The Refugee
Chapter 10- Feralae
Cassie was a lot friendlier towards me after that. But there was no time to be friendly. David had unearthed some kind of weird machine in the workshop behind the cabin. The most recent date in Caroline's journal was from around the turn of the century, shortly before World War 1. The family had apparently died out during the flu epidemic of the era. So there Marco and I were, shoving open the leaves of the workshop. Almost… The door snapped back with a BAM!
David slipped from my shoulder and scuttled over to a corner where the weirdest machine stood covered in junk. What's this?
I lumbered over to it, a huge gorilla. It's a Stanley Steamer. I said, with reverence.
"A what?" Jake asked.
"Isn't that a vacuum cleaner?" Asked Rachel skeptically.
It's also a type of car. It was the earliest car actually, before the Model-T. These were amazingly power efficient. But they were rare. The Stanley Brothers weren't interested in improving production. They turned out only a few hundred of them a year. Remember the movie Sea Biscuit? The seen where what's his name had to fix a car and he took it apart and put it back together again? That was a Stanley Steamer! They're incredibly valuable. I'm surprised that they hadn't sold this! I exclaimed.
Sea Biscuit? Asked David.
"A famous racehorse, they made a movie about him." Rachel commented. "My mother took us to see it. Maybe I should bring you David."
Will Tobias kill me if I call it a date? David asked, with a thoughtspeak pout.
"Hey, don't push your luck!" Rachel said mockingly.
What happened to the Stanley Brothers? Asked Ax.
They were out produced by Henry Ford's Model-T. I answered. The T didn't out perform the Steamer though. But there were so few of them and so many Model-T's that it didn't matter. The Steamers cost a lot too. The Stanley brother's business now makes, as Rachel said, Vacuum cleaners. I explained. I still have my history book Ax. I'll let you borrow it if you want.
I would be glad to. Ax answered. He and Alloran moved forward to look at the machine.
Amazing. It appears to be made of a single steam engine. Alloran mused. We stopped using them a long time ago, but they were incredibly efficient for moving people and goods.
"We used steam engines for less than a century until they were replaced with diesel fuel and electricity."
WHAT?? Alloran demanded. Less than a century? It took us over two hundred years for Andilites to go from steam to fuel!
I finished demorphing and grinned. "Surprised? We were fifty years from primitive atmospheric flight to orbiting our moon. Took us less to go from atomic bombs to using the atom to create electricity. We still have nukes, but nobody uses them anymore. Of course, we had Albert Einstein for that, so that says something."
You humans learn incredibly fast. Alloran commented. This machine is amazing. He said, poking one of the valves.
"There's some kind of weird pipe over here." Marco pointed to it.
"That's a glass pipe. It looks pretty old. But you need a forge…"
"Over there." Marco pointed out.
Glass pipe? Asked Alloran.
"We used to blow glass, probably back when this place was first built. But blowing glass is incredibly dangerous." I explained. "It causes all kinds of diseases in the lungs."
Incredible the things you humans come up with. Alloran commented.
"You think America is incredible, wait till you see Leonardo Da Vinci." I grinned. "Now there was a master craftsman!"
I went over to inspect the forge. It hadn't been used since closed to the Civil War. That was my guess. In those days metal work was a man's job. Caroline would have had to shut down the forge. She'd probably done sewing, and some light mining. That would explain why she'd had all the cloth.
The other Animorphs were exclaiming over the car, but I was happier with the forge. It seemed almost like a blessing, because the forge there reminded me of home. I wondered absently if this was what our house would look like in a hundred and fifty years. Too bad I wouldn't be around then.
We got to work hauling everything out. Erek helped us sandpaper the tools to get the rust off. The boys got to work polishing the floor. Marco, Toby and I pushed the steamer out into the yard and scrub off the rust with a hork bajir made mixture of sand and horsetails. Then we carefully washed it down with a morph of Alloran's that sprayed water. Alloran explained that it synthesized water from air that it absorbed through it's skin. It was gross, but it got the job done.
The boys came to tell us that the floor was done, but the tools still hadn't been scrubbed completely clean. The frame of the rope bed still had to be rewoven. The iron and cloth that had been in storage had to be stacked and stored. Wood had to be chopped. We pushed the now sparkling Stanley Steamer back into the workshop and wolfed down a dinner of roast fish on a stick (Cassie's treat,) before once again retreating to the Valley and sleep.
We were up with the sun that day as all of us returned to the now Herculean effort to restore the compound. David took a line of synthetic rope through the bed frame, we went through the tools, scrubbing away rust and wear until it was gone. Even David helped. The rat's claws were a lot similar to a raccoon's. Tobias morphed human to help. We sorted them, iron ingot, scrap, tools, and hardware. The scrap iron and ingots would have the rust melted and worked off of them. But tools and hardware had to be sparkling clean in order to work.
We finished about lunchtime and started gathering wood for the cook-stove in the cabin. David and Tobias gathered kindling. The hork bajir found at least half a dozen dead trees. Together we chopped the wood, I piled it up the way that dad had taught me to and soon we had a respectable two cords of wood in the shed out behind the cabin. I kept going, and that night, before we headed back to the valley I grinned. "Tomorrow is moving day."
