"Away from the fog, away from the mist,

away from the cry of what you most miss.

Away from temptation, away from the wall,

away from the senseless desire to fall.

Tread carefully, my child, walk away from the shore,

stay here, with me, think of yonder nevermore."

---------

Elijah chokes on his dreams. He thrashes upright, eyes flashing open as he wakes, blinking until the shadows clear and light enters his vision. The front of his thin shirt is soaked through with sweat.

The limbs of a honey locust tree hush in the wind above his head, pale green sunlight filtering down to dapple the backs of Elijah’s hands, the bare length of his legs, the tanned skin over his arms.

It’s disorienting — the breeze, the cry of birds, the sun on his face — until he remembers. He had collapsed here last night, sheltered under the curve of this tree. He had run from the cries of his mother, the curses of his father, the tightened fists and harsh words and empty beer bottles in the sink.

As his breathing slows down, as his chest stops rising and falling with a rapid desperateness, Elijah reaches for the dregs of the nightmare that had woken him.

He had been running. Running across soft ground unlike the hardness beneath him, soft ground that gave way so easily beneath his feet, making each stride a battle. It had been dark, and cold, the sun missing from the sky, the wind howling in his ears like a wounded animal. Whatever had been chasing him had caught up. Elijah had become one of the shadows, swallowed and buried until he had forgotten who he was.

Elijah shivers despite the heat. He remembers the very end of his dream, the lilting rhyme he knew so well that had filled up the empty spaces of himself, that had made the darkness seem that much more real as it had crept into his lungs and heart and mind.

"Tread carefully, my child, walk away from the shore…"

The same rhyme that the younger children sing on the playground as they jump rope. The same rhyme that his mother hums on good days when she’s got the windows open and her hair up, stroking the piano keys she loves so much. The same rhyme that is inscribed anywhere it is necessary — in the hospital, at the beginning of every book, hanging in a friend’s kitchen on a custom-made plaque.

Elijah swallows past the terrible dryness of his throat. Around him a forest of honey locusts and white oaks and red maples sway and dance, their branches tangling together above him like fingers interlocking over bowed heads during Sanctuary.

"Sanctuary."

The thought hits him suddenly, panic shooting straight and true through his heart. He scrambles to his feet. Today is Sanctuary and he can’t be late, no matter the cost.

Elijah begins to run, his sneakers finding hard, unforgiving soil this time as he flies through the trees.

---------

Elijah’s mother is a porcelain doll beside him. Her face is powder smooth, her lips a beautiful red, her golden hair coiled and piled on her head with practiced ease, a few curls escaping and framing the elegant lines of her face.

To anyone sitting around them, Elijah thinks, she must look like a queen.

To him, her son, she looks like a woman who’s been dragged from her throne, locked up in a tower surrounded by chains and thorns and hard fists. A queen without her crown, enshrouded in lies and pretense as she covers her bruises and cuts with makeup, as she keeps her frail shoulders straight even though Elijah sees the flinch in her eyes every time his father shifts beside her.

Elijah bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood, hates himself for how perfectly still he has become over the years, a prince of silence. He’s still just the little boy cowering behind his mother’s legs, running to the trees for comfort while his mother braves the storm on her own.

"Coward," his brain whispers. "You deserve this life."

Elijah jerks himself away from the poison of his thoughts as the crowd around them rustles and shifts, a low murmur going through the room like the sigh of the wind in the treetops. The Provider has arrived right on time, her crimson skirts rustling around her ankles as she moves to the front of the room, turning until she is facing the rest of the village. The sunlight streaming in from the windows behind her throws her features into shadow, casts a reddish glow at her feet.

Elijah is reminded of his nightmare, of the shadows curling inky fingers around his throat.

His mother turns to him slightly, as if she can feel it, the sudden renewal of fear in his bloodstream. But Elijah doesn’t meet her eyes. She bears enough weight on her shoulders and Elijah can smell the faint scent of rum on her breath.

She only ever smells like that when the pain is too much, when it needs to be dulled.

Instead Elijah stands with the others on shaking knees as the Provider raises her gloved hands.

