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There's a village on the island, it turns out. The island is nothing but rolling hills and grass and solid rock—no trees, no topsoil. An utterly useless place to live. And yet as they reach the other side of the island, where the cliffs are a bit less jagged, they see another semicircular cove not unlike the one at Allia. (Not unlike the one that was at Allia.) The similarity stops there, however—because this harbor is much smaller, and this village is carved directly into the sheer cliff face.
It's hard to tell at first. Initially Syen thinks that what she's seeing are the mouths of caverns, irregularly dotting the jagged rock face. Then she realizes the cave mouths are all uniformly shaped, even if they vary in size: straight lines across the bottom of the opening and up its sides, arching to a graceful point across the top. And around each opening, someone has carved out the facade of a building: elegant pillars, a beveled rectangle of a doorway, elaborate corbels of curled flowers and cavorting animals. She's seen stranger. Not much, granted—but living in Yumenes, in the shadow of the Black Star and the Imperial Palace that crowns it, and in the Fulcrum with its walls of molded obsidian, makes one inured to oddities of art and architecture.
"She doesn't have a name," Alabaster tells her as they walk down a set of railed stone steps they've found, which seem to wend toward the village. He's talking about the stone eater, who left them at the top of the steps. (Syen looked away for a moment and when she glanced back the stone eater was gone. Alabaster has assured her that she is still nearby. How he knows this, Syen isn't sure she wants to know.)
"I call her Antimony. You know, because she's mostly white? It's a metal instead of stone, because she's not a rogga, and anyway 'Alabaster' was taken."
Cute. "And she—it—answers to that."
"She does." He glances back at Syenite, which is a precarious sort of thing to do considering the steps here are very, very sheer. Even though there's a railing, anyone who takes a header down these stairs is likely to just flip over the railing and fall to a messy death down the rock face. "She doesn't mind it, anyway, and I figure she'd object if she did."
"Why did she bring us here?" To save them. All right, they can see Allia smoking, over the water. But Antimony's kind usually ignores and avoids humankind, unless humans piss them off.
Alabaster shakes his head, focusing on his footing again. "There's no 'why' to anything they do. Or if there is, they never bother telling us. I've stopped asking, frankly; waste of breath. Antimony has been coming to me for the past, hmm, five years? Usually when no one else is around." He makes a soft, rueful sound. "I used to think I was hallucinating her."
Yes, well. "And she doesn't tell you anything?"
"She just says she's here for me. I can't decide whether it's a supportive statement—you know, 'I'm here for you, 'Baster, I'll always love you, never mind that I'm a living statue that only looks like a pretty woman, I've got your back'—or something more sinister. Does it matter, though? If she saved our lives?"
Syen supposes not. "And where is she now?"
"Gone."
Syen resists the urge to kick him down the steps. "Into, ah—" She knows what she's read, but it does seem sort of absurd to say it aloud. "Into the earth?"
"I suppose so. They move through rock like it's air; I've seen them do it." He pauses on one of the stairs' frequent landings, which almost makes Syenite run into the back of him. "You do know that's probably how she got us here, right?"
It's something Syen's been trying not to think about. Even the idea of being touched by the stone eater is unnerving. To think further of being carried by the creature, dragged down beneath miles of solid rock and ocean: She cannot help shuddering. A stone eater is a thing that defies reason—like orogeny, or deadciv artifacts, or anything else that cannot be measured and predicted in a way that makes sense. But where orogeny can be understood (somewhat) and controlled (with effort), and where deadciv artifacts can at least be avoided until they rise from the rusting ocean right in front of you, stone eaters do as they please, go where they will. Lorists' tales are generous with warnings regarding these creatures; no one tries to stop them.
This thought makes Syen herself stop, and Alabaster continues for another flight before he realizes she's not following. "The stone eater," she says, when he turns back to her with an annoyed look. "The one in the obelisk."
"Not the same one," he says, with the sort of patience one reserves for people who are being particularly stupid but don't deserve to be told that to their faces because they've had a hard day. "I told you, I've known this one awhile."
"That isn't what I meant." You idiot. "The stone eater that was in the obelisk looked at me, before... before. It moved. It wasn't dead."
Alabaster stares at her. "When did you see this?"
"I..." She gestures, helplessly. There aren't words for it. "There was... it was when I... I think I saw it." Or maybe she hallucinated it. Some kind of life-flashing-before-her-eyes vision, triggered by the Guardian's knife? It felt so real.
Alabaster regards her for a long moment, his mobile face still in that way she is beginning to associate with his disapproval. "You did something that should've killed you. It didn't, but only because of sheer dumb luck. If you... saw things... I'm not surprised."
Syenite nods, not protesting his assessment. She felt the obelisk's power in those moments. It would have killed her, had it been whole. As it is, she feels... burned, sort of numb, in its wake. Is that why she can't work orogeny anymore? Or is that the lingering effect of whatever the Guardian did?
"What happened back there?" she asks him, frustrated. There's so much that makes no sense in all of this. Why did someone try to kill Alabaster? Why did a Guardian come to finish the job? What did any of that have to do with the obelisk? Why are they here, on a death-trap island in the middle of the rusting sea? "What's happening now? 'Baster, Earth eat us, you know more than you're saying."
His expression grows pained, but he finally sighs and folds his arms. "I don't, you know. Whatever you might think, I really don't have all the answers. I have no idea why you think I do."
Because he knows so much else that she doesn't. And because he's a ten-ringer: He can do things she can't imagine, can't even describe, and some part of her thinks he can probably understand things she can't, too. "You knew about that Guardian."
"Yes." Now he looks angry, though not at her. "I've run into that kind before. But I don't know why he was there. I can only guess."
"That's better than nothing!"
He looks exasperated. "Okay, then. A guess: Someone, or many someones, knew about that broken obelisk in Allia's harbor. Whoever that was, they also knew that a ten-ringer would likely notice the thing the instant he started sessing around down there. And since all it took to reactivate it was a four-ringer sessing around, it stands to reason that these mysterious Someones had no idea just how sensitive, or how dangerous, the obelisk really was. Or neither you nor I would ever have made it to Allia alive."
Syenite frowns, putting a hand on the railing to steady herself when an especially harsh gust of wind soughs up the cliff walls. "Someones."
"Groups. Factions, in some conflict we know nothing about and have only blundered into through sheer dumb luck."
"Factions of Guardians?"
He snorts derisively. "You say that like it's impossible. Do all roggas have the same goals, Syen? Do all stills? Even the stone eaters probably have their spats with one another."
And Earth only knows what that's like. "So one of these, ah, factions, dispatched that—Guardian—to kill us." No. Not once Syenite had told the Guardian that she'd been the one to activate the obelisk. "To kill me."
Alabaster nods, somber. "I imagine he's the one who poisoned me, too, thinking I'd be the one to trigger the obelisk. Guardians don't like to discipline us where the stills can see, if they can avoid it; might earn us inappropriate public sympathy. That broad-daylight attack was a last resort." He shrugs, frowning as he considers it. "I guess we're lucky he didn't try to poison you instead. Even for me, it should've worked. Paralysis of any kind tends to affect the sessapinae, too; I would've been completely helpless. If."
If he hadn't been able to summon power from the amethyst obelisk, harnessing Syenite's sessapinae to do what his could not. Now that Syen better understands what he did that night, it's somehow worse. She cocks her head at him. "No one really knows what you're capable of, do they?"
Alabaster sighs a little, looking away. "I don't even know what I'm capable of, Syen. The things the Fulcrum taught me... I had to leave them behind, past a certain point. I had to make my own training. And sometimes, it seems, if I can just think differently, if I can shed enough of what they taught me and try something new, I might..." He trails off, frowning in thought. "I don't know. I really don't. But I guess it's just as well that I don't, or the Guardians would've killed me a long time ago."
It's half-babble, but Syenite sighs in understanding. "So who has the ability to send killer Guardians out to, to..." Hunt down ten-ringers. Scare the piss out of four-ringers.
"All Guardians are killers," he snaps, bitterly. "As for who has the power to command a Guardian forth, I have no idea." Alabaster shrugs. "Rumor has it the Guardians answer to the Emperor—supposedly the Guardians are the last bit of power he possesses. Or maybe that's a lie, and the Yumenes Leadership families control them like they do everything else. Or are they controlled by the Fulcrum itself? No idea."
"I heard they controlled themselves," Syen says. It's probably just grit gossip.
"Maybe. The Guardians are certainly as quick to kill stills as roggas when it comes to maintaining their secrets, or if a still just gets in their way. If they have a hierarchy, only the Guardians themselves recognize it. As for how they do what they do..." He takes a deep breath. "It's some sort of surgical procedure. They're all the children of roggas, but not roggas themselves, because there's something about their sessapinae that makes this procedure work better on them. There's an implant involved. Into the brain. Earth knows how they learned that, or when they started doing it, but it gives them the ability to negate orogeny. And other abilities. Worse ones."
Syenite flinches, remembering the sound of ripping tendons. The palm of her hand stings sharply.
"He didn't try to kill you, though," she says. She's looking at his shoulder, which is still visibly darker colored than the cloth around it, though the walk has probably loosened the dried blood so it no longer sticks to the wound. There's a bit of fresh dampness there; it's bleeding again, but thankfully not much. "That knife—"
Alabaster nods grimly. "A Guardian specialty. Their knives look like ordinary blow glass, but they aren't. They're like the Guardians themselves, somehow disrupting whatever it is in an orogene that makes us what we are." He shudders. "Never knew how it felt before; it hurt like Earthfire. And no," he says quickly, forestalling Syen's open mouth, "I don't know why he hit me with it. He'd already stilled us both; I was just as helpless as you."
And that. Syenite licks her lips. "Can you... are you still..."
"Yes. It goes away after a few days." He smiles at her look of relief. "I told you, I've run into Guardians like that before."
"Why did you tell me not to let him touch me? With his skin?"
Alabaster goes silent. Syenite thinks at first he's just being stubborn again, then she really looks at his expression and sees the shadows in it. After a moment, he blinks. "I knew another ten-ringer, when I was younger. When I was... He was a mentor, sort of. Like Feldspar is, for you."
"Feldspar isn't—never mind."
He ignores her anyway, lost in memory. "I don't know why it happened. But one day we were walking the Ring, just out enjoying a nice evening..." He falters abruptly, then looks at her with a wry, if pained, expression. "We were looking for someplace to be alone."
Oh. Maybe that explains a few things. "I see," she says unnecessarily.
He nods, unnecessarily. "Anyway, this Guardian shows up. Shirtless, like the one you saw. He didn't say anything about why he'd come, either. He just... attacked. I didn't see—it happened fast. Like in Allia." 'Baster rubs a hand over his face. "He put Hessionite in a choke hold, but not hard enough to actually choke him. The Guardian needed skin-to-skin contact. Then he just held Hess, and, and grinned while it happened. Like it was the most beautiful thing in the world, the sick fuck."
"What?" She almost doesn't want to know, and yet she does. "What does the Guardian's skin do?"
Alabaster's jaw flexes, the muscles knotting. "It turns your orogeny inward. I guess. I don't know a better way to explain it. But everything inside us that can move apart plates and seal faults and so on, all that power we're born with... Those Guardians turn it back on us."
"I, I don't..." But orogeny doesn't work on flesh, not directly. If it did—
... Oh.
He falls silent. Syenite does not prompt him to go on, this time.
"Yeah. So." Alabaster shakes his head, then glances toward the stone-cut cliff village. "Shall we go on?"
It's hard to talk, after that story. " 'Baster." She gestures at herself, at her uniform, which is dusty but still plainly an Imperial Orogene's blackjacket. "Neither of us can so much as shake a pebble right now. We don't know these people."
"I know. But my shoulder hurts, and I'm thirsty. You see any free-flowing water around here?"
No. And no food. And there's no way to swim back to the mainland, not across such a long expanse. That's if Syenite knew how to swim, which she doesn't, and if the ocean wasn't teeming with monsters like the tales say, which it probably is.
"Fine, then," she says, and pushes past him to lead the way. "Let me talk to them first, so you don't get us killed." Crazy ruster.
Alabaster chuckles a little as if he's heard her unvoiced thought, but he does not protest, resuming the descent in her wake.
The stairs level out, eventually, into a smooth-carved walkway that curves along the cliff wall some hundred feet above the highest waterline. Syen figures that means the comm is safe from tsunami because of its elevation. (She can't be sure, of course. All this water is still strange to her.) It also almost makes up for the lack of a protective wall—although, all things considered, the ocean makes for a pretty effective barrier between these people and anyone from outside their... comm, if it can be called that. There are a dozen or so boats docked below, bobbing at jetties that look as though they're made of piled stone overlaid haphazardly with boards—ugly and primitive in comparison with Allia's neat piers and pylons, but effective. And the boats are strange-looking too, at least compared to the boats she's seen: Some are simple, elegant things that look as if they might have been carved whole from tree trunks, braced on each side by some sort of strut. Some are larger and have sails, but even these are of a completely foreign design to what she's used to seeing.
There are people at and around the boats, some of them carting baskets to and fro, others working on an elaborate rigging of sails on one of them. They don't look up; Syenite resists the urge to call down to them. She and Alabaster have already been seen, anyhow. At the first of the cavern mouths up ahead—each of which is huge, now that they're on the "ground" level and can get a good look—a knot of people has begun to gather.
Syenite licks her lips and takes a deep breath as they draw near. They don't look hostile. "Hello," she ventures, and then waits. No one tries to kill her immediately. So far, so good.
The twenty or so people waiting for them mostly look bemused at the sight of her and Alabaster. The group is mostly children of varying ages, a few younger adults, a handful of elders, and a leashed kirkhusa that seems friendly, to judge by the wag of its stubby tail. The people are definitely Eastcoasters, mostly tall and dark like Alabaster though with a sprinkling of paler citizens, and she spots at least one pouf of ashblow hair lifting in the constant breeze. They also don't look alarmed, which is good, though Syen gets the distinct impression they're not used to surprise visitors.
Then an older man with an air of Leadership, or maybe just leadership, steps forward. And says something completely incomprehensible.
Syen stares at him. She can't even tell what language that is, although it's familiar somehow. Then—oh, of rusting course—Alabaster sort of jerks and says something back in the same tongue, and all at once everyone chuckles and murmurs and relaxes. Except Syenite.
She glares at him. "Translation?"
"I told them you were afraid I'd get us killed if I spoke first," he says, and she considers killing him right then and there.
So it goes. They start talking, the people of this strange village and Alabaster, while Syen can't do anything but stand there trying not to look frustrated. Alabaster pauses to translate when he can, though he stumbles over some of what the strangers are saying; they're all talking really fast. She gets the impression that he's summarizing. A lot. But it turns out that the comm is called Meov, and the man who has stepped forward is Harlas, their headman.
Also, they're pirates. |
"There's no way to grow food here," Alabaster explains. "They do what they have to do, to get by."
This is later, after the people of Meov have invited them into the vaulted halls which make up their comm. It's all inside the cliff—unsurprising since the island consists of little more than a straight column of undifferentiated rock—with some of the caverns natural and others carved by unknown means. All of it is surprisingly beautiful, too, with artfully vaulted ceilings, aqueduct arches running along many walls, and enough torch and lantern light that none of it feels claustrophobic. Syen doesn't like the feel of all that rock hovering overhead and waiting to crush them next time there's a shake, but if she must be stuck inside a death trap, at least this one is cozy.
The Meovites have put them up in a guesthouse—or rather, a house that's been abandoned for a while and isn't in too much disrepair. She and Alabaster have been given food from the communal fires, access to the communal baths, and a couple of changes of clothing in the local style. They've even been allotted a modicum of privacy—though this is difficult, as curious children keep peeking through their carved, curtainless windows to giggle at them and then run away. It's almost cute.
Syen sits now on a pile of folded blankets, which seem to have been made for the purpose of sitting, watching as Alabaster winds a length of clean rag around his injured shoulder, holding the other end in his teeth for a moment to tighten it into a bandage. He could ask her for help, of course, but he doesn't, so she doesn't offer.
"They don't trade much with the mainland," he continues as he works. "All they've really got to offer is fish, and the mainland Coaster comms have plenty of that. So Meov raids. They attack vessels along the main trading routes, or extort comms for protection from attacks—yes, their attacks. Don't ask me how it works; that's just what the headman told me."
It sounds... precarious. "What are they even doing here?" Syen looks around at the rough-carved walls and ceiling. "It's an island. I mean, these caverns are nice, sort of, until the next shake or tsunami wipes the whole thing off the map. And like you said, there's no way to grow food. Do they even have storecaches? What happens if there's a Season?"
"Then they'll die, I guess." 'Baster shrugs, mostly to settle his newly tied bandage. "I asked them that, too, and they just sort of laughed the question off. You notice this island sits on top of a hot spot?"
Syen blinks. She hadn't noticed, but then her orogeny is as numb as a hammered finger. His is, too, but the numbness is relative, apparently. "How deep?"
"Very. It's unlikely to blow anytime soon, or ever—but if it ever does, there will be a crater here instead of islands." He grimaces. " 'Course, that's if a tsunami doesn't get the island first, close as we are to the plate boundary here. There're so many ways to die in this place. But they know about all of them—seriously—and as far as I can tell, they don't care. At least they'll die free, they say."
"Free of what? Living?"
"Sanze." Alabaster grins when Syen's mouth falls open. "According to Harlas, this comm's part of a string of small island comms all along the archipelago—that's the word for a group of islands, if you didn't know—that extends from here down almost to the Antarctic, created by that hot spot. Some of the comms in that chain, this one included, have been around ten Seasons or longer—"
"Bullshit!"
"—and they don't even remember when Meov was founded and, uh, carved, so maybe it's older than that. They've been around since before Sanze. And as far as they know, Sanze either doesn't know or doesn't care that they're here. They were never annexed." He shakes his head. "The Coaster comms are always accusing each other of hosting the pirates, and no one with sense sails this far out; maybe nobody knows these island comms are out here. I mean, they probably know the islands exist, but they must not think anyone would be stupid enough to live on them."
No one should be. Syen shakes her head, amazed at these people's audacity. When another comm child pokes her head above the windowsill, blatantly staring at them, Syen can't help smiling, and the girl's eyes grow round as saucers before she bursts out laughing, babbles something in their choppy language, and then gets pulled away by her comrades. Brave, crazy little thing.
Alabaster chuckles. "She said, 'The mean one actually smiles!'"
Rusting brat.
"I can't believe they are crazy enough to live here," she says, shaking her head. "I can't believe this island hasn't shaken apart, or been blown to slag, or been swamped a hundred times over."
Alabaster shifts a little, looking cagey, and by this Syen knows to brace herself. "Well, they survive in large part because they live on fish and seaweed, see. The oceans don't die during a Season the way the land or a smaller body of water does. If you can fish, there's always food. I don't think they even have storecaches." He looks around, thoughtful. "If they can keep the place stable against shakes and blows, then I guess it would be a good place to live."
"But how could they—"
"Roggas." He looks at her and grins, and she realizes he's been waiting to tell her this. "That's how they've survived all this time. They don't kill their roggas, here. They put them in charge. And they're really, really, glad to see us." |
The stone eater is folly made flesh. Learn the lesson of its creation, and beware its gifts.
—Tablet Two, "The Incomplete Truth," verse seven |
Things change. There is an order to life in the Fulcrum, but the world is never still. A year passes.
After Crack disappears, Maxixe never speaks to Damaya again. When he sees her in the corridors, or after inspection, he simply turns away. If he catches her looking at him, he scowls. He doesn't catch her often, though, because she doesn't look at him often. She doesn't mind that he hates her. He was only a potential friend, anyway. She knows better, now, than to want such a thing, or to believe that she will ever deserve one.
(Friends do not exist. The Fulcrum is not a school. Grits are not children. Orogenes are not people. Weapons have no need of friends.)
Still, it's hard, because without friends she's bored. The instructors have taught her to read as her parents did not, but she can only do so much of that before the words start to flip and jitter on the page like pebbles during a shake. The library doesn't have a lot of books that are just for fun and not utilitarian, anyway. (Weapons do not need fun, either.) She's only allowed to practice her orogeny during Applied, and even though she sometimes lies in her bunk and imagines the lessons over again for extra practice—an orogene's power is in her focus, after all—there's only so much of that she can do, too.
So to occupy her Free Hour, and any other hour when she isn't busy or sleeping, she wanders around the Fulcrum.
No one stops grits from doing this. No one guards the grit dormitory during Free Hour or afterward. The instructors do not enforce a curfew; Free Hour can be Free Night, if a grit's willing to struggle through the next day sleepy. Nor do the adults do anything to prevent the grits from leaving the building. Any child caught in the Ring Garden, which is off-limits to the unringed, or approaching the gates that lead out of the Fulcrum, will have to answer to the seniors. But anything less and the sanctions will be mild, bearable; the usual punishment befitting the crime. That's it.
No one gets expelled from the Fulcrum, after all. Dysfunctional weapons are simply removed from the stockpile. And functional weapons should be smart enough to take care of themselves.
Thus Damaya keeps to the Fulcrum's least interesting areas in her wanderings—but this leaves plenty to explore, because the Fulcrum complex is huge. Apart from the Garden and the grit training grounds there are clusters of living quarters that house the ringed orogenes, libraries and theaters, a hospital, and places where all the adult orogenes do their work when they're not off on assignments beyond the Fulcrum. There are also miles of obsidian-paved walkways and greenland that hasn't been left fallow or kept prepared for a possible Fifth Season; instead, it's landscaped. It's just there to be pretty. Damaya figures that means someone should look at it.
So it is through all this that Damaya walks, in the late hours of the evening, imagining where and how she will live once she joins the ranks of the ringed. The adults in this area mostly ignore her, coming and going about their business, talking with each other or muttering to themselves alone, focused on their adulty things. Some of them notice her, but then shrug and keep walking. They were grits once. Only on one occasion does a woman stop and ask, "Are you supposed to be here?" Damaya nods and walks past her, and the woman does not pursue.
The administrative buildings are more interesting. She visits the large practice chambers that the ringed orogenes use: great ampitheater-like halls, roofless, with mosaic rings etched into the bare ground in concentric circles. Sometimes there are huge blocks of basalt lying about, and sometimes the ground is disturbed, but the basalt is gone. Sometimes she catches adults in the chambers, practicing; they shift the blocks around like children's toys, pushing them deep into the earth and raising them again by will alone, blurring the air around themselves with deadly rings of cold. It is exhilarating, and intimidating, and she follows what they're doing as best she can, though that isn't much. She's got a long way to go before she can even begin to do some of these things.
It's Main that fascinates Damaya most. This building is the core of the Fulcrum complex: a vast domed hexagon larger than all the other buildings combined. It is in this building that the business of the Fulcrum gets done. Here ringed orogenes occupy the offices and push the papers and pay the bills, because of course they must do all of these things themselves. No one will have it said that orogenes are useless drains on the resources of Yumenes; the Fulcrum is fiscally and otherwise self-sufficient. Free Hour is after the main working hours for the building, so it's not as busy as it must be during the day, but whenever Damaya wanders the place, she notices that many of the offices are still lit with candles and the occasional electric lantern.
The Guardians have a wing in Main, too. Now and again Damaya sees burgundy uniforms amid the clusters of black, and when she does, she turns the other way. Not out of fear. They probably see her, but they don't bother her, because she's not doing anything she's been told not to do. It is as Schaffa told her: One need only fear Guardians in specific, limited circumstances. She avoids them, however, because as she grows more skilled, she begins to notice a strange sensation whenever she's in a Guardian's presence. It is a... a buzzy feeling, a jagged and acrid sort of thing, something more heard and tasted than sessed. She does not understand it, but she notices that she is not the only orogene to give the Guardians a wide berth.
In Main, there are the wings that have fallen into disuse because the Fulcrum is larger than it needs to be, or so Damaya's instructors have told her when she asks them about this. No one knew how many orogenes there were in the world before the Fulcrum was built, or perhaps the builders thought that more orogenes would survive childhood to be brought here than has proven true over time. Regardless, the first time Damaya pushes open a conspicuous-looking door that no one seems to be using and finds dark, empty hallways beyond it, she is instantly intrigued.
It's too dark to see very far within. Nearby she can make out discarded furniture and storage baskets and the like, so she decides against exploring immediately. The chance that she could hurt herself is too great. Instead she heads back to the grit dorms, and all through the next few days, she prepares. It's easy to take a small glassknife used for cutting meat from one of the meal trays, and the dorm has plenty of oil lanterns that she can appropriate without anyone caring, so she does. She makes a knapsack out of a pillowcase that she nabs while on laundry duty—it has a tattered edge and was in the "discard" pile—and finally when she feels ready, she sets forth.
It's slow going, at first. With the knife she marks the walls here and there so she won't get lost—until she realizes this part of Main has exactly the same structure as the rest of Main: a central corridor with periodic stairwells, and doors on either side leading into rooms or suites of rooms. It's the rooms that she likes most, though many of them are boring. Meeting rooms, more offices, the occasional space large enough to serve as a lecture hall, though mostly these seem to be used for storage of old books and clothing.
But the books! A good many of them are the frivolous sort of tales that the library has so few of—romances and adventures and bits of irrelevant lore. And sometimes the doors lead to amazing things. She discovers a floor that was once apparently used as living quarters—perhaps in some boom year when there were too many orogenes to house comfortably in the apartment buildings. For whatever reason, however, it appears that many of the inhabitants simply walked off and left their belongings behind. Damaya discovers long, elegant dresses in the closets, dry-rotted; toys meant for toddlers; jewelry that her mother would have salivated to wear. She tries on some of it and giggles at herself in the flyspecked mirror, and then stops, surprised by the sound of her own laughter.
There are stranger things. A room full of plush, ornate chairs—worn and moth-eaten now—all arranged in a circle to face each other: why, she can only imagine. A room she does not understand until later, after her explorations have taken her into the buildings of the Fulcrum that are dedicated to research: Then she knows that what she has found is a kind of laboratory, with strange containers and contraptions that she eventually learns are used for analysis of energy and manipulation of chemicals. Perhaps geomests do not deign to study orogeny, and orogenes are left to do that for themselves, too? She can only guess.
And there is more, endlessly more. It becomes the thing she looks forward to the most in any given day, after Applied. She gets in trouble now and again in learning creche because sometimes she daydreams of things she's found, and misses questions during quizzes. She takes care not to slack off so much that the teachers question her, even though she suspects they know about her nighttime explorations. She's even seen a few of them while she wanders, lounging about and seeming oddly human in their off-hours. They don't bother her about it, though, which pleases her mightily. It's nice to feel as if she has a secret to share with them, even though she doesn't really. There is an order to life in the Fulcrum, but this is her order; she sets it, and no one else disrupts it. It is good to have something she keeps for herself.
And then, one day, everything changes. |
The strange girl slips into the line of grits so unobtrusively that Damaya almost doesn't notice. They're walking through the Ring Garden again, on their way back to the grit dormitory after Applied, and Damaya is tired but pleased with herself. Instructor Marcasite praised her for only icing a two-foot torus around herself while simultaneously stretching her zone of control to an approximate depth of one hundred feet. "You're almost ready for the first ring test," he told her at the end of the lesson. If this is true, she could end up taking the test a year earlier than most grits, and first of any in her year group.
Because Damaya is so caught up in the glow of this thought, and because it's the evening of a long day and everyone's weary and the Garden is sparsely populated and the instructors are chatting with each other, almost no one sees the strange girl slip into line just ahead of Damaya. Even Damaya almost misses it, because the girl has cleverly waited until they're turning a curve round a hedge; between one step and another she is there, matching their pace, keeping her gaze forward as most of the others do. But Damaya knows she was not there before.
For a moment Damaya is taken aback. She doesn't know all the other grits well, but she does know them on sight, and this girl isn't one of them. Who is she, then? She wonders whether she should say something.
Abruptly the girl glances back and catches Damaya staring. She grins and winks; Damaya blinks. When the girl turns away again, she keeps following, too flustered now to tattle.
They proceed through the Garden and into the barracks and then the instructors depart for the evening, leaving the grits to Free Hour before bedtime. The other kids disperse, some going to fetch food from the sideboard, the newer ones dragging off to bed. A few of the more energetic grits immediately start some sort of silly game, chasing each other round the bunk beds. As usual they ignore Damaya and anything Damaya is doing.
So Damaya turns to the grit who is not a grit. "Who are you?"
"Is that really what you want to ask?" The girl looks honestly puzzled. She is Damaya's age, tall and lanky and more sallow-skinned than most young Sanzeds, and her hair is curled and dark instead of stiff and gray. She's wearing a grit's uniform, and she's actually tied her hair back the same way the other grits with loose hair have done. Only the fact that she's a total stranger breaks the illusion.
"I mean, you don't actually care who I am, do you?" the girl continues, still looking almost offended by Damaya's first question. "If I were you, I'd want to know what I was doing here."
Damaya stares at her, speechless. In the meantime, the girl looks around, frowning a little. "I thought a lot of other people would notice me. There aren't that many of you—what, thirty in this room? That's less than in my creche, and I would notice if somebody new suddenly popped in—"
"Who are you?" Damaya demands, half-hissing the words. Instinctively, though, she keeps her voice down, and for added measure grabs the girl's arm, hauling her over to an out-of-the-way corner where people are less likely to notice. Except everyone's had years of practice at paying no attention to Damaya, so they don't. "Tell me or I yell for the instructors."
"Oh, that's better." The girl grins. "Much more what I was expecting! But it's still weird that you're the only one—" And then her expression changes to one of alarm when Damaya inhales and opens her mouth, clearly preparing to shout. Quickly she blurts, "My name's Binof! Binof! And you are?"
It's such a commonplace sort of thing to say, the pattern of courtesy that Damaya used for most of her life before coming to the Fulcrum, that she answers automatically. "Damaya Strong—" She has not thought of her use name, or the fact that it no longer applies to her, in so long that she is shocked to almost hear herself say it. "Damaya. What are you doing here? Where did you come from? Why are you—" She gestures helplessly at the girl, encompassing the uniform, the hair, Binof's existence.
"Shhh. Now you want to ask a million questions?" Binof shakes her head. "Listen, I'm not going to stay, and I'm not going to get you in trouble. I just need to know—have you seen anything weird around here somewhere?" Damaya stares at her again, and Binof grimaces. "A place. With a shape. Sort of. A big—a thing that—" She makes a series of complicated gestures, apparently trying to pantomime what she means. It is completely nonsensical.
Except, it isn't. Not entirely.
The Fulcrum is circular. Damaya knows this even though she can only get a sense of it when she and the other grits transit the Ring Garden. The Black Star looms to the west of the Fulcrum's grounds, and to the north Damaya has seen a cluster of buildings tall enough to peek over the obsidian walls. (She often wonders what the inhabitants of those buildings think, looking down on Damaya and her kind from their lofty windows and rooftops.) But more significantly, Main is circular, too—almost. Damaya has wandered its dark hallways often enough by now, with only a lantern and her fingers and sessapinae to guide her, that when she sees Binof make a hexagonal shape with her hands, she knows at once what the strange girl means.
See, Main's walls and corridors aren't wide enough to account for all the space the building occupies. The building's roof covers an area at its heart, into which its working and walking spaces do not extend; there must be a huge empty chamber within. Courtyard, maybe, or a theater, though there are other theaters in the Fulcrum. Damaya has found the walls around this space, and followed them, and they are not circular; there are planes and angles. Six of each. But if there is a door that opens into this hexagonal central room, it isn't anywhere in the unused wings—not that she's found yet.
"A room without doors," Damaya murmurs, without thinking. It is what she started calling the unseen chamber in her head, on the day she realized it must exist. And Binof inhales and leans forward.
"Yes. Yes. Is that what it's called? Is it in that big building at the center of the Fulcrum complex? That's where I thought it might be. Yes."
Damaya blinks and scowls. "Who. Are. You." The girl's right; that's not really what she means to say. Still, it covers all the salient questions at once.
Binof grimaces. She glances around, thinks a moment, sets her jaw, and finally says, "Binof Leadership Yumenes."
It almost means nothing to Damaya. In the Fulcrum, no one has use names or comm names. Anyone who was Leadership, before being taken by the Guardians, isn't anymore. The grits who were born here or brought in young enough have a rogga name, and anyone else is required to take one when they earn their first ring. That's all they get.
But then intuition turns a key here and makes various clues click together there, and suddenly Damaya realizes Binof is not merely expressing misplaced loyalty to a social convention that no longer applies. It does apply to Binof, because Binof is not an orogene.
And Binof's not just any still: she's a Leader, and she's from Yumenes, which makes her a child of one of the most powerful families in the Stillness. And she has snuck into the Fulcrum, pretending to be an orogene.
It's so impossible, so insane, that Damaya's mouth falls open. Binof sees that she understands, and edges closer, dropping her voice. "I told you, I'm not going to get you into trouble. I'll go, now, and find that room, and all I ask is that you don't tell anyone yet. But you wanted to know why I'm here. That's why I'm here. That room is what I'm looking for."
Damaya closes her mouth. "Why?"
"I can't tell you." When Damaya glares, Binof holds up her hands. "That's for your safety, and mine. There's things only Leaders are supposed to know, and I'm not even supposed to know them yet. If anyone learns I told you, then—" She hesitates. "I don't know what they would do to either of us, but I don't want to find out."
Crack. Damaya nods, absently. "They'll catch you."
"Probably. But when they do, I'll just tell them who I am." The girl shrugs, with the ease of someone who has never known true fear in her life. "They won't know why I'm here. Someone will call my parents and I'll be in trouble, but I get in trouble all the time anyway. If I can find out the answers to some questions first, though, it'll be worth it. Now, where's that room without doors?"
Damaya shakes her head, seeing the trap at once. "I could get in trouble for helping you." She isn't a Leader, or a person; no one will save her. "You should leave, however you got here. Now. I won't tell anyone, if you do."
"No." Binof looks smug. "I went to a lot of trouble to get in here. And anyway, you're already in trouble, because you didn't shout for an instructor the minute you realized I wasn't a grit. Now you're my accomplice. Right?"
Damaya starts, her stomach constricting as she realizes the girl is right. She's also furious, because Binof is trying to manipulate her, and she hates that. "It's better if I shout now than let you blunder off and get caught later." And she gets up and heads for the dormitory door.
Binof gasps and trots after her quickly, catching her arm and speaking in a harsh whisper. "Don't! Please—look, I have money. Three red diamond chips and a whole alexandrite! Do you want money?"
Damaya's growing angrier by the minute. "What the rust would I need with money?"
"Privileges, then. The next time you leave the Fulcrum—"
"We don't leave." Damaya scowls and yanks her arm out of Binof's grip. How did this fool of a still even get in here? There are guards, members of the city militia, at all the doors that lead out of the Fulcrum. But those guards are there to keep orogenes in, not stills out—and perhaps this Leader girl with her money and her privileges and her fearlessness would have found a way in even if the guards had tried to stop her. "We're here because it's the only place we can be safe from people like you. Get out."
Suddenly Damaya has to turn away, clenching her fists and concentrating hard and taking quick deep breaths, because she's so angry that the part of herself that knows how to shift fault lines is starting to wander down into the earth. It's a shameful breach of control, and she prays none of the instructors sense it, because then she will no longer be thought of as almost ready for the first ring test. Not to mention that she might end up icing this girl.
Infuriatingly, Binof leans around her and says, "Oh! Are you angry? Are you doing orogeny? What does it feel like?"
The questions are so ridiculous, her lack of fear so nonsensical, that Damaya's orogeny fizzles. She's suddenly not angry anymore, just astonished. Is this what all Leaders are like as children? Palela was so small that it didn't have any; people of the Leader use-caste generally prefer to live in places that are worth leading. Maybe this is just what Yumenescene Leaders are like. Or maybe this girl is just ridiculous.
As if Damaya's silence is an answer in itself, Binof grins and dances around in front of her. "I've never had a chance to meet an orogene before. The grown-ups, I mean, the ones with rings who wear the black uniforms, but not a kid like me. You're not as scary as the lorists said you would be. But then, lorists lie a lot."
Damaya shakes her head. "I don't understand anything about you."
To her surprise, Binof sobers. "You sound like my mom." She looks away for a moment, then presses her lips together and glowers at Damaya in apparent determination. "Will you help me find this room, or not? If you won't help, at least don't say anything."
In spite of everything, Damaya is intrigued—by the girl, by the possibility of finding a way into the room without doors, by the novelty of her own intrigue. She has never gone exploring with someone, before. It is... exciting. She shifts and looks around uncomfortably, but a part of her has already decided, hasn't it? "Okay. But I've never found a way in, and I've been exploring Main for months."
"Main, is that what the big building is called? And yes, I'm not surprised; there probably isn't an easy way in. Or maybe there was once, but it's closed off now." Oblivious as Damaya stares again, Binof rubs her chin. "I have an idea of where to look, though. I've seen some old structural drawings... Well, anyway, it would be on the southern side of the building. Ground level."
That is not in the unused wing, inconveniently. Still, she says, "I know the way," and it's heartening to see Binof brighten at these words.
She leads Binof the way she usually goes, walking the way she usually walks. Strangely, perhaps because she is nervous this time, she notices more people noticing her. There are more double takes than usual, and when she spies Instructor Galena by chance on her way past a fountain—Galena, who once caught her drunk and saved her life by not reporting it—he actually smiles before turning his attention back to his chatty companion. That's when Damaya finally realizes why people are looking: because they know about the strange quiet grit who goes wandering all the time. They've probably heard about Damaya via rumors or something, and they like that she's finally brought someone else with her. They think she's made a friend. Damaya would laugh, if the truth weren't so unfunny.
"Strange," says Binof as they walk one of the obsidian paths through one of the lesser gardens.
"What?"
"Well, I keep thinking everyone's going to notice me. But instead, almost no one's paying attention. Even though we're the only kids out here."
Damaya shrugs, and keeps walking.
"You'd think someone would stop us and ask questions, or something. We could be doing something unsafe."
Damaya shakes her head. "If one of us gets hurt and someone finds us before we bleed out, they'll take us to the hospital." And then Damaya will have a mark on her record that might prevent her from taking the ring test. Everything she does right now could interfere with that. She sighs.
"That's nice," says Binof, "but maybe it's a better idea to stop kids before they do things that might get them hurt."
Damaya stops in the middle of the lawn path and turns to Binof. "We aren't kids," she says, annoyed. Binof blinks. "We're grits—Imperial Orogenes in training. That's what you look like, so that's what everyone assumes you are. Nobody gives a damn whether a couple of orogenes get hurt."
Binof is staring at her. "Oh."
"And you're talking too much. Grits don't. We only relax in the dorms, and only when there are no instructors around. If you're going to pretend to be one of us, get it right."
"All right, all right!" Binof holds up both hands as if to appease her. "I'm sorry, I just..." She grimaces as Damaya glares at her. "Right. No more talking."
She shuts up, so Damaya resumes walking.
They reach Main and head inside the way Damaya always does. Only this time she turns right instead of left, and heads downstairs instead of up. The ceilings are lower in this corridor, and the walls are decorated in a way she has never seen before, with little frescoes painted at intervals that depict pleasant, innocuous scenes. After a while she begins to worry, because they're getting closer and closer to a wing that she has never explored and doesn't want to: the Guardians'. "Where on the south side of the building?"
"What?" Preoccupied with looking around—which makes her stand out even more than the endless talking did—Binof blinks at Damaya in surprise. "Oh. Just... somewhere on the south side." She grimaces at Damaya's glare. "I don't know where! I just know there was a door, even if there isn't one anymore. Can't you—" She waggles her fingers. "Orogenes are supposed to be able to do things like that."
"What, find doors? Not unless they're in the ground." But even as Damaya says this, she frowns, because... well. She can sort of sess where doors are, by inference. Load-bearing walls feel much like bedrock, and door frames feel like gaps in strata—places where the pressure of the building against the ground is lesser. If a door somewhere on this level has been covered over, would its frame have been removed, too? Maybe. But would that place not feel different from the walls around it?
She's already turning, splaying her fingers the way she tends to do when she's trying to stretch her zone of control farther. In the Applied crucibles there are markers underground—small blocks of marble with words etched into one surface. It takes a very fine degree of control to not only find the blocks but determine the word; it's like tasting a page of a book and noticing the minute differences between the ink and the bare page and using that to read. But because she has been doing this over and over and over under the instructors' watchful eye, she realizes that the same exercise works for this purpose.
"Are you doing orogeny?" Binof asks eagerly.
"Yes, so shut up before I ice you by accident." Thankfully Binof actually obeys, even though sessing isn't orogeny and there's no danger of icing anyone. Damaya's just grateful for the silence.
She gropes along the walls of the building. They are like shadows of force compared to the stolid comfort of rock, but if she's delicate, she can trace them. And there and there and there along the building's inner walls, the ones that enclose that hidden chamber, she can feel where the walls are... interrupted. Inhaling, Damaya opens her eyes.
"Well?" Binof's practically salivating.
Damaya turns, walking along the wall a ways. When she gets to the right place and stops, there's a door there. It's risky opening doors in occupied wings; this is probably someone's office. The corridor is quiet, empty, but Damaya can see lights underneath some of the doors, which means that at least a few people are working late. She knocks first. When there is no answer, she takes a deep breath and tries the latch. Locked.
"Hang on," Binof says, rummaging in her pockets. After a moment she holds up something that looks like a tool Damaya once used to pick bits of shell out of the kurge nuts that grew on her family's farm. "I read about how to do this. Hopefully it's a simple lock." She begins fiddling with the tool in the lock, her face set in a look of concentration.
Damaya waits awhile, leaning casually against the wall and listening with both ears and sessapinae for any vibration of feet or approaching voices—or worse, the buzz of an approaching Guardian. It's after midnight by now, though, and even the most dedicated workers are either planning to sleep in their offices or have left for the night, so no one troubles them during the agonizingly long time it takes for Binof to figure out how to use the thing.
"That's enough," Damaya says after an eternity. If anyone comes along and catches them here, Damaya won't be able to play it off. "Come back tomorrow and we'll try this again—"
"I can't," says Binof. She's sweating and her hands are shaking, which isn't helping matters. "I gave my nurses the slip for one night, but that won't work again. I almost got it last time. Just give me another minute."
So Damaya waits, growing more and more anxious, until finally there is a click and Binof gasps in surprise. "Was that it? I think that was it!" She tries the door, and it swings open. "Earth's flaming farts, it worked!"
The room beyond is indeed someone's office: There's a desk and two high-backed chairs, and bookcases line the walls. The desk is bigger than most, the chairs more elaborate; whoever works here is someone important. It is jarring for Damaya to see an office that's still in use after so many months of seeing the disused offices of the old wings. There's no dust, and the lanterns are already lit, though low-wick. So strange.
Binoff looks around, frowning; no sign of a door within the office. Damaya brushes past her, going over to what looks like a closet. She opens it: brooms and mops, and a spare black uniform hanging on the rod.
"That's it?" Binof curses aloud.
"No." Because Damaya can sess that this office is too short, from door to far wall, to match the width of the building. This closet isn't deep enough to account for the difference.
Tentatively she reaches past the broom and pushes on the wall. Nothing; it's solid brick. Well, that was an idea.
"Oh, right." Binof shoulders in with her, feeling the walls all over the closet and shoving the spare uniform out of the way. "These old buildings always have hidden doors, leading down into the storecaches or—"
"There aren't any storecaches in the Fulcrum." Even as she says it, she blinks, because she's never thought about this before. What are they supposed to do if there's a Season? Somehow she doesn't think the people of Yumenes will be willing to share their food with a bunch of orogenes.
"Oh. Right." Binof grimaces. "Well, still, this is Yumenes, even if it is the Fulcrum. There's always—"
And she freezes, her eyes widening as her fingers trip over a brick that's loose. She grins, pushes at one end until the other end pops out; using this, she pulls it loose. There's a latch underneath, made of what looks like cast iron.
"—There's always something going on beneath the surface," Binof breathes.
Damaya draws near, wondering. "Pull it."
"Now you're interested?" But Binof indeed wraps her hand around the latch, and pulls.
That whole wall of the closet swings loose, revealing an opening beyond lined with the same brick. The narrow tunnel there curves out of sight almost immediately, into darkness.
Damaya and Binof both stare into it, neither taking that first step.
"What's in there?" Damaya whispers.
Binof licks her lips, staring into the shadowed tunnel. "I'm not sure."
"Bullshit." It's a shameful thrill to talk like this, like one of the ringed grown-ups. "You came here hoping to find something."
"Let's go see first—" Binof tries to push past her, and Damaya catches her arm. Binof jumps, arm tightening beneath Damaya's hand; she glares down at it as if in affront. Damaya doesn't care.
"No. Tell me what you're looking for, or I'll shut this door after you and start a shake to bring the wall down and trap you in there. Then I'll go tell the Guardians." This is a bluff. It would be the stupidest thing on Father Earth to use unauthorized orogeny right under the noses of the Guardians, and then to go tell them she's done it. But Binof doesn't know that.
"I told you, only Leaders can know this!" Binof tries to shake her off.
"You're a Leader; change the rule. Isn't that also what you're supposed to do?"
Binof blinks and stares at her. For a long moment she is silent. Then she sighs, rubs her eyes, and the tension goes out of her thin arm. "Fine. Okay." She takes a deep breath. "There's something, an artifact, at the heart of the Fulcrum."
"What kind of artifact?"
"I'm not sure. I'm really not!" Binof raises her hands quickly, shaking off Damaya in the process, but Damaya's not trying to hold her anymore. "All I know is that... something's missing from the history. There's a hole, a gap."
"What?"
"In history." Binof glares at Damaya as if this is supposed to mean something. "You know, the stuff the tutors teach you? About how Yumenes was founded?"
Damaya shakes her head. Beyond a line she barely remembers in creche about Yumenes being the first city of the Old Sanze Empire, she cannot remember ever hearing about its founding. Perhaps Leaders get a better education.
Binof rolls her eyes, but explains. "There was a Season. The one right before the Empire was founded was Wandering, when north suddenly shifted and crops failed because birds and bugs couldn't find them. After that warlords took over in most areas—which is what always used to happen, after a Season. There was nothing but stonelore to guide people then, and rumors, and superstition. And it was because of rumors that no one settled in this region for a really long time." She points down, at their feet. "Yumenes was the perfect place for a city: good weather, in the middle of a plate, water but nowhere near the ocean, all that. But people were afraid of this place and had been for ages, because there was something here."
Damaya's never heard anything like this. "What?"
Binof looks annoyed. "That's what I'm trying to find out! That's what's missing. Imperial history takes over after the Wandering Season. The Madness Season happened only a little while afterward, and Warlord Verishe—Emperor Verishe, the first Emperor—started Sanze then. She founded the Empire here, on land that everyone feared, and built a city around the thing they were all afraid of. That actually helped keep Yumenes safe in those early years. And later, after the Empire was more established, somewhere between the Season of Teeth and the Breathless Season, the Fulcrum was founded on this site. On purpose. On top of the thing they were all afraid of."
"But what—" Damaya trails off, understanding at last. "The histories don't say what they were afraid of."
"Precisely. And I think it's in there." Binof points toward the open door.
Damaya frowns. "Why are only Leaders supposed to know this?"
"I don't know. That's why I'm here. So are you coming in with me, or not?"
Instead of answering, Damaya walks past Binof and into the brick-lined corridor. Binof curses, then trots after her, and because of that, they enter together.
The tunnel opens out into a huge dark space. Damaya stops as soon as she feels airiness and breadth around her; it's pitch black, but she can feel the shape of the ground ahead. She catches Binof, who's blundering forward in a determined sort of way despite the dark—the fool—and says, "Wait. The ground's pressed down up ahead." She's whispering, because that's what one does in the dark. Her voice echoes; the echo takes a while to return. It's a big space.
"Pressed—what?"
"Pressed down." Damaya tries to explain it, but it's always so hard to tell stills things. Another orogene would just know. "Like... like there's been something really heavy here." Something like a mountain. "The strata are deformed, and—there's a depression. A big hole. You'll fall."
"Rusting fuck," Binof mutters. Damaya almost flinches, though she's heard worse from some of her cruder fellow grits when the instructors weren't around. "We need some light."
Lights appear on the ground up ahead, one by one. There is a faint clicking sound—which echoes as well—as each activates: small round white ones near their feet and in twin lines as they march forward, and then much larger ones that are rectangular and butter-yellow, spreading outward from the walkway lights. The yellow panels continue to activate in sequence, and spread, slowly forming an enormous hexagon and gradually illuminating the space in which they stand: a cavernous atrium with six walls, enclosed by what must be the roof of Main high above. The ceiling is so distant they can barely make out its radiating spoke of supports. The walls are featureless, the same plain stone that comprises the rest of Main, but most of the floor of this chamber has been covered over in asphalt, or something very like it—smooth, stonelike but not stone, slightly rough, durable.
At the core of it, however, there is indeed a depression. That is an understatement: It's a huge, tapering pit with flat-sided walls and neat, precise edges—six of them, cut as finely as one cuts a diamond. "Evil Earth," Damaya whispers as she edges forward along the walkway to where the yellow lights limn the shape of the pit.
"Yeah," says Binof, sounding equally awed.
It is stories deep, this pit, and steep. If she fell in, she would roll down its slopes and probably break every bone in her body at the bottom. But the shape of it nags at her, because it is faceted. Tapering to a point at the very bottom. No one digs a pit in that shape. Why would they? It would be almost impossible to get out of, even with a ladder that could reach so far.
But then, no one has dug this pit. She can sess that: Something monstrously heavy punched this pit into the earth, and sat in the depression long enough to make all the rock and soil beneath it solidify into these smooth, neat planes. Then whatever-it-was lifted away, clean as a buttered roll from a pan, leaving nothing but the shape of itself behind.
But wait; the walls of the pit are not wholly smooth. Damaya crouches for a closer look, while beside her, Binof just stares.
There: Along every smooth slope, she can see thin, barely visible sharp objects. Needles? They push up through fine cracks in the smooth walls, jagged and random, like plant roots. The needles are made of iron; Damaya can smell the rust in the air. Scratch her earlier guess: If she fell into this pit, she would be shredded long before she ever hit the bottom.
"I wasn't expecting this," Binof breathes at last. She's speaking in a hush, maybe out of reverence, or fear. "Many things, but... not this."
"What is it?" asks Damaya. "What's it for?"
Binof shakes her head slowly. "It's supposed to be—"
"Hidden," says a voice behind them, and they both jump and whirl in alarm. Damaya is standing closer to the edge of the pit, and when she stumbles there is a terrible, vertiginous moment in which she's absolutely certain she's going to fall in. In fact she relaxes, and doesn't try to lean forward or rebalance herself or do any of the things that she would do if she had a chance of not falling. She is all-over heavy, and the pit yawns with inevitability behind her.
Then Binof grabs her arm and yanks her forward, and abruptly she realizes she was still a good two or three feet from the edge. She would only have fallen in if she'd let herself fall in. This is such a strange thing that she almost forgets why she nearly fell, and then the Guardian comes down the walkway.
The woman is tall and broad and bronze, pretty in a carved sort of way, with ashblow hair shorn into a bristly cap. She feels older than Schaffa, though this is difficult to tell; her skin is unmarked, her honey-colored eyes undented by crow's feet. She just feels... heavier, in presence. And her smile is the same unnerving combination of peaceable and menacing as that of every Guardian Damaya has ever seen.
Damaya thinks, I only need to be afraid if she thinks I'm dangerous.
Here is the question, though: Is an orogene who goes where she knows she should not dangerous? Damaya licks her lips and tries not to look afraid.
Binof doesn't bother, darting a look between Damaya and the woman and the pit and the door. Damaya wants to tell her not to do whatever she's thinking of—making a break for it, likely. Not with a Guardian here. But Binof is not an orogene; maybe that will protect her, even if she does something stupid.
"Damaya," the woman says, though Damaya has never met her before. "Schaffa will be disappointed."
"She's with me," Binof blurts, before Damaya can reply. Damaya looks at her in surprise, but Binof's already talking, and now that she's started, it seems as though nothing will stop her. "I brought her here. Ordered her here. She didn't even know about the door and this—place—until I told her."
That isn't true, Damaya wants to say, because she'd guessed that the place existed, just hadn't known how to find it. But the Guardian is looking at Binof curiously, and that's a positive sign because nobody's hands have been broken yet.
"And you are?" The Guardian smiles. "Not an orogene, I gather, despite your uniform."
Binof jumps a little, as if she's forgotten that she's been playing little lost grit. "Oh. Um." She straightens and lifts her chin. "My name is Binof Leadership Yumenes. Your pardon for my intrusion, Guardian; I had a question that required an answer."
Binof's talking differently, Damaya realizes suddenly: her words evenly spaced and voice steady, her manner not so much haughty as grave. As if the world's fate depends upon her finding the answer to her question. As if she isn't just some spoiled girl from a powerful family who decided on a whim to do something incredibly stupid.
The Guardian stops, cocking her head and blinking as her smile momentarily fades. "Leadership Yumenes?" Then she beams. "How lovely! So young, and already you have a comm name. You are quite welcome among us, Binof Leader. If you had but told us you were coming, we could have shown you what you wanted to see."
Binof flinches minutely at the rebuke. "I had a wish to see it for myself, I'm afraid. Perhaps that was not wise—but my parents are likely by now aware that I have come here, so please feel free to speak to them about it."
It's a smart thing to do, Damaya is surprised to realize, because before now she has not thought of Binof as smart. Mentioning that others know where she's gone.
"I shall," says the Guardian, and then she smiles at Damaya, which makes her stomach tighten. "And I shall speak to your Guardian, and we shall all speak together. That would be lovely, yes? Yes. Please." She steps aside and bows a little, gesturing for them to precede her, and as polite as it looks, they both know it's not a request.
The Guardian leads them out of the chamber. As they all step into the brick tunnel again, the lights go out behind them. When the door is shut and the office is locked and they have proceeded into the Guardians' wing, the woman touches Damaya's shoulder to stop her while Binof keeps walking for a step or two. Then when Binof stops, looking at them in confusion, the Guardian says to Damaya, "Please wait here." Then she moves to rejoin Binof.
Binof looks at her, perhaps trying to convey something with her eyes. Damaya looks away, and the message fails as the Guardian leads her farther down the hall and into a closed door. Binof has already done enough harm.
Damaya waits, of course. She's not stupid. She's standing in front of the door to a busy area; despite the hour, other Guardians emerge now and again, and look at her. She doesn't look back, and something in this seems to satisfy them, so they move on without bothering her.
After a few moments, the Guardian who caught them in the pit chamber returns and leads her through the door, with a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Now. Let's just talk a bit, why don't we? I've sent for Schaffa; fortunately he's in the city right now, and not out on circuit as usual. But until he gets here..."
There's a large, handsomely apportioned, carpeted area beyond the door, with many small desks. Some are occupied and some not, and the people who move between them wear a mix of black and burgundy uniforms. A very few aren't wearing uniforms at all, but civilian clothing. Damaya stares at all of it in fascination until the Guardian puts a hand on her head and gently, but inexorably, steers her gaze away.
Damaya is led into a small private office at the end of this chamber. The desk here is completely empty, however, and the room has a disused air. There's a chair on either side of the desk, so Damaya takes the one meant for guests.
"I'm sorry," she says as the Guardian sits down behind the desk. "I-I didn't think."
The Guardian shakes her head, as if this doesn't matter. "Did you touch any of them?"
"What?"
"In the socket." The Guardian's still smiling, but they always smile; this means nothing useful. "You saw the extrusions from the socket walls. Weren't you curious? There was one only an arm's length below where you stood."
Socket? Oh, and the iron bits poking out of the walls. "No, I didn't touch any of them." Socket for what?
The Guardian sits forward, and abruptly her smile vanishes. It doesn't fade, and she doesn't frown to replace it. All the expression just stops, in her face. "Did it call to you? Did you answer?"
Something's wrong. Damaya feels this suddenly, instinctively, and the realization dries the words from her mouth. The Guardian even sounds different—her voice is deeper, softer, almost hushed, as if she's saying something she doesn't want the others to hear.
"What did it say to you?" The Guardian extends her hand, and even though Damaya puts her hand out immediately in obedient response, she does not want to. She does it anyway because Guardians are to be obeyed. The woman takes Damaya's hand and holds it palm up, her thumb stroking the long crease. The lifeline. "You can tell me."
Damaya shakes her head in utter confusion. "What did what say to me?"
"It's angry." The woman's voice drops lower, going monotonous, and Damaya realizes she's not trying to go unheard anymore. The Guardian is talking differently because that's not her voice. "Angry and... afraid. I hear both gathering, growing, the anger and the fear. Readying, for the time of return."
It's like... like someone else is inside the Guardian, and that is who's talking, except using the Guardian's face and voice and everything else. But as the woman says this, her hand begins to tighten on Damaya's. Her thumb, which rests right on the bones that Schaffa broke a year and a half ago, begins to press in, and Damaya feels faint as some part of her thinks, I don't want to be hurt again.
"I'll tell you whatever you want," she offers, but the Guardian keeps pressing. It's like she doesn't even hear.
"It did what it had to do, last time." Press and tighten. This Guardian, unlike Schaffa, has longer nails; the thumbnail begins to dig into Damaya's flesh. "It seeped through the walls and tainted their pure creation, exploited them before they could exploit it. When the arcane connections were made, it changed those who would control it. Chained them, fate to fate."
"Please don't," Damaya whispers. Her palm has begun to bleed. In almost the same moment there is a knock at the door. The woman ignores both.
"It made them a part of it."
"I don't understand," Damaya says. It hurts. It hurts. She's shaking, waiting for the snap of bone.
"It hoped for communion. Compromise. Instead, the battle... escalated."
"I don't understand! You're not making any sense!" It's wrong. Damaya's raising her voice to a Guardian, and she knows better, but this isn't right. Schaffa promised that he would hurt her only for a good reason. All Guardians operate on this principle; Damaya has seen the proof of it in how they interact with her fellow grits and the ringed orogenes. There is an order to life in the Fulcrum and this woman is breaking it. "Let go of me! I'll do whatever you want, just let go!"
The door opens and Schaffa flows in. Damaya's breath catches, but he doesn't look at her. His gaze is fixed on the Guardian who holds Damaya's hand. He isn't smiling as he moves to stand behind her. "Timay. Control yourself."
Timay's not home, Damaya thinks.
"It speaks only to warn, now," she continues in a drone. "There will be no compromise next time—"
Schaffa sighs a little, then jabs his fingers into the back of Timay's skull.
It's not clear at first, from Damaya's angle, that this is what he's done. She just sees him make a sudden sharp, violent movement, and then Timay's head jerks forward. She makes a sound so harsh and guttural that it is almost vulgar, and her eyes go wide. Schaffa's face is expressionless as he does something, his arm flexing, and that's when the first blood-lines wend around Timay's neck, beginning to sink into her tunic and patter into her lap. Her hand, on Damaya's, relaxes all at once, and her face goes slack.
That is also when Damaya begins to scream. She keeps screaming as Schaffa twists his hand again, nostrils flaring with the effort of whatever he's doing, and the sound of crunching bone and popping tendon is undeniable. Then Schaffa lifts his hand, holding something small and indistinct—too covered in gore—between his thumb and forefinger. Timay falls forward then, and now Damaya sees the ruin that was once the base of her skull.
"Be silent, little one," Schaffa says, mildly, and Damaya shuts up.
Another Guardian comes in, looks at Timay, looks at Schaffa, and sighs. "Unfortunate."
"Very unfortunate." Schaffa offers the blood-covered thing to this man, who cups his hands to receive it, carefully. "I would like this removed." He nods toward Timay's body.
"Yes." The man leaves with the thing Schaffa took from Timay, and then two more Guardians come in, sigh as the first one did, and collect her body from its chair. They drag her out, one of them pausing to mop up with a handkerchief the drops of blood from the table where Timay fell. It's all very efficient. Schaffa sits down in Timay's place, and Damaya jerks her eyes to him only because she must. They gaze at each other in silence for a few moments.
"Let me see," Schaffa says gently, and she offers him her hand. Amazingly, it does not shake.
He takes it with his left hand—the one that is still clean because it did not rip out Timay's brain stem. He turns her hand, examining it carefully, making a face at the crescent of blood where Timay's thumbnail broke the skin. A single drop of Damaya's blood rolls off the edge of her hand, splatting onto the table right where Timay's blood had been a moment before. "Good. I was afraid she'd hurt you worse than this."
"Wh—" Damaya begins. She can't muster any more than that.
Schaffa smiles, though this is edged with sorrow. "Something you should not have seen."
"What." This takes a ten-ringer's effort.
Schaffa considers a moment, then says, "You are aware that we—Guardians—are... different." He smiles, as if to remind her of how different. All Guardians smile a lot.
She nods, mute.
"There is a... procedure." He lets go of her hand for a moment, touches the back of his own skull, beneath the fall of his long black hair. "A thing is done to make us what we are. An implantation. Sometimes it goes wrong and must then be removed, as you saw." He shrugs. His right hand is still covered in gore. "A Guardian's connections with his assigned orogenes can help to stave off the worst, but Timay had allowed hers to erode. Foolish."
A chilly barn in the Nomidlats; a moment of apparent affection; two warm fingers pressed to the base of Damaya's skull. Duty first, he had said then. Something that will make me more comfortable.
Damaya licks her lips. "Sh-she was. Saying things. Not making. Sense."
"I heard some of what she said."
"She wasn't. Her." Now Damaya's the one not making sense. "She wasn't who she was anymore. I mean, she was someone else. Talking as if... someone else was there." In her head. In her mouth, speaking through it. "She kept talking about a socket. And 'it' being angry."
Schaffa inclines his head. "Father Earth, of course. It is a common delusion."
Damaya blinks. What? It's angry. What?
"And you're right; Timay wasn't herself any longer. I'm sorry she hurt you. I'm sorry you had to see that. I'm so sorry, little one." And there is such genuine regret in his voice, such compassion in his face, that Damaya does what she has not since a cold dark night in a Nomidlats barn: She begins to cry.
After a moment Schaffa gets up and comes around the table and picks her up, sitting in the chair and letting her curl in his lap to weep on his shoulder. There is an order to life in the Fulcrum, see, and it is this: If one has not displeased them, the Guardians are the closest thing to safety a rogga will ever have. So Damaya cries for a long time—not just because of what she's seen tonight. She cries because she has been inexpressibly lonely, and Schaffa... well. Schaffa loves her, in his tender and terrifying way. She does not pay attention to the bloody print his right hand leaves on her hip, or the press of his fingers—fingers strong enough to kill—against the base of her skull. Such things are irrelevant, in the grand scale.
When the storm of weeping subsides, though, Schaffa strokes her back with his clean hand. "How are you feeling, Damaya?"
She does not lift her head from his shoulder. He smells of sweat and leather and iron, things that she will forever associate with comfort and fear. "I'm all right."
"Good. I need you to do something for me."
"What?"
He squeezes her gently, encouraging. "I'm going to take you down the hall, to one of the crucibles, and there you will face the first ring test. I need you to pass it for me."
Damaya blinks, frowning, and lifts her head. He smiles at her, tenderly. By this she understands, in a flash of intuition, that this is a test of more than her orogeny. After all, most roggas are told of the test in advance, so that they can practice and prepare. This is happening for her now, without warning, because it is her only chance. She has proven herself disobedient. Unreliable. Because of this, Damaya will need to also prove herself useful. If she cannot...
"I need you to live, Damaya." Schaffa touches his forehead to her own. "My compassionate one. My life is so full of death. Please; pass this test for me."
There are so many things she wants to know. What Timay meant; what will happen to Binof; what is the socket and why was it hidden; what happened to Crack last year. Why Schaffa is even giving her this much of a chance. But there is an order to life in the Fulcrum, and her place within it is not to question a Guardian's will.
But...
But. She turns her head, and looks at that single drop of her blood on the table.
This is not right.
"Damaya?"
It isn't right, what they're doing to her. What this place does to everyone within its walls. What he's making her do, to survive.
"Will you do it? For me?"
She still loves him. That isn't right, either.
"If I pass." Damaya closes her eyes. She can't look at him and say this. Not without letting him see the it isn't right in her eyes. "I, I picked a rogga name."
He does not chide her on her language. "Have you, now?" He sounds pleased. "What?"
She licks her lips. "Syenite."
Schaffa sits back in the chair, sounding thoughtful. "I like it."
"You do?"
"Of course I do. You chose it, didn't you?" He's laughing, but in a good way. With her, not at her. "It forms at the edge of a tectonic plate. With heat and pressure it does not degrade, but instead grows stronger."
He does understand. She bites her lip and feels fresh tears threaten. It isn't right that she loves him, but many things in the world are not right. So she fights off the tears, and makes her decision. Crying is weakness. Crying was a thing Damaya did. Syenite will be stronger.
"I'll do it," Syenite says, softly. "I'll pass the test for you, Schaffa. I promise."
"My good girl," Schaffa says, and smiles, holding her close. |
[obscured] those who would take the earth too closely unto themselves. They are not masters of themselves; allow them no mastery of others.
—Tablet Two, "The Incomplete Truth," verse nine |
Ykka takes you into the house from which she and her companions emerged. There's little furniture inside, and the walls are bare. There's scuffing on the floor and walls, a lingering smell of food and stale body musk; someone did live here, until recently. Maybe until the Season began. The house is only a shell now, though, as you and the others cut through to a cellar door. At the bottom of the steps you find a large, empty chamber lit only by wood-pitch torches.
Here's where you first start to realize this is more than just a bizarre community of people and not-people: The walls of the cellar are solid granite. Nobody quarries into granite just to build a cellar, and... and you're not sure anyone dug this. Everyone stops while you go to one of the walls and touch it. You close your eyes and reach. Yes, there is the feel of something familiar here. Some rogga shaped this perfectly smooth wall, using will and a focus finer than you can imagine. (Though not the finest focus you've ever sessed.) You've never heard of anyone doing anything like this with orogeny. It's not for building.
Turning, you see Ykka watching you. "Your work?"
She smiles. "No. This and other hidden entrances have been around for centuries, long before me."
"The people in this comm have worked with orogenes for that long?" She'd said the comm was only fifty years old.
Ykka laughs. "No, I just mean that this world has passed through many hands down the Seasons. Not all of them were quite as stupid as ours about the usefulness of orogenes."
"We aren't stupid about it now," you say. "Everyone understands perfectly well how to use us."
"Ooh." Ykka grimaces, pityingly. "Fulcrum trained? The ones who survive it always seem to sound like you."
You wonder how many Fulcrum-trained orogenes this woman has met. "Yes."
"Well. Now you'll see how much more we're capable of when we're willing." And Ykka gestures toward a wide opening in the wall a few feet beyond her, which you hadn't noticed in your fascination with the cellar's construction. A faint draft wafts into the cellar from beyond it. There're also three people loitering at the mouth of the opening, watching you with varied expressions of hostility, wariness, amusement. They're not carrying any weapons—those are propped against the wall nearby—and they're not conspicuous about it, but you realize these are the gate guards this comm should have, for the gate this comm doesn't have. Here, in this cellar.
The blond woman speaks quietly with one of the guards; this emphasizes even more how tiny she is, a foot shorter and probably a hundred pounds lighter than the smallest of them. Her ancestors really should've done her a few favors and slept with a Sanzed or two. Anyway, then you move on and the guards stay behind, two taking seats on chairs nearby, the third heading back up the steps, presumably to keep a lookout from within the empty buildings topside.
You make the paradigm shift then: The abandoned village up there is this comm's wall. Camouflage rather than a barrier.
Camouflage for what, though? You follow Ykka through the opening and into the dark beyond.
"The core of this place has always been here," she explains as you walk down a long dark tunnel that might be an abandoned mine shaft. There's tracks for carts, though they're so old and sunken into the gritty stone that you can't really see them. Just awkward ridges beneath your feet. The wooden bracers of the tunnel look old, as do the wall sconces that hold cord-strung electric lights—they look like they were originally made to hold wooden torches and got retrofitted by some geneer. The lights are still working, which means the comm's got functional geo or hydro or both; better than Tirimo already. It's warm in the shaft, too, but you don't see any of the usual heating pipes. It's just warm, and getting warmer as you follow the gently sloping floor downward.
"I told you there were mines in the area. That's how they found these, back in the day. Someone cracked a wall they shouldn't have and blundered into a whole warren of tunnels nobody knew were there." Ykka falls silent for a long while as the shaft widens out, and you all go down a set of dangerous-looking metal steps. There's a lot of them. They look old, too—and yet strangely, the metal doesn't seem distressed or rusted out. It's smooth and shiny and all-over whole. The steps aren't shaky at all.
After a time you notice, belatedly, that the red-haired stone eater is gone. She didn't follow you down into the shaft. Ykka doesn't seem to notice, so you touch her arm. "Where's your friend?" Though you sort of know.
"My—oh, that one. Moving the way we do is hard for them, so they've got their own ways of getting about. Including ways I would never have guessed." She glances at Hoa, who's come down the steps with you. He looks back at her, coldly, and she breathes out a laugh. "Interesting."
At the bottom of the stairs there's another tunnel, though it looks different for some reason. Curved at its top rather than squared, and the supports are some sort of thick, silvery stone columns, which arch partway up the walls like ribs. You can almost taste the age of these corridors through the pores of your skin.
Ykka resumes. "Really, all the bedrock in this area is riddled with tunnels and intrusions, mines on top of mines. One civilization after another, building on what went before."
"Aritussid," says Tonkee. "Jyamaria. The lower Ottey States."
You've heard of Jyamaria, from the history you used to teach in creche. It was the name of a large nation, the one that started the road system Sanze later improved upon, and which once spread over most of what is now the Somidlats. It died around ten Seasons ago. The rest of the names are probably those of other deadcivs; that seems like the sort of thing geomests would care about, even if no one else does.
"Dangerous," you say, as you try not to be too obvious with your unease. "If the rock here's been compromised so much—"
"Yes, yes. Though that's a risk with any mining, as much because of incompetence as shakes."
Tonkee is turning and turning as she walks, taking it all in and still not bumping into anyone; amazing. "That northern shake was severe enough that even this should have come down," she says.
"You're right. That shake—we're calling it the Yumenes Rifting, since nobody's come up with a better name yet—was the worst the world's seen in an age. I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying so." Ykka shrugs and glances back at you. "But of course, the tunnels didn't collapse, because I was here. I didn't let them."
