The Shepherd’s Agenda

Chapter Fifteen, Summer 2037

Eve walked onto the Back Deck of the Great House where the Shepherd had called her.

“The boys settling in?” he asked as she approached from behind him.

“Yes. They’ve seen everything by now.” Eve sat on the ground next to the standing Shepherd.

“What are their fraises?”

“It’s too early to tell; I don’t know how they couldn’t have a fraise. And I’ve never seen anyone travel through a mirror before. I didn’t know that was possible; did you?”

The Shepherd said, “I was told that mirrors only powered mansions, along with the mansion’s own reserve of acrylium and a combination of the monsters within.”

Eve said nothing. She knew Pretty’s and Blink’s fraises already. They were faint, but sure: Pretty was a minder and Blink was a hush. But the second the Shepherd knew, he would kill Blink; there was no need for a hush on the Compass, but Pretty may be useful. The issue was… Pretty would have to take someone’s place. Eve would lose a friend or she would lose one of her friends from the Compass. How did the Shepherd do it? How did he simply trade children or feed them to monsters with a stony face?

Her latest theory which she formulated over a year ago seemed to hold the greatest amount of sense: The Shepherd either had a demon or he was himself a demon. That was when Eve began to reach out in her dreams to find a way to escape the rock she had lived on for so long.

The Shepherd had grown quiet and they both wordlessly watched the stationary mansions for a full minute.

“Are you lying to me?” the Shepherd said.

Eve shuddered, like she had already been caught. “Lying about what?”

“Don’t make it worse if you are.”

A few seconds of thinking. If I ask ‘which part?’, that will probably incriminate me, “I’m not lying.”

“What are the boys’ fraises?”

“I don’t know.” That lie came out well, though it felt like grinding gears. He shouldn’t be able to tell that was a lie.

“But you can sense the fraise in them, can’t you?”

“Well, yes… but I can’t tell what type yet.”

The Shepherd adjusted his footing. “If they aren’t minders, they’ll likely be fed or sold, hm? Is that what you’re afraid of? You didn’t used to fear that. What are you hiding?”

“Nothing,” Eve said quickly while thinking about Atlas Black and their agreement she made behind the Shepherd’s back.

“I’m going to throw them into a mansion anyway. We were fine without them, and we will be fine without them still.”

Eve started and looked up at him. It took every part of her will to keep from shouting ‘no!’ “The novis or caywards won’t get any fraise out of them at that rate.”

The Shepherd shook his head. “The caywards are smart. They won’t feed until the fraise is developed; they’ll leave the fraisers alive until they’re ready. It’s like leaving bread to rise overnight before needing to cook and eat it.” He was looking down at Eve’s reaction, waiting for a betraying motion, word, or mannerism.

Eve had to nod. It was the only way to keep the rest of her plan from falling apart. Which would mean Pretty’s and Blink’s friends wouldn’t be able to save them unless they came in before the Stone Compass docked at Stablefield. There was no point in arguing with the Shepherd; he always got his way. And disagreeing with him in this case would be even stupider. It would prove Eve a liar and goodness knows what the Shepherd would do to her then.

When Eve’s Demon-Shepherd theory first flowered, she felt a seed of hatred plant itself and there also began a severing of her love and connection with the Shepherd. He used to be her life and the man she looked to for guidance. He knew best, he was wise, he knew how the mind worked, they could talk for hours about books… but under the Shepherd’s human words was an inhuman attitude. Humans don’t sell other humans. Eve used to be able to stomach the departing of another fraiser, though she would cry with every trade. It was more like seeing a friend leave rather than resigning an innocent child to first mistreatment by men and then a horrifying death by hanging or being fed to a monster. Ever since that theory surfaced, Eve began to feel sadness but also sickness and an innate sense of wrongdoing when selling and trading children. The more she pondered it, the more she disliked the notion. You cannot rationalize the mistreatment of children. They weren’t fraisers, they weren’t currency. They were souls in tiny, undeveloped bodies and it was the gravest sin to believe you owned them in some way.

And here Eve was, nodding yes to the Shepherd’s proposition to feeding two innocent and entirely random kids to the horrors of a mansion. The only reason those boys escaped that first mansion was because they broke the mirror on their way in. If that mirror was still intact, that mansion would have had enough strength to trap them. Eve didn’t dare question the morality directly to the Shepherd; if he became angry, he would kill those boys himself. These boys were a test for Eve. The Shepherd didn’t care about their lives. Good business was all they were. A test of Eve’s loyalty.

“When will you do it?” That was a good question Eve could ask. Get more information about the Shepherd’s plans and perhaps find a loophole. The only option, and it made her seem less suspicious.

“Today. Now, in fact. Why wait, hm? Would you be so kind as to fetch them?”

Eve’s abdominals contracted like someone was whaling punches into her. “Yes, I’ll do that.” The Shepherd must have detected something afoot with her reaction and inflection. There wasn’t a way to hide from him! Arghhhhh! He knew. He already knew. How much did he suspect about Eve’s thoughts and plans?

The walk to her room was heavy, like they were rising on their boat and she weighed more. There could be no crying and as little emotion as possible; the Shepherd was listening with that infernal staff he always carried. He would hear her walk into her room where the two boys were waiting and tell them politely that the Shepherd would like to see them. He would hear Pretty say, “Again?” and then hear them walk down the hall innocently following, eyes and hearts full of trust with a hint of hope.