"Away from the fog, away from the mist…" The voice of the crowd rises up to the rafters — solid, firm, unwavering. From here Elijah imagines he can see the lips of the Provider curve with satisfaction, pleased with her children and their obedience.

The words of their ancestors ring up to the high ceilings. They are the truth they all live by. They are the key to the ongoing success and happiness of this village, of the towns and villages and cities that surround it, of the small nation they all belong to. Every child is raised with this truth, spoon-fed the stories that are there to warn and protect them.

There are monsters out there, past the rolling fog that encompasses the edges of The Boundary. The crash and roar of them is forever present if you dare to go close enough to the towering, ivory wall of swirling mist to listen.

There are people out there too, Elijah has been told. People who are unlike others, who are different and wrong and frightening. People who try to send their mothers and children across The Boundary with the pretense of needing aid when they are really just trying to encroach and feed off of the livelihood this village has worked so hard to build. Dangerous people who would not hesitate to murder.

Elijah believes in monsters. One of them sleeps under his roof. One of them lives side-by-side with him. One of them leaves empty glass bottles of whiskey and rum in his wake, leaves blood and blooms of bruises in his fury, leaves intimidation and fear and persuasion sitting guard at their doorstep.

His Provider preaches of the freedom they are all so lucky to have, here within their walls of smoke. But Elijah knows only of the entrapment of his father, of the shackles that he wraps around his mother’s wrists, of the sticky-sweet alcohol on his breath when his eyes are wild and crazy and filled with a fury that Elijah doesn’t know how to put out.

And how is he supposed to escape? How is his mother supposed to seek help when the Provider and their neighbors expect his family to plaster on plastic smiles and cover wounds with blush and nod and act as if everything is perfect?

"… stay here, with me, think of yonder nevermore."

Elijah sits back down. The Provider begins to talk. He doesn’t hear the words.

If him and his mother tried to ask for help — if they threw away all pretense of being perfect and put together the way a proper, obedient family like theirs should be — what would happen? He has lied awake and stared at the cracks in his ceiling for hours before, trying to find a way out.

Would his father be held accountable or would the Court find his mother responsible, a woman inciting the rightful wrath of her husband, bringing it on herself?

Elijah has seen it happen before, when he had been too young to fully understand. He knows what would happen if they failed in their pleas. If they lost, Elijah’s mother would be sent to the other side of The Boundary, exiled to live with the monsters and with the crippling fear of the unknown. Elijah would be left with his father and his punches.

Cool fingers wrap around Elijah’s, breaking him from his thoughts. The soft voice of the Provider filters back into his ears. His mother’s hand is strong and steady around his own.

Elijah holds tight.

He thinks he can hear the rage of monsters from here and their growls match the tempo of his heart.

---------

The boy and woman hidden in the shadows of the white oak do not see Elijah.

He stops dead in his tracks, a palm still cradling the bruised and swollen skin of his jaw as if his fingers can hold in all of the pain in his bones — as if they can hold back all of the fury and shamefulness that burn through his bloodstream and bloom in his stomach, growing up and up and up until he chokes on it all.

Elijah recognizes both figures immediately, despite the shadows thrown by the trees in the late-night, muggy air.

Adrian and Adalie Baldred, adopted son and adopting mother.

Adrian, the boy who had lost both of his parents so young. Adalie, who had immediately stepped forward to take in the orphan even though her hair had turned white long ago, even though time had begun taking its toll on her body.

Adrian, the boy who loves his books. Adalie, who could almost always be found out in her garden at the back of her house — back near where her two stillborn children were buried.

Adrian, the boy who has always been… different. The boy who had used to wear pretty skirts and dresses around the village. The boy who had grown his raven-colored hair out before the Provider and the others had forced him to cut it — before they had turned him into a public humiliation and had burned the clothes he clutched so close.

He had been too young to be exiled, but he hadn’t been enough of a child in the eyes of the law to avoid the shackles in the center square, or the days of being chained up out in the open — exposed to the rain and the biting wind and the harsher, sharper words and sneers of the people who passed him by.

Adalie had watched on in silence, had let Adrian suffer the consequences without a trace of regret on her wrinkled face, hand-in-hand with the Provider.