You nod, slowly. It's no different than what you did for Tirimo, except Ykka must have taken care to protect more than just the surface. The area must be relatively stable anyway, or these tunnels would've all collapsed ages ago.
But you say: "You won't always be around."
"When I'm not, someone else will do it." She shrugs. "Like I said, there's a lot of us here now."
"About that—" Tonkee pivots on one foot and suddenly her whole attention is on Ykka. Ykka laughs.
"Kind of single-minded, aren't you?"
"Not really." You suspect Tonkee is still simultaneously taking note of the supports and wall composition, counting your paces, whatever, all while she talks. "So how are you doing it? Luring orogenes here."
"Luring?" Ykka shakes her head. "It's not that sinister. And it's hard to describe. There's a... a thing I do. Like—" She falls silent.
And all at once, you stumble while you're walking. There's no obstruction on the floor. It's just suddenly difficult to walk in a straight line, as if the floor has developed an invisible downward slope. Toward Ykka.
You stop and glare at her. She stops as well, turning to smile at you. "How are you doing that?" you demand.
"I don't know." She spreads her hands at your disbelieving look. "It's just something I tried, a few years ago. And not too long after I started doing it, a man came to town and said he'd felt me from miles away. Then two kids showed up; they didn't even realize what they were reacting to. Then another man. I've kept doing it since."
"Doing what?" Tonkee asks, looking from you to Ykka.
"Only roggas feel it," Ykka explains, though by this point you've figured that out for yourself. Then she glances at Hoa, who is watching both of you, utterly still. "And them, I realized later."
"About that," Tonkee blurts.
"Earthfires and rustbuckets, you ask too many questions." This comes from the blond woman, who shakes her head and gestures for all of you to keep walking.
There are faint occasional noises up ahead now, and the air is moving, noticeably. But how can that be? You must be a mile down, maybe twice that. The breeze is warm and tinged with scents you've almost forgotten after weeks of breathing sulfur and ash through a mask. A bit of cooking food here, a waft of rotting garbage there, a breath of burning wood. People. You're smelling people. Lots of them. And there's a light—much stronger than the strings of electric lights along the walls—straight ahead.
"An underground comm?" Tonkee says what you're thinking, though she sounds more skeptical. (You know more about impossible things than she does.) "No, nobody's that stupid."
Ykka only laughs.
Then as the peculiar light starts to brighten the shaft around you, and the air moves faster and the noise grows, there's a place where the tunnel opens out and becomes a wide ledge with a metal railing for safety. A scenic viewpoint, because some geneer or Innovator understood exactly how newcomers would react. You do exactly as that long-ago designer intended: You stare in openmouthed, abject wonder.
It's a geode. You can sess that, the way the rock around you abruptly changes to something else. The pebble in the stream, the warp in the weft; countless aeons ago a bubble formed in a flow of molten mineral within Father Earth. Within that pocket, nurtured by incomprehensible pressures and bathed in water and fire, crystals grew. This one's the size of a city.
Which is probably why someone built a city in this one.
You stand before a vast, vaulted cavern that is full of glowing crystal shafts the size of tree trunks. Big tree trunks. Or buildings. Big buildings. They jut forth from the walls in an utterly haphazard jumble: different lengths, different circumferences, some white and translucent and a few smoky or tinged with purple. Some are stubby, their pointed tips ending only a few feet away from the walls that grew them—but many stretch from one side of the vast cavern into the indistinct distance. They form struts and roads too steep to climb, going in directions that make no sense. It is as if someone found an architect, made her build a city out of the most beautiful materials available, then threw all those buildings into a box and jumbled them up for laughs.
And they're definitely living in it. As you stare, you notice narrow rope bridges and wooden platforms everywhere. There are dangling lines strung with electric lanterns, ropes and pulleys carrying small lifts from one platform to another. In the distance a man walks down a wooden stairway built around a titanic slanted column of white; two children play on the ground far below, in between stubby crystals the size of houses.
Actually, some of the crystals are houses. They have holes cut in them—doors and windows. You can see people moving around inside some of them. Smoke curls from chimney holes cut in pointed crystal tips.
"Evil, eating Earth," you whisper.
Ykka stands with hands on her hips, watching your reaction with something like pride in her expression. "We didn't do most of this," she admits. "The recent additions, the newer bridges, yes, but the shaft-hollowing had already been done. We don't know how they managed it without shattering the crystals. The walkways that are made of metal—it's the same stuff as the steps in the tunnels we just passed through. The geneers have no idea how it's made; metallorists and alchemists have orgasms when they see it. There are mechanisms up there"—She points toward the barely visible ceiling of the cavern, hundreds of feet above your heads. You barely hear her, your mind numb, your eyes beginning to ache from staring without blinking—"that pump bad air into a layer of porous earth that filters and disperses it back onto the surface. Other pumps bring in good air. There are mechanisms just outside the geode that divert water from an underground hot spring a ways off, through a turbine that gives us electric power—took ages to figure that part out—and also bring it in for day-to-day use." She sighs. "But to be really honest, we don't know how half the stuff we've found here works. All of it was built long ago. Long before Old Sanze ever existed."
"Geodes are unstable once their shells are breached." Even Tonkee sounds floored. In your peripheral vision she is still for the first time since you met her. "It doesn't make sense to even think of building inside one. And why are the crystals glowing?"
She's right. They are.
Ykka shrugs, folding her arms. "No idea. But the people who built this wanted it to last, even through a shake, so they did things to the geode to make sure that would happen. And it did... but they didn't. When people from Castrima found this, it was full of skeletons—some so old they turned to dust as soon as we touched them."
"So your comm forebears decided to move everyone into a giant deadciv artifact that killed the last few people who risked it," you drawl. It's weak snark, though. You're too shaken to really get the tone right. "Of course. Why not repeat a colossal mistake?"
"Believe me, it's been an ongoing debate." Ykka sighs and leans against the railing, which makes you twitch. It's a long way down if she slips, and some of the crystals on the geode floor are sharp-looking. "No one was willing to live here for a long time. Castrima used this place and the tunnels leading to it as a storecache, though never for essentials like food or medicine. But in all that time, there's never been so much as a crack in the walls, even after shakes. We were further convinced by history: The comm that controlled this area during the last Season—a real, proper comm, with walls and everything—got overrun by a commless band. The whole comm was burned to the ground, all their vital stores taken. The survivors had a choice between moving down here, and trying to survive up there with no heat and no walls and every bunch of scavengers around homing in on the easy pickings left. So they were our precedent."
Necessity is the only law, says stonelore.
"Not that it went well." Ykka straightens and gestures for you to follow her again. All of you start down a broad, flat ramp that gently slopes toward the floor of the cavern. You realize only belatedly that it's a crystal, and you're walking down its side. Someone's paved the thing with concrete for traction, but past the edges of the gray strip you can see softly glowing white. "Most of the people who moved down here during that Season died, too. They couldn't make the air mechanisms work; staying here for more than a few days at a time meant suffocation. And they didn't have any food, so even though they were warm and safe and had plenty of water, most of them starved before the sun returned."
It's an old tale, freshened only by the unique setting. You nod absently, trying not to stumble as your attention is caught by an older man riding across the cavern while suspended from a pulley and cable, his butt snuggly tucked into a loop of rope. Ykka pauses to wave; the man waves back and glides on.
"The survivors of that nightmare started the trading post that eventually became Castrima. They passed down stories about this place, but still, no one wanted to live here... until my great-grandmother realized why the mechanisms didn't work. Until she got them working, just by walking through that entrance." Ykka gestures back the way you came. "Worked for me, too, when I first came down here."
You stop. Everyone goes on without you for a moment. Hoa is the first to notice that you're not following. He turns and looks at you. There is something guarded in his expression that was not there before, you notice distantly, through horror and wonder. Later, when you've had time to get past this, you and he will have to talk. Now there are more important considerations.
"The mechanisms," you say. Your mouth is dry. "They run on orogeny."
Ykka nods, half-smiling. "That's what the geneers think. Of course, the fact that it's all working now makes the conclusion obvious."
"Is it—" You grope for the words, fail. "How?"
Ykka laughs, shaking her head. "I have no idea. It just works."
That, more than everything else she's shown you, terrifies you.
Ykka sighs and puts her hands on her hips. "Essun," she says, and you twitch. "That's your name, right?"
You lick your lips. "Essun Resis—" And then you stop. Because you were about to give the name you gave to people in Tirimo for years, and that name is a lie. "Essun," you say again, and stop there. Limited lying.
Ykka glances at your companions. "Tonkee Innovator Dibars," says Tonkee. She throws an almost embarrassed look at you, then looks down at her feet.
"Hoa," says Hoa. Ykka gazes at him a moment longer, as if she expects more, but he offers nothing.
"Well, then." Ykka opens her arms, as if to encompass the whole geode; she gazes at all of you with her chin lifted, amost in defiance. "This is what we're trying to do here in Castrima: survive. Same as anyone. We're just willing to innovate a little." She inclines her head to Tonkee, who chuckles nervously. "We might all die doing it, but rust, that might happen anyway; it's a Season."
You lick your lips. "Can we leave?"
"What the rust do you mean, can we leave? We've barely had time to explore—" Tonkee begins, looking angry, and then abruptly she realizes what you mean. Her sallow face grows more so. "Oh."
Ykka's smile is sharp as diamond. "Well. You're not stupid; that's good. Come on. We've got some people to meet."
She beckons for you to follow again, resuming her walk down the slope, and she does not answer your question. |
In actual practice the sessapinae, paired organs located at the base of the brain stem, have been found to be sensitive to far more than local seismic movements and atmospheric pressure. In tests, reactions have been observed to the presence of predators, to others' emotions, to distant extremes of heat or cold, and to the movements of celestial objects. The mechanism of these reactions cannot be determined.
—Nandvid Innovator Murkettsi, "Observations of sesunal variation in overdeveloped individuals," Seventh University biomestry learning-comm. With appreciation to the Fulcrum for cadaver donation. |
They've been in Meov for three days when something changes. Syenite has spent those three days feeling very much out of place, in more ways than one. The first problem is that she can't speak the language—which Alabaster tells her is called Eturpic. A number of Coaster comms still speak it as a native tongue, though most people also learn Sanze-mat for trading purposes. Alabaster's theory is that the people of the islands are mostly descended from Coasters, which seems fairly obvious from their predominant coloring and common kinky hair—but since they raid rather than trade, they had no need to retain Sanze-mat. He tries to teach Eturpic to her, but she's not really in a "learn something new" sort of mood. That's because of the second problem, which Alabaster points out to her after they've had enough time to recover from their travails: They can't leave. Or rather, they've got nowhere to go.
"If the Guardians tried to kill us once, they'll try again," he explains. This is as they stroll along one of the arid heights of the island; it's the only way they can get any real privacy, since otherwise hordes of children follow them around and try to imitate the strange sounds of Sanze-mat. There's plenty to do here—the children are in creche most of the evenings, after everyone's done fishing and crabbing and whatnot for the day—but it's clear that there's not a lot of entertainment.
"Without knowing what it is we've done to provoke the Guardians' ire," Alabaster continues, "it would be folly itself to go back to the Fulcrum. We might not even make it past the gates before somebody throws another disruption knife."
Which is obvious, now that Syenite thinks it through. Yet there's something else that's obvious, whenever she looks at the horizon and sees the smoking hump that is what's left of Allia. "They think we're dead." She tears her eyes away from that lump, trying not to imagine what must have become of the beautiful little seaside comm she remembers. All of Allia's alarms, all their preparations, were shaped around surviving tsunami, not the volcano that has obviously, impossibly occurred instead. Poor Heresmith. Not even Asael deserved the death she probably suffered.
She cannot think about this. Instead she focuses on Alabaster. "That's what you're saying, isn't it? Being dead in Allia allows us to be alive, and free, here."
"Exactly!" Now Alabaster's grinning, practically dancing in place. She's never seen him so excited before. It's like he's not even aware of the price that's been paid for their freedom... or maybe he just doesn't care. "There's hardly any contact with the continent, here, and when there is, it's not exactly friendly. Our assigned Guardians can sense us if they're near enough, but none of their kind ever come here. These islands aren't even on many maps!" Then he sobers. "But on the continent there'd be no question of us escaping the Fulcrum. Every Guardian east of Yumenes will be sniffing about the remains of Allia for hints as to whether we've survived. They're probably circulating posters bearing our likenesses to the Imperial Road Patrol and quartent militias in the region. I suppose I'll be made out as Misalem reborn, and you my willing accomplice. Or maybe you'll finally get some respect, and they'll decide you're the mastermind."
Yes, well.
He's right, though. With a comm destroyed in such a horrible way, the Fulcrum will need scapegoats to blame. Why not the two roggas on site, who should have been more than skilled enough to contain any seismic event between them? Allia's destruction represents a betrayal of everything the Fulcrum promises the Stillness: tame and obedient orogenes, safety from the worst shakes and blows. Freedom from fear, at least till the next Fifth Season comes. Of course the Fulcrum will vilify them in every way possible, because otherwise people will break down its obsidian walls and slaughter everyone inside down to the littlest grit.
It does not help that Syen can sess, now that her sessapinae are no longer numb, just how bad things are in Allia. It's at the edge of her awareness—which is itself a surprise; for some reason she can reach much farther now than she could before. Still, it's clear: In the flat plane of the Maximal plate's eastern edge, there is a shaft burned straight down and down and down, into the very mantle of the planet. Beyond that Syen cannot follow—and she does not need to, because she can tell what made this shaft. Its edges are hexagonal, and it has exactly the same circumference as the garnet obelisk.
And Alabster is giddy. She could hate him for that alone.
His smile fades as he sees her face. "Evil Earth, are you ever happy?"
"They'll find us. Our Guardians can track us. "
He shakes his head. "Mine can't." You remember the strange Guardian in Allia alluding to this. "As for yours, when your orogeny was negated, he lost you. It cuts off everything, you know, not just our abilities. He'll need to touch you for the connection to work again."
You had no idea. "He won't stop looking, though."
Alabaster pauses. "Did you like being in the Fulcrum so much?"
The question startles her, and angers her further. "I could at least be myself there. I didn't have to hide what I am."
He nods slowly, something in his expression telling her that he understands all too well what she's feeling. "And what are you, when you're there?"
"Fuck. You." She's too angry, all of a sudden, to know why she's angry.
"I did." His smirk makes her burn hot as Allia must be. "Remember? We've fucked Earth knows how many times, even though we can't stand each other, on someone else's orders. Or have you made yourself believe you wanted it? Did you need a dick—any dick, even my mediocre, boring one—that bad?"
She doesn't reply in words. She's not thinking or talking anymore. She's in the earth and it's reverberating with her rage, amplifying it; the torus that materializes around her is high and fine and leaves an inch-wide ring of cold so fierce that the air hisses and sears white for an instant. She's going to ice him to the Arctics and back.
But Alabaster only sighs and flexes a little, and his torus blots out hers as easily as fingers snuffing a candle. It's gentle compared to what he could do, but the profundity of having her fury so swiftly and powerfully stilled makes her stagger. He steps forward as if to help her, and she jerks away from him with a half-voiced snarl. He backs off at once, holding up his hands as if asking for a truce.
"Sorry," he says. He genuinely sounds it, so she doesn't storm off right then. "I was just trying to make a point."
He's made it. Not that she hadn't known it before: that she is a slave, that all roggas are slaves, that the security and sense of self-worth the Fulcrum offers is wrapped in the chain of her right to live, and even the right to control her own body. It's one thing to know this, to admit it to herself, but it's the sort of truth that none of them use against each other—not even to make a point—because doing so is cruel and unnecessary. This is why she hates Alabaster: not because he is more powerful, not even because he is crazy, but because he refuses to allow her any of the polite fictions and unspoken truths that have kept her comfortable, and safe, for years.
They glare at each other for a moment longer, then Alabaster shakes his head and turns to leave. Syenite follows, because there's really nowhere else to go. They head back down to the cavern level. As they descend the stairs, Syenite has no choice but to face the third reason she feels so out of place in Meov.
Floating now in the comm's harbor is a huge, graceful sailing vessel—maybe a frigate, maybe a galleon, she doesn't know either of these words from boat—that dwarfs all the smaller vessels combined. Its hull is a wood so dark that it's almost black, patched with paler wood here and there. Its sails are tawny canvas, also much-mended and sun-faded and water-marked... and yet, somehow despite the stains and patches, the whole of the ship is oddly beautiful. It is called the Clalsu, or at least that's what the word sounds like to her ears, and it sailed in two days after Syenite and Alabaster arrived in Meov. Aboard it were a good number of the comm's able-bodied adults, and a lot of ill-gotten gain from several weeks' predation along the coastal shipping lanes.
The Clalsu has also brought to Meov its captain—the headman's second, actually, who is only second by virtue of the fact that he spends more time away from the island than on it. Otherwise, Syen would have known the instant this man bounded down the gangplank to greet the cheering crowd that he was Meov's true leader, because she can tell without understanding a word that everyone here loves him and looks up to him. Innon is his name: Innon Resistant Meov in the mainlander parlance. A big man, black-skinned like most of the Meovites, built more like a Strongback than a Resistant and with personality enough to outshine any Yumenescene Leader.
Except he's not really a Resistant, or a Strongback, or a Leader, not that any of those use names really mean much in this comm that rejects so much of Sanzed custom. He's an orogene. A feral, born free and raised openly by Harlas—who's a rogga, too. All their leaders are roggas, here. It's how the island has survived through more Seasons than they've bothered to count.
And beyond this fact... well. Syen's not quite sure how to deal with Innon.
As a case in point, she hears him the instant they come into the main entry cavern of the comm. Everyone can hear him, since he talks as loudly within the caverns as he apparently does when on the deck of his ship. He doesn't need to; the caverns echo even the slightest sound. He's just not the sort of man to limit himself, even when he should.
Like now.
"Syenite, Alabaster!" The comm has gathered around its communal cookfires to share the evening meal. Everyone's sitting on stone or wooden benches, relaxing and chatting, but there's a big knot of people seated around Innon where he's been regaling them with... something. He switches to Sanze-mat at once, however, since he's one of the few people in the comm who can speak it, albeit with a heavy accent. "I have been waiting for you both. We saved good stories for you. Here!" He actually rises and beckons to them as if yelling at the top of his lungs wasn't enough to get their attention, and as if a six-and-a-half-foot-tall man with a huge mane of braids and clothes from three different nations—all of it garish—would be hard to spot amid the crowd.
Yet Syenite finds herself smiling as she steps into the ring of benches where Innon has, apparently, kept one open just for them. Other members of the comm murmur greetings, which Syen is beginning to recognize; out of politeness, she attempts to stammer something similar back, and endures their chuckles when she gets it wrong. Innon grins at her and repeats the phrase, properly; she tries again and sees nods all around. "Excellent," Innon says, so emphatically that she cannot help but believe him.
Then he grins at Alabaster, beside her. "You're a good teacher, I think."
Alabaster ducks his head a little. "Not really. I can't seem to stop my pupils from hating me."
"Mmm." Innon's voice is low and deep and reverberates like the deepest of shakes. When he smiles, it's like the surface breach of a vesicle, something bright and hot and alarming, especially up close. "We must see if we can change that, hmm?" And he looks at Syen, unabashed in his interest, and plainly not caring when the other members of the comm chuckle.
That's the problem, see. This ridiculous, loud, vulgar man has made no secret of the fact that he wants Syenite. And unfortunately—because otherwise this would be easy—there's something about him that Syen actually finds herself attracted to. His ferality, perhaps. She's never met anyone like him.
Thing is, he seems to want Alabaster, too. And Alabaster doesn't seem disinterested, either.
It's a little confusing.
Once he has successfully flustered both of them, Innon turns his infinite charm on his people. "Well! Here we are, with food aplenty and fine new things that other people have made and paid for." He shifts into Eturpic then, repeating the words for everyone; they chuckle at the last part, largely because many of them have been wearing new clothes and jewelry and the like since the ship came in. Then Innon continues, and Syen doesn't really need Alabaster to explain that Innon is telling everyone a story—because Innon does this with his whole body. He leans forward and speaks more softly, and everyone is riveted to whatever tense moment he is describing. Then he pantomimes someone falling off something, and makes the sound of a splat by cupping his hands and squeezing air from between his palms. The small children who are listening practically fall over laughing, while the older kids snicker and the adults smile.
Alabaster translates a little of it for her. Apparently Innon is telling everyone about their most recent raid, on a small Coaster comm some ten days' sailing to the north. Syen's only half-listening to 'Baster's summation, mostly paying attention to the movements of Innon's body and imagining him performing entirely different movements, when suddenly Alabaster stops translating. When she finally notices this, surprised, he's looking at her intently.
"Do you want him?" he asks her.
Syen grimaces, mostly out of embarrassment. He's spoken softly, but they're right there next to Innon, and if he suddenly decides to pay attention... Well, what if he does? Maybe it would make things easier to get it all out into the open. She would really prefer to have a choice about that, though, and as usual Alabaster's not giving her one. "You don't have a subtle bone in your body, do you?"
"No, I don't. Tell me."
"What, then? Is this some kind of challenge?" Because she's seen the way Alabaster looks at Innon. It's almost cute, watching a forty-year-old man blush and stammer like a virgin. "Want me to back off?"
Alabaster flinches and looks almost hurt. Then he frowns as if confused by his own reaction—which makes two of them—and draws away a little. His mouth pulls to one side as he murmurs, "If I said yes, would you? Would you really?"
Syenite blinks. Well, she did suggest it. But would she? All of a sudden, she doesn't know.
When she fails to respond, though, Alabaster's expression twists in frustration. He mumbles something that might be "Never mind," then gets up and steps out of the story circle, taking care not to disturb anyone else as he goes. It means Syenite loses the ability to follow the tale, but that's all right. Innon is a joy to watch even without words, and since she doesn't have to pay attention to the story, she can consider Alabaster's question.
After a while the tale ends, and everyone claps; almost immediately there are calls for another story. In the general mill as people get up for second helpings from the massive pot of spiced shrimp, rice, and smoked sea-bubble that is tonight's meal, Syenite decides to go find Alabaster. She not sure what she's going to say, but... well. He deserves some kind of answer.
She finds him in their house, where he's curled up in a corner of the big empty room, a few feet from the bed of dried seagrass and cured animal furs they've been sleeping on. He hasn't bothered to light the lanterns; she makes him out as a darker blot against the shadows. "Go away," he snaps when she steps into the room.
"I live here, too," she snaps back. "Go somewhere else if you want to cry or whatever you're doing." Earth, she hopes he's not crying.
He sighs. It doesn't sound like he's crying, although he's got his legs drawn up and his elbows propped on his knees and his head's half buried in his hands. He could be. "Syen, you're such a steelheart."
"So are you, when you want to be."
"I don't want to be. Not always. Rust, Syen, don't you ever get tired of it all?" He stirs a little. Her eyes have adjusted, and she sees that he's looking at her. "Don't you ever just want to... to be human?"
She comes into the house and leans against the wall next to the door, crossing her arms and her ankles. "We aren't human."
"Yes. We. Are." His voice turns fierce. "I don't give a shit what the something-somethingth council of big important farts decreed, or how the geomests classify things, or any of that. That we're not human is just the lie they tell themselves so they don't have to feel bad about how they treat us—"
This, too, is something all roggas know. Only Alabaster is vulgar enough to say it aloud. Syenite sighs and leans her head back against the wall. "If you want him, you idiot, just tell him so. You can have him." And just like that, his question is answered.
Alabaster falls silent in mid-rant, staring at her. "You want him, too."
"Yeah." It costs her nothing to say this. "But I'm okay if..." She shrugs a little. "Yeah."
Alabaster takes a deep breath, then another. Then a third. She has no idea what any of those breaths means.
"I should make the same offer you just did," he says, at last. "Do the noble thing, or at least pretend to. But I..." In the shadows, he hunches more, tightening his arms around his knees. When he speaks again, his voice is barely audible. "It's just been so long, Syen."
Not since he's had a lover, of course. Just since he's had a lover he wanted.
There's laughter from the center of the gathering-cavern, and now people are moving along the corridors, chattering and breaking up for the night. They can both hear Innon's big voice rumbling not far off; even when he's just having a normal conversation, practically everyone can hear him. She hopes he's not a shouter, in bed.
Syen takes a deep breath. "Want me to go get him?" And just to be clear, she adds, "For you?"
Alabaster is silent for a long moment. She can feel him staring at her, and there's a kind of emotional pressure in the room that she can't quite interpret. Maybe he's insulted. Maybe he's touched. Rust if she'll ever be able to figure him out... and rust if she knows why she's doing this.
Then he nods, rubs a hand over his hair, and lowers his head. "Thank you." The words are almost cold, but she knows that tone, because she's used it herself. Any time she's needed to hold on to her dignity with fingernails and pent breath.
So she leaves and follows that rumble, eventually finding Innon near the communal cookfire in deep conversation with Harlas. Everyone else has dissippated by now, and the cavern echoes in a steady overlapping drone of fussy toddlers fighting sleep, laughter, talking, and the hollow creaking of the boats in the harbor outside as they rock in their moorings. And over all of it, the hiss-purr of the sea. Syenite settles herself against a wall nearby, listening to all these exotic sounds, and waiting. After perhaps ten minutes, Innon finishes his conversation and rises. Harlas heads away, chuckling over something Innon's said; ever the charmer. As Syen expected, Innon then comes over to lean against the wall beside her.
"My crew think I am a fool to pursue you," he says casually, gazing up at the vaulted ceiling as if there's something interesting up there. "They think you don't like me."
"Everyone thinks I don't like them," Syenite says. Most of the time, it's true. "I do like you."
He looks at her, thoughtful, which she likes. Flirting unnerves her. Much better to be straightforward like this. "I have met your kind before," he says. "The ones taken to the Fulcrum." His accent mangles this into fool crumb, which she finds especially fitting. "You are the happiest one I've seen."
Syenite snorts at the joke—and then, seeing the wry twist to his lips, the heavy compassion in his gaze, she realizes he's not joking at all. Oh. "Alabaster's pretty happy."
"No, he isn't."
No. He isn't. But this is why Syenite doesn't like jokes much, either. She sighs. "I'm... here for him, actually."
"Oh? So you have decided to share?"
"He's—" She blinks as the words register. "Uh?"
Innon shrugs, which is an impressive gesture given how big he is, and how it sets all his braids a-rustle. "You and he are already lovers. It was a thought."
What a thought. "Er... no. I don't—uh. No." There are things she's not ready to think about. "Maybe later." A lot later.
He laughs, though not at her. "Yes, yes. You have come, then, what? To ask me to see to your friend?"
"He's not—" But here she is procuring him a lover for the night. "Rust."
Innon laughs—softly, for him—and shifts to lean sideways against the wall, perpendicular to Syenite so that she will not feel boxed in, even though he's close enough that she can feel his body heat. Something big men do, if they want to be considerate rather than intimidating. She appreciates his thoughtfulness. And she hates herself for deciding in Alabaster's favor, because, Earthfires, he even smells sexy as he says, "You are a very good friend, I think."
"Yes, I rusting am." She rubs her eyes.
"Now, now. Everyone sees that you are the stronger of the pair." Syenite blinks at this, but he's completely serious. He lifts a hand and draws a finger down the side of her face from temple to chin, a slow tease. "Many things have broken him. He holds himself together with spit and endless smiling, but all can see the cracks. You, though; you are dented, bruised, but intact. It is kind of you. Looking out for him like so."
"No one ever looks out for me." Then she shuts her mouth so hard that her teeth snap. She hadn't meant to say that.
Innon smiles, but it is a gentle, kindly thing. "I will," he says, and leans down to kiss her. It is a scratchy sort of kiss; his lips are dry, his chin beginning to hair over. Most Coaster men don't seem to grow beards, but Innon might have some Sanze in him, especially with all that hair. In any case, his kiss is so soft despite the scratchiness that it feels more like a thank-you than an attempt to seduce. Probably because that's what he intends. "Later, I promise I will."
Then he leaves, heading for the house she shares with Alabaster, and Syenite gazes after him and thinks belatedly, Now where the rust am I supposed to sleep tonight?
It turns out to be a moot question, because she's not sleepy. She goes to the ledge outside the cavern, where there are others lingering to take in the night air or talk where half the comm can't hear them, and she is not the only one standing wistfully at the railing, looking out over the water at night. The waves roll in steadily, making the smaller boats and the Clalsu rock and groan, and the starlight casts thin, diffuse reflections upon the waves that seem to stretch away into forever.
It's peaceful here, in Meov. It's nice to be who she is in a place that accepts her. Nicer still to know that she has nothing to fear for it. A woman Syen met in the baths—one of the Clalsu crew, most of whom speak at least a little Sanze-mat—explained it to her as they sat soaking in water warmed by rocks the children heat in the fire as part of their daily chores. It's simple, really. "With you, we live," she'd said to Syen, shrugging and letting her head fall back against the edge of the bath, and apparently not caring about the strangeness in her own words. On the mainland, everyone is convinced that with roggas nearby, they will all die.
And then the woman said something that truly unnerved Syen. "Harlas is old. Innon sees much danger, on raids. You and the laughing one"—that is the locals' term for Alabaster, since the ones who don't speak Sanze-mat have trouble pronouncing his name—"you have babies, give us one, yes? Or we have to go steal, from the mainland."
The very idea of these people, who stick out like stone eaters in a crowd, trying to infiltrate the Fulcrum to kidnap a grit, or grabbing some feral child just ahead of the Guardians, makes Syenite shiver. She's not sure she likes the idea of them greedily hoping she catches pregnant, either. But they're no different from the Fulcrum in that, are they? And here, any child that she and Alabaster have won't end up in a node station.
She lingers out on the ledge for a few hours, losing herself in the sound of the waves and gradually letting herself lapse into a kind of not-thinking fugue. Then she finally notices that her back is aching and her feet hurt, and the wind off the water is getting chilly; she can't just stand out here all night. So she heads back into the cavern, not really sure where she means to go, just letting her feet carry her where they will. Which is probably why she eventually ends up back outside "her" house, standing in front of the curtain that passes for privacy and listening to Alabaster weep through it.
It's definitely him. She knows that voice, even though it's choked now with sobs and half muffled. Barely audible, really, despite the lack of doors and windows... but she knows the why of that, doesn't she? Everyone who grows up in the Fulcrum learns to cry very, very quietly.
It is this thought, and the sense of camaraderie that follows it, that makes her reach up, slowly, and tug the curtain aside.
They're on the mattress, thankfully half covered in furs—not that it matters, since she can see clothing discarded about the room, and the air smells of sex, so it's obvious what they've been up to. Alabaster is curled up on his side, his back to her, bony shoulders shaking. Innon's sitting up on one elbow, stroking his hair. His eyes flick up when Syenite opens the curtain, but he doesn't seem upset, or surprised. In fact—and in light of their previous conversation she really shouldn't be surprised, but she is—he lifts a hand. Beckoning.
She's not sure why she obeys. And she's not sure why she undresses as she walks across the room, or why she lifts up the furs behind Alabaster and slides into the redolent warmth with him. Or why, once she's done this, she curves herself against his back, and drapes an arm over his waist, and looks up to see Innon's sad smile of welcome. But she does.
Syen falls asleep like this. As far as she can tell, Alabaster cries for the rest of the night, and Innon stays up to comfort him the whole time. So when she wakes the next morning and claws her way out of bed and stumbles over to the chamber pot to throw up noisily into it, they both sleep through it. There is no one to comfort her as she sits there shaking in the aftermath. But that is nothing new.
Well. At least the people of Meov won't have to go steal a baby, now. |
Put no price on flesh.
—Tablet One, "On Survival," verse six |
There passes a time of happiness in your life, which I will not describe to you. It is unimportant. Perhaps you think it wrong that I dwell so much on the horrors, the pain, but pain is what shapes us, after all. We are creatures born of heat and pressure and grinding, ceaseless movement. To be still is to be... not alive.
But what is important is that you know it was not all terrible. There was peace in long stretches, between each crisis. A chance to cool and solidify before the grind resumed.
Here is what you need to understand. In any war, there are factions: those wanting peace, those wanting more war for a myriad of reasons, and those whose desires transcend either. And this is a war with many sides, not just two. Did you think it was just the stills and the orogenes? No, no. Remember the stone eaters and the Guardians, too—oh, and the Seasons. Never forget Father Earth. He has not forgotten you.
So while she—you—rested, those are the forces that gathered round. Eventually they began their advance. |
It's not quite what Syenite had in mind for the rest of her life, sitting around being useless, so she goes to find Innon one day as the Clalsu crew is outfitting the ship for another raiding run.
"No," he says, staring at her like she's insane. "You are not being a pirate when you just had a baby."
"I had the baby two years ago." She can only change so many diapers, pester people for lessons in Eturpic so often, and help with the net-fishing so many times before she goes mad. She's done with nursing, which is the excuse Innon's used up to now to put her off—and which was pointless anyway, since in Meov that sort of thing is done communally, same as everything else. When she's not around, Alabaster just takes the baby to one of the other mothers in the comm, just as Syen fed their babies in turn if they happened to be hungry while she was nearby and full of milk. And since 'Baster does most of the diaper changes and sings little Corundum to sleep, and coos at him and plays with him and takes him for walks and so on, Syenite has to keep busy somehow.
"Syenite." He stops in the middle of the loading ramp that leads into the ship's hold. They're putting storage barrels of water and food aboard, along with baskets of more esoteric things—buckets of chain for the catapult, bladders of pitch and fish oil, a length of heavy cloth meant to serve as a replacement sail should they require it. When Innon stops with Syenite standing down-ramp from him, everything else stops, and when there are loud complaints from the dock, he lifts his head and glowers until everyone shuts up. Everyone, of course, except Syenite.
"I'm bored," she says in frustration. "There's nothing to do here except fish and wait for you and the others to come back from a raid, and gossip about people I don't know, and tell stories about things I don't care about! I've spent my whole life either training or working, for Earth's sake; you can't expect me to just sit around and look at water all day."
"Alabaster does."
Syenite rolls her eyes, although this is true. When Alabaster isn't with the baby, he spends most of his days up on the heights above the colony, gazing out at the world and thinking unfathomable thoughts for hours on end. She knows; she's watched him do it. "I'm not him! Innon, you can use me."
And Innon's expression twists, because—ah, yes. That one hits home for him.
It's an unspoken thing between them, but Syenite's not stupid. There are a lot of things a skilled rogga can do to help on the kinds of sorties Innon's crew makes. Not starting shakes or blows, she won't and he'd never ask it—but it is a simple thing to draw enough strength from the ambient to lower the temperature at the water's surface, and thus cloak the ship in fog to hide its approach or retreat. It is equally easy to disturb forests along the shoreline with the most delicate of underground vibrations, causing flocks of birds or hordes of mice to flood out of the trees and into nearby settlements as a distraction. And more. Orogeny is damned useful, Syenite is beginning to understand, for far, far more than just quelling shakes.
Or rather, it could be useful, if Innon could use his orogeny that way. Yet for all his awesome charisma and physical prowess, Innon is still a feral, with nothing more than what little training Harlas—himself a feral and poorly trained—could give him. She's felt Innon's orogeny when he quells local minor shakes, and the crude inefficiency of his power shocks her sometimes. She's tried to teach him better control, and he listens, and he tries, but he doesn't improve. She doesn't understand why. Without that level of skill, the Clalsu crew earns its spoils the old-fashioned way: They fight, and die, for every scrap.
"Alabaster can do these things for us," Innon says, looking uneasy.
"Alabaster," Syen says, trying for patience, "gets sick just looking at this thing." She gestures at Clalsu's curving bulk. The joke all over the comm is that 'Baster somehow manages to look green despite his blackness whenever he is forced aboard a ship. Syen threw up less when she had morning sickness. "What if I don't do anything but cloak the ship? Or whatever you order me to do."
Innon puts his hands on his hips, his expression derisive. "You pretend that you will follow my orders? You don't even do that in bed."
"Oh, you bastard." Now he's just being an ass, because he doesn't actually try to give her orders in bed. It's just a weird Meovite thing to tease about sex. Now that Syen can understand what everyone's saying, every other statement seems to be about her sharing her bedtime with two of the best-looking men in the comm. Innon says they only do this to her because she turns such interesting colors when little old ladies make vulgar jokes about positions and rope knots. She's trying to get used to it. "That's completely irrelevant!"
"Is it?" He pokes her in the chest with a big finger. "No lovers on ship; that is the rule I have always followed. We cannot even be friends once we set sail. What I say goes; anything else and we die. You question everything, Syenite, and there is no time for questioning, on the sea."
That's... not an unfair point. Syen shifts uneasily. "I can follow orders without question. Earth knows I've done enough of that. Innon—" She takes a deep breath. "Earth's sake, Innon, I'll do anything to get off this island for a while."
"And that is another problem." He steps closer and lowers his voice. "Corundum is your son, Syenite. Do you feel nothing for him, that you constantly chafe to be away?"
"I make sure he's taken care of." And she does. Corundum is always clean and well fed. She never wanted a child, but now that she's had it—him—and held him, and nursed him, and all that... she does feel a sense of accomplishment, maybe, and rueful acknowledgment, because she and Alabaster have managed to make one beautiful child between them. She looks into her son's face sometimes and marvels that he exists, that he seems so whole and right, when both his parents have nothing but bitter brokenness between them. Who's she kidding? It's love. She loves her son. But that doesn't mean she wants to spend every hour of every rusting day in his presence.
Innon shakes his head and turns away, throwing up his hands. "Fine! Fine, fine, ridiculous woman. Then you go and tell Alabaster we will both be away."
"All ri—" But he's gone, up the ramp and into the hold, where she hears him yelling at someone else about something that she can't quite catch because her ears can't parse Eturpic when it echoes at that volume.
Regardless, she bounces a little as she heads down the ramp, waving in vague apology to the other crew members who are standing around looking mildly annoyed. Then she heads into the comm.
Alabaster's not in the house, and Corundum's not with Selsi, the woman who most often keeps the smaller children of the colony when their parents are busy. Selsi raises her eyebrows at Syen when she pokes her head in. "He said yes?"
"He said yes." Syenite can't help grinning, and Selsi laughs.
"Then we will never see you again, I wager. Waves wait only for the nets." Which Syenite guesses is some sort of Meov proverb, whatever it means. "Alabaster is on the heights with Coru, again."
Again. "Thanks," she says, and shakes her head. It's a wonder their child doesn't sprout wings.
She heads up the steps to the topmost level of the island and over the first rise of rock, and there they are, sitting on a blanket near the cliff. Coru looks up as she approaches, beaming and pointing at her; Alabaster, who probably felt her footsteps on the stairs, doesn't bother turning.
"Innon's finally taking you with them?" he asks when Syen gets close enough to hear his soft voice.
"Huh." Syenite settles on the blanket beside him, and opens her arms for Coru, who clambers out of Alabaster's lap, where he's been sitting, and into Syenite's. "If I'd known you already knew, I wouldn't have bothered walking up all those steps."
"It was a guess. You don't usually come up here with a smile on your face. I knew it had to be something." Alabaster turns at last, watching Coru as he stands in her lap and pushes at her breasts. Syenite holds him reflexively, but he's actually doing a good job of keeping his balance, despite the unevenness of her lap. Then Syen notices that it's not just Corundum that Alabaster's watching.
"What?" she asks, frowning.
"Will you come back?"
And that, completely out of the blue as it is, makes Syenite drop her hands. Fortunately, Coru's got the trick of standing on her legs, which he does, giggling, while she stares at Alabaster. "Why are you even—What?"
Alabaster shrugs, and it's only then that Syenite notices the furrow between his brows, and the haunted look in his eyes, and it's only then that she understands what Innon was trying to say to her. As if to reinforce this, Alabaster says, bitterly, "You don't have to be with me anymore. You have your freedom, like you wanted. And Innon's got what he wanted—a rogga child to take care of the comm if something happens to him. He's even got me to train the child better than Harlas ever could, because he knows I won't leave."
Fire-under-Earth. Syenite sighs and pushes away Coru's hands, which hurt. "No, little greedy child, I don't have milk anymore. Settle down." And because this immediately makes Coru's face screw up with thwarted sorrow, she pulls him close and wraps her arms around him and starts playing with his feet, which is usually a good way to distract him before he gets going. It works. Apparently small children are inordinately fascinated by their own toes; who knew? And with that child taken care of, she can focus on Alabaster, who's now looking out to sea again, but who's probably just as close to a meltdown.
"You could leave," she says, pointing out the obvious because that's what she always has to do with him. "Innon's offered before to take us back to the mainland, if we want to go. If we don't do anything stupid like still a shake in front of a crowd of people, either of us could probably make a decent life somewhere."
"We have a decent life here." It's hard to hear him over the wind, and yet she can actually feel what he's not saying. Don't leave me.
"Crusty rust, 'Baster, what is wrong with you? I'm not planning to leave." Not now, anyway. But it's bad enough that they're having this conversation at all; she doesn't need to make it worse. "I'm just going somewhere I can be useful—"
"You're useful here." And now he turns to glare at her full-on, and it actually bothers her, the hurt and loneliness that lurk beneath the veneer of anger on his face. It bothers her more that this bothers her.
"No. I'm not." And when he opens his mouth to protest, she runs over him. "I'm not. You said it yourself; Meov has a ten-ringer now to protect it. Don't think I haven't noticed how we haven't had so much as a subsurface twitch in my range, not in all the time we've been here. You've been quelling any possible threat long before Innon or I can feel it—" But then she trails off, frowning, because Alabaster is shaking his head, and there's a smile on his lips that makes her abruptly uneasy.
"Not me," he says.
"What?"
"I haven't quelled anything for about a year now." And then he nods toward the child, who is now examining Syenite's fingers with intent concentration. She stares down at Coru, and Coru looks up at her and grins.
Corundum is exactly what the Fulcrum hoped for when they paired her with Alabaster. He hasn't inherited much of Alabaster's looks, being only a shade browner than Syen and with hair that's already growing from fuzz into the beginnings of a proper ashblow bottlebrush; she's the one with Sanzed ancestors, so that didn't come from 'Baster, either. But what Coru does have from his father is an almighty powerful awareness of the earth. It has never occurred to Syenite before now that her baby might be aware enough to sess, and still, microshakes. That's not instinct, that's skill.
"Evil Earth," she murmurs. Coru giggles. Then Alabaster abruptly reaches over and plucks him out of her arms, getting to his feet. "Wait, this—"
"Go," he snaps, grabbing the basket he's brought up with them and crouching to dump baby toys and a folded diaper back into it. "Go, ride your rusting boat, get yourself killed along with Innon, what do I care. I will be here for Coru, no matter what you do."
And then he's gone, his shoulders tight and his walk brisk, ignoring Coru's shrill protest and not even bothering to take the blanket that Syen's still sitting on.
Earthfires.
Syenite stays topside awhile, trying to figure out how she ended up becoming the emotional caretaker for a crazy ten-ringer while stuck out in the middle of rusting nowhere with his inhumanly powerful baby. Then the sun sets and she gets tired of thinking about it, so she gets up and grabs the blanket and heads back down to the comm.
Everyone's gathering for the evening meal, but Syenite begs off being social this time, just grabbing a plate of roasted tulifish and braised threeleaf with sweetened barley that must have been stolen from some mainland comm. She carries this back to the house, and is unsurprised to find Alabaster there already, curled up in the bed with a sleeping Coru. They've upgraded to a bigger bed for Innon's sake, this mattress suspended from four sturdy posts by a kind of hammock-like net that is surprisingly comfortable, and durable despite the weight and activity they put on it. Alabaster's quiet but awake when Syen comes in, so she sighs and scoops up Coru and puts him to bed in the nearby smaller suspended bed, which is lower to the ground in case he rolls or climbs out in the night. Then she climbs into bed with Alabaster, just looking at him, and after a while he gives up the distant treatment and edges a little closer. He doesn't meet her eyes as he does this. But Syenite knows what he needs, so she sighs and rolls onto her back, and he edges closer still, finally resting his head on her shoulder, where he's probably wanted to be all along.
"Sorry," he says.
Syenite shrugs. "Don't worry about it." And then, because Innon's right and this is partly her fault, she sighs and adds, "I'm coming back. I do like it here, you know. I just get... restless."
"You're always restless. What are you looking for?"
She shakes her head. "I don't know."
But she thinks, almost but not quite subconsciously: A way to change things. Because this is not right.
He's always good at guessing her thoughts. "You can't make anything better," he says, heavily. "The world is what it is. Unless you destroy it and start all over again, there's no changing it." He sighs, rubs his face against her breast. "Take what you can get out of it, Syen. Love your son. Even live the pirate life if that makes you happy. But stop looking for anything better than this."
She licks her lips. "Corundum should have better."
Alabaster sighs. "Yes. He should." He says nothing more, but the unspoken is palpable: He won't, though.
It isn't right.
She drifts off to sleep. And a few hours later she wakes up because Alabaster is blurting, "Oh fuck, oh please, oh Earth, I can't, Innon," against Innon's shoulder, and jerking in a way that disturbs the bed's gentle sway while Innon pants and ruts against him, cock on oily cock. And then because Alabaster is spent but Innon isn't, and Innon notices her watching, he grins at her and kisses Alabaster and then slides a hand between Syen's legs. Of course she's wet. He and Alabaster are always beautiful together.
Innon is a considerate lover, so he leans over and nuzzles her breasts and does marvelous things with his fingers, and does not stop thrusting against Alabaster until she curses and demands all of his attention for a while, which makes him laugh and shift over.
Alabaster watches while Innon obliges her, and his gaze grows hot with it, which Syenite still doesn't understand even after being with them for almost two years. 'Baster doesn't want her, not that way, nor she him. And yet it's unbelievably arousing for her to watch Innon drive him to moaning and begging, and Alabaster also clearly gets off on her going to pieces with someone else. She likes it more when 'Baster's watching, in fact. They can't stand sex with each other directly, but vicariously it's amazing. And what do they even call this? It's not a threesome, or a love triangle. It's a two-and-a-half-some, an affection dihedron. (And, well, maybe it's love.) She should worry about another pregnancy, maybe from Alabaster again given how messy things get between the three of them, but she can't bring herself to worry because it doesn't matter. Someone will love her children no matter what. Just as she doesn't think overmuch about what she does with her bed time or how this thing between them works; no one in Meov will care, no matter what. That's another turn-on, probably: the utter lack of fear. Imagine that.
So they fall asleep, Innon snoring on his belly between them and 'Baster and Syen with their heads pillowed on his big shoulders, and not for the first time does Syenite think, If only this could last.
She knows better than to wish for something so impossible. |
The Clalsu sets sail the next day. Alabaster stands out on the pier with half the rest of the comm that is waving and well-wishing. He doesn't wave, but he does point to them as the ship pulls away, encouraging Coru to wave when Syenite and Innon do. Coru does it, and for a moment Syenite feels something like regret. It passes quickly.
Then there is only the open sea, and work to be done: casting lines for fish and climbing high up into the masts to do things to the sails when Innon tells them to, and at one point securing several barrels that have come loose down in the hold. It's hard work, and Syenite falls asleep in her little bunk under one of the bulkheads not long after sunset, because Innon won't let her sleep with him and anyway, she doesn't have the energy to make it up to his cabin.
But it gets better, and she gets stronger as the days pass, beginning to see why the Clalsu crew have always seemed a little more vibrant, a little more interesting, than everyone else in Meov. On the fourth day out there's a call from the left—rust, from the port side of the ship, and she and the others come to the railing to see something amazing: the curling plumes of ocean spray where great monsters of the deep have risen to swim alongside them. One of them breaches the surface to look at them and it's ridiculously huge; its eye is bigger than Syen's head. One slap of its fins could capsize the ship. But it doesn't hurt them, and one of the crew members tells her that it's just curious. She seems amused by Syenite's awe.
At night, they look at the stars. Syen has never paid much attention to the sky; the ground beneath her feet was always more important. But Innon points out patterns in the ways that the stars move, and explains that the "stars" she sees are actually other suns, with other worlds of their own and perhaps other people living other lives and facing other struggles. She has heard of pseudosciences like astronomestry, knows that its adherents make unprovable claims like this, but now, looking at the constantly moving sky, she understands why they believe it. She understands why they care, when the sky is so immutable and irrelevant to most of daily life. On nights like these, for a little while, she cares, too.
Also at night, the crew drinks and sings songs. Syenite mispronounces vulgar words, inadvertently making them more vulgar, and makes instant friends of half the crew by doing so.
The other half of the crew reserves judgment, until they spy a likely target on the seventh day. They've been lurking near the shipping lanes between two heavily populated peninsulas, and people up in the mast-nest have been watching with spyglasses for ships worth the effort of robbing. Innon doesn't give the order until the lookout tells them he's spotted an especially large vessel of the sort often used to ferry trade goods too heavy or dangerous for easy overland carting: oils and quarried stone and volatile chemicals and timber. The very sorts of things that a comm stuck on a barren island in the middle of nowhere might need most. This one's accompanied by another vessel, which is smaller and which, according to those who see it through the spyglass and can tell such things by sight, is probably bristling with militia soldiers, battering rams, and armaments of its own. (Maybe one's a carrack and the other's a caravel, those are the words the sailors use, but she can't remember which one's which and it's a pain in the ass to try so she's going to stick with "the big boat" and "the small boat.") Their readiness to fight off pirates confirms that the freighter carries something worth pirating.
Innon looks at Syenite, and she grins fiercely.
She raises two fogs. The first requires her to pull ambient energy at the farthest edge of her range—but she does it, because that's where the smaller ship is. The second fog she raises in a corridor between Clalsu and the cargo vessel, so that they will be on their target almost before it sees them coming.
It goes like clockwork. Innon's crew are mostly experienced and highly skilled; the ones like Syenite, who don't know what they're doing yet, are pushed to the periphery while the others set to. The Clalsu comes out of the fog and the other vessel starts ringing bells to sound the alarm, but it's too late. Innon's people fire the catapults and shred their sails with baskets of chain. Then the Clalsu sidles up close—Syen thinks they're going to hit, but Innon knows what he's doing—and others in the crew throw hooks across the gap between them, hitching the ships together and then winching them closer with the big crankworks that occupy much of the deck.
It's dangerous at this point, and one of the older members of the crew shoos Syen belowdecks when people on the cargo ship start firing arrows and slingstones and throwing-knives at them. She sits in the shadow of the steps while the other crew members run up and down them, and her heart is pounding; her palms are damp. Something heavy thuds into the hull not five feet from her head, and she flinches.
But Evil Earth, this is so much better than sitting around on the island, fishing and singing lullabies.
It's over in minutes. When the commotion dies down and Syenite dares to venture up top again, she sees that planks have been run between the two vessels and Innon's people are running back and forth along them. Some of them have captured members of the cargo vessel's crew and corralled them on deck, holding them at glassknife-point; the rest of the crew is surrendering, giving up weapons and valuables, for fear the hostages will be hurt. Already some of Innon's sailors are going into the holds, bringing up barrels and crates and carting them across to the Clalsu's deck. They'll sort out the booty later. Speed is of the essence now.
But all at once there are shouts and someone in the rigging hits a bell frantically—and out of the roiling fog looms the attack ship that accompanied the cargo vessel. It's on them, and belatedly Syenite realizes her error: she had assumed that the attack ship would stop given that it couldn't see, knowing itself in proximity to other vessels. People are not that logical. Now the attack ship is coming at full speed, and even though she can hear cries of alarm from its decks as they also realize the danger, there's no way it will be able to stop before it rams into Clalsu and the cargo ship... and probably sinks all three.
Syenite is brimming with power drawn from the warmth and boundless waves of the sea. She reacts, as she has been taught in a hundred Fulcrum drills, without thinking. Down, through the strange slipperiness of seawater minerals, through the soggy uselessness of the ocean sediment, down. There is stone beneath the ocean, and it is old and raw and hers to command.
In another place she claws up with her hands and shouts and thinks Up, and suddenly the attack ship cracks loudly and jerks to a halt. People stop screaming, shocked into silence, on all three vessels. This is because suddenly there is a massive, jagged knife of bedrock jutting several feet above the attack ship's deck, skewering the vessel from the keel up.
Shaking, Syenite lowers her hands slowly.
The cries aboard the Clalsu turn from alarm into ragged cheers. Even a few of the cargo vessel's people look relieved; one ship damaged is better than three ships sunk.
Things go quickly after that, with the attack ship helpless and skewered as it is. Innon comes to find her just as the crew reports that the cargo ship's hold is empty. Syen has moved to the bow, where she can see people on the attack ship's deck trying to chisel at the pillar.
Innon stops beside her, and she looks up, braced for his anger. But he is far from angry.
"I did not know one could do such things," he says wonderingly. "I thought you and Alabaster were only boasting."
It is the first time Syenite has been praised for her orogeny by someone not of the Fulcrum, and if she had not already begun to love Innon, she would now. "I shouldn't have brought it up so high," she says, sheepishly. "If I'd thought first, I would've raised the column only enough to breach the hull so they'd think they ran over an obstacle."
Innon sobers as he understands. "Ah. And now they know we have an orogene of some skill aboard." His expression hardens in a way that Syenite does not understand, but she decides not to question it. It feels so good to stand here, with him, basking in the glow of success. For a while they just watch the cargo vessel's unloading together.
Then one of Innon's crewmen runs up to say they're done, the planks have been withdrawn, the ropes and hooks rolled back onto their crankwheels. They're ready to go. Innon says in a heavy voice, "Hold."
She almost knows what is coming then. But it still makes her feel ill when he looks at Syenite, his expression ice. "Sink them both."
She has promised never to question Innon's orders. Even so, she hesitates. She has never killed anyone before, not deliberately. It was just a mistake that she brought the stone projection up so high. Is it really necessary that people die for her folly? He steps close, and she flinches preemptively, even though he has never harmed her. Her hand bones twinge regardless.
But Innon only says into her ear, "For 'Baster and Coru."
That makes no sense. 'Baster and Coru are not here. But then the full implication of his words—that the safety of everyone in Meov depends on the mainlanders seeing them as a nuisance rather than a serious threat—sinks in, and makes her cold, too. Colder.
So she says, "You should move us away."
Innon turns at once and gives the order for the Clalsu to set sail. Once they have drifted to a safe distance, Syenite takes a deep breath.
For her family. It is strange, thinking of them as such, though that is what they are. Stranger still to do something like this for a real reason, and not simply because she has been commanded to. Does that mean she is no longer a weapon? What does that make her, then, if not?
Doesn't matter.
At a flick of her will, the bedrock column extracts itself from the attack ship's hull—leaving a ten-foot hole near the stern. It begins sinking immediately, tipping upward as it takes on water. Then, dragging more strength from the ocean surface and raising fog enough to obscure sight for miles, Syenite shifts the column to aim at the cargo vessel's keel. A quick thrust up, a quicker withdrawal. Like stabbing someone to death with a poniard. The ship's hull cracks like an egg, and after a moment splits into two halves. It's done.
The fog completely obscures both sinking ships as the Clalsu sails away. The two crews' screams follow Syenite long after, into the drifting whiteness. |
Innon makes an exception for her, that night. Later, sitting up in his captain's bed, Syen says, "I want to see Allia."
Innon sighs. "No. You don't."
But he gives the order anyway, because he loves her. The ship charts a new course. |
According to legend, Father Earth did not originally hate life.
In fact, as the lorists tell it, once upon a time Earth did everything he could to facilitate the strange emergence of life on his surface. He crafted even, predictable seasons; kept changes of wind and wave and temperature slow enough that every living being could adapt, evolve; summoned waters that purified themselves, skies that always cleared after a storm. He did not create life—that was happenstance—but he was pleased and fascinated by it, and proud to nurture such strange wild beauty upon his surface.
Then people began to do horrible things to Father Earth. They poisoned waters beyond even his ability to cleanse, and killed much of the other life that lived on his surface. They drilled through the crust of his skin, past the blood of his mantle, to get at the sweet marrow of his bones. And at the height of human hubris and might, it was the orogenes who did something that even Earth could not forgive: They destroyed his only child.
No lorist that Syenite has ever talked to knows what this cryptic phrase means. It isn't stonelore, just oral tradition occasionally recorded on ephemerals like paper and hide, and too many Seasons have changed it. Sometimes it's the Earth's favorite glassknife that the orogenes destroyed; sometimes it's his shadow; sometimes it's his most valued Breeder. Whatever the words mean, the lorists and 'mests agree on what happened after the orogenes committed their great sin: Father Earth's surface cracked like an eggshell. Nearly every living thing died as his fury became manifest in the first and most terrible of the Fifth Seasons: the Shattering Season. Powerful as they were, those ancient people had no warning, no time to build storecaches, and no stonelore to guide them. It is only through sheer luck that enough of humankind survived to replenish itself afterward—and never again has life attained the heights of power that it once held. Earth's recurrent fury will never allow that.
Syenite has always wondered about these tales. There's a degree of poetic license in them, of course, primitive people trying to explain what they didn't understand... but all legends contain a kernel of truth. Maybe the ancient orogenes did shatter the planet's crust, somehow. How, though? It's clear now that there's more to orogeny than what the Fulcrum teaches—and maybe there's a reason the Fulcrum doesn't teach it, if the legend is true. But facts are facts: Even if somehow every orogene in existence down to the infants could be yoked together, they could not destroy the world's surface. It would ice everything; there's not enough warmth or movement anywhere to do that much damage. They'd all burn themselves out trying, and die.
Which means that part of the tale can't be true; orogeny cannot be to blame for the Earth's rage. Not that anyone but another rogga would accept this conclusion.
It is truly amazing, though, that humanity managed to survive the fires of that first Season. Because if the whole world was then as Allia is now... Syenite has a fresh understanding of just how much Father Earth hates them all.
Allia is a nightscape of red, blistering death. There is nothing left of the comm except the caldera ring that once cradled it, and even that is hard to see. Squinting through the red wavering haze, Syen thinks she can glimpse a few leftover buildings and streets on the caldera's slopes, but that might just be wishful thinking.
The night sky is thick with ash clouds, underlit by the glow of fire. Where the harbor was, there is now a growing volcano cone, gushing deadly clouds and hot red birth-blood on its climb out of the sea. It's already huge, occupying nearly the entire caldera bowl, and it has already borne offspring. Two additional vents crouch against its flank, belching gas and lava like their parent. Likely all three will eventually grow together to become a single monster, engulfing the surrounding mountains and threatening every comm in range of its gas clouds or subsequent blows.
Everyone Syenite met in Allia is dead now. The Clalsu can't go within five miles of the shore; any closer and they risk death, whether by warping the ship's hull in the heated waters, or by suffocating in the hot clouds that periodically gout forth from the mountain. Or by cooking themselves over one of the subsidiary vents that are still developing around the area, spreading out from what was once Allia's harbor like the spokes of a wheel and lurking like deadly mines beneath the waters offshore. Syen can sess every one of these hot spots, bright churning ragestorms just beneath the Earth's skin. Even Innon can sess them, and he's steered the ship away from those that are most likely to burst through anytime soon. But as fragile as the strata are right now, a new vent could open right under them before Syen has a chance to detect or stop it. Innon's risking a lot to indulge her.
"Many in the outlying parts of the comm managed to escape," Innon says softly, beside her. The Clalsu's whole crew has come up on deck, staring at Allia in silence. "They say there was a flash of red light from the harbor, then a series of flashes, in a rhythm. Like something... pulsing. But the initial concussion, when the whole damned harbor boiled away at once, flattened most of the smaller houses in the comm. That's what killed most people. There was no warning." Syenite twitches.
No warning. There were almost a hundred thousand people in Allia—small by the standards of the Equatorials, but big for a Coaster comm. Proud, justifiably so. They'd had such hopes.
Rust this. Rust it and burn it in the foul, hateful guts of Father Earth.
"Syenite?" Innon is staring at her. This is because Syen has raised her fists before her, as if she is grasping the reins of a straining, eager horse. And because a narrow, high, tight torus has suddenly manifested around her. It isn't cold; there's plenty of earth-power for her to tap nearby. But it is powerful, and even an untrained rogga can sess the gathering flex of her will. Innon inhales and takes a step back. "Syen, what are you—"
"I can't leave it like this," she murmurs, almost to herself. The whole area is a swelling, deadly boil ready to burst. The volcano is only the first warning. Most vents in the earth are tiny, convoluted things, struggling to escape through varying layers of rock and metal and their own inertia. They seep and cool and plug themselves and then seep upward again, twisting and winding every which way in the process. This, though, is a gigantic lava tube channeled straight up from wherever the garnet obelisk has gone, funneling pure Earth-hate toward the surface. If nothing is done, the whole region will soon blow sky-high, in a massive explosion that will almost surely touch off a Season. She cannot believe the Fulcrum has left things like this.
So Syenite stabs herself into that churning, building heat, and tears at it with all the fury she feels at seeing Allia, this was Allia, this was a human place, there were people here. People who didn't deserve to die because
of me
because they were too stupid to let sleeping obelisks lie, or because they dared to dream of a future. No one deserves to die for that.
It's almost easy. This is what orogenes do, after all, and the hot spot is ripe for her use. The danger lies in not using it, really. If she takes in all that heat and force without channeling it elsewhere, it will destroy her. But fortunately—she laughs to herself, and her whole body shakes with it—she's got a volcano to choke off.
So she curls the fingers of one hand into a fist, and sears down its throat with her awareness, not burning but cooling, turning its own fury back on it to seal every breach. She forces the growing magma chamber back, back, down, down—and as she does so, she deliberately drags together the strata in overlapping patterns so that each will press down on the one below it and keep the magma down, at least until it finds another, slower way to wend its way to the surface. It's a delicate sort of operation, for all that it involves millions of tons of rock and the sorts of pressures that force diamonds into existence. But Syenite is a child of the Fulcrum, and the Fulcrum has trained her well.
She opens her eyes to find herself in Innon's arms, with the ship heaving beneath her feet. Blinking in surprise, she looks up at Innon, whose eyes are wide and wild. He notices that she's back, and the expressions of relief and fear on his face are both heartening and sobering.
"I told everyone you would not kill us," he says, over the churning of the sea spray and the shouts of his crew. She looks around and sees them frantically trying to lower the sails, so that they can have more control amid a sea that is suddenly anything but placid. "Please try not to make me a liar, would you?"
Shit. She's used to working orogeny on land, and forgot to account for the effects of her fault-sealing on water. They were shakes for a good purpose, but shakes nevertheless, and—oh Earth, she can feel it. She's touched off a tsunami. And—she winces and groans as her sessapinae set up a ringing protest at the back of her head. She's overdone it.
"Innon." Her head is ringing agony. "You need—nnh. Push waves of matching amplitude, subsurface..."
"What?" He looks away from her to shout something to one of the crewwomen in his tongue, and she curses inwardly. Of course he has no idea what she's talking about. He does not speak Fulcrum.
But then, all at once, there is a chill in the air all around them. The wood of the ship groans with the temperature change. Syen gasps in alarm, but it's not much of a change, really. Just the difference between a summer night and an autumn one, albeit over the span of minutes—and there is a presence to this change that is familiar as warm hands in the night. Innon abruptly inhales as he recognizes it, too: Alabaster. Of course his range stretches this far. He quells the gathering waves in moments.
When he's done, the ship sits on placid waters once more, facing the volcano of Allia... which has now gone quiet and dark. It's still smoking and will be hot for decades, but it no longer vents fresh magma or gas. The skies above are already clearing.
Leshiye, Innon's first mate, comes over, throwing an uneasy look at Syenite. He says something too fast for Syenite to translate fully, but she gets the gist of it: Tell her next time she decides to stop a volcano, get off the ship first.
Leshiye's right. "Sorry," Syen mutters in Eturpic, and the man grumbles and stomps off.
Innon shakes his head and lets her go, calling for the sails to be unfurled once again. He glances down at her. "You all right?"
"Fine." She rubs at her head. "Just never worked anything that big before."
"I did not think you could. I thought only ones like Alabaster—with many rings, more than yours—could do so. But you are as powerful as he."
"No." Syenite laughs a little, gripping the railing and clinging to it so she won't need to lean on him for support anymore. "I just do what's possible. He rewrites the rusting laws of nature."
"Heh." Innon sounds odd, and Syenite glances at him in surprise to see an almost regretful look on his face. "Sometimes, when I see what you and he can do, I wish I had gone to this Fulcrum of yours."
"No, you don't." She doesn't even want to think about what he would be like if he had grown up in captivity with the rest of them. Innon, but without his booming laugh or vivacious hedonism or cheerful confidence. Innon, with his graceful strong hands weaker and clumsier for having been broken. Not Innon.
He smiles ruefully at her now, as if he has guessed her thoughts. "Someday, you must tell me what it's like there. Why all who come out of that place seem so very competent... and so very afraid."
With that, he pats her back and heads off to oversee the course change.
But Syenite stays where she is at the railing, suddenly chilled to the bone in a way that has nothing to do with the passing flex of Alabaster's power.
That is because, as the ship tilts to one side in its turnabout, and she takes one last look back at the place that was Allia before her folly destroyed it—
—she sees someone.
Or she thinks she does. She's not sure at first. She squints and can just make out one of the paler strips that wend down into the Allia bowl on its southern curve, which is more readily visible now that the ruddy light around the volcano has faded. It's obviously not the Imperial Road that she and 'Baster traveled to get to Allia, once upon a time and one colossal mistake ago. Most likely what she's looking at is just a dirt road used by the locals, carved out of the surrounding forest a tree at a time and kept clear by decades of foot traffic.
There is a tiny mote moving along that road that looks, from this distance, like a person walking downhill. But it can't be. No sane person would stay so close to an active, deadly blow that had already killed thousands.
She squints more, moving to the ship's stern so that she can continue to peer that way as the Clalsu peels away from the coast. If only she had one of Innon's spyglasses. If only she could be sure.
Because for a moment she thinks, for a moment she sees, or hallucinates in her weariness, or imagines in her anxiety—
The Fulcrum seniors would not leave such a brewing disaster unmitigated. Unless they thought there was a very good reason to do so. Unless they had been ordered to do so.
—that the walking figure is wearing a burgundy uniform. |
Some say the Earth is angry because he wants no company; I say the Earth is angry because he lives alone.
—Ancient (pre-Imperial) folk song |
"You," you say suddenly to Tonkee. Who is not Tonkee.
Tonkee, who is approaching one of the crystal walls with a gleaming eye and a tiny chisel she's produced from somewhere, stops and looks at you in confusion. "What?"
It's the end of the day, and you're tired. Discovering impossible comms hidden in giant underground geodes takes a lot out of you. Ykka's people have put you and the others up in an apartment that's situated along the midpoint of one of the longer crystalline shafts. You had to walk across a rope bridge and around an encircling wooden platform to reach it. The apartment is level, even though the crystal itself isn't; the people who hollowed this place out seem not to have understood that no one forgets they're living in something that leans at a forty-five-degree angle just because the floor is straight. But you've tried to put it out of your mind.
And somewhere in the middle of looking around the place and putting your pack down and thinking, This is home until I can escape it, you've suddenly realized that you know Tonkee. You've known her, on some level, all along.
"Binof. Leadership. Yumenes," you snap, and each word seems to hit Tonkee like a blow. She flinches and takes a step back, then another. Then a third, until she's pressed against the apartment's smooth crystalline wall. The look on her face is one of horror, or perhaps sorrow so great that it might as well be horror. Past a certain point, it's all the same thing.
"I didn't think you remembered," she says, in a small voice.
You get to your feet, palms planted on the table. "It's not chance that you started traveling with us. It can't be."
Tonkee tries to smile; it's a grimace. "Unlikely coincidences do happen..."
"Not with you." Not with a child who'd scammed her way into the Fulcrum and uncovered a secret that culminated in the death of a Guardian. The woman who was that child will not leave things to chance. You're sure of it. "At least your rusting disguises have gotten better over the years."
Hoa, who's been standing at the entrance of the apartment—guarding again, you think—turns his head from one to the other of you, back and forth. Perhaps he is watching how this confrontation goes, to prepare for the one you have to have with him, next.
Tonkee looks away. She's shaking, just a little. "It isn't. A coincidence. I mean..." She takes a deep breath. "I haven't been following you. I had people follow you, but that's different. Didn't start following you myself until just the last few years."
"You had people follow me. For almost thirty years?"
She blinks, then relaxes a little, chuckling. It sounds bitter. "My family has more money than the Emperor. Anyway, it was easy for the first twenty years or so. We almost lost you ten years ago. But... well."
You slam your hands down on the table, and maybe it's your imagination that the crystal walls of the apartment glow a little brighter, just for a moment. This almost distracts you. Almost.
"I really can't take many more surprises right now," you say, half through your teeth.
Tonkee sighs and slumps against the wall. "... Sorry."
You shake your head so hard that your locks slip loose from their knot. "I don't want apologies! Explain. Which are you, the Innovator or the Leader?"
"Both?"
You're going to ice her. She sees that in your eyes and blurts, "I was born Leadership. I really was! I'm Binof. But..." She spreads her hands. "What can I lead? I'm not good at things like that. You saw what I was like as a child. No subtlety. I'm not good with—people. Things, though, things I can do."
"I'm not interested in your rusting history—"
"But it's relevant! History is always relevant." Tonkee, Binof, or whoever she is, steps away from the wall, a pleading look on her face. "I really am a geomest. I really did go to Seventh, although... although..." She grimaces in a way you don't understand. "It didn't go well. But I really have spent my life studying that thing, that socket, which we found in the Fulcrum. Essun, do you know what that was?"
"I don't care."
At this, however, Tonkee-Binof scowls. "It matters," she says. Now she's the one who looks furious, and you're the one who draws back in surprise. "I've given my life to that secret. It matters. And it should matter to you, too, because you're one of the only people in all the Stillness who can make it matter."
"What in Earthfires are you talking about?"
"It's where they built them." Binof-Tonkee comes forward quickly, her face alight. "The socket in the Fulcrum. That's where the obelisks come from. And it's also where everything went wrong." |
You end up doing introductions again. Completely this time.