When they came to the Shepherd, he said nodded to them with a plastic smile. “Hello. How have you liked the Stone Compass so far?”

“It’s okay.” “Yeah, it’s good.”

The Shepherd looked out at his field of mansions. “You see those?”

Pretty and Blink looked and saw. “Yeah.” “Uh huh.”

“Do you know what they are?”

“Mansions with monsters in them?” Pretty guessed.

The Shepherd nodded and stared at the boys with his miniature pupils. “The monsters in them are similar to spiders. They catch their prey and wait until they’re ready to eat them if they aren’t fit to eat at first.”

Blink seemed curious, but Pretty went pale as he considered the worst. “No…”

“How do you know so much about monsters?” Blink said.

The Shepherd smiled. “I’ve been in the monster game for a while now. Those mansions, to me, are profit’ they’re business. They, and what is inside of them, is worth a fortune especially if they breed. Baby novis, ones you can raise from the ground up, are expensive. The novis can’t live without hunting. Sometimes they simply sit somewhere in a neighborhood in this mansion for years, hibernating, waiting for someone to wander into the mansion and then they trap the person and keep them until that person is fit to eat.”

Eve had covered her mouth and begun silently crying. There was no stopping it. Pretty and Blink glanced back for a second and then to the Shepherd.

The Shepherd’s countenance never changed; he seemed to be gleaning some enjoyment in the off-putting speech. He continued. “The mansion only lives and moved because of the novis and since the mansion and novis coexist together, they help each other; the mansion will wreak terror on the trapped ones to stimulate fear and imagination, to allow the fraise in them to grow. Nothing like adrenaline, creativity, and imagination to grow that little organ in your chest.”

Pretty’s eyes started running as his whole gut was wrenching in dozens of directions and turning all kinds of temperatures. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.

Blink didn’t quite understand. “Who told you all this?”

“A business partner of mine. The same one who sold me Pet, actually.”

Eve turned slowly to leave; her hand was wet with snot, tears, and spit. The Shepherd suddenly shouted, “You stay right where you are!” On the first word, Pretty and Blink started.

Eve turned back just as slowly and made eye-contact with the boys. With her messy face she whispered for all to hear, “I’m sorry.”

Blink then realized what was happening.

“Pet!” the Shepherd called. The goorang’s beaked head poked from over the roof and his heron-like appendages made their stick-walk off the roof.

“Fuck you!” Pretty said and jumped at the seated Shepherd. Blink followed his Leader.

The Shepherd’s face finally changed to surprise and slight fear. Then it became confident again as he grappled with the boys and tossed them aside, letting their clumsy punches glance off of him.

“SHIT!” Pretty said and let go of the handful of robe he had taken. All four of the individuals on the back deck looked at Pet who had made his way down and was reaching out now. “BLINK, RUN!”

Blink dodged the first grasp Pet made, but Pretty was grabbed with the other hand.

“PRETTY! NO!” Blink said, freezing in his tracks.

“RUN, BLINK! GET OUT OF HERE! JUMP OFF THE LEDGE! HE’S GONNA PUT US IN A MANSION!”

Blink made another dodge as he came to terms with death, and the goorang’s hand knocked him down. “SHIT!” The goorang grabbed him in the next movement.

“Mansion,” the Shepherd said to Pet, pointing at both of the boys.

The goorang lifted its head and raised up the boys to its face. They could feel its black, soulless, and moralless eyes study them. Its head made little jerky movements like a chicken and then it began its toddler-like walk with its stubby legs.

“No, no, no, no, no, please, no. Please, Mr. Shepherd, don’t do this, please. Mr. Shepherd…”

“What fraise are these boys, Eve?” the Shepherd asked, loud enough for all to hear.

“How can she know?” Pretty shouted.

“She knows. She’s hiding that from me and I want to know why. Eve, all you need to do is tell me and we’ll reconsider their fate-“

“I DON’T KNOW!” The truth would betray her intentions. If she shouted them out, it would tell the Shepherd that she cared and she wasn’t supposed to care. She hadn’t cared about other fraisers for years, but she knew now that it was wrong. But if she did, she would die next and she didn’t even know these fraisers.

“LIAR!” the Shepherd struck her because she appeared to be telling the truth and it bothered him. She toppled like a stack of plates, her arm saving her head from hitting the wood floor.

Pet looked back for a second, considered Eve, and then kept walking toward the mansion.

Eve had to listen to the Astronomers’ pleading screams as they were carried to their fates. Pet reached the nearest mansion and tossed one boy through an upstairs window.

‘Pretty’ Beau Lewis, the Leader of the Astronomy Club, was now confined inside of a monster-ridden mansion.

Blink was tossed into the same window, screaming the whole way through.

‘Blink’ Cuthbert Mayer, Pilot of the Astronomy Club, was now confined inside of the same monster-ridden mansion.

Pet turned around and began a swinging walk back on his long arms, emanating the same happy energy of a boy who had just taken out the trash.

The Shepherd looked down on the grounded Eve with one final harsh look, a frown, and began walking inside.