that was invented. None of the other children remembered anything like that, and it did not make sense that he had them and they did not.

Melinda took a threatening step toward the old woman. Theodore could see the edges of the old woman’s lined cheeks pull up as if she was smiling underneath the scarf. She did not seem surprised by their actions.

“You do not want to do that,” the old woman said. “Unless you want to share their fate today.” The old woman raised her arm and her entire robe lifted with it as she pointed in the direction of the mountains. She lifted the wooden cane in front of her, her first arm still pointing forth to the forests.

“Where are they going?” Theodore asked from behind Melinda and Samuel.

The old woman turned to face Theodore. She seemed to have grown since Theodore had last seen her. He now recognized her as one of the guards that had abused him as child. Theodore felt himself grow smaller, taking an unconscious step backwards as the authority neared him. He hated his fear. This was an old lady who could barely walk without a cane, and here he was, stepping away from her, cowering behind his friends. For the first time in his life he wanted to be someone more, someone who did not run away upon seeing a challenge; someone who did not hide behind the big bones of Melinda and Samuel.

“Do you want to join them?” the old woman asked Theodore. “Or perhaps you desire an even worse fate. I can make that happen as well.” Her threatening tone seemed forced.

A rage of embarrassment and anger raged inside of Theodore. He heard Melinda about to say something in retort. He refused to allow her to stand up for him. There were rules about even talking this way to the old women that served as the guards for the children in the tents. He thought of those rules and how silly they sounded at this time. The rules were created by those who wanted others to follow them. It was time he questioned whether those rules should were worth obeying. He had his doubts now. His anger and rationality had been thrown out the window as he saw the old woman move toward them.

Theodore stepped lightly past Melinda and Samuel and pounced toward the old woman. He heard a cry behind him from Melinda but ignored it as he approached the old woman from the front. Although he was small, Theodore was very quick. He moved between his friends and arrived at the lady in a blur. Melinda watched in amazement as Theodore ran into the old lady. They both fell in a pile of thick clothing. Theodore popped back up, ready to fight more. The old woman remained on the ground moaning, reaching around for her cane. It was a pathetic sight, and before she knew it, Theodore had lifted his leg and kicked the old woman in the gut.

He lifted his foot to kick her again, but Samuel grabbed Theodore and pulled him back. “Enough,” he said simply.

Theodore was breathing hard, angry at himself and the old woman and his life in general. He tried to escape Samuel’s strong arms to kick the old woman again, but Samuel held him firm and lifted him to carry him away from her fallen form.

“Let’s get out of here,” Melinda said.

Theodore caught his mind and got settled again, and they all ran away from the back of the tents toward the main part of the tent city. They were less cautious on their way back to the tents than they had been on their way out. It did not matter who saw them. They knew they would eventually find them. It was only a matter of time. The old woman would recover and get a few of the children to help her find them.

They ran into the back of the tent through the back flap and Theodore fell on his sheets, exhausted from the run and from the violence. He did not know he had it in him. He wondered what other things were locked within him, and whether they were all bad. He was no convinced that what he had done was bad. While that old woman in particular had never done anything got him, there were lots of others who had. He worried about the precedent that he created by his actions.

Theodore threw the covers over his head, determined to get a few hours of sleep before they had to be awake for their morning chores.

“What are you doing?” Melinda yelled at Theodore. Theodore peeked out from under the covers and saw that the rest of the tent mates were staring at him.

“I thought I’d catch a few hours of rest before the morning,” Theodore said, not realizing how ridiculous that sounded after the evening’s activities.

“You idiot,” Melinda said. “After what you did there will not be any day’s activities. We have to decide what we are going to do.”

“We have to leave,” Trident said, echoing the thoughts on everyone’s mind except Theodore who had not thought through the consequences of his sudden attack of the old woman.

A gust of orange dust flew into the tent from the back flap of the tent, which they had not properly secured. Samuel walked over to the flap and tied it down.

“To where?” Melinda asked. She looked flustered. Theodore had never seen her like this. She looked unsure of what to do.

“Over the mountain,” Samuel said after he finished securing the back of the tent.

“We don’t even know what is past that mountain or even where to go,” Theodore said in protest. His action had worse consequences than he thought. For the first real rule he had ever broken, he now remembered why he did not break other rules.

“We need to get some stuff,” Trident said. She walked to the front of the tent. “I was on breakfast duty tomorrow morning. It would not seem too strange if I went over to the pantry and started collecting food items.” She grabbed a large sack as she left.

“We will pack up in here,” Melinda said.

Now that they had decided on their course of action, they began to work diligently, to collect the stuff they would need for their journey. They dressed in all of their winter clothing as they had seen the long line of children do before them. They wrapped their feet in extra cloth to keep them dry from the snow that they had seen at the top of the mountains.

“Do you know the path?” Samuel asked.

“Like I told you at the edge, I know where they come out of the forest. I am not sure how it looks from inside the forest, but I know the general direction, and it is up and over the mountains.”

“What do you think is on the other side of the mountain?” Theodore asked. He was throwing his things into a bag. Most of the bag was filled with books and clothing that he could not wear.

Nobody answered Theodore’s questions. They had talked about it often enough at night, but none of them had any ideas of what was over there. There was only way they were going to find out and that was to go over there and hope.

Trident returned with the sack filled with food items. “There was no one about and I cleaned out the pantry,” she said. “They may be a bit hungry tomorrow morning while they get stuff unfrozen from the mountain. But it’ll last us a few days, hopefully.”

“What about water?” Samuel asked.

They looked around, unsure how to proceed. They usually drank with ladles from a large bucket in the fields that was filled up with orange water from the rivers. “Do we have anything to store it in?”

“Can’t we eat snow?” Theodore asked.

None of them knew the answer to the question. They had eaten snow before, but it was not for sustenance. “We’ll have to figure it out as we go,” Melinda said. “We don’t have anything to store the water in, and I’m not sure how we go about carrying the water. Not even Samuel could carry that pail with enough water to make a difference.”

They all agreed and finished packing their bags and readied to go out into the wilderness and find out where it led. They heard commotion outside. Darkness had descended outside and they knew such noise could not bode well for them. They finished packing their stuff together. Samuel carried the lantern that had been their only light in the tent for years. He left it unlit but took the back of flint and tinder to light the lantern when they were far enough from the camp.

The dust was heavy in the air as they opened the tent flap in the back and headed out. They walked in single file, moving quickly behind the tents and retracing their steps from earlier.

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