Isolation: Chapter Eight: Rising Action

[Ema]

It had taken some time, but Amarantha and Adrian had managed to wear down Adah enough to allow him to go with Amarantha on their quests: to find Adrian's twin sister, and to discover Amarantha's father. It would be....interesting.

Though if you asked Adrian, it would be fun.

Amarantha wasn't too sure about that, but standing outside at ten in the morning as Adrian finished loading up his car and Adah watched with worried eyes, Amarantha knew that this would be enlightening, at least. She was wearing clothes lent to her by Adah, who said that her own long skirt wasn't any good for a road trip. Amarantha hadn't been able to say no, not with the way Adah was looking at her.

Finally, Adrian's done packing up, and pulls his head out of the car, turning to his mother. "That's everything," he said, a little awkwardly. He flipped the keys in his hand, running the other through his brown hair. Amarantha looked between them, unsure of what to do.

Adah sighed, rushing forward and enveloping her son in a hug. She squeezed him tight, which he returned, both with their eyes shut tight. Amarantha felt a pang in her chest as she realized that Mother had never hugged her like that. She turned away.

Finally, Adah released Adrian, who wasted no time getting into the driver's seat of the car. Amarantha climbed into the seat next to him, and realized at that moment that the only vehicle she had ever been in was the mountain bus. She didn't know how cars worked. This would be interesting, for sure.

-/-/-/

At least Adrian knew where he was going: Florida.

Geography wasn't something that Amarantha had been taught, as Mother thought it unnecessary - if she had her way, Amarantha would spend her whole life in the cabin atop the mountain - but Adrian had been doing his best to catch her up. Apparently, the town they had come from - "It's called Coal Ridge" - was in West Virginia. And Florida was about a two-day drive, if they were lucky.

"But it might be more," Adrian said, "Since we'll probably have to stop and see if we can find a birth record for you. Hey, do you have a last name?"

Amarantha looked at him, confused. "A what?"

"You know, a last name." Adrian said, as if that would clear everything up. "Like, mine's Rees. And Alexandra's is Winters, I think. What's yours?"

Amarantha blinked. "I don't have one. I don't think I do, anyway." Mother had never said anything about another name, a surname, Amarantha thought now. Therefore, Amarantha didn't have one.

Adrian waved his hand, as though it didn't matter. "Oh, well. Amarantha is a weird enough first name that you're probably the only one in the state with it anyway."

Amarantha gave him an odd look, her blue eyes narrowed in his direction. What was that supposed to mean? Adrian didn't notice the look, he was driving, after all. "What?" she asked again, intending to get him to explain himself to matter what.

Adrian glanced at her, his eyes quickly flicking back to the road. "Well, it's not a common name. I mean, I've never heard it before."

"I was named after a flower." Amarantha stated, even though she knew saying so wouldn't change anything. "It may not be a known flower, but it was Mother's favorite."

Adrian didn't scoff at her. Thankfully. "Right, your mother who lied to you and kept you locked up in a cabin at the top of a mountain for your whole life." Never mind. Amarantha continued to glare at him, which he continued to either not notice or ignore. Either way, Amarantha wished he would do something about it so she wouldn't feel as though she were glaring at a stone.

"Why did you ask about my name anyway?" she asked, frowning. The topic was enough to pull her away from her glaring, which for a moment had distracted her from the topic at hand.

Adrian pulled the car around a turn. "Well, we have to get access to public records. To find your dad." He shot her look when she didn't say anything for a few minutes. "You didn't think about how to find him, did you?"

Amarantha shook her head. "No," she admitted, "I didn't." She hadn't gotten that far at all, if she was honest. She had been so ready to get out and do something, to find answers, that she didn't think about how exactly she was going to find those answers.

Adrian reached over and patted her arm, his eyes still locked on the road in front of him. They were on a larger road now, one with dozens of cars surrounding them on all sides. It was a good thing Amarantha wasn't claustrophobic. "Hey, that's what I'm here for." he said, "To think of things you don't. We're heading for the nearest city," he explained, "Assuming you were born in this state, that is. Which seems pretty likely to me."

"Do these records not exist in town?" Amarantha asked, relaxing as best she could in the leather seat of the car. It was a good thing they weren't travelling in winter, or the leather would have been freezing cold.

"Nope. We're too small for that. Only just over a thousand people live in Coal Ridge, you know? Way tiny." He shook his head and poked at a couple buttons on the display mounted between the two seats. Music blared out of the speakers on the dashboard. "Sorry, I hope you don't mind. I can't stand not having music."

Amarantha shrugged. Music wasn't something she had had much experience with; Mother hadn't thought that worth teaching either. Unless it was classical; all instrumentals. Amarantha hadn't even known that other kinds existed until now. She could pick out instruments she knew in the song Adrian was bobbing his head to now; drums, though louder than any she had heard before, something like a violin, and voice, obviously. There was another noise that she couldn't place, but she didn't dwell on it.

They drove like that for a while. Amarantha was surprised to find that it wasn't as awkward as she had thought it would be. Perhaps the music helped with that. She concentrated on it, trying to find the melodies in the many voices, and to pick out meaning in the lyrics. Adrian's taste varied greatly, but one voice seemed to appear over and over, a man's, crying over the instruments with stories of lost love and cities burning on the horizon. Amarantha decided she liked it.

She fell asleep at some point, because when next she opened her eyes, the car was parked in a small lot outside a fancy-looking white building. The music had been turned off, and she could hear the sounds of a city - or what she thought a city would sound like - outside. She blinked blearily, turning to Adrian, who had been scrolling through his phone. "Is this it?"

Adrian glanced up her, seemingly surprised by her speaking up. "Uh, yeah." he said. "Sorry, I didn't want to wake you up..."

Amarantha shook her head, cutting him off. "It's all right," she said, sitting upright and rubbing her eyes. "Shall we?"

Adrian nodded, opening the car door. "We shall."