The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 1

Chapter epl1: Vol 11 Epilogue

CECILIA SEVER

The smell of smoke alerted me and I dropped the wool bundle that I was tingling before rushing to the kitchen. My hip hit the side of the side table and I turned around too late to catch the lamp, which tilted to the side and broke against the uneven planks on the ground.

Suffering a sigh, I decided to do what I could for the lamp after saving the ruins of dinner, and I continued into the little open-air kitchen, where a pot boiled violently and released black smoke. I had already learned what it was to grasp the burning iron handle with my bare hands – I lifted the heavy pot of the solar heating element and put it on the table. The iron feet left small black marks on the surface of the wood.

Mying my lip so as not to sigh again, I took a wooden ladle and I stirred the soup, hoping that it had not burned too much, but knowing that we would eat it in one way or another.

I stirred the soup for a minute or two to prevent the still hot iron from burning it further, then I took off my hand and picked up the cracked lamp. Looking at her with regret, I walked towards the door, but stopped in the frame to turn around and look at the little house.

"House," I said, the word being strange on my lips. Nowhere else had this word agreed to me before, but the little hut, well outside the city, with its capricious electricity and its endless maintenance problems, seemed to me quite simply to be a house.

I smiled as I walked down the three brick steps and bypassing the outer wall of the hut by a worn gravel road that held more from the earth than from the rock.

The hut overhanged a meander of one of the many simulated rivers that surrounded the city, whose constant flow of fresh water was the fruit of pumps and valves rather than gravity. A thin row of evergreen trees bordered the bank of the river. A disused dock advanced from the edge of our property in the moving water, but we had never managed to obtain the permit to use a boat to enjoy it.

Between me and the river, on four legs on the rocky ground which we had got rid of grass and weeds, was Nico. For a moment I saw him not as he was, but as he had been at the same time the boy I remembered and the dark face he had worn in this other life.

This thought made me shake my head, as if I had got up too quickly and saw stars. It was hard to remember all of this. It was easier not to try to remember. But sometimes thoughts came back to me, and I couldn't help but think about it. I had a life on Earth, as the Inheritance. This version of me had lived a short and tortured existence before being annihilated by my own actions.

My eyes closed and I had to be careful not to breathe too fast. At the risk of sinking under the waves of the following memories, I bite the side of the cheek and forced my eyes to open again, and then began to strolling on the gentle slope towards Nico. The sight of this Nico had faded. He had become himself again. Although her hair was still black, her face was soft and kind, his eyes tender. Just watching him eased my anxiety.

He looked up. There was a stain of black earth, or perhaps fertilizer, on the edge of his nose and on his cheek. I could not help smiling at this sight.

"That's exactly what I feared," he said, smiling at my smile. But when he glanced at the ground, the expression disappeared to give way to a frown of thoughtful eyebrows. "This ground is horrible. The river has not been there long enough to irrigate the surrounding land, and it's really rocky." He passed his fingers into the earth, biting his lip. “Despite everything, we should be able to do it.”

"The dinner is ready," I said stiffly. I knew he wouldn't say anything about the fact that he was burned, but I kept thinking about it. "Unless we can go to town? Buying something good? The soup will last for a few days.”

Nico got up and brushed his hands on his dirty pants. "You burned it, didn't you?"

I uttered a dismayed moan. "I don't know what happened. The saucepan was lit and I got lost..."

"I know," he said to console me. Suddenly, he found himself right in front of me and his powerful arms drew effortlessly to him.

I pressed my face on the curve of his shoulder and started shaking.

"I know," he repeated, with his hand running through the back of my long brown ash hair. The detail remained in my mind. Ash brown, not silvery grey. "It happens to me too," Nico whispered, shaking me against him. "I'm thinking about something, and the next moment, an hour has passed and I haven't moved. I think he swallowed loudly and his hands go down my arms until his fingers mingle with mine. "I think that's what Grey did."

What Grey did.

Forgeing a radiant smile, I clasped his hands and moved him away from the struggling garden. "Come on, let's go to the city."

He looked at me suspiciously. "This is your only weekend off a month, Cecilia. You know that if we go to town..."

"I promise you I won't train you, okay?" I looked at him beggingly.

Laughing, he pulled me until his arm was draped on my shoulders, our fingers always intertwined. “I should be washed and put on my city costume.”

I leaned against him, smiling on his lips.