{"id":4673,"date":"2021-07-26T09:10:01","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T13:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4673"},"modified":"2021-07-26T09:10:01","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T13:10:01","slug":"twenty-three-05-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4673","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-three – 05"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Thomas Merlin Ambrose’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Steel gray clouds had started to mass in the west by the time we stood up from our spot in the grass.\u00a0 Wind whispered through the branches in the trees beyond us, but that wind didn\u2019t quite reach the ground\u2014not yet, anyway.\u00a0 Despite what was clearly an approaching storm, Carolyn seemed unhurried as she matched pace with me, walking silently up the hill from the barrow.\u00a0 She must have known something that I didn\u2019t\u2014or simply had decided not to worry about things she couldn\u2019t yet change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like it\u2019s going to storm,\u201d I murmured after a long silence.\u00a0 We neared the top of the hill where the remnants of a garden spread next to an old ruin of a building, long ago all but reclaimed by nature.\u00a0 There were sketches in one of my father\u2019s notebooks of what it had looked like, once\u2014at least, I assumed that it was this building.\u00a0 There were a lot in those books.<\/p>\n

\u201cMm,\u201d she said, pausing by an old, broken bench.\u00a0 It would have been beautiful, once, and it still had an odd sort of beauty even now, its slab broken in half, one end torn from its pedestal.\u00a0 I knew that if I touched the stone of it, it\u2019d be cooler than the sun-warmed broken concrete that lay ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably is,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cThordin thought it might but he didn\u2019t want to reach too far.\u00a0 He\u2019s learned better.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was something I heard often enough but never asked too many questions about.\u00a0 If one of them wanted to explain that, they would.\u00a0 So far, no one had.<\/p>\n

A trace of sadness crossed her features as her gaze drifted over the ruined garden.\u00a0 I watched, shifting my weight carefully to ease the aching in every part of my body, then wet my lips.\u00a0 \u201cYou okay, Aunt Caro?\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled back over her shoulder at me.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re not the only one who comes out here sometimes to think and remember,\u201d she said, then took my hand gently.\u00a0 \u201cCome on.\u00a0 Let\u2019s get back before the rain starts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Thomas Merlin Ambrose’s point of view.] Steel gray clouds had started to mass in the west by the time we stood up from our spot in the grass.\u00a0 Wind whispered through the branches in the trees … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[336,337,373,14],"tags":[340,150,163,171,170,149,148,168,147,165,200,146],"class_list":["post-4673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambrose-cycle","category-book-8","category-chapter-23-book-8","category-story","tag-ambrose-cycle","tag-awakenings","tag-carolyn-roberts","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-thomas-merlin-ambrose","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-1dn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4674,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673\/revisions\/4674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}