But now… Elijah inhales quietly at the sight before him.

Adalie sits with her back to the oak tree, a book in her hands, reading with a content smile on her face. And Adrian…

Adrian lies sprawled out in the grass at her feet, gazing up at the burning, star-filled sky, a beautiful yellow dress pooling around his figure.

They’ve both aged over the four years that have passed since those days of torture, the days that Elijah has tried to forget because his heart had ached strangely back then for the bowed head in the center square, for the broken lines of Adrian’s shoulders that had looked so much like the broken eyes of Elijah’s mother.

Adrian is now eighteen, just like Elijah. He performs his duties like the rest of them, goes to school, keeps his eyes downturned. Elijah hasn’t seen him in any pretty silks or patterned cloths in years. Ever since those days four years ago Adrian has seemed watered down, muted, a boy built of shadows and paper and the quiet hush of raindrops.

And yet here he is now, suddenly much clearer in Elijah’s eyes, more vivid and alive than he’s ever been.

Elijah holds his breath, heart racing in his chest. He watches, unsure of what else to do, watches as Adrian says something to Adalie that Elijah can’t make out, watches as she lowers her book to tip her head back to look at the spot in the sky that Adrian is raising a hand to point to. Elijah watches her smile widen, watches her laugh and say something and then watches as she turns a look of such blatant adoration and love and kindness onto the child before her that Elijah’s heart wrenches almost agonizingly in the cage of his ribs.

Gone is the woman who had watched in silence. Gone is the woman who had listened to Adrian’s pleas without mercy. Here is the woman who had maybe been protecting the child she loved like her own in the only way she could.

Elijah clutches his battered face in the shadows and can’t help but think that Adrian is free out here in the trees, shielded away from the cruelty of his own people and surrounded by nothing but the ancient silence of the oaks and maples and honey locusts, exposed to nothing but love and kindness, a step towards an acceptance of differences.

Elijah steps back, melting away into the shadows. He steps back towards the imprisonment of his father and his hatred.

And he wonders how free any of them truly are, trapped here in their walls of fog.

---------

Elijah has bitten his nails down until his fingers bleed. His hands, dug into the hard soil to break his fall, are stained at the fingertips with the same color of the Provider’s robes.

The Provider with her ruby-red lips and cold gray eyes and a voice that scares Elijah more than the crash and roar of the monsters beyond The Boundary.

The Provider who had cost Elijah his mother.

Elijah had tried — and he had lost. His mother had been exiled. His father’s fists had tightened. And now, a year later, Elijah runs.

He wrenches himself up from the ground from where he had tripped and fallen over a tree root, the air in his lungs burning with the saltiness of the wind this close to the edge of the line none of them are ever supposed to cross. This close, Elijah can hear the gigantic rumble of what lies beyond, can see the wall of mist and smoke rising before him through the gaps in the trees.

He throws himself forward with the echoes of a poem in his ears.

"Away from the fog, away from the mist…"

The ground is growing softer beneath his shoes, giving way. Elijah remembers a nightmare from before, of shadows swallowing him up until he faded away — but the darkness does not reach for him here. Instead the sky above him is turning pale gold, lightening as the sun rises from the horizon.

"Away from the cry of what you most miss…"

"Mother," Elijah thinks, stumbling again and righting himself, pushing forward.

"Away from temptation, away from the wall…"

The trees begin to thin out, growing farther and farther apart. Elijah’s breath runs ragged in his throat, his battered ribs ache. For some reason Adrian and Adalie’s faces flash before his eyes as bright yellow sunlight begins to spread its rays across the ground.

"Away from the senseless desire to fall…"

Soil no longer meets Elijah’s footfalls. He’s running across something lighter and looser, something that threatens to give way beneath him and leave him falling forever. He pays it no heed, not now — now when the wall is right before him, rising and rising, curling and coiling into the pale blue air.

"Tread carefully, my child, walk away from the shore,

stay here, with me, think of yonder nevermore."

Elijah skids to a stop right before it, his chest heaving. His dark hair curls in the mist, in the odd, salty, muggy air. His shoes sink through the ground. His ribs ache with the weight of his father’s blows and his heart throbs for his mother’s face.

