Chapter 383 Chapter 383
Terah watched Olanna and Auburn disappear under the water together. She felt like sitting here in the trees and watching them together was wrong, but still did it. It was so strange to see others like her but in a good way. She had been in the water with people of her own kind. She swatted the tear off her cheek, she’d never thought that would happen.
Before they found her, sometimes when the pains weren’t too bad, she would close her eyes and try to remember being in the pool with her mother and the old one, the pictures of that in her head were fading though and it was harder to see them now.
Lifting her head, she took a deep breath. She wasn’t alone now. Would never have to swim alone again. She grinned to herself, she liked swimming alone, going fast and exploring, but it didn’t compare with watching the others in the water with her though.
She had been on her way to the dock that Alviva had told her about when she spotted the couple walking toward the water holding hands. It felt wrong to join them. If she had a male that was hers, she wouldn’t want to share him with others in the water. So now she sat there trying to decide what to do next.
All night she had woken to feel different, and then her stomach started with this weird feeling, she thought a swim would settle what was wrong but taking time from Olanna with her man, wasn’t fair.
Getting up, she turned to look behind her, she could go for a walk and explore. It was dawn now and there was more light in the trees, so that was sticking within the rules that Konner had laid out for her before he left. Use the pool at night. Only go in the bush when there’s enough light to see and do not cook without one of the other women present. She smirked thinking of the last one. The look on his face when he’d said that one was so serious.
Twisting her hair back, she tucked it into the back of her jacket, so it wouldn’t get snagged on the branches. Her stomach was tensing again, and she wondered if she had overdone it as Konner feared she might in the last few days. It was true she had never been able to swim as she had since been found, but the rest of her felt strong from it. Biting her lip, she navigated around a large tree, maybe she should ask Shaelan about it when she saw her. She didn’t want to bother her too much though; she was staying close to Raelyn and the babies were far more important than aching muscles.
Konner had been gone for two days now and it was an unsettling feeling with him gone. She hadn’t been here long, of course, but seeing him several times a day was normal. Maybe her stomach was like this because he was missing? Was that possible? It had never been the same people every day of her life. She was moved around, and the people that were also held where she was changed from one day to the next. She was feeling anxious about him being gone, worried something could happen. Terah had witnessed firsthand how things were in his world and they weren’t safe at all.
A small creature, a squirrel she thought Lucus had told her, darted out of the trees and paused to look at her. Its tail twitched back and forth a few times and then it turned and abruptly ran back into them. She smiled as she watched it go up a tree so fast. How were they able to do that? Run on land so fast but climb things without pause. Touching the tree beside her, she tipped her head back and looked up to the top of it. There would be no climbing for her, she did not like being in the air at all. She would have to tell Nolyn she let it go and didn’t catch it for being on the land. Now that she understood how nature worked, she felt bad about all the animals she had killed at Rayne’s campground and the otter in the lake. Nolyn explained to her how each creature was part of the ecosystem and all of them contributed to its healthy state of it. At the time Terah hadn’t completely understood, but the app thing on the tablet had explained it to her. She felt a small joy each time she said a word to the tablet, and it explained to her what it was. She didn’t yet understand how the tablet could talk, but she was glad it did.
All the machines were a marvel to her. Paxton and Lucus had shown her how to take a picture and videos, which made watching movies clearer to her. When she had first seen it, she couldn’t understand how the people were inside the screen. Her tablet was very smart, it knew everything. She didn’t spend as much time on it as she would like, Alviva told her too much staring at it would give her a headache, and while she didn’t know how it could do that, she listened and made certain to do other things.
Pausing, she undid the jacket, it was a lot warmer than she first thought. Little beads of water were covering her forehead now. When the cool air reached her, she nodded, much better. Looking down, she studied a plant beside the tree. It looked like it was sleeping. In fact, all of them did. The trees too had shed their leaves and now they lay on the ground in a blanket of color. She couldn’t wait to see the plants and trees after the winter. Terah loved being in the greenhouses with Olanna, the flowers and leaves were so pretty. She told her that in the spring when the forest was coming back to life it was amazing. Never having felt a lot of ‘amazing’ things in her life, she looked forward to feeling that.