Read Skyland for Free Online Page A

mask the touch-ups.
    Someone laughed.
    The chair maker smiled. He looked up from
his work. He looked out the window to the shadow of the ship.
People were starting to gather around its base. Some walked slow,
bent under giant packs, others moved easily, wheeling carts piled
high with their worldly possessions, still others slunk in from the
country empty handed. Some had binoculars, hands clutching them or
waving them about in excitement. Flight was not uncommon for city
folk, and these were most all city folk, the villagers and farmers
were to scared to go near the rockets. Abominations they
called them. The city folk were much more comfortable with their
closeness to the Sky. But piercing the heavens right through to the
other side was a rare event, and they were excited.
    More people were laughing now and chatting
and shouting.
    A child ran around, arms outstretched,
rumbling like a plane.
    Like sapphires, the growing crowd glittered,
many dressed in their best blue for the occasion. Some in clear
blue of a bright day at noon. Some wore the stormy grey-blue of a
world that only existed for most of them in stories, a memory – or
a hope – of the ancient clouds full of rain, deep and wide and
frequent. Some wore elaborate patterns of mixed shades from the
pale color of a baby's eyes to the midnight depths and everything
in between. Some only wore Sky-colored headbands, ribbons, scarves
woven through hair or around wrists, around necks – even those who
couldn't afford a wardrobe of the holy color celebrated the day
with what they had.
    And here and there, in between the
celebrators, the brown-clothed country folk walked.
    The chair maker had put his own cobalt
jacket on to celebrate the occasion. He set down the sandpaper on
the seat of the chair and brushed off the wood dust from the
sleeves of his coat. He got up, knees and legs rested from sitting
on his own simple seat and went to the window.
    He leaned on the sill and grabbed a piece of
kale out of the window box. He rubbed it and waved it around a bit
and blew on it to get off some of the dust. It was still crunchy
when he put the leaf in his mouth and started chewing. But he
smiled as he chewed. The kale didn't taste so bitter today.
    A man even older than the chair maker,
walked, bent under a bag the full length of his torso and much
fatter. He was moving slowly towards the ships
    "Roger!" The chair maker leaned out the
window to shout. "Roger!" He waved to the older man who stopped and
turned.
    "Sam." His head still bent under the giant
bag that spilled over from his back onto his neck and the back of
his grizzled head, his eyes looked up towards the chair maker.
    "Wish you luck... One last time."
    "Just me, Sam? Just me? Still not coming,
then?"
    "Still not."
    The older man shook his head and the bag
wobbled precariously. "You could do well."
    The chair maker smiled. "I know."
    He could do well. There were few
trees on Skyland and thus few carpenters. They worked mostly on
little trinkets made from sticks saved from the compost in the
brown fields. Trinkets and antiques. Anything bigger than a pinky
and made less than one hundred years ago was a rare commodity. His
skills were in high demand among the wealthy – most of whom were
leaving on the ships. He could have a place in their new
home, wherever that was going to be.
    But he was old.
    He was old and tired and stuck on this dry
rock of a planet, for better or worse.
    "Save my spot for someone with the energy to
fill it," he said.
    Rodger shrugged awkwardly under his burden.
"Have it your way."
    "You know I won't fly in the Sky for
anything. And Belle won't either. We'll stay right here and
petition the Sky from solid ground. She'll look to us, she
will."
    "And not to us?"
    "Who knows."
    "It's a lucky man who gets into the heavens
before he dies."
    "More brave than lucky, I think."
    "You're really sure, then? You're really
sure you haven't got the braveness or the luck to come with
us?"
    "Yes old man!" He