The wall is forever moving, changing, shifting and Elijah looks at it with something akin to wonder instead of fear.

He doesn’t know what lies beyond. He doesn’t know if there are monsters with their sharp teeth bared or people who are just as dangerous. He doesn’t know a lot of things — whether his mother is still alive, if his father will ever look for him, if the Provider will send out a team to bring him back.

Elijah doesn’t even know if Adrian will ever find the three words he had carved into the trunk of a honey locust in the forest a few weeks ago — his farewell parting to a boy who also asked the trees to protect his secrets.

But Elijah knows he has to leave.

He reaches out, threads his fingers through the coils of fog, watches his skin disappear behind it and holds tight to himself.

As the mist encompasses him, as the strange air fills his lungs and dampens the anger in his stomach, the poem in Elijah’s head fades away, sucked back into the darkness of the tree line behind him.

Three words take its place. Three words that he had left for Adrian and all of the others who would need them.

Freedom is kindness.

Elijah steps forward.

they say you feel blue and that’s true but it’s more than that you actually feel the color and i don’t know how to explain other than you just do like the ocean- navy and maybe indigo and a whole lot of black too a jay bird’s feather not the weather- for that you make me feel grey. like low hanging clouds and fog and mist i'm lost and i'm pissed all i wanted was a kiss maybe a little more but definitely more than this strike me like lightning i just feel like fighting and then you make me feel red with rage like spilt blood from the cuts i made on the page i just want to sink into the copper lakes of oklahoma that stain my shoes and the color white- but that’s one color i’ll never feel because no matter how far back i peel my skin i’m bruised and beaten and reeling about from your clouts steal my heart i don’t want to fall apart but i never was that smart most brains are pink but mine is not and that’s another color i won’t ever feel- pink is innocence and contentment but you were scared of commitment and threw me aside like an unwanted shipment god dammit

i’m sick and tired of feeling colors

they said rainbows were beautiful and symbolize promises but promises are made to be broken i'm broken you did this to me you made me feel green like i was growing but you made sure to treat me like a weed maybe i am maybe that's all i'll ever be but maybe i'm not tired of feeling colors

maybe i'm tired of feeling me

Sometimes the sadness I'm trying to escape

Catches up, trips me up; leaves me without my cape

Tricks me from all the things that make me great

My addictions are abusive wordplay

To make me think I'm less than the crown I should take

Not a king or human being, a dying star; maybe before I break

I'll find my way, graze the sky than fall gracefully

I've been struggling faithfully

Waiting patiently for my demons to fall asleep

So I can creep out of these sheets and do some good

Lift my foot; let it go or hit the brakes and take it slow

Repeat till I'm far from home, looking back I never belonged

Only as tough as my weakest moments, wish I was strong

Some would agree others say I am wrong; could carry the world?

Barely carry blood in my veins much less the strain love incurs

I'm always sicker than the cure, bathe myself in whiskey and let it burn

Can money really buy what I can't afford?

