Saints of Evil | Trepidation Trilogy | The Empty World Sequence

Three

Mara was throwing up again.  She hated this sickness.  It made the boys nervous. She didn't want to tell them that it was simple morning sickness and that she was pregnant.  In any case it usually passed by late morning and then they'd have the rest of their day to look for food.  She couldn't think of eating, but she had to be practical now.  The boys were her responsibility. 

     Mara was glad they'd made it as far as Athens.  She'd driven west the first night till she found the first town.  She understood the Swahili they spoke there and asked where she was.  Mwadui they had told her.  The name meant nothing.  She'd made up a story about getting separated from a tour group.  That's when an English woman had started asking questions, taking particular notice of the apparently twin Latino boys sleeping in the jeep.  But the men there all but answered the questions for Mara.  They went on and on about the people who came to the game reserve, to Kilimanjaro, to Lake Victoria, to Olduvai looking for old bones.  Mara looked up at the moutain: Kilimanjaro.  For all the pictures of this mountain she had seen in books she had never realized that she lived under it.  Thierry had never said where the ranch was.

     All the names were familiar, Serengeti National Parks, Olduvai Gorge where the bones of ancient men had been discovered.  Mara could spit she was so mad.  Thierry seemed insane to her now.  He would come to such a place as Tanzania to make his new people.  Mara really felt bad about having to leave it.  She struggled for a name.  Of a city but couldn't think of one, but then she thought. . . perhaps if they got to water they could somehow manage to get on a boat heading north.  The Nile was after all the longest river on the planet. 

     "We've been separated from our friends and guides today.  We need to get to Lake Victoria very soon, as soon as possible," Mara said.

     "Then you want to get on this train and buy a ticket to Mwanza," one of the men told her as he was loading bags into his truck.  He waved his hand to the building behind him.  When Mara read the sign she realized all this time she had been standing in front of a train station.  "Thank You," she said, "do you happen to know if a train leaves soon."

     "Just a few minutes, We came north from Tabora on it.  You better hurry."

     Mara had hurried the boys inside and purchased the tickets.  Money was not a problem.  Mara had always known there would be money.  Their IDs claimed they were Mary's natural children and each one of them had been issued their own ID.  Mara had always wore her's around her neck.  Everyone did.  Thierry always wore his about his neck, he even had a pretty silver case and chain for it.  With this ID card Mara could access the account Thierry had created at her "birth."   There was one drawback, she knew.  Using electronic transfers to pay for things was easy and it was usual, but Thierry would be able to track them very easily.  Mara resolved to make a large withdrawal when she got to Mwanza and pay for whatever she needed in stores where they took cash. 

     Getting as far as Cairo had been easy.  Mara had payed for their boat fare with her card and taken out what seemed like a large sum of money.  They scenery along the river had kept the boys occupied and Mara astounded.  This land was all so beautiful, and Thierry had never let them see it.  But then in Cairo Mara had found there were few planes operating, the country just wasn't very developed in that area since the long ago wars, before the Union had taken over.  This much Mara knew and was just beginning to realize the full impact of.  They would need to take a ship across the Mediterranean.  For that they had to get to the port of Alexandria. 

     After living on the street for a week listening to Gatito cry, Mara had finally managed to hitch them a ride to Alexandria with some people she felt wouldn't cheat them.  She was glad she had this weird ability to see things others didn't, like ghosts, and thoughts as if they were words in an open book.  Alexandria hadn't been much better.  There were so many monuments and government building, really beautiful things, but they were all fenced off.  They had no food and the money was hard to convert.  The big banks didn't even want to admit three dirty children.  It seemed everyone but them was wealthy, rich tourists and business people from all over the world.  They wanted nothing to do with street children.