Tonkee is really Binof. But she prefers Tonkee, which is the name she took for herself upon getting into the Seventh University. Turns out it's Not Done for a child of the Yumenescene Leadership to go into any profession except politics, adjudication, or large-scale merchantry. It's also Not Done for a child who is born a boy to be a girl—apparently the Leadership families don't use Breeders, they breed among themselves, and Tonkee's girlness scuttled an arranged marriage or two. They could've simply arranged different marriages, but between that and the young Tonkee's tendency to say things she shouldn't and do things that made no sense, it was the last straw. Thus Tonkee's family buried her in the Stillness's finest center of learning, giving her a new persona and a false use-caste, and quietly disowned her without all the fuss and bother of a scandal.
Yet Tonkee thrived there, apart from a few raging fights with renowned scholars, most of which she won. And she has spent her professional life studying the obsession that drove her to the Fulcrum all those years ago: the obelisks.
"It wasn't so much that I was interested in you," she explains. "I mean, I was—you'd helped me, and I needed to make sure you didn't suffer for that, that's how it started—but as I investigated you I learned that you had potential. You were one of those who might, one day, develop the ability to command obelisks. It's a rare skill, see. And... well, I hoped... well."
By this point you've sat down again, and both your voices have lowered. You can't sustain anger over this; there's too much to deal with right now. You look at Hoa, who's standing at the edge of the room, watching the two of you, his posture wary. Still gotta have that talk with him. All the secrets are coming out. Including yours.
"I died," you say. "That was the only way to hide from the Fulcrum. I died to get away from them, and yet I didn't shake you."
"Well, yes. My people didn't use mysterious powers to track you; we used deduction. Much more reliable." Tonkee eases herself into the chair opposite you at the table. The apartment has three rooms—this denlike central space, and two bedrooms leading off. Tonkee needs one room to herself because she's starting to smell again. You're only willing to keep sharing your space with Hoa after you get some answers, so you might be sleeping here in the den for a while.
"For the past few years I've been working with—some people." Tonkee abruptly looks cagey, which isn't hard for her. "Other 'mests, mostly, who've also been asking the kinds of questions no one wants to answer. Specialists in other areas. We've been tracking the obelisks, all of them that we can, for the past few years. Did you notice there are patterns in the way they move? They converge, slowly, wherever there's an orogene of sufficient skill nearby. Someone who can use them. Only two were moving toward you, in Tirimo, but that was enough to extrapolate."
You look up, frowning. "Moving toward me?"
"Or another orogene in your vicinity, yes." Tonkee's relaxed now, eating a piece of dried fruit from her pack. Oblivious to your reaction as you stare at her, your blood gone cold. "The triangulation lines were pretty clear. Tirimo was the center of the circle, so to speak. You must have been there for years; one of the obelisks coming toward you had been traveling the same flight path for almost a decade, all the way from the eastern coast."
"The amethyst," you whisper.
"Yes." Tonkee watches you. "That was why I suspected you were still alive. Obelisks... bond, sort of, to certain orogenes. I don't know how that works. I don't know why. But it's specific, and predictable."
Deduction. You shake your head, mute with shock, and she goes on. "Anyhow, they'd both picked up speed in the last two or three years, so I traveled to the region and pretended to be commless to get a better read on them. I never really meant to approach you. But then this thing happened up north, and I started to think it would be important to have a wielder—obelisk-wielder—around. So... I tried to find you. I was on my way to Tirimo when I spotted you at that roadhouse. Lucky. I was going to trail you for a few days, decide whether I'd tell you who I really was... but then he turned a kirkhusa into a statue." She jerks her head at Hoa. "Figured it might be better to shut up and observe for a while, instead."
Somewhat understandable. "You said more than one obelisk was headed for Tirimo." You lick your lips. "There should've only been one." The amethyst is the only one you're connected to. The only one left.
"There were two. The amethyst, and another from the Merz." That's a big desert to the northeast.
You shake your head. "I've never been to the Merz."
Tonkee is silent for a moment, perhaps intrigued, perhaps annoyed. "Well, how many orogenes were in Tirimo?"
Three. But. "Picked up speed." You can't think, all of a sudden. Can't answer her question. Can't muster complete sentences. Picked up speed in the last two or three years.
"Yes. We didn't know what was causing that." Tonkee pauses, then gives you a sidelong look, her eyes narrowing. "Do you?"
Uche was two years old. Almost three.
"Get out," you whisper. "Go take a bath or something. I need to think."
She hesitates, plainly wanting to ask more questions. But then you look up at her, and she immediately gets up to leave. A few minutes after she's out of the apartment, with the heavy hanging falling in her wake—the apartments in this place have no doors, but the hangings work well enough for privacy—you sit there in silence, your head empty, for a while.
Then you look up at Hoa, who's standing beside Tonkee's vacated chair, plainly waiting his turn.
"So you're a stone eater," you say.
He nods, solemn.
"You look..." You gesture at him, not sure how to say it. He's never looked normal, not really, but he's definitely not what a stone eater is supposed to look like. Their hair does not move. Their skin does not bleed. They transit through solid rock in the span of a breath, but stairs would take them hours.
Hoa shifts a little, bringing his pack up into his lap. He rummages for a moment and then comes out with the rag-wrapped bundle that you haven't seen for a while. So that's where he put it. He unties it, finally letting you see what he's been carrying all this time.
The bundle contains many smallish pieces of rough-hewn crystal, as far as you can tell. Something like quartz, or maybe gypsum, except some of the pieces are not murky white but venous red. And you're not sure, but you think the bundle is smaller now than it used to be. Did he lose some of them?
"Rocks," you say. "You've been carrying... rocks?"
Hoa hesitates, then reaches for one of the white pieces. He picks it up; it's about the size of the tip of your thumb, squarish, chipped badly on one side. It looks hard.
He eats it. You stare, and he watches you while he does it. He works it around in his mouth for a moment, as if searching for the right angle of attack, or maybe he's just rolling it around on his tongue, enjoying the taste. Maybe it's salt.
But then his jaw flexes. There's a crunching sound, surprisingly loud in the silence of the room. Several more crunches, not as loud, but leaving no doubt that what he's chewing on is by no means food. And then he swallows, and licks his lips.
It's the first time you've ever seen him eat.
"Food," you say.
"Me." He extends a hand and lays it over the pile of rocks with curious delicacy.
You frown a little, because he's making less sense than usual. "So that's... what? Something that allows you to look like one of us?" Which you didn't know they could do. Then again, stone eaters share nothing of themselves, and they do not tolerate inquiry from others. You've read accounts of attempts by the Sixth University at Arcara to capture a stone eater for study, two Seasons back. The result was the Seventh University at Dibars, which got built only after they dug enough books out of the rubble of Sixth.
"Crystalline structures are an efficient storage medium." The words make no sense. Then Hoa repeats, clearly, "This is me."
You want to ask more about that, then decide against it. If he wanted you to understand, he would've explained. And that's not the part that matters, anyway.
"Why?" you ask. "Why did you make yourself like this? Why not just be... what you are?"
Hoa gives you a look so skeptical that you realize what a stupid question that is. Would you really have let him travel with you if you'd known what he was? Then again, if you'd known what he was, you wouldn't have tried to stop him. No one stops stone eaters from doing what they damn well please.
"Why bother, I mean?" you ask. "Can't you just... Your kind can travel through stone."
"Yes. But I wanted to travel with you."
And here we come to the crux of it. "Why?"
"I like you." And then he shrugs. Shrugs. Like any child, upon being asked something he either doesn't know how to articulate or doesn't want to try. Maybe it isn't important. Maybe it was just an impulse. Maybe he'll wander off eventually, following some other whim. Only the fact that he isn't a child—that he isn't rusting human, that he's probably Seasons old, that he comes from a whole race of people that can't act on whims because it's too rusting hard—makes this a lie.
You rub your face. Your hands come away gritty with ash; you need a bath, too. As you sigh, you hear him say, softly, "I won't hurt you."
You blink at this, then lower your hands slowly. It hadn't even occurred to you that he might. Even now, knowing what he is, having seen the things he can do... you're finding it hard to think of him as a frightening, mysterious, unknowable thing. And that, more than anything else, tells you why he's done this to himself. He likes you. He doesn't want you to fear him.
"Good to know," you say. And then there's nothing else to say, so you just look at each other for a while.
"It isn't safe here," he says then.
"Figured that, yeah."
The words are out, snide tone and all, before you really catch yourself. And then—well, is it really surprising that you'd be feeling a bit acerbic at this point? You've been sniping at people since Tirimo, really. But then it occurs to you: That's not the way you were with Jija, or anyone else, before Uche's death. Back then you were always careful to be gentler, calmer. Never sarcastic. If you got angry, you didn't let it show. That's not who Essun was supposed to be.
Yeah, well, you're not quite Essun. Not just Essun. Not anymore.
"The others like you, who are here," you begin. His little face tightens, though, in unmistakable anger. You stop in surprise.
"They aren't like me," he says, coldly.
Well, that's that, then. And you're done.
"I need to rest," you say. You've been walking all day, and much as you'd like to bathe, too, you're not sure you're ready to undress and make yourself any more vulnerable in front of these Castrima people. Especially given that they're apparently taking you captive in their nice understated way.
Hoa nods. He starts gathering up his bundle of rocks again. "I'll keep watch."
"Do you sleep?"
"Occasionally. Less than you. I don't need to do it now."
How convenient. And you trust him more than you do the people of this comm. You shouldn't, but you do.
So you get up and head into the bedroom, and lie down on the mattress. It's a simple thing, just straw and cotton packed into a canvas sheath, but it's better than the hard ground or even your bedroll, so you flop onto it. In seconds you're asleep.
When you wake, you're not sure how much time has passed. Hoa is curled up beside you, as he has done for the past few weeks. You sit up and frown down at him; he blinks at you warily. You shake your head, finally, and get up, muttering to yourself.
Tonkee's back in her room. You can hear her snoring. As you step out of the apartment, you realize you have no idea what time it is. Topside you can tell if it's day or night, even despite the clouds and ashfall: it's either bright ashfall and clouds or dark, red-flecked ashfall and clouds. Here, though... you look around and see nothing but giant glowing crystals. And the town that people have, impossibly, built on them.
You step onto the rough wooden platform outside your door and squint down over its completely inadequate safety railing. Whatever the hour, it seems there are several dozen people going about their business on the ground below. Well, you need to know more about this comm, anyway. Before you destroy it, that is, if they really try to stop you from leaving.
(You ignore the small voice in your head that whispers, Ykka is a rogga, too. Will you really fight her?)
(You're pretty good at ignoring small voices.)
Figuring out how to reach the ground level is difficult, at first, because all the platforms and bridges and stairways of the place are built to connect the crystals. The crystals go every which way, so the connections do, too. There's nothing intuitive about it. You have to follow one set of stairs up and walk around one of the wider crystal shafts in order to find another set of stairs that goes down—only to find that they end on a platform with no steps at all, which forces you to backtrack. There are a few people out and about, and they look at you with curiosity or hostility in passing, probably because you're so obviously new in town: They're clean and you're gray with road ash. They look well fleshed, and your clothes hang off your body because you've done nothing but walk and eat travel rations for weeks. You cannot help resenting them on sight, so you get stubborn about asking for directions.
Eventually, however, you make it to the ground. Down here, it's more obvious than ever that you're walking along the floor of a huge stone bubble, because the ground slopes gently downward and curves around you to form a noticeable, if vast, bowl. This is the pointy end of the ovoid that is Castrima. There are crystals down here, too, but they're stubby, some only as high as your chest; the largest are only ten or fifteen feet tall. Wooden partitions wend around some of them, and in some places you can make out obvious patches of rough, paler ground where crystals have been removed to make room. (You wonder, idly, how they did this.) All of it creates a sort of maze of crisscrossing pathways, each of which leads to some comm essential or another: a kiln, a smithy, a glassery, a bakehouse. Off some of the paths you glimpse tents and campsites, some occupied. Clearly not all the denizens of this comm are comfortable walking along bundles of lashed-together wooden planks hundreds of feet above a floor covered in giant spikes. Funny, that.
(There it is again, that un-Essun-like sarcasm. Rust it; you're tired of reining it in.)
It's actually easy to find the baths because there's a pattern of damp foot traffic along the gray-green stone floor, all the wet footprints leading in one direction. You backtrail them and are pleasantly surprised to find that the bath is a huge pool of steaming, clear water. The pool has been walled off a little above the natural floor of the geode, and there's a channel wending away from it, draining into one of several large brass pipes going—somewhere. On the other side of the pool you can see a kind of waterfall emerging from another pipe to supply the pool. The water probably circulates enough to be clean every few hours or so, but nevertheless there's a conspicuous washing area over to one side, with long wooden benches and shelves holding various accessories. Quite a few people are already there, busily scrubbing before they go into the larger pool.
You're undressed and halfway done with your own scrubbing when a shadow falls over you, and you twitch and stumble to your feet and knock over the bench and reach for the earth before it occurs to you that maybe this is overreacting. But then you almost drop the soapy sponge in your hand, because—
—it's Lerna.
"Yes," he says as you stare at him. "I thought that might be you, Essun."
You keep staring. He looks different somehow. Heavier, sort of, though skinnier, too, in the same way you are; travel-worn. It's been—weeks? Months? You're losing track of time. And what is he doing here? He should be back in Tirimo; Rask would never let a doctor go...
Oh. Right.
"So Ykka did manage to summon you. I'd wondered." Tired. He looks tired. There's a scar along the edge of his jaw, a crescent-shaped pale patch that doesn't look likely to regain its color. You keep staring as he shifts and says, "Of all the places I had to end up... and here you are. Maybe this is fate, or maybe there really are gods other than Father Earth—ones who actually give a damn about us, that is. Or maybe they're evil, too, and this is their joke. Rust if I know."
"Lerna," you say, which is helpful.
His eyes flick down, and belatedly you remember you're naked. "I should let you finish," he says, looking away quickly. "Let's talk when you're done." You don't care if he sees your nudity—he delivered one of your children, for rust's sake—but he's being polite. It's a familiar habit of his, treating you like a person even though he knows what you are, and oddly heartening after so much strangeness and everything that's changed in your life. You're not used to having a life follow you when you leave it behind.
He moves off, past the bath area, and after a moment you sit back down and finish washing. No one else bothers you while you bathe, although you catch some of the Castrima people eyeing you with increased curiosity now. Less hostility, too, but that's not surprising; you don't look especially intimidating. It's the stuff they can't see that will make them hate you.
Then again... do they know what Ykka is? The blond woman who'd been with her up on the surface certainly does. Maybe Ykka's got something on her, some means of ensuring her silence. That doesn't feel right, though. Ykka is too open about what she is, too comfortable speaking of it to complete strangers. She's too charismatic, too eye-catching. Ykka acts like being an orogene is just another talent, just another personal trait. You've only seen that kind of attitude, and this kind of comm-wide acceptance of it, once before.
Once you're done soaking and you feel clean, you get out of the bath. You don't have any towels, just your filthy ashen clothes, which you take the time to scrub clean in the washing area. They're wet when you're done, but you're not quite bold enough to walk through a strange comm naked, and it feels like summer within the geode anyway. So as you do in summer, you put the wet clothes on, figuring they'll dry fast enough.
Lerna's waiting when you leave. "This way," he says, turning to walk with you.
So you follow him, and he leads you up the maze of steps and platforms until you reach a squat gray crystal that juts only twenty feet or so from the wall. He's got an apartment here that's smaller than the one you share with Tonkee and Hoa, but you see shelves laden with herb packets and folded bandages and it's not hard to guess that the odd benches in the main room might actually be intended as makeshift cots. A doctor must be prepared for house calls. He directs you to sit down on one of the benches, and sits across from you.
"I left Tirimo the day after you did," he says quietly. "Oyamar—Rask's second, you remember him, complete idiot—was actually trying to hold an election for a new headman. Didn't want the responsibility with a Season coming on. Everybody knew Rask should never have picked him, but his family did Rask a favor on the trade rights to the western logging trace..." He trails off, because none of that matters anymore. "Anyway. Half the damned Strongbacks were running around drunk and armed, raiding the storecaches, accusing every other person of being a rogga or a rogga-lover. The other half were doing the same thing—quieter, though, and sober, which was worse. I knew it was only a matter of time till they thought about me. Everybody knew I was your friend."
This is your fault, too, then. Because of you, he had to flee a place that should have been safe. You lower your eyes, uncomfortable. He's using the word "rogga" now, too.
"I was thinking I could make it down to Brilliance, where my mother's family came from. They barely know me, but they know of me, and I'm a doctor, so... I figured I had a chance. Better than staying in Tirimo, anyway, to get lynched. Or to starve, when the cold came and the Strongbacks had eaten or stolen everything. And I thought—" He hesitates, looks up at you in a flash of eyes, then back at his hands. "I also thought I might catch up to you on the road, if I went fast enough. But that was stupid; of course I didn't."
It's the unspoken thing that's always been between you. Lerna figured out what you were, somewhere during your time in Tirimo; you didn't tell him. He figured it out because he watched you enough to notice the signs, and because he's smart. He's always liked you, Makenba's boy. You figured he would grow out of it eventually. You shift a little, uncomfortable with the realization that he hasn't.
"I slipped out in the night," he continues, "through one of the cracks in the wall near... near where you... where they tried to stop you." He's got his arms resting on his knees, looking at his folded hands. They're mostly still, but he rubs one thumb along the knuckle of the other, slowly, again and again. The gesture feels meditative. "Walked with the flow of people, following a map I had... but I've never been to Brilliance. Earthfires, I've barely left Tirimo before now. Just once, really, when I went to finish my medical training at Hilge—anyway. Either the map was wrong or I'm bad at reading it. Probably both. I didn't have a compass. I got off the Imperial Road too soon, maybe... went southeast when I thought I was going due south... I don't know." He sighs and rubs a hand over his head. "By the time I figured out just how lost I was, I'd gone so far that I hoped to just find a better route if I kept going the way I'd gone. But there was a group at one crossroads. Bandits, commless, something. I was with a small group by then, an older man who'd had a bad gash on his chest that I treated, and his daughter, maybe fifteen. The bandits—"
He pauses, his jaw flexing. You can pretty much guess what happened. Lerna's not a fighter. He's still alive, though, which is all that matters.
"Marald—that was the man—just threw himself at one of them. He didn't have weapons or anything, and the woman had a machete. I don't know what he thought he could do." Lerna takes a deep breath. "He looked at me, though, and—and I—I grabbed his daughter and ran." His jaw tightens further. You're surprised you can't hear his teeth grinding. "She left me later. Called me a coward and ran off alone."
"If you hadn't taken her away," you say, "they would've killed you and her, too." This is stonelore: Honor in safety, survival under threat. Better a living coward than a dead hero.
Lerna's lips quirk thinly. "That's what I told myself at the time. Later, when she left... Earthfires. Maybe all I did was just delay the inevitable. A girl her age, unarmed and out on the roads alone..."
You don't say anything. If the girl's healthy and has the right conformation, someone will take her in, if only as a Breeder. If she has a better use name, or if she can acquire a weapon and supplies and prove herself, that will help, too. Granted, her chances would've been better with Lerna than without him, but she made her choice.
"I don't even know what they wanted." Lerna's looking at his hands. Maybe he's been eating himself up about this ever since. "We didn't have anything but our runny-sacks."
"That's enough, if they were running low on supplies," you say, before you remember to censor yourself. He doesn't seem to hear, anyway.
"So I kept on, by myself." He chuckles once, bitterly. "I was so worried about her, it didn't even occur to me that I was just as bad off." This is true. Lerna is a bog-standard midlatter, same as you, except he hasn't inherited the Sanzed bulk or height—probably why he's worked so hard to prove his mental fitness. But he's ended up pretty, mostly by an accident of heritage, and some people breed for that. Cebaki long nose, Sanzed shoulders and coloring, Westcoaster lips... He's too multiracial for Equatorial comm tastes, but by Somidlats standards he's a looker.
"When I passed through Castrima," he continues, "it looked abandoned. I was exhausted, after running from—anyway. Figured I'd hole up in one of the houses for the night, maybe try to make a small hearth fire and hope no one noticed. Eat a decent meal for a change. Hold still long enough to figure out what to do next." He smiled thinly. "And when I woke up, I was surrounded. I told them I was a doctor and they brought me down here. That was maybe two weeks ago."
You nod. And then you tell him your own story, not bothering to hide or lie about anything. The whole thing, not just the part in Tirimo. You're feeling guilty, maybe. He deserves the whole truth.
After you've both fallen silent for a while, Lerna just shakes his head and sighs. "I didn't expect to live through a Season," he says softly. "I mean, I've heard the lore all my life, same as everyone else... but I always figured it would never happen to me."
Everyone thinks that. You certainly weren't expecting to have to deal with the end of the world on top of everything else.
"Nassun's not here," Lerna says after a while. He speaks softly, but your head jerks up. His face softens at the look that must be on yours. "I'm sorry. But I've been here long enough to meet all the other 'newcomers' to this comm. I know that's who you've been hoping to find."
No Nassun. And now no direction, no realistic way to find her. You are suddenly bereft of even hope.
"Essun." Lerna leans forward abruptly and takes your hands. Belatedly you realize your hands have begun shaking; his fingers still yours. "You'll find her."
The words are meaningless. Reflexive gibberish intended to soothe. But it hits you again, harder this time than that moment topside when you started to come apart in front of Ykka. It's over. This whole strange journey, keeping it together, keeping focused on your goal... it's all been pointless. Nassun's gone, you've lost her, and Jija will never pay for what he's done, and you—
What the rust do you matter? Who cares about you? Well, that's the thing, isn't it? Once, you did have people who cared about you. Once there were children who looked up to you and lived on your every word. Once—twice, three times, but the first two don't count—there was a man you woke up next to every morning, who gave a damn that you existed. Once, you lived surrounded by the walls he built for you, in a home you made together, in a community that actually chose to take you in.
All of it built on lies. Matter of time, really, till it fell apart.
"Listen," Lerna says. His voice makes you blink, and that makes tears fall. More tears. You've been sitting there in silence, crying, for a while now. He shifts over to your bench and you lean on him. You know you shouldn't. But you do, and when he puts an arm around you, you take comfort in it. He is a friend, at least. He will always be that. "Maybe... maybe this isn't a bad thing, being here. You can't think, with—everything—going on. This comm is strange." He grimaces. "I'm not sure I like being here, but it's better than being topside right now. Maybe with some time to think, you'll figure out where Jija might have gone."
He's trying so hard. You shake your head a little, but you're too empty to really muster an objection.
"Do you have a place? They gave me this, they must have given you something. There's plenty of room here." You nod, and Lerna takes a deep breath. "Then let's go there. You can introduce me to these companions of yours."
So. You pull it together. Then you lead him out of his place and in a direction that feels like it might bring you to the apartment you were assigned. Along the way you have more time to appreciate just how unbearably strange this comm is. There's one chamber you pass, embedded in one of the whiter, brighter crystals, that holds racks and racks of flat trays like cookie sheets. There's another chamber, dusty and unused, that holds what you assume are torture devices, except they're incompetently made; you're not sure how a pair of rings suspended from the ceiling on chains are supposed to hurt. And then there are the metal stairs—the ones built by whoever created this place. There are other stairs, more recently made, but it's easy to tell them from the originals because the original stairs don't rust, haven't deteriorated at all, and are not purely utilitarian. There are strange decorations along the railings and edges of the walkways: embossed faces, wrought vines in the shape of no plants you've ever seen, something that you think is writing, except it consists solely of pointy shapes in various sizes. It actually pulls you out of your mood, to try to figure out what you're seeing.
"This is madness," you say, running your fingers over a decoration that looks like a snarling kirkhusa. "This place is one big deadciv ruin, just like a hundred thousand others all over the Stillness. Ruins are death traps. The Equatorial comms flatten or sink theirs if they can, and that's the smartest thing anyone's ever done. If the people who made this place couldn't survive it, why should any of us try?"
"Not all ruins are death traps." Lerna's edging along the platform while keeping very close to the crystal shaft it wends around, and keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead. Sweat beads his upper lip. You hadn't realized he's afraid of heights, but then Tirimo is as flat as it is boring. His voice is carefully calm. "There are rumors Yumenes is built on a whole series of deadciv ruins."
And look how well that turned out, you don't say.
"These people should've just built a wall like everyone else," you do say, but then you stop, because it occurs to you that the goal is survival, and sometimes survival requires change. Just because the usual strategies have worked—building a wall, taking in the useful and excluding the useless, arming and storing and hoping for luck—doesn't mean that other methods might not. This, though? Climbing down a hole and hiding in a ball of sharp rocks with a bunch of stone eaters and roggas? Seems especially unwise.
"And if they try to keep me here, they'll find that out," you murmur.
If Lerna hears you, he does not respond.
Eventually you find your apartment. Tonkee's awake and in the living room, eating a big bowl of something that didn't come from your packs. It looks like some kind of porridge, and it's got little yellowish things in it that make you recoil at first—until she tilts the bowl and you realize it's sprouted grains. Standard storecache food.
(She looks at you warily as you come in, but her revelations were so minor compared to everything else you've had to face today that you just wave a greeting and settle down opposite her as usual. She relaxes.)
Lerna's polite but guarded with Tonkee, and she's the same with him—until he mentions that he's been running blood and urine tests on the people of Castrima to watch for vitamin deficiencies. You almost smile when she leans forward and says, "With what kind of equipment?" with a familiar greedy look on her face.
Then Hoa comes into the apartment. You're surprised, since you hadn't realized he'd gone out. His icewhite gaze flicks immediately to Lerna and examines him ruthlessly. Then he relaxes, so visibly that you only now realize Hoa's been tense all this time. Since you came into this crazy comm.
But you file this away as just another oddity to explore later, because Hoa says, "Essun. There's someone here you should meet."
"Who?"
"A man. From Yumenes."
All three of you stare at him. "Why," you say slowly, in case you've misunderstood something, "would I want to meet someone from Yumenes?"
"He asked for you."
You decide to try for patience. "Hoa, I don't know anyone from Yumenes." Not anymore, anyway.
"He says he knows you. He tracked you here, got here ahead of you when he realized it was where you were headed." Hoa scowls, just a little, as if this bothers him. "He says he wants to see you, see if you can do it yet."
"Do what?"
"He just said 'it.'" Hoa's eyes slide first to Tonkee, then to Lerna, before returning to you. Something he doesn't want them to hear, maybe. "He's like you."
"What—" Okay. You rub your eyes, take a deep breath, and say it so he'll know there's no need to hide it. "A rogga, then."
"Yes. No. Like you. His—" Hoa waggles his fingers in lieu of words. Tonkee opens her mouth; you gesture sharply at her. She glares back. After a moment, Hoa sighs. "He said, if you wouldn't come, to tell you that you owe him. For Corundum."
You freeze.
"Alabaster," you whisper.
"Yes," says Hoa, brightening. "That's his name." And then he frowns more, thoughtfully this time. "He's dying." |
MADNESS SEASON: 3 Before Imperial–7 Imperial. The eruption of the Kiash Traps, multiple vents of an ancient supervolcano (the same one responsible for the Twin Season believed to have occurred approximately 10,000 years previous), launched large deposits of olivine and other dark-colored pyroclasts into the air. The resulting ten years of darkness were not only devastating in the usual Seasonal way, but resulted in a much higher than usual incidence of mental illness. The Sanzed warlord Verishe conquered multiple ailing comms through the use of psychological warfare designed to convince her foes that gates and walls offered no reliable protection, and that phantasms lurked nearby. She was named emperor on the day the first sunlight reappeared.
—The Seasons of Sanze |
It's the morning after a raucous party that the Meovites threw to celebrate the Clalsu's safe return and acquisition of some especially prized goods—high-quality stone for decorative carving, aromatic woods for furniture building, fancy brocade cloth that's worth twice its weight in diamonds, and a goodly amount of tradable currency including high-denomination paper and whole fingers of mother-of-pearl. No food, but with that kind of money they can send traders to buy canoesful of anything they need on the mainland. Harlas broke out a cask of fearsomely strong Antarctic mead to celebrate, and half the comm's still sleeping it off.
It's five days after Syenite shut down a volcano that she started, which killed a whole city, and eight days after she killed two ships full of people to keep her family's existence secret. It feels like everyone is celebrating the multiple mass murders she's committed.
She's still in bed, having retired to it as soon as the ship was unloaded. Innon hasn't come to the house yet; she told him to go and tell the stories of the trip, because the people expect it of him and she does not want him suffering for her melancholy. He's got Coru with him, because Coru loves celebrations—everyone feeds him, everyone cuddles him. He even tries to help Innon tell the stories, yelling nonsense at the top of his lungs. The child is more like Innon than he has any physical right to be.
Alabaster is the one who's stayed with Syen, talking to her through her silence, forcing her to respond when she would rather just stop thinking. He says he knows what it's like to feel like this, though he won't tell her how or what happened. She believes him regardless.
"You should go," she says at last. "Join the storytelling. Remind Coru he's got at least two parents who are worth something."
"Don't be stupid. He's got three."
"Innon thinks I'm a terrible mother."
Alabaster sighed. "No. You're just not the kind of mother Innon wants you to be. You're the kind of mother our son needs, though." She turns her head to frown at him. He shrugs. "Corundum will be strong, someday. He needs strong parents. I'm..." He falters abruptly. You practically feel him decide to change the subject. "Here. I brought you something."
Syen sighs and pushes herself up as he crouches beside the bed, unfolding a little cloth parcel. In it, when she gets curious despite herself and leans closer, are two polished stone rings, just right for her fingers. One's made of jade, the other mother-of-pearl.
She glares at him, and he shrugs. "Shutting down an active volcano isn't something a mere four-ringer could do."
"We're free." She says it doggedly, even though she doesn't feel free. She fixed Allia, after all, completing the mission the Fulcrum sent her there for, however belatedly and perversely. It's the sort of thing that makes her laugh uncontrollably when she thinks about it, so she pushes on before she can. "We don't need to wear any rings anymore. Or black uniforms. I haven't put my hair in a bun in months. You don't have to service every woman they send you, like some kind of stud animal. Let the Fulcrum go."
'Baster smiles a little, sadly. "We can't, Syen. One of us is going to have to train Coru—"
"We don't have to train him to do anything." Syen lies down again. She wishes he would go away. "Let him learn the basics from Innon and Harlas. That's been enough to let these people get by for centuries."
"Innon couldn't have stilled that blow, Syen. If he'd tried, he might have blown the hot spot underneath it wide, and set off a Season. You saved the world from that."
"Then give me a medal, not rings." She's glaring at the ceiling. "Except I'm the reason that blow even existed, so maybe not."
Alabaster reaches up to stroke her hair away from her face. He does that a lot, now that she wears it loose. She's always been a little ashamed of her hair—it's curly, but with no stiffness to it at all, whether the straight-stiffness of Sanzed hair or the kinky-stiffness of Coaster hair. She's such a midlatter mutt that she doesn't even know which of her ancestors to blame for the hair. At least it doesn't get in her way.
"We are what we are," he says, with such gentleness that she wants to cry. "We are Misalem, not Shemshena. You've heard that story?"
Syenite's fingers twitch in remembered pain. "Yes."
"From your Guardian, right? They like to tell that one to kids." 'Baster shifts to lean against the bedpost with his back to her, relaxing. Syenite thinks about telling him to leave, but never says it aloud. She's not looking at him, so she has no idea what he does with the bundle of rings that she didn't take. He can eat them for all she cares.
"My Guardian gave me that nonsense, too, Syen. The monstrous Misalem, who decided to declare war against a whole nation and off the Sanzed Emperor for no particular reason."
In spite of herself, Syenite frowns. "He had a reason?"
"Oh Evil Earth, of course. Use your rusting head."
It's annoying to be scolded, and annoyance pushes back her apathy a little more. Good old Alabaster, cheering her up by pissing her off. She turns her head to glare at the back of his. "Well, what was the reason?"
"The simplest and most powerful reason of all: revenge. That emperor was Anafumeth, and the whole thing happened just after the end of the Season of Teeth. That's the Season they don't talk about much in any creche. There was mass starvation in the northern-hemisphere comms. They got hit harder, since the shake that started the whole thing was near the northern pole. The Season took a year longer to take hold in the Equatorials and the south—"
"How do you know all this?" It's nothing Syen's ever heard, in the grit crucibles or elsewhere.
Alabaster shrugs, shaking the whole bed. "I wasn't allowed to train with the other grits in my year-group; I had rings before most of them had pubic hair. The instructors let me loose in the seniors' library to make up for it. They didn't pay a lot of attention to what I read." He sighs. "Also, on my first mission, I... There was an archeomest who... He... well. We talked, in addition to... other things."
She doesn't know why Alabaster bothers being shy about his affairs. She's watched Innon fuck him into incoherence on more than one occasion. Then again, maybe it's not the sex that he's shy about.
"Anyway. It's all there if you put the facts together and think beyond what we're taught. Sanze was a new empire then, still growing, at the height of its power. But it was mostly in the northern half of the Equatorials at that time—Yumenes wasn't actually the capital then—and some of the bigger Sanzed comms weren't as good at preparing for Seasons as they are now. They lost their food storecaches somehow. Fire, fungus, Earth knows what. To survive, all the Sanzed comms decided to work together, attacking the comms of any lesser races." His lip curls. "That's when they started calling us 'lesser races,' actually."
"So they took those other comms' storecaches." Syen can guess that much. She's getting bored.
"No. No one had any stores left by the end of that Season. The Sanzeds took people."
"People? For wh—" Then she understands.
There's no need for slaves during a Season. Every comm has its Strongbacks, and if they need more, there are always commless people desperate enough to work in exchange for food. Human flesh becomes valuable for other reasons, though, when things get bad enough.
"So," says Alabaster, oblivious while Syen lies there fighting nausea, "that Season is when the Sanzeds developed a taste for certain rarefied delicacies. And even after the Season ended and green things grew and the livestock turned herbivorous or stopped hibernating, they kept at it. They would send out parties to raid smaller settlements and newcomms held by races without Sanzed allies. All the accounts differ on the details, but they agree on one thing: Misalem was the only survivor when his family was taken in a raid. Supposedly his children were slaughtered for Anafumeth's own table, though I suspect that's a bit of dramatic embellishment." Alabaster sighs. "Regardless, they died, and it was Anafumeth's fault, and he wanted Anafumeth dead for it. Like any man would."
But a rogga is not any man. Roggas have no right to get angry, to want justice, to protect what they love. For his presumption, Shemshena had killed him—and became a hero for doing it.
Syenite considers this in silence. Then Alabaster shifts a little, and she feels his hand press the bundle, the one with the rings in it, into her unresisting palm.
"Orogenes built the Fulcrum," he says. She's almost never heard him say orogene. "We did it under threat of genocide, and we used it to buckle a collar around our own necks, but we did it. We are the reason Old Sanze grew so powerful and lasted so long, and why it still half-rules the world, even if no one will admit it. We're the ones who've figured out just how amazing our kind can be, if we learn how to refine the gift we're born with."
"It's a curse, not a gift." Syenite closes her eyes. But she doesn't push away the bundle.
"It's a gift if it makes us better. It's a curse if we let it destroy us. You decide that—not the instructors, or the Guardians, or anyone else." There's another shift, and the bed moves a little as Alabaster leans on it. A moment later she feels his lips on her brow, dry and approving. Then he settles back down on the floor beside the bed, and says nothing more.
"I thought I saw a Guardian," she says after a while. Very softly. "At Allia."
Alabaster doesn't reply for a moment. She's decided that he won't, when he says, "I will tear the whole world apart if they ever hurt us again."
But we would still be hurt, she thinks.
It's reassuring, though, somehow. The kind of lie she needs to hear. Syenite keeps her eyes closed and doesn't move for a long while. She's not sleeping; she's thinking. Alabaster stays while she does it, and for that she is unutterably glad. |
When the world ends three weeks later, it happens on the most beautiful day Syenite has ever seen. The sky is clear for miles, save for the occasional drift of cloud. The sea is calm, and even the omnipresent wind is warm and humid for once, instead of cool and scouring.
It's so beautiful that the entire comm decides to head up to the heights. The able-bodied carry the ones who can't make the steps, while the children get underfoot and nearly kill everyone. The people on cook duty put fish cakes and pieces of cut fruit and balls of seasoned grain into little pots that can be carried easily, and everyone brings blankets. Innon has a musical instrument Syenite has never seen before, something like a drum with guitar strings, which would probably be all the rage in Yumenes if it ever caught on there. Alabaster has Corundum. Syenite brings a truly awful novel someone found on the looted freighter, the sort of thing whose first page made her wince and burst into giggles. Then, of course, she kept reading. She loves books that are just for fun.
The Meovites spread themselves over the slope behind a ridge that blocks most of the wind but where the sun is full and bright. Syenite puts her blanket a ways from everyone else, but they quickly encroach on her, spreading out their blankets right alongside, and grinning at her when she glares.
She has come to realize over the past three years that most Meovites regard her and Alabaster as something like wild animals that have decided to scavenge off human habitations—impossible to civilize, kind of cute, and at least an amusing nuisance. So when they see that she obviously needs help with something and won't admit it, they help her anyway. And they constantly pet Alabaster, and hug him and grab his hands and swing him into dancing, which Syen is at least grateful no one tries with her. Then again, everyone can see that Alabaster likes being touched, no matter how much he pretends standoffishness. It probably isn't something he got a lot of in the Fulcrum, where everyone was afraid of his power. Perhaps likewise they think Syen enjoys being reminded that she is part of a group now, contributing and contributed to, and that she no longer needs to guard herself against everyone and everything.
They're right. That doesn't mean she's going to tell them so.
Then it's all Innon tossing Coru up in the air while Alabaster tries to pretend he's not terrified even as his orogeny sends microshakes through the island's underwater strata with every toss; and Hemoo starting some kind of chanted-poetry game set to music that all the Meovites seem to know; and Ough's toddler Owel trying to run across the spread-out blankets and stepping on at least ten people before someone grabs her and tickles her down; and a basket being passed around that contains little clay bottles of something that burns Syen's nose when she sniffs it; and.
And.
She could love these people, she thinks sometimes.
Perhaps she does already. She isn't sure. But after Innon flops down for a nap with Coru already asleep on his chest, and after the poetry chant has turned into a vulgar-joke contest, and once she's drunk enough of the bottle stuff that the world is actually beginning to move on its own... Syenite lifts her eyes and catches Alabaster's. He's propped himself on one elbow to browse the terrible book she's finally abandoned. He's making horrible and hilarious faces as he skims it. Meanwhile his free hand toys with one of Innon's braids, and he looks nothing at all like the half-mad monster Feldspar sent her off with, at the beginning of this journey.
His eyes flick up to meet hers, and for just a moment there is wariness there. Syen blinks in surprise at this. But then, she is the only person here who knows what his life was like before. Does he resent her for being here, a constant reminder of what he'd rather forget?
He smiles, and she frowns in automatic reaction. His smile widens more. "You still don't like me, do you?"
Syenite snorts. "What do you care?"
He shakes his head, amused—and then he reaches out and strokes a hand over Coru's hair. The child stirs and murmurs in his sleep, and Alabaster's face softens. "Would you like to have another child?"
Syenite starts, her mouth falling open. "Of course not. I didn't want this one."
"But he's here now. And he's beautiful. Isn't he? You make such beautiful children." Which is probably the most inane thing he could ever say, but then, he's Alabaster. "You could have the next one with Innon."
"Maybe Innon should have a say in that, before we settle his breeding future."
"He loves Coru, and he's a good father. He's got two other kids already, and they're fine. Stills, though." He considers. "You and Innon might have a child who's still. That wouldn't be a terrible thing, here."
Syenite shakes her head, but she's thinking about the little pessary the island women have shown her how to use. Thinking maybe she will stop using it. But she says: "Freedom means we get to control what we do now. No one else."
"Yes. But now that I can think about what I want..." He shrugs as if nonchalant, but there's an intensity in his gaze as he looks at Innon and Coru. "I've never wanted much from life. Just to be able to live it, really. I'm not like you, Syen. I don't need to prove myself. I don't want to change the world, or help people, or be anything great. I just want... this."
She gets that. So she lies down on her side of Innon, and Alabaster lies down on his side, and they relax and enjoy the sensation of wholeness, of contentment, for a while. Because they can.
Of course it cannot last.
Syenite wakes when Innon sits up and shadows her. She hadn't intended to nap, but she's had a good long one, and now the sun is slanting toward the ocean. Coru's fussing and she sits up automatically, rubbing her face with one hand and reaching with the other to see if his cloth diaper is full. It's fine, but the sounds he's making are anxious, and when she comes more awake she sees why. Innon is sitting up with Coru held absently in one arm, but he is frowning as he looks at Alabaster. Alabaster is on his feet, his whole body tense.
"Something..." he murmurs. He's facing the direction of the mainland, but he can't possibly see anything; the ridge is in the way. Then again, he's not using his eyes.
So Syen frowns and sends forth her own awareness, worrying that there's a tsunami or worse on its way. But there's nothing.
A conspicuous nothingness. There should be something. There's a plate boundary between the island that is Meov and the mainland; plate boundaries are never still. They jump and twitch and vibrate against one another in a million infinitesimal ways that only a rogga can sess, like the electricity that geneers can make come out of water turbines and vats of chemicals. But suddenly—impossibly—the plate edge sesses as still.
Confused, Syenite starts to look at Alabaster. But her attention is caught by Corundum, who's bouncing and struggling in Innon's hands, whining and snotting and having a full-on tantrum, though he's usually not the kind of baby who does that sort of thing. Alabaster's looking at the baby, too. His expression changes to something twisted and terrible.
"No," he says. He's shaking his head. "No. No, I won't let them, not again."
"What?" Syenite's staring at him, trying not to notice the dread that's rising in her, feeling rather than seeing as others rise around them, murmuring and reacting to their alarm. A couple of people trot up the ridge to see what they can. " 'Baster, what? For Earth's sake—"
He makes a sound that is not a word, just negation, and suddenly he takes off running up the slope, toward the ridge. Syenite stares after him, then at Innon, who looks even more confused than she is; Innon shakes his head. But the people who preceded 'Baster up the ridge are shouting now, and signaling everyone else. Something is wrong.
Syenite and Innon hurry up the slope along with others. They all reach the top together, and there they stand looking at the span of ocean on the mainlandward side of the island.
Where there are four ships, tiny but visibly coming closer, on the horizon.
Innon says a bad word and shoves Coru at Syenite, who almost fumbles him but then holds him close while Innon rummages amid his pockets and packs and comes up with his smaller spyglass. He extends it and looks hard for a moment, then frowns, while Syenite tries ineffectually to console Coru. Coru is inconsolable. When Innon lowers it, Syenite grabs his arm and pushes Coru at him, taking the device from his hand when he does.
The four ships are bigger now. Their sails are white, ordinary; she can't figure out what's got Alabaster so upset. And then she notices the figures standing at one boat's prow.
Wearing burgundy.
The shock of it steals the breath from her chest. She steps back, mouths the word that Innon needs to hear, but it comes out strengthless, inaudible. Innon takes the spyglass from her because she looks like she's about to drop it. Then because they have to do something, she's got to do something, she concentrates and focuses and says, louder, "Guardians."
Innon frowns. "How—" She watches as he, too, realizes what this means. He looks away for a moment, wondering, and then he shakes his head. How they found Meov does not matter. They cannot be allowed to land. They cannot be allowed to live.
"Give Coru to someone," he says, backing away from the ridge; his expression has hardened. "We are going to need you, Syen."
Syenite nods and turns, looking around. Deelashet, one of the handful of Sanzeds in the comm, is hurrying past with her own little one, who's maybe six months older than Coru. She's kept Coru on occasion, nursed him when Syenite was busy; Syenite flags her down and runs to her. "Please," she says, pushing Coru into her arms. Deelashet nods.
Coru, however, does not agree with the plan. He clings to Syenite, screaming and kicking and—Evil Earth, the whole island rocks all of a sudden. Deelashet staggers and then stares at Syenite in horror.
"Shit," she murmurs, and takes Coru back. Then with him on her hip—he calms immediately—she runs to catch up with Innon, who is already running toward the metal stairs, shouting to his crew to board the Clalsu and ready it for launch.
It's madness. It's all madness, she thinks as she runs. It doesn't make sense that the Guardians have discovered this place. It doesn't make sense that they're coming—why here? Why now? Meov has been around, pirating the coast, for generations. The only thing that's different is Syenite and Alabaster.
She ignores the little voice in the back of her mind that whispers, They followed you somehow, you know they did, you should never have gone back to Allia, it was a trap, you should never have come here, everything you touch is death.
She does not look down at her hands, where—just to let Alabaster know she appreciated the gesture—she's put on the four rings that the Fulcrum gave her, plus his two. The last two aren't real, after all. She hasn't passed any sort of ring test for them. But who would know whether she merits these rings better than a man who's earned ten? And for shit's sake, she stilled a rusting volcano made by a broken obelisk with a stone eater inside.
So Syenite decides, suddenly and fiercely, that she's going to show these rusting Guardians just what a six-ringer can do.
She reaches the comm level, where it's chaos: people pulling out glassknives and rolling out catapults and balls of chain from wherever-the-rust they've been keeping them, gathering belongings, loading boats with fishing spears. Then Syen's running up the plank onto the Clalsu, where Innon is shouting for the anchor to be pulled up, and all at once it occurs to her to wonder where Alabaster has gone.
She stumbles to a halt on the ship's deck. And as she does, she feels a flare of orogeny so deep and powerful that for a moment she thinks the whole world shakes. All the water in the harbor dances with tiny pointillations for a moment. Syen suspects the clouds felt that one.
And suddenly there is a wall rising from the sea, not five hundred yards off the harbor. It is a massive block of solid stone, as perfectly rectangular as if it were chiseled, huge enough to—oh flaking rust, no—seal off the damned harbor.
" 'Baster! Earth damn it—" It's impossible to be heard over the roar of water and the grind of the stone—as big as the island of Meov itself—Alabaster is raising. How can he do this with no shake or hot spot nearby? Half the island should be iced. But then something flickers at the corner of Syenite's vision and she turns to see the amethyst obelisk off in the distance. It's closer than before. It's coming to meet them. That's how.
Innon is cursing, furious; he understands full well that Alabaster is being an overprotective fool, however he's doing it. His fury becomes effort. Fog rises from the water around the ship, and the deck planks nearby creak and frost over as he tries to smash apart the nearest part of the wall, so that they can get out there and fight. The wall splinters—and then there is a low boom behind it. When the part of the wall that Innon has shattered crumbles away, there's just another block of stone behind it.
Syenite's got her hands full trying to modulate the waves in the water. It is possible to use orogeny on water, just difficult. She's getting the hang of it at last, after this long living near such a great expanse of water; it's one of the few things Innon's been able to teach her and Alabaster. There's enough warmth and mineral content in the sea that she can feel it, and water moves enough like stone—just faster—that she can manipulate it a little. Delicately. Still, she does this now, holding Coru close so he's within the safe zone of her torus, and concentrating hard to send shock waves against the coming waves at just enough velocity to break them. It mostly works; the Clalsu rocks wildly and tears loose from its moorings, and one of the piers collapses, but nothing capsizes and no one dies. Syenite counts this as a win.
"What the rust is he doing?" Innon says, panting, and she follows his gaze to see Alabaster, at last.
He stands on the highest point of the island, up on the slopes. Even from here Syen can see the blistering cold of his torus; the warmer air around it wavers as the temperature changes, and all the moisture in the wind blowing past him precipitates out as snow. If he's using the obelisk then he shouldn't need the ambient, should he? Unless he's doing so much that even the obelisk can't fuel it.
"Earthfires," Syen says. "I have to go up there."
Innon grabs her arm. When she looks up at him, his eyes are wide and a little afraid. "We'd only be a liability to him."
"We can't just sit here and wait! He's not... reliable." Even as she says this, her belly clenches. Innon has never seen Alabaster lose it. She doesn't want Innon to see that. Alabaster's been so good here at Meov; he's almost not crazy anymore. But Syen thinks
what broke once will break again, more easily
and she shakes her head and tries to hand him Coru. "I have to. Maybe I can help. Coru won't let me give him to anyone else—please—"
Innon curses but takes the child, who clutches at Innon's shirt and and puts his thumb in his mouth. Then Syen is off, running along the comm ledge and up the steps.
As she gets above the rock barrier, she can finally see what's happening beyond it, and for a moment she stumbles to a halt in shock. The ships are much closer, right beyond the wall that 'Baster has raised to protect the harbor. There are only three of them, though, because one ship has floundered off course and is listing badly—no, it's sinking. She has no idea how he managed that. Another is riding strangely in the water, mast broken and bow raised and keel visible, and that's when Syenite realizes there are boulders piled on its rear deck. Alabaster's been dropping rocks on the bastards. She has no idea how, but the sight of it makes her want to cheer.
But the other two ships have split up: one coming straight for the island, the other peeling off, perhaps to circle around or maybe get out of Alabaster's rock-dropping range. No you don't, Syen thinks, and she tries to do what she did to the attack ship during their last raid, dragging a splinter of bedrock up from the seafloor to spear the thing. She frosts a ten-foot space around her to do it, and makes chunks of ice spread over the water between her and the ship, but she gets the splinter shaped and loose, and starts to pull it up—
And it stops. And the gathering strength of her orogeny just... disippates. She gasps as the heat and force spill away, and then she understands: This ship has a Guardian on it, too. Maybe they all do, which explains why 'Baster hasn't destroyed them already. He can't attack a Guardian directly; all he can do is hurl boulders from outside the Guardians' negation radius. She can't even imagine how much power that must take. He could never have managed it without the obelisk, and if he weren't the crazy, ornery ten-ringer that he is.
Well, just because she can't hit the thing directly doesn't mean she can't find some other way to do it. She runs along the ridge as the ship she tried to destroy passes behind the island, keeping it in sight. Do they think there's another way up? If so, they'll be sorely disappointed; Meov's harbor is the only part of the island that's remotely approachable. The rest of the island is a single jagged, sheer column.
Which gives her an idea. Syenite grins and stops, then drops to her hands and knees so she can concentrate.
She doesn't have Alabaster's strength. She doesn't even know how to reach the amethyst without his guidance—and after what happened at Allia, she's afraid to try. The plate boundary is too far for her to reach, and there are no nearby vents or hot spots. But she has Meov itself. All that lovely, heavy, flaky schist.
So she throws herself down. Deep. Deeper. She feels her way along the ridges and the layers of the rock that is Meov, seeking the best point of fracture—the fulcrum; she laughs to herself. At last she finds it, good. And there, coming around the island's curve, is the ship. Yes.
Syenite drags all the heat and infinitesimal life out of the rock in one concentrated spot. The moisture's still there, though, and that's what freezes, and expands, as Syenite forces it colder and colder, taking more and more from it, spinning her torus fine and oblong so that it slices along the grain of the rock like a knife through meat. A ring of frost forms around her, but it's nothing compared to the long, searing plank of ice that's growing down the inside of the rock, levering it apart.
And then, right when the ship approaches the point, she unleashes all the strength the island has given her, shoving it right back where it came from.
A massive, narrow finger of stone splits away from the cliff face. Inertia holds it where it is, just for a moment—and then with a low, hollow groan, it peels away from the island, splintering at its base near the waterline. Syenite opens her eyes and gets up and runs, slipping once on her own ice ring, to that end of the island. She's tired, and after a few steps she has to slow to a walk, gasping for breath around a stitch in her side. But she gets there in time to see:
The finger of rock has landed squarely on the ship. She grins fiercely at the sight of the deck splintered apart as she hears screams, as she sees people already in the water. Most wear a variety of clothing; hirelings, then. But she thinks she sees one flash of burgundy cloth under the water's surface, being dragged deeper by one of the sinking ship halves.
"Guard that, you cannibalson ruster." Grinning, Syenite gets up and heads in Alabaster's direction again.
As she comes down from the heights she can see him, a tiny figure still making his own cold front, and for a moment she actually admires him. He's amazing, in spite of everything. But then, all of a sudden, there is a strange hollow boom from the sea, and something explodes around Alabaster in a spray of rocks and smoke and concussive force.
A cannon. A rusting cannon. Innon's told her about these; they're an invention that the Equatorial comms have been experimenting with in the past few years. Of course Guardians would have one. Syen breaks into a run, raggedly and clumsily, fueled by fear. She can't see 'Baster well through the smoke of the cannon blast, but she can see that he's down.
By the time she gets there, she knows he's hurt. The icy wind has stopped blowing; she can see Alabaster on his hands and knees, surrounded by a circle of blistered ice that is yards wide. Syenite stops at the outermost ring of ice; if he's out of it, he might not notice that she's within the range of his power. "Alabaster!"
He moves a little, and she can hear him groaning, murmuring. How bad is he hurt? Syenite dances at the edge of the ice for a moment, then finally decides to risk it, trotting to the clear zone immediately around him. He's still upright, though barely; his head's hanging, and her belly clenches when she sees flecks of blood on the stone beneath him.
"I took out the other ship," she says as she reaches him, hoping to reassure. "I can get this one, too, if you haven't."
It's bravado. She's not sure how much she's got left in her. Hopefully he's taken care of it. But she looks up and curses inwardly, because the remaining ship is still out there, apparently undamaged. It seems to be sitting at anchor. Waiting. For what, she can't guess.
"Syen," he says. His voice is strained. With fear, or something else? "Promise me you won't let them take Coru. No matter what."
"What? Of course I won't." She steps closer and crouches beside him. " 'Baster—" He looks up at her, dazed, perhaps from the cannon blast. Something's cut his forehead, and like all head wounds it's bleeding copiously. She checks him over, touching his chest, hoping he's not more hurt. He's still alive, so the cannon blast must have been a near miss, but all it takes is a bit of rock shrapnel at the right speed, in the wrong place—
And that's when she finally notices. His arms at the wrists. His knees, and the rest of his legs between thighs and ankles—they're gone. They haven't been cut off or blown off; each limb ends smoothly, perfectly, right where the ground begins. And he's moving them about as if it's water and not solid stone that he's trapped in. Struggling, she realizes belatedly. He's not on his hands and knees because he can't stand; he's being dragged into the ground, against his will.
The stone eater. Oh rusting Earth.
Syenite grabs his shoulders and tries to haul him back, but it's like trying to haul a rock. He's heavier, somehow. His flesh doesn't feel quite like flesh. The stone eater has made his body pass through solid stone by making him more stonelike, somehow, and Syenite can't get him out. He sinks deeper into the stone with each breath; he's up to his shoulders and hips now, and she can't see his feet at all.
"Let him go, Earth take you!" The irony of the curse will occur to her only later. What does occur to her, in the moment, is to stab her awareness into the stone. She tries to feel for the stone eater—
There is something there, but it's not like anything she's ever felt before: a heaviness. A weight, too deep and solid and huge to be possible—not in such a small space, not so compact. It feels like there's a mountain there, dragging Alabaster down with all its weight. He's fighting it; that's the only reason he's still here at all. But he's weak, and he's losing the fight, and she hasn't the first clue of how to help him. The stone eater is just too... something. Too much, too big, too powerful, and she cannot help flinching back into herself with a sense that she's just had a near miss.
"Promise," he pants, while she hauls again on his shoulders and tries pushing against the stone with all her power, pulling back against that terrible weight, anything, everything. "You know what they'll do to him, Syen. A child that strong, my child, raised outside the Fulcrum? You know."
A wire-frame chair in a darkened node station... She can't think about that. Nothing's working, and he's mostly gone into the stone now; only his face and shoulders are above it, and that's only because he's straining to keep those above the stoneline. She babbles at him, sobbing, desperate for words that can somehow fix this. "I know. I promise. Oh, rust, 'Baster, please, I can't... not alone, I can't..."
The stone eater's hand rises from the stone, white and solid and rust-tipped. Surprised, Syenite screams and flinches, thinking the creature is attacking her—but no. This hand wraps around the back of Alabaster's head with remarkable gentleness. No one expects mountains to be gentle. But they are inexorable, and when the hand pulls, Alabaster goes. His shoulders slip out of Syen's hands. His chin, then his mouth, then his nose, then his terrified eyes—
He is gone.
Syenite kneels on the hard, cold stone, alone. She is screaming. She is weeping. Her tears fall onto the stone where Alabaster's head was a moment before, and the rock does not soak the tears up. They just splatter.
And then she feels it: the drop. The drag. Startled out of grief, she scrabbles to her feet and stumbles over to the edge of the cliff, where she can see the remaining ship. Ships, the one 'Baster's hit with rocks seems to have righted itself somehow. No, not somehow. Ice spreads across the water's surface around both ships. There's a rogga on one of the ships, working for the Guardians. A four-ringer, at least; there's too much fine control in what she's feeling. And with that much ice—She sees a group of porpoises leap out of the water, racing away from the spreading ice, and then she sees it catch them, crawling over their bodies and solidifying them half in and half out of the water.
What the hell is this rogga doing with that much power?
Then she sees a portion of the rock wall that 'Baster raised shiver.
"No—" Syenite turns and runs again, breathless, sessing rather than seeing as the Guardians' rogga attacks the wall's base. It's weak where the wall curves to meet the natural curve of Meov's harbor. The rogga's going to bring it down.
It takes an eternity to reach the comm level, and then the docks. She's terrified Innon will set sail without her. He has to be able to sess what's happening, too. But thank stone, the Clalsu is still there, and when she staggers up onto its deck, several members of the crew grab her and guide her to sit down before she collapses. They draw up the plank behind her, and she can see that they're striking sails.
"Innon," she gasps as she catches her breath. "Please."
They half-carry her to him. He's on the upper deck, one hand on the pilot's wheel and the other holding Coru against his hip. He doesn't look at her, all his attention focused on the wall; there's already a hole in it, near the top, and as Syenite reaches him there is a final surge. The wall breaks apart and falls in chunks, rocking the ship something fierce, but Innon's completely steady.
"We're sailing out to face them," he says grimly, as she sags onto the bench nearby, and as the ship pulls away from the dock. Everyone's ready for a fight. The catapults are loaded, the javelins in hand. "We'll lead them away from the comm first. That way, everyone else can evacuate in the fishing boats."
There aren't enough fishing boats for everyone, Syenite wants to say, and doesn't. Innon knows it, anyway.
Then the ship is sailing through the narrow gap that the Guardians' orogene has made, and the Guardians' ship is on them almost at once. There's a puff of smoke on their deck and a hollow whoosh right as the Clalsu emerges; the cannon again. A near miss. Innon shouts and one of the catapult crews returns the favor with a basket of heavy chain, which shreds their foresail and midmast. Another volley and this time it's a barrel of burning pitch; Syen sees people on fire running across the deck of the Guardians' ship after that one hits. The Clalsu whips past while the Guardians' ship founders toward the wall that is Meov rock, its deck now a blazing conflagration.
But before they can get far there is another puff of smoke, another boom, and this time the Clalsu judders with the hit. Rust and underfires, how many of those things do they have? Syenite gets up and runs to the railing, trying to see this cannon, though she doesn't know what she can do about it. There's a hole in the Clalsu's side and she can hear people screaming belowdecks, but thus far the ship is still moving.
It's the ship that Alabaster dropped rocks on. Some of the boulders are gone from its aft deck and it's sitting normally in the water again. She doesn't see the cannon, but she does see three figures standing near the ship's bow. Two in burgundy, a third in black. As she watches, another burgundy-clad figure comes to join them.
She can feel their eyes on her.
The Guardians' ship turns slightly, falling farther behind. Syenite begins to hope, but she sees it when the cannons fire this time. Three of them, big black things near the starboard railing; they jerk and roll back a little when they fire, in near unison. And a moment later, there is a mighty crack and a groan and the Clalsu shudders as if it just got hit by a fiver tsunami. Syenite looks up in time to see the mast shatter into kindling, and then everything goes wrong.
The mast creaks and goes over like a felled tree, and it hits the deck with the same force. People scream. The ship groans and begins to list starboard, pulled by the collapsed, dragging sails. She sees two men fall into the water with the sails, crushed or smothered by the weight of cloth and rope and wood, and Earth help her, she cannot think of them. The mast is between her and the pilot deck. She's cut off from Innon and Coru.
And the Guardians' ship is now closing in.
No! Syenite reaches for the water, trying to pull something, anything, into her abused sessapinae. But there's nothing. Her mind is as still as glass. The Guardians are too close.
She can't think. She scrabbles over the mast parts, gets tangled in a thicket of ropes and must fight for endless hours, it feels like, to get free. Then finally she is free but everyone's running back the way she came, glassknives and javelins in hand, shouting and screaming, because the Guardians' ship is right there and they are boarding.
No.
She can hear people dying all around her. The Guardians have brought troops of some sort with them, some comm's militia that they've paid or appropriated, and the battle isn't even close. Innon's people are good, experienced, but their usual targets are poorly defended merchant and passenger vessels. As Syenite reaches the pilot deck—Innon isn't there, he must have gone below—she sees Innon's cousin Ecella slash a militiaman across the face with her glassknife. He staggers beneath the blow but then comes back up and shoves his own knife into her belly. When she falls, he pushes her away, and she falls onto the body of another Meovite, who is already dead. More of the troops are climbing aboard by the minute.
It's the same everywhere. They're losing.
She has to get to Innon and Coru.
Belowdecks there's almost no one there. Everyone has come up to defend the ship. But she can feel the tremor that is Coru's fear, and she follows it to Innon's cabin. The door opens as she reaches it, and Innon comes out with a knife in his hand, nearly stabbing her. He stops, startled, and she looks beyond him to see that Coru has been bundled into a basket beneath the forward bulkhead—the safest place in the ship, ostensibly. But as she stands there, stupidly, Innon grabs her and shoves her into the cabin.
"What—"
"Stay here," Innon says. "I have to go fight. Do whatever you have—"
He gets no further. Someone moves behind him, too quick for Syenite to cry a warning. A man, naked to the waist. He claps hands onto either side of Innon's head, fingers splayed across his cheeks like spiders, and grins at Syenite as Innon's eyes widen.
And then it is—
Oh Earth, it is—
She feels it, when it happens. Not just in her sessapinae. It is a grind like stone abrading her skin; it is a crush along her bones; it is, it is, it is everything that is in Innon, all the power and vibrancy and beauty and fierceness of him, made evil. Amplified and concentrated and turned back on him in the most vicious way. Innon does not have time to feel fear. Syenite does not have time to scream as Innon comes apart.
It's like watching a shake up close. Seeing the ground split, watching the fragments grind and splinter together, then separate. Except all in flesh.
'Baster, you never told me, you didn't tell me it was like
Now Innon is on the floor, in a pile. The Guardian who has killed him stands there, splattered in blood and grinning through it.
"Ah, little one," says a voice, and her blood turns to stone. "Here you are."
"No," she whispers. She shakes her head in denial, steps backward. Coru is crying. She steps back again and stumbles against Innon's bed, fumbles for the basket, pulls Coru into her arms. He clings to her, shaking and hitching fitfully. "No."
The shirtless Guardian glances to one side, then he moves aside to make room for another to enter. No.
"There's no need for these histrionics, Damaya," Schaffa Guardian Warrant says, softly. Then he pauses, looks apologetic. "Syenite."
She has not seen him in years, but his voice is the same. His face is the same. He never changes. He's even smiling, though it fades a little in distaste as he notices the mess that was Innon. He glances at the shirtless Guardian; the man's still grinning. Schaffa sighs, but smiles in return. Then they both turn those horrible, horrible smiles on Syenite.
She cannot go back. She will not go back.
"And what is this?" Schaffa smiles, his gaze fixing on Coru in her arms. "How lovely. Alabaster's? Does he live, too? We would all like to see Alabaster, Syenite. Where is he?"
The habit of answering is too deep. "A stone eater took him." Her voice shakes. She steps back again, and her head presses against the bulkhead. There's nowhere left to run.
For the first time since she's ever known him, Schaffa blinks and looks surprised. "A stone—hmm." He sobers. "I see. We should have killed him, then, before they got to him. As a kindness, of course; you cannot imagine what they will do to him, Syenite. Alas."
Then Schaffa smiles again, and she remembers everything she's tried to forget. She feels alone again, and helpless as she was that day near Palela, lost in the hateful world with no one to rely on except a man whose love comes wrapped in pain.
"But his child will be a more than worthwhile replacement," Schaffa says. |
There are moments when everything changes, you understand.
You understand these moments, I think, instinctively. It is our nature. We are born of such pressures, and sometimes, when things are unbearable—
—sometimes, even we... crack. |
Coru's wailing, terrified, and perhaps he even understands, somehow, what has happened to his fathers. Syenite cannot console him.
"No," she says again. "No. No. No."
Schaffa's smile fades. "Syenite. I told you. Never say no to me."
Even the hardest stone can fracture. It just takes the right force, applied at the right juncture of angles. A fulcrum of pressure and weakness.
Promise, Alabaster had said.
Do whatever you have to, Innon had tried to say.
And Syenite says: "No, you fucker."
Coru is crying. She puts her hand over his mouth and nose, to silence him, to comfort him. She will keep him safe. She will not let them take him, enslave him, turn his body into a tool and his mind into a weapon and his life into a travesty of freedom.
Schaffa stops. "Syenite—"
"That's not my rusting name! I'll say no to you all I want, you bastard!" She's screaming the words. Spittle froths her lips. There's a dark heavy space inside her that is heavier than the stone eater, much heavier than a mountain, and it's eating everything else like a sinkhole.
Everyone she loves is dead. Everyone except Coru. And if they take him—
Better that a child never have lived at all than live as a slave.
Better that he die.
Better that she die. Alabaster will hate her for this, for leaving him alone, but Alabaster is not here, and survival is not the same thing as living.
So she reaches up. Out. The amethyst is there, above, waiting with the patience of the dead, as if it somehow knew this moment would come.
She reaches for it now and prays that Alabaster was right about the thing being too much for her to handle.
And as her awareness dissolves amid jewel-toned light and faceted ripples, as Schaffa gasps in realization and lunges for her, as Coru's eyes flutter shut over her pressing, smothering hand—
She opens herself to all the power of the ancient unknown, and tears the world apart. |
Here is the Stillness. Here is a place off its eastern coast, a bit south of the equator.
There's an island here—one of a chain of precarious little land slabs that rarely last longer than a few hundred years. This one's been around for several thousand, in testament to the wisdom of its inhabitants. This is the moment when that island dies, but at least a few of those inhabitants should survive to go elsewhere. Perhaps that will make you feel better.
The purple obelisk that hovers above it pulses, once, with a great throb of power that would be familiar to anyone who'd been in the late comm called Allia on the day of its death. As this pulse fades, the ocean below heaves as its rocky floor convulses. Spikes, wet and knifelike, burst up from the waves and utterly shatter the ships that float near the island's shores. A number of the people aboard each—some pirates, some their enemies—are speared through, so great is the thicket of death around them.
This convulsion spreads away from the island in a long, wending ripple, forming a chain of jagged, terrible spears from Meov's harbor all the way to what is left of Allia. A land bridge. Not the sort anyone would much want to cross, but nevertheless.
When all the death is done and the obelisk is calm, only a handful of people are still alive, in the ocean below. One of them, a woman, floats unconscious amid the debris of her shattered ship. Not far from her, a smaller figure—a child—floats, too, but facedown.
Her fellow survivors will find her and take her to the mainland. There she will wander, lost and losing herself, for two long years.
But not alone—for that is when I found her, you see. The moment of the obelisk's pulse was the moment in which her presence sang across the world: a promise, a demand, an invitation too enticing to resist. Many of us converged on her then, but I am the one who found her first. I fought off the others and trailed her, watched her, guarded her. I was glad when she found the little town called Tirimo, and comfort if not happiness, for a time.
I introduced myself to her eventually, finally, ten years later, as she left Tirimo. It's not the way we usually do these things, of course; it is not the relationship with her kind that we normally seek. But she is—was—special. You were, are, special.
I told her that I was called Hoa. It is as good a name as any.
This is how it began. Listen. Learn. This is how the world changed. |
There's a structure in Castrima that glitters. It's on the lowermost level of the great geode, and you think it must have been built rather than grown: Its walls aren't carved solid crystal, but slabs of quarried white mica, flecked delicately with infinitesimal crystal flakes that are no less beautiful than their larger cousins, if not as dramatic. Why someone would carry these slabs here and make a house out of them amid all these ready-made, uninhabited apartments, you have no idea. You don't ask. You don't care.
Lerna comes with you, because this is the comm's official infirmary and the man you're coming to see is his patient. But you stop him at the door, and there's something in your face that must warn him of the danger. He does not protest when you go in without him.
You walk through its open doorway slowly, and stop when you spy the stone eater across the infirmary's large main room. Antimony, yes; you'd almost forgotten the name Alabaster gave her. She looks back at you impassively, hardly distinguishable from the white wall save for the rust of her fingertips and the stark black of her "hair" and eyes. She hasn't changed since the last time you saw her: twelve years ago, at the end of Meov. But then, for her kind, twelve years is nothing.
You nod to her, anyway. It's the polite thing to do, and there's still a little left of you that's the woman the Fulcrum raised. You can be polite to anybody, no matter how much you hate them.
She says, "No closer."
She's not talking to you. You turn, unsurprised, to see that Hoa is behind you. Where'd he come from? He's just as still as Antimony—unnaturally still, which makes you finally notice that he doesn't breathe. He never has, in all the time you've known him. How the rust did you miss that? Hoa watches her with the same steady glower of threat that he offered to Ykka's stone eater. Perhaps none of them like each other. Must make reunions awkward.
"I'm not interested in him," Hoa says.
Antimony's eyes shift over to you for a moment. Then her gaze returns to Hoa. "I am interested in her only on his behalf."
Hoa says nothing. Perhaps he's considering this; perhaps it's an offer of truce, or a staking of claims. You shake your head and walk past them both.
At the back of the main room, on a pile of cushions and blankets, lies a thin black figure, wheezing. It stirs a little, lifting its head slowly as you approach. As you crouch just out of his arms' reach, you're relieved to recognize him. Everything else has changed, but his eyes, at least, are the same.
"Syen," he says. His voice is thick gravel.
"Essun, now," you say, automatically.
He nods. This seems to cause him pain; for a moment his eyes squinch shut. Then he draws in another breath, makes a visible effort to relax, and revives somewhat. "I knew you weren't dead."
"Why didn't you come, then?" you say.
"Had my own problems to deal with." He smiles a little. You actually hear the skin on the left side of his face—there's a big burned patch there—crinkle. His eyes shift over to Antimony, as slowly as a stone eater's movements. Then he returns his attention to you.