Or will I always be a few dollars short of something more

Inches or miles from paradise's shore

Either way the tide carries me far from her

Harder on me than you could ever be

Blame myself for the devils burning

I've been returning from lessons learned

Thumbing through pages I never thought I'd turn

Thankful that I got the chance, hate the dance was fast

Reaching for straws coming up with shorter grasp

Time's sand slipping through my hands like ninja acrobats

Always felt more like an alien in the midst of an awkward crash

Skid into death, engine spitting flames; lungs full of ash

It was a bash, did me in till I was flat on my ass

I was an eighties baby, nineties crazy, it caught up fast

Now I'm only as good as the last time I didn't lash out

Shouting obscenities, bleeding from wounds I gashed out

Planned out my next move in solitaire God is playing chess

And check mate is coming up quick so now my best bet

Flip the board, ride the storm, I'm pretty use to it

They should name hurricanes for the way I act

Jump the tracks to prove my train has a chance

Watch these bridges burn like a pyromaniac

Ace up sleeve; mine is red the deck is black

I was never good at keeping up a bluff

If love took my hand I'd cheat myself from it's embrace

Sometimes the sadness I'm trying to escape

Catches up, trips me up; leaves me without my cape

Tricks me from all the things that make me great

My addictions are abusive wordplay

To make me think I'm less than the crown I should take

Not a king or human being, a dying star; maybe before I break

I'll find my way, graze the sky than fall gracefully

I know the way traced it out painfully

Back roads are my back hand, knuckles bumblebees

Beat myself up I feel every sting

Even wear School of Hard knocks graduation ring

As I swing, I would bleed every drop if I thought it would change

I'm to blame, I'm insane, gotta get high to fly this plane

Tend to swerve when I should remain straight

Wake and bake for my mistakes, pray God forgives me for being away

Wish life was a sitcom, drama always followed by the answer

Maybe if I was a better dancer or my drummer more a slasher

Does anyone really have it together?

Followed the letters did the math still came up short when it mattered

Now it's fuck the jump if I always splatter

Rearrange my matter, chatter my DNA into a stronger disaster

Sometimes the sadness I'm trying to escape

Catches up, trips me up; leaves me without my cape

Tricks me from all the things that make me great

My addictions are abusive wordplay

To make me think I'm less than the crown I should take

Not a king or human being, a dying star; maybe before I break

I'll find my way, graze the sky than fall gracefully

My name is Scout. Grandma picked it. She said Scout was a character from a book she read in school a long time ago. Something about how to kill a bird. But I like my name because it’s not only what I’m called, it’s what I am.

Grandma is sitting on the floor in the main room. There’s not much room anywhere else. In fact, our tiny house, which was already crowded with a family of five, is now literally full of people. Oh, and also blankets, and pillows, and food. The main room is home to a grimy oven, which doesn’t function since there is no electricity, but we can build a fire in it to cook things; a few wooden chairs; and beds for all the adults. The other room has beds for the kids. The whole house is dusty and rusty, but there is an overwhelming sense of home.

I go and sit on the blanket with Grandma. My little brother Teven is already there talking to her.

“Grandma, why can’t I go outside like Scout?” he asks.

I know he already knows the answer to this question. He asks either me, or Grandma, or my mom, or my dad, or any one of the adults or teenagers living in our house every day. But, every time, he doesn’t seem satisfied with the answer. So he keeps on asking.

“Teven,” I begin, but Grandma puts a hand on my leg to silence me. She wants to answer this time.

She purses her wrinkly lips, then says, “You are still very young, so I know it’s hard for you to understand. But before you were even born, and Scout was about your age, the world went crazy. Some thought it was a good idea to put an end to militaries, and severe restrictions on guns, in an effort to make peace. Which would have worked, if the world was perfect.”

She takes time to pause, and make sure Teven is soaking this all in. Since he’s probably heard this story a thousand times, he could recite it with perfect details. He is looking very bored, with his fist on his chin, but he nods anyway.

“But, the world isn’t perfect. And without any armed good people to stop the armed bad people, there was chaos. People live like animals now. The strongest can take what they want. And so it’s not safe for you to go outside.”

Teven shoots back sarcasticly, “So how come it’s safe for Scout and not me?”

Grandma scowls a little. “You know why. She has experience. She is quiet--”

Teven starts to interrupt that he could be all those things too, but Grandma continues, “And she is older. Nearly an adult. She can decide for herself what she wants to do. If she wants to take the risk, that’s up to her.”

Adult. the word is strange in my mind. I’m fifteen. If things had stayed the way they were, I would be in school, right on track to a good education and career. But no. In this sick world, I am almost grown up. And responsible for getting food and supplies for my family.

I say family, because they are. Some of them literally, --my immediate family like my parents, grandmother, and little brother, and also my aunt and cousins-- but some of them I’ve just grown so close to, that they feel like family now. In such close quarters, how could they not?

I see the teenagers start stirring from their positions on the floor, or from helping in the “kitchen.” It’s that time again. I stand up too, and join them. Usually at this time, Teven would make one last plea to go with us, but for some reason he stays quietly on the floor with Grandma.

“Be safe,” my mom says, hugging me.

Teven just looks up at me. His eyes are gray and blue, and full of this emotion that looks like fear, and sadness, maybe confusion. And a little bit of love. Huh. He’s never really looked at me like that before.