See you! David said cheerfully as he climbed into his hole.
"See you!" I said, looking up at him.
Tomorrow is moving day. Then we have Saturday and the mission. Cassie said thoughtfully. It's been an eventful week hasn't it? She asked me, looking over as we flew.
I was in Harris Hawk morph. Yes, it's amazing how time flies.
Feralae… I…
I smiled inwardly. Yes?
Feralae what do I do? Cassie asked in private thoughtspeak. About that kiss? About ME? I liked kissing you. I like Jake too… what do I do?
Cassie that's for you to decide. I'm not the one who asked you to kiss me after all. I don't know, maybe you're bisexual. I suggested.
I don't know. Cassie said helplessly. I don't know what to do!
It's okay Cassie. I said reassuringly. But you need to figure it out for yourself. I can't do the figuring for you.
Cassie found me later playing the guitar that I had saved from the house. "Longing for home again, Home is a feeling I buried in you… I'm alright, I'm alright. It only hurts when I breathe…" I ignored her. "I can't ask for things to be still again
No I can't ask if I could walk through the world in your eyes, longing for home again, home is a feeling I buried in you."
"Feralae?" Cassie asked gently. "May I join you?"
I stopped, relaxing my grip on the guitar chord. "Sure." I took up a fresh grip on the guitar. I thought for a moment. "So you walked with me for awhile, bared your naked soul, and you told me of your plan, how you would never let them know…"
Cassie smiled, then shivered in the night. I wrapped the other half of my blanket around her. "Come on, share the warmth."
"I never heard that song." Cassie said with one of her shy smiles.
"This one is for you." I smiled, striking up the chords.
"Why did you steal the matches?
From the one room motel
Once they gave you answers
Now they give you hell
They will never understand
They wonder where did they go wrong
How could you be so selfish?
Why can't you get along?
And as you pray
In your darkness
For wings to set you free
You are bound
To your silent legacy."
Cassie listened softly as I sang. I was careful not to jostle her under the confines of the blanket. She was so beautiful. It wasn't Rachel's eye catching beauty. It was more subtle than that, serene.
"You've seen it in the movies
And you've heard it on the street
Craving the affection
Your blood is full of heat
They don't listen to your reasons
As original as sin
Deny all that you feel
And they will bring you home again
And as you pray in your darkness
For wings to set you free
You are bound to your silent legacy."
She was listening intently. Cassie knew, I realized, that I was using the song to sort of… talk to her… to tell her what I didn't want to say to her.
"Your body is alive
But no one told you what you'd feel
The empty aching hours
Trying to conceal
The natural progression
Is the coming of your age
But they cover it with shame
And turn it into rage
And as you pray in your darkness
For wings to set you free
You are bound to your silent legacy."
We were close, so close. It was a closeness that I wanted to hang on to. Cassie had comforted me when my parents had been taken. I trusted her as much as I trusted Marco. Marco was the uh… experienced queer. I was just the tentative virgin who had never had a girl friend in her life, never kissed until this Animorph, this dark, and beautiful and serene Animorph, had climbed the stairs into my life.
"You are digging for the answers
Until your fingers bleed
To satisfy the hunger
To satiate the need
They feed you on the guilt
To keep you humble keep you low
Some man and myth they made up
A thousand years ago
And as you pray in your darkness
For wings to set you free
You are bound to your silent legacy."
This part of the song was supposed to be loud, defiant, angst ridden. Angst I did do, volume and defiance just would not be appropriate. I didn't want to attract attention. And so I gave the song's solution, not as a mother to a child, but as a friend to a friend.
"Mothers tell your children
Be quick you must be strong
Life is full of wonder
Love is never wrong
Remember how they taught you
How much of it was fear
Refuse to hand it down
The legacy stops here
Oh my child..."
I put aside the guitar and Cassie leaned gently into my grip. "That's how it is Cassie. You asked, that's how it is." I said softly.
She looked up at me. "Feralae, I… I feel so warm, so alive with you."
"Jake will be upset won't he?" I asked worriedly.
"He will, but I am what I am, there's really not much he can do about me." Cassie said softly. She leaned her head against my chest. "What exactly do I do?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, blinking in surprise.
"Feralae, what do girls do in bed?" Cassie asked.
I jumped. "You're thinking of that already?" I asked with a chuckle.
"I'm just curious."
"Well, we kiss, and we use sex toys, and we use our hands and our lips, basically anything that doesn't require a dick." I answered.
"Watch you language!" Cassie protested with a mock scowl.
"Well it's true isn't it?" I asked impudently. "I mean we do use anything that doesn't require a dick. It's not my fault that people turned it into a dirty word." I grinned. Then I had an idea. "Here." I looped something from around my neck. "My father made this for me. It's a labrys. They're a symbol of the Amazons of Greek Mythology, and of Artemis and Demeter. They were worn for protection, and recently they've become a symbol of lesbian sex. Wear it in good health Cassie." I slipped it gently around her neck.
Cassie tucked it under her shirt. "Thanks." She murmured, leaning up to kiss me.
I didn't hesitate to return it. Rachel was a warrior, but she wanted Tobias. Cassie wanted me. That was enough.
We sat up there for awhile, looking up at the stars. But we went to bed down in the caves.