(To her, Syenite.)
To you, Essun. Rust it, you'll be glad when you finally figure out who you really are.
"And I've been busy." Now Alabaster lifts his right arm. It ends abruptly, in the middle of the forearm; he's not wearing anything on his upper body, so you can clearly see what's happened. There's not much left of him. He's missing a lot of pieces, and he stinks of blood and pus and urine and cooked meat. The arm injury, though, is not one he earned from Yumenes's fires, or at least not directly. The stump of his arm is capped with something hard and brown that is definitely not skin: too hard, too uniformly chalklike in its visible composition.
Stone. His arm has become stone. Most of it's gone, though, and the stump—
—tooth marks. Those are tooth marks. You glance up at Antimony again, and think of a diamond smile.
"Hear you've been busy, too," 'Baster says.
You nod, finally dragging your gaze away from the stone eater. (Now you know what kind of stone they eat.) "After Meov. I was..." You're not sure how to say it. There are griefs too deep to be borne, and yet you have borne them again and again. "I needed to be different."
It makes no sense. Alabaster makes a soft affirmative sound, though, as if he understands. "You stayed free, at least."
If hiding everything you are is free. "Yes."
"Settled down?"
"Got married. Had two children." Alabaster is silent. With all the patches of char and chalky brown stone on his face, you can't tell if he's smiling or scowling. You assume the latter, though, so you add: "Both of them were... like me. I'm... my husband..."
Words make things real in a way that even memories can't, so you stop there.
"I understand why you killed Corundum," Alabaster says, very softly. And then, while you sway in your crouch, literally reeling from the blow of that sentence, he finishes you. "But I'll never forgive you for doing it."
Damn. Damn him. Damn yourself.
It takes you a moment to respond.
"I understand if you want to kill me," you manage, at last. Then you lick your lips. Swallow. Spit the words out. "But I have to kill my husband, first."
Alabaster lets out a wheezing sigh. "Your other two kids."
You nod. Doesn't matter that Nassun's alive, in this instance. Jija took her from you; that is insult enough.
"I'm not going to kill you, Sy—Essun." He sounds tired. Maybe he doesn't hear the little sound you make, which is neither relief nor disappointment. "I wouldn't even if I could."
"If you—"
"Can you do it, yet?" He rides over your confusion the way he always did. Nothing about him has changed except his ruined body. "You drew on the garnet at Allia, but that one was half dead. You must have used the amethyst at Meov, but that was... an extremity. Can you do it at will, now?"
"I..." You don't want to understand. But now your eyes are drawn away from the horror that remains of your mentor, your lover, your friend. To the side and behind Alabaster, where a strange object rests against the wall of the infirmary. It looks like a glassknife, but the blade is much too long and wide for practical use. It has an enormous handle, perhaps because the blade is so stupidly long, and a crosspiece that will get in the way the first time someone tries to use the thing to cut meat or slice through a knot. And it's not made of glass, or at least not any glass you've ever seen. It's pink, verging on red, and—
and. You stare at it. Into it. You feel it trying to draw your mind in, down. Falling. Falling up, through an endless shaft of flickering, faceted pink light—
You gasp and twitch back into yourself defensively, then stare at Alabaster. He smiles again, painfully.
"The spinel," he says, confirming your shock. "That one's mine. Have you made any of them yours, yet? Do the obelisks come when you call?"
You don't want to understand, but you do. You don't want to believe, but really, you have all along.
"You tore that rift up north," you breathe. Your hands are clenching into fists. "You split the continent. You started this Season. With the obelisks! You did... all of that."
"Yes, with the obelisks, and with the aid of the node maintainers. They're all at peace now." He exhales, wheezily. "I need your help."
You shake your head automatically, but not in refusal. "To fix it?"
"Oh, no, Syen." You don't even bother to correct him this time. You can't take your eyes from his amused, nearly skeletal face. When he speaks, you notice that some of his teeth have turned to stone, too. How many of his organs have done the same? How much longer can he—should he—live like this?
"I don't want you to fix it," Alabaster says. "It was collateral damage, but Yumenes got what it deserved. No, what I want you to do, my Damaya, my Syenite, my Essun, is make it worse."
You stare at him, speechless. Then he leans forward. That this is painful for him is obvious; you hear the creak and stretch of his flesh, and a faint crack as some piece of stone somewhere on him fissures. But when he is close enough, he grins again, and suddenly it hits you. Evil, eating, Earth. He's not crazy at all, and he never has been.
"Tell me," he says, "have you ever heard of something called a moon?" |
[ You Bet Your Life ]
The guard punched another button and all of this disappeared, leaving the terminal screen smooth and green and blank again. He waved them forward.
"Don't they give the card back?" Mrs. Garraty asked. "Don't they—"
"No, Mom," Garraty said patiently.
"Well, I don't like it," she said, pulling forward into an empty space. She had been saying it ever since they set out in the dark of two in the morning. She had been moaning it, actually.
"Don't worry," he said without hearing himself. He was occupied with looking and with his own confusion of anticipation and fear. He was out of the car almost before the engine's last asthmatic wheeze-a tall, well-built boy wearing a faded army fatigue jacket against the eight o'clock spring chill.
His mother was also tall, but too thin. Her breasts were almost nonexistent: token nubs. Her eyes were wandering and unsure, somehow shocked. Her face was an invalid's face. Her iron-colored hair had gone awry under the complication of clips that was supposed to hold it in place. Her dress hung badly on her body as if she had recently lost a lot of weight.
"Ray," she said in that whispery conspirator's voice that he had come to dread. "Ray, listen—"
He ducked his head and pretended to tuck in his shirt. One of the guards was eating C-rations from a can and reading a comic book. Garraty watched the guard eating and reading and thought for the ten thousandth time: It's all real. And now, at last, the thought began to swing some weight.
"There's still time to change your mind—"
The fear and anticipation cranked up a notch.
"No, there's no time for that," he said. "The backout date was yesterday."
Still in that low conspirator's voice that he hated: "They'd understand, I know they would. The Major—
"The Major would—" Garraty began, and saw his mother wince. "You know what the Major would do, Mom."
Another car had finished the small ritual at the gate and had parked. A boy with dark hair got out. His parents followed and for a moment the three of them stood in conference like worried baseball players. He, like some of the other boys, was wearing a light packsack. Garraty wondered if he hadn't been a little stupid not to bring one himself.
"You won't change your mind?"
It was guilt, guilt taking the face of anxiety. Although he was only sixteen, Ray Garraty knew something about guilt. She felt that she had been too dry, too tired, or maybe just too taken up with her older sorrows to halt her son's madness in its seedling stage-to halt it before the cumbersome machinery of the State with its guards in khaki and its computer terminals had taken over, binding himself more tightly to its insensate self with each passing day, until yesterday, when the lid had come down with a final bang.
He put a hand on her shoulder. "This is my idea, Mom. I know it wasn't yours. I—" He glanced around. No one was paying the slightest attention to them. "I love you, but this way is best, one way or the other."
"It's not," she said, now verging on tears. "Ray, it's not, if your father was here, he'd put a stop to—"
"Well, he's not, is he?" He was brutal, hoping to stave off her tears what if they had to drag her off? He had heard that sometimes that happened. The thought made him feel cold. In a softer voice he said, "Let it go now, Mom. Okay?" He forced a grin. "Okay," he answered for her.
Her chin was still trembling, but she nodded. Not all right, but too late. There was nothing anyone could do.
A light wind soughed through the pines. The sky was pure blue. The road was just ahead and the simple stone post that marked the border between America and Canada. Suddenly his anticipation was greater than his fear, and he wanted to get going, get the show on the road.
"I made these. You can take them, can't you? They're not too heavy, are they?" She thrust a foil-wrapped package of cookies at him.
"Yeah." He took them and then clutched her awkwardly, trying to give her what she needed to have. He kissed her cheek. Her skin was like old silk. For a moment he could have cried himself. Then he thought of the smiling, mustachioed face of the Major and stepped back, stuffing the cookies into the pocket of his fatigue jacket.
"G'bye, Mom."
"Goodbye, Ray. Be a good boy."
She stood there for a moment and he had a sense of her being very light, as if even the light puffs of breeze blowing this morning might send her sailing away like a dandelion gone to seed. Then she got back into the car and started the engine. Garraty stood there. She raised her hand and waved. The tears were flowing now. He could see them. He waved back and then as she pulled out he just stood there with his arms at his sides, conscious of how fine and brave and alone he must look. But when the car had passed back through the gate, forlornness struck him and he was only a sixteen-year-old boy again, alone in a strange place.
He turned back toward the road. The other boy, the dark-haired one, was watching his folks pull out. He had a bad scar along one cheek. Garraty walked over to him and said hello.
The dark-haired boy gave him a glance. "Hi."
"I'm Ray Garraty," he said, feeling mildly like an asshole.
"I'm Peter McVries."
"You all ready?" Garraty asked.
McVries shrugged. "I feel jumpy. That's the worst."
Garraty nodded.
The two of them walked toward the road and the stone marker. Behind them, other cars were pulling out. A woman began screaming abruptly. Unconsciously, Garraty and McVries drew closer together. Neither of them looked back. Ahead of them was the road, wide and black.
"That composition surface will be hot by noon," McVries said abruptly. "I'm going to stick to the shoulder."
Garraty nodded. McVries looked at him thoughtfully.
"What do you weigh?"
"Hundred and sixty."
"I'm one-sixty-seven. They say the heavier guys get tired quicker, but I think I'm in pretty good shape."
To Garraty, Peter McVries looked rather more than that-he looked awesomely fit. He wondered who they were that said the heavier guys got tired quicker, almost asked, and decided not to. The Walk was one of those things that existed on apocrypha, talismans, legend.
McVries sat down in the shade near a couple of other boys, and after a moment, Garraty sat beside him. McVries seemed to have dismissed him entirely. Garraty looked at his watch. It was five after eight. Fifty-five minutes to go. Impatience and anticipation came back, and he did his best to squash them, telling himself to enjoy sitting while he could.
All of the boys were sitting. Sitting in groups and sitting alone; one boy had climbed onto the lowest branch of a pine overlooking the road and was eating what looked like a jelly sandwich. He was skinny and blond, wearing purple pants and a blue chambray shirt under an old green zip sweater with holes in the elbows. Garraty wondered if the skinny ones would last or burn out quickly.
The boys he and McVries had sat down next to were talking.
"I'm not hurrying," one of them said. "Why should I? If I get warned, so what? You just adjust, that's all. Adjustment is the key word here. Remember where you heard that first."
He looked around and discovered Garraty and McVries.
"More lambs to the slaughter. Hank Olson's the name. Walking is my game." He said this with no trace of a smile at all.
Garraty offered his own name. McVries spoke his own absently, still looking off toward the road.
"I'm Art Baker," the other said quietly. He spoke with a very slight Southern accent. The four of them shook hands all around.
There was a moment's silence, and McVries said, "Kind of scary, isn't it?"
They all nodded except Hank Olson, who shrugged and grinned. Garraty watched the boy in the pine tree finish his sandwich, ball up the waxed paper it had been in, and toss it onto the soft shoulder. He'll burn out early, he decided. That made him feel a little better.
"You see that spot right by the marker post?" Olson said suddenly.
They all looked. The breeze made moving shadow-patterns across the road. Garraty didn't know if he saw anything or not.
"That's from the Long Walk the year before last," Olson said with grim satisfaction. "Kid was so scared he just froze up at nine o'clock."
They considered the horror of it silently.
"Just couldn't move. He took his three warnings and then at 9:02 AM they gave him his ticket. Right there by the starting post."
Garraty wondered if his own legs would freeze. He didn't think so, but it was a thing you wouldn't know for sure until the time came, and it was a terrible thought. He wondered why Hank Olson wanted to bring up such a terrible thing.
Suddenly Art Baker sat up straight. "Here he comes."
A dun-colored jeep drove up to the stone marker and stopped. It was followed by a strange, tread-equipped vehicle that moved much more slowly. There were toy-sized radar dishes mounted on the front and back of this halftrack. Two soldiers lounged on its upper deck, and Garraty felt a chill in his belly when he looked at them. They were carrying army-type heavy-caliber carbine rifles.
Some of the boys got up, but Garraty did not. Neither did Olson or Baker, and after his initial look, McVries seemed to have fallen back into his own thoughts. The skinny kid in the pine tree was swinging his feet idly.
The Major got out of the jeep. He was a tall, straight man with a deep desert tan that went well with his simple khakis. A pistol was strapped to his Sam Browne belt, and he was wearing reflector sunglasses. It was rumored that the Major's eyes were extremely light-sensitive, and he was never seen in public without his sunglasses.
"Sit down, boys," he said. "Keep Hint Thirteen in mind." Hint Thirteen was "Conserve energy whenever possible."
Those who had stood sat down. Garraty looked at his watch again. It said 8:16, and he decided it was a minute fast. The Major always showed up on time. He thought momentarily of setting it back a minute and then forgot it.
"I'm not going to make a speech," the Major said, sweeping them with the blank lenses that covered his eyes. "I give my congratulations to the winner among your number, and my acknowledgments of valor to the losers."
He turned to the back of the jeep. There was a living silence. Garraty breathed deep of the spring air. It would be warm. A good day to walk.
The Major turned back to them. He was holding a clipboard. "When I call your name, please step forward and take your number. Then go back to your place until it is time to begin. Do this smartly, please."
"You're in the army now," Olson whispered with a grin, but Garraty ignored it. You couldn't help admiring the Major. Garraty's father, before the Squads took him away, had been fond of calling the Major the rarest and most dangerous monster any nation can produce, a society-supported sociopath. But he had never seen the Major in person.
"Aaronson."
A short, chunky farmboy with a sunburned neck gargled forward, obviously awed by the Major's presence, and took his large plastic 1. He fixed it to his shirt by the pressure strip and the Major clapped him on the back.
"Abraham."
A tall boy with reddish hair in jeans and a T-shirt. His jacket was tied about his waist schoolboy style and flapped wildly around his knees. Olson sniggered.
"Baker, Arthur."
"That's me," Baker said, and got to his feet. He moved with deceptive leisure, and he made Garraty nervous. Baker was going to be tough. Baker was going to last a long time.
Baker came back. He had pressed his number 3 onto the right breast of his shirt.
"Did he say anything to you?" Garraty asked.
"He asked me if it was commencing to come off hot down home," Baker said shyly. "Yeah, he the Major talked to me."
"Not as hot as it's gonna commence getting up here," Olson cracked.
"Baker, James," the Major said.
It went on until 8:40, and it came out right. No one had ducked out. Back in the parking lot, engines started and a number of cars began pulling out-boys from the backup list who would now go home and watch the Long Walk coverage on TV. It's on, Garraty thought, it's really on.
When his turn came, the Major gave him number47 and told him "Good luck." Up close he smelled very masculine and somehow overpowering. Garraty had an almost insatiable urge to touch the man's leg and make sure he was real.
Peter McVries was 61. Hank Olson was 70. He was with the Major longer than the rest. The Major laughed at something Olson said and clapped him on the back.
"I told him to keep a lot of money on short call," Olson said when he came back. "And he told me to give 'em hell. Said he liked to see someone who was raring to rip. Give 'em hell, boy, he said."
"Pretty good," McVries said, and then winked at Garraty. Garraty wondered what McVries had meant, winking like that. Was he making fun of Olson?
The skinny boy in the tree was named Stebbins. He got his number with his head down, not speaking to the Major at all, and then sat back at the base of his tree. Garraty was somehow fascinated with the boy.
Number 100 was a red-headed fellow with a volcanic complexion. His name was Zuck. He got his number and then they all sat and waited for what would come next.
Then three soldiers from the halftrack passed out wide belts with snap pockets. The pockets were filled with tubes of high-energy concentrate pastes. More soldiers came around with canteens. They buckled on the belts and slung the canteens. Olson slung his belt low on his hips like a gunslinger, found a Waifa chocolate bar, and began to eat it. "Not bad," he said, grinning. He swigged from his canteen, washing down the chocolate, and Garraty wondered if Olson was just fronting, or if he knew something Garraty did not.
The Major looked them over soberly. Garraty's wristwatch said 8:56-how had it gotten so late? His stomach lurched painfully.
"All right, fellows, line up by tens, please. No particular order. Stay with your friends, if you like."
Garraty got up. He felt numb and unreal. It was as if his body now belonged to someone else.
"Well, here we go," McVries said at his elbow. "Good luck, everyone."
"Good luck to you," Garraty said surprised.
McVries said: "I need my fucking head examined." He looked suddenly pale and sweaty, not so awesomely fit as he had earlier. He was trying to smile and not making it. The scar stood out on his cheek like a wild punctuation mark.
Stebbins got up and ambled to the rear of the ten wide, ten deep queue. Olson, Baker, McVries, and Garraty were in the third row. Garraty's mouth was dry. He wondered if he should drink some water. He decided against it. He had never in his life been so aware of his feet. He wondered if he might freeze and get his ticket on the starting line. He wondered if Stebbins would fold early-Stebbins with his jelly sandwich and his purple pants. He wondered if he would fold up first. He wondered what it would feel like if—
His wristwatch said 8:59.
The Major was studying a stainless steel pocket chronometer. He raised his fingers slowly, and everything hung suspended with his hand. The hundred boys watched it carefully, and the silence was awful and immense. The silence was everything.
Garraty's watch said 9:00, but the poised hand did not fall.
Do it! Why doesn't he do it?
He felt like screaming it out.
Then he remembered that his watch was a minute fast-you could set your watch by the Major, only he hadn't, he had forgotten.
The Major's fingers dropped. "Luck to all," he said. His face was expressionless and the reflector sunglasses hid his eyes. They began to walk smoothly, with no jostling.
Garraty walked with them. He hadn't frozen. Nobody froze. His feet passed beyond the stone marker, in parade-step with McVries on his left and Olson on his right. The sound of feet was very loud.
This is it, this is it, this is it.
A sudden insane urge to stop came to him. Just to see if they really meant business. He rejected the thought indignantly and a little fearfully.
They came out of the shade and into the sun, the warm spring sun. It felt good. Garraty relaxed, put his hands in his pockets, and kept step with McVries. The group began to spread out, each person finding his own stride and speed. The halftrack clanked along the soft shoulder, throwing thin dust. The tiny radar dishes turned busily, monitoring each Walker's speed with a sophisticated on-board computer. Low speed cutoff was exactly four miles an hour.
"Warning! Warning 88!"
Garraty started and looked around. It was Stebbins. Stebbins was 88. Suddenly he was sure Stebbins was going to get his ticket right here, still in sight of the starting post.
"Smart." It was Olson.
"What?" Garraty asked. He had to make a conscious effort to move his tongue.
"The guy takes a warning while he's still fresh and gets an idea of where the limit is. And he can sluff it easy enough-you walk an hour without getting a fresh warning, you lose one of the old ones. You know that."
"Sure I know it," Garraty said. It was in the rule book. They gave you three warnings. The fourth time you fell below four miles an hour you were well, you were out of the Walk. But if you had three warnings and could manage to walk for three hours, you were back in the sun again.
"So now he knows," Olson said. "And at 10:02, he's in the clear again."
Garraty walked on at a good clip. He was feeling fine. The starting post dropped from sight as they breasted a hill and began descending into a long, pine-studded valley. Here and there were rectangular fields with the earth just freshly turned.
"Potatoes, they tell me," McVries said.
"Best in the world," Garraty answered automatically.
"You from Maine?" Baker asked.
"Yeah, downstate." He looked up ahead. Several boys had drawn away from the main group, making perhaps six miles an hour. Two of them were wearing identical leather jackets, with what looked like eagles on the back. It was a temptation to speed up, but Garraty refused to be hurried. "Conserve energy whenever possible"—Hint 13.
"Does the road go anywhere near your hometown?" McVries asked.
"About seven miles to one side. I guess my mother and my girlfriend will come to see me." He paused and added carefully: "If I'm still walking, of course."
"Hell, there won't be twenty-five gone when we get downstate," Olson said.
A silence fell among them at that. Garraty knew it wasn't so, and he thought Olson did, too.
Two other boys received warnings, and in spite of what Olson had said, Garraty's heart lurched each time. He checked back on Stebbins. He was still at the rear, and eating another jelly sandwich. There was a third sandwich jutting from the pocket of his ragged green sweater. Garraty wondered if his mother had made them, and he thought of the cookies his own mother had given him-pressed on him, as if warding off evil spirits.
"Why don't they let people watch the start of a Long Walk?" Garraty asked.
"Spoils the Walkers' concentration," a sharp voice said.
Garraty turned his head. It was a small dark, intense-looking boy with the number 5 pressed to the collar of his jacket. Garraty couldn't remember his name. "Concentration?" he said.
"Yes." The boy moved up beside Garraty. "The Major has said it is very important to concentrate on calmness at the beginning of a Long Walk." He pressed his thumb reflectively against the end of his rather sharp nose. There was a bright red pimple there. "I agree. Excitement, crowds, TV later. Right now all we need to do is focus." He stared at Garraty with his hooded dark brown eyes and said it again. "Focus."
"All I'm focusing on is pickin' 'em up and layin' 'em down," Olson said.
5 looked insulted. "You have to pace yourself. You have to focus on yourself. You have to have a Plan. I'm Gary Barkovitch, by the way. My home is Washington, D.C."
"I'm John Carter," Olson said. "My home is Barsoom, Mars."
Barkovitch curled his lip in contempt and dropped back.
"There's one cuckoo in every clock, I guess," Olson said.
But Garraty thought Barkovitch was thinking pretty clearly-at least until one of the guards called out "Warning! Warning 5!" about five minutes later.
"I've got a stone in my shoe!" Barkovitch said waspishly.
The soldier didn't reply. He dropped off the halftrack and stood on the shoulder of the road opposite Barkovitch. In his hand he held a stainless steel chronometer just like the Major's. Barkovitch stopped completely and took off his shoe. He shook a tiny pebble out of it. Dark, intense, his olive-sallow face shiny with sweat, he paid no attention when the soldier called out, "Second warning, 5." Instead, he smoothed his sock carefully over the arch of his foot.
"Oh-oh," Olson said. They had all turned around and were walking backward.
Stebbins, still at the tag end, walked past Barkovitch without looking at him. Now Barkovitch was all alone, slightly to the right of the white line, retying his shoe.
"Third warning, 5. Final warning."
There was something in Garraty's belly that felt like a sticky ball of mucus. He didn't want to look, but he couldn't look away. He wasn't conserving energy whenever possible by walking backward, but he couldn't help that, either. He could almost feel Barkovitch's seconds shriveling away to nothing.
"Oh, boy," Olson said. "That dumb shit, he's gonna get his ticket."
But then Barkovitch was up. He paused to brush some road dirt from the knees of his pants. Then he broke into a trot, caught up with the group, and settled back into his walking pace. He passed Stebbins, who still didn't look at him, and caught up with Olson.
He grinned, brown eyes glittering. "See? I just got myself a rest. It's all in my Plan."
"Maybe you think so," Olson said, his voice higher than usual. "All I see that you got is three warnings. For your lousy minute and a half you got to walk three fucking hours. And why in hell did you need a rest? We just started, for Chrissake!"
Barkovitch looked insulted. His eyes burned at Olson. "We'll see who gets his ticket first, you or me," he said. "It's all in my Plan."
"Your Plan and the stuff that comes out of my asshole bear a suspicious resemblance to each other," Olson said, and Baker chuckled.
With a snort, Barkovitch strode past them.
Olson couldn't resist a parting shot. "Just don't stumble, buddy. They don't warn you again. They just..."
Barkovitch didn't even look back and Olson gave up, disgusted.
At thirteen past nine by Garraty's watch (he had taken the trouble to set it back the one minute), the Major's jeep breasted the hill they had just started down. He came past them on the shoulder opposite the pacing halftrack and raised a battery-powered loudhailer to his lips.
"I'm pleased to announce that you have finished the first mile of your journey, boys. I'd also like to remind you that the longest distance a full complement of Walkers has ever covered is seven and three-quarters miles. I'm hoping you'll better that."
The jeep spurted ahead. Olson appeared to be considering this news with startled, even fearful, wonder. Not even eight miles, Garraty thought. It wasn't nearly as far as he would have guessed. He hadn't expected anyone-not even Stebbins to get a ticket until late afternoon at least. He thought of Barkovitch. All he had to do was fall below speed once in the next hour.
"Ray?" It was Art Baker. He had taken off his coat and slung it over one arm. "Any particular reason you came on the Long Walk?"
Garraty unclipped his canteen and had a quick swallow of water. It was cool and good. It left beads of moisture on his upper lip and he licked them off. It was good, good to feel things like that.
"I don't really know," he said truthfully.
"Me either." Baker thought for a moment. "Did you go out for track or anything? In school?"
"Me either. But I guess it don't matter, does it? Not now."
"No, not now," Garraty asked.
Conversation lulled. They passed through a small village with a country store and a gas station. Two old men sat on folding lawn-chairs outside the gas station, watching them with hooded and reptilian old men's eyes. On the steps of the country store, a young woman held up her tiny son so he could see them. And a couple of older kids, around twelve, Garraty judged, watched them out of sight wistfully.
Some of the boys began to speculate about how much ground they had covered. The word came back that a second pacer halftrack had been dispatched to cover the half a dozen boys in the vanguard they were now completely out of sight. Someone said they were doing seven miles an hour. Someone else said it was ten. Someone told them authoritatively that a guy up ahead was flagging and had been warned twice. Garraty wondered why they weren't catching up to him if that was true.
Olson finished the Waifa chocolate bar he had started back at the border and drank some water. Some of the others were also eating, but Garraty decided to wait until he was really hungry. He had heard the concentrates were quite good. The astronauts got them when they went into space.
A little after ten o'clock, they passed a sign that said LIMESTONE 10 MI. Garraty thought about the only Long Walk his father had ever let him go to. They went to Freeport and watched them walk through. His mother had been with them. The Walkers were tired and hollow-eyed and barely conscious of the cheering and the waving signs and the constant hoorah as people cheered on their favorites and those on whom they had wagered. His father told him later that day that people lined the roads from Bangor on. Up-country it wasn't so interesting, and the road was strictly cordoned off-maybe so they could concentrate on being calm, as Barkovitch had said. But as time passed, it got better, of course.
When the Walkers passed through Freeport that year they had been on the road over seventy-two hours. Garraty had been ten and overwhelmed by everything. The Major had made a speech to the crowd while the boys were still five miles out of town. He began with Competition, progressed to Patriotism, and finished with something called the Gross National Product-Gar racy had laughed at that, because to him gross meant something nasty, like boogers. He had eaten six hotdogs and when he finally saw the Walkers coming he had wet his pants.
One boy had been screaming. That was his most vivid memory. Every time he put his foot down he had screamed: I can't. I CAN'T. I can't. I CAN'T. But he went on walking. They all did, and pretty soon the last of them had gone past L. L. Bean's on U.S. 1 and out of sight. Garraty had been mildly disappointed at not seeing anyone get a ticket. They had never gone to another Long Walk. Later that night Garraty had heard his father shouting thickly at someone into the telephone, the way he did when he was being drunk or political, and his mother in the background, her conspiratorial whisper, begging him to stop, please stop, before someone picked up the party line.
Garraty drank some more water and wondered how Barkovitch was making it.
They were passing more houses now. Families sat out on their front lawns, smiling, waving, drinking Coca-Colas.
"Garraty," McVries said. "My, my, look what you got."
A pretty girl of about sixteen in a white blouse and red-checked pedal pushers was holding up a big Magic Marker sign: GO-GO-GARRATY NUMBER 47 We Love You Ray "Maine's Own."
Garraty felt his heart swell. He suddenly knew he was going to win. The unnamed girl proved it.
Olson whistled wetly, and began to slide his stiff index finger rapidly in and out of his loosely curled fist. Garraty thought that was a pretty goddam sick thing to be doing.
To hell with Hint 13. Garraty ran over to the side of the road. The girl saw his number and squealed. She threw herself at him and kissed him hard. Garraty was suddenly, sweatily aroused. He kissed back vigorously. The girl poked her tongue into his mouth twice, delicately. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he put one hand on a round buttock and squeezed gently.
"Warning! Warning 47!"
Garraty stepped back and grinned. "Thanks."
"Oh oh oh sure!" Her eyes were starry.
He tried to think of something else to say, but he could see the soldier opening his mouth to give him the second warning. He trotted back to his place, panting a little and grinning. He felt a little guilty after Hint 13 just the same, though.
Olson was also grinning. "For that I would have taken three warnings."
Garraty didn't answer, but he turned around and walked backward and waved to the girl. When she was out of sight he turned around and began to walk firmly. An hour before his warning would be gone. He must be careful not to get another one. But he felt good. He felt fit. He felt like he could walk all the way to Florida. He started to walk faster.
"Ray." McVries was still smiling. "What's your hurry?"
Yeah, that was right. Hint 6: Slow and easy does it. "Thanks."
McVries went on smiling. "Don't thank me too much. I'm out to win, too."
Garraty stared at him, disconcerted.
"I mean, let's not put this on a Three Musketeers basis. I like you and it's obvious you're a big hit with the pretty girls. But if you fall over, I won't pick you up."
"Yeah." He smiled back, but his smile felt lame.
"On the other hand," Baker drawled softly, "we're all in this together and we might as well keep each other amused."
McVries smiled. "Why not?"
They came to an upslope and saved their breath for walking. Halfway up, Garraty took off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder. A few moments later they passed someone's discarded sweater lying on the road. Someone, Garraty thought, is going to wish they had that tonight. Up ahead, a couple of the point Walkers were losing ground.
Garraty concentrated on picking them up and putting them down. He still felt good. He felt strong. |
[ Let's Make a Deal ]
"I'm Harkness. Number49. You're Garraty. Number 47. Right?"
Garraty looked at Harkness, who wore glasses and had a crewcut. Harkness's face was red and sweaty. "That's right."
Harkness had a notebook. He wrote Garraty's name and number in it. The script was strange and jerky, bumping up and down as he walked. He ran into a fellow named Collie Parker who told him to watch where the fuck he was going. Garraty suppressed a smile.
"I'm taking down everyone's name and number," Harkness said. When he looked up, the midmorning sun sparkled on the lenses of his glasses, and Garraty had to squint to see his face. It was 10:30, and they were 8 miles out of Limestone, and they had only 1.75 miles to go to beat the record of the farthest distance traveled by a complete Long Walk group.
"I suppose you're wondering why I'm writing down everyone's name and number," Harkness said.
"You're with the Squads," Olson cracked over his shoulder.
"No, I'm going to write a book," Harkness said pleasantly. "When this is all over, I'm going to write a book."
Garraty grinned. "If you win you're going to write a book, you mean."
Harkness shrugged. "Yes, I suppose. But look at this: a book about the Long Walk from an insider's point of view could make me a rich man."
McVries burst out laughing. "If you win, you won't need a book to make you a rich man, will you?"
Harkness frowned. "Well I suppose not. But it would still make one heck of an interesting book, I think."
They walked on, and Harkness continued taking names and numbers. Most gave them willingly enough, joshing him about the great book.
Now they had come six miles. The word came back that it looked good for breaking the record. Garraty speculated briefly on why they should want to break the record anyhow. The quicker the competition dropped out, the better the odds became for those remaining. He supposed it was a matter of pride. The word also came back that thundershowers were forecast for the afternoon-someone had a transistor radio, Garraty supposed. If it was true, it was bad news. Early May thundershowers weren't the warmest.
They kept walking.
McVries walked firmly, keeping his head up and swinging his arms slightly. He had tried the shoulder, but fighting the loose soil there had made him give it up. He hadn't been warned, and if the knapsack was giving him any trouble or chafing, he showed no sign. His eyes were always searching the horizon. When they passed small clusters of people, he waved and smiled his thin-lipped smile. He showed no signs of tiring.
Baker ambled along, moving in a kind of knee-bent shuffle that seemed to cover the ground when you weren't looking. He swung his coat idly, smiled at the pointing people, and sometimes whistled a low snatch of some tune or other. Garraty thought he looked like he could go on forever.
Olson wasn't talking so much anymore, and every few moments he would bend one knee swiftly. Each time Garraty could hear the joint pop. Olson was stiffening up a little, Garraty thought, beginning to show six miles of walking. Garraty judged that one of his canteens must be almost empty. Olson would have to pee before too long.
Barkovitch kept up the same jerky pace, now ahead of the main group as if to catch up with the vanguard Walkers, now dropping back toward Stebbins's position on drag. He lost one of his three warnings and gained it back five minutes later. Garraty decided he must like it there on the edge of nothing.
Stebbins just kept on walking off by himself. Garraty hadn't seen him speak to anybody. He wondered if Stebbins was lonely or tired. He still thought Stebbins would fold up early-maybe first-although he didn't know why he thought so. Stebbins had taken off the old green sweater, and he carried the last jelly sandwich in his hand. He looked at no one. His face was a mask.
They walked on.
The road was crossed by another, and policemen were holding up traffic as the Walkers passed. They saluted each Walker, and a couple of the boys, secure in their immunity, thumbed their noses. Garnaty didn't approve. He smiled and nodded to acknowledge the police and wondered if the police thought they were all crazy.
The cars honked, and then some woman yelled out to her son. She had parked beside the road, apparently waiting to make sure her boy was still along for the Walk.
"Percy! Percy!"
It was 31. He blushed, then waved a little, and then hurried on with his head slightly bent. The woman tried to run out into the road. The guards on the top deck of the halftrack stiffened, but one of the policemen caught her arm and restrained her gently. Then the road curved and the intersection was out of sight.
They passed across a wooden-slatted bridge. A small brook gurgled its way underneath. Garraty walked close to the railing, and looking over he could see, for just a moment, a distorted image of his own face.
They passed a sign which read LIMESTONE 7 MI. and then under a rippling banner which said LIMESTONE IS PROUD TO WELCOME THE LONG WALKERS. Garraty figured they had to be less than a mile from breaking the record.
Then the word came back, and this time the word was about a boy named Curley, number 7. Curley had a charley horse and had already picked up his first warning. Garraty put on some speed and came even with McVries and Olson. "Where is he?"
Olson jerked his thumb at a skinny, gangling boy in blue-jeans. Curley had been trying to cultivate sideburns. The sideburns had failed. His lean and earnest face was now set in lines of terrific concentration, and he was staring at his right leg. He was favoring it. He was losing ground and his face showed it.
"Warning! Warning 7!"
Curley began to force himself faster. He was panting a little. As much from fear as from his exertions, Garraty thought. Garraty lost all track of time. He forgot everything but Curley. He watched him struggle, realizing in a numb sort of way that this might be his struggle an hour from now or a day from now.
It was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen.
Curley fell back slowly, and several warnings were issued to others before the group realized they were adjusting to his speed in their fascination. Which meant Curley was very close to the edge.
"Warning! Warning 7! Third warning, 7!"
"I've got a charley horse!" Curley shouted hoarsely. "It ain't no fair if you've got a charley horse!"
He was almost beside Garraty now. Garraty could see Curley's adam's apple going up and down. Curley was massaging his leg frantically. And Garraty could smell panic coming off Curley in waves, and it was like the smell of a ripe, freshly cut lemon.
Garraty began to pull ahead of him, and the next moment Curley exclaimed: "Thank God! She's loosening!"
No one said anything. Garraty felt a grudging disappointment. It was mean, and unsporting, he supposed, but he wanted to be sure someone got a ticket before he did. Who wants to bow out first?
Garraty's watch said five past eleven now. He supposed that meant they had beaten the record, figuring two hours times four miles an hour. They would be in Limestone soon. He saw Olson flex first one knee, then the other, again. Curious, he tried it himself. His knee joints popped audibly, and he was surprised to find how much stiffness had settled into them. Still, his feet didn't hurt. That was something.
They passed a milk truck parked at the head of a small dirt feeder road. The milkman was sitting on the hood. He waved good-naturedly. "Go to it, boys!"
Garraty felt suddenly angry. Felt like yelling. Why don't you just get up off your fat ass and go to it with us? But the milkman was past eighteen. In fact, he looked well past thirty. He was old.
"Okay, everybody, take five," Olson cracked suddenly, and got some laughs.
The milk truck was out of sight. There were more roads now, more policemen and people honking and waving. Someone threw confetti. Garraty began to feel important. He was, after all, "Maine's Own."
Suddenly Curley screamed. Garraty looked back over his shoulder. Curley was doubled over, holding his leg and screaming. Somehow, incredibly, he was still walking, but very slowly. Much too slowly.
Everything went slowly then, as if to match the way Curley was walking. The soldiers on the back of the slow-moving halftrack raised their guns. The crowd gasped, as if they hadn't known this was the way it was, and the Walkers gasped, as if they hadn't known, and Garraty gasped with them, but of course he had known, of course they had all known, it was very simple, Curley was going to get his ticket.
The safeties clicked off. Boys scattered from around Curley like quail. He was suddenly alone on the sunwashed road.
"It isn't fair!" he screamed. "It just isn't fair!"
The walking boys entered a leafy glade of shadow, some of them looking back, some of them looking straight ahead, afraid to see. Garraty was looking. He had to look. The scatter of waving spectators had fallen silent as if someone had simply clicked them all off.
"It isn't—"
Four carbines fired. They were very loud. The noise traveled away like bowling balls, struck the hills, and rolled back.
Curley's angular, pimply head disappeared in a hammersmash of blood and brains and flying skull-fragments. The rest of him fell forward on the white line like a sack of mail.
99 now, Garraty thought sickly. 99 bottles of beer on the wall and if one of those bottles should happen to fall oh Jesus oh Jesus.
Stebbins stepped over the body. His foot slid a little in some of the blood, and his next step with that foot left a bloody track, like a photograph in an Official Detective magazine. Stebbins didn't look down at what was left of Curley. His face didn't change expression. Stebbins, you bastard, Garraty thought, you were supposed to get your ticket first, didn't you know? Then Garraty looked away. He didn't want to be sick. He didn't want to vomit.
A woman beside a Volkswagen bus put her face in her hands. She made odd noises in her throat, and Garraty found he could look right up her dress to her underpants. Her blue underpants. Inexplicably, he found himself aroused again. A fat man with a bald head was staring at Curley and rubbing frantically at a wart beside his ear. He wet his large, thick lips and went on looking and rubbing the wart. He was still looking when Garraty passed him by.
They walked on. Garraty found himself walking with Olson, Baker, and McVries again. They were almost protectively bunched up. All of them were looking straight ahead now, their faces carefully expressionless. The echoes of the carbines seemed to hang in the air still. Garraty kept thinking about the bloody footprint that Stebbins's tennis shoe had left. He wondered if it was still tracking red, almost turned his head to look, then told himself not to be a fool. But he couldn't help wondering. He wondered if it had hurt Curley. He wondered if Curley had felt the gas-tipped slugs hitting home or if he had just been alive one second and dead the next.
But of course it had hurt. It had hurt before, in the worst, rupturing way, knowing there would be no more you but the universe would roll on just the same, unharmed and unhampered.
The word came back that they had made almost nine miles before Curley bought his ticket. The Major was said to be as pleased as punch. Garraty wondered how anyone could know where the hell the Major was.
He looked back suddenly, wanting to know what was being done with Curley's body, but they had already rounded another curve. Curley was out of sight.
"What have you got in that packsack?" Baker asked McVries suddenly. He was making an effort to be strictly conversational, but his voice was high and reedy, near to cracking.
"A fresh shirt," McVries said. "And some raw hamburger."
"Raw hamburger—" Olson made a sick face.
"Good fast energy in raw hamburger," McVries said.
"You're off your trolley. You'll puke all over the place."
McVries only smiled.
Garraty kind of wished he had brought some raw hamburger himself. He didn't know about fast energy, but he liked raw hamburger. It beat chocolate bars and concentrates. Suddenly he thought of his cookies, but after Curley he wasn't very hungry. After Curley, could he really have been thinking about eating raw hamburger?
The word that one of the Walkers had been ticketed out ran through the spectators, and for some reason they began to cheer even more loudly. Thin applause crackled like popcorn. Garraty wondered if it was embarrassing, being shot in front of people, and guessed by the time you got to that you probably didn't give a tin whistle. Curley hadn't looked as if he gave a tin whistle, certainly. Having to relieve yourself, though. That would be bad. Garraty decided not to think about that.
The hands on his watch now stood firmly straight up at noon. They crossed a rusty iron bridge spanning a high, dry gorge, and on the other side was a sign reading: ENTERING LIMESTONE CITY LIMITS-WELCOME, LONG WALKERS!
Some of the boys cheered, but Garraty saved his breath.
The road widened and the Walkers spread across it comfortably, the groups loosening up a little. After all, Curley was three miles back now.
Garraty took out his cookies, and for a moment turned the foil package over in his hands. He thought homesickly of his mother, then stuffed the feeling aside.
He would see Mom and Jan in Freeport. That was a promise. He ate a cookie and felt a little better.
"You know something?" McVries said.
Garraty shook his head. He took a swig from his canteen and waved at an elderly couple sitting beside the road with a small cardboard GARRATY sign.
"I have no idea what I'll want if I do win this," McVries said. "There's nothing that I really need. I mean, I don't have a sick old mother sitting home or a father on a kidney machine, or anything. I don't even have a little brother dying gamely of leukemia." He laughed and unstrapped his canteen.
"You've got a point there," Garraty agreed.
"You mean I don't have a point there. The whole thing is pointless."
"You don't really mean that," Garraty said confidently. "If you had it to do all over again—"
"Yeah, yeah, I'd still do it, but—"
"Hey!" The boy ahead of them, Pearson, pointed. "Sidewalks!"
They were finally coming into the town proper. Handsome houses set back from the road looked down at them from the vantage of ascending green lawns. The lawns were crowded with people, waving and cheering. It seemed to Garraty that almost all of them were sitting down. Sitting on the ground, on lawn chairs like the old men back at the gas station, sitting on picnic tables. Even sitting on swings and porch gliders. He felt a touch of jealous anger.
Go ahead and wave your asses off. I'll be damned if I'll wave back anymore. Hint 13. Conserve energy whenever possible.
But finally he decided he was being foolish. People might decide he was getting snotty. He was, after all, "Maine's Own." He decided he would wave to all the people with GARRATY signs. And to all the pretty girls.
Sidestreets and cross-streets moved steadily past. Sycamore Street and Clark Avenue, Exchange Street and Juniper Lane. They passed a corner grocery with a Narragansett beer sign in the window, and a five-and-dime plastered with pictures of the Major.
The sidewalks were lined with people, but thinly lined. On the whole, Garraty was disappointed. He knew the real crowds would come further down the line, but it was still something of a wet firecracker. And poor old Curley had missed even this.
The Major's jeep suddenly spurted out of a sidestreet and began pacing the main group. The vanguard was still some distance ahead.
A tremendous cheer went up. The Major nodded and smiled and waved to the crowd. Then he made a neat left-face and saluted the boys. Garraty felt a thrill go straight up his back. The Major's sunglasses glinted in the early afternoon sunlight.
The Major raised the battery-powered loudhailer to his lips. "I'm proud of you, boys. Proud!"
From somewhere behind Garraty a voice said softly but clearly: "Diddly shit."
Garraty turned his head, but there was no one back there but four or five boys watching the Major intently (one of them realized he was saluting and dropped his hand sheepishly), and Stebbins. Stebbins did not even seem to be looking at the Major.
The jeep roared ahead. A moment later the Major was gone again.
They reached downtown Limestone around twelve-thirty. Garraty was disappointed. It was pretty much of a one-hydrant town. There was a business section and three used-car lots and a McDonalds and a Burger King and a Pizza Hut and an industrial park and that was Limestone.
"It isn't very big, is it?" Baker said.
Olson laughed.
"It's probably a nice place to live," Garraty said defensively.
"God spare me from nice places to live," McVries said, but he was smiling.
"Well, what turns you on," Garraty said lamely.
By one o'clock, Limestone was a memory. A small swaggering boy in patched denim overalls walked along with them for almost a mile, then sat down and watched them go by.
The country grew hillier. Garraty felt the first real sweat of the day coming out on him. His shirt was patched to his back. On his right, thunderheads were forming, but they were still far away. There was a light, circulating breeze, and that helped a little.
"What's the next big town, Garraty?" McVries asked.
"Caribou, I guess." He was wondering if Stebbins had eaten his last sandwich yet. Stebbins had gotten into his head like a snatch of pop music that goes around and around until you think you're going to go crazy with it. It was one-thirty. The Long Walk had progressed through eighteen miles.
"How far's that?" Garraty wondered what the record was for miles walked with only one Walker punched out. Eighteen miles seemed pretty good to him. Eighteen miles was a figure a man could be proud of. I walked eighteen miles. Eighteen.
"I said—" McVries began patiently.
"Maybe thirty miles from here."
"Thirty," Pearson said. "Jesus."
"It's a bigger town than Limestone," Garraty said. He was still feeling defensive, God knew why. Maybe because so many of these boys would die here, maybe all of them. Probably all of them. Only six Long Walks in history had ended over the state line in New Hampshire, and only one had gotten into Massachusetts, and the experts said that was like Hank Aaron hitting seven hundred and thirty home runs, or whatever it was a record that would never be equaled. Maybe he would die here, too. Maybe he would. But that was different. Native soil. He had an idea the Major would like that. "He died on his native soil."
He tipped his canteen up and found it was empty. "Canteen!" he called. "47 calling for a canteen!"
One of the soldiers jumped off the halftrack and brought over a fresh canteen. When he turned away, Garraty touched the carbine slung over the soldier's back. He did it furtively. But McVries saw him.
"Why'd you do that?"
Garraty grinned and felt confused. "I don't know. Like knocking on wood, maybe."
"You're a dear boy, Ray," McVries said, and then put on some speed and caught up with Olson, leaving Garraty to walk alone, feeling more confused than ever.
Number 93-Garraty didn't know his name-walked past him on Garraty's right. He was staring down at his feet and his lips moved soundlessly as he counted his paces. He was weaving slightly.
"Hi," Garraty said.
93 cringed. There was a blankness in his eyes, the same blankness that had been in Curley's eyes while he was losing his fight with the charley horse. He's tired, Garraty thought. He knows it, and he's scared. Garraty suddenly felt his stomach tip over and right itself slowly.
Their shadows walked alongside them now. It was quarter of two. Nine in the morning, cool, sitting on the grass in the shade, was a month back.
At just before two, the word came back again. Garraty was getting a firsthand lesson in the psychology of the grapevine. Someone found something out, and suddenly it was all over. Rumors were created by mouth-to-mouth respiration. It looks like rain. Chances are it's going to rain. It's gonna rain pretty soon. The guy with the radio says it's gonna shit potatoes pretty quick. But it was funny how often the grapevine was right. And when the word came back that someone was slowing up, that someone was in trouble, the grapevine was always right.
This time the word was that number 9, Ewing, had developed blisters and had been warned twice. Lots of boys had been warned, but that was normal. The word was that things looked bad for Ewing.
He passed the word to Baker, and Baker looked surprised. "The black fella?" Baker said. "So black he looks soma blue?"
Garraty said he didn't know if Ewing was black or white.
"Yeah, he's black," Pearson said. He pointed to Ewing. Garraty could see tiny jewels of perspiration gleaming in Ewing's natural. With something like horror, Garraty observed that Ewing was wearing sneakers.
Hint 3: Do not, repeat, do not wear sneakers. Nothing will give you blisters faster than sneakers on a Long Walk.
"He rode up with us," Baker said. "He's from Texas."
Baker picked up his pace until he was walking with Ewing. He talked with Ewing for quite a while. Then he dropped back slowly to avoid getting warned himself. His face was bleak. "He started to blister up two miles out. They started to break back in Limestone. He's walkin' in pus from broken blisters."
They all listened silently. Garraty thought of Stebbins again. Stebbins was wearing tennis shoes. Maybe Stebbins was fighting blisters right now.
"Warning! Warning 9! This is your third warning, 9!"
The soldiers were watching Ewing carefully now. So were the Walkers. Ewing was in the spotlight. The back of his T-shirt, startlingly white against his black skin, was sweat-stained gray straight down the middle. Garraty could see the big muscles in his back ripple as he walked. Muscles enough to last for days, and Baker said he was walking in pus. Blisters and charley horses. Garraty shivered. Sudden death. All those muscles, all the training, couldn't stop blisters and charley horses. What in the name of God had Ewing been thinking about when he put on those P.F. Flyers?
Barkovitch joined them. Barkovitch was looking at Ewing, too. "Blisters!" He made it sound like Ewing's mother was a whore. "What the hell can you expect from a dumb nigger? Now I ask you."
"Move away," Baker said evenly, "or I'll poke you."
"It's against the rules," Barkovitch said with a smirk. "Keep it in mind, cracker." But he moved away. It was as if he took a small poison cloud with him.
Two o'clock became two-thirty. Their shadows got longer. They walked up a long hill, and at the crest Garraty could see low mountains, hazy and blue, in the distance. The encroaching thunderheads to the west were darker now, and the breeze had stiffened, making his flesh goosebump as the sweat dried on him.
A group of men clustered around a Ford pickup trick with a camper on the back cheered them crazily. The men were all very drunk. They all waved back at the men, even Ewing. They were the first spectators they had seen since the swaggering little boy in the patched overalls.
Garraty broke open a concentrate tube without reading the label and ate it. It tasted slightly porky. He thought about McVries's hamburger. He thought about a great big chocolate cake with a cherry on the top. He thought about flapjacks. For some crazy reason he wanted a cold flapjack full of apple jelly. The cold lunch his mother always made when he and his father went hunting in November.
Ewing bought a hole about ten minutes later.
He was clustered in with a group of boys when he fell below speed for the last time. Maybe he thought the boys would protect him. The soldiers did their job well. The soldiers were experts. They pushed the other boys aside. They dragged Ewing over to the shoulder. Ewing tried to fight, but not much. One of the soldiers pinned Ewing's arms behind him while the other put his carbine up to Ewing's head and shot him. One leg kicked convulsively.
"He bleeds the same color as anyone else," McVries said suddenly. It was very loud in the stillness after the single shot. His adam's apple bobbed, and something clicked in his throat.
Two of them gone now. The odds infinitesimally adjusted in favor of those remaining. There was some subdued talk, and Garraty wondered again what they did with the bodies.
You wonder too goddam much! he shouted at himself suddenly.
And realized he was tired. |
[ Jeopardy ]
It was three o'clock when the first drops of rain fell on the road, big and dark and round. The sky overhead was tattered and black, wild and fascinating. Thunder clapped hands somewhere above the clouds. A blue fork of lightning went to earth somewhere up ahead.
Garraty had donned his coat shortly after Ewing had gotten his ticket, and now he zipped it and turned up his collar. Harkness, the potential author, had carefully stowed his notebook in a Baggie. Barkovitch had put on a yellow vinyl rainhat. There was something incredible about what it did to his face, but you would have been hard put to say just what. He peered out from beneath it like a truculent lighthouse keeper.
There was a stupendous crack of thunder. "Here it comes!" Olson cried.
The rain came pouring down. For a few moments it was so heavy that Garraty found himself totally isolated inside an undulating shower curtain. He was immediately soaked to the skin. His hair became a dripping pelt. He turned his face up into the rain, grinning. He wondered if the soldiers could see them. He wondered if a person might conceivably—
While he was still wondering, the first vicious onslaught let up a little and he could see again. He looked over his shoulder at Stebbins. Stebbins was walking hunched over, his hands hooked against his belly, and at first Garraty thought he had a cramp. For a moment Garraty was in the grip of a strong panicky feeling. nothing at all like he had felt when Curley and Ewing bought it. He didn't wane Stebbins to fold up early anymore.
Then he saw Stebbins was only protecting the last half of his jelly sandwich. and he faced forward again, feeling relieved. He decided Stebbins must have a pretty stupid mother not to wrap his goddam sandwiches in foil, just in case of rain.
Thunder cracked stridently, artillery practice in the sky. Garraty felt exhilarated, and some of his tiredness seemed to wash away with the sweat from his body. The rain came again, hard and pelting, and finally let off into a steady drizzle. Overhead, the clouds began to tatter.
Pearson was now walking beside him. He hitched up his pants. He was wearing jeans that were too big for him and he hitched up his pants often. He wore horn-rimmed glasses with lenses like the bottoms of Coke bottles, and now he whipped them off and began to clean them on the tail of his shirt. He goggled in that myopic, defenseless way that people with very poor eyesight have when their glasses are off. "Enjoy your shower, Garraty?"
Garraty nodded. Up ahead, McVries was urinating. He was walking backward while he did it, spraying the shoulder considerately away from the others.
Garraty looked up at the soldiers. They were wet, too, of course, but if they were uncomfortable, they didn't show it. Their faces were perfectly wooden. I wonder what it feels like, he thought, just to shoot someone down. I wonder if it makes them feel powerful. He remembered the girl with the sign, kissing her, feeling her ass. Feeling her smooth underpants under her pedal pushers. That had made him feel powerful.
"That guy back there sure doesn't say much, does he?" Baker said suddenly. He jerked a thumb at Stebbins. Stebbins's purple pants were almost black now that they were soaked through.
"No. No, he doesn't."
McVries pulled a warning for slowing down too much to zip up his fly. They pulled even with him, and Baker repeated what he had said about Stebbins.
"He's a loner, so what?" McVries said, and shrugged. "I think—"
"Hey," Olson broke in. It was the first thing he had said in some time, and he sounded queer. "My legs feel funny."
Garraty looked at Olson closely and saw the seedling panic in his eyes already. The look of bravado was gone. "How funny?" he asked.
"Like the muscles are all turning baggy."
"Relax," McVries said. "It happened to me a couple of hours ago. It passes off."
Relief showed in Olson's eyes. "Does it?"
"Yeah, sure it does."
Olson didn't say anything, but his lips moved. Garraty thought for a moment he was praying, but then he realized he was just counting his paces.
Two shots rang out suddenly. There was a cry, then a third shot.
They looked and saw a boy in a blue sweater and dirty white clamdiggers lying facedown in a puddle of water. One of his shoes had come off. Garraty saw he had been wearing white athletic socks. Hint 12 recommended them.
Garraty stepped over him, not looking too closely for holes. The word came back that this boy had died of slowing down. Not blisters or a charley horse, he had just slowed down once too often and got a ticket.
Garraty didn't know his name or number. He thought the word would come back on that, but it never did. Maybe nobody knew. Maybe he had been a loner like Stebbins.
Now they were twenty-five miles into the Long Walk. The scenery blended into a continuous mural of woods and fields, broken by an occasional house or a crossroads where waving, cheering people stood in spite of the dying drizzle. One old lady stood frozenly beneath a black umbrella, neither waving nor speaking nor smiling. She watched them go by with gimlet eyes. There was not a sign of life or movement about her except for the wind-twitched hem of her black dress. On the middle finger of her right hand she wore a large ring with a purple stone. There was a tarnished cameo at her throat.
They crossed a railroad track that had been abandoned long ago-the rails were rusty and witch-grass was growing in the cinders between the ties. Somebody stumbled and fell and was warned and got up and went on walking with a bleeding knee.
It was only nineteen miles to Caribou, but dark would come before that. No rest for the wicked, Garraty thought, and that struck him funny. He laughed.
McVries looked at him closely. "Getting tired?"
"No," Garraty said. "I've been tired for quite a while now." He looked at McVries with something like animosity. "You mean you're not?"
McVries said, "Just go on dancing with me like this forever, Garraty, and I'll never tire. We'll scrape our shoes on the stars and hang upside down from the moon."
He blew Garraty a kiss and walked away.
Garraty looked after him. He didn't know what to make of McVries.
By quarter of four the sky had cleared and there was a rainbow in the west, where the sun was sitting below gold-edged clouds. Slanting rays of the late afternoon sunlight colored the newly turned fields they were passing, making the furrows sharp and black where they contoured around the long, sloping hills.
The sound of the halftrack was quiet, almost soothing. Garraty let his head drop forward and semi-dozed as he walked. Somewhere up ahead was Freeport. Not tonight or tomorrow, though. Lot of steps. Long way to go. He found himself still with too many questions and not enough answers. The whole Walk seemed nothing but one looming question mark. He told himself that a thing like this must have some deep meaning. Surely it was so. A thing like this must provide an answer to every question; it was just a matter of keeping your foot on the throttle. Now if he could only—
He put his foot down in a puddle of water and started fully awake again. Pearson looked at him quizzically and pushed his glasses up on his nose. "You know that guy that fell down and cut himself when we were crossing the tracks?"
"Yeah. It was Zuck, wasn't it?"
"Yeah. I just heard he's still bleeding."
"How far to Caribou, Maniac?" somebody asked him. Garraty looked around. It was Barkovitch. He had tucked his rainhat into his back pocket where it flapped obscenely.
"How the hell should I know?"
"You live here, don't you?"
"It's about seventeen miles," McVries told him. "Now go peddle your papers, little man."
Barkovitch put on his insulted look and moved away.
"He's some hot ticket," Garraty said.
"Don't let him get under your skin," McVries replied. "Just concentrate on walking him into the ground."
"Okay, coach."
McVries patted Garraty on the shoulder. "You're going to win this one for the Gipper, my boy."
"It seems like we've been walking forever, doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
Garraty licked his lips, wanting to express himself and not knowing just how. "Did you ever hear that bit about a drowning man's life passing before his eyes?"
"I think I read it once. Or heard someone say it in a movie."
"Have you ever thought that might happen to us? On the Walk?"
McVries pretended to shudder. "Christ, I hope not."
Garraty was silent for a moment and then said, "Do you think... never mind. The hell with it."
"No, go on. Do I think what?"
"Do you think we could live the rest of our lives on this road? That's what I meant. The part we would have had if we hadn't you know."
McVries fumbled in his pocket and came up with a package of Mellow cigarettes. "Smoke?"
"I don't."
"Neither do I," McVries said, and then put a cigarette into his mouth. He found a book of matches with a tomato sauce recipe on it. He lit the cigarette, drew smoke in, and coughed it out. Garraty thought of Hint 10: Save your wind. If you smoke ordinarily, try not to smoke on the Long Walk.
"I thought I'd learn," McVries said defiantly.
"It's crap, isn't it?" Garraty said sadly.
McVries looked at him, surprised, and then threw the cigarette away. "Yeah," he said. "I think it is."
The rainbow was gone by four o'clock. Davidson, 8, dropped back with them. He was a good-looking boy except for the rash of acne on his forehead. "That guy Zuck's really hurting," Davidson said. He had had a packsack the last time Garraty saw him, but he noticed that at some point Davidson had cast it away.
"Still bleeding?" McVries asked.
"Like a stuck pig." Davidson shook his head. "It's funny the way things turn out, isn't it? You fall down any other time, you get a little scrape. He needs stitches." He pointed to the road. "Look at that."
Garraty looked and saw tiny dark spots on the drying hardtop. "Blood?"
"It ain't molasses," Davidson said grimly.
"Is he scared?" Olson asked in a dry voice.
"He says he doesn't give a damn," Davidson said. "But I'm scared." His eyes were wide and gray. "I'm scared for all of us."
They kept on walking. Baker pointed out another Garraty sign.
"Hot shit," Garraty said without looking up. He was following the trail of Zuck's blood, like Dan'1 Boone tracking a wounded Indian. It weaved slowly back and forth across the white line.
"McVries," Olson said. His voice had gotten softer in the last couple of hours. Garraty had decided he liked Olson in spite of Olson's brass-balls outer face. He didn't like to see Olson getting scared, but there could be no doubt that he was.
"What?" McVries said.
"It isn't going away. That baggy feeling I told you about. It isn't going away."
McVries didn't say anything. The scar on his face looked very white in the light of the setting sun.
"It feels like my legs could just collapse. Like a bad foundation. That won't happen, will it? Will it?" Olson's voice had gotten a little shrill.
McVries didn't say anything.
"Could I have a cigarette?" Olson asked. His voice was low again.
"Yeah. You can keep the pack."
Olson lit one of the Mellows with practiced ease, cupping the match, and thumbed his nose at one of the soldiers watching him from the halftrack. "They've been giving me the old hairy eyeball for the last hour or so. They've got a sixth sense about it." He raised his voice again. "You like it, don't you, fellas? You like it, right? That goddam right, is it?"
Several of the Walkers looked around at him and then looked away quickly. Garraty wanted to look away too. There was hysteria in Olson's voice. The soldiers looked at Olson impassively. Garraty wondered if the word would go back on Olson pretty quick, and couldn't repress a shudder.
By four-thirty they had covered thirty miles. The sun was half-gone, and it had turned blood red on the horizon. The thunderheads had moved east, and overhead the sky was a darkening blue. Garraty thought about his hypothetical drowning man again. Not so hypothetical at that. The coming night was like water that would soon cover them.
A feeling of panic rose in his gullet. He was suddenly and terribly sure that he was looking at the last daylight in his life. He wanted it to stretch out. He wanted it to last. He wanted the dusk to go on for hours.
"Warning! Warning 100! Your third warning, 100!"
Zuck looked around. There was a dazed, uncomprehending look in his eyes. His right pants leg was caked with dried blood. And then, suddenly, he began to sprint. He weaved through the Walkers like a broken-field runner carrying a football. He ran with that same dazed expression on his face.
The halftrack picked up speed. Zuck heard it coming and ran faster. It was a queer, shambling, limping run. The wound on his knee broke open again, and as he burst into the open ahead of the main pack, Garraty could see the drops of fresh blood splashing and flying from the cuff of his pants. Zuck ran up the next rise, and for a moment he was starkly silhouetted against the red sky, a galvanic black shape, frozen for a moment in midstride like a scarecrow in full flight. Then he was gone and the halftrack followed. The two soldiers that had dropped off it trudged along with the boys, their faces empty.
Nobody said a word. They only listened. There was no sound for a long time. An incredibly, unbelievably long time. Only a bird, and a few early May crickets, and somewhere behind them, the drone of a plane.
Then there was a single sharp report, a pause, then a second.
"Making sure," someone said sickly.
When they got up over the rise they saw the halftrack sitting on the shoulder half a mile away. Blue smoke was coming from its dual exhaust pipes. Of Zuck there was no sign. No sign at all.
"Where's the Major?" someone screamed. The voice was on the raw edge of panic. It belonged to a bulletheaded boy named Gribble, number 48. "I want to see the Major, goddammit! Where is he?"
The soldiers walking along the verge of the road did not answer. No one answered.
"Is he making another speech?" Gribble stormed. "Is that what he's doing? Well, he's a murderer! That's what he is, a murderer! I I'll tell him! You think I won't? I'll tell him to his face! I'll tell him right to his face!" In his excitement he had fallen below the pace, almost stopping, and the soldiers became interested for the first time.
"Warning! Warning 48!"
Gribble faltered to a stop, and then his legs picked up speed. He looked down at his feet as he walked. Soon they were up to where the halftrack waited. It began to crawl along beside them again.
At about 4:45, Garraty had supper-a tube of processed tuna fish, a few Snappy Crackers with cheese spread, and a lot of water. He had to force himself to stop there. You could get a canteen anytime, but there would be no fresh concentrates until tomorrow morning at nine o'clock and he might want a midnight snack. Hell, he might need a midnight snack.
"It may be a matter of life and death," Baker said, "but it sure isn't hurtin' your appetite any."
"Can't afford to let it," Garraty answered. "I don't like the idea of fainting about two o'clock tomorrow morning."
Now there was a genuinely unpleasant thought. You wouldn't know anything, probably. Wouldn't feel anything. You'd just wake up in eternity.
"Makes you think, doesn't it?" Baker said softly.
Garraty looked at him. In the fading daylight, Baker's face was soft and young and beautiful. "Yeah. I've been thinking about a whole hell of a lot of things."
"Such as?"
"Him, for one," Garraty said, and jerked his head toward Stebbins, who was still walking along at the same pace he had been walking at when they started out. His pants were drying on him. His face was shadowy. He was still saving his last half-sandwich.
"What about him?"
"I wonder why he's here, why he doesn't say anything. And whether he'll live or die."
"Garraty, we're all going to die."
"But hopefully not tonight," Garraty said. He kept his voice light, but a shudder suddenly wracked him. He didn't know if Baker saw it or not. His kidneys contracted. He turned around, unzipped his fly, and began walking backward.
"What do you think about the Prize?" Baker asked.
"I don't see much sense thinking about it," Garraty said, and began to urinate. He finished, zipped his fly, and turned around again, mildly pleased that he had accomplished the operation without drawing a warning.
"I think about it," Baker said dreamily. "Not so much the Prize itself as the money. All that money."
" Rich men don't enter the Kingdom of Heaven," Garraty said. He watched his feet, the only things that were keeping him from finding out if there really was a Kingdom of Heaven or not.
"Hallelujah," Olson said. "There'll be refreshments after the meetin'."
"You a religious fella?" Baker asked Garraty.
"No, not particularly. But I'm no money freak."
"You might be if you grew up on potato soup and collards," Baker said. "Sidemeat only when your daddy could afford the ammunition."
"Might make a difference," Garraty agreed, and then paused, wondering whether to say anything else. "But it's never really the important thing." He saw Baker looking at him uncomprehendingly and a little scornfully.
"You can't take it with you, that's your next line," McVries said.
Garraty glanced at him. McVries was wearing that irritating, slanted smile again. "It's true, isn't it?" he said. "We don't bring anything into the world and we sure as shit don't take anything out."
"Yes, but the period in between those two events is more pleasant in comfort, don't you think?" McVries said.
"Oh, comfort, shit," Garraty said. "If one of those goons riding that overgrown Tonka toy over there shot you, no doctor in the world could revive you with a transfusion of twenties or fifties."
"I ain't dead," Baker said softly.
"Yeah, but you could be." Suddenly it was very important to Garraty that he put this across. "What if you won? What if you spent the next six weeks planning what you were going to do with the cash-never mind the Prize, just the cash and what if the first time you went out to buy something, you got flattened by a taxicab?"
Harkness had come over and was now walking beside Olson. "Not me, babe," he said. "First thing I'd do is buy a whole fleet of Checkers. If I win this, I may never walk again."
"You don't understand," Garraty said, more exasperated than ever. "Potato soup or sirloin tips, a mansion or a hovel, once you're dead that's it, they put you on a cooling board like Zuck or Ewing and that's it. You're better to take it a day at a time, is all I'm saying. If people just took it a day at a time, they'd be a lot happier."
"Oh, such a golden flood of bullshit," McVries said.
"Is that so?" Garraty cried. "How much planning are you doing?"
"Well, right now I've sort of adjusted my horizons, that's true—"
"You bet it is," Garraty said grimly. "The only difference is we're involved in dying right now."
Total silence followed that. Harkness took off his glasses and began to polish them. Olson looked a shade paler. Garraty wished he hadn't said it; he had gone too far.
Then someone in back said quite clearly: "Hear, hear!"
Garraty looked around, sure it was Stebbins even though he had never heard Stebbins's voice. But Stebbins gave no sign. He was looking down at the road.
"I guess I got carried away," Garraty muttered, even though he wasn't the one who had gotten carried away. That had been Zuck. "Anyone want a cookie?"
He handed the cookies around, and it got to be five o'clock. The sun seemed to hang suspended halfway over the horizon. The earth might have stopped turning. The three or four eager beavers who were still ahead of the pack had dropped back until they were less than fifty yards ahead of the main group.
It seemed to Garraty that the road had become a sly combination of upgrades with no corresponding downs. He was thinking that if that were true they'd all end up breathing through oxygen faceplates before long when his foot came down on a discarded belt of food concentrates. Surprised, he looked up. It had been Olson's. His hands were twitching at his waist. There was a look of frowning surprise on his face.
"I dropped it," he said. "I wanted something to eat and I dropped it." He laughed, as if to show what a silly thing that had been. The laugh stopped abruptly. "I'm hungry," he said.
No one answered. By that time everyone had gone by and there was no chance to pick it up. Garraty looked back and saw Olson's food belt lying across the broken white passing line.
"I'm hungry," Olson repeated patiently.
The Major likes to see someone who's raring to rip, wasn't that what Olson had said when he came back from getting his number? Olson didn't look quite so raring to rip anymore. Garraty looked at the pockets of his own belt. He had three tubes of concentrate left, plus the Snappy Crackers and the cheese. The cheese was pretty cruddy, though.
"Here," he said, and gave Olson the cheese.
Olson didn't say anything, but he ate the cheese.
"Musketeer," McVries said, with that same slanted grin.
By five-thirty the air was smoky with twilight. A few early lightning bugs flitted aimlessly through the air. A groundfog had curdled milkily in the ditches and lower gullies of the fields. Up ahead someone asked what happened if it got so foggy you walked off the road by mistake.
Barkovitch's unmistakable voice came back quickly and nastily: "What do you think, Dumbo?"
Four gone, Garraty thought. Eight and a half hours on the road and only four gone. There was a small, pinched feeling in his stomach. I'll never outlast all of them, he thought. Not all of them. But on the other hand, why not? Someone had to.
Talk had faded with the daylight. The silence that set in was oppressive. The encroaching dark, the groundmist collecting into small, curdled pools for the first time it seemed perfectly real and totally unnatural, and he wanted either Jan or his mother, some woman, and he wondered what in the hell he was doing and how he ever could have gotten involved. He could not even kid himself that everything had not been up front, because it had been. And he hadn't even done it alone. There were currently ninety-five other fools in this parade.
The mucus ball was in his throat again, making it hard to swallow. He realized that someone up ahead was sobbing softly. He had not heard the sound begin, and no one had called his attention to it; it was as if it had been there all along.
Ten miles to Caribou now, and at least there would be lights. The thought cheered Garraty a little. It was okay after all, wasn't it? He was alive, and there was no sense thinking ahead to a time when he might not be. As McVries had said, it was all a matter of adjusting your horizons.
At quarter of six the word came back on a boy named Travin, one of the early leaders who was now falling slowly back through the main group. Travin had diarrhea. Garraty heard it and couldn't believe it was true, but when he saw Travin he knew that it was. The boy was walking and holding his pants up at the same time. Every time he squatted he picked up a warning, and Garraty wondered sickly why Travin didn't just let it roll down his legs. Better to be dirty than dead.
Travin was bent over, walking like Stebbins with his sandwich, and every time he shuddered Garraty knew that another stomach cramp was ripping through him. Garraty felt disgusted. There was no fascination in this, no mystery. It was a boy with a bellyache, that was all, and it was impossible to feel anything but disgust and a kind of animal terror. His own stomach rolled queasily.
The soldiers were watching Travin very carefully. Watching and waiting. Finally Travin half-squatted, half-fell, and the soldiers shot him with his pants down. Travin rolled over and grimaced at the sky, ugly and pitiful. Someone retched noisily and was warned. It sounded to Garraty as if he was spewing his belly up whole.
"He'll go next," Harkness said in a businesslike way.
"Shut up," Garraty choked thickly. "Can't you just shut up?"
No one replied. Harkness looked ashamed and began to polish his glasses again. The boy who vomited was not shot.
They passed a group of cheering teenagers sitting on a blanket and drinking Cokes. They recognized Garraty and gave him a standing ovation. It made him feel uncomfortable. One of the girls had very large breasts. Her boyfriend was watching them jiggle as she jumped up and down. Garraty decided that he was turning in to a sex maniac.
"Look at them jahoobies," Pearson said. "Dear, dear me.
Garraty wondered if she was a virgin, like he was.
They passed by a still, almost perfectly circular pond, faintly misted over. It looked like a gently clouded mirror, and in the mysterious tangle of water plants growing around the edge, a bullfrog croaked hoarsely. Garraty thought the pond was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.
"This is one hell of a big state," Barkovitch said someplace up ahead.
"That guy gives me a royal pain in the ass," McVries said solemnly. "Right now my one goal in life is to outlast him."
Olson was saying a Hail Mary.
Garraty looked at him, alarmed.
"How many warnings has he got?" Pearson asked.
"None that I know of," Baker said.
"Yeah, but he don't look so good."
"At this point, none of us do," McVries said.
Another silence fell. Garraty was aware for the first time that his feet hurt. Not just his legs, which had been troubling him for some time, but his feet. He noticed that he had been unconsciously walking on the outside of the soles, but every now and then he put a foot down flat and winced. He zipped his jacket all the way up and turned the collar against his neck. The air was still damp and raw.
"Hey! Over there!" McVries said cheerfully.
Garraty and the others looked to the left. They were passing a graveyard situated atop a small grassy knoll. A fieldstone wall surrounded it, and now the mist was creeping slowly around the leaning gravestones. An angel with a broken wing stared at them with empty eyes. A nuthatch perched atop a rust flaking flagholder left over from some patriotic holiday and looked them over perkily.
"Our first boneyard," McVries said. "It's on your side, Ray, you lose all your points. Remember that game?"
"You talk too goddam much," Olson said suddenly.
"What's wrong with graveyards, Henry, old buddy? A fine and private place, as the poet said. A nice watertight casket—"
"Just shut up!"
"Oh, pickles," McVries said. His scar flashed very white in the dying daylight. "You don't really mind the thought of dying, do you, Olson? Like the poet also said, it ain't the dying, it's laying in the grave so long. Is that what's bugging you, booby?" McVries began to trumpet. "Well, cheer up, Charlie! There's a brighter day com—"
"Leave him alone," Baker said quietly.
"Why should I? He's busy convincing himself he can crap out any time he feels like it. That if he just lays down and dies, it won't be as bad as everyone makes out. Well, I'm not going to let him get away with it."
"If he doesn't die, you will," Garraty said.
"Yeah, I'm remembering," McVries said, and gave Garraty his tight, slanted smile only this time there was absolutely no humor in it at all. Suddenly McVries looked furious, and Garraty was almost afraid of him. "He's the one that's forgetting. This turkey here."
"I don't want to do it anymore," Olson said hollowly. "I'm sick of it."
"Raring to rip," McVries said, turning on him. "Isn't that what you said? Fuck it, then. Why don't you just fall down and die then?"
"Leave him alone," Garraty said.
"Listen, Ray—"
"No, you listen. One Barkovitch is enough. Let him do it his own way. No musketeers, remember."
McVries smiled again. "Okay, Garraty. You win."
Olson didn't say anything. He just kept picking them up and laying them down.
Full dark had come by six-thirty. Caribou, now only six miles away, could be seen on the horizon as a dim glow. There were few people along the road to see them into town. They seemed to have all gone home to supper. The mist was chilly around Ray Garraty's feet. It hung over the hills in ghostly limp banners. The stars were coming brighter overhead, Venus glowing steadily, the Dipper in its accustomed place. He had always been good at the constellations. He pointed out Cassiopeia to Pear-son, who only grunted.
He thought about Jan, his girl, and felt a twinge of guilt about the girl he had kissed earlier. He couldn't remember exactly what that girl had looked like anymore, but she had excited him. Putting his hand on her ass like that had excited him-what would have happened if he had tried to put his hand between her legs? He felt a clockspring of pressure in his groin that made him wince a little as he walked.
Jan had long hair, almost to her waist. She was sixteen. Her breasts were not as big as those of the girl who had kissed him. He had played with her breasts a lot. It drove him crazy. She wouldn't let him make love to her, and he didn't know how to make her. She wanted to, but she wouldn't. Garraty knew that some boys could do that, could get a girl to go along, but he didn't seem to have quite enough personality-or maybe not quite enough will-to convince her. He wondered how many of the others here were virgins. Gribble had called the Major a murderer. He wondered if Gribble was a virgin. He decided Gribble probably was.
They passed the Caribou city limits. There was a large crowd there, and a news snick from one of the networks. A battery of lights bathed the road in a warm white glare. It was like walking into a sudden warm lagoon of sunlight, wading through it, and then emerging again.
A fat newspaperman in a three-piece suit trotted along with them, poking his long-reach microphone at different Walkers. Behind him, two technicians busily unreeled a drum of electric cable.
"How do you feel?"
"Okay. I guess I feel okay."
"Feeling tired?"
"Yeah, well, you know. Yeah. But I'm still okay."
"What do you think your chances are now?"
"I dunno okay, I guess. I still feel pretty strong."
He asked a big bull of a fellow, Scramm, what he thought of the Long Walk. Scramm grinned, said he thought it was the biggest fucking thing he'd ever seen, and the reporter made snipping motions with his fingers at the two technicians. One of them nodded back wearily.
Shortly afterward he ran out of microphone cable and began wending his way back toward the mobile unit, trying to avoid the tangles of unreeled cord. The crowd, drawn as much by the TV crew as by the Long Walkers themselves, cheered enthusiastically. Posters of the Major were raised and lowered rhythmically on sticks so raw and new they were still bleeding sap. When the cameras panned over them, they cheered more frantically than ever and waved to Aunt Betty and Uncle Fred.
They rounded a bend and passed a small shop where the owner, a little man wearing stained whites, had set up a soft drink cooler with a sign over it which read: ON THE HOUSE FOR THE LONG WALKERS! COURTESY OF "EV'S" MARKET! A police cruiser was parked close by, and two policemen were patiently explaining to Ev, as they undoubtedly did every year, that it was against the rules for spectators to offer any kind of aid or assistance-including soft drinks-to the Walkers.
They passed by the Caribou Paper Mills, Inc., a huge, soot-blackened building on a dirty river. The workers were lined up against the cyclone fences, cheering good-naturedly and waving. A whistle blew as the last of the Walkers-Stebbins passed by, and Garraty, looking back over his shoulder, saw them trooping inside again.
"Did he ask you?" a strident voice inquired of Garraty. With a feeling of great weariness, Garraty looked down at Gary Barkovitch.
"Did who ask me what?"
"The reporter, Dumbo. Did he ask you how you felt?"
"No, he didn't get to me." He wished Barkovitch would go away. He wished the throbbing pain in the soles of his feet would go away.
"They asked me," Barkovitch said. "You know what I told them?"
"Huh-uh."
"I told them I felt great," Barkovitch said aggressively. The rainhat was still flopping in his back pocket. "I told them I felt real strong. I told them I felt prepared to go on forever. And do you know what else I told them?"
"Oh, shut up," Pearson said.
"Who asked you, long, tall and ugly?" Barkovitch said.
"Go away," McVries said. "You give me a headache."
Insulted once more, Barkovitch moved on up the line and grabbed Collie Parker. "Did he ask you what—"
"Get out of here before I pull your fucking nose off and make you eat it," Collie Parker snarled. Barkovitch moved on quickly. The word on Collie Parker was that he was one mean son of a bitch.
"That guy drives me up the wall," Pearson said.
"He'd be glad to hear it," McVries said. "He likes it. He also told that reporter that he planned to dance on a lot of graves. He means it, too. That's what keeps him going."
"Next time he comes around I think I'll trip him," Olson said. His voice sounded dull and drained.
"Tut-tut," McVries said. "Rule 8, no interference with your fellow Walkers."
"You know what you can do with Rule 8," Olson said with a pallid smile.
"Watch out," McVries grinned, "you're starting to sound pretty lively again."
By 7 PM the pace, which had been lagging very close to the minimum limit, began to pick up a little. It was cool and if you walked faster you kept warmer. They passed beneath a turnpike overpass, and several people cheered them around mouthfuls of Dunkin' Donuts from the glass-walled shop situated near the base of the exit ramp.
"We join up with the turnpike someplace, don't we?" Baker asked.
"In Oldtown," Garraty said. "Approximately one hundred and twenty miles."
Harkness whistled through his teeth.
Not long after that, they walked into downtown Caribou. They were forty-four miles from their starting point. |
[ MC of The Gong Show ]
Everyone was disappointed with Caribou.
It was just like Limestone.
The crowds were bigger, but otherwise it was just another mill-pulp-and-service town with a scattering of stores and gas stations, one shopping center that was having, according to the signs plastered everywhere, OUR ANNUAL WALK-IN FOR VALUES SALE!, and a park with a war memorial in it. A small, evil-sounding high school band struck up the National Anthem, then a medley of Sousa marches, and then, with taste so bad it was almost grisly, Marching to Pretoria.
The same woman who had made a fuss at the crossroads so far back turned up again. She was still looking for Percy. This time she made it through the police cordon and right onto the road. She pawed through the boys, unintentionally tripping one of them up. She was yelling for her Percy to come home now. The soldiers went for their guns, and for a moment it looked very much as if Percy's mom was going to buy herself an interference ticket. Then a cop got an armlock on her and dragged her away. A small boy sat on a KEEP MAINE TIDY barrel and ate a hotdog and watched the cops put Percy's mom in a police cruiser. Percy's mom was the high point of going through Caribou.
"What comes after Oldtown, Ray?" McVries asked.
"I'm not a walking roadmap," Garraty said irritably. "Bangor, I guess. Then Augusta. Then Kittery and the state line, about three hundred and thirty miles from here. Give or take. Okay? I'm picked clean."
Somebody whistled. "Three hundred and thirty miles."
"It's unbelievable," Harkness said gloomily.
"The whole damn thing is unbelievable," McVries said. "I wonder where the Major is?"
"Shacked up in Augusta," Olson said.
They all grinned, and Garraty reflected how strange it was about the Major, who had gone from God to Mammon in just ten hours.
Ninety-five left. But that wasn't even the worst anymore. The worst was trying to visualize McVries buying it, or Baker. Or Harkness with his silly book idea. His mind shied away from the thought.
Once Caribou was behind them, the road became all but deserted. They walked through a country crossroads with a single lightpole rearing high above, spotlighting them and making crisp black shadows as they passed through the glare. Far away a train whistle hooted. The moon cast a dubious light on the groundfog, leaving it pearly and opalescent in the fields.
Garraty took a drink of water.
"Warning! Wanting 12! This is your final warning, 12!"
12 was a boy named Fenter who was wearing a souvenir T-shirt which read I RODE THE MT. WASHINGTON COG RAILWAY. Fenter was licking his lips. The word was that his foot had stiffened up on him badly. When he was shot ten minutes later, Garraty didn't feel much. He was too tired. He walked around Fenter. Looking down he saw something glittering in Fenter's hand. A St. Christopher's medal.
"If I get out of this," McVries said abruptly, "you know what I'm going to do?"
"What?" Baker asked.
"Fornicate until my cock turns blue. I've never been so horny in my life as I am right this minute, at quarter of eight on May first."
"You mean it?" Garraty asked.
"I do," McVries assured. "I could even get horny for you, Ray, if you didn't need a shave."
Garraty laughed.
"Prince Charming, that's who I am," McVries said. His hand went to the scar on his cheek and touched it. "Now all I need is a Sleeping Beauty. I could awake her with a biggy sloppy soul kiss and the two of us would ride away into the sunset. At least as far as the nearest Holiday Inn."
"Walk," Olsen said listlessly.
"Huh?"
"Walk into the sunset."
"Walk into the sunset, okay," McVries said. "True love either way. Do you believe in true love, Hank dear?"
"I believe in a good screw," Olson said, and Art Baker burst out laughing.
"I believe in true love," Garraty said, and then felt sorry he had said it. It sounded naive.
"You want to know why I don't?" Olson said. He looked up at Garraty and grinned a scary, furtive grin. "Ask Fenter. Ask Zuck. They know."
"That's a hell of an attitude," Pearson said. He had come out of the dark from someplace and was walking with them again. Pearson was limping, not badly, but very obviously limping.
"No, it's not," McVries said, and then, after a moment, he added cryptically: "Nobody loves a deader."
"Edgar Allan Poe did," Baker said. "I did a report on him in school and it said he had tendencies that were ne-recto—"
"Necrophiliac," Garraty said.
"Yeah, that's right."
"What's that?" Pearson asked.
"It means you got an urge to sleep with a dead woman," Baker said. "Or a dead man, if you're a woman."
"Or if you're a fruit," McVries put in.
"How the hell did we get on this?" Olson croaked. "Just how in the hell did we get on the subject of screwing dead people? It's fucking repulsive."
"Why not?" A deep, somber voice said. It was Abraham, 2. He was tall and disjointed-looking; he walked in a perpetual shamble. "I think we all might take a moment or two to stop and think about whatever kind of sex life there may be in the next world."
"I get Marilyn Monroe," McVries said. "You can have Eleanor Roosevelt, Abe old buddy."
Abraham gave him the finger. Up ahead, one of the soldiers droned out a warning.
"Just a second now. Just one motherfucking second here." Olson spoke slowly, as if he wrestled with a tremendous problem in expression. "You're all off the subject. All off."
"The Transcendental Quality of Love, a lecture by the noted philosopher and Ethiopian jug-rammer Henry Olson," McVries said. "Author of A Peach Is Not a Peach without a Pit and other works of—"
"Wait!" Olson cried out. His voice was as shrill as broken glass. "You wait just one goddam second! Love is a put-on! It's nothing! One big fat el zilcho! You got it?"
No one replied. Garraty looked out ahead of him, where the dark charcoal hills met the star-punched darkness of the sky. He wondered if he couldn't feel the first faint twinges of a charley horse in the arch of his left foot. I want to sit down, he thought irritably. Damn it all, I want to sit down.
"Love is a fake! " Olson was blaring. "There are three great truths in the world and they are a good meal, a good screw, and a good shit, and that's all! And when you get like Fenter and Zuck—"
"Shut up," a bored voice said, and Garraty knew it was Stebbins. But when he looked back, Stebbins was only looking at the road and walking along near the left-hand edge.
A jet passed overhead, trailing the sound of its engines behind it and chalking a feathery line across the night sky. It passed low enough for them to be able to see its running lights, pulsing yellow and green. Baker was whistling again. Garraty let his eyelids drop mostly shut. His feet moved on their own.
His half-dozing mind began to slip away from him. Random thoughts began to chase each other lazily across its field. He remembered his mother singing him an Irish lullaby when he was very small something about cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o. And her face, so huge and beautiful, like the face of an actress on a movie screen. Wanting to kiss her and be in love with her for always. When he grew up, he would marry her.
This was replaced by Jan's good-humored Polish face and her dark hair that streamed nearly to her waist. She was wearing a two-piece bathing suit beneath a short beach coat because they were going to Reid Beach. Garraty himself was wearing a ragged pair of denim shorts and his zoris.
Jan was gone. Her face became that of Jimmy Owens, the kid down the block from them. He had been five and Jimmy had been five and Jimmy's mother had caught them playing Doctor's Office in the sandpit behind Jimmy's house. They both had boners. That's what they called them-boners. Jimmy's mother had called his mother and his mother had come to get him and had sat him down in her bedroom and had asked him how he would like it if she made him go out and walk down the street with no clothes on. His dozing body contracted with the groveling embarrassment of it, the deep shame. He had cried and begged, not to make him walk down the street with no clothes on and not to tell his father.
Seven years old now. He and Jimmy Owens peering through the dirt-grimed window of the Burr's Building Materials office at the naked lady calendars, knowing what they were looking at but not really knowing, feeling a crawling shameful exciting pang of something. Of something. There had been one blond lady with a piece of blue silk draped across her hips and they had stared at it for a long, long time. They argued about what might be down there under the cloth. Jimmy said he had seen his mother naked. Jimmy said he knew. Jimmy said it was hairy and cut open. He had refused to believe Jimmy, because what Jimmy said was disgusting.
Still he was sure that ladies must be different from men down there and they had spent a long purple summer dusk discussing it, swatting mosquitoes and watching a scratch baseball game in the lot of the moving van company across the street from Burr's. He could feel, actually feel in the half-waking dream the sensation of the hard curb beneath his fanny.
The next year he had hit Jimmy Owens in the mouth with the barrel of his Daisy air rifle while they were playing guns and Jimmy had to have four stitches in his upper lip. A year after that they had moved away. He hadn't meant to hit Jimmy in the mouth. It had been an accident. Of that he was quite sure, even though by then he had known Jimmy was right because he had seen his own mother naked (he had not meant to see her naked-it had been an accident). They were hairy down there. Hairy and cut open.
Shhh, it isn't a tiger, love, only your teddy bear, see? Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o Mother loves her boy Shhh Go to sleep.
"Warning! Warning 47!"
An elbow poked him rudely in the ribs. "That's you, boy. Rise and shine." McVries was grinning at him.
"What time is it?" Garraty asked thickly.
"Eight thirty-five."
"But I've been—"
"—dozing for hours," McVries said. "I know the feeling."
"Well, it sure seemed that way."
"It's your mind," McVries said, "using the old escape hatch. Don't you wish your feet could?"
"I use Dial," Pearson said, pulling an idiotic face. "Don't you wish everybody did?
Garraty thought that memories were like a line drawn in the dirt. The further back you went the scuffier and harder to see that line got. Until finally there was nothing but smooth sand and the black hole of nothingness that you came out of. The memories were in a way like the road. Here it was real and hard and tangible. But that early road, that nine in the morning road, was far back and meaningless.
They were almost fifty miles into the Walk. The word came back that the Major would be by in his jeep to review them and make a short speech when they actually got to the fifty-mile point. Garraty thought that was most probably horseshit.
They breasted a long, steep rise, and Garraty was tempted to take his jacket off again. He didn't. He unzipped it, though, and then walked backward for a minute. The lights of Caribou twinkled at him, and he thought about Lot's wife, who had looked back and fumed into a pillar of salt.
"Warning! Warning 47! Second warning, 47!"
It took Garraty a moment to realize it was him. His second warning in ten minutes. He started to feel afraid again. He thought of the unnamed boy who had died because he had slowed down once too often. Was that what he was doing?
He looked around. McVries, Harkness, Baker and Olson were all staring at him. Olson was having a particularly good look. He could make out the intent expression on Olson's face even in the dark. Olson had outlasted six. He wanted to make Garraty lucky seven. He wanted Garraty to die.
"See anything green?" Garraty asked irritably.
"No," Olson said, his eyes sliding away. "Course not."
Garraty walked with determination now, his arms swinging aggressively. It was twenty to nine. At twenty to eleven-eight miles down the road-he would be free again. He felt an hysterical urge to proclaim he could do it, they needn't send the word back on him, they weren't going to watch him get a ticket at least not yet.
The groundfog spread across the road in thin ribbons, like smoke. The shapes of the boys moved through it like dark islands somehow set adrift. At fifty miles into the Walk they passed a small, shut-up garage with a rusted-out gas pump in front. It was little more than an ominous, leaning shape in the fog. The clear fluorescent light from a telephone booth cast the only glow. The Major didn't come. No one came.
The road dipped gently around a curve, and then there was a yellow mad sign ahead. The word came back, but before it got to Garraty he could read the sign for himself: |
Groans and moans. Somewhere up ahead Barkovitch called out merrily: "Step into it, brothers! Who wants to race me to the top?"
"Shut your goddam mouth, you little freak," someone said quietly.
"Make me, Dumbo!" Barkovitch shrilled. "Come on up here and make me!"
"He's crackin'," Baker said.
"No," McVries replied. "He's just stretching. Guys like him have an awful lot of stretch."
Olson's voice was deadly quiet. "I don't think I can climb that hill. Not at four miles an hour."
The hill stretched above them. They were almost to it now. With the fog it was impossible to see the top. For all we know, it might just go up forever, Garraty thought.
They started up.
It wasn't as bad, Garraty discovered, if you stared down at your feet as you walked and leaned forward a little. You stared strictly down at the tiny patch of pavement between your feet and it gave you the impression that you were walking on level ground. Of course, you couldn't kid yourself that your lungs and the breath in your throat weren't heating up, because they were.
Somehow the word started coming back-some people still had breath to spare, apparently. The word was that this hill was a quarter of a mile long. The word was it was two miles long. The word was that no Walker had ever gotten a ticket on this hill. The wont was that three boys had gotten tickets here just last year. And after that, the word stopped coming back.
"I can't do it," Olson was saying monotonously. "I can't do it anymore." His breath was coming in doglike pants. But he kept on walking and they all kept on walking. Little granting noises and soft, plosive breathing became audible. The only other sounds were Olson's chant, the scuff of many feet, and the grinding, ratcheting sound of the halftrack's engine as it chugged along beside them.
Garraty felt the bewildered fear in his stomach grow. He could actually die here. It wouldn't be hard at all. He had screwed around and had gotten two warnings on him already. He couldn't be much over the limit right now. All he had to do was slip his pace a little and he'd have number three-final warning. And then...
"Warning! Warning 70!"
"They're playing your song, Olson," McVries said between pants. "Pick up your feet. I want to see you dance up this hill like Fred Astaire."
"What do you care?" Olson asked fiercely.
McVries didn't answer. Olson found a little more inside himself and managed to pick it up. Garraty wondered morbidly if the little more Olson had found was his last legs. He also wondered about Stebbins, back there tailing the group. How are you, Stebbins? Getting tired?
Up ahead, a boy named Larson, 60, suddenly sat down on the road. He got a warning. The other boys split and passed around him, like the Red Sea around the Children of Israel.
"I'm just going to rest for a while, okay?" Larson said with a trusting, shellshocked smile. "I can't walk anymore right now, okay?" His smile stretched wider, and he fumed it on the soldier who had jumped down from the halftrack with his rifle unslung and the stainless steel chronometer in his hand.
"Warning, 60," the soldier said. "Second warning."
"Listen, I'll catch up," Larson hastened to assure him. "I'm just resting. A guy can't walk all the time. Not all the time. Can he, fellas?" Olson made a little moaning noise as he passed Larson, and shied away when Larson tried to touch his pants cuff.
Garraty felt his pulse beating warmly in his temples. Larson got his thins warning. now he'll understand, Garraty thought, now he'll get up and start flogging it.
And at the end, Larson did realize, apparently. Reality came crashing back in. "Hey!" Larson said behind them. His voice was high and alarmed. "Hey, just a second, don't do that, I'll get up. Hey, don't! D—"
The shot. They walked on up the hill.
"Ninety-three bottles of beer left on the shelf," McVries said softly.
Garraty made no reply. He stared at his feet and walked and focused all of his concentration on getting to the top without that third warning. It couldn't go on much longer, this monster hill. Surely not.
Up ahead someone uttered a high, gobbling scream, and then the rifles crashed in unison.
"Barkovitch," Baker said hoarsely. "That was Barkovitch, I'm sure it was."
"Wrong, redneck!" Barkovitch yelled out of the darkness. "One hundred per cent dead wrong!"
They never did see the boy who had been shot after Larson. He had been part of the vanguard and he was dragged off the road before they got there. Garraty ventured a look up from the pavement, and was immediately sorry. He could see the top of the hill just barely. They still had the length of a football field to go. It looked like a hundred miles. No one said anything else. Each of them had retreated into his own private world of pain and effort. Seconds seemed to telescope into hours.
Near the top of the hill, a rutted dirt road branched off the main drag, and a farmer and his family stood there. They watched the Walkers go past-an old man with a deeply seamed brow, a hatchet-faced woman in a bulky cloth coat, three teenaged children who all looked half-wilted.
"All he needs is a pitchfork," McVries told Garraty breathlessly. Sweat was streaming down McVries's face. "And Grant Wood to paint him."
Someone called out: "Hiya, Daddy!"
The farmer and the farmer's wife and the farmer's children said nothing. The cheese stands alone, Garraty thought crazily. Hi-ho the dairy-o, the cheese stands alone. The farmer and his family did not smile. They did not frown. They held no signs. They did not wave. They watched. Garraty was reminded of the Western movies he had seen on all the Saturday afternoons of his youth, where the hero was left to die in the desert and the buzzards came and circled overhead. They were left behind, and Garraty was glad. He supposed the farmer and his wife and the three half-wilted children would be out there around nine o'clock next May first and the next and the next. How many boys had they seen shot? A dozen? Two? Garraty didn't like to think of it. He took a pull at his canteen, sloshed the water around in his mouth, trying to cut through the caked saliva. He spit the mouthful out.
The hill went on. Up ahead Toland fainted and was shot after the soldier left beside him had warned his unconscious body three times. It seemed to Garraty that they had been climbing the hill for at least a month now. Yes, it had to be a month at least, and that was a conservative estimate because they had been walking for just over three years. He giggled a little, took another mouthful of water, sloshed it around in his mouth, and then swallowed it. No cramps. A cramp would finish him now. But it could happen. It could happen because someone had dipped his shoes in liquid lead while he wasn't looking.
Nine gone, and a third of them had gotten it right here on this hill. The Major had told Olson to give them hell, and if this wasn't hell, it was a pretty good approximation. A pretty good...
Oh boy—
Garraty was suddenly aware that he felt quite giddy, as if he might faint himself. He brought one hand up and slapped himself across the face, backward and forward, hard.
"You all right?" McVries asked.
"Feel faint."
"Pour your " Quick, whistling breath," canteen over your head."
Garraty did it. I christen thee Raymond Davis Garraty, pax vobiscum. The water was very cold. He stopped feeling faint. Some of the water trickled down inside his shirt in freezing cold rivulets. "Canteen! 47! " he shouted. The effort of the shout left him feeling drained all over again. He wished he had waited awhile.
One of the soldiers jog-trotted over to him and handed him a fresh canteen. Garraty could feel the soldier's expressionless marble eyes sizing him up. "Get away," he said rudely, taking the canteen. "You get paid to shoot me, not to look at me."
The soldier went away with no change of expression. Garraty made himself walk a little faster.
They kept climbing and no one else got it and then they were at the top. It was nine o'clock. They had been on the road twelve hours. It didn't mean anything. The only thing that mattered was the cool breeze blowing over the top of the hill. And the sound of a bird. And the feel of his damp shirt against his skin. And the memories in his head. Those things mattered, and Garraty clung to them with desperate awareness. They were his things and he still had them.
"Pete?"
"Yeah."
"Man, I'm glad to be alive."
McVries didn't answer. They were on the downslope now. Walking was easy.
"I'm going to try hard to stay alive," Garraty said, almost apologetically.
The road curved gently downward. They were still a hundred and fifteen miles from Oldtown and the comparative levelness of the turnpike.
"That's the idea, isn't it?" McVries asked finally. His voice sounded cracked and cobwebby, as if it had issued from a dusty cellar.
Neither of them said anything for a while. No one was talking. Baker ambled steadily along-he hadn't drawn a warning yet-with his hands in his pockets, his head nodding slightly with the flatfooted rhythm of his walk. Olson had gone back to Hail Mary, full of grace. His face was a white splotch in the darkness. Harkness was eating.
"Garraty," McVries said.
"I'm here."
"You ever see the end of a Long Walk?"
"No, you?"
"Hell, no. I just thought, you being close to it and all—"
"My father hated them. He took me to one as a what-do-you-call-it, object lesson. But that was the only time."
"I saw."
Garraty jumped at the sound of that voice. It was Stebbins. He had pulled almost even with them, his head still bent forward, his blond hair flapping around his ears like a sickly halo.
"What was it like?" McVries asked. His voice was younger somehow.
"You don't want to know," Stebbins said.
"I asked, didn't I?"
Stebbins made no reply. Garraty's curiosity about him was stronger than ever. Stebbins hadn't folded up. He showed no signs of folding up. He went on without complaint and hadn't been warned since the starting line.
"Yeah, what's it like?" he heard himself asking.
"I saw the end four years ago," Stebbins said. "I was thirteen. It ended about sixteen miles over the New Hampshire border. They had the National Guam out and sixteen Federal Squads to augment the State Police. They had to. The people were packed sixty deep on both sides of the road for fifty miles. Over twenty people were trampled to death before it was all over. It happened because people were trying to move with the Walkers, trying to see the end of it. I had a front-row seat. My dad got it for me."
"What does your dad do?" Garraty asked.
"He's in the Squads. And he had it figured just right. I didn't even have to move. The Walk ended practically in front of me."
"What happened?" Olson asked softly.
"I could hear them coming before I could see them. We all could. It was one big soundwave, getting closer and closer. And it was still an hour before they got close enough to see. They weren't looking at the crowd, either of the two that were left. It was like they didn't even know the crowd was there. What they were looking at was the mad. They were hobbling along, both of them. Like they had been crucified and then taken down and made to walk with the nails still through their feet."
They were all listening to Stebbins now. A horrified silence had fallen like a rubber sheet.
"The crowd was yelling at them, almost as if they could still hear. Some were yelling one guy's name, and some were yelling the other guy's, but the only thing that really came through was this Go Go Go chant. I was getting shoved around like a beanbag. The guy next to me either pissed himself or jacked off in his pants, you couldn't tell which.
"They walked right past me. One of them was a big blond with his shirt open. One of his shoe soles had come unglued or unstitched or whatever, and it was flapping. The other guy wasn't even wearing his shoes anymore. He was in his stocking feet. His socks ended at his ankles. The rest of them why, he'd just walked them away, hadn't he? His feet were purple. You could see the broken blood vessels in his feet. I don't think he really felt it anymore. Maybe they were able to do something with his feet later, I don't know. Maybe they were."
"Stop. For God's sake, stop it." It was McVries. He sounded dazed and sick.
"You wanted to know," Stebbins said, almost genially. "Didn't you say that?"
No answer. The halftrack whined and clattered and spurted along the shoulder, and somewhere farther up someone drew a warning.
"It was the big blond that lost. I saw it all. They were just a little past me. He threw both of his arms up, like he was Superman. But instead of flying he just fell flat on his face and they gave him his ticket after thirty seconds because he was walking with three. They were both walking with three.
"Then the crowd started to cheer. They cheered and they cheered and then they could see that the kid that won was trying to say something. So they shut up. He had fallen on his knees, you know, like he was going to pray, only he was just crying. And then he crawled over to the other boy and put his face in that big blond kid's shirt. Then he started to say whatever it was he had to say, but we couldn't hear it. He was talking into the dead kid's shirt. He was telling the dead kid. Then the soldiers rushed out and told him he had won the Prize, and asked him how he wanted to start."
"What did he say?" Garraty asked. It seemed to him that with the question he had laid his whole life on the line.
"He didn't say anything to them, not then," Stebbins said. "He was talking to the dead kid. He was telling the dead kid something, but we couldn't hear it."
"What happened then?" Pear-son asked.
"I don't remember," Stebbins said remotely.
No one said anything. Garraty felt a panicked, trapped sensation, as if someone had stuffed him into an underground pipe that was too small to get out of. Up ahead a third warning was given out and a boy made a croaking, despairing sound, like a dying crow. Please God, don't let them shoot anyone now, Garraty thought. I'll go crazy if I hear the guns now. Please God, please God.
A few minutes later the guns rammed their steel-death sound into the night. This time it was a short boy in a flapping red and white football jersey. For a moment Garraty thought Percy's mom would not have to wonder or worry anymore, but it wasn't Percy-it was a boy named Quincy or Quentin or something like that.
Garraty didn't go crazy. He turned around to say angry words at Stebbins-to ask him, perhaps, how it felt to inflict a boy's last minutes with such a horror-but Stebbins had dropped back to his usual position and Garraty was alone again.
They walked on, the ninety of them. |
[ Truth or Consequences ]
At twenty minutes of ten on that endless May first, Garraty stuffed one of his two warnings. Two more Walkers had bought it since the boy in the football jersey. Garraty barely noticed. He was taking a careful inventory of himself.
One head, a little confused and crazied up, but basically okay. Two eyes, grainy. One neck, pretty stiff. Two arms, no problem there. One torso, okay except for a gnawing in his gut that concentrates couldn't satisfy. Two damn tired legs. Muscles aching. He wondered how far his legs would carry him on their own-how long before his brain took them over and began punishing them, making them work past any sane limit, to keep a bullet from crashing into its own bony cradle. How long before the legs began to kink and then to bind up, to protest and finally to seize up and stop.
His legs were tired, but so far as he could tell, still pretty much okay.
And two feet. Aching. They were tender, no use denying it. He was a big boy. Those feet were shifting a hundred and sixty pounds back and forth. The soles ached. There were occasional strange shooting pains in them. His left great toe had poked through his sock (he thought of Stebbins's tale and felt a kind of creeping horror at that), and had begun to tub uncomfortably against his shoe. But his feet were working, there were still no blisters on them, and he felt his feet were still pretty much okay, too.
Garraty, he pep-talked himself, you're in good shape. Twelve guys dead, twice that many maybe hurting bad by now, but you're okay. You're going good. You're great. You're alive.
Conversation, which had died violently at the end of Stebbins's story, picked up again. Talking was what living people did. Yannick, 98, was discussing the ancestry of the soldiers on the halftrack in an overloud voice with Wyman, 97. Both agreed that it was mixed, colorful, hirsute, and bastardized.
Pearson, meanwhile, abruptly asked Garraty: "Ever have an enema?"
"Enema?" Garraty repeated. He thought about it. "No. I don't think so."
"Any of you guys?" Pearson asked. "Tell the truth, now."
"I did," Harkness said, and chuckled a little. "My mother gave me one after Halloween once when I was little. I ate pretty near a whole shopping bag of candy."
"Did you like it?" Pearson pressed.
"Hell, no! Who in hell would like a half a quart of warm soapsuds up your—"
"My little brother," Pearson said sadly. "I asked the little snot if he was sorry I was going and he said no because Ma said he could have an enema if he was good and didn't cry. He loves 'em."
"That's sickening," Harkness said loudly.
'Pearson looked glum. "I thought so, too."
A few minutes later Davidson joined the group and told them about the times he got drunk at the Steubenville State Fair and crawled into the hoochie-kooch tent and got biffed in the head by a big fat momma wearing nothing but a G-string. When Davidson told her (so he said) that he was drunk and thought it was the tattooing tent he was crawling into, the red hot big fat momma let him feel her up for a while (so he said). He had told her he wanted to get a Stars and Bars tattooed on his stomach.
Art Baker told them about a contest they'd had back home, to see who could light the biggest fart, and this hairy-assed old boy named Davey Popham had managed to burn off almost all the hair on his ass and the small of his back as well. Smelled like a grassfire, Baker said. This got Harkness laughing so hard he drew a warning.
After that, the race was on. Tall story followed tall story until the whole shaky structure came tumbling down. Someone else was warned, and not long after, the other Baker (James) bought a ticket. The good humor went out of the group. Some of them began to talk about their girlfriends, and the conversation became stumbling and maudlin. Garraty said nothing about Jan, but as tired ten o'clock came rolling in, a black coalsack splattered with milky groundmist, it seemed to him that she was the best thing he had ever known.
They passed under a short string of mercury streetlights, through a closed and shuttered town, all of them subdued now, speaking in low murmurs. In front of the Shopwell near the far end of this wide place in the road a young couple sat asleep on a sidewalk bench with their heads leaning together. A sign that could not be read dangled between them. The girl was very young-she looked no more than fourteen-and her boyfriend was wearing a sport shirt that had been washed too many times to ever look very sporty again. Their shadows in the street made a merge that the Walkers passed quietly over.
Garraty glanced back over his shoulder, quite sure that the rumble of the halftrack must have awakened them. But they still slept, unaware that the Event had come and passed them by. He wondered if the girl would catch what-for from her old man. She looked awfully young. He wondered if their sign was for Go-Go Garraty, "Maine's Own." Somehow he hoped not. Somehow the idea was a little repulsive.
He ate the last of his concentrates and felt a little better. There was nothing left for Olson to cadge off him now. It was funny about Olson. Garraty would have bet six hours ago that Olson was pretty well done in. But he was still walking, and now without warnings. Garraty supposed a person could do a lot of things when his life was at stake. They had come about fifty-four miles now.
The last of the talk died with the nameless town. They marched in silence for an hour or so, and the chill began to seep into Garraty again. He ate the last of his mom's cookies, balled up the foil, and pitched it into the brash at the side of the road. Just another litterbug on the great tomato plant of life.
McVries had produced a toothbrush of all things from his small packsack and was busy dry-brushing his teeth. It all goes on, Garraty thought wonderingly. You burp, you say excuse me. You wave back at the people who wave to you because that's the polite thing to do. No one argues very much with anyone else (except for Barkovitch) because that's also the polite thing to do. It all goes on.
Or did it? He thought of McVries sobbing at Stebbins to shut up. Of Olson taking his cheese with the dumb humility of a whipped dog. It all seemed to have a heightened intensity about it, a sharper contrast of colors and light and shadow.
At eleven o'clock, several things happened almost at once. The word came back that a small plank bridge up ahead had been washed out by a heavy afternoon thunderstorm. With the bridge out, the Walk would have to be temporarily stopped. A weak cheer went up through the ragged ranks, and Olson, in a very soft voice, muttered "Thank God."
A moment later Barkovitch began to scream a flood of profanity at the boy next to him, a squat, ugly boy with the unfortunate name of Rank. Rank took a swing at him-something expressly forbidden by the roles-and was warned for it. Barkovitch didn't even break stride. He simply lowered his head and ducked under the punch and went on yelling.
"Come on, you sonofabitch! I'll dance on your goddam grave! Come on, Dumbo, pick up your feet! Don't make it too easy for me!"
Rank threw another punch. Barkovitch nimbly stepped around it, but tripped over the boy walking next to him. They were both warned by the soldiers, who were now watching the developments carefully but emotionlessly-like men watching a couple of ants squabbling over a crumb of bread, Garraty thought bitterly.
Rank started to walk faster, not looking at Barkovitch. Barkovitch himself, furious at being warned (the boy he had tripped over was Gribble, who had wanted to tell the Major he was a murderer), yelled at him: "Your mother sucks cock on 42nd Street, Rank!"
With that, Rank suddenly turned around and charged Barkovitch.
Cries of "Break it up!" and "Cut the shit!" filled the air, but Rank took no notice. He went for Barkovitch with his head down, bellowing.
Barkovitch sidestepped him. Rank went stumbling and pinwheeling across the soft shoulder, skidded in the sand, and sat down with his feet splayed out. He was given a third warning.
"Come on, Dumbo!" Barkovitch goaded. "Get up!"
Rank did get up. Then he slipped somehow and fell over on his back. He seemed dazed and woozy.
The third thing that happened around eleven o'clock was Rank's death. There was a moment of silence when the carbines sighted in, and Baker's voice was loud and clearly audible: "There, Barkovitch, you're not a pest anymore. Now you're a murderer."
The guns roared. Rank's body was thrown into the air by the force of the bullets. Then it lay still and sprawled, one arm on the road.
"It was his own fault! " Barkovitch yelled. "You saw him, he swung first! Rule 8! Rule 8!"
No one said anything.
"Go fuck yourselves! All of you!"
McVries said easily: "Go on back and dance on him a little, Barkovitch. Go entertain us. Boogie on him a little bit, Barkovitch."
"Your mother sucks cock on 42nd Street too, scarface," Barkovitch said hoarsely.
"Can't wait to see your brains all over the road," McVries said quietly. His hand had gone to the scar and was rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. "I'll cheer when it happens, you murdering little bastard."
Barkovitch muttered something else under his breath. The others had shied away from him as if he had the plague and he was walking by himself.
They hit sixty miles at about ten past eleven, with no sign of a bridge of any kind. Garraty was beginning to think the grapevine had been wrong this time when they cleared a small hill and looked down into a pool of light where a small crowd of hustling, bustling men moved.
The lights were the beams of several trucks, directed at a plank bridge spanning a fast-running rill of water. "Truly I love that bridge," Olson said, and helped himself to one of McVries's cigarettes. "Truly."
But as they drew closer, Olson made a soft, ugly sound in his throat and pitched the cigarette away into the weeds. One of the bridge's supports and two of the heavy butt planks had been washed away, but the Squad up ahead had been working diligently. A sawed-off telephone pole had been planted in the bed of the stream, anchored in what looked like a gigantic cement plug. They hadn't had a chance to replace the butts, so they had put down a big convoy-truck tailgate in their place. Makeshift, but it would serve.
"The Bridge of San Loois Ray," Abraham said. "Maybe if the ones up front stomp a little, it'll collapse again."
"Small chance," Pearson said, and then added in a breaking, weepy voice, "Aw, shit!"
The vanguard, down to three or four boys, was on the bridge now. Their feet clumped hollowly as they crossed. Then they were on the other side, walking without looking back. The halftrack stopped. Two soldiers jumped out and kept pace with the boys. On the other side of the bridge, two more fell in with the vanguard. The boards rambled steadily now.
Two men in corduroy coats leaned against a big asphalt-spattered truck marked HIGHWAY REPAIR. They were smoking. They wore green gumrubber boots.
They watched the Walkers go by. As Davidson, McVries, Olson, Pearson, Harkness, Baker, and Garraty passed in a loose sort of group one of them flicked his cigarette end over end into the stream and said: "That's him. That's Garraty."
"Keep goin', boy!" the other yelled. "I got ten bucks on you at twelve-to-one!"
Garraty noticed a few sawdusty lengths of telephone pole in the back of the track. They were the ones who had made sure he was going to keep going, whether he liked it or not. He raised one hand to them and crossed the bridge. The tailgate that had replaced the butt planks chinked under his shoes and then the bridge was behind them. The road doglegged, and the only reminder of the rest they'd almost had was a wedge-shaped swath of light on the trees at the side of the road. Soon that was gone, too.
"Has a Long Walk ever been stopped for anything?" Harkness asked.
"I don't think so," Garraty said. "More material for the book?"
"No," Harkness said. He sounded tired. "Just personal information."
"It stops every year," Stebbins said from behind them. "Once."
There was no reply to that.
About half an hour later, McVries came up beside Garraty and walked with him in silence for a little while. Then, very quietly, he said: "Do you think you'll win, Ray?"
Garraty considered it for along, long time.
"No," he said finally. "No, I no."
The stark admission frightened him. He thought again about buying a ticket, no, buying a bullet, of the final frozen half-second of total knowledge, seeing the bottomless bores of the carbines swing toward him. Legs frozen. Guts crawling and clawing. Muscles, genitals, brain all cowering away from the oblivion a bloodbeat away.
He swallowed dryly. "How about yourself?"
"I guess not," McVries said. "I stopped thinking I had any real chance around nine tonight. You see, I " He cleared his throat. "It's hard to say, but I went into it with my eyes open, you know?" He gestured around himself at the other boys. "Lots of these guys didn't, you know? I knew the odds. But I didn't figure on people. And I don't think I ever realized the real gut truth of what this is. I think I had the idea that when the first guy got so he couldn't cut it anymore they'd aim the guns at him and pull the triggers and little pieces of paper with the word BANG printed on them would would and the Major would say April Fool and we'd all go home. Do you get what I'm saying at all?"
Garraty thought of his own rending shock when Curley had gone down in a spray of blood and brains like oatmeal, brains on the pavement and the white line. "Yes," he said. "I know what you're saying."
"It took me a while to figure it out, but it was faster after I got around that mental block. Walk or die, that's the moral of this story. Simple as that. It's not survival of the physically fittest, that's where I went wrong when I let myself get into this. If it was, I'd have a fair chance. But there are weak men who can lift cars if their wives are pinned underneath. The brain, Garraty." McVries's voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper. "It isn't man or God. It's something in the brain."
A whippoorwill called once in the darkness. The groundfog was lifting.
"Some of these guys will go on walking long after the laws of biochemistry and handicapping have gone by the boards. There was a guy last year that crawled for two miles at four miles an hour after both of his feet cramped up at the same time, you remember reading about that? Look at Olson, he's worn out but he keeps going. That goddam Barkovitch is running on high-octane hate and he just keeps going and he's as fresh as a daisy. I don't think I can do that. I'm not tired-not really tired-yet. But I will be." The scar stood out on the side of his haggard face as he looked ahead into the darkness. "And I think when I get tired enough I think I'll just sit down."
Garraty was silent, but he felt alarmed. Very alarmed.
"I'll outlast Barkovitch, though," McVries said, almost to himself. "I can do that, by Christ."
Garraty glanced at his watch and saw it was 11:30. They passed through a deserted crossroads where a sleepy-looking constable was parked. The possible traffic he had been sent out to halt was nonexistent. They walked past him, out of the bright circle of light thrown by the single mercury lamp. Darkness fell over them like a coalsack again.
"We could slip into the woods now and they'd never see us," Garraty said thoughtfully.
"Try it," Olson said. "They've got infrared sweepscopes, along with forty other kinds of monitoring gear, including high-intensity microphones. They hear everything we're saying. They can almost pick up your heartbeat. And they see you like daylight, Ray."
As if to emphasize his point, a boy behind them was given second warning.
"You take all the fun outta livin'," Baker said softly. His faint Southern drawl sounded out of place and foreign to Garraty's ears.
McVries had walked away. The darkness seemed to isolate each of them, and Garraty felt a shaft of intense loneliness. There were mutters and half-yelps every time something crashed through the woods they were going past, and Garraty realized with some amusement that a late evening stroll through the Maine woods could be no picnic for the city boys in the crew. An owl made a mysterious noise somewhere to their left. On the other side something rustled, was still, rustled again, was still, and then made a crashing break for less populated acreage. There was another nervous cry of "What was that?"
Overhead, capricious spring clouds began to scud across the sky in mackerel shapes, promising more rain. Garraty turned up his collar and listened to the sound of his feet pounding the pavement. There was a trick to that, a subtle mental adjustment, like having better night vision the longer you were in the dark. This morning the sound of his feet had been lost to him. They had been lost in the tramp of ninety-nine other pairs, not to mention the rumble of the halftrack. But now he heard them easily. His own particular stride, and the way his left foot scraped the pavement every now and then. It seemed to him that the sound of his footfalls had become as loud to his ears as the sound of his own heartbeat. Vital, life and death sound.
His eyes felt grainy, trapped in their sockets. The lids were heavy. His energy seemed to be draining down some sinkhole in the middle of him. Warnings were droned out with monotonous regularity, but no one was shot. Barkovitch had shut up. Stebbins was a ghost again, not even visible in back of them.
The hands on his watch read 11:40.
On up toward the hour of witches, he thought. When churchyards yawn and give up their moldy dead. When all good little boys are sacked out. When wives and lovers have given up the carnal pillow-fight for the evening. When passengers sleep uneasy on the Greyhound to New York. When Glenn Miller plays uninterrupted on the radio and bartenders think about putting the chairs up on the tables, and—
Jan's face came into his mind again. He thought of kissing her at Christmas, almost half a year ago, under the plastic mistletoe his mother always hung from the big light globe in the kitchen. Stupid kid stuff. Look where you're standing. Her lips had been surprised and soft, not resisting. A nice kiss. One to dream on. His first real kiss. He did it again when he took her home. They had been standing in her driveway, standing in the silent grayness of falling Christmas snow. That had been something more than a nice kiss. His arms around her waist. Her anus around his neck, locked there, her eyes closed (he had peeked), the soft feel of her breasts-muffled up in her coat, of course-against him. He had almost told her he loved her then, but no that would have been too quick.
After that, they taught each other. She taught him that books were sometimes just to be read and discarded, not studied (he was something of a grind, which amused Jan, and her amusement first exasperated him and then he also saw the funny side of it). He taught her to knit. That had been a funny thing. His father, of all people, had taught him how to knit before the Squads got him. His father had taught Garraty's father, as well. It was something of a male tradition in the clan Garraty, it seemed. Jan had been fascinated by the pattern of the increases and decreases, and she left him behind soon enough, overstepping his laborious scarves and mittens to sweaters, cableknits, and finally to crocheting and even the tatting of doilies, which she gave up as ridiculous as soon as the skill was mastered.
He had also taught her how to rhumba and cha-cha, skills he had learned on endless Saturday mornings at Mrs. Amelia Dorgens's School for Modern Dance that had been his mother's idea, one he had objected to strenuously. His mother had stuck to her guns, thank God.
He thought now of the patterns of light and shadow on the nearly perfect oval of her face, the way she walked, the lift and fall of her voice, the easy, desirable swing of one hip, and he wondered in terror what he was doing here, walking down this dark road. He wanted her now. He wanted to do it all over again, but differently. Now, when he thought of the Major's tanned face, the salt-and-pepper mustache, the mirrored sunglasses, he felt a horror so deep it made his legs feel rubbery and weak. Why am I here? he asked himself desperately, and there was no answer, so he asked the question again: Why am—
The guns crashed in the darkness, and there was the unmistakable mailsack thud of a body falling on the concrete. The fear was on him again, the hot, throat-choking fear that made him want to run blindly, to dive into the bushes and just keep on running until he found Jan and safety.
McVries had Barkovitch to keep him going. He would concentrate on Jan. He would walk to Jan. They reserved space for Long Walkers' relatives and loved ones in the front lines. He would see her.
He thought about kissing that other girl and was ashamed.
How do you know you'll make it? A cramp blisters a bad cut or a nosebleed that just won't quit a big hill that was just too big and too long. How do you know you'll make it?
I'll make it, I'll make it.
"Congratulations," McVries said at his shoulder, making him jump.
"Huh?"
"It's midnight. We live to fight another day, Garraty."
"And many of 'em," Abraham added. "For me, that is. Not that I begrudge you, you understand."
"A hundred and five miles to Oldtown, if you care," Olson put in tiredly.
"Who gives a shit about Oldtown?" McVries demanded. "You ever been there, Garraty?"
"No.—
"How about Augusta? Christ, I thought that was in Georgia."
"Yeah, I've been in Augusta. It's the state capital—"
"Regional," Abraham said.
"And the Corporate Governor's mansion, and a couple of traffic circles, and a couple of movies—"
"You have those in Maine?" McVries asked.
"Well, it's a small state capital, okay?" Garraty said, smiling.
"Wait'll we hit Boston," McVries said.
There were groans.
From up ahead there came cheers, shouts, and catcalls. Garraty was alarmed to hear his own name called out. Up ahead, about half a mile away, was a ramshackle farmhouse, deserted and fallen down. But a battered Klieg light had been plugged in somewhere, and a huge sign, lettered with pine boughs across the front of the house read: |
[ Aroostook County Parents' Association ]
"Hey, Garraty, where's the parents?" someone yelled.
"Back home making kids," Garraty said, embarrassed. There could be no doubt that Maine was Garraty country, but he found the signs and cheers and the gibes of the others all a little mortifying. He had found-among other things-in the last fifteen hours that he didn't much crave the limelight. The thought of a million people all over the state rooting for him and laying bets on him (at twelve-to-one, the highway worker had said was that good or bad?) was a little scary.
"You'd think they would have left a few plump, juicy parents lying around somewhere," Davidson said.
"Poontang from the PTA?" Abraham asked.
The ribbing was halfhearted and didn't last very long. The road killed most ribbing very quickly. They crossed another bridge, this time a cement one that spanned a good-sized river. The water rippled below them like black silk. A few crickets chirred cautiously, and around fifteen past midnight, a spatter of light, cold rain fell.
Up ahead, someone began to play a harmonica. It didn't last long (Hint 6: Conserve Wind), but it was pretty for the moment it lasted. It sounded a little like Old Black Joe, Garraty thought. Down in de cornflel', here dat mournful sour'. All de darkies am aweeping, Ewing's in de cole, cole groun'.
No, that wasn't Old Black Joe, that tune was some other Stephen Foster racist classic. Good old Stephen Foster. Drank himself to death. So did Poe, it had been reputed. Poe the necrophiliac, the one who had married his fourteen-year-old cousin. That made him a pedophile as well. All-around depraved fellows, he and Stephen Foster both. If only they could have lived to see the Long Walk, Garraty thought. They could have collaborated on the world's first Morbid Musical. Massa's on De Cold, Cold Road, or The Tell-Tale Stride, or—
Up ahead someone began to scream, and Garraty felt his blood go cold. It was a very young voice. It was not screaming words. It was only screaming. A dark figure broke from the pack, pelted across the shoulder of the road in front of the halftrack (Garraty could not even remember when the halftrack had rejoined their march after the repaired bridge), and dived for the woods. The guns roared. There was a rending crash as a dead weight fell through the juniper bushes and underbrush to the ground. One of the soldiers jumped down and dragged the inert form up by the hands. Garraty watched apathetically and thought, even the horror wears thin. There's a surfeit even of death.
The harmonica player started in satirically on Taps and somebody-Collie Parker, by the sound-told him angrily to shut the fuck up. Stebbins laughed. Garraty felt suddenly furious with Stebbins, and wanted to turn to him and ask him how he'd like someone laughing at his death. It was something you'd expect of Barkovitch. Barkovitch had said he'd dance on a lot of graves, and there were sixteen he could dance on already.
I doubt that he'll have much left of his feet to dance with, Garraty thought. A sharp twinge of pain went through the arch of his right foot. The muscle there tightened heart-stoppingly, then loosened. Garraty waited with his heart in his mouth for it to happen again. It would hit harder. It would turn his foot into a block of useless wood. But it didn't happen.
"I can't walk much further," Olson croaked. His face was a white blur in the darkness. No one answered him.
The darkness. Goddam the darkness. It seemed to Garraty they had been buried alive in it. Immured in it. Dawn was a century away. Many of them would never see the dawn. Or the sun. They were buried six feet deep in the darkness. All they needed was the monotonous chanting of the priest, his voice muffled but not entirely obscured by the new-packed darkness, above which the mourners stood. The mourners were not even aware that they were here, they were alive, they were screaming and scratching and clawing at the coffin-lid darkness, the air was flaking and costing away, the air was turning into poison gas, hope fading until hope itself was a darkness, and above all of it the nodding chapel-bell voice of the priest and the impatient, shuffling feet of mourners anxious to be off into the warm May sunshine. Then, overmastering that, the sighing, shuffling chorus of the bugs and the beetles, squirming their way through the earth, come for the feast.
I could go crazy, Garraty thought. I could go right the fuck off my cocker.
A little breeze soughed through the pines.
Garraty turned around and urinated. Stebbins moved over a little, and Harkness made a coughing, snoring sound. He was walking half-asleep.
Garraty became acutely conscious of all the little sounds of life: someone hawked and spat, someone else sneezed, someone ahead and to the left was chewing something noisily. Someone asked someone else softly how he felt. There was a murmured answer. Yannick was singing at a whisper level, soft and very much off-key.
Awareness. It was all a function of awareness. But it wasn't forever.
"Why did I get into this?" Olson suddenly asked hopelessly, echoing Garraty's thoughts not so many minutes ago. "Why did I let myself in for this?"
No one answered him. No one had answered him for a long time now. Garraty thought it was as if Olson were already dead.
Another light spatter of rain fell. They passed another ancient graveyard, a church next door, a tiny shopfront, and then they were walking through a small New England community of small, neat homes. The road crosshatched a miniature business section where perhaps a dozen people had gathered to watch them pass. They cheered, but it was a subdued sound, as if they were afraid they might wake their neighbors. None of them was young, Garraty saw. The youngest was an intense-eyed man of about thirty-five. He was wearing rimless glasses and a shabby sport coat, pulled against him to protect against the chill. His hair stuck up in back, and Garraty noted with amusement that his fly was half-unzipped.
"Go! Great! Go! Go! Oh, great!" he chanted softly. He waved one soft plump hand ceaselessly, and his eyes seemed to burn over each of them as they passed.
On the far side of the village a sleepy-eyed policeman held up a rumbling trailer truck until they had passed. There were four more streetlights, an abandoned, crumbling building with EUREKA GRANGE NO. 81 written over the big double doors at the front, and then the town was gone. For no reason Garraty could put a finger on, he felt as if he had just walked through a Shirley Jackson short story.
McVries nudged him. "Look at that dude," he said.
"That dude" was a tall boy in a ridiculous loden-green trenchcoat. It flapped around his knees. He was walking with his arms wrapped around his head like a gigantic poultice. He was weaving unsteadily back and forth. Garraty watched him closely, with a kind of academic interest. He couldn't recall ever having seen this particular Walker before but of course the darkness changed faces.
The boy stumbled over one of his own feet and almost fell down. Then he went on walking. Garraty and McVries watched him in fascinated silence for perhaps ten minutes, losing their own aches and tiredness in the trenchcoated boy's struggle. The boy in the trenchcoat didn't make a sound, not a groan or a moan.
Finally he did fall over and was warned. Garraty didn't think the boy would be able to get up, but he did. Now he was walking almost with Garraty and the boys around him. He was an extremely ugly boy, with the number 45 pressure-taped to his coat.
Olson whispered, "What's the matter with you?" but the boy seemed not to hear. They got that way, Garraty had noticed. Complete withdrawal from everything and everyone around them. Everything but the road. They stared at the road with a kind of horrid fascination, as if it were a tightrope they had to walk over an endless, bottomless chasm.
"What's your name?" he asked the boy, but there was no answer. And he found himself suddenly spitting the question at the boy over and over, like an idiot litany that would save him from whatever fate was coming for him out of the darkness like a black express freight. "What's your name, huh? What's your name, what's your name, what's—"
"Ray." McVries was tugging at his sleeve.
"He won't tell me, Pete, make him tell me, make him say his name—"
"Don't bother him," McVries said. "He's dying, don't bother him."
The boy with 45 on his trenchcoat fell over again, this time on his face. When he got up, there were scratches on his forehead, slowly welling blood. He was behind Garraty's group now, but they heard it when he got his final warning.
They passed through a hollow of deeper darkness that was a railroad overpass. Rain dripped somewhere, hollow and mysterious in this stone throat. It was very damp. Then they were out again, and Garraty saw with gratitude that there was a long, straight, flat stretch ahead.
45 fell down again. Footsteps quickened as boys scattered. Not long after, the guns roared. Garraty decided the boy's name must not have been important anyway. |
[ Twenty-One ]
Three-thirty in the morning.
To Ray Garraty it seemed the longest minute of the longest night of his entire life. It was low tide, dead ebb, the time when the sea washes back, leaving slick mudflats covered with straggled weed, rusty beer cans, rotted prophylactics, broken bottles, smashed buoys, and green-mossed skeletons in tattered bathing trunks. It was dead ebb.
Seven more had gotten tickets since the boy in the trenchcoat. At one time, around two in the morning, three had gone down almost together, like dried cornshocks in the first hard autumn wind. They were seventy-five miles into the Walk, and there were twenty-four gone.
But none of that mattered. All that mattered was dead ebb. Three-thirty and the dead ebb. Another warning was given, and shortly after, the guns crashed once more. This time the face was a familiar one. It was 8, Davidson, who claimed he had once sneaked into the hoochie-kooch tent at the Steubenville State Fair.
Garraty looked at Davidson's white, blood-spattered face for just a moment and then he looked back at the road. He looked at the road quite a lot now. Sometimes the white line was solid, sometimes it was broken, and sometimes it was double, like streetcar tracks. He wondered how people could ride over this road all the other days of the year and not see the pattern of life and death in that white paint. Or did they see, after all?
The pavement fascinated him. How good and easy it would be to sit on that pavement. You'd start by squatting, and your stiff knee joints would pop like toy air-pistols. Then you'd put bracing hands back on the cool, pebbled surface and snuggle your buttocks down, you'd feel the screaming pressure of your one hundred and sixty pounds leave your feet and then to lie down, just fall backward and lie there, spread-eagled, feeling your tired spine stretch looking up at the encircling trees and the majestic wheel of the stars not hearing the warnings, just watching the sky and waiting waiting.
Yeah.
Hearing the scatter of footsteps as Walkers moved out of the line of fire, leaving him alone, like a sacrificial offering. Hearing the whispers. It's Garraty, hey, it's Garraty getting a ticket! Perhaps there would be time to hear Barkovitch laugh as he strapped on his metaphorical dancing shoes one more time. The swing of the carbines zeroing in, then—
He tore his glance forcibly from the road and stared blearily at the moving shadows around him, then looked up at the horizon, hunting for even a trace of dawn light. There was none, of course. The night was still dark.
They had passed through two or three more small towns, all of them dark and closed. Since midnight they had passed maybe three dozen sleepy spectators, the die-hard type who grimly watch in the New Year each December 31st, come hell or high water. The rest of the last three and a half hours was nothing but a dream montage, an insomniac's half-sleeping wakemare.
Garraty looked more closely at the faces around him, but none seemed familiar. An irrational panic stole over him. He tapped the shoulder of the Walker in front of him. "Pete? Pete, that you?"
The figure slipped away from him with an irritated grunt and didn't look back. Olson had been on his left, Baker on his right, but now there was no one at all on his left side and the boy to his right was much chubbier than Art Baker.
Somehow he had wandered off the road and fallen in with a bunch of late-hiking Boy Scouts. They would be looking for him. Hunting for him. Guns and dogs and Squads with radar and heat-tracers and—
Relief washed over him. That was Abraham, up ahead and at four o'clock. All he'd had to do was turn his head a little. The gangling form was unmistakable.
"Abraham!" he stage-whispered. "Abraham, you awake?"
Abraham muttered something.
"I said, you awake?"
"Yes goddammit Garraty lea'me alone."
At least he was still with them. That feeling of total disorientation passed away.
Someone up ahead was given a third warning and Garraty thought, I don't have any! I could sit down for a minute or a minute and a half. I could—
But he'd never get up.
Yes I would, he answered himself. Sure I would, I'd just—
Just die. He remembered promising his mother that he would see her and Jan in Freeport. He had made the promise lightheartedly, almost carelessly. At nine o'clock yesterday morning, his arrival in Freeport had been a foregone conclusion. But it wasn't a game anymore, it was a three-dimensional reality, and the possibility of walking into Freeport on nothing but a pair of bloody stumps seemed a horribly possible possibility.
Someone else was shot down behind him, this time. The aim was bad, and the unlucky ticket-holder screamed hoarsely for what seemed a very long time before another bullet cut off the sound. For no reason at all Garraty thought of bacon, and heavy, sour spit came into his mouth and made him feel like gagging. Garraty wondered if twenty-six down was an unusually high or an unusually low number for seventy-five miles into a Long Walk.
His head dropped slowly between his shoulders, and his feet carried them forward on their own. He thought about a funeral he had gone to as a boy. It had been Freaky D'Allessio's funeral. Not that his real name had been Freaky, his real name had been George, but all the kids in the neighborhood called him Freaky because his eyes didn't quite jibe.
He could remember Freaky waiting to be picked up for baseball games, always coming in dead last, his out-of-kilter eyes switching hopefully from one team captain to the other like a spectator at a tennis match. He always played deep center field, where not too many balls were hit and he couldn't do much damage; one of his eyes was almost blind, and he didn't have enough depth perception to judge any balls hit to him. Once he got under one and jabbed his glove at a hunk of thin air while the ball landed on his forehead with an audible bonk! like a cantaloupe being whocked with the handle of a kitchen knife. The threads on the ball left an imprint dead square on his forehead for a week, like a brand.
Freaky was killed by a car on U.S. 1 outside of Freeport. One of Garraty's friends, Eddie Klipstein, saw it happen. He held kids in thrall for six weeks, Eddie Klipstein did, telling them about how the car hit Freaky D'Allessio's bike and Freaky went up over the handlebars, knocked spang out of his shitkicker boots by the impact, both of his legs trailing out behind him in crippled splendor as his body flew its short, wingless flight from the seat of his Schwinn to a stone wall where Freaky landed and spread his head like a dollop of wet glue on the rocks.
He went to Freaky's funeral, and before they got there he almost lost his lunch wondering if he would see Freaky's head spread in the coffin like a glob of Elmer's Glue, but Freaky was all fixed up in his sport coat and tie and his Cub Scouts attendance pin, and he looked ready to step out of his coffin the moment someone said baseball. The eyes that didn't jibe were closed, and in general Garraty felt pretty relieved.
That had been the only dead person he had ever seen before all of this, and it had been a clean, neat dead person. Nothing like Ewing, or the boy in the loden trenchcoat, or Davidson with blood on his livid, tired face.
It's sick, Garraty thought with dismal realization. It's just sick.
At quarter to four he was given first warning, and he slapped himself twice smartly across the face, trying to make himself wake up. His body felt chilled clear through. His kidneys dragged at him, but at the same time he felt that he didn't quite have to pee yet. It might have been his imagination, but the stars in the east seemed a trifle paler. With real amazement it occurred to him that at this time yesterday he had been asleep in the back of the car as they drove up toward the stone marking post at the border. He could almost see himself stretched out on his back, sprawling there, not even moving. He felt an intense longing to be back there. Just to bring back yesterday morning.
Ten of four now.
He looked around himself, getting a superior, lonely kind of gratification from knowing he was one of the few fully awake and aware. It was definitely lighter now, light enough to make out snatches of features in the walking silhouettes. Baker was up ahead-he could tell it was Art by the flapping red-striped shirt-and McVries was near him. He saw Olson was off to the left, keeping pace with the halftrack, and was surprised. He was sure that Olson had been one of those to get tickets during the small hours of the morning, and had been relieved that he hadn't had to see Hank go down. It was too dark even now to see how he looked, but Olson's head was bouncing up and down in time to his stride like the head of a rag doll.
Percy, whose mom kept showing up, was back by Stebbins now. Percy was walking with a kind of lopsided poll, like a long-time sailor on his first day ashore. He also spotted Gribble, Harkness, Wyman, and Collie Parker. Most of the people he knew were still in it.
By four o'clock there was a brightening band on the horizon, and Garraty felt his spirits lift. He stared back at the long tunnel of the night in actual horror, and wondered how he ever could have gotten through it.
He stepped up his pace a little, approaching McVries, who was walking with his chin against his breast, his eyes half-open but glazed and vacant, more asleep than awake. A thin, delicate cord of saliva hung from the corner of his mouth, picking up the first tremulous touch of dawn with pearly, beautiful fidelity. Garraty stared at this strange phenomenon, fascinated. He didn't want to wake McVries out of his doze. For the time being it was enough to be close to someone he liked, someone else who had made it through the night.
They passed a rocky, steeply slanting meadow where five cows stood gravely at a bark-peeled pole fence, staring out at the Walkers and chewing thoughtfully. A small dog tore out of a farmyard and barked at them ratchetingly. The soldiers on the halftrack raised their guns to high port, ready to shoot the animal if he interfered with any Walker's progress, but the dog only chased back and forth along the shoulder, bravely voicing defiance and territoriality from a safe distance. Someone yelled thickly at him to shut up, goddammit.
Garraty became entranced with the coming dawn. He watched as the sky and the land lightened by degrees. He watched the white band on the horizon deepen to a delicate pink, then red, then gold. The guns roared once more before the last of the night was finally banished, but Garraty barely heard. The first red arc of sun was peering over the horizon, faded behind a fluff of cloud, then came again in an onslaught. It looked to be a perfect day, and Garraty greeted it only half-coherently by thinking: Thank God I can die in the daylight.
A bird twitted sleepily. They passed another farmhouse where a man with a beard waved at them after putting down a wheelbarrow filled with hoes, rakes, and planting-seed.
A crow cawed raucously off in the shadowy woods. The first heat of the day touched Garraty's face gently, and he welcomed it. He grinned and yelled loudly for a canteen.
McVries twitched his head oddly, like a dog interrupted in a dream of cat-chasing, and then looked around with muddy eyes. "My God, daylight. Daylight, Garraty. What time?"
Garraty looked at his watch and was surprised to find it was quarter of five. He showed McVries the dial.
"How many miles? Any idea?"
"About eighty, I make it. And twenty-seven down. We're a quarter of the way home, Pete."
"Yeah." McVries smiled. "That's right, isn't it?"
"Damn right."
"You feel better?" Garraty asked.
"About one thousand per cent."
"So do I. I think it's the daylight."
"My God, I bet we see some people today. Did you read that article in World's Week about the Long Walk?"
"Skimmed it," Garraty said. "Mostly to see my name in print."
"Said that over two billion dollars gets bet on the Long Walk every year. Two billion!"
Baker had awakened from his own doze and had joined them. "We used to have a pool in my high school," he said. "Everybody'd kick in a quarter, and then we'd each pick a three-digit number out of a hat. And the guy holdin' the number closest to the last mile of the Walk, he got the money."
"Olson!" McVries yelled over cheerily. "Just think of all the cash riding on you, boy! Think of the people with a bundle resting right on your skinny ass!"
Olson told him in a tired, washed-out voice that the people with a bundle wagered on his skinny ass could perform two obscene acts upon themselves, the second proceeding directly from the first. McVries, Baker, and Garraty laughed.
"Be a lotta pretty girls on the road today," Baker said, eyeing Garraty roguishly.
"I'm all done with that stuff," Garraty said. "I got a girl up ahead. I'm going to be a good boy from now on."
"Sinless in thought, word, and deed," McVries said sententiously.
Garraty shrugged. "See it any way you like," he said.
"Chances are a hundred to one against you ever having a chance to do more than wave to her again," McVries said flatly.
"Seventy-three to one now."
"Still pretty high."
But Garraty's good humor was solid. "I feel like I could walk forever," he said blandly. A couple of the Walkers around him grimaced.
They passed an all-night gas station and the attendant came out to wave. Just about everyone waved back. The attendant was calling encouragement to Wayne, 94, in particular.
"Garraty," McVries said quietly.
"What?"
"I couldn't tell all the guys that bought it. Could you?"
'No."
"Barkovitch?"
"No. Up ahead. In front of Scramm. See him?"
McVries looked. "Oh. Yeah, I think I do."
"Stebbins is still back there, too."
"Not surprised. Funny guy, isn't he?"
"Yeah."
There was silence between them. McVries sighed deeply, then unshouldered his knapsack and pulled out some macaroons. He offered one to Garraty, who took one. "I wish this was over," he said. "One way or the other."
They ate their macaroons in silence.
"We must be halfway to Oldtown, huh?" McVries said. "Eighty down, eighty to go?"
"I guess so," Garraty said.
"Won't get there until tonight, then."
The mention of night made Garraty's flesh crawl. "No," he said. Then, abruptly: "How'd you get that scar, Pete?"
McVries's hand went involuntarily to his cheek and the scar. "It's a long story," he said briefly.
Garraty took a closer look at him. His hair was rumpled and clotty with dust and sweat. His clothes were limp and wrinkled. His face was pallid and his eyes were deeply circled in their bloodshot orbs.
"You look like shit," he said, and suddenly burst out laughing.
McVries grinned. "You don't exactly look like a deodorant ad yourself, Ray."
They both laughed then, long and hysterically, clutching each other and trying to keep walking at the same time. It was as good a way as any to put an end to the night once and for all. It went on until Garraty and McVries were both warned. They stopped laughing and talking then, and settled into the day's business.
Thinking, Garraty thought. That's the day's business. Thinking. Thinking and isolation, because it doesn't matter if you pass the time of day with someone or not; in the end, you're alone. He seemed to have put in as many miles in his brain as he had with his feet. The thoughts kept coming and there was no way to deny them. It was enough to make you wonder what Socrates had thought about right after he had tossed off his hemlock cocktail.
At a little past five o'clock they passed their first clump of bona fide spectators, four little boys sitting cross-legged like Indians outside a pup tent in a dewy field. One was still wrapped up in his sleeping bag, as solemn as an Eskimo. Their hands went back and forth like timed metronomes. None of them smiled.
Shortly afterward, the road forked into another, larger road. This one was a smooth, wide expanse of asphalt, three lanes wide. They passed a truck-stop restaurant, and everyone whistled and waved at the three young waitresses sitting on the steps, just to show them they were still starchy. The only one who sounded halfway serious was Collie Parker.
"Friday night," Collie yelled loudly. "Keep it in mind. You and me, Friday night."
Garraty thought they were all acting a little immature, but he waved politely and the waitresses seemed not to mind. The Walkers spread out across the wider road as more of them came fully awake to the May 2nd morning sunshine. Garraty caught sight of Barkovitch again and wondered if Barkovitch wasn't really one of the smart ones. With no friends you had no grief.
A few minutes later the word came back, and this time the word was a knock-knock joke. Bruce Pastor, the boy just in front of Garraty, turned around to Garraty and said, "Knock, knock, Garraty."
"Who's there?"
"Major."
"Major who?"
"Major buggers his mother before breakfast," Bruce Pastor said, and laughed uproariously. Garraty chuckled and passed it back to McVries, who passed it to Olson. When the joke came back the second time, the Major was buggering his grandmother before breakfast. The third time he was buggering Sheila, the Bedlington terrier that appeared with him in so many of his press releases.
Garraty was still laughing over that one when he noticed that McVries's laughter had tapered off and disappeared. He was staring with an odd fixity at the wooden-faced soldiers atop the halftrack. They were staring back impassively.
"You think that's funny?" he yelled suddenly. The sound of his shout cut cleanly through the laughter and silenced it. McVries's face was dark with suffused blood. The scar stood out in dead white contrast, like a slashed exclamation mark, and for one fear-filled moment Garraty thought he was having a stroke.
"Major buggers himself, that's what I think!" McVries cried hoarsely. "You guys, you probably bugger each other. Pretty funny, huh? Pretty funny, you bunch of motherfuckers, right? Pretty goddam FUNNY, am I right?"
Other Walkers stared uneasily at McVries and then eased away.
McVries suddenly ran at the halftrack. Two of the three soldiers raised their guns to high port, ready, but McVries halted, halted dead, and raised his fists at them, shaking them above his head like a mad conductor.
"Come on down here! Put down those rifles and come on down here! I'll show you what's funny!"
"Warning," one of them said in a perfectly neutral voice. "Warning 61. Second warning."
Oh my God, Garraty thought numbly. He's going to get it and he's so close so close to them he'll fly through the air just like Freaky D'Allessio. McVries broke into a run, caught up with the halftrack, stopped, and spat on the side of it. The spittle cut a clean streak through the dust on the side of the halftrack.
"Come on! " Mc Vries screamed. "Come on down here! One at a time or all at once, I don't give a shit!"
"Warning! Third Warning, 61, final warning."
"Fuck your warnings!"
Suddenly, unaware he was going to do it, Garraty turned and ran back, drawing his own warning. He only heard it with some back part of his mind. The soldiers were drawing down on McVries now. Garraty grabbed McVries's arm. "Come on—"
"Get out of here, Ray, I'm gonna fight them!"
Garraty put out his hands and gave McVries a hard, flat shove. "You're going to get shot, you asshole."
Stebbins passed them by.
McVries looked at Garraty, seeming to recognize him for the first time. A second later Garraty drew his own third warning, and he knew McVries could only be seconds away from his ticket.
"Go to hell," McVries said in a dead, washed-out voice. He began to walk again.
Garraty walked with him. "I thought you were going to buy it, that's all," he said.
"But I didn't, thanks to the musketeer," McVries said sullenly. His hand went to the scar. "Fuck, we're all going to buy it."
"Somebody wins. It might be one of us."
"It's a fake," McVries said, his voice trembling. "There's no winner, no Prize. They take the last guy out behind a barn somewhere and shoot him too."
"Don't be so fucking stupid! " Garraty yelled at him furiously. "You don't have the slightest idea what you're sa—"
"Everyone loses," McVries said. His eyes peered out of the dark cave of his sockets like baleful animals. They were walking by themselves. The other Walkers were keeping away, at least for the time being. McVries had shown red, and so had Garraty, in a way-he had gone against his own best interest when he ran back to McVries. In all probability he had kept McVries from being number twenty-eight.
"Everyone loses," McVries repeated. "You better believe it."
They walked over a railroad track. They walked under a cement bridge. On the other side they passed a boarded-up Dairy Queen with a sign that read: WILL REOPEN FOR SEASON JUNE 5.
Olson drew a warning.
Garraty felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around. It was Stebbins. He looked no better or worse than he had the night before. "Your friend there is jerked at the Major," he said.
McVries showed no sign of hearing.
"I guess so, yeah," Garraty said. "I myself have passed the point where I'd want to invite him home for tea."
"Look behind us."
Garraty did. A second halftrack had rolled up, and as he looked, a third fell in behind it, coming in off a side road.
"The Major's coming," Stebbins said, "and everybody will cheer." He smiled, and his smile was oddly lizardlike. "They don't really hate him yet. Not yet. They just think they do. They think they've been through hell. But wait until tonight. Wait until tomorrow."
Garraty looked at Stebbins uneasily. "What if they hiss and boo and throw canteens at him, or something?"
"Are you going to hiss and boo and throw your canteen?"
"No."
"Neither will anyone else. You'll see."
"Stebbins?"
Stebbins raised his eyebrows.
"You think you'll win, don't you?"
"Yes," Stebbins said calmly. "I'm quite sure of it." And he dropped back to his usual position.
At 5:25 Yannick bought his ticket. And at 5:30 AM, just as Stebbins had predicted, the Major came.
There was a winding, growling roar as his jeep bounced over the crest of the hill behind them. Then it was roaring past them, along the shoulder. The Major was standing at full attention. As before, he was holding a stiff, eyes-right salute. A funny chill of pride went through Garraty's chest.
Not all of them cheered. Collie Parker spat on the ground. Barkovitch thumbed his nose. And McVries only looked, his lips moving soundlessly. Olson appeared not to notice at all as the Major went by; he was back to looking at his feet.
Garraty cheered. So did Percy What's-His-Name and Harkness, who wanted to write a book, and Wyman and Art Baker and Abraham and Sledge, who had just picked up his second warning.
Then the Major was gone, moving fast. Garraty felt a little ashamed of himself. He had, after all, wasted energy.
A short time later the road took them past a used car lot where they were given a twenty-one-horn salute. An amplified voice roaring out over double rows of fluttering plastic pennants told the Walkers-and the spectators-that no one out-traded McLaren's Dodge. Garraty found it all a little disheartening.
"You feel any better?" he asked McVries hesitantly.
"Sure," McVries said. "Great. I'm just going to walk along and watch them drop all around me. What fun it is. I just did all the division in my head-math was my good subject in school-and I figure we should be able to make at least three hundred and twenty miles at the rate we're going. That's not even a record distance."
"Why don't you just go and have it on someplace else if you're going to talk like that, Pete," Baker said. He sounded strained for the first time.
"Sorry, Mum," McVries said sullenly, but he shut up.
The day brightened. Garraty unzipped his fatigue jacket. He slung it over his shoulder. The road was level here. It was dotted with houses, small businesses, and occasional farms. The pines that had lined the road last night had given way to Dairy Queens and gas stations and little crackerbox ranchos. A great many of the ranchos were FOR SALE. In two of the windows Garraty saw the familiar signs: MY SON GAVE HIS LIFE IN THE SQUADS.
"Where's the ocean?" Collie Parker asked Garraty. "Looks like I was back in Illy-noy."
"Just keep walking," Garraty said. He was thinking of Jan and Freeport again. Freeport was on the ocean. "It's there. About a hundred and eight miles south."
"Shit," said Collie Parker. "What a dipshit state this is."
Parker was a big-muscled blond in a polo shirt. He had an insolent look in his eye that not even a night on the road had been able to knock out. "Goddam trees everyplace! Is there a city in the whole damn place?"
"We're funny, up here," Garraty said. "We think it's fun to breathe real air instead of smog."
"Ain't no smog in Joliet, you fucking hick," Collie Parker said furiously. "What are you laying on me?"
"No smog but a lot of hot air," Garraty said. He was angry.
"If we was home, I'd twist your balls for that."
"Now boys," McVries said. He had recovered and was his old sardonic self again. "Why don't you settle this like gentlemen? First one to get his head blown off has to buy the other one a beer."
"I hate beer," Garraty said automatically.
Parker cackled. "You fucking bumpkin," he said, and walked away.
"He's buggy," McVries said. "Everybody's buggy this morning. Even me. And it's a beautiful day. Don't you agree, Olson?"
Olson said nothing.
"Olson's got bugs, too," McVries confided to Garraty. "Olson! Hey, Hank!"
"Why don't you leave him alone?" Baker asked.
"Hey Hank!" McVries shouted, ignoring Baker. "Wanna go for a walk?"
"Go to hell," Olson muttered.
"What?" McVries cried merrily, cupping a hand to his ear. "Wha choo say?"
"Hell! Hell!" Olson screamed. "Go to hell!"
"Is that what you said." McVries nodded wisely.
Olson went back to looking at his feet, and McVries tired of baiting him, if that was what he was doing.
Garraty thought about what Parker had said. Parker was a bastard. Parker was a big drugstore cowboy and Saturday night tough guy. Parker was a leather jacket hero. What did he know about Maine? He had lived in Maine all his life, in a little town called Porterville, just west of Freeport. Population 970 and not so much as a blinker light and just what's so damn special about Joliet, Illy-noy anyway?
Garraty's father used to say Porterville was the only town in the county with more graveyards than people. But it was a clean place. The unemployment was high, the cars were rusty, and there was plenty of screwing around going on, but it was a clean place. The only action was Wednesday Bingo at the grange hall (last game a coverall for a twenty-pound turkey and a twenty-dollar bill), but it was clean. And it was quiet. What was wrong with that?
He looked at Collie Parker's back resentfully. You missed out, buddy, that's all. You take Joliet and your candy-store ratpack and your mills and you jam them. Jam them crossways, if they'll fit. He thought about Jan again. He needed her. I love you, Jan, he thought. He wasn't dumb, and he knew she had become more to him than she actually was. She had turned into a life-symbol. A shield against the sudden death that came from the halftrack. More and more he wanted her because she symbolized the time when he could have a piece of ass-his own.
It was quarter of six in the morning now. He stared at a clump of cheering housewives bundled together near an intersection, small nerve-center of some unknown village. One of them was wearing tight slacks and a tighter sweater. Her face was plain. She wore three gold bracelets on her right wrist that clinked as she waved. Garraty could hear them clink. He waved back, not really thinking about it. He was thinking about Jan, who had come up from Connecticut, who had seemed so smooth and self-confident, with her long blond hair and her flat shoes. She alnost always wore flats because she was so tall. He met her at school. It went slow, but finally it clicked. God, had it clicked.
" Garraty?"
"Huh?"
It was Harkness. He looked concerned. "I got a cramp in my foot, man. I don't know if I can walk on it." Harkness's eyes seemed to be pleading for Garraty to do something.
Garraty didn't know what to say. Jan's voice, her laughter, the tawny caramel-colored sweater and her cranberry-red slacks, the time they took his little brother's sled and ended up making out in a snowbank (before she put snow down the back of his parka) those things were life. Harkness was death. By now Garraty could smell it.
"I can't help you," Garraty said. "You have to do it yourself."
Harkness looked at him in panicked consternation, and then his face turned grim and he nodded. He stopped, kneeled, and fumbled off his loafer.
"Warning! Warning 49!"
He was massaging his foot now. Garraty had turned around and was walking backwards to watch him. Two small boys in Little League shirts with their baseball gloves hung from their bicycle handlebars were also watching him from the side of the road, their mouths hung open.
"Warning! Second warning, 49!"
Harkness got up and began to limp onward in his stocking foot, his good leg already trying to buckle with the extra weight it was bearing. He dropped his shoe, grabbed for it, got two fingers on it, juggled it, and lost it. He stopped to pick it up and got his third warning.
Harkness's normally florid face was now fire-engine red. His mouth hung open in a wet, sloppy O. Garraty found himself rooting for Harkness. Come on, he thought, come on, catch up. Harkness, you can.
Harkness limped faster. The Little League boys began to pedal along, watching him. Garraty turned around frontward, not wanting to watch Harkness anymore. He stared straight ahead, trying to remember just how it had felt to kiss Jan, to touch her swelling breast.
A Shell station came slowly up on the right. There was a dusty, fender-dented pickup parked on the tarmac, and two men in red-and-black-checked hunting shirts sitting on the tailgate, drinking beer. There was a mailbox at the end of a rutted dirt driveway, its lid hanging open like a mouth. A dog was barking hoarsely and endlessly somewhere just out of sight.
The carbines came slowly down from high port and found Harkness.
There was a long, terrible moment of silence, and then they went back up again to high port, all according to the rules, according to the book. Then they came down again. Garraty could hear Harkness's hurried, wet breathing.
The guns went back up, then down, then slowly back up to high port.
The two Little Leaguers were still keeping pace. "Get outta here!" Baker said suddenly, hoarsely. "You don't want to see this. Scat!"
They looked with flat curiosity at Baker and kept on. They had looked at Baker as if he was some kind of fish. One of them, a small, bulletheaded kid with a wiffle haircut and dish-sized eyes, blipped the horn bolted to his bike and grinned. He wore braces, and the sun made a savage metal glitter in his mouth.
The guns came back down. It was like some sort of dance movement, like a ritual. Harkness rode the edge. Read any good books lately? Garraty thought insanely. This time they're going to shoot you. Just one step too slow—
Eternity.
Everything frozen.
Then the guns went back up to high port.
Garraty looked at his watch. The second hand swung around once, twice, three times. Harkness caught up to him, passed him by. His face was set and rigid. His eyes looked straight ahead. His pupils were contracted to tiny points. His lips had a faint bluish cast, and his fiery complexion had faded to the color of cream, except for two garish spots of color, one on each cheek. But he was not favoring the bad foot anymore. The cramp had loosened. His stocking foot slapped the road rhythmically. How long can you walk without your shoes? Garraty wondered.
He felt a loosening in his chest all the same, and heard Baker let out his breath. It was stupid to feel that way. The sooner Harkness stopped walking, the sooner he could stop walking. That was the simple truth. That was logic. But something went deeper, a truer, more frightening logic. Harkness was a part of the group that Garraty was a part of, a segment of his subclan. Part of a magic circle that Garraty belonged to. And if one part of that circle could be broken, any part of it could be broken.
The Little Leaguers biked along with them for another two miles before losing interest and turning back. It was better, Garraty thought. It didn't matter if they had looked at Baker as though he were something in a zoo. It was better for them to be cheated of their death. He watched them out of sight.
Up ahead, Harkness had formed a new one-man vanguard, walking very rapidly, almost running. He looked neither right nor left. Garraty wondered what he was thinking. |
[ Sale of the Century (British version) ]
Scramm, 85, did not fascinate Garraty because of his flashing intelligence, because Scramm wasn't all that bright. He didn't fascinate Garraty because of his moon face, his crew cut, or his build, which was mooselike. He fascinated Garraty because he was married.
"Really?" Garraty asked for the third time. He still wasn't convinced Scramm wasn't having him on. "You're really married?"
"Yeah." Scramm looked up at the early morning sun with real pleasure. "I dropped out of school when I was fourteen. There was no point to it, not for me. I wasn't no troublemaker, just not able to make grades. And our history teacher read us an article about how schools are overpopulated. So I figured why not let somebody who can learn sit in, and I'll get down to business. I wanted to marry Cathy anyway."
"How old were you?" Garraty asked, more fascinated than ever. They were passing through another small town, and the sidewalks were lined with signs and spectators, but he hardly noticed. Already the watchers were in another world, not related to him in any way. They might have been behind a thick plate-glass shield.
"Fifteen," Scramm answered. He scratched his chin, which was blue with beard stubble.
"No one tried to talk you out of it?"
"There was a guidance counselor at school, he gave me a lot of shit about sticking with it and not being a ditch digger, but he had more important things to do besides keep me in school. I guess you could say he gave me the soft sell. Besides, somebody has to dig ditches, tight?"
He waved enthusiastically at a group of little girls who were going through a spastic cheerleader routine, pleated skirts and scabbed knees flying.
"Anyhow, I never did dig no ditch. Never dug a one in my whole career. Went to work for a bedsheet factory out in Phoenix, three dollars an hour. Me and Cathy, we're happy people." Scramm smiled. "Sometimes we'll be watching TV and Cath will grab me and say, 'We're happy people, honey.' She's a peach."
"You got any kids?" Garraty asked, feeling more and more that this was an insane discussion.
"Well, Cathy's pregnant right now. She said we should wait until we had enough in the bank to pay for the delivery. When we got up to seven hundred, she said go, and we went. She caught pregnant in no time at all." Scramm looked sternly at Garraty. "My kid's going to college. They say dumb guys like me never have smart kids, but Cathy's smart enough for both of us. Cathy finished high school. I made her finish. Four night courses and then she took the H.S. E.T. My kid's going to as much college as he wants."
Garraty didn't say anything. He couldn't think of anything to say. McVries was off to the side, in close conversation with Olson. Baker and Abraham were playing a word game called Ghost. He wondered where Harkness was. Far out of sight, anyway. That was Scramm, too. Really out of sight. Hey Scramm, I think you made a bad mistake. Your wife, she's pregnant, Scramm, but that doesn't win you any special favors around here. Seven hundred in the bank? You don't spell pregnant with just three numbers, Scramm. And no insurance company in the world would touch a Long Walker.
Garraty stared at and through a man in a hound's tooth jacket who was deliriously waving a straw hat with a stringy brim.
"Scramm, what happens if you buy it?" he asked cautiously.
Scramm smiled gently. "Not me. I feel like I could walk forever. Say, I wanted to be in the Long Walk ever since I was old enough to want anything. I walked eighty miles just two weeks ago, no sweat."
"But suppose something should happen—"
But Scramm only chuckled.
"How olds Cathy?"
"About a year older than me. Almost eighteen. Her folks are with her now, there in Phoenix."
It sounded to Garraty as if Cathy Scramm's folks knew something Scramm himself did not.
"You must love her a lot," he said, a little wistfully.
Scramm smiled, showing the stubborn last survivors of his teeth. "I ain't looked at anyone else since I married her. Cathy's a peach."
"And you're doing this."
Scramm laughed. "Ain't it fun?"
"Not for Harkness," Garraty said sourly. "Go ask him if he thinks it's fun."
"You don't have any grasp of the consequences," Pearson said, falling in between Garraty and Scramm. "You could lose. You have to admit you could lose."
"Vegas odds made me the favorite just before the Walk started," Scramm said. "Odds-on."
"Sure," Pearson said glumly. "And you're in shape, too, anyone can see that." Pearson himself looked pale and peaked after the long night on the mad. He glanced disinterestedly at the crowd gathered in a supermarket parking lot they were just passing. "Everyone who wasn't in shape is dead now, or almost dead. But there's still seventy-two of us left."
"Yeah, but " A thinking frown spread over the broad circle of Scramm's face. Garraty could almost hear the machinery up there working: slow, ponderous, but in the end as sure as death and as inescapable as taxes. It was somehow awesome.
"I don't want to make you guys mad," Scramm said. "You're good guys. But you didn't get into this thinking of winning out and getting the Prize. Most of these guys don't know why they got into it. Look at that Barkovitch. He ain't in it to get no Prize. He's just walkin' to see other people die. He lives on it. When someone gets a ticket, he gets a little more go-power. It ain't enough. He'll dry up just like a leaf on a tree."
"And me?" Garraty asked.
Scramm looked troubled. "Aw, hell."
"No, go on."
"Well, the way I see it, you don't know why you're walking, either. It's the same thing. You're going now because you're afraid, but that's not enough. That wears out." Scramm looked down at the road and rubbed his hands together. "And when it wears out, I guess you'll buy a ticket like all the rest, Ray."
Garraty thought about McVries saying, When I get tired really tired why, l guess I will sit down.
"You'll have to walk a long time to walk me down," Garraty said, but Scramm's simple assessment of the situation had scared him badly.
"I," Scramm said, "am ready to walk a long time."
Their feet rose and fell on the asphalt, carrying them forward, around a curve, down into a dip and then over a railroad track that was metal grooves in the mad. They passed a closed fried clam shack. Then they were out in the country again.
"I understand what it is to die, I think," Pearson said abruptly. "Now I do, anyway. Not death itself, I still can't comprehend that. But dying. If I stop walking, I'll come to an end." He swallowed, and there was a click in his throat. "Just like a record after the last groove." He looked at Scramm earnestly. "Maybe it's like you say. Maybe it's not enough. But I don't want to die."
Scramm looked at him almost scornfully. "You think just knowing about death will keep you from dying?"
Pearson smiled a funny, sick little smile, like a businessman on a heaving boat trying to keep his dinner down. "Right now that's about all that's keeping me going." And Garraty felt a huge gratefulness, because his defenses had not been reduced to that. At least, not yet.
Up ahead, quite suddenly and as if to illustrate the subject they had been discussing, a boy in a black turtleneck sweater suddenly had a convulsion. He fell on the mad and began to snap and sunfish and jackknife viciously. His limbs jerked and flopped. There was a funny gargling noise in his throat, aaa-aaa-aaa, a sheeplike sound that was entirely mindless. As Garraty hurried past, one of the fluttering hands bounced against his shoe and he felt a wave of frantic revulsion. The boy's eyes were rolled up to the whites. There were splotches of foam splattered on his lips and chin. He was being second-warned, but of course he was beyond hearing, and when his two minutes were up they shot him like a dog.
Not long after that they reached the top of a gentle grade and stared down into the green, unpopulated country ahead. Garraty was grateful for the cool morning breeze that slipped over his fast-perspiring body.
"That's some view," Scramm said.
The road could be seen for perhaps twelve miles ahead. It slid down the long slope, ran in flat zigzags through the woods, a blackish-gray charcoal mark across a green swatch of crepe paper. Far ahead it began to climb again, and faded into the rosy-pink haze of early morning light.
"This might be what they call the Hainesville Woods," Garraty said, not too sure. "Truckers' graveyard. Hell in the wintertime."
"I never seen nothing like it," Scramm said reverently. "There isn't this much green in the whole state of Arizona."
"Enjoy it while you can," Baker said, joining the group. "It's going to be a scorcher. It's hot already and it's only six-thirty in the morning."
"Think you'd get used to it, where you come from," Pearson said, almost resentfully.
"You don't get used to it," Baker said, slinging his light jacket over his arm. "You just learn to live with it."
"I'd like to build a house up here," Scramm said. He sneezed heartily, twice, sounding a little like a bull in heat. "Build it right up here with my own two hands, and look at the view every morning. Me and Cathy. Maybe I will someday, when this is all over."
Nobody said anything.
By 6:45 the ridge was above and behind them, the breeze mostly cut off, and the heat already walked among them. Garraty took off his own jacket, rolled it, and tied it securely about his waist. The road through the woods was no longer deserted. Here and there early risers had parked their cars off the road and stood or sat in clumps, cheering, waving, and holding signs.
Two girls stood beside a battered MG at the bottom of one dip. They were wearing tight summer shorts, middy blouses, and sandals. There were cheers and whistles. The faces of these girls were hot, flushed, and excited by something ancient, sinuous, and, to Garraty, erotic almost to the point of insanity. He felt animal lust rising in him, an aggressively alive thing that made his body shake with a palsied fever all its own.
It was Gribble, the radical among them, that suddenly dashed at them, his feet kicking up spurts of dust along the shoulder. One of them leaned back against the hood of the MG and spread her legs slightly, tilting her hips at him. Gribble put his hands over her breasts. She made no effort to stop him. He was warned, hesitated, and then plunged against her, a jamming, hurtling, frustrated, angry, frightened figure in a sweaty white shirt and cord pants. The girl hooked her ankles around Gribble's calves and put her arms lightly around his neck. They kissed.
Gribble took a second warning, then a third, and then, with perhaps fifteen seconds of grace left, he stumbled away and broke into a frantic, shambling run. He fell down, picked himself up, clutched at his crotch and staggered back onto the road. His thin face was hectically flushed.
"Couldn't," he was sobbing. "Wasn't enough time and she wanted me to and I couldn't I " He was weeping and staggering, his hands pressed against his crotch. His words were little more than indistinct wails.
"So you gave them their little thrill," Barkovitch said. "Something for them to talk about in Show and Tell tomorrow."
"You just shut up!" Gribble screamed. He dug at his crotch. "It hurts, I got a cramp—"
"Blue balls," Pearson said. "That's what he's got."
Gribble looked at him through the stringy bangs of black hair that had fallen over his eyes. He looked like a stunned weasel. "It hurts," he muttered again. He dropped slowly to his knees, hands pressed into his lower belly, head drooping, back bowed. He was shivering and snuffling and Garraty could see the beads of sweat on his neck, some of them caught in the fine hairs on the nape-what Garraty's own father had always called quackfuzz.
A moment later and he was dead.
Garraty turned his head to look at the girls, but they had retreated inside their MG. They were nothing but shadow-shapes.
He made a determined effort to push them from his mind, but they kept creeping back in. How must it have been, dry-humping that wane, willing flesh? Her thighs had twitched, my God, they had twitched, in a kind of spasm, orgasm, oh God, the uncontrollable urge to squeeze and caress and most of all to feel that heat that heat.
He felt himself go. That warm, shooting flow of sensation, warming him. Wetting him. Oh Christ, it would soak through his pants and someone would notice. Notice and point a finger and ask him how he'd like to walk around the neighborhood with no clothes on, walk naked, walk and walk and walk.
Oh Jan I love you really I love you, he thought, but it was confused, all mixed up in something else.
He retied his jacket about his waist and then went on walking as before, and the memory dulled and browned very quickly, like a Polaroid negative left out in the sun.
The pace stepped up. They were on a steep downhill grade now, and it was hard to walk slowly. Muscles worked and pistoned and squeezed against each other. The sweat rolled freely. Incredibly, Garraty found himself wishing for night again. He looked over at Olson curiously, wondering how he was making it.
Olson was staring at his feet again. The cords in his neck were knotted and ridged. His lips were drawn back in a frozen grin.
"He's almost there now," McVries said at his elbow, startling him. "When they start half-hoping someone will shoot them so they can rest their feet, they're not far away."
"Is that right?" Garraty asked crossly. "How come everybody else around here knows so much more about it than me?"
"Because you're so sweet," McVries said tenderly, and then he sped up letting his legs catch the downgrade, and passed Garraty by.
Stebbins. He hadn't thought about Stebbins in a long time. He turned his head to look for Stebbins. Stebbins was there. The pack had strung out coming down the long hill, and Stebbins was about a quarter of a mile back, but there was no mistaking those purple pants and that chambray workshirt. Stebbins was still tailing the pack like some thin vulture, just waiting for them to fall—
Garraty felt a wave of rage. He had a sudden urge to rash back and throttle Stebbins. There was no rhyme or reason to it, but he had to actively fight the compulsion down.
By the time they had reached the bottom of the grade, Garraty's legs felt rubbery and unsteady. The state of numb weariness his flesh had more or less settled into was broken by unexpected darning-needles of pain that drove through his feet and legs, threatening to make his muscles knot and cramp. And Jesus, he thought, why not? They had been on the road for twenty-two hours. Twenty-two hour of nonstop walking, it was unbelievable.
"How do you feel now?" he asked Scramm, as if the last time he had asked him had been twelve hours ago.
"Fit and fine," Scramm said. He wiped the back of his hand across his nose sniffed, and spat. "Just as fit and fine as can be."
"You sound like you're getting a cold."
"Naw, it's the pollen. Happens every spring. Hay fever. I even get it in Arizona. But I never catch colds."
Garraty opened his mouth to reply when a hollow, poom poom sound echo back from far ahead. It was rifle fire. The word came back. Harkness had burnt out.
There was an odd, elevatorish sensation in Garraty's stomach as he passed the word on back. The magic circle was broken. Harkness would never write his book about the Long Walk. Harkness was being dragged off the road someplace up ahead like a grain bag or was being tossed into a track, wrapped securely in a canvas bodybag. For Harkness, the Long Walk was over.
"Harkness," McVries said. "Ol' Harkness bought a ticket to see the farm."
"Why don't you write him a poime?" Barkovitch called over.
"Shut up, killer," McVries answered absently. He shook his head. "O1' 1ness, sonofabitch."
"I ain't no killer! " Barkovitch screamed. "I'll dance on your grave,. scarface! I'll—"
A chorus of angry shouts silenced him. Muttering, Barkovitch glared at McVries. Then he began to stalk on a little faster, not looking around.
"You know what my uncle did?" Baker said suddenly. They were passing through a shady tunnel of overleafing trees, and Garraty was trying to forget about Harkness and Gribble and think only of the coolness.
"What?" Abraham asked.
"He was an undertaker," Baker said.
"Good deal," Abraham said disinterestedly.
"When I was a kid, I always used to wonder," Baker said vaguely. He seemed to lose track of his thought, then glanced at Garraty and smiled. It was a peculiar smile. "Who'd embalm him, I mean. Like you wonder who cuts the barber's hair or who operates on the doctor for gallstones. See?"
"It takes a lot of gall to be a doctor," McVries said solemnly.
"You know what I mean."
"So who got the call when the time came?" Abraham asked.
"Yeah," Scramm added. "Who did?"
Baker looked up at the twining, heavy branches under which they were passing, and Garraty noticed again that Baker now looked exhausted. Not that we don't all look that way, he added to himself.
"Come on," McVries said. "Don't keep us hanging. Who buried him?"
"This is the oldest joke in the world," Abraham said. "Baker says, whatever made you think he was dead?"
"He is, though," Baker said. "Lung cancer. Six years ago."
"Did he smoke?" Abraham asked, waving at a family of four and their cat. The cat was on a leash. It was a Persian cat. It looked mean and pissed off.
"No, not even a pipe," Baker said. "He was afraid it would give him cancer."
"Oh, for Christ's sake," McVries said, "who buried him? Tell us so we can discuss world problems, or baseball, or birth control or something."
"I think birth control is a world problem," Garraty said seriously. "My girlfriend is a Catholic and—"
"Come on!" McVries bellowed. "Who the fuck buried your grandfather, Baker?"
"My uncle. He was my uncle. My grandfather was a lawyer in Shreveport. "He—"
"I don't give a shit," McVries said. "I don't give a shit if the old gentleman had three cocks, I just want to know who buried him so we can get on."
"Actually, nobody buried him. He wanted to be cremated."
"Oh my aching balls," Abraham said, and then laughed a little.
"My aunt's got his ashes in a ceramic vase. At her house in Baton Rouge. She tried to keep the business going-the undertaking business-but nobody much seemed to cotton to a lady undertaker."
"I doubt if that was it," McVries said.
"No?"
"No. I think your uncle jinxed her."
"Jinx? How do you mean?" Baker was interested.
"Well, you have to admit it wasn't a very good advertisement for the business."
"What, dying?"
"No," McVries said. "Getting cremated."
Scramm chuckled stuffily through his plugged nose. "He's got you there, old buddy."
"I expect he might," Baker said. He and McVries beamed at each other.
"Your uncle," Abraham said heavily, "bores the tits off me. And might I also add that he—"
At that moment, Olson began begging one of the guards to let him rest.
He did not stop walking, or slow down enough to be warned, but his voice rose and fell in a begging, pleading, totally craven monotone that made Garraty crawl with embarrassment for him. Conversation lagged. Spectators watched Olson with horrified fascination. Garraty wished Olson would shut up before he gave the rest of them a black eye. He didn't want to die either, but if he had to he wanted to go out without people thinking he was a coward. The soldiers stared over Olson, through him, around him, wooden-faced, deaf and dumb. They gave an occasional warning, though, so Garraty supposed you couldn't call them dumb.
It got to be quarter to eight, and the word came back that they were just six miles short of one hundred miles. Garraty could remember reading that the largest number to ever complete the first hundred miles of a Long Walk was sixty-three. They looked a sure bet to crack that record; there were still sixty-nine in this group. Not that it mattered, one way or the other.
Olson's pleas rose in a constant, garbled litany to Garraty's left, somehow seeming to make the day hotter and more uncomfortable than it was. Several of the boys had shouted at Olson, but he seemed either not to hear or not to care.
They passed through a wooden covered bridge, the planks rumbling and bumping under their feet. Garraty could hear the secretive flap and swoop of the barn swallows that had made their homes among the rafters. It was refreshingly cool, and the sun seemed to drill down even hotter when they reached the other side. Wait till later if you think it's hot now, he told himself. Wait until you get back into open country. Boy howdy.
He yelled for a canteen, and a soldier trotted over with one. He handed it to Garraty wordlessly, then trotted back. Garraty's stomach was also growling for food. At nine o'clock, he thought. Have to keep walking until then. Be damned if I'm going to die on an empty stomach.
Baker cut past him suddenly, looked around for spectators, saw none, dropped his britches and squatted. He was warned. Garraty passed him, but heard the soldier warn him again. About twenty seconds after that he caught up with Garraty and McVries again, badly out of breath. He was cinching his pants.
"Fastest crap I evah took!" he said, badly out of breath.
"You should have brought a catalogue along," McVries said.
"I never could go very long without a crap," Baker said. "Some guys, hell, they crap once a week. I'm a once-a-day man. If I don't crap once a day, I take a laxative."
"Those laxatives will ruin your intestines," Pearson said.
"Oh, shit," Baker scoffed.
McVries threw back his head and laughed.
Abraham twisted his head around to join the conversation. "My grandfather never used a laxative in his life and he lived to be—"
"You kept records, I presume," Pearson said.
"You wouldn't be doubting my grandfather's word, would you?"
"Heaven forbid." Pearson rolled his eyes.
"Okay. My grandfather—"
"Look," Garraty said softly. Not interested in either side of the laxative argument, he had been idly watching Percy What's-His-Name. Now he was watching him closely, hardly believing what his eyes were seeing. Percy had been edging closer and closer to the side of the road. Now he was walking on the sandy shoulder. Every now and then he snapped a tight, frightened glance at the soldiers on top of the halftrack, then to his right, at the thick screen of trees less than seven feet away.
"I think he's going to break for it," Garraty said.
"They'll shoot him sure as hell," Baker said. His voice had dropped to a whisper.
"Doesn't look like anyone's watching him," Pearson replied.
"Then for God's sake, don't tip them!" McVries said angrily. "You bunch of dummies! Christ!"
For the next ten minutes none of them said anything sensible. They aped conversation and watched Percy watching the soldiers, watching and mentally gauging the short distance to the thick woods.
"He hasn't got the guts," Pearson muttered finally, and before any of them could answer, Percy began walking, slowly and unhurriedly, toward the woods. Two steps, then three. One more, two at the most, and he would be there. His jeans-clad legs moved unhurriedly. His sun-bleached blond hair ruffled just a little in a light puff of breeze. He might have been an Explorer Scout out for a day of bird-watching.
There were no warnings. Percy had forfeited his right to them when his right foot passed over the verge of the shoulder. Percy had left the road, and the soldiers had known all along. Old Percy What's-His-Name hadn't been fooling anybody. There was one sharp, clean report, and Garraty jerked his eyes from Percy to the soldier standing on the back deck of the halftrack. The soldier was a sculpture in clean, angular lines, the rifle nestled into the hollow of his shoulder, his head halfcocked along the barrel.
Then his head swiveled back to Percy again. Percy was the real show, wasn't he? Percy was standing with both his feet on the weedy border of the pine forest now. He was as frozen and as sculpted as the man who had shot him. The two of them together would have been a subject for Michelangelo, Garraty thought. Percy stood utterly still under a blue springtime sky. One hand was pressed to his chest, like a poet about to speak. His eyes were wide, and somehow ecstatic.
A bright seepage of blood ran through his fingers, shining in the sunlight. Old Percy What's-Your-Name. Hey Percy, your mother's calling. Hey Percy, does your mother know you're out? Hey Percy, what kind of silly sissy name is that,
Percy, Percy, aren't you cute? Percy transformed into a bright, sunlit Adonis counterpointed by the savage, duncolored huntsman. And one, two, three coin shaped splatters of blood fell on Percy's travel-dusty black shoes, and all of it happened in a space of only three seconds. Garraty did not take even two full steps and he was not warned, and oh Percy, what is your mother going to say? Do you, tell me, do you really have the nerve to die?
Percy did. He pitched forward, struck a small, crooked sapling, rolled through a half-turn, and landed face-up to the sky. The grace, the frozen symmetry, they were gone now. Perry was just dead.
"Let this ground be seeded with salt," McVries said suddenly, very rapidly. "So that no stalk of corn or stalk of wheat shall ever grow. Cursed be the children of this ground and cursed be their loins. Also cursed be their hams and hocks. Hail Mary full of grace, let us blow this goddam place."
McVries began to laugh.
"Shut up," Abraham said hoarsely. "Stop talking like that."
"All the world is God," McVries said, and giggled hysterically. "We're walking on the Lord, and back there the flies are crawling on the Lord, in fact the flies are also the Lord, so blessed be the fruit of thy womb Percy. Amen, hallelujah, chunky peanut butter. Our father, which art in tinfoil, hallow'd be thy name."
"I'll hit you!" Abraham warned. His face was very pale. "I will, Pete!"
"A praaayin' man!" McVries gibed, and he giggled again. "Oh my suds and body! Oh my sainted hat!"
"I'll hit you if you don't shut up!" Abraham bellowed.
"Don't," Garraty said, frightened. "Please don't fight. Let's be nice."
"Want a party favor?" Baker asked crazily.
"Who asked you, you goddam redneck?"
"He was awful young to be on this hike," Baker said sadly. "If he was fourteen, I'll smile 'n' kiss a pig."
"Mother spoiled him," Abraham said in a trembling voice. "You could tell."
He looked around at Garraty and Pearson pleadingly. "You could tell,, couldn't you?"
"She won't spoil him anymore," McVries said.
Olson suddenly began babbling at the soldiers again. The one who had shot Percy was now sitting down and eating a sandwich. They walked past eight o'clock. They passed a sunny gas station where a mechanic in greasy coveralls was hosing off the tarmac.
"Wish he'd spray us with some of that," Scratnm said. "I'm as hot as a poker."
"We're all hot," Garraty said.
"I thought it never got hot in Maine," Pearson said. He sounded more tired than ever. "I thought Maine was s'posed to be cool."
"Well then, now you know different," Garraty said shortly.
"You're a lot of fun, Garraty," Pearson said. "You know that? You're really a lot of fun. Gee, I'm glad I met you."
McVries laughed.
"You know what?" Garraty replied.
"What!"
"You got skidmarks in your underwear," Garraty said. It was the wittiest thing he could think of at short notice.
They passed another truck stop. Two or three big rigs were pulled in, hauled off the highway no doubt to make room for the Long Walkers. One of the drivers was standing anxiously by his rig, a huge refrigerator truck, and feeling the side. Feeling the cold that was slipping away in the morning sun. Several of the waitresses cheered as the Walkers trudged by, and the trucker who had been feeling the side of his refrigerator compartment turned and gave them the finger. He was a huge man with a red neck bulling its way out of a dirty T-shirt.
"Now why'd he wanna do that?" Scramm cried. "Just a rotten old sport!"
McVries laughed. "That's the first honest citizen we've seen since this clambake got started, Scramm. Man, do I love him!"
"Probably he's loaded up with perishables headed for Montreal," Garraty said. "All the way from Boston. We forced him off the road. He's probably afraid he'll lose his job-or his rig, if he's an independent."
"Isn't that tough?" Collie Parker brayed. "Isn't that too goddam tough? They only been tellin' people what the route was gonna be for two months or more. Just another goddam hick, that's all!"
"You seem to know a lot about it," Abraham said to Garraty.
"A little," Garraty said, staring at Parker. "My father drove a rig before he got before he went away. It's a hard job to make a buck in. Probably that guy back there thought he had time to make it to the next cutoff. He wouldn't have come this way if there was a shorter route."
"He didn't have to give us the finger," Scramm insisted. "He didn't have to do that. By God, his rotten old tomatoes ain't life and death, like this is."
"Your father took off on your mother?" McVries asked Garraty.
"My dad was Squaded," Garraty said shortly. Silently he dared Parker-or anyone else-to open his mouth, but no one said anything.
Stebbins was still walking last. He had no more than passed the truck stop before the burly driver was swinging back up into the cab of his jimmy. Up ahead, the guns cracked out their single word. A body spun, flipped over, and lay still. Two soldiers dragged it over to the side of the road. A third tossed them a bodybag from the halftrack.
"I had an uncle that was Squaded," Wyman said hesitantly. Garraty noticed that the tongue of Wyman's left shoe had worked out from beneath the facings and was flapping obscenely.
"No one but goddam fools get Squaded," Collie Parker said clearly.
Garraty looked at him and wanted to feel angry, but he dropped his head and stared at the road. His father had been a goddam fool, all right. A goddam drunkard who could not keep two cents together in the same place for long no matter what he tried his hand at, a man without the sense to keep his political opinions to himself. Garraty felt old and sick.
"Shut your stinking trap," McVries said coldly.
"You want to try and make me—"
"No, I don't want to try and make you. Just shut up, you sonofabitch.
Collie Parker dropped back between Garraty and McVries. Pearson and Abraham moved away a little. Even the soldiers straightened, ready for trouble. Parker studied Garraty for a long moment. His face was broad and beaded with sweat, his eyes still arrogant. Then he clapped Garraty briefly on the arm.
"I got a loose lip sometimes. I didn't mean nothing by it. Okay?" Garraty nodded wearily, and Parker shifted his glance to McVries. "Piss on you, Jack," he said, and moved up again toward the vanguard.
"What an unreal bastard," McVries said glumly.
"No worse than Barkovitch," Abraham said. "Maybe even a little better."
"Besides," Pearson added, "what's getting Squaded? It beats the hell out of getting dead, am I right?"
"How would you know?" Garraty asked. "How would any of us know?"
His father had been a sandy-haired giant with a booming voice and a bellowing laugh that had sounded to Garraty's small ears like mountains cracking open. After he lost his own rig, he made a living driving Government trucks out of Brunswick. It would have been a good living if Jim Garraty could have kept his politics to himself. But when you work for the Government, the Government is twice as aware that you're alive, twice as ready to call in a Squad if things seem a little dicky around the edges. And Jim Garraty had not been much of a Long Walk booster. So one day he got a telegram and the next day two soldiers turned up on the doorstep and Jim Garraty had gone with them, blustering, and his wife had closed the door and her cheeks had been pale as milk and when Garraty asked his mother where Daddy was going with the soldier mens, she had slapped him hard enough to make his mouth bleed and told him to shut up, shut up. Garraty had never seen his father since. It had been eleven years. It had been a neat removal. Odorless, sanitized, pasteurized, sanforized, and dandruff-free.
"I had a brother that was in law trouble," Baker said. "Not the Government, just the law. He stole himself a car and drove all the way from our town to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He got two years' suspended sentence. He's dead now."
"Dead?" The voice was a dried husk, wraithlike. Olson had joined them. His haggard face seemed to stick out a mile from his body.
"He had a heart attack," Baker said. "He was only three years older than me. Ma used to say he was her cross, but he only got into bad trouble that once. I did worse. I was a night rider for three years."
Garraty looked over at him. There was shame in Baker's tired face, but there was also dignity there, outlined against a dusky shaft of sunlight poking through the trees. "That's a Squading offense, but I didn't care. I was only twelve when I got into it. Ain't hardly nothing but kids who go night-riding now, you know. Older heads are wiser heads. They'd tell us to go to it and pat our heads, but they weren't out to get Squaded, not them. I got out after we burnt a cross on some black man's lawn. I was scairt green. And ashamed, too. Why does anybody want to go burning a cross on some black man's lawn? Jesus Christ, that stuff's history, ain't it? Sure it is." Baker shook his head vaguely. "It wasn't right."
At that moment the rifles went again.
"There goes one more," Scramm said. His voice sounded clogged and nasal, and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
"Thirty-four," Pearson said. He took a penny out of one pocket and put it in the other. "I brought along ninety-nine pennies. Every time someone buys a ticket, I put one of 'em in the other pocket. And when—"
"That's gruesome!" Olson said. His haunted eyes stared balefully at Pearson. "Where's your death watch? Where's your voodoo dolls?"
Pearson didn't say anything. He studied the fallow field they were passing with anxious embarrassment. Finally he muttered, "I didn't mean to say anything about it. It was for good luck, that was all."
"It's dirty," Olson croaked. "It's filthy. It's—"
"Oh, quit it," Abraham said. "Quit getting on my nerves."
Garraty looked at his watch. It was twenty past eight. Forty minutes to food. He thought how nice it would be to go into one of those little roadside diners that dotted the road, snuggle his fanny against one of the padded counter stools, put his feet up on the rail (oh God, the relief of just that!) and order steak and fried onions, with a side of French fries and a big dish of vanilla ice cream with strawberry sauce for dessert. Or maybe a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs, with Italian bread and peas swimming in butter on the side. And milk. A whole pitcher of milk. To hell with the tubes and the canteens of distilled water. Milk and solid food and a place to sit and eat it in. Would that be fine?
Just ahead a family of five-mother, father, boy, girl, and white-haired grandmother-were spread beneath a large elm, eating a picnic breakfast of sandwiches and what looked like hot cocoa. They waved cheerily at the Walkers.
"Freaks," Garraty muttered.
"What was that?" McVries asked.
"I said I want to sit down and have something to eat. Look at those people. Fucking bunch of pigs."
"You'd be doing the same thing," McVries said. He waved and smiled, saving the biggest, flashiest part of the smile for the grandmother, who was waving back and chewing-well, gumming was closer to the truth-what looked like an egg salad sandwich.
"The hell I would. Sit there and eat while a bunch of starving—"
"Hardly starving, Ray. It just feels that way."
"Hungry, then—"
"Mind over matter," McVries incanted. "Mind over matter, my young friend." The incantation had become a seamy imitation of W.C. Fields.
"To hell with you. You just don't want to admit it. Those people, they're animals. They want to see someone's brains on the road, that's why they turn out. They'd just as soon see yours."
"That isn't the point," McVries said calmly. "Didn't you say you went to see the Long Walk when you were younger?"
"Yes, when I didn't know any better!"
"Well, that makes it okay, doesn't it?" McVries uttered a short, ugly-sounding laugh. "Sure they're animals. You think you just found out a new principle? Sometimes I wonder just how naive you really are. The French lords and ladies used to screw after the guillotinings. The old Romans used to stuff each other during the gladiatorial matches. That's entertainment, Garraty. It's nothing new." He laughed again. Garraty stared at him, fascinated.
"Go on," someone said. "You're at second base, McVries. Want to try for third?"
Garraty didn't have to turn. It was Stebbins, of course. Stebbins the lean Buddha. His feet carried him along automatically, but he was dimly aware that they felt swollen and slippery, as if they were filling with pus.
"Death is great for the appetites," McVries said. "How about those two girls and Gribble? They wanted to see what screwing a dead man felt like. Now for Something Completely New and Different. I don't know if Gribble got much out of it, but they sure as shit did. It's the same with anybody. It doesn't matter if they're eating or drinking or sitting on their cans. They like it better, they feel it and taste it better because they're watching dead men.
"But even that's not the real point of this little expedition, Garraty. The point is, they're the smart ones. They're not getting thrown to the lions. They're not staggering along and hoping they won't have to take a shit with two warnings against them. You're dumb, Garraty. You and me and Pearson and Barkovitch and Stebbins, we're all dumb. Scramm's dumb because he thinks he understands and he doesn't. Olson's dumb because he understood too much too late. They're an imals, all right. But why are you so goddam sure that makes us human beings?"
He paused, badly out of breath.
"There," he said. "You went and got me going. Sermonette No. 342 in a series of six thousand, et cetera, et cetera. Probably cut my lifespan by five hours or more."
"Then why are you doing it?" Garraty asked him. "If you know that much, and if you're that sure, why are you doing it?"
"The same reason we're all doing it," Stebbins said. He smiled gently, almost lovingly. His lips were a little sun-parched; otherwise, his face was still unlined and seemingly invincible. "We want to die, that's why we're doing it. Why else, Garraty? Why else?" |
Ray Garraty cinched the concentrate belt tightly around his waist and firmly told himself he would eat absolutely nothing until nine-thirty at least. He could tell it was going to be a hard resolution to keep. His stomach gnawed and growled. All around him Walkers were compulsively celebrating the end of the first twenty-four hours on the road.
Scramm grinned at Garraty through a mouthful of cheese spread and said something pleasant but untranslatable. Baker had his vial of olives-real olives-and was popping them into his mouth with machine-gun regularity. Pearson was jamming crackers mounded high with tuna spread into his mouth, and McVries was slowly eating chicken spread. His eyes were half-lidded, and he might have been in extreme pain or at the pinnacle of pleasure.
Two more of them had gone down between eight-thirty and nine; one of them had been the Wayne that the gas jockey had been cheering for a ways back. But they had come ninety-nine miles with just thirty-six gone. Isn't that wonderful, Garraty thought, feeling the saliva spurt in his mouth as McVries mopped the last of the chicken concentrate out of the tube and then cast the empty aside. Great. I hope they all drop dead right now.
A teenager in pegged jeans raced a middle-aged housewife for McVries's empty tube, which had stopped being something useful and had begun its new career as a souvenir. The housewife was closer but the kid was faster and he beat her by half a length. "Thanks!" he hollered to McVries, holding the bent and twisted tube aloft. He scampered back to his friends, still waving it. The housewife eyed him sourly.
"Aren't you eating anything?" McVries asked.
"I'm making myself wait."
"For what?"
"Nine-thirty."
McVries eyed him thoughtfully. "The old self-discipline bit?"
Garraty shrugged, ready for the backlash of sarcasm, but McVries only went on looking at him.
"You know something?" McVries said finally.
"What?"
"If I had a dollar just a dollar, mind you I think I'd put it on you, Garraty. I think you've got a chance to win this thing."
Garraty laughed self-consciously. "Putting the whammy on me?"
"The what?"
"The whammy. Like telling a pitcher he's got a no-hitter going."
"Maybe I am," McVries said. He put his hands out in front of him. They were shaking very slightly. McVries frowned at them in a distracted sort of concentration. It was a half-lunatic sort of gaze. "I hope Barkovitch buys out soon," he said.
"Pete?"
"What?"
"If you had it to do all over again if you knew you could get this far and still be walking would you do it?"
McVries put his hands down and stared at Garraty. "Are you kidding? You must be."
"No, I'm serious."
"Ray, I don't think I'd do it again if the Major put his pistol up against my nads. This is the next thing to suicide, except that a regular suicide is quicker."
"True," Olson said. "How true." He smiled a hollow, concentration-camp smile that made Garraty's belly crawl.
Ten minutes later they passed under a huge red-and-white banner that proclaimed: 100 MILES! CONGRATULATIONS FROM THE JEFFERSON PLANTATION CHAMBER OF COMMERCE! CONGRATULATIONS TO THIS YEAR'S "CENTURY CLUB" LONG WALKERS!
"I got a place where they can put their Century Club," Collie Parker said. "It's long and brown and the sun never shines there."
Suddenly the spotty stands of second-growth pine and spruce that had bordered the road in scruffy patches were gone, hidden by the first real crowd they had seen. A tremendous cheer went up, and that was followed by another and another. It was like surf hammering on rocks. Flashbulbs popped and dazzled. State police held the deep ranks of people back, and bright orange nylon restraining ropes were strong along the soft shoulders. A policeman struggled with a screaming little boy. The boy had a dirty face and a snotty nose. He was waving a toy glider in one hand and an autograph book in the other.
"Jeez!" Baker yelled. "Jeez, look at 'em, just look at 'em all!"
Collie Parker was waving and smiling, and it was not until Garraty closed up with him a little that he could hear him calling in his flat Midwestern accent: "Glad to seeya, ya goddam bunch of fools!" A grin and a wave. "Howaya, Mother McCree, you goddam bag. Your face and my ass, what a match. Howaya, howaya?"
Garraty clapped his hands over his mouth and giggled hysterically. A man in the first rank waving a sloppily lettered sign with Scramm's name on it had popped his fly. A row back a fat woman in a ridiculous yellow sunsuit was being ground between three college students who were drinking beer. Stone-ground fatty, Garraty thought, and laughed harder.
You're going to have hysterics, oh my God, don't let it get you, think about Gribble and don't don't let don't.
But it was happening. The laughter came roaring out of him until his stomach was knotted and cramped and he was walking bent-legged and somebody was hollering at him, screaming at him over the roar of the crowd. It was McVries. "Ray! Ray! What is it? You all right?"
"They're funny!" He was nearly weeping with laughter now. "Pete, Pete, they're so funny, it's just just that they're so funny!"
A hard-faced little girl in a dirty sundress sat on the ground, pouty-mouthed and frowning. She made a horrible face as they passed. Garraty nearly collapsed with laughter and drew a warning. It was strange-in spite of all the noise he could still hear the warnings clearly.
I could die, he thought. I could just die laughing, wouldn't that be a scream?
Collie was still smiling gaily and waving and cursing spectators and newsmen roundly, and that seemed funniest of all. Garraty fell to his knees and was warned again. He continued to laugh in short, barking spurts, which were all his laboring lungs would allow.
"He's gonna puke!" someone cried in an ecstasy of delight. "Watch 'im, Alice, he's gonna puke!"
"Garraty! Garraty for God's sake!" McVries was yelling. He got an arm around Garraty's back and hooked a hand into his armpit. Somehow he yanked him to his feet and Garraty stumbled on.
"Oh God," Garraty gasped. "Oh Jesus Christ they're killing me. I I can't " He broke into loose, trickling laughter once more. His knees buckled. McVries ripped him to his feet once more. Garraty's collar tore. They were both warned. That's my last warning, Garraty thought dimly. I'm on my way to see that fabled farm. Sorry, Jan, I.
"Come on, you turkey, I can't lug you!" McVries hissed.
"I can't do it," Garraty gasped. "My wind's gone, I—"
McVries slapped him twice quickly, forehand on the right cheek, backhand on the left. Then he walked away quickly, not looking back.
The laughter had gone out of him now but his gut was jelly, his lungs empty and seemingly unable to refill. He staggered drunkenly along, weaving, trying to find his wind. Black spots danced in front of his eyes, and a part of him understood how close to fainting he was. His one foot fetched against his other foot, he stumbled, almost fell, and somehow kept his balance.
If I fall, I die. I'll never get up.
They were watching him. The crowd was watching him. The cheers had died away to a muted, almost sexual murmur. They were waiting for him to fall down.
He walked on, now concentrating only on putting one foot out in front of the other. Once, in the eighth grade, he had read a story by a man named Ray Bradbury, and this story was about the crowds that gather at the scenes of fatal accidents, about how these crowds always have the same faces, and about how they seem to know whether the wounded will live or die. I'm going to live a little longer, Garraty told them. I'm going to live. I'm going to live a little longer.
He made his feet rise and fall to the steady cadence in his head. He blotted everything else out, even Jan. He was not aware of the heat, or of Collie Parker, or of Freaky D'Allessio. He was not even aware of the steady dull pain in his feet and the frozen stiffness of the hamstring muscles behind his knees. The thought pounded in his mind like a big kettledrum. Like a heartbeat. Live a little longer. Live a little longer. Live a little longer. Until the words themselves became meaningless and signified nothing.
It was the sound of the guns that brought him out of it.
In the crowd-hushed stillness the sound was shockingly loud and he could hear someone screaming. Now you know, he thought, you live long enough to hear the sound of the guns, long enough to hear yourself screaming—
But one of his feet kicked a small stone then and there was pain and it wasn't him that had bought it, it was 64, a pleasant, smiling boy named Frank Morgan. They were dragging Frank Morgan off the road. His glasses were dragging and bouncing on the pavement, still hooked stubbornly over one ear. The left lens had been shattered.
"I'm not dead," he said dazedly. Shock hit him in a warm blue wave, threatening to turn his legs to water again.
"Yeah, but you ought to be," McVries said.
"You saved him," Olson said, turning it into a curse. "Why did you do that? Why did you do that?" His eyes were as shiny and as blank as doorknobs. "I'd kill you if I could. I hate you. You're gonna die, McVries. You wait and see. God's gonna strike you dead for what you did. God's gonna strike you dead as dogshit." His voice was pallid and empty. Garraty could almost smell the shroud on him. He clapped his own hands over his mouth and moaned through them. The truth was that the smell of the shroud was on all of them.
"Piss on you," McVries said calmly. "I pay my debts, that's all." He looked at Garraty. "We're square, man. It's the end, right?" He walked away, not hurrying, and was soon only another colored shirt about twenty yards ahead.
Garraty's wind came back, but very slowly, and for a long time he was sure he could feel a stitch coming in his side but at last that faded. McVries had saved his life. He had gone into hysterics, had a laughing jag, and McVries had saved him from going down. We're square, man. It's the end, right? All right.
"God will punish him," Hank Olson was blaring with dead and unearthly assurance. "God will strike him down."
"Shut up or I'll strike you down myself," Abraham said.
The day grew yet hotter, and small, quibbling arguments broke out like brushfires. The huge crowd dwindled a little as they walked out of the radius of TV cameras and microphones, but it did not disappear or even break up into isolated knots of spectators. The crowd had come now, and the crowd was here to stay.
The people who made it up merged into one anonymous Crowd Face, a vapid, eager visage that duplicated itself mile by mile. It peopled doorsteps, lawns, driveways, picnic areas, gas station tarmacs (where enterprising owners had charged admission), and, in the next town they passed through, both sides of the street and the parking lot of the town's supermarket. The Crowd Face mugged and gibbered and cheered, but always remained essentially the same. It watched voraciously when Wyman squatted to make his bowels work. Men, women, and children, the Crowd Face was always the same, and Garraty tired of it quickly.
He wanted to thank McVries, but somehow doubted that McVries wanted to be thanked. He could see him up ahead, walking behind Barkovitch. McVries way staring intently at Barkovitch's neck.
Nine-thirty came and passed. The crowd seemed to intensify the heat, and Garraty unbuttoned his shirt to just above his belt buckle. He wondered if Freaky D'Allessio had known he was going to buy a ticket before he did. He supposed that knowing wouldn't have really changed things for him, one way or the other.
The road inclined steeply, and the crowd fell away momentarily as they climbed up and over four sets of east/west railroad tracks that ran below, glittering hotly in their bed of cinders. At the top, as they crossed the wooden bridge, Garrat5 could see another belt of woods ahead, and the built-up, almost suburban area through which they had just passed to the right and left.
A cool breeze played over his sweaty skin, making him shiver. Scramm sneezed sharply three times.
"I am getting a cold," he announced disgustedly.
"That'll take the starch right out of you," Pearson said. "That's a bitch."
"I'll just have to work harder," Scramm said.
"You must be made of steel," Pearson said. "If I had a cold I think I'd roll right over and die. That's how little energy I've got left."
"Roll over and die now!" Barkovitch yelled back. "Save some energy!"
"Shut up and keep walking, killer," McVries said immediately.
Barkovitch looked around at him. "Why don't you get off my back, McVries? Go walk somewhere else."
"It's a free road. I'll walk where I damn well please."
Barkovitch hawked, spat, and dismissed him.
Garraty opened one of his food containers and began to eat cream cheese on crackers. His stomach growled bitterly at the first bite, and he had to fight himself to keep from wolfing everything. He squeezed a tube of roast beef concentrate into his mouth, swallowing steadily. He washed it down with water and then made himself stop there.
They walked by a lumberyard where men stood atop stacks of planks, silhouetted against the sky like Indians, waving to them. Then they were in the wood again and silence seemed to fall with a crash. It was not silent, of course; Walkers talked, the halftrack ground along mechanically, somebody broke wind, somebody laughed, somebody behind Garraty made a hopeless little groaning sound. The sides of the road were still lined with spectators, but the great "Century Club" crowd had disappeared and it seemed quiet by comparison. Birds sang in the high-crowned trees, the furtive breeze now and then masked the heat for a moment or two, sounding like a lost soul as it soughed through the trees. A brown squirrel froze on a high branch, tail bushed out, black eyes brutally attentive, a nut caught between his ratlike front paws. He chittered at them, then scurried higher up and disappeared. A plane droned far away, like a giant fly.
To Garraty it seemed that everyone was deliberately giving him the silent treatment. McVries was still walking behind Barkovitch. Pearson and Baker were talking about chess. Abraham was eating noisily and wiping his hands on his shirt. Scramm had torn off a piece of his T-shirt and was using it as a hanky. Collie Parker was swapping girls with Wyman. And Olson but he didn't even want to look at Olson, who seemed to want to implicate everyone else as an accessory in his own approaching death.
So he began to drop back, very carefully, just a little at a time (very mindful of his three warnings), until he was in step with Stebbins. The purple pants were dusty now. There were dark circles of sweat under the armpits of the chambray shirt. Whatever else Stebbins was, he wasn't Superman. He looked up at Garraty for a moment, lean face questioning, and then he dropped his gaze back to the road. The knob of spine at the back of his neck was very prominent.
"How come there aren't more people?" Garraty asked hesitantly. "Watching, I mean."
For a moment he didn't think Stebbins was going to answer. But finally he looked up again, brushed the hair off his forehead and replied, "There will be. Wait awhile. They'll be sitting on roofs three deep to look at you."
"But somebody said there was billions bet on this. You'd think they'd be lined up three deep the whole way. And that there'd be TV coverage—"
"It's discouraged."
"Why?"
"Why ask me?"
"Because you know," Garraty said, exasperated.
"How do you know?"
"Jesus, you remind me of the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, sometimes," Garraty said. "Don't you ever just talk?"
"How long would you last with people screaming at you from both sides? The body odor alone would be enough to drive you insane after a while. It would be like walking three hundred miles through Times Square on New Year's Eve."
"But they do let them watch, don't they? Someone said it was one big crowd from Oldtown on."
"I'm not the caterpillar, anyway," Stebbins said with a small, somehow secretive smile. "I'm more the white rabbit type, don't you think? Except I left my gold watch at home and no one has invited me to tea. At least, to the best of my knowledge, no one has. Maybe that's what I'll ask for when I win. When they ask me what I want for my Prize, I'll say, 'Why, I want to be invited home for tea.'"
"Goddammit!"
Stebbins smiled more widely, but it was still only an exercise in lip-pulling. "Yeah, from Oldtown or thereabouts the damper is off. By then no one is thinking very much about mundane things like B.O. And there's continuous TV coverage from Augusta. The Long Walk is the national pastime, after all."
"Then why not here?"
"Too soon," Stebbins said. "Too soon."
From around the next curve the guns roared again, startling a pheasant that rose from the underbrush in an electric uprush of beating feathers. Garraty and Stebbins rounded the curve, but the bodybag was already being zipped up. Fast work. He couldn't see who it had been.
"You reach a certain point," Stebbins said, "when the crowd ceases to matter, either as an incentive or a drawback. It ceases to be there. Like a man on a scaffold, I think. You burrow away from the crowd."
"I think I understand that," Garraty said. He felt timid.
"If you understood it, you wouldn't have gone into hysterics back there and needed your friend to save your ass. But you will."
"How far do you burrow, I wonder?"
"How deep are you?"
"I don't know."
"Well, that's something you'll get to find out, too. Plumb the unplumbed depths of Garraty. Sounds almost like a travel ad, doesn't it? You burrow until you hit bedrock. Then you burrow into the bedrock. And finally you get to the bottom. And then you buy out. That's my idea. Let's hear yours."
Garraty said nothing. Right at present, he had no ideas.
The Walk went on. The heat went on. The sun hung suspended just above the line of trees the road cut its way through. Their shadows were stubby dwarves. Around ten o'clock, one of the soldiers disappeared through the back hatch of the halftrack and reappeared with a long pole. The upper two thirds of the pole was shrouded in cloth. He closed the hatch and dropped the end of the pole into a slot in the metal. He reached under the cloth and did something fiddled something, probably a stud. A moment later a large, dun-colored sun umbrella popped up. It shaded most of the halftrack's metal surface. He and the other two soldiers currently on duty sat cross-legged in the army-drab parasol's shade.
"You rotten sonsabitches!" somebody screamed. "My Prize is gonna be your public castration!"
The soldiers did not seem exactly struck to the heart with terror at the thought. They continued to scan the Walkers with their blank eyes, referring occasionally to their computerized console.
"They probably take this out on their wives," Garraty said. "When it's over."
"Oh, I'm sure they do," Stebbins said, and laughed.
Garraty didn't want to walk with Stebbins anymore, not right now. Stebbins made him uneasy. He could only take Stebbins in small doses. He walked faster, leaving Stebbins by himself again. 10:02. In twenty-three minutes he could drop a warning, but for now he was still walking with three. It didn't scare him the way he had thought it would. There was still the unshakable, blind assurances that this organism Ray Garraty could not die. The others could die, they were extras in the movie of his life, but not Ray Garraty, star of that long-running hit film, The Ray Garraty Story. Maybe he would eventually come to understand the untruth of that emotionally as well as intellectually maybe that was the final depth of which Stebbins had spoken. It was a shivery, unwelcome thought.
Without realizing it, he had walked three quarters of the way through the pack. He was behind McVries again. There were three of them in a fatigue-ridden conga line: Barkovitch at the front, still trying to look cocky but flaking a bit around the edges; McVries with his head slumped, hands half-clenched, favoring his left foot a little now; and, bringing up the rear, the star of The Ray Garraty Story himself. And how do I look? he wondered.
He robbed a hand up the side of his cheek and listened to the rasp his hand made against his light beard-stubble. Probably he didn't look all that snappy himself.
He stepped up his pace a little more until he was walking abreast of McVries, who looked over briefly and then back at Barkovitch. His eyes were dark and hard to read.
They climbed a short, steep, and savagely sunny rise and then crossed another small bridge. Fifteen minutes went by, then twenty. McVries didn't say anything. Garraty cleared his throat twice but said nothing. He thought that the longer you went without speaking, the harder it gets to break the silence. Probably McVries was pissed that he had saved his ass now. Probably McVries had repented of it. That made Garraty's stomach quiver emptily. It was all hopeless and, stupid and pointless, most of all that, so goddam pointless it was really pitiful. He opened his mouth to tell McVries that, but before he could, McVries spoke.
"Everything's all right." Barkovitch jumped at the sound of his voice and McVries added, "Not you, killer. Nothing's ever going to be all right for you. Just keep striding."
"Eat my meat," Barkovitch snarled.
"I guess I caused you some trouble," Garraty said in a low voice.
"I told you, fair is fair, square is square, and quits are quits," McVries said evenly. "I won't do it again. I want you to know that."
"I understand that," Garraty said. "I just—"
"Don't hurt me!" someone screamed. "Please don't hurt me!"
It was a redhead with a plaid shirt tied around his waist. He had stopped in the middle of the road and he was weeping. He was given first warning. And then he raced toward the halftrack, his tears cutting runnels through the sweaty dirt on his face, red hair glinting like a fire in the sun. "Don't I can't please MY mother... I can't don't no more my feet " He was trying to scale the side, and one of the soldiers brought the butt of his carbine down on his hands. The boy cried out and fell in a heap.
He screamed again, a high, incredibly thin note that seemed sharp enough to shatter glass and what he was screaming was:
"My feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—"
"Jesus," Garraty muttered. "Why doesn't he stop that?" The screams went on and on.
"I doubt if he can," McVries said clinically. "The back treads of the halftrack ran over his legs."
Garraty looked and felt his stomach lurch into his throat. It was true. No wonder the redheaded kid was screaming about his feet. They had been obliterated.
"Warning! Warning 38!"
"—eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—"
"I want to go home," someone behind Garraty said very quietly. "Oh Christ, do I ever want to go home."
A moment later the redheaded boy's face was blown away.
"I'm gonna see my girl in Freeport," Garraty said rapidly. "And I'm not gonna have any warnings and I'm gonna kiss her, God I miss her, God, Jesus, did you see his legs? They were still warning him, Pete, like they thought he was gonna get up and walk—"
"Another boy has gone ober to dat Silver City, lawd, lawd," Barkovitch intoned.
"Shut up, killer," McVries said absently. "She pretty, Ray? Your girl?"
"She's beautiful. I love her."
McVries smiled. "Gonna marry her?"
"Yeah," Garraty babbled. "We're gonna be Mr. and Mrs. Norman Normal, four kids and a collie dog, his legs, he didn't have any legs, they ran over him, they can't run over a guy, that isn't in the rules, somebody ought to report that, somebody—"
"Two boys and two girls, that what you're gonna have?"
"Yeah, yeah, she's beautiful, I just wish I hadn't—"
"And the first kid will be Ray Junior and the dog'll have a dish with its name on it, right?"
Garraty raised his head slowly, like a punchdrunk fighter. "Are you making fun of me? Or what?"
"No!" Barkovitch exclaimed. "He's shitting on you, boy! And don't you forget it. But I'll dance on his grave for you, don't worry." He cackled briefly.
"Shut up, killer," McVries said. "I'm not dumping on you, Ray. Come on, let's get away from the killer, here."
"Shove it up your ass! " Barkovitch screamed after them.
"She love you? Your girl? Jan?"
"Yeah, I think so," Garraty said.
McVries shook his head slowly. "All of that romantic horseshit you know, it's true. At least, for some people for some short time, it is. It was for me. I felt like you." He looked at Garraty. "You still want to hear about the scar?"
They rounded a bend and a camperload of children squealed and waved. "Yes," Garraty said.
"Why?" He looked at Garraty, but his suddenly naked eyes might have been searching himself.
"I want to help you," Garraty said.
McVries looked down at his left foot. "Hurts. I can't wiggle the toes very much anymore. My neck is stiff and my kidneys ache. My girl turned out to be a bitch, Garraty. I got into this Long Walk shit the same way that guys used to get into the Foreign Legion. In the words of the great rock and roll poet, I gave her my heart, she tore it apart, and who gives a fart."
Garraty said nothing. It was 10:30. Freeport was still far.
"Her name was Priscilla," McVries said. "You think you got a case? I was the original Korny Kid, Moon-June was my middle name. I used to kiss her fingers. I even took to reading Keats to her out in back of the house, when the wind was right. Her old man kept cows, and the smell of cowshit goes, to put it in the most delicate way, in a peculiar fashion with the works of John Keats. Maybe I should have read her Swinburne when the wind was wrong." McVries laughed.
"You're cheating what you felt," Garraty said.
"Ah, you're the one faking it, Ray, not that it matters. All you remember is the Great Romance, not all the times you went home and jerked your meat after whispering words of love in her shell-pink ear."
"You fake your way, I'll fake mine."
McVries seemed not to have heard. "These things, they don't even bear the weight of conversation," he said. "J. D. Salinger John Knowles even James Kirkwood and that guy Don Bredes they've destroyed being an adolescent, Garraty. If you're a sixteen-year-old boy, you can't discuss the pains of adolescent love with any decency anymore. You just come off sounding like fucking Ron Howard with a hardon."
McVries laughed a little hysterically. Garraty had no idea what McVries was talking about. He was secure in his love for Jan, he didn't feel in the least self-conscious about it. Their feet scuffed on the road. Garraty could feel his right heel wobbling. Pretty soon the nails would let go, and he would shed the shoeheel like dead skin. Behind them, Scramm had a coughing fit. It was the Walk that bothered Garraty, not all this weird shit about romantic love.
"But that doesn't have anything to do with the story," McVries said, as if reading his mind. "About the scar. It was last summer. We both wanted to get away from home, away from our parents, and away from the smell of all that cowshit so the Great Romance could bloom in earnest. So we got jobs working for a pajama factory in New Jersey. How does that grab you, Garraty? A pj factory in New Jersey.
"We got separate apartments in Newark. Great town, Newark, on a given day you can smell all the cowshit in New Jersey in Newark. Our parents kicked a little, but with separate apartments and good summer jobs, they didn't kick too much. My place was with two other guys, and there were three girls in with Pris. We left on June the third in my car, and we stopped once around three in the afternoon at a motel and got rid of the virginity problem. I felt like a real crook. She didn't really want to screw, but she wanted to please me. That was the Shady Nook motel. When we were done I flushed that Trojan down the Shady Nook john and washed out my mouth with a Shady Nook paper cup. It was all very romantic, very ethereal.
"Then it was on to Newark, smelling the cowshit and being so sure it was different cowshit. I dropped her at her apartment and then went on to my own. The next Monday we started in at the Plymouth Sleepwear factory. It wasn't much like the movies, Garraty. It stank of raw cloth and my foreman was a bastard and during lunch break we used to throw baling hooks at the rats under the fabric bags. But I didn't mind because it was love. See? It was love."
He spat dryly into the dust, swallowed from his canteen, then yelled for another one. They were climbing a long, curve-banked hill now, and his words came in out-of-breath bursts.
"Pris was on the first floor, the showcase for all the idiot tourists who didn't have anything better to do than go on a guided tour of the place that made their jam jams. It was nice down where Pris was. Pretty pastel walls, nice modern machinery, air conditioning. Pris sewed on buttons from seven till three. Just think, there are men all over the country wearing pj's held up by Priscilla's buttons. There is a thought to warm the coldest heart.
"I was on the fifth floor. I was a bagger. See, down in the basement they dyed the raw cloth and sent it up to the fifth floor in these warm-air tubes. They'd ring a bell when the whole lot was done, and I'd open my bin and there'd be a whole shitload of loose fiber, all the colors of the rainbow. I'd pitchfork it out, put it in two-hundred-pound sacks, and chain-hoist the sacks onto a big pile of other sacks for the picker machine. They'd separate it, the weaving machines wove it, some other guys cut it and sewed it into pajamas, and down there on that pretty pastel first floor Pris put on the buttons while the dumbass tourists watched her and the other girls through this glass wall just like the people are watching us today. Am I getting through to you at all, Garraty?"
"The scar," Garraty reminded.
"I keep wandering away from that, don't I?" McVries wiped his forehead and unbuttoned his shirt as they breasted the hill. Waves of woods stretched away before them to a horizon poked with mountains. They met the sky like interlocking jigsaw pieces. Perhaps ten miles away, almost lost in the heat-haze, a fire tower jutted up through the green. The road cut through it all like a sliding gray serpent.
"At first, the joy and bliss was Keatsville all the way. I screwed her three more times, all at the drive-in with the smell of cowshit coming in through the car window from the next pasture. And I could never get all of the loose fabric out of my hair no matter how many times I shampooed it, and the worst thing was she was getting away from me, going beyond me I loved her, I really did, I knew it and there was no way I could tell her anymore so she'd understand. I couldn't even screw it into her. There was always that smell of cowshit.
"The thing of it was, Garraty, the factory was on piecework. That means we got lousy wages, but a percentage for all we did over a certain minimum. I wasn't a very good bagger. I did about twenty-three bags a day, but the norm was usually right around thirty. And this did not endear me to the rest of the boys, because I was fucking them up. Harlan down in the dyehouse couldn't make piecework because I was tying up his blower with full bins. Ralph on the picker couldn't make piecework because I wasn't shifting enough bags over to him. It wasn't pleasant. They saw to it that it wasn't pleasant. You understand?"
"Yeah," Garraty said. He wiped the back of his hand across his neck and then wiped his hand on his pants. It made a dark stain.
"Meanwhile, down in buttoning, Pris was keeping herself busy. Some nights she'd talk for hours about her girlfriends, and it was usually the same tune. How much this one was making. How much that one was making. And most of all, how much she was making. And she was making plenty. So I got to find out how much fun it is to be in competition with the girl you want to marry. At the end of the week I'd go home with a check for $64.40 and put some Cornhusker's Lotion on my blisters. She was making something like ninety a week, and socking it away as fast as she could run to the bank. And when I suggested we go someplace dutch, you would have thought I'd suggested ritual murder.
"After a while I stopped screwing her. I'd like to say I stopped going to bed with her, it's more pleasant, but we never had a bed to go to. I couldn't take her to my apartment, there were usually about sixteen guys there drinking beer, and there were always people at her place-that's what she said, anyway-and I couldn't afford another motel room and I certainly wasn't going to suggest we go dutch on that, so it was just screwing in the back seat at the drive-in. And I could tell she was getting disgusted. And since I knew it and since I had started to hate her even though I still loved her, I asked her to marry me. Right then. She started wriggling around, trying to put me off, but I made her come out with it, yes or no."
"And it was no."
"Sure it was no. 'Pete, we can't afford it. What would my mom say. Pete, we have to wait.' Pete this and Pete that and all the time the real reason was her money, the money she was making sewing on buttons."
"Well, you were damned unfair to ask her."
"Sure I was unfair!" McVries said savagely. "I knew that. I wanted to make her feel like a greedy, self-centered little bitch because she was making me feel like a failure."
His hand crept up to the scar.
"Only she didn't have to make me feel like a failure, because I was a failure. I didn't have anything in particular going for me except a cock to stick in her and she wouldn't even make me feel like a man by refusing that."
The guns roared behind them.
"Olson?" McVries asked.
"No. He's still back there."
"Oh."
"The scar," Garraty reminded.
"Oh, why don't you let it alone?"
"You saved my life."
"Shit on you."
"The scar."
"I got into a fight," McVries said finally, after a long pause. "With Ralph, the guy on the picker. He blacked both my eyes and told me I better take off or he'd break my arms as well. I turned in my time and told Pris that night that I'd quit. She could see what I looked like for herself. She understood. She said that was probably best. I told her I was going home and I asked her to come. She said she couldn't. I said she was nothing but a slave to her fucking buttons and that I wished I'd never seen her. There was just so much poison inside me, Garraty. I told her she was a fool and an unfeeling bitch that couldn't see any further than the goddam bank book she carried around in her purse. Nothing I said was fair, but there was some truth in all of it, I guess. Enough. We were at her apartment. That was the first time I'd ever been there when all her roommates were out. They were at the movies. I tried to take her to bed and she cut my face open with a letter-opener. It was a gag letter-opener, some friend of hers sent it to her from England. It had Paddington Bear on it. She cut me like I was trying to rape her. Like I was germs and I'd infect her. Am I giving you the drift, Ray?"
"Yes, I'm getting it," Garraty said. Up ahead a white station wagon with the words WHGH NEWSMOBILE lettered on the side was pulled off the road. As they drew near, a balding man in a shiny suit began shooting them with a big newsreel cine camera. Pearson, Abraham, and Jensen all clutched their crotches with their left hand and thumbed their noses with their right. There was a Rockette-like precision about this little act of defiance that bemused Garraty.
"I cried," McVries said. "I cried like a baby. I got down on my knees and held her skirt and begged her to forgive me, and all the blood was getting on the floor, it was a basically disgusting scene, Garraty. She gagged and ran off into the bathroom. She threw up. I could hear her throwing up. When she came out, she had a towel for my face. She said she never wanted to see me again. She was crying. She asked me why I'd done that to her, hurt her like that. She said I had no right. There I was, Ray, with my face cut wide open and she's asking me why I hurt her."
"Yeah."
"I left with the towel still on my face. I had twelve stitches and that's the story of the fabulous scar and aren't you happy?"
"Have you ever seen her since?"
"No," McVries said. "And I have no real urge to. She seems very small to me now, very far away. Pris at this point in my life is no more than a speck on the horizon. She really was mental, Ray. Something her mother, maybe, her mother was a lush something had fixed her on the subject of money. She was a real miser. Distance lends perspective, they say. Yesterday morning Pris was still very important to me. Now she's nothing. That story I just told you, I thought that would hurt. It didn't hurt. Besides, I doubt if all that shit really has anything to do with why I'm here. It just made a handy excuse at the time."
"What do you mean?"
"Why are you here, Garraty?"
"I don't know." His voice was mechanical, doll-like. Freaky D'Allessio hadn't been able to see the ball coming-his eyes weren't right, his depth perception was screwed-it had hit him in the forehead, and branded him with stitches. And later (or earlier all of his past was mixed up and fluid now) he had hit his best friend in the mouth with the barrel of an air rifle. Maybe he had a scar like McVries. Jimmy. He and Jimmy had been playing doctor.
"You don't know," McVries said. "You're dying and you don't know why."
"It's not important after you're dead."
"Yeah, maybe," McVries said, "but there's one thing you ought to know, Ray, so it won't all be so pointless."
"What's that?"
"Why, that you've been had. You mean you really didn't know that, Ray? You really didn't?" |
Soji rose a little after 10 p.m.
Shuya had been looking after Noriko, who remained resting in bed. Shuya groped through the nearly pitch black room and entered the waiting room.
"I'll make some coffee," Soji said as he looked up at Shuya. Then he walked down the hall. He seemed to have good night vision.
Shuya returned to the beds, where he found Noriko up without her blanket.
"You should rest a little more," Shuya said.
Noriko nodded, "Uh huh..." Then she mumbled, "Could you ask Soji...if he's going to boil some more water if I can get an extra cup?" Noriko was sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands by her thighs. Moonlight spilled in over the curtain from the window. She kept her chin tucked in as she looked over to her side.
"Sure...but what for?"
Noriko hesitated and then answered, "I sweated so much...I just wanted to wipe my body...maybe it's too much to ask for."
"Oh no," Shuya replied and quickly nodded. "No prob. I'll go tell him." He left the room. Soji was boiling water in the dark kitchen. The tip of the cigarette between his mouth glowed red, and the charcoal flame under the pot resembled a strange firefly stirring to life.
"Soji," Shuya said. Soji turned around. The afterimage of his cigarette traced a thick line before vanishing. "Noriko was wondering if she could have some hot water. She said one cup was enough—"
"Ah." Soji didn't let him continue. He removed his cigarette from his mouth. Shuya could see Soji was smiling in the dim moonlight coming through the window. "Sure. A cup or an entire bucket, fine with me."
As he moved he scooped up water with the bowl from the bucket and added it to the pot. He repeated this five times. He kept a low charcoal flame going to keep the water in the pot boiling. Shuya felt some steam drift by.
"She's a girl," Soji said.
It turned out Soji wasn't as slow as Shuya was. He knew why Noriko asked for hot water. Shuya was silent and Soji unexpectedly continued on his own.
"She wants to stay pretty cause she's with you."
Then he exhaled some smoke.
Shuya remained quiet, but then asked, "Can I help you?"
"No." Soji seemed to be shaking his head. Squinting his eyes, Shuya could see three cups and a coffee dripper already loaded with a filter on the table. There was also a tea bag for Noriko.
"Hey," Soji called him.
Shuya lifted his brow, "What is it? All of a sudden you're so chatty." Soji chuckled. Then he continued, "I understand how you feel about Yoshitoki, but don't forget about Noriko's feelings."
Shuya fell silent again. The he spoke. For some reason, there was a hint of dissatisfaction in his tone of voice. "I know."
"You have a girlfriend?" Soji proceeded to ask.
Shuya shrugged. "Nope."
"Then what's the problem?"
Soji continued to look at the window, smoking his cigarette. "It's not a bad thing to be loved." Shuya shrugged again. Then he asked, "Don't you have someone?" His cigarette glowed brightly. He didn't say anything. The smoke drifted slowly through the dark.
"A secret, huh?"
"No..." Soji began to speak, but then he removed the cigarette from his mouth and tossed it into the bucket of water. "Get down, Shuya," he whispered and crouched down. Shuya nervously obeyed him. Was someone going to attack? He grew tense.
"Get Noriko. Be quiet though," Soji whispered again. Shuya was already on his way to the examination room, where Noriko was.
Noriko was still sitting in a daze on the edge of the bed. Shuya signaled her to duck down. She must have immediately understood because she got off the bed, holding her breath. Shuya offered her his hand for support as they moved to the kitchen. He looked over to the entrance on the way there, but there was no one beyond the glass door.
Soji had already gathered their day packs which he'd packed with refilled water bottles and other items, and now he was on his knees by the back door, holding his shotgun.
"What is it?" Shuya asked in a hushed voice. Soji lifted his left hand to silence him. Shuya didn't say another word.
"Someone's outside," Soji whispered. "We'll exit through whichever door they don't enter." The only thing visible in the dark was the bright charcoal flame under the pot. Given the location of the sink, it couldn't be seen from outside.
Shuya heard a tapping sound. It came from the entrance. The door wouldn't open because of the stick jamming it. The glass was broken, so the person outside must have realized that someone had entered the building and that it was probably still occupied.
There was a clacking sound, but then it stopped. It sounded like the person had given up. Soji groaned. "Damn, we'll be in trouble if this one tries to set this place on fire." They remained quiet, but there was still no sound. Then Soji signaled for them to move towards the entrance. He might have heard a slight sound.
They were nearly crawling down the hall.
As they made their way, Soji, behind the other two, reached out to Shuya who was leading. They stopped. Shuya turned around and looked over his shoulder at Soji.
"He's circling back to the front." He waved his hand to the back. "Let's go out the back." So they went towards the kitchen down the hall.
Soji stopped again before they entered the kitchen.
"Damn, why?" he muttered.
...the person outside was now coming round to the back door again.
The silence continued. Soji held onto his shotgun. With Noriko between him and Soji, Shuya also gripped the SIG-Sauer that had once belonged to Kaori Minami. (He'd given the Smith & Wesson to Soji. Shuya decided to hold onto the gun that had more bullets.)
But the silence was suddenly broken. A voice called from outside the kitchen window. "It's Hiroki," he said. "I'm not fighting. Respond, you three. Who are you?"
It was undoubtedly the voice of Hiroki Sugimura (Male Student No. 11), who along with Shinji Mimura was one of the few classmates Shuya could trust.
"What the?..." Shuya moaned. "That's incredible..."
It was a stroke of luck. He never thought they'd see Hiroki. Shuya and Noriko looked at each other. Noriko looked relieved.
Soji stopped Shuya as he tried to get up.
"What?"
"Shh. Don't raise your voice."
Shuya stared at Soji's serious expression and then responded with an exaggerated shrug and smiled.
"Don't worry. I'll vouch for him. We can totally trust him."
Soji shook his head and said, "How did he know there were three of us?" That thought hadn't occurred to Shuya. He thought it over while looking at Soji. But he had no idea. That didn't matter though. The important thing was that Hiroki was here. He just wanted to see Hiroki's face now.
"Maybe he saw us go in here, from far away. That's why he didn't know who we were."
"What took him so long to get here then?"
Shuya thought again. "He probably deliberated over whether he should find out who was here or not. In any case, we can trust Hiroki. I'll vouch for him."
Shuya ignored Soji, who looked like he wasn't satisfied. He raised his voice and directed it beyond the window. "It's Shuya, Hiroki. I'm with Soji Kawada and Noriko Nakagawa."
"Shuya!..." a relieved voice replied. "Let me in. Where should I come in?" Before Shuya could answer, Soji raised his voice, "This is Soji. Go to the front entrance. Keep your hands behind your head and do not move. Got that?"
"Soji..." Shuya was about to protest, but Hiroki immediately responded, "Got it." What looked like the upper body of Hiroki crossed the frosted glass window.
Soji bent down to look out of the cracks in the glass. Holding onto his shotgun, he yanked out the obstructing stick and opened the door.
Hiroki Sugimura was standing with his hands behind his neck. He was slightly taller than Soji, but more slender. His hair, wavy like Shuya's, went down the middle of his forehead. His day pack was by his feet and for some reason there was a 1.5-meter stick on the ground.
It was true. Shuya shifted his eyes, as if it were a miracle. Shuya's face made Hiroki grin.
"I have to do a body check."
"Soji, come on..."
Soji paid no attention to Shuya's protest and moved forward, holding onto his shotgun. He went behind Hiroki and first checked his hands behind his neck. Then he rubbed his left hand over Hiroki's school coat.
His hand stopped at a pocket.
"What the hell's this?"
"Go ahead and pull it out," Hiroki said with his hands held together. "But give it back to me." Soji pulled it out. It was the size and shape of a thick notepad, but it was made of plastic or steel. The cover panel reflected the moonlight. After fiddling around with it, Soji said, "Ah ha." He moved his body with the object in his hands and then looked down at the cover panel against the moonlight. He nodded and returned it to Hiroki's pocket. Then he thoroughly searched Hiroki down to his pant cuffs. He also checked his day pack and finally announced, "Okay. Sorry about that. You can put your hands down."
Hiroki unlocked his hands and picked up his day pack and stick. The stick appeared to be his weapon.
"Hiroki." Shuya broke into a smile. "Come on in. We have coffee. You want some?" Hiroki nodded somewhat hesitantly as he went through the entrance. Soji looked outside and then shut the door.
Hiroki stood still. With his back to the shoe cabinet that was filled with slippers, Soji stared at Hiroki. The Remington muzzle was pointed down, but Shuya noticed Soji's finger still on the trigger and felt slightly annoyed. He did his best not to let it get to him, though.
Hiroki looked at Shuya and Noriko again, and then glanced over at Soji. That was when Shuya realized that Hiroki was troubled not so much by him and Noriko as he was by them hooking up with Soji.
Soji addressed the issue. "Shuya, Hiroki seems to want to ask whether it's all right for you guys to be with me."
Hiroki smiled slightly and looked over at Soji, and said, "No...I just thought it was an odd combination." Still smiling, he continued, "Shuya would never be with you if you were hostile. Shuya can be pretty stupid when it comes to certain things, but he's not that stupid." Soji responded with a grin. He still kept his finger on the trigger though. In any case, for now Hiroki and Soji were finished introducing themselves.
"Ah, come on, Hiroki," Shuya gave him a smile.
Then Noriko said, "Come on in. It's not our house, so I can't apologize for its messiness." Then Hiroki smiled, but he stayed at the entrance. Shuya supported Noriko with his left hand and then pointed at the hall.
"Come on in. We'll have to get going soon, but we have a little time. We'll throw you a welcoming party." But Hiroki stood still there. Shuya realized how he'd forgotten to share an important detail. Hiroki might have been appalled Shuya was using the word "party" in this situation.
"Hiroki, we can get out of here. Soji is going to help us."
Hiroki's eyes widened a little. "Really?"
Shuya nodded. But then Hiroki looked down. Then he looked up again.
"Thing is..." he said and shook his head, "there's something I have to take care of."
"Something?" Shuya knit his brows. "Why don't you first come on in—" Instead of taking Shuya up on his invitation, he asked, "Have you three been together all this time?" Shuya thought it over and then shook his head. "No...me and Noriko were. And then..." Then he remembered what happened this morning. It'd been a while since the image of Tatsumi Oki's skull split open assaulted him, and once again he felt a chill run down his spine.
"...yeah. A lot of stuff happened, and we ended up joining Soji."
"I see." Hiroki nodded and then said. "Hey, have you guys seen Kotohiki?"
"Kotohiki?" Shuya repeated. Kayoko Kotohiki (Female Student No. 8)? The one who, in spite of being into tea ceremony, seemed more playful than elegant?
"No..." Shuya shook his head. "We haven't but..." He thought of Soji and looked over at him, but he also shook his head, saying, "I haven't seen her either."
Of course Kayoko Kotohiki had to be on this island. As long as her name wasn't announced yet in Sakamochi's announcements, she had to be alive. That's right—unless she was killed after 6 p.m. Once again he realized how he was letting most of his classmates die and felt awful.
"What about Kotohiki?" Noriko asked.
"Oh..." Hiroki shook his head. "It's no big deal. Thanks. Sorry, but I have to get going." He gave Shuya a parting glance and turned to go.
"Hold on, Hiroki!" Shuya stopped him. "Where are you going? I told you we're safe with us, didn't I?" Hiroki looked back at Shuya. There was a sad look in his eyes, but they still gave away that humorous trace of irony. It might have been a look all his close friends shared. Yoshitoki Kuninobu (deceased, damn), and of course Shinji Mimura, and—now it seemed—Soji Kawada.
"I have to see Kayoko Kotohiki about something. So I have to go." Something. What could that possibly be in this situation where moving around would only increase your chances of dying? Finally Shuya said, "Hold on. You can't go...not with any real weapons. It's too risky. And how are you going to find her?"
Hiroki bit his lower lip. Then he pulled out that object resembling a mobile data terminal from his pocket and showed it to Shuya. "This is the 'weapon' I got in my day pack. Professor Kawada over there could explain." He pointed at his neck while his hand held the device. The silver collars around the necks of Shuya, Noriko, and Soji were all shining. "Looks like this device detects anyone wearing these collars. Once someone's in the vicinity, they show up on the screen. But you can't tell whose collar it is." Shuya finally figured out the answer to Soji's questions. It was thanks to this device Hiroki had been able to announce there were three of them and detect their movements. Like the computer at the school monitoring their positions, it could detect the position of anyone wearing a collar, even if, as Hiroki said, you couldn't tell who it was.
Hiroki put the device back into the pocket. "See you—" He was ready to go when he suddenly stopped,
"That's right...beware of Mitsuko Souma," he added. He gave Shuya and then Soji a stern look.
"She's playing the game. I don't know about the others, but I know for sure she is."
"Did you fight her?" Soji asked.
Hiroki shook his head. "No. I didn't, but Takako...Takako Chigusa said so before she died. Mitsuko killed Takako."
Shuya suddenly recalled how Takako was already dead. After hearing Sakamochi announce her death, he'd been concerned about its effect on Hiroki, but he was so happy to see him he'd forgotten this dreadful fact.
That's right, Hiroki and Takako Chigusa were close. For a while, Shuya actually thought they were going out. But when he'd casually asked him about it, Hiroki chuckled and said, "She's in a different class. We've known each other since we were kids. You know hide-and-seek, that kind of thing. When we used to fight, I'd be the one crying." That sounded (of course Takako Chigusa was an amazing athlete, and pretty aggressive, but her taking on Hiroki, who was now over 180 centimeters tall and ranked in martial arts—a while back, that's right, the only time he visited his house, Hiroki reluctantly showed him how he could split a piece of pine wood with the palm of his hand) preposterously funny. But now Takako Chigusa was dead. And...given the way Hiroki had just described it, he was there when she died.
"So you were with her?" Noriko asked quietly.
Hiroki shook his head. "Just the very end. I...when we left, I hid in front of the school, waiting for her...
but then Yoshio came back, and I got too distracted, so I lost Takako... then... as I looked for Takako I ended up losing my chance to join you, Shuya, and Shinji."
Shuya nodded several times. So Hiroki was in front of the school until Yoshio Akamatsu returned. He probably hid in the woods. It was dangerous, of course. But that only showed how important Takako was to Hiroki.
"But..." Hiroki continued, "I found Takako...I was...too late though." Saying this much, Hiroki looked down. He shook his head several times. Without being told, Shuya understood that by the time Hiroki had found Takako she was dying from being attacked by Mitsuko.
Shuya thought of telling him how Yoshio Akamatsu had killed Mayumi Tendo, and how he had almost killed Shuya as well, but...it was irrelevant now. Yoshio Akamatsu was dead now too.
"I don't know what to say, but...I'm so sorry," Noriko said.
Hiroki smiled a little and nodded. "Thanks."
"In any case," Shuya said, "Come on in. Let's talk it over, what's the—" He meant to say, rush, but refrained. If Hiroki wanted to see Kayoko Kotohiki while they were both still alive, what else could he do but rush? While Hiroki's connection to Takako Chigusa was clear, Shuya had no idea why it was so important for him to find Kayoko Kotohiki. But in any case, as they sat here talking, she could be fighting someone, or she might even be dying.
Hiroki grinned. It seemed he knew what Shuya was thinking.
Shuya licked his lips. He glanced over at Soji and then said, "If you insist..." He looked at Hiroki and continued, "We'll find her with you."
But Hiroki flatly refused. He pointed his chin at Noriko. "Noriko's injured. It's too dangerous. No." Shuya found the situation unbearable. "But you could be saved with us. How are we going to meet again if you leave?..." That's right. Once they separated it would be nearly impossible for them to meet again.
"Hiroki." It was Soji. He still held the shotgun, but his finger wasn't on the trigger anymore. Hiroki looked over at him, and Soji pulled out something small from his pocket with his open hand. He lifted it to his mouth and bit on its metal end, twisting it. It made the chirping sound of a bird. It was a loud, brilliant, and playful sound. Like a robin or chickadee.
Soji released his hand from his mouth, and Shuya realized that it was Soji's device—a bird call?
Forget why he would have one in the first place...it was one of those things that mimicked the sound of birds chirping.
"Whether you meet Kayoko Kotohiki or not," Soji said, "if you want to see us, make a fire somewhere and burn raw wood to get some smoke going. Make two fires. Of course, leave as soon as you make them because you'll only attract attention. And make sure you don't cause a fire. Once we see that we'll make this call every fifteen minutes, say, for fifteen seconds. Try to find us by following this sound." He pointed to the bird call.
"This sound is your ticket out of here. If you're up for it, you can come aboard our train." Hiroki nodded. "Okay. I will, thanks."
Soji took out his map. He unfolded it and handed the map and his pencil over to Hiroki. "Also, I'm sorry for keeping you, but I need you to mark where Takako was killed. If you saw anyone else, I need to know those locations too."
Hiroki lifted his brow slightly as he took the map. He spread the map out on the shoe cabinet, under the moonlit window, and held the pencil.
"Give me your map. I'll write in the locations of the bodies we know," Soji said. Hiroki stopped writing and handed over his map. The two began marking the maps side by side.
"I'll bring some coffee over," Noriko said and left Shuya's arm. She limped down the hall, using the wall as support.
"Did Takako say whether Mitsuko had a machine gun?" Soji asked as he wrote.
"No," Hiroki answered without lifting his eyes, "She didn't say anything about that. I do know that she was shot several times. It wasn't a single bullet." I see.
As the two proceeded, Shuya explained the fates of Yoshio Akamatsu, Tatsumi Oki, and Kyoichi Motobuchi. Hiroki nodded as he continued to write.
Soji was done marking Hiroki's map. He pointed at it and explained, "This is where Kaori Minami was killed. Shuya saw Hirono Shimizu escape. She might have done it in self-defense. But either way, you should be careful."
Hiroki nodded. Then unexpectedly he said, "I saw Kaori too," and pointed at the map. "Before noon. She fired at me, but I think she was in a panic."
Soji nodded and exchanged Hiroki's map with his.
Noriko came out into the hall, holding a cup. Shuya went down the hall and took it from Noriko, who walked unsteadily. He offered it to Hiroki, who took a sniff, whistled lightly, and then held it. "Thanks," he said and took a sip. Then he put the cup on the raised entrance floor. It was nearly full.
"I'll see ya."
"Hold on." Shuya pulled out his SIG-Sauer from under his belt. With its grip pointed at Hiroki, he offered it to him. He also pulled out an extra cartridge from his pocket. "If you still insist on going take these, okay? We have a shotgun and one more gun."
The first gun was Kyoichi Motobuchi's, and the Smith & Wesson was now with Soji. Shuya's handing over the SIGSauer gun would decrease their fighting capacity, but Soji didn't intervene. But Hiroki shook his head. "You need that, Shuya. You better protect Noriko all right. I can't take that. Even if someone attacks me, I just can't do it." He tilted his head and then examined both Shuya and Noriko. He broke into a slight grin and then added, "I always wondered why you two weren't going out." Then he nodded at each of them and quietly opened the entrance door.
"Hiroki," Noriko called. Her voice was quiet. "Be careful."
"I will. Hey, thanks. And best of luck to you guys."
"Hiroki..." Shuya was getting choked up, but managed to say, "We'll meet again. That's a promise." Hiroki nodded and left. Shuya held Noriko and stepped through the front entrance, watching Hiroki as he quickly ascended the mountain.
Without a word, Soji gestured to Shuya and Noriko to move back and close the door. Shuya took a deep breath and turned around. He could barely see the steam still rising from the cup Hiroki had left on the floor. |
The moon was high in the center of the sky. There wasn't a single cloud. The white light from the nearly full moon cast a thin film over the rest of the sky, obscuring the stars. Soji, who was leading, stopped. Shuya, who was supporting Noriko with his shoulder, stopped too.
"Are you all right?" Shuya asked Noriko.
She nodded. "I'm fine." But Shuya could tell she was still unsteady. Shuya looked at his watch. It was past 11 p.m. now, but they'd already left G=9, which was now a forbidden zone. They had to find another place to settle down.
They were tracing their way back along the foot of the northern mountain. The area was scattered with trees. A little further down and they'd be near where Kaori Minami was killed. Immediately to their left, Shuya saw a flat, narrow area that extended from the island's residential area on the eastern shore. The flat land spotted with houses then became increasingly narrow, like a triangle. The road traversing the island supposedly passed through this pivot and headed to the western shore. Soji turned around. "Now what do we do?" Noriko's blanket was tied to the top of the day pack on his shoulder.
"Can we stop at a house, like we did just now?"
"A house, huh." Soji looked away from Shuya and squinted. "It's really not a good idea. As the number of zones decrease so do the number of houses. The moment someone needs something, they'll want to enter a house. Whether it's to eat or whatever."
"Hey, if you're worried about me, I'm fine now. Even outside," Noriko said. Soji flashed a smile and then silently looked over the flat land. He looked as if he was taking Hiroki's marks on his map into consideration as he took in the view.
Along with the bodies he'd seen, Hiroki had given detailed explanations of how they had died. The body of Kazushi Nüda was right near where Takako Chigusa had died. Along with his eyes being gouged out (!), his throat had been stabbed. In the residential area that was now forbidden was Megumi Eto. Her throat had been slashed by a blade. (Shuya felt a pang in his chest over this one, since Noriko had told him how Megumi had a crush on him.) To the east, Yoji Kuramoto and Yoshimi Yahagi were killed where the eastern shore's residential area met the southern mountain. Yoji was stabbed in the head, and Yoshimi had been shot. At the southern tip, Izumi Kanai, Hiroshi Kuronaga, Ryuhei Sasagawa, and Mitsuru Numai were all found dead together. Mitsuru Numai was shot several times, while the others'
throats were slashed. Three of Kiriyama's group had died together, the only exception being Sho Tsukioka, who got caught in a forbidden zone.
"Soji," Shuya said. Soji looked back. "Do you think Mitsuko Souma killed Yukiko and Yumiko?" Even now, as he asked this, it all felt so unreal. He didn't believe a girl could do such horrible things. Of course he had no doubt, since it was Hiroki who'd informed them, but he still couldn't restrain the urge to dismiss it all as a delusion.
"No," Soji shook his head. "I don't think so. After Yukiko and Yumiko got killed by that machine gun, you know how we heard pistols going off? That was to finish them off. But Hiroki said Takako was alive after being shot when he found her. Which means her killer wasn't as thorough. Of course she might have let Takako go, knowing she was going to die anyway. But given the times and locations, I just don't think Mitsuko Souma's the one with the machine gun."
Shuya recalled the machine gun fire he heard before 9 a.m. The killer was still roaming around the island. And the distant gunfire they heard a little afterwards...was that Mitsuko Souma?
"Eventually we'll..." Soji forced a grin and shook his head, "...meet him or her. Then we'll know for sure."
Shuya recalled something else that had been bugging him. "When Hiroki showed us his radar, I was thinking how Sakamochi must know we're together and our positions as well." Soji answered as he surveyed the flat land, "That's right."
Shuya moved his shoulder to give Noriko better support. "Won't that hinder our escape?" Soji chuckled with his back to Shuya. "Nope. Not at all. Don't worry." Soji looked over the flat land again and said, "Let's go back to where we were."
He continued, "A common strategy players in this game take is to show up anywhere they hear some action. That's because of the 24-hour deadline. Because of that limitation, they kill when they can. And the fact that they're on a killing spree means they're on their own, so they can't afford to sleep much. So the match has to be kept short. If something happens near them, they go there, and if there's a fight already going on, they sit back and then they finish off any survivors. That's why we should stay somewhere we can avoid confrontations. If we get mixed up with someone who's panicking then one of the top players is bound to show up. If we go back where we were it's unlikely we'll meet anyone. Since Tatsumi Old and Kyoichi Motobuchi, who'd been hiding there, are no longer around, that area is pretty much uninhabited."
"But Hirono ran in that direction."
"No, I doubt she's gone that far. It wouldn't be necessary." Soji pointed to the flat land with his thumb.
"But we'll avoid this mountain where she might be hiding. We'll take a different route." Shuya lifted his brow. "Is it safe for us to move through the flat land?" Soji smiled and shook his head. "The moon may be shining, but this isn't daylight. I think we're safer there than in the mountain, where there's too much cover."
Shuya nodded. Soji took the lead and began descending the slope. Shuya held the SIG-Sauer tightly in his right hand and followed Soji as he supported Noriko.
The trees turned into a field of short grass. The first farm they came across had a field full of squashes. Beyond this field there was a wheat field. This island was so small these probably weren't for domestic consumption. Of course the Republic of Greater East Asia was incessantly issuing orders to promote national self-reliance, so even a small farm like this might contribute a little to the effort. As they moved along the edge of the farm, the soil under their sneakers felt dry. Maybe it was because several days had passed since the area had been evacuated. Still, Shuya was struck by the pleasant, rich odor of wheat drifting through the evening air, anticipating the summer.
It was a nice smell. Especially after having smelled so much blood.
There was a tractor to their left. Beyond the vehicle there was a house. It was an ordinary, two-story house and appeared relatively new. It was probably one of those cheap, mass produced buildings resembling Banana Homes or Vertebrae Houses. Even though it was in the middle of the farm, it was enclosed by a concrete wall.
Shuya looked at Soji's back as he moved forward.
Something irked him.
He looked back. Noriko was leaning on his left shoulder as she walked, but he noticed something high above her head in the middle of the sky. Something flashing in the moonlight, tracing an arc. This object came flying at them. |
[ 20 students remaining ]
What made Shuya such a star athlete in his Little League days was his incredible ability to perceive objects in motion. Even in this dim light Shuya could tell that the object flying towards them right now resembled a can. Of course, they were in the serene Seto Inland Sea region, so it couldn't possibly be an empty can falling from the sky from a hurricane. There was no way it was an empty can. No.
Shuya suddenly released his shoulder, which was tucked under Noriko's right armpit. He couldn't even afford to call on Soji, who must have realized something odd though, because he also suddenly turned around, while Noriko tottered without Shuya's support.
Shuya dashed out. His jumping ability was quite extraordinary. Just as in the past, during the Little League prefectural semifinals, he could make the ultimate play from any given position, stealing the opponents' winning home run in the bottom of the eleventh inning.
Shuya caught the ball—no, the can—in mid-air with his left hand. He put it in his right hand, and as he came down he twisted his body and threw it as far as he could.
Before Shuya landed a bright light shined through the night.
He felt the air burst as a sonic boom tore through his eardrums. The bomb blast blew him away before he could land, and he fell sprawling onto the ground. If he'd waited for the hand grenade to fall, he, Noriko, and Soji would have all been mincemeat now. Although Sakamochi's crew might have reduced the grenade's explosive power so that it couldn't be used against the school, it was more than capable of killing human beings.
He raised his head. He realized, he heard nothing. His ears were screwed up. In this state of silence, Shuya saw Noriko collapsed on his left. Then he lifted his face to look back at Soji and saw...another can flying at them.
Another one! I have to...but it was too late now.
His disabled ears all of a sudden heard a definite but muffled bang, almost simultaneously followed by another explosion in the air. This sound was also muffled, but this time it felt a little further off and Shuya wasn't blown away. Right beside him Soji was on one knee, holding his shotgun. He had shot the hand grenade, as if he were skeet shooting, blowing it to bits before it managed to explode. Shuya ran over to Noriko and held her up. She was grimacing. She seemed to be moaning, but he couldn't hear her.
"Shuya, get back!"
Soji waved his hand and fired his shotgun with his right hand. Shuya then heard a different sound, rattling gunfire, and the wheat heads right in front of him scattered into the air. Soji fired another two shots. In a state of confusion, Shuya pulled Noriko into the shade of the ridge marking off the farm. He got down. Soji slid to his side, firing several shots as he went. The rattling continued, and the ridge soil blew up, grains flying into his eyes.
Shuya pulled out his SIG-Sauer and looked out from the shade of the ridge. He fired blindly in the direction Soji was firing.
Then he saw him. Less than thirty meters away, the unique slicked-back hair behind the break in the house's concrete wall.
It was Kazuo Kiriyama (Male Student No. 6). And although Shuya's hearing was impaired, he could recall the sound of the rattling gunfire. It was the same sound he heard from far away when Yumiko and Yukiko fell at the northern mountain peak. Of course he might not have been the only one with a machine gun, but even so, Kazuo, who was right in front of their very own eyes, had just tried to kill them without warning, with of all things a hand grenade!
Shuya was certain Kazuo was the one who'd murdered Yumiko and Yukiko. He thought of how they were killed and felt a flash of rage.
"What the...what's the hell's he doing!?"
"Stop shouting, just shoot!" Soji handed the Smith & Wesson to Shuya and reloaded his shotgun. Shuya held a gun in each hand and began shooting at the concrete wall. (Two-hand shooter! This is crazy!) First the Smith & Wesson, then the SIG-Sauer ran out of bullets. He had to reload!
Having waited for this moment, Kazuo got up. BRRRRATTA. Sparks flew out from him. Shuya ducked, and Kazuo revealed part of his body that was behind the wall.
Soji blasted his shotgun away. Kazuo's body once again vanished. The swarm of shotgun pellets blew off part of the wall.
Shuya ejected the empty magazine from his SIG-Sauer and pulled out a loaded magazine from his pocket. He opened the Smith & Wesson cylinder and pushed the rod in the center of the cylinder to release its spent shells, puffed up from the explosions. One of the shells nearly singed part of his right thumb. It didn't matter. He quickly loaded the .38 caliber bullets Soji had rolled over his way. Then he aimed at Kazuo's house.
Soji shot again, blowing off another part of the wall. Shuya also fired several shots into it with his SIG-Sauer.
"Noriko! Are you all right!?" Shuya yelled. Right next to him, Noriko answered, "I'm okay." He could make out her response, which made Shuya realize his hearing was back. He saw her in the corner of his eye reloading 9mm Short bullets into the SIG-Sauer's empty magazine. Of all the things he'd seen since the game began this one really sent his head reeling. How could a girl like Noriko be participating in a battle like this...
A hand appeared from the other side of the wall. The hand was holding a machine gun. It rattled again. Shuya and Soji ducked.
Kazuo got up. As he continued shooting, he came forward. Then he ran behind the tractor. The distance between them was shrinking.
Soji fired a shot, blowing off the tractor's driving panel.
"Soji," Shuya called, after shooting twice.
"What?" Soji answered as he reloaded his shotgun.
"How fast can you run the hundred-meter dash?"
Soji took another shot (annihilating the tractor's rear light) and answered, "I'm pretty slow. Maybe thirteen seconds. My back's strong though. What?"
Suddenly Kazuo's arm stuck out from behind the tractor. Sparks flew as Kazuo revealed his head, but as Shuya and Soji fired back, he ducked again.
"We can only retreat into the mountain, right?" Shuya spoke quickly. "I can run a hundred meters in almost less than eleven seconds. You and Noriko go ahead. I'll keep Kazuo there." Soji glanced at Shuya. That was all. He understood.
"At the place we were, Shuya. The place where we talked about rock," Soji said quickly. He gave Shuya his shotgun and retreated into a ducking position. He moved around over to Noriko. Shuya took a deep breath and shot three times into the tractor with the shotgun, prompting Soji to lift Noriko and run in the direction they'd come from. Noriko's eyes flashed by Shuya's for a moment. Kazuo's upper body appeared from behind the tractor. Shuya fired his shotgun several times. Kazuo, who had his gun pointed at Soji and Noriko, ducked. Shuya realized he was out of shotgun shells so he picked up the Smith & Wesson instead and began shooting again. He immediately used up five bullets. He opened the SIG-Sauer and loaded the extra magazine Noriko had loaded with bullets and began shooting again. It was crucial he keep on shooting.
He saw Soji and Noriko disappear into the mountain.
The SIG-Sauer was empty, and there were no more extra magazines. He could only reload bullets... But then this time Kazuo's arm appeared from behind the tractor's blade. The Ingram machine gun rattled away. Just like before. Kazuo was running towards him!
Shuya had to get out of this gunfight. He held onto only the empty SIG-Sauer (he still had seven more individual 9mm Short bullets), turned around, and ran. If he could reach the mountain where there was plenty of cover, Kazuo wouldn't be able to get too close to him. Shuya decided to head east. Noriko and Soji would be headed west to get where they were yesterday. He wanted to lead Kazuo as far away from them as he could.
It all came down to his sprinting speed. He had to get as far away from Kazuo as possible in a short span of time. A machine gun basically offered a shower of bullets so it was impossible to dodge at a close distance. What mattered was how far he could get.
Shuya ran. As the fastest runner in the class (at least he thought so. He was even a fraction of a second faster than Shinji Mimura, unless, that is, if Kazuo wasn't really trying during his test), he could only rely on his speed.
Right when he thought he was five meters away from a tree he heard a rattling sound. He felt a severe blow against the left side of his stomach.
Shuya groaned as he began losing his balance, but he kept on running. He ran into a row of tall trees and made his way up the slope. The rattling resumed and this time his left arm reflexively flinched up. He realized he'd been shot right above his elbow.
But he still ran. He continued east—hey, yo, that's a forbidden zone—and moved north. More rattling. A thin tree to his right crackled and burst into matchstick-sized splinters. More rattling. This time he wasn't hit. Or maybe he was. He couldn't tell anymore. He only knew he was being chased. At least he was buying time for Noriko and Soji.
He made his way through the trees and vegetation, climbed a hill, and then descended it. He couldn't even afford to worry that there might be someone else hiding in the dark, waiting to attack him. He had no idea how far he'd gotten. He wasn't even sure which direction he was running. Sometimes it seemed like he could hear—sometimes it seemed like he couldn't—the rattling sound. He couldn't tell maybe because his hearing had been impaired by that explosion. In any case now was not the time to be relieved. Farther. He had to get farther.
Suddenly Shuya slipped. He'd somehow reached a cliff, and all of a sudden realized that the slope just dropped off. Just as he'd done when fighting Tatsumi Oki, he tumbled down the steep slope. He landed with a thud. He was no longer holding the SIG-Sauer. And as he tried to stand up...
He realized he couldn't. He wondered, in a daze, am I delirious from blood loss? Or...did I hit my head?
Impossible. I'm not injured so badly I can't stand up...I have to get back to Noriko and Soji...I have to protect Noriko, I promised Noriko...
As he tried to get up though, he fell forward...
...and lost consciousness. |
It was almost pitch dark, but beside the dimly moonlit window Shinji tossed the item in his hand once again onto the floor. The sound of it hitting the floor was muffled by the thick folded blanket, but there was a popping sound along with a ring.
Shinji immediately picked it up off the floor and then tucked the small plastic item inside the blanket. The sound stopped.
"Come on, let's go," Yutaka said. He'd been watching over Shinji, but Shinji signaled him to calm down. He repeated the test again.
Pop, zing. It made the same sounds. Shinji picked it up, and it stopped. Was it all right? But if this malfunctioned, then all the careful preparations they'd made would come to nothing. One more try—
"We have to hurry..." Yutaka said again, and Shinji's face was about to flush with anger—but he managed to suppress it. Although he wasn't entirely satisfied he said, "All right," and concluded his test. He unhooked the lead wire connecting the battery and mini-motor which was used for the test and began peeling off the plastic tape attaching the motor unit to the battery.
Shuya and Yutaka were back at the "Northern Takamatsu Agricultural Cooperative Association, Okishima Island Branch."
Along with the school and harbor fishery coop, it might have been one of the largest buildings on the island. The space, unlit of course and enveloped in darkness, was the size of a basketball court, and there was farming equipment strewn all over the area, including a tractor and combine harvester. There was also a light truck with a missing wheel lifted on a jack, probably to be repaired. Then in the corner were piles of sacks of various kinds of fertilizer. (And hazardous ammonium nitrate was further beyond them, stored in a large cabinet with a provisional lock that Shinji had busted open.) The slate walls were at least five meters high, and there was an upper floor attached along the north wall where more fertilizer, insecticide, and other supplies had been stored. On the opposite, or east, wall was a steel staircase diagonally descending from the second floor, and underneath the stairs was a large sliding warehouse door. Next to this sliding door, in front of the stairs in the southeast corner, was an officelike space made up of partition walls. Beyond its open door he could make out office equipment, including the outlines of a desk and fax machine.
Setting the wire across sector G=7 where the school was turned out to be a hassle. First, Shinji tied the end of the wire to the tip of a tall tree behind the rock they'd climbed on. Then he took the other end and began walking between the trees, but then a gust in the upper region of the sky acted up, so guiding the garbage-bag balloons proved to be difficult. There were at least ten occasions where he had to climb up a tree to loosen the wire. On top of that, given how the enemy could be anywhere in the dark, he had to worry about Yutaka, so the endeavor ended up exhausting him.
But he'd managed to set the wire after a full three hours, when he heard the gunfight. It was past 11 p.m. He heard an explosion as well, but he couldn't afford to get involved, so he hurried back to the farm coop with Yutaka. By then the gunfire had ceased.
Finally Shinji began building the electric detonator, but this also turned out to be difficult. He didn't have the proper tools, and furthermore the device required a delicate balance. Electric current had to run through the device at the moment of impact against the school, but at the same time he had to make sure it wasn't so sensitive it'd be ignited in the middle of the rope cable by, say, a bump or knot in the rope. But somehow he managed to build it, using a motor (which he removed from an electric razor) instead of the detonator for the test. It was right when he began testing, in other words, only moments ago, that the midnight announcement was made. The only one who died was Hirono Shimizu (Female Student No. 10), whom Shinji saw immediately after the game began. He thought it might have been a result of that intense gun battle, but in any case Sakamochi had announced something far more urgent, at least to him and Yutaka. Sector F=7, which included the cliff rock they'd climbed up on to survey the school, was designated to be a forbidden zone as of 1 a.m.
No wonder Yutaka was so impatient. If they couldn't enter that area then all their preparations would amount to nothing. It would be the end for them. He didn't want to be in the situation of, after a clever play, being just one move away from checkmate only to fall into a fatal trap. Shinji quickly pulled out the electric detonator from the tube chained to his knife. He connected the two cylinders—their dull metallic exterior shone in the dark—and peeled off the insulation from the lead wire. Then using tape, he first secured the small plastic spring serving as the electrical switch, then took the end of the lead wire extending from the detonator and tied it to the wire from the charge device. He taped the connection over and over so it would be completely secure. Then next to the battery he installed a condenser circuit board taken from the flash component of a camera. In order for the detonator to be absolutely reliable, he needed a high voltage output. He connected the wires to this device as well. To prevent any accidental detonation, he decided he would work on the remaining wire from the electric detonator at the top of the mountain, taping the exposed end of the wire to the side of the battery.
"All right."
Shinji stood up, and then put the completed detonation device in his pocket.
"Let's hurry. It's time."
Yutaka nodded. Just in case, Shinji tossed his equipment, including the electrical pliers and extra lead wire into his day pack, and then lifted several piles of rope they had divided up onto his shoulder. He looked down. There was a gas can filled up with a mixture of gasoline and ammonium nitrate. To add oxygen, he stuffed in insulation material filled with air and folded in pleats. The opening was shut with the lid, but next to it another rubber lid functioning as the detonator holder was tied to it with a plastic cord dangling from the handle.
Then he looked at his watch. It was 12:09. They had plenty of time.
Okay then. He was trembling from excitement. It took a lot of effort, but now they had everything they needed. They would connect all the ropes they had, tying one end to a tree in H=7. Then they would tie the other end of the rope to the end of the fishing wire secured by the weight of a rock. They would unravel the rope and leave it there and then go around the school, going up the mountain into F=7. He would take the wire tied to the top of the tree and reel it in immediately. The rope stuck to the wire would then come to them. He would proceed to attach the pulley to the gas-can gondola with the detonation device and thread the rope through it. Then he would stretch the rope taut with one swift motion and secure it to a tree. Then the rest is...party time, dude. Have fun! Here we go! Make it happen!
Once they had done some damage to the school's computer, or its electrical current or wiring, Sakamochi's staff would suspect a system failure, no, given the power of explosives here once the entire computer, no, in fact half the school was blown up, then they would take the tire tubes they'd already hidden behind the rock in F=7 and run towards the western shore, escaping by sea as planned. If they could mislead the government by sending a false SOS signal using their transistor radio and get to the next island, Toyoshima, in less than a half an hour as calculated, then they would take a boat. (He had experience with a motor boat. He was really appreciating all the wisdom his late uncle had imparted.) Then they would probably escape into Okayama, hopefully landing on an obscure shore, and then they'd be fine. They could take a freight train heading to the countryside. Or they would furnish themselves with a car passing by. After all, he had a gun. Carjack. Nice.
Shinji looked down at the Beretta M92F tucked into his belt. He was planning on slipping through by misleading the government, but just in case they were found at sea, he'd filled several Coke bottles with his special ammonium nitrate-gasoline mixture and stuffed them into his day pack. But without a detonator they were basically just Molotov cocktails. If they were detected, it would be best to swim toward the guard ship and get on board to fight. If all went well they could get their hands on the enemy's weapons, and if they could operate the ship, it could provide their means of escape. But he would have to be a good shot to accomplish this.
He was a little...concerned. He'd been running all over the island with his Beretta, but come to think of it, he hadn't fired it once. And even his uncle didn't have a gun, so he'd never learned how to use one. But Shinji shook his head. The Third Man, Shinji Mimura. No prob. The first time he held a heavy basketball and tossed a free throw, the ball swooped right through the basket.
"Shinji." Yutaka called him.
Shinji looked up. "Are you ready?"
"No..." Yutaka said pitifully. And then he nervously wrote something on the memo pad. Shinji read it under the moonlight by the window. It read, I can't find the pulley. He glanced at Yutaka. For all he knew he might look really mad. Yutaka suddenly drew back. Yutaka was in charge of half of the rope supply and the pulley. Ever since Shinji took the pulley from the well, Yutaka had been in charge of it, bringing it over here and putting it somewhere. Shinji put his bundles of rope and day pack down again. He began searching the area on his knees. Yutaka did the same.
They groped in the dark, looking beyond the tractor and below the work desk, but they couldn't find it. Shinji stood up and checked his watch again. Instead of 12:10, it was approaching 12:15. Finally, he decided to take out the flashlight from his day pack. He cupped the bulb area with his hands and turned it on.
He did his best not to let any light leak out, but the interior of the warehouselike pseudo farm coop glowed a faint yellow. Shinji saw Yutaka's worried face and then beyond his shoulder, he easily located the pulley, lying beyond the moonlight from the window on the floor by the plain wall behind the desk. It was less than a meter away from Yutaka's day pack on the floor.
Shinji signaled Yutaka and quickly turned off the flashlight. Yutaka snatched up the pulley.
"I'm sorry, Shinji," Yutaka said apologetically.
Shinji forced a grin, "Get it together, Yutaka."
Then he shouldered the day pack and rope once again. He lifted the gas can. He was confident about his strength, but two of these items were pretty heavy. Carrying the rope would only be partway, but he would have to carry the twenty-kilogram gas can to the top of the mountain. And they had to hurry too. Yutaka carried his bundle of rope (the heavy load made him look like a tortoise weighed down by its shell. Well, Shinji looked no different), and they walked to the sliding door on the east side of the building. The door had been opened approximately ten centimeters, letting in a thin ray of pale blue moonlight.
"I'm so sorry, Shinji," Yutaka said again.
"It's all right. Don't worry. Let's just make sure we get it right from here on." Shinji shifted the gas can to his left hand, put his right hand on the heavy steel door, and slid it open. The pale light spread out.
Outside there was an unpaved parking lot. Its entrance was on the right. The farm coop faced a narrow road. Near its entrance was a station wagon. The wide longitudinal road traversing the island was slightly south of this road.
In front of the door, east of the parking lot, was a farm made up of several houses. Beyond that area was another cluster of houses, and even in the dark you could see them.
To his left Shinji saw a small storage shack at the end of the property, and further on up was the school, and above it, as if it were embracing it, the cliff. There were some trees right by a two-story house in front of the school. They were planning on tying the rope to the tallest tree there. They had secured the wire near the farm's waterway immediately left of the tree. So the wire went by the school and directly up into the center of the mountain, where the overlooking rock was, covering an amazing distance of three hundred meters.
I can't believe I came up with this plan. I wonder though, whether that wire will really lift the rope up to the mountain without getting cut?
Shinji took a breath and then after considering it, he decided to say something. It wouldn't matter whether they heard him say this.
"Yutaka."
Yutaka looked up at Shinji. "What?"
"We might die. Are you prepared for that?"
For a moment Yutaka fell silent. But then he answered immediately, "Yeah, I'm ready."
"Okay."
Shinji gripped the handle of the gas can again and was about to form a smile...
...that froze when he saw something in the corner of his eye.
Someone's head emerged from the farm east of the parking lot.
"Yutaka!"
Shinji grabbed Yutaka's arm and ran back behind the sliding door into the slate-walled farm coop building. Yutaka teetered for a moment, partially due to the heavy rope, but managed to follow him. By the time they were crouched over behind the sliding door, Shinji already had his gun aimed at the figure. The figure shrieked, "D-don't shoot! Shinji! Please don't shoot! It's me! Keita!" Shinji realized it was Keita Iijima (Male Student No. 2). Keita, relatively speaking, was friendly and got along with Shinji and Yutaka (after all they'd been classmates since their first year), but Shinji wasn't relieved someone was joining them. No, he felt like this meant trouble. That's when he realized he hadn't given much thought to the possibility of others joining them until now. Damn, why now!
"It's Keita, Shinji. Come on, it's Keita."
Shinji thought Yutaka's excited voice sounded a little inappropriate.
Keita slowly stood up and proceeded toward the farm coop premises. He held his day pack in his left hand and what looked like a kitchen knife in his right. He spoke cautiously.
"I saw the light."
Shinji clenched his teeth. It must have come from the flashlight he'd used just that one time to find the pulley. Shinji chided himself, how could he have screwed up like that, rushing to use that flashlight?
Keita continued, "So I came here and saw that it was you guys...what are you doing? What were you carrying? Rope? Let me...let me join you guys."
Knowing how their conversations were monitored, Yutaka knit his brow and looked over at Shinji, his eyes opened wide, realizing how Shinji hadn't lowered his gun.
"Sh-Shinji, what's going on?"
Shinji moved his open right hand and signaled Yutaka not to move forward. "Yutaka. Don't move."
"Hey," Keita said. His voice was shaking. "Why are you pointing that at me?" Shinji took a deep breath and said to Keita, "Don't move." He could tell Yutaka was getting tense. Keita Iijima's pitiful face was visible in the moonlight as he took a step forward.
"Why? Why won't you let me? Have you forgotten who I am, Shinji? Let me join you guys." Shinji cocked his gun with a click. Keita Iijima stopped. They still had plenty of distance, seven or eight meters.
"Don't come near us," Shinji slowly repeated. "I can't let you join." Yutaka whined right beside him, "Why, Shinji? We can trust Keita." Shinji shook his head. Then he thought, that's right, there's something you don't know about us, Yutaka. It wasn't a big deal. In fact it was a trivial incident.
It happened during their second year near the end of the term in March. Shinji went to Takamatsu to see a movie (there was no movie theater in Shiroiwa) with Keita Iijima. Yutaka was supposed to go too, but he had a cold that day.
That was how Shinji encountered three tough-looking high school students in a back alley off the main street near the shopping arcade. Shinji and Keita had already seen the movie, and once they were done checking out the book and record stores (Shinji bought imported computer books. They were lucky finds. Even though they were technical books, the government strictly prohibited books from the West so they were difficult to come by), they were heading over to the train station when Keita realized he'd forgot to buy a comic book and went back to the bookstore alone.
"Hey, you got any dough?" one of the high school students asked. This guy was at least ten centimeters taller than Shinji, who at 172 meters was short for a basketball player. Shinji shrugged. "I think I have 2,571 yen."
The interrogator looked at the other two as if saying, how lame. Then he leaned over by Shinji's ear. Shinji was annoyed. Maybe it was from getting wasted on paint thinner or some wacky drug that was hip these days, in any case the guy's gums were receding, and the smell of his breath coming between his teeth reeked. Brush your teeth, man.
The guy said, "Give it up. Come on, now."
Shinji gave an exaggerated look of surprise and said, "Oh, so you guys are homeless! You know you should be content with twenty yen then. I actually might give you something if you get on your knees and beg for forgiveness."
The guy with a gap in his teeth looked surprised while the other two grinned.
"You still in junior high, right? You should learn to respect your elders," the guy said and grabbed Shinji by the shoulder. He kneed Shinji in the stomach. Shinji tightened his stomach muscles to take the blow. It didn't hurt that much. It was just a threatening knee kick. These guys could never take on someone their own age.
Shinji calmly pushed the high school student away. Then he said, "What was that? A Russian hug?" The guys probably didn't even know where Russia was. But the guy with the gap in his teeth seemed irked by Shinji's tone of voice, and his thin, ugly face contorted.
"That's it." He punched Shinji in the face. This also didn't hurt much, though the inside of Shinji's mouth got cut.
Shinji stuck his fingers in his mouth to check the wound. It stung a little. He pulled out his fingers and found blood on them. It was nothing.
"Come on, give us your wallet."
Still looking down, Shinji broke into a grin. He looked up. When their eyes met the guy with the gap in his teeth looked intimidated.
Shinji said playfully, "You made the first move," and then with the motion of a short hook punch he swung the hardcover imported book in his hand into the guy's filthy mouth. He felt the guy's teeth break, his head fly back.
It took ten seconds for the fight to end. Of course his uncle's teachings had included fighting lessons too. It was trivial.
What wasn't trivial was something else.
As he glared at the passers by who were staring at the high school students on the ground, Shinji headed back to the book store and found Keita in the comics section. The book he went back for was already in a shopping bag. He seemed to be browsing aimlessly, and when Shinji called on him, he said, "I'm sorry. I remembered there was another book I wanted..." Then his eyes opened wide and he asked him,
"What happened to your mouth?"
Shinji shrugged and said, "Let's go home." He knew though that Keita had actually turned the street corner for a split second and ducked back when he saw Shinji surrounded by three high school students. Shinji had thought Keita might have gone to call the police. (Well, given how they were so occupied with the suppression of civilians instead of criminals they weren't all that dependable anyway.) Oh, so there was another book you wanted. I see.
Thanks to this incident, the train ride back to Shiroiwa-cho wasn't much fun. Keita probably thought Shinji could take on three high school students without any problem. And he was right. Keita probably didn't want to get hurt by getting involved in the fight. And okay, Shinji could understand how the high school students might take note of Keita's face if he'd called the cops. Uh huh. And Keita had no intention of apologizing to Shinji. Sometimes you need to lie to make the world go around.
These things happen. As his uncle often used to say, cowards can't be faulted for being sly. They can't be held responsible for everything.
But the cover was torn on the technical book Shinji bought. On top of that, the edge was stained with the guy's saliva and dented by his teeth. That really got Shinji. Every time he'd open that book he'd have to recall that annoying face. On top of that, and he might be called anal retentive for this, but he hated it when his books were torn or dirty. He always put covers on them when he read them. His uncle also said this. When you can't accept the results, then you have to punish whoever was responsible for them. Even the score.
So from then on as a form of punishment Shinji decided to keep his distance from Keita. It wasn't such a severe punishment. After all, it wasn't like he decided they were enemies. They were both better off this way.
So it was a trivial story. And he'd never shared the incident with Yutaka. But maybe trivializing a story like that one could get you killed in this game. This isn't revenge, Uncle. This is what you'd call the real world. I simply can't be friends with him.
"That's right." In response to Yutaka's statement, Keita Iijima spread his arms. The kitchen knife in his right hand reflected the moonlight. "I thought we were friends." Shinji still refused to lower the muzzle of his gun.
Seeing how adamant Shinji was, Keita looked like he was about to burst into tears. He threw the kitchen knife onto the ground. "See? I don't want to fight. Do you see now?" Shinji shook his head. "No. Scram."
Keita's face flushed with anger. "Why? Why won't you trust me?"
"Shinji—"
"Shut up, Yutaka."
Keita's face froze. He turned quiet...and then said, his voice trembling, "Is it because of what I did that time, Shinji? When I ran off? Is that why you don't trust me, Shinji?" Shinji aimed the gun at him without a word.
"Shinji..." Keita's voice once again turned pathetic. He was practically sobbing, "I'm sorry about that Shinji. I'm so sorry, Shinji—"
Shinji's lips tightened. He wondered whether Keita was being sincere or whether he putting on an act. But then he dismissed the thought. I'm not alone. I can't risk Yutaka's life too. There was an aphorism he'd heard claimed by a Defense Minister of some nation, "We must defend ourselves according to our opponents' ability, not their intentions." They were approaching 1 a.m.
"Shinji, what is going on—"
Shinji held Yutaka back with his right hand.
Keita proceeded forward. "Please. I'm so scared. Please let me join."
"Don't come any closer!" Shinji shouted.
Keita Iijima shook his sad face left and right and stepped out. He was approaching Shinji and Yutaka. Shinji pointed the gun downward and pulled the trigger for the first time. The shell popping out of the Beretta traced a pale white arc in the moonlight and a cloud of dust rose in front Keita's feet. Keita stared at it as if it were some rare chemistry experiment.
But then he started walking again.
"Stop! Just stop!"
"Please let me join. Please."
Like a wind-up doll Keita stepped forward. Right, left, right.
Shinji clenched his teeth. If Keita was going to pull out something besides his knife, it would have to come from his right arm.
Can you aim well? This time it won't be a threat. Accurately?
Of course.
There was no time left. Shinji pulled the trigger again.
He felt his finger slip.
A split second before the popping sound, Shinji suddenly realized that he was sweating. He was sweating from the tension.
It happened so suddenly. Keita Iijima bent over as if his upper body had been punched in. He spread out his arms like a shotputter does right before throwing a shot, then bent his knees and fell on his back. Even in the dark Shinji could clearly see the blood spurting out of the hole in the right side of his chest like a small fountain. This was also instantaneous.
"Shinji! What'd you do!" Yutaka screamed and ran to Keita. He knelt beside him and put his hands on Keita's body, his mouth agape. Then after hesitating for a moment he touched his neck. His face went pale. "He's dead..."
Shinji remained frozen, still holding onto his gun. He felt like he wasn't thinking, but he was. How lame, the voice echoed in his head. Although it was irrelevant, the voice echoed the way it does when you talk to yourself in the shower.
How lame. I thought you were supposed to be The Third Man, Shinji Mimura, who never missed a shot. The star shooting guard of Shiroiwa Junior High, Shinji Mimura, right?
Shinji stood up and began to walk forward. As if he'd suddenly turned into a cyborg, his body felt heavy. One day Shinji Mimura woke up to find out that he had become the Terminator. Great. He slowly walked over to Keita Iijima's body.
Yutaka glared back at Shinji.
"Why, Shinji! Why'd you kill him!?"
Standing motionless, Shinji answered, "I thought we'd be in trouble if Keita had another weapon besides the knife. I aimed for his arm. I didn't mean to kill him."
Hearing this, Yutaka checked Keita Iijima's body. As if to make a point, he looked through Keita's day pack too. Then he said, "He had nothing! How could you, Shinji!? Why didn't you trust him!?" Shinji suddenly felt hollow. But...it was necessary. Hey, Uncle, I didn't do anything wrong, did I? Right?
Shinji looked down at Yutaka without saying a word. But—that's right—they had to hurry. They couldn't let their mistakes drag them down.
Right before he was about to say this, something changed in Yutaka's face. His lips trembled. He said, "Oh no, Shinji, don't tell me you—" Shinji had no idea what he was referring to. He asked, "What?" Yutaka quickly stepped back. He distanced himself from Shinji.
Yutaka spoke through his trembling lips, "Shinji, you didn't do that on purpose—" Shinji's lips tightened. He gripped the Beretta in his left hand.
"You're saying I shot Keita to buy us time? That's..."
Yutaka frantically shook his head. Then he slowly retreated. "No...no...this whole plan—" Shinji knit his brows and stared at Yutaka. Yutaka, what is it you're getting at?
"This whole thing about our escape, that was just, that was—"
Yutaka still didn't make any sense, but Shinji whose brain's CPU was amazingly fast finally had understood what Yutaka was thinking.
No, it can't be—
But what else could it be?
Yutaka was accusing Shinji of having no intention whatsoever to escape, that he had been planning all along to "play" this game. That's why he shot Keita.
Shinji's face gave a look of absolute dismay. His mouth might have been hanging open for all he knew. Then he shouted, "Don't be stupid! Why the hell would I be with you then!?" Yutaka was trembling, shaking his head. "That's... that's..."
Yutaka didn't say anymore, but Shinji understood that too. He probably wanted to say that Shinji was using him to survive, for instance by having him keep watch so Shinji could sleep. But waitasec here, I used the laptop to take on Sakamochi, and even after that failed, I came up with this other plan. So you're saying since I'm smart I was playing around with the cell phone and laptop to gain your trust and that my hidden intention was to use the gasoline and fertilizer to protect myself and win the game. That since I only had one gun, a special explosive would come in handy to survive in this game? That right before executing the plan to bomb the school I was going to say, "Nah, let's not"? Just like how I'd said,
"It's not working" when I was computer hacking? Look, waitasec though, what about that wire we installed by the school? Are you saying I wanted to start a wire-can phone business on this island where all the phone circuits have been shut off? Or you're just saying that was another act? Or that I had some plan you couldn't even conceive of?
When I said I'd help out after you told me you were going to avenge Izumi Kanai's death, you cried. So my response was another deception?
That's too much, Yutaka. I mean there's no end to suspicion once you get going. But you're going too far. This is absurd. Really, it's hilarious. Funnier than your jokes. Maybe you're losing it from fatigue. That's what Shinji thought on a rational level. And if he could have gone through each explanation step by step then Yutaka would have realized how foolish every one of his suspicions were. In fact, everything Shinji could come up with might not have corresponded to Yutaka's suspicions. It might have been a simple case of fatigue combined with the shock of witnessing his close friend die suddenly giving way to a suspicion lurking somewhere in the back of Yutaka's mind. But...it came to surface because it had been there in the first place, his suspicion towards Shinji. And the thought of suspecting Yutaka had never even occurred to Shinji.
All of a sudden, the exhaustion he felt was overpowering. A horizontal twelve-cylinder turbo engine. This level of exhaustion is top-class, yessir, it really is a steal, sir.
Shinji uncocked the Beretta and tossed it over to Yutaka. Yutaka hesitated but received it. Emptied out, Shinji threw his hands onto his knees.
"If you don't trust me then shoot me, Yutaka. I don't care, just shoot me." Crouching, Shinji continued, "I shot Keita to protect you, Yutaka. Damn."
Yutaka suddenly looked at him blankly. Then ready to burst into tears, he uttered, "Oh...oh..." He ran to Shinji.
Yutaka put his hand on Shinji's shoulder and began sobbing out loud. Shinji stared down at the ground with his hands on his knees. He realized his eyes too were filled with tears. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was telling himself, hey hey, don't you have more urgent matters to attend to? Look how vulnerable you guys are bickering like this. Have you forgotten, you're surrounded by enemies? Look at your watch for crying out loud, you're out of time...the voice resembled his uncle's.
But Shinji's nerves were too worn out, his body too tired, and emotions too rattled from Yutaka's suspicion against him to take heed of this warning.
He merely cried. Yutaka. I was trying to protect you. How could you suspect me? I trusted you...but then again, maybe Keita Iijima felt the same way. How horrible to be suspected by someone you trust. I did an awful thing.
Amidst these worn out emotions of sadness, exhaustion, and regret, Shinji heard a rattling that sounded like the tapping of an old typewriter.
A split second later, he felt as if burnt tongs were poking through his body. The wounds were fatal by then, but the pain made Shinji come to his senses. Yutaka, who had his hand on Shinji's shoulder, fell to the ground. Over at the far end of the farm coop parking lot was a figure in a school coat. He held a gun—something bigger than a pistol. It looked more like a tin box. Shinji realized he'd been shot—of course with bullets, damn—with bullets that had exited through Yutaka's body. His body felt hot and stiff (the guy just lanced me with lead bullets, duh), but Shinji reflexively fell to his left and picked up the Beretta Yutaka had taken and dropped. He aimed it at the figure, Kazuo Kiriyama (Male Student No. 6) and fired several times at his stomach.
Kazuo Kiriyama shifted to the right before the shots got to him, though. Then along with the rattling sound, the tips of his hands flashed like out-of-season fireworks.
The blows he felt in the right side of his stomach, his left shoulder, and chest were much worse than the one he'd just felt a moment ago. The Beretta fell from his hand.
But by then Shinji had already begun running toward the farm coop. He staggered for a moment, but then crouched down and dashed off, leaping through the sliding door head first. A stream of bullets chased after him and right when Shinji thought he'd escaped them, it managed to blow off the tip of his right foot's basketball sneaker. This time Shinji grimaced in agony from the pain shooting through his body. But he had no time to rest. He grabbed the gas can in the shadow of the sliding door and retreated through the dark where the tractor and combine harvester were, practically crawling on his left arm and left leg. He dragged the gas can with his right hand.
Blood was pouring out of his mouth. There were at least ten bullets in his body. And despite the sharp pain that shot up from his right foot he managed to glance at the vanished tip of his basketball shoes and thought, I guess I can't play ball anymore. Impossible now. Even if I could I'll never be in the starting lineup. So much for my basketball career.
But Shinji was more concerned about Yutaka. Could he still be alive?
Kazuo—Shinji coughed up blood as he clenched his teeth—so you've decided to play the game, you bastard. Then come after me. Yutaka can't move, but I can. You can take care of Yutaka later. First come after me. Come on, come after me.
As if responding to his wish, Shinji could see from underneath the tractor a figure in the blue pale belt of light coming in through the sliding door.
Then along with the rattling sound, lights flashed like camera flashes, and bullets scattered across the building. A part of some farm equipment was blown to bits, and the window across from him was smashed into fragments.
It stopped. He was out of bullets. But Kazuo would reload another magazine. Shinji grabbed a screwdriver near him and tossed it to his left. It made a clanging sound and tapped onto the floor.
He thought Kazuo would shoot over there, but instead he scattered bullets across in an arc around the screwdriver. Shinji ducked, praying he wouldn't be hit. The shooting stopped again. Shinji looked up. Now...he could tell Kazuo was inside the building.
That's right, Shinji's blood-drenched lips formed a smile. I'm over here. Come over here—
Shinji lifted the gas can with his right hand and placed it on his stomach. He moved back again with his left arm and left leg, trying his best not to make any sound. His back hit a hard, boxlike object, and he slid around it as he continued to retreat. His movements weren't completely silent. Kazuo already knew he was hiding somewhere in the dark here. The blood dripping out of him was a dead giveaway. Kazuo crouched down and checked under various farm tools and the pickup truck as he approached Shinji.
Shinji surveyed the area. He could barely make out the outline of the upper floor on the opposite side of the building as well as the steel stairs that led up there from the door. If his body was in adequate condition he could have jumped on him from up there. But that wasn't possible anymore. There was a cart on the east wall. It was a pushcart with four small wheels used to carry equipment. The office in the corner with partitions was beyond the pushcart and next to it was an exit. The sliding door, if fully opened, was large enough for a car, but this one was only for people. The door was shut. That door...1 locked it along with the other windows and every other door. How long would it take me to unlock it?
He had no time to think it over. Shinji dragged his body over to the pushcart. Once he was there he placed the gas can on it. He opened its lid. He pushed in the rubber object dangling from a plastic cord. He took out the detonation device in his pocket. His fingers were clumsy—probably due to his wounds—but they finally managed to peel off the tape on the side of the battery, revealing an exposed wire dangling from the detonator tube. Shinji connected it to the wire tip of the condenser circuit. He pulled off the insulation of the battery case. As he heard a faint, high hum from the rapid charge of the condenser, he quickly peeled off the tape on the charge device switch and shoved the detonator tube deep inside the gas can's rubber cap. He left the rest of the unit, including the charge device, the battery case, and circuit, on top of the gas can. He had no time to secure it. He could see Kazuo's feet to the right of the threshing machine.
His chances were slim. But now that Yutaka and me are injured there's no way we'll ever make it up the mountain. So...
...here's a special something for you, Kazuo.
Shinji kicked the pushcart with his left leg as hard as he could. As the cart skimmed by the other equipment, Shinji leaped for the exit door without even checking to see if the cart was heading towards Kazuo.
He unlocked it in 0.2 seconds. He even utilized his right leg with its missing foot tip to crash through the door and leap out of the building.
The slate walls of the farm coop behind him suddenly burst with an explosion that shook the entire dark island. The sound of Kazuo's hand grenade that had temporarily disabled Shuya's hearing was nothing compared to this explosion. Shinji realized, whoa, there go my eardrums. His body slid on the ground from the blast of the explosion, scraping off the skin on his forehead. Fragments and scraps blew by. Still, Shinji managed to look back quickly and see, right where the building's wall should be, the light truck floating in the air upside down. Probably due to its raised position from the jack, the blast had slammed it with incredible pressure, blowing it upwards. It spun around slowly in air filled with fragments of glass, slate, and concrete (he felt as if they were also stuck into his body too, but the ones he saw now didn't come flying out directly, but were blown up into the sky), traced an exaggerated arc, and crashed on its side in the middle of the parking lot. It rolled over another ninety degrees and stopped, completely upside down. The back carriage was nearly torn off, twisted up like a wrung out rag, and the wheel with a missing tire somehow managed to still spin around and around. Fragments continued showering down. Immersed in clouds of smoke the farm coop was now reduced to only its frame. The only wall remaining was part of the one on the north side, along with the upper floor. But the upper floor was completely exposed behind the smoke. The south side of the roof was completely blown away, and the machines, including the farm equipment, were scattered around on their sides. Even in the dark Shinji could tell they were burnt black. He saw several bright flames. Maybe something was on fire. The side exit Shinji used to escape through was barely connected to the remains of the wall by the bottom hinges, bent over his way, as if bowing. The office with partitions had completely vanished without a trace. Well, actually there was the office desk still hanging on, glued to the part of the wall that escaped destruction, pushed from behind by the combine harvester that was also probably blown away by the explosion.
Something must have been blown up high in the sky because, completely out of sync with the other debris, it was finally landing somewhere in the smoke with a high metallic ring. Although Shinji could hardly hear it.
Next thing he knew, Shinji was struggling to get up from the debris of wall and other materials, staring at the ruins of the building. He gasped.
Yes, the handmade gasoline can bomb was well made. With that kind of destructive force it would have certainly annihilated the school.
But that was all over now. The important thing now was that he'd defeated the enemy coming after him. And even more urgent was—
"Yutaka..."
He mumbled as he finally got up, kneeling on his right knee on the debris. The moment he opened his mouth, blood came gushing out between his teeth, and he felt an incredible surge of pain running from his chest down to his stomach. It was a miracle he was still alive. But he stretched out his arms and put his right leg down on its heel and then stretched out his left leg and somehow managed to stand up. Shinji looked over to the edge of the parking lot where Yutaka was lying...
...when he saw the overturned light truck's door—it must have been busted—open with a dull creaking sound. (He could hear it faintly. Some of his hearing seemed to be coming back.) Kazuo Kiriyama stepped down onto the ground. He held the tin-box-like machine gun in his right hand as if nothing had happened.
Hey—
Shinji felt like he should burst out laughing. For all he knew his blood-soaked lips might have even formed a smile.
You gotta be kidding.
By then Kazuo fired. Shinji this time met a full frontal parabolic shower of 9mm bullets and staggered back into the ground covered with debris. Something was pressing into his back. As of now there really was no need to check it, but he thought it was the front of the parked station wagon. The station wagon had also been blown up by the blast, its back stuck into a wooden telephone pole now lopsided from the impact. Another object seemed to have smashed into its windshield, which resembled a spider's web. Surrounded by the bright flames burning in the building, Kazuo calmly stood still. Then beyond him Shinji saw Yutaka lying on his face, half buried in the debris. Right near him was Keita Iijima lying on his back, his face staring at Shinji.
He thought, Kazuo, damn, so I ended up losing to you.
He thought, I'm sorry Yutaka, I let my guard down for a moment.
He thought, Uncle, how lame, huh?
He thought, Ikumi, fall in love and be happy. Looks like I won't be able to...looks like. .. Kazuo Kiriyama's Ingram burst out once again and Shinji's thoughts came to an end. The bullets had torn apart his cerebral cortex. Near his head, the cracked front windshield was now shattered, most of its fragments sliding into the car, but some of the finer mistlike particles fell on Shinji's body already covered with dust and debris.
Shinji slowly fell forward on his face. Debris bounced up on impact. It took less than thirty seconds for the rest of his body besides his brain to die. The memento of his beloved uncle—the earring worn by the woman he loved—was now stained in blood running down Shinji's left ear, reflecting the glow from the building now consumed in red flames.
And so the boy known as The Third Man, Shinji Mimura, was now dead. |
[ Final Stage (17 students remaining) ]
In the bushes with her blanket over her shoulders, Noriko hugged her knees and stared at the ground. It was still very dark and insects were humming the way a fluorescent light sputters out before it dies. Sakamochi's midnight announcement came on right after they reached this area. He announced the death of Hirono Shimizu (Female Student No. 10), who had—although Noriko herself didn't see it—killed Kaori Minami and fled from Shuya, followed by the addition of three forbidden zones. At 1 a.m. F=7, at 3 a.m. G=3, and at 5 a.m. E=4. Noriko and Soji's sector, C=3, was still safe. Shuya's name wasn't mentioned, but...
Ten to twenty minutes later, there was distant gunfire again and then the sound of that machine gun. Noriko's heart froze. The sound continued.
She couldn't forget it. It was unmistakable—the sound of Kazuo Kiriyama's machine gun. Unless someone else had the same gun. Regardless, the sound was enough to make her wonder whether Kazuo had finally caught up to Shuya.
Before Noriko could mention this to Soji though, there was an incredible explosion. The hand grenade they encountered when they were fighting Kiriyama was nothing compared to this. And then there was the faint sound of the machine gun, once or twice. After that the island returned to silence. Even Soji seemed surprised by the sound. He was carving an arrow-like object with his knife when he suddenly stopped and said, "I'm going to go have a look. Don't move," and walked out of the bushes. He came back immediately and told her, "A building's on fire on the east side." Noriko started to ask, "Could it be?..." but Soji shook his head and said, "It's quite a ways south from where Kiriyama was. Shuya escaped into the mountainside, so it can't be him. Let's wait for him here." Noriko felt relieved for the time being. But nearly an entire hour had passed since then. Shuya still hadn't returned.
Noriko held her wrist under the coin-sized moonlight coming through the branches and checked her watch. It was 1:12 a.m. She'd been repeating this gesture as if it were a magical ritual. Then she buried her head between her knees.
A horrible image flashed by in her thoughts. Shuya's face. His mouth half-open and eyes looking off into the distance, the way he looked singing a song called "Imagine" (Shuya said it was a rock standard) during one of their breaks in the music room, out of the teacher's sight. But this face had a large, black dot similar to one worn by a Hindu worshipper. Without warning, red liquid came oozing out of the dot. The large dot was in fact a very dark and deep hole. The blood poured out from his brain, covering his face...like cracks running through a piece of glass.
Noriko shivered and shook her head, dismissing the thought. She looked up at Soji, who was leaning against a tree trunk, smoking a cigarette. There was a handmade bow next to him and several arrows stuck in the ground.
"Soji."
He looked like a silhouette in the dark. He removed the cigarette from his mouth and rested his right wrist on his upright knee.
"What is it?"
"Shuya should be here by now."
He put his cigarette in his mouth again. Its tip reddened, faintly lighting up his calm face. Noriko felt impatient. His face darkened again and smoke drifted out of his mouth.
"Yeah."
His calm tone also irritated her. But then she reminded herself how he'd saved her and Shuya several times over, so she restrained herself.
"Something must have...happened."
"Probably."
"What do you mean, 'probably'?"
His silhouette raised its arms. The lit cigarette moved. "Calm down. That was definitely Kazuo's machine gun. Unless they supplied an identical machine gun to someone else. And given how the explosion occurred over there, it means that Kazuo was fighting someone besides Shuya. Shuya escaped from Kazuo. I know that much."
"But then why isn't he—"
He interrupted, "He's probably hiding somewhere. Or he might have gotten lost." She shook her head. "He might be hurt. Or even worse..."
She felt a chill run down her spine. She couldn't continue. The image of Shuya with the red spider-web face and half-open mouth flashed by again. Shuya might have escaped from Kazuo, but he might have been severely wounded, he might be dying right now. Even if that wasn't the case, what if he was attacked by someone while he was running through the mountains... or what if he fell unconscious somewhere, and what if that was in a forbidden zone, then Shuya would end up dead. That's right...Shuya might have run into the base of the northern mountain which was in sector F=7, directly north of the school, sector F=7 which was a forbidden zone as of 1 a.m. And now it was past 1 a.m. Which meant...
She shook her head again. That couldn't be. Shuya couldn't die. Because...Shuya was like a holy man with a guitar. He was always kind to everyone, he was always so sympathetic to the sorrows of others, but he would never lose that powerful smile, he was so upright and transparent and innocent but also tough. He's like my guardian angel. How could someone like that die? There's no way he could...but still...
Soji quietly said, "He might be, he might not be."
She turned her wrist and nervously checked her watch again. She moved her leg painfully and sidled up to Soji. She squeezed Soji's left hand, which was on his knees, with both hands.
"Please. Can't we go...can't we go look for him? Will you come with me? I can't do this on my own. Please."
Soji said nothing. He only lifted his left hand slowly, returning Noriko's hands to her thighs, and tapped them lightly. "We can't. Even if you insist on going alone, I won't let you. Shuya wanted me to look after you. He took a big risk making us leave before him. I don't want to jeopardize all he did for us." She bit her lower lip and stared at him.
"Don't give me that look. You're making this hard on me." Soji scratched his head with his hand holding his cigarette and said, "You care about Shuya, right?" She nodded. She didn't hesitate.
He nodded back and said, "Then let's respect his wishes."
She bit her lip again, but then looked down and nodded. "All right. We can only wait, right?"
"That's right." He nodded.
They were silent for a while but then he asked, "Do you believe in sixth sense?" The topic was so unexpected Noriko widened her eyes. Was he trying to distract her?
"Well...a little. I don't really know though," she responded. "Do you?" He crushed his cigarette into the ground. Then he said, "Absolutely not...well, I don't think it matters either way. All that stuff about ghosts, the afterlife, cosmic power, sixth sense, fortune telling, psychic powers, that's just the talk of fools who can only deal with reality by avoiding it. I'm sorry. You said you believed a little. That's just my opinion. But..."
She looked at his eyes. "But?"
"But sometimes without any apparent reason I'm certain about things I can't know for sure. And for some reason I've never been wrong when this happens."
She remained silent and stared at him.
He said, "Shuya's still alive. He'll be back. I know it."
Her face suddenly relaxed. He might have been making this up on the spot, but even so she was touched he made the effort.
"Thanks," she said, "You're kind, Soji."
He shrugged. "I'm just telling you how I feel." Then he said, "Shuya's a lucky guy." She looked over at him. "Hm?"
"Lucky that someone loves him this much."
She smiled just a little. "You got it wrong."
"What?"
"It's unrequited. Shuya likes someone else. I'm nothing compared to her."
"...really?"
She looked down and nodded. "She's really awesome. I don't know how to describe her. She's so strong and beautiful. I'm jealous, but I can understand why he's attracted to her." He tilted his head and said, "I don't know." He flicked his lighter several times and lit another cigarette and added, "I think Shuya cares about you now."
She shook her head. "Oh no."
"When he comes back," he smiled, "you should let him have it, call him a jerk for making you worry like this."
She smiled a little again.
He blew out smoke. "Now lie down. You haven't fully recovered yet. Once you're drowsy, get some sleep. I'll stay up all night. If Shuya shows up, I'll tell him to wake the princess with a kiss."
"Uh huh." She smiled and nodded. "Thanks."
She still sat up another ten minutes. Then she wrapped herself in the blanket and lay down. She still couldn't sleep though. |
[ 17 students remaining ]
Hiroki Sugimura was getting exhausted. He'd been walking without stopping ever since the game began, so it was only natural. But every time he heard Sakamochi's announcement, his level of exhaustion rose as if he were climbing a staircase. Now only twenty were left...no, as far as Hiroki knew, the number was down to seventeen. It was hard to believe, but Shinji Mimura was dead, along with Yutaka Seto and Keita Iijima.
After he left Shuya's group at the clinic, Hiroki headed towards the island's northwest shore, which he'd never checked out. Then a little past 11 p.m. he heard heavy gunfire and moved back east of the island's central area in pursuit of the sound. But the noise stopped before he got there, so he couldn't find anything. Then the midnight announcement came, and the additional forbidden zones were announced. Hiroki decided to comb through each of those zones. As he was entering the north side of the school, sector F=7, which would be forbidden at 1 a.m., he heard a gunshot and then...that machine gun sound. Because he was in the mountain, looking over the flat area, Hiroki saw a repeating flash, what seemed like a muzzle flashing in the farm immediately west of the housing area. As he descended the slope he heard an ear-shattering explosion. The night sky above the trees lit up. Then he heard the rattling sound again.
As he left the foot of the mountain, he saw a building on fire where the light had been flashing. Hiroki thought the assailant with the machine gun might still be there, but as he'd done with Megumi Eto, he had to find out what happened. He cautiously wove his way through the farm, approaching the area where...
...he found the body of Shinji Mimura. The area was flickering with flames. The warehouse building—that must have been what exploded—was blown apart. Large and small debris were scattered all over what appeared to be a parking lot. Shinji was lying face down in front of a station wagon in the lot. His body was riddled with bullets. Later Hiroki found the bodies of Yutaka Seto and Keita Iijima in the debris.
There was no trace of the assailant with the machine gun, but Hiroki thought it was likely someone who was "playing the game" would show up soon, so he quickly left the area. It was only after he'd crossed the island's latitudinal road and entered the base of the southern mountain that he thought about Shinji, the death of the Shinji Mimura. There was something unbelievable about it, since Hiroki knew him pretty well. It sounded offensive now, but he'd always thought Shinji was immortal. Hiroki went to the town martial arts school and learned martial arts, but that in the end was just a matter of technique. It was nothing against Shinji's inborn athletic prowess. Even if they'd fought according to martial arts rules, and even though Hiroki was ten centimeters taller, Shinji would have easily defeated him in a match. Besides, Shinji was much smarter than him. Even if Shinji couldn't escape the game (although it was likely he'd considered it), Hiroki firmly believed no one else would be able to kill Shinji. And yet the machine gun shooter somehow managed to do just that. He couldn't afford to mourn over Shinji, though. What mattered now was finding Kayoko Kotohiki. He had to find her soon—if the machine gun shooter found her, someone like Kotohiki would get instantly killed.
Since sector G=3, forbidden at 3 a.m., was on the northern side of the southern mountain peak, Hiroki decided to head over there.
He'd already entered this mountain several times now. Takako Chigusa's body was still lying in sector H=4 in the region right before sector G=3. He couldn't even bury her body. He'd only managed to close her eyes and cross her arms over her chest. Her body was still outside the forbidden zone. As he cautiously moved forward through the darkness, Hiroki thought, I'm so awful. He wasn't even able to stay by his closest childhood friend. He'd probably be walking by her as he headed towards sector G=3.
I'm so sorry, Takako. I still need to take care of something. Right now I just have to see Kayoko Kotohiki. Please forgive me...
Then something else occurred to him. It concerned Yutaka Seto.
Yutaka's seating number immediately followed his, so Yutaka had exited right after Hiroki. But Hiroki was still in the middle of checking out the premises, frantically searching for a hiding place that gave him a clear look at the school exit, so Yutaka was gone by the time he could afford to look back. Hiroki decided Takako would be his priority, and so he let Haruka Tanizawa (Female Student No. 12) and Yuichiro Takiguchi (Male Student No. 13) pass by. (But in spite of his extreme caution, Yoshio Akamatsu's surprise appearance had made him panic enough to lose Takako.) Yutaka had managed to join up with his friends Shinji Mimura and Keita Iijima. But Yutaka was now dead along with Shinji. I have to hurry, he thought. I can't let Kotohiki die.
He stopped by a bare tree and checked the radar in his left hand again. With the moon providing the only source of light, the unlit liquid crystal display was difficult to read, but by squinting his eyes he found he could make out faint traces of the crystal particles.
Nothing changed on the screen, though. There was only the star mark indicating his position. Hiroki sighed.
Maybe he should just shout for Kotohiki. Hiroki had considered doing this several times, but then decided against it. When he found Takako, it had been too late. He didn't want that to happen again. No. It wouldn't work. He couldn't. First of all, Kotohiki wouldn't necessarily respond to his call. In fact, she might run away. Furthermore, although he didn't care about someone coming after him once he called for her, if Kotohiki were to come at the same time she might end up getting attacked. In the end, he could only rely on the government-supplied radar. And without this equipment, he would have been even worse off. He absolutely despised the government for throwing them into this stupid game, but he had to admit he benefited from his equipment. What's this called? A stroke of luck in hard times? Or more like, a light in a tunnel of fury?
He went up and down a low cliff covered in bushes and came out onto a gentle slope scattered with trees. He knew he was entering sector H=4, where Takako was resting in peace. Hiroki raised the radar, moving it slightly to catch the moonlight on the crystal display.
He saw a blurred double image of the star mark indicating his position at the center of the display. Oh no, I'm getting tired. Even my vision's going now.
Hiroki was still looking down when he realized he was wrong. At the same time, he turned around and swung his stick in his right hand. Following the martial arts technique he had learned so thoroughly, his elegant swing traced a graceful arc.
The stick impressively landed on the arm of the figure standing behind him. The person groaned and dropped the object, a gun, in their hand. Someone had snuck up behind him when his guard was down for that brief moment.
The figure made a dash for the gun on the ground. Hiroki thrust the stick out in front of him. The figure froze and then staggered back—
Hiroki saw it. First, it was only the sailor suit. Then the beautiful face, brightly lit by the moon—angelic—it was unmistakably hers. It was right after he left the school, when he still hadn't managed to find a hiding place. Hiroki had been lurking in the corner of the athletic field when he saw the face of Mitsuko Souma (Female Student No. 11) as she emerged from the school building after him. Mitsuko lifted both of her hands and stepped back. "Please don't kill me! Please don't kill me!" she shouted. She staggered and fell on her behind, revealing her white legs up beyond her thighs under her pleated skirt. She continued coquettishly to move back in the pale blue moonlight.
"Please! I was just trying to talk to you! I wouldn't think of killing anyone! Please help me! Help me!" Hiroki looked down at her without saying a word.
Maybe she'd taken his silence to be a sign he meant no harm. Mitsuko slowly lowered her hands. Her eyes had the intimidated look of a terrified mouse, and tears were gleaming in them.
"You believe me, don't you?" she said. A ray of moonlight fell on her tearstained face. Her eyes were faintly smiling. Of course, it wasn't the proud victorious smile of deception, but a smile brimming with relief that she felt deep in her heart.
"I...I..." she said but then pulled on her skirt with her left hand as if she'd finally realized her thighs were exposed. "I thought I could trust you...so...I've been so scared...all alone...this is so awful...I'm just so terrified..."
Without saying a word, Hiroki picked up the gun Mitsuko had dropped. He saw it was cocked, so he uncocked the hammer with one hand and walked over to Mitsuko. He offered her the handle of the gun.
"Th-thankyou..." Mitsuko reached out.
But the gun froze.
Hiroki flipped it around with his hand. Now the muzzle was pointed right between her brows.
"Wh-what are you doing, Hiroki?"
Mitsuko's face was twisted with dismay and horror—at the very least it looked contorted. She was priceless. It wouldn't matter how many sordid rumors you heard about Mitsuko Souma, most people (particularly guys) would have to believe her once this angelic face of hers pleaded for mercy. No, even if you didn't believe her, you'd still end up doing anything you could for her. By no means was Hiroki an exception. Still, he had special circumstances.
"Forget it, Mitsuko," Hiroki said. He held the gun and stood upright. "I saw Takako right before she died."
"Oh..."
She looked up at him, her perfectly shaped eyes trembling. Even if inside she was regretting not having finished Takako off, she gave no indication whatsoever of any regret. She just maintained that terrified look...a look seeking understanding and protection.
"N-no! That was an accident. Sure, I saw some of the others. But...when I encountered Takako...it was her... she... she tried to kill me... that gun's really Takako's...so...so I..." Hiroki recocked the Colt .45 with a click. Mitsuko's eyes squinted.
"I know Takako. Takako would never try to kill someone, nor would she ever panic and go on a shooting spree. Even in this stupid game," Hiroki said.
Mitsuko tucked in her chin. She looked up at Hiroki and formed a smile. While it sent chills down his spine, it was precisely then that Mitsuko looked even more beautiful.
Ha, she faintly laughed. "I thought she died instantly," she said. Hiroki didn't respond and kept pointing the gun at her.
Still sitting, Mitsuko pinched the edge of her skirt with her left thumb and index finger, pulling it back slowly, once again revealing those enticing legs.
Hiroki looked up.
"How about it? If you help me, you can do what you like with me. I'm not bad, you know." Hiroki remained frozen, holding the gun. He examined her face.
"I guess not," Mitsuko said. She said lightly, "Of course not. I mean I'd kill you the moment you let down your guard. Besides, how could you sleep with the girl who killed your girlfriend—"
"She's not my girlfriend."
Mitsuko looked at Hiroki.
Hiroki continued, "But she was my best friend."
"Oh really?" Mitsuko raised her brow. Then she asked, "Why won't you shoot me then? Is it because you're some kind of feminist? Can't shoot women?"
Her supremely confident face was still beautiful. It was totally different from Takako's, who, that's right, had the graceful beauty of a war goddess in Greek or Roman myth. Here we had a teenage sorceress. She's charming, innocent, angelic, yet completely frigid. Under the moonlight, her eyes were like gleaming ice. Hiroki felt dizzy.
"How..." He could tell his voice was hoarse. "How could you kill someone so easily?"
"You fool," Mitsuko said. She sounded as if she could care less about the gun pointed at her forehead.
"Those are the rules."
Hiroki squinted and shook his head. "Not everyone's playing by them." Mitsuko tilted her head again. Then she said, still smiling warmly, "Hiroki." It sounded so plain and friendly, the way a girl who ended up sitting next to her crush would call him, looking for some topic to bring up before homeroom began.
"You're probably a good person, Hiroki," she said.
Hiroki didn't understand and knit his brows. His mouth might have been open. Mitsuko continued, lightly, as she were singing, "Good people are good. In some respects. But even those good people can turn bad. Or maybe they end up being good their entire lives. Maybe you're one of those people."
Mitsuko looked away from Hiroki and then shook her head.
"No, that's beside the point. I just decided to take instead of being taken. It's not a question of good or bad, wrong or right. It's just what I want to do."
Hiroki's lips trembled. They were twitching uncontrollably.
"...why though?"
Mitsuko smiled again. "I don't know. But if I have to come up with some explanation. Well, for starters..." She looked into Hiroki's eyes and then said, "I was raped when I was nine years old. Three guys taking turns, three times each, oh, wait, one of them might have done it four times. One of you did it. Although they were middle-aged men. I was just a skinny kid back then, my chest was flat, and my legs were like sticks, but that's what they wanted. And when I started screaming that only excited them more. So even now when I'm with perverted men like that I still pretend to cry." Hiroki stood frozen as he stared at Mitsuko who'd just revealed so much but continued wearing her pleasant smile. He was shocked by this devastating story.
It was—
Hiroki might have been on the verge of saying something. But before he could, a silver light flashed out of Mitsuko's hands. Hiroki realized Mitsuko had managed to reach behind her back with her right hand, but by then the double-bladed diver's knife (this used to be Megumi Eto's weapon) was already planted in his right shoulder. Hiroki let out a groan, and although he still held the gun, he staggered back in pain. Mitsuko instantly got up, ran past Hiroki, and into the woods behind him. Hiroki quickly looked back and caught a glimpse of her...as she vanished into the dark. He knew if he didn't kill Mitsuko Souma now then Kayoko Kotohiki might be the next one to fall into her trap. But Hiroki couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he pressed his left hand against his right shoulder where the blood from the knife wound began to soak through his school coat. He stared into the dark where Mitsuko had disappeared.
Of course...Mitsuko might have made up that story to stall him. But Hiroki couldn't buy that. Mitsuko told him the truth. And he'd only heard...part of it. Hiroki had been puzzled over how a third-year junior high school girl his age could be so merciless. It turned out she had acquired the psyche of a grown adult a long time ago. A twisted adult's, no, maybe it was more accurate to say a twisted child's psyche?
The blood oozed down his sleeve then down the Colt .45 and began dripping from the tip in a thin line, landing onto a pile of moldy leaves by his feet without a sound. |
Slightly past 3:30 a.m., Toshinori Oda (Male Student No. 4) left the house he was hiding in. Immediately after he hid there, he surmised it was inside sector E=4. Sakamochi had announced the sector would be forbidden at 5 a.m.
Before he opened the back door to leave, he glanced over at Hirono Shimizu's body, which he'd dragged into the corner. All he did was glance at the body lying face down. He didn't feel particularly sorry for her. After all this was a serious competition. You get what you deserve. Hirono Shimizu didn't even think twice about shooting him the moment she saw him. Of course, he'd been the one who snuck up behind Hirono to choke her.
Although he wasn't sure where his next resting spot should be, Toshinori finally decided to move east towards the residential area. The area on the map was approximately two hundred square meters. According to the map, the narrow flat land extending outward from the residential area turned into farm fields spotted with houses. Once he was well beyond this zone then all he had to do was hide in one of these houses. After all, he came from a privileged family and lived in what was probably the nicest house in the prefecture (Kazuo Kiriyama's house was probably the nicest, but Toshinori would never admit this). Hiding in bushes was beneath him. Entering a house was dangerous, given how someone might already be hiding there, but he wasn't worried. Now he not only had a bulletproof vest (with a certificate of high quality) but the revolver he'd taken from Hirono. Furthermore...
...he was now wearing a full-face motorcycle helmet he'd found inside the house. A thin cloud appeared in the sky. Its tip was already slowly beginning to cross the low full moon. After checking the chin guard of his superdeluxe helmet, he crossed the yard and made his way down the edge of the narrow field next to it.
He could see the flat land continuing down to the eastern shore. It wasn't completely flat, though. It went up and down. Most of the area was covered with farms visible by their various moonlit shades. On the left, a hundred meters away, was a house by the base of the northern mountain. There was another house another hundred meters to its right. Further left were two more houses. There were no other houses in the vicinity. Three to four hundred meters away were farms spotted with houses. He couldn't see very well because his view was blocked by a hill and the woods, but this geography seemed to continue out to the residential area on the island's east side. The flames from the intense explosion that came immediately after Sakamochi's midnight announcement were located immediately to the right of the hill. But the flames must have gone out, because now the area sank back into darkness.
On the south side, to his right, were two adjacent houses.
But this was—if you assumed the blue dots indicated residential houses—on the borderline between sectors E=4 and F=4. Behind him the northern and southern mountains were connected—or to be more accurate, the base of the northern mountain stretched out like a cliff along the western shore without any houses in sight. According to the map though, there were supposed to be a couple houses up in the mountain.
Unless he'd misread the map, he'd be outside the forbidden zone if he got to the third or fourth house to the east. But if he found out they were dumps, then he might have to consider moving further on. First of all, he couldn't stand dirty houses, and second of all, he was certain a vulgar place would only attract vulgar people.
Toshinori decided to move over there.
He crouched down and walked cautiously along the field ridge of the farm. But he was appalled at the sensation of dirty soil. The dull pain he felt from Hirono Shimizu's shot in the stomach area of his bulletproof vest only infuriated him more. Why did he have to be thrown into this coarse game and writhe around on the ground with the "vulgar masses"? (This was an expression his father, who ran the largest food company in the eastern part of the prefecture, often used at home, but it was a favorite phrase Toshinori himself used to express his scorn for the "vulgar masses." Of course, he was well bred, so he could never say it out loud.)
Whether he had a right to claim it or not, it was true he possessed a unique gift, unique even among his talented classmates who ranged from being star players of their teams and clubs to being leading delinquents, or even being queer (this one was dead now, he was a very vulgar queer too). In fact, it was unique to the entire school.
He'd started private violin lessons when he was four years old, and now he was one of the leading junior high school players in the entire prefecture. He wasn't a genius, but he wasn't mediocre either. Arrangements were made for him to enter a highly distinguished high school in Tokyo that had its own music department. As for his future career, he thought he'd at the very least become the prefectural government symphony conductor.
This gave him—so he believed—all the more reason not to die. He would attain the status of conductor, marry a beautiful, refined woman, and mingle with rich, elegant people. (His older brother Tadanori was going to inherit the company. Of course, the thought of making a lot of money as president was attractive, but I don't need to deal with food products, yuck. I'll let my vulgar brother deal with that.) He was different from his loser classmates. Their deaths wouldn't mean a thing, but he was gifted. He was precious. And even in biological terms, the superior species was destined to survive, right?
At first he only had this bulletproof vest, oddly supplied as a weapon, so all he could do was sneak away and hide, but now he had a gun. He was going to be merciless. What's this about the noble soul of a music lover? That's totally naive! It was true he was only fifteen, and he hadn't seen much of the world, but he knew what the music world was like. For those who weren't geniuses it was all about money and connections. It was all about crushing other competitors to survive.
Whether this was objectively true or not, this was what Toshinori Oda believed. Of course, he had no close friends in Third Year Class B that was filled with the vulgar masses. In fact, he despised his vulgar classmates. Especially Shuya Nanahara.
Toshinori did not take part in the Shiroiwa Junior High Music Club, which was filled with vulgar masses who were especially vulgar. All those losers played was popular music (apparently the club office was cluttered with music sheets of illegal foreign music). That's right. Especially Shuya Nanahara. Toshinori was vastly superior to him in term of music ability, given his ear training and understanding of music theory. And yet, in spite of that, the vulgar bitches in his class would scream out indecently at the sound of Shuya Nanahara plucking out kindergarten-level chords on his guitar (I mean come on those bitches who listen to Shuya Nanahara playing during the short break before music class, they might as well have printed on their foreheads in thick Gothic font: "Oh, Shuya, do me now, right here"). In contrast, they'd only politely applaud when Toshinori finished playing an elegant passage from an opera at the music teacher's request.
For one thing, those loser bitches could never appreciate classical music, and for another, it was only because Shuya Nanahara was good-looking (although Toshinori would never admit it, deep down inside he couldn't stand his own ugly face).
Fine. That's what women are like anyway. They're just a different species. Just a tool to produce children (and of course to provide pleasure for men when they need it), and if they were good-looking then they were just ornaments to place beside successful men. Yes, it all came down to...money and connections. And my talent is worth the investment of money and connections. Therefore...
...1 deserve to be the survivor.
He heard gunfire at times throughout the night, and there was that amazing explosion to top it all off, but now the island was immersed in darkness and silence. Toshinori quickly circled the first house, passed it, and approached the second one. He could tell it was pretty old even though he could only make out its silhouette. The house was surrounded by a circle of trees, and on the west side in front was an extremely large broadleaf tree, its branches spread out. Its circumference was four to five meters, and it was seven to eight meters tall.
There shouldn't be anyone...here.
Toshinori gripped his gun and slowly moved forward, cautiously checking the house as well as the tree. Of course he didn't forget to stop and look in all directions. You never knew where the vulgar masses might show up. Just like cockroaches.
After spending a full five minutes passing by the side of the house, he looked over his shoulder and checked the house, which was surrounded by trees of various sizes. There were no suspicious movements that he could see through his open helmet's square window.
All right.
He could see the third house, the one he wanted, nearby.
Toshinori turned around one more time.
He thought something round and black stirred near the ground between the trees surrounding the house. It was...
...someone's head, he realized, but by then he was aiming his gun over there. But this one was wandering in an area that would become a forbidden zone soon. Who could it possibly be?...
It didn't matter.
He pulled the trigger. Holding the Smith & Wesson Military & Police's wooden grip, he felt a sudden jerk in the palm of his hand. The gun popped with an orange flash, sending a sting down Toshinori's spine. Although he despised the ignorant, vulgar masses, he had a hobby that wasn't so refined, much less refined than playing the violin. He still had his model gun collection. His father owned several hunting rifles, but he was never allowed to handle them, so this was the first time he'd ever pulled the trigger of a real gun. It was real. Damn, I'm shooting a real gun!
Toshinori shot twice and his opponent crouched down, unable to move, it seemed. The person didn't shoot back either. Of course not, if he had a gun he would have shot me from behind. That's what let me pull the trigger in the first place.
Toshinori slowly approached the figure. It shouted, "Stop!"
He could tell from his voice it was Hiroki Sugimura (Male Student No. 11). That tall guy (Toshinori by the way hated tall guys too. His height was only 162 centimeters and next to Yutaka Seto he was the shortest guy in their class. He couldn't stand: [a] good looking guys, [b] tall guys, and [c] all-around vulgar guys) who practiced that vulgar karate-like sport. He was supposedly going out with Takako Chigusa who tastelessly dyed her hair and wore all that gaudy jewelry—oh, that's right, she was also dead now. She wasn't bad looking though.
Hiroki continued, "I'm not fighting this game! Who are you? Yuichiro?" Hiroki had guessed it was Yuichiro Takiguchi (Male Student No. 13), who was the next shortest guy to Toshinori. Yes, since Hiroshi Kuronaga had died a while ago, the only ones left alive who were his height were Yuichiro and Yutaka. In any case, Toshinori wondered for a moment, what's this about not fighting? Impossible. Not playing this game would be tantamount to committing suicide. Is he trying to fool me? Even if he was, as long as he doesn't have a gun...
Toshinori changed his course of action. He lowered his gun.
With his left hand he pulled down on the chin guard of the helmet and said, "It's Toshinori." Then he thought, oh, I should probably stutter a little. "S-sorry I did that. A-are you hurt?" Hiroki Sugimura slowly got up, revealing his large frame.
Like Toshinori he had his day pack on his right shoulder. His right hand held a stick. His right sleeve was missing, maybe it was torn or maybe he'd torn it off. His shirt was missing underneath and his right arm was bare. A white cloth was wrapped around the shoulder. With his bare right arm holding the stick he resembled a naked primitive tribesman. A vulgar naked tribe.
"I'm all right." Then he asked, looking at Toshinori's head, "Is that a helmet?"
"U-uh yes." As he answered, Toshinori came forward, stepping onto the farm soil. All right, three more steps.
"I-I've been so scaaaared." Before he finished saying "scared" Toshinori raised his right hand. Five meters away, he couldn't miss.
Hiroki's eyes opened wide. Too late, too late, you vulgar karate bastard. You're going to die a vulgar death, end up in a vulgar grave, and I'll offer you the most vulgar flowers I can find. But Hiroki wasn't there at the end of the muzzle of the exploding Smith & Wesson. A split second before the shot, Hiroki had unexpectedly ducked to his left—Toshinori's right. Toshinori of course had no idea Hiroki had used a martial arts move, but in any case...he was incredibly fast. From this crouched position, Hiroki held up, instead of the stick in his left hand, a gun in his left hand (Toshinori also had no way of knowing that—although, in contrast to Shinji Mimura, he had "fixed" it—Hiroki was originally in fact left-handed). So he already had a gun...then why didn't the fool use it in the first place? Before this thought barely crossed his mind a small flame exploded. The gun was suddenly gone from his right hand. The next moment he felt a searing pain and his right ring finger exploded. Toshinori shrieked. He fell on both his knees and held the painful stump with his left hand...and realized his ring finger was gone. Blood spurted out. He might have been wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet, but his fingers were unprotected.
Argh...that bastard...my finger...my right finger that elegantly guides the violin bow is!...that can't be...in the movies fingers never get blown away in gun fights!
Hiroki approached him, gun in hand. Toshinori held his right hand and gazed at it, his eyes inside his helmet terrified and delirious. His face was getting clammy from the sweat breaking out under his helmet. Hiroki said, "So you're totally up for this. I don't want to shoot...but I have no choice. I have to." Toshinori had no idea what Hiroki meant at all, and although he was in terrible pain, he still felt confident. Because...the gun was pointed at his chest. Of course, it would be. He wore the helmet not so much because it was bulletproof but because it would force his enemy to aim at his body instead. And under his school coat he was wearing the bulletproof vest. As long as his vest stopped the bullet, then all he would have to do is wait for a chance to retrieve his gun and then—since his index finger was still working—he could pull the trigger and win.
His gun was by his feet.
With Toshinori glaring at him, Hiroki Sugimura still paused a few moments...but Hiroki pursed his lips tightly and calmly squeezed the trigger. Toshinori recalled his fight against Hirono Shimizu and considered how he should play "dead."
But it ended much more than abruptly than he'd expected. Hiroki's gun only made a small metallic click. Hiroki looked confused. He nervously cocked the gun and pulled the trigger. Again, click. Toshinori's lips twisted into a smile hidden under the helmet. Karate bastard. That was a dud. With that automatic you'll have to pull the breechblock and reload the chamber.
Toshinori went for his gun by his feet. Hiroki immediately responded with the stick in his right hand but instead—maybe he thought it was too far—he turned around and ran toward the mountain beyond the house.
Toshinori picked up the gun. His crippled hand ached, but he still managed to hold it. He fired. Because his hold on the grip wasn't tight he couldn't fix his aim on Hiroki, but he could tell he hit him in the thigh, right near his butt. Did it only scrape him? In any case, Hiroki suddenly tottered, but he didn't fall. He continued tunning. Toshinori also started running and fired another shot. This time he missed. The recoil of the gun so pleasurable only moments ago now sent a sharp pain through his injured hand which infuriated Toshinori. He shot again. He missed again. In spite of being shot in the leg, Hiroki was faster than him.
Hiroki disappeared into the woods at the foot of the mountain.
Damn it!
Toshinori deliberated whether he should chase him—and decided not to. His opponent was injured but so was he. The gun grip was slippery from the blood pouring from the stump of his former ring finger. Besides, if he entered the mountains now, Hiroki would reload his gun and shoot back. In that situation, it'd be too dangerous to expose himself like that with nothing to hide behind. He nervously crouched down.
He had to get to the first house—the house he'd decided to enter. And he had to make sure Hiroki wouldn't see him enter it.
Toshinori clutched his right hand, which was still holding the gun, and staggered over there, enduring the pain. As he traveled down the footpath the pain became more and more excruciating. He felt dizzy. First thing was his hand. He had to treat it. He had to come up with a different strategy. Oh, but, damn, even if he were able to play the violin after rehabilitation this crippled hand would stick out during a performance, especially if they televise it and zoom in. So now I'm going to be joining that lame group—the disabled. What a nice melody, how he's overcome his disability. How lame!
He was approaching the house. Toshinori looked over his shoulder again. He looked closely, but didn't see any sign of Hiroki. He was safe now. Hiroki wasn't coming after him. Toshinori looked back at the house.
He saw a guy standing on the farm field six to seven meters away, right in front of the house he wanted. The guy had appeared suddenly out of nowhere. He had slicked-back hair that reached a little too far behind his neck and cold, gleaming eyes.
By the time he realized it was Kazuo Kiriyama (Male Student No. 6) (another guy he couldn't stand, category [a] good looking), a heavy burst of fire came out of his hands along with a rattling sound, slamming against Toshinori's torso. Toshinori was blown back and fell backward. Because his grip on the gun had loosened from the pain he'd been feeling in his right hand, he dropped it and heard it knock against something. His back scraped against the dirt. His head wearing the helmet hit the ground. The echoing gunfire faded into the night air. All was quiet once again.
But of course Toshinori Oda wasn't dead. He held his breath and lay down, frozen, trying his best to restrain his urge to snicker. Now that he was overwhelmed by this wicked pleasure, the agonizing pain from his right hand, not to mention his anger at letting Hiroki Sugimura escape, or his anger at being suddenly attacked by a guy in category (a), his emotional faculties were a complete mess, but his body (with the exception of his right ring finger), just as it had been with Hirono Shimizu, was completely intact. So he was right to wear the helmet. Kazuo had aimed at Toshinori's torso, which was protected by the bulletproof vest. Just as Hiroki had done, Kazuo probably assumed Toshinori was dead. His eyelids nearly shut, his field of vision resembled a widescreen movie. He could see at the far end of his field of vision the S&W flash faintly against the moonlight. And now he could feel the stiff shape of the kitchen knife (which he found in the house where he'd killed Hirono Shimizu) he had tucked in back. It would take less than a second to unwrap the cloth around it.
As he continued to sweat, which was the one thing he couldn't hold back, Toshinori thought, all right, now pick up that gun lying over there. Then I'll slash that vulgar windpipe of yours. Or will you turn around and leave? Then I'll pick up the gun and dig a nice tunnel through that vulgar skull of yours. Come on. Make your choice. Just hurry up and choose.
But for some reason, instead of approaching the gun, Kazuo came straight at Toshinori. He was coming straight at him. Staring at him with those cold eyes.
Why? Toshinori wondered. I'm supposed to be dead. Look how good I am at playing dead. Kazuo didn't stop. He kept on approaching. One step, two...
But I'm supposed to be dead! Why!?
The faint sound of his steps on the soil became louder and his field of vision was now filled with the figure of Kazuo. |
Suddenly overcome with panic and fear, Toshinori frantically opened his eyes. Kazuo's Ingram once again let out a burst of fire into Toshinori's shielded head. Some of the point-blank shots turned into colorful sparks from scraping against the reinforced plastic shell of the helmet while others, after exiting Toshinori's skull, ricocheted inside his helmet, rattling Toshinori's head along with the helmet (his body was dancing a strange boogie. Toshinori himself would have been irritated by this kind of vulgar dancing). And of course by the time it was all over...Toshinori's head was crushed inside his helmet.
Toshinori no longer played dead. He remained frozen. Blood dripped out from under the helmet, which resembled a bowl of sauce.
And so this boy who despised the ignorant, vulgar masses, foolish Toshinori Oda, had overestimated the value of his bulletproof vest and underestimated Kazuo Kiriyama's calm actions. As a result he died easily. If he'd thought about how Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano had died yesterday morning, he would have realized that his assailant would have followed up on his enemy to deliver a coup de grace, but he wasn't so perceptive. Furthermore—it was quite irrelevant now—he had no idea his killer, Kazuo Kiriyama, had, in his mansion that was much larger than Toshinori's home in Shiroiwa-cho, mastered the violin at a level far superior to Toshinori's a long time ago (and then tossed his violin into the trash). |
[ 16 students remaining ]
Some chatting. The sound of someone moving. She'd even settle for the faint sound of someone desperately trying to hold his or her breath. Instead, Mitsuko Souma (Female Student No. 11) ended up hearing the sound of liquid running through grass. She could tell it was someone pissing in the grove nearby (unless there was a dog on the island). Dawn was approaching. She glanced up and saw a faint blue beginning emerge in the dark sky.
After encountering Hiroki and somehow managing to escape him, Mitsuko first decided she needed a gun. She'd accidentally come across Megumi Eto and, upon hearing Yoshimi Yahagi and Yoji Kuramoto in the middle of their fight, she'd killed them and managed to get her hands on a gun (if she'd had a gun in the first place she would have gone back to the school and killed off everyone that came out one by one). Once she had a gun she could confidently move around the island, so it was easy to kill Takako Chigusa, who'd just finished fighting Kazushi Nüda. (She should have finished her off though. She'd have to be more careful next time.)
But now she was unarmed. She had used Megumi Eto's knife, and the only thing in her hand now was her original sickle from the beginning of the game. She had to get a gun because she wasn't the only one who chose to play this game. There was the machine gun shooter who killed Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano. She had just heard it go off again only thirty minutes ago. Of course, thanks to the shooter, she didn't have to kill off as many of her classmates. She could just let the assailant take care of that. She'd only kill when it came easy. In fact, after midnight, when she heard the machine gun's rapid gunfire along with the explosion afterwards, she decided it was best to avoid that area. A handgun against a machine gun, she'd be outmatched. So she decided to move somewhere she could view the area from a distance, and that was how she ended up finding and following Hiroki Sugimura. And that was supposed to be an easy kill but...
It was highly likely she'd end up having to take on this machine gun shooter. Not having a gun would be a major disadvantage. Forget about gun against machine gun, it'd be hopeless with a sickle against a machine gun.
Of course, she could have pursued Hiroki, but she thought it'd be too much trouble to get the gun back from him. His background in martial arts or whatever it was was no joke. Her right hand still stung from his blow. And this time, if he saw her, he'd be merciless and shoot her. So Mitsuko moved west along the longitudinal road and then entered the northern mountain, trying to find someone else. Approximately three hours had passed.
And now she finally heard someone making noise.
Mitsuko made her way through the thicket and moved forward, cautiously though. She mustn't be heard. The thicket ended. There was a small, open, mat-sized space in the middle of the bushes. The grove continued on and beyond her right. And to the left as well—in the corner of the space, a boy in his school coat had his back toward her. He nervously looked to his right and left as the dripping sound against the leaves continued.
He was probably scared he might be attacked by someone. She could tell it was Tadakatsu Hatagami (Male Student No. 18). He was on the baseball team. Nothing exceptional, just an average guy. He was tall and well-built, and his face was average. His hobbies were...actually she had no idea, and besides there was no point asking now.
The crucial thing was that, as Tadakatsu was attending to his business, Mitsuko realized he held something tightly in his right hand.
It was a gun. It was a fairly large model, a revolver. She once again broke into that fallen angel's grin. Tadakatsu still wasn't done. He might have been holding it in for quite a while. He continued to look left and right while he emptied his bladder.
Mitsuko quietly but quickly took out her sickle with her right hand. Tadakatsu would have to use both of his hands to zip up his pants. Even if he tried using one hand, he'd be vulnerable. It looks like this'll be the end of you. Didn't someone in a detective show get killed this way?
The drips became sporadic. It stopped...and then another drip, and then it stopped completely. Tadakatsu once again looked around and then quickly moved his hands to the front. By then Mitsuko had already snuck up behind him. The back of his head, with short spiked hair, was right in front of her. She raised the sickle.
She heard someone from behind say, "Whoa," and Tadakatsu suddenly turned around, along with Mitsuko. She (of course) put the sickle down and looked back at the speaker behind her. It was Yuichiro Takiguchi (Male Student No. 13). He was shorter than Tadakatsu and had a cute, boyish face. He held what appeared to be his weapon, an aluminum bat, in his right hand and stared at Mitsuko, his mouth agape.
Tadakatsu saw Mitsuko and also said, "Whoa," and then muttered, "Damn," and pointed the gun at her. Seeing how Yuichiro's appearance didn't surprise him, Mitsuko realized they were together. Mitsuko cursed herself. Tadakatsu had left Yuichiro just to take a piss. How stupid could I have been not to check! Come on, you're both boys, can't you just pee next to each other!?
This wasn't the time or place to lecture them. Tadakatsu's revolver (which, although it hardly mattered, was a Smith & Wesson M19 .357 Magnum) was pointed directly at Mitsuko's chest.
"Tadakatsu! Stop it!" Yuichiro said, his voice trembling, probably from her sudden appearance and his fear of seeing someone get killed in front of his very own eyes. Tadakatsu looked like he was ready to pull the trigger at any moment, but his finger on the trigger stopped a fraction of a millimeter before the hammer fell.
His gun still pointed at Mitsuko, Tadakatsu looked over at Yuichiro.
"Why!? She just tried to kill me! Look! A sickle! She's holding a sickle!"
"N-no." Mitsuko croaked as if her words were stuck in her throat. She made sure her voice was high-pitched and trembling, and of course, she didn't forget to flinch her body back. Once again, the star actress had a chance to show off her talents. Watch me now. |
She thought of dropping the sickle, but decided not to, since it would look more natural holding it.
"I was just trying to call you. Then I-I realized you were peeing, so I..." Mitsuko looked down and made her face blush. "So..."
Tadakatsu didn't lower the gun. "You're lying! You were trying to kill me!" His hand holding the gun was trembling. He'd restrained himself from shooting her because he'd never shot someone. The moment he saw her he probably would have fired reflexively, but now that Yuichiro had intervened he had time to think and hesitate. And that meant...
...he would lose.
"Stop it, Tadakatsu," Yuichiro pleaded with him, "Didn't I already say how we have to join up with others—"
"You got to be kidding." Tadakatsu shook his head. "There's no way I can be with this bitch. Don't you know who we're dealing with? She might have been the one...who killed Yumiko and Yukiko."
"N-no...I would never..." Mitsuko made her eyes brim with tears.
Yuichiro said frantically, "Mitsuko isn't carrying a machine gun. She doesn't even have a gun."
"We can't know for sure! She might have tossed them once she ran out of bullets!!" Yuichiro fell silent for a while, but then said, "Tadakatsu, you shouldn't raise your voice." His voice sounded different from before. It was calm and kind. Tadakatsu opened his mouth slightly as if he'd been caught off guard.
Mitsuko was also a bit surprised. Yuichiro Takiguchi was into anime. He was the otaku of their class, but now he sounded quite dignified.
Yuichiro shook his head. "You shouldn't be so indiscriminately suspicious," he continued as if admonishing Tadakatsu. "Think about it. Mitsuko might have sought you out because she really trusted you."
"But then..." Tadakatsu knit his brows. His gun was still pointed at Mitsuko, but the tension of his fingers on the trigger seemed to wane. "Then what do you suggest we do?"
"If you insist she can't be trusted, then we can take turns keeping an eye on her. I mean, even if we were to tell her to leave, you'd still be worried she might attack you later when she has the chance." Well, I'll say, I'm impressed. He's sharp and articulate. I mean, putting aside whether he's making a good call (which in fact would be to shoot me now).
Tadakatsu then licked his lips a little.
"Come on. We need more people on our side. And then we have to figure out a way to get out of here. Once we spend some time with her we'll see whether we can trust her, right?" Yuichiro insisted and finally Tadakatsu nodded, still eyeing her suspiciously. He said in a tired voice, "Well, all right." Making herself look relieved, she let her body unwind. She rubbed her left hand against her eyes deliberately filled with tears. Yuichiro let out a sigh of relief too.
"Get rid of that sickle," Tadakatsu said, and Mitsuko immediately tossed it to the ground. Then she nervously alternated glances at Tadakatsu and Yuichiro.
Tadakatsu said, "Search her, Yuichiro." Mitsuko looked back at Tadakatsu, her eyes opened wide as if she didn't understand. Then she looked at Yuichiro who stood still in astonishment. Tadakatsu repeated himself. He aimed the gun at her. "Hurry up. Don't be so bashful. This is a matter of life and death. You know that."
"Okay...all right." Yuichiro put his bat down and reluctantly came forward. He stood right beside Mitsuko.
"Hurry," Tadakatsu insisted.
"Uh huh."
His dignified manner was gone now. He'd gone back to being his usual weak otaku self.
"But—"
"Hurry!"
Yuichiro said, "U-uh, Mitsuko, I'm really sorry. I really don't want to do this, but I have to," and he ran his hands lightly over her body. Even in the dim light at dawn, she could tell his face had turned bright red. How cute. Of course, she didn't forget to act all embarrassed too.
After he was done searching, he lifted his hands. Tadakatsu said, "Look under her skirt too."
"Tadakatsu—" Yuichiro protested, but Tadakatsu shook his head.
"I'm not trying to get my rocks off. I just don't want to die." So Yuichiro blushed even more and said, "U-uh, I was wondering, could you lift your skirt up a little?" Oh my, let's not have a heart attack here, little boy.
But Mitsuko only answered in a meek voice, "O-okay," and lifted her skirt bashfully again up to where her underwear was nearly visible. Geez, this was turning into one of those adult videos titled Fetish Special! Starring Real Junior High School Girls!
I've actually been in them.
After making sure Mitsuko had nothing to hide, Yuichiro said, "I-I'm done." Tadakatsu nodded and said, "All right. Yuichiro, I want you to tie up her hands with your belt." Yuichiro gave Tadakatsu another reluctant look, but Tadakatsu refused to give in, aiming his gun at her.
"Those are my conditions. If you can't accept them, then I'll shoot her now." Yuichiro looked at Mitsuko, then at Tadakatsu, and licked his lips. Then Mitsuko said to Yuichiro,
"Yuichiro, go ahead. It's all right."
Yuichiro looked at Mitsuko, but then nodded, pulled out his belt, and held Mitsuko's hands. "I'm sorry, Mitsuko," he said.
Tadakatsu still pointed his gun at her, and said, "You don't have to be so polite with her," but Yuichiro seemed to ignore his warning as he gently wrapped the belt around her wrists without saying another word.
As she innocently offered her hands, Mitsuko was thinking how lucky, in spite of the situation, she was to have been discovered right before lifting her sickle. (She had also wiped the blood off the sickle earlier. Now that's luck.)
Now then, what's my next move? |
"So that's how I thought we had to seek other classmates," Yuichiro said and stopped, glancing at Mitsuko. Dawn had already broken, and she could see how his face was grimy with dirt. They were sitting next to each other in the shrubs. Of course, Mitsuko's hands were tied up with the belt, and her sickle was tucked in the back of Yuichiro's pants. Tadakatsu Hatagami was in a deep sleep. He still held onto his gun which he had in fact tied to his hand with a handkerchief. After she ended up with this duo, Tadakatsu was the one who insisted on taking turns sleeping.
"I agree we have to find others, but let's get some sleep. We've been up all this time. We'll lose our ability to make sound judgments." Once Yuichiro agreed Tadakatsu said, "First, it's going to be Yuichiro or me. Then Mitsuko can sleep after us," and Yuichiro responded, "I can sleep later," so the order was decided. Holding his gun (which should have been handed over to Yuichiro who was keeping watch, but Tadakatsu didn't even mention it, nor did Yuichiro protest), Tadakatsu lay down and fell asleep within a matter of seconds.
Mitsuko had an idea how they hooked up. Tadakatsu hadn't slept at all until he met Yuichiro, and he probably couldn't sleep after joining him. Why? Because he was probably afraid Yuichiro might attack him by surprise. And even though Mitsuko might be much more threatening than Yuichiro, now that she was with them, even if Tadakatsu slept, Mitsuko and Yuichiro would have to keep an eye on each other so long as he held onto his gun and remained cautious. He could still get some sleep. (Of course, Mitsuko hadn't slept at all either, but it was nothing to her. She was much tougher than your average wimpy junior high school kid.)
Yuichiro and Mitsuko remained silent for a while, but then Yuichiro told her how he'd ended up joining Tadakatsu.
It turned out that Yuichiro also didn't move at all during the day, but then assuming he was safer at night (of course, Mitsuko thought, it could go either way. You could escape detection at night, but that also meant it was hard to detect your opponent too. But of course, if you were in a tight spot and had to run away, night was better), he cautiously began to move and encountered Tadakatsu only two hours before Mitsuko encountered them. The two tried to concoct an escape plan but came up with nothing...and so Tadakatsu stepped out to pee, but because he was taking so long Yuichiro got worried and checked on him. And that was how he found Mitsuko.
"I was so scared at first, I thought I couldn't trust anybody. But then I realized most of us probably just want to escape."
Yuichiro stopped and glanced at Mitsuko. The otaku of Class B, Yuichiro Takiguchi avoided direct eye contact in his conversations. He always looked down. Still, from the way he talked to her, Yuichiro didn't seem to be all that cautious towards her. For some reason.
And so Mitsuko pretended to look somewhat relieved and asked him, "So Tadakatsu had that gun." Yuichiro nodded. "That's right."
"Weren't you scared of Tadakatsu?" Okay, now act even more relaxed and a little more intimate. "No, I mean even now. He won't let go of it."
Tadakatsu grinned. "Well, first of all, Tadakatsu didn't shoot at me or anything. He did point his gun at me. I was classmates with him in elementary school. So I know him pretty well."
"But..." Mitsuko made her face look slightly pale. "You saw how Yumiko...Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano died. Some of us are playing this game. How can you be sure Tadakatsu isn't one of them?" She nodded and then said, "...he even suspects me."
Yuichiro tightened his lips and nodded several times. "That's true. But if we just sit still we'll end up dying. It's best to try. I can't be like Yumiko and Yukiko, but I was thinking how we could get others to join us gradually."
He glanced into Mitsuko's eyes for a moment and then looked down. He seemed even more withdrawn than usual, maybe because he wasn't used to looking at a girl's face so close up. (She was probably right on the mark, and on top of that, he was dealing with the most beautiful girl in the class.)
"You can't blame Tadakatsu for holding onto that gun. He's scared out of his wits." Mitsuko tilted her head and forced a smile. "You're so good."
Yuichiro glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
Still wearing her smile, Mitsuko continued, "You have to be brave to be like that, to be able to empathize with others like that."
Yuichiro looked down bashfully again and nervously ran his right hand through his messy hair and said, "I don't think so." Then without looking at her, he said, "So...could you cut him some slack for suspecting you? I think he's really scared. He trusts no one."
Trust no one. The phrase really tickled her and she grinned.
Then she said as if sighing, "I guess he can't help it. I have a reputation. You probably don't trust me either."
Yuichiro paused and then turned to Mitsuko. This time he looked at her a little longer. Then he said,
"No." He looked down at the ground after saying this, and continued, "Well, I mean, I'm even suspicious of Tadakatsu when it comes down to it. I mean..." He pulled out some grass by his feet. Then he tore the grass that was moist with morning dew into small strands. "I mean, yeah, I haven't heard great things about you. But that's so irrelevant in this situation. I mean, sometimes it's the respectable ones who end up breaking up under stress." He tossed the torn grass by his feet. Then he looked up at Mitsuko. "I don't think you're such a bad person."
Mitsuko tilted her head. "Why?"
Maybe it was because she was staring at her, Yuichiro nervously looked away again. Then he said,
"Well...it's your eyes."
"Eyes?"
Still looking down, Yuichiro began tearing out more grass. "You always had a scary look in your eyes." Mitsuko forced a smile. She tried to shrug her shoulders, but it didn't work because of the belt around her wrists. "I guess."
"But..." The grass was torn into quarters, then eighths. "But sometimes your eyes look really sad and kind."
Mitsuko stared at the side of his face and listened without responding.
"So," he tossed the grass again and continued, "I've always thought you weren't as bad as everyone said you were. Even if you'd done bad things, I was pretty sure you did them because you couldn't help it, because there was some reason behind it that wasn't your fault."
He was stuttering, his voice incredibly shy and tense as if he were confessing his love to a girl. Then he added, "I just don't want to be so foolish I couldn't understand that reason." Mitsuko sighed inside. Of course, she was thinking, boy, you are naive, Yuichiro. But then...
...she smiled and said warmly, "Thank you." Even she was surprised by the kindness in her voice. Of course, it was deliberate, but maybe the reason it sounded too real to be an act was that there was a little bit of true feeling in her words.
But...that's all it was.
Yuichiro then asked, "What about you, Mitsuko? What were you doing till now?" Mitsuko replied, "Well..." She moved a little and felt the morning dew on the grass soaking through her skirt. "I've been running away. You know, away from the gunfire. That's why...that's why when I saw Tadakatsu I was so scared...but I was also so tired and scared of being alone and I thought of calling out to him...I thought maybe he'd understand...but I just couldn't tell whether it was the right thing to do or not...I just didn't know..."
Yuichiro nodded again. He glanced at her again and looked down. "I think you did the right thing." Mitsuko smiled and said, "I think so too." Their eyes met and they smiled at each other.
"That's right," Yuichiro said, "I'm sorry. I forgot. You must be thirsty. You lost your bag, right? You probably haven't had any water in a while."
She had left her day pack behind when she fought Hiroki Sugimura. She was actually pretty thirsty. She nodded. "Could I...could I have some water?"
Looking away from her, Yuichiro nodded back, reached out for the day pack and picked it up. He pulled out two water bottles and after comparing them he chose the sealed bottle and tucked away the other one. He broke the seal off the new bottle.
Mitsuko put up her belt-bound hands. Yuichiro was about to hand over the bottle to her...but then stopped. He glanced over at Tadakatsu who still seemed sound sleep, then looked down at the plastic bottle in his hand.
Then he put the bottle down by his leg.
Hey there, aren't you going to let me have a drink? You decided not to spoil the prisoner because that might upset tough Sergeant Hatagami?
Yuichiro took her hands without a word instead, had her raise them, and fingered the belt around her wrists. He began to unfasten it.
"Yuichiro..." Mitsuko said as if surprised (which in fact she was), "...are you sure this is okay?
Tadakatsu will be really mad."
Concentrating on her wrists, Yuichiro answered, "It's all right. I have your weapon. Besides, how can you drink with your hands bound like that?" Yuichiro glanced up at Mitsuko again. She smiled warmly and said, "Thank you," making her cheeks blush as she looked down. The belt came loose. Mitsuko rubbed each of her wrists. Because the belt wasn't tight they were fine. Yuichiro offered his bottle to Mitsuko. Mitsuko grabbed it and took two brief, delicate sips. She returned the bottle.
"That's all?" he asked and stopped wrapping his belt around his waist. "You can drink more. If we run out, we can always get more from some house with a well."
Mitsuko shook her head. "Oh no, I'm fine."
"Okay."
Yuichiro took the bottle. After he stuffed it into his day pack, he buckled his belt around his waist. Mitsuko said to Yuichiro, "Yuichiro." He looked up.
Mitsuko quickly reached out her free hands and gently held his right hand. Yuichiro appeared to tense up, not because he suspected her of some ulterior motive, but more simply because a girl was holding his hand.
"Wh-what?"
Mitsuko smiled warmly. She opened her nicely shaped lips and gently spoke, "I'm so glad I'm with someone like you. I was so scared I've been shaking all this time...but now I'm safe." Yuichiro seemed to break into a grin. His tense mouth quivered and he finally managed to blurt out,
"You're safe." It seemed like he wanted to take his right hand back, but Mitsuko refused to let go, clutching onto it. Yuichiro had a hard time speaking and his voice sounded nervous, but then he managed to utter, "I'll protect you, Mitsuko."
He added, "We have Tadakatsu too. He's pretty worked up right now, but once he calms down, he'll see you couldn't possibly be our enemy. Then the three of us can work on finding the rest of the class. Then we'll come up with some way of escaping."
Mitsuko gave a warm smile. "Thank you. I'm so relieved."
She squeezed her grip on Yuichiro's hand. Yuichiro blushed even more and glanced away again. He said,
"U-uh, Mitsuko. Y-you know, you're really p-pretty."
Mitsuko raised her brow. "No...really?"
Yuichiro nodded repeatedly. Rather than nodding, he seemed to be trembling from the unbearable tension. This made Mitsuko smile and she realized this smile had no ulterior motive. Well, almost none. |
Sakamochi's 6 a.m. announcement woke up Tadakatsu. He hadn't even slept two hours, but insisted it was enough and untied the handkerchief from his wrist to get a good grip on the gun. Then he sat by Mitsuko and Yuichiro. Yuichiro insisted on her sleeping before him, but Mitsuko abstained, so Yuichiro ended up lying down. (By this time, they had learned that four students—Keita Iijima, Toshinori Oda, Yutaka Seto, and Shinji Mimura—had recently died. The new forbidden zones were not in their vicinity.) Tadakatsu was dismayed to find out the belt on Mitsuko's wrists had been unfastened, but Yuichiro managed to convince him it would be okay. Of course, even if Yuichiro hadn't unfastened the belt, Mitsuko had plans to have it unfastened anyway...using Tadakatsu.
Now then.
She couldn't really afford to take her time. If Hiroki Sugimura showed up he'd completely blow her cover. (She wondered, what is he doing wandering around like that anyway? Is he, like Yuichiro and Tadakatsu, trying to find others to hook up with?) And there was...that machine gun shooter. Although Yuichiro had said to Mitsuko with a smile, "I might not be able to sleep," he went out like a light in five minutes. Given how he was an otaku boy, he couldn't have much stamina. He must be tired. Unlike Tadakatsu who snored, Yuichiro fell into the hushed deep sleep of a little baby. Tadakatsu kept a good distance of three meters on her left, sitting against a tree. He had short, cropped hair and light acne above his cheekbones. And the eyes above them...were cautiously watching Mitsuko. The revolver in his right hand was no longer pointed at her, but his finger was definitely on the trigger, as if to indicate he could shoot her at any moment.
Mitsuko waited another half hour...and then after making sure Yuichiro, whose back faced them, was still asleep, she turned to Tadakatsu and quietly said, "You don't have to look at me like that. I'm harmless."
Tadakatsu grimaced. "You never know."
As if responding to Tadakatsu's retort, Yuichiro's body