Cousins and friends who are of age grab bags, and group up by the door. There’s my friend Ami, we used to go to school together; her older brother Ray; my cousin Zack, and my cousin Charlotte. We call her Charlie. This little ragtag group of teenagers is all that stands between our families and starvation. We have to find abandoned buildings, houses, anywhere that might have food, or anything else salvageable and easy to carry. We will be out for the rest of the day, scouting, as I like to call it.

Grandma kneels and says a prayer out loud. She does this every day, and maybe it works, because we always make it back safe. It’s also probably because we have each other’s backs. We are family, we will run for each other, hide for each other, stand for each other, fight for each other, die for each other. I have absolute confidence that they would do it for me, and I would do it for them.

Teven waves goodbye from the floor, as we head out into the world. A gunshot sounds in the distance. A gunshot that’s supposed to be illegal. Gray smoke clouds the skies, and remnants of houses stand, like bones in graves, to tell the sad story of a world without a fighting chance. How strange that such a thing as family can exist in a world like this.

"Lyridon doesn't have an official military?" Elianne Sahmbri asks us incredulously.

I shrug, sipping my tea. "Nope. Don't need one. We've got some powerful mages and some of the best education in the world," I explain. "Anything combat-related is left to various free lance guilds. We just defend our own."

"If everyone builds a wall around their house, as they say," Calantha chimes in. "Your dad didn't tell you any of this before marrying our mom?"

"Well, no. Then again, I suppose he's never liked the Noreidahn military, so it makes sense that he'd be excited about moving to a country that's never needed one..." She trails off, persing her rosy pink lips at me.

"What?"

"You're not holding your pinkie up like a lady should," She gripes.

"Don't pay attention to my fingers," I snap. "Pay attention to the lesson. Anyway, like I said, Lyridon doesn't need a military because of the powerful freelance mage guilds. We're allies with the only countries that could actually pose any degree of a threat to us, like Noreidah and Agiyerra.

"Since you're going to school this fall like Calantha and me, you need to pick where you're going. Combat, expoloration, or scholar guilds are your choices if you want to study magic."

Elianne wrinkles her nose. "Combat sounds borish. A lady of my stature would never dirty her hands with it - and without a military, I expect that the training is all the more difficult to compensate."

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Calantha shakes her head. "All three categories have some degree of combat training. It's very important to hone your magic, as well as to be able to defend yourself. As nobles, we're targeted more than anyone else. Even Iantha, who doesn't give the air or appearance of a noble has been attacked for ransom on occasion."

"I kicked their asses. Because of combat training," I inform Elianne, smirking at her scowl.

"I just don't understand how you can feel safe without a military, though. Or how the country functions."

"Like I said. Everyone looks out for their own. And even people who don't make careers out of their magic are required to take a basic level of combat training. That janitor over there?" I jerk my chin to where Mr. Arkel is contentedly cleaning a recently vacated table. "He'd wipe the floor with you in two seconds flat. He even gives me a run for my money and I was in the top ten of my class last year.

"We don't need a specifically government drafted military, because unity is built into our very essence from childhood. We're raised to rely on and look out for each other. Everyone has their own achievements, sure. But at the end of the day, if someone tried to kill me and Mr. Arkel was around, he'd jump to my aid and vice versa. It's just Lyridonian culture."

"What, are there no bad people in this country?" Eliane laughs sarcastically.

"Gee, what tipped you off? The fact that Calantha mentioned me getting attacked for ransom?" I roll my eyes. "Obviously there are still bad people in Lyridon. They just generally get what's coming to them. Combat guilds bring criminals to the various mini councils for trial and sentencing. Very few criminals get past the guilds and the people they target."

"You don't have to be so rude. How about you go to Noreidah and let me sass you when you have questions?" Elianne huffs.

"Alright, you two," Calantha sighs. "Don't worry, Elianne. You'll see how things work soon enough. I know it can take a lot of adjusting when you move to a completely different country, but you'll be fine."

I understand the unspoken probably, but let the conversation lull. I don't particularly like our new step sister, but family is still family. I'll watch out for her to the best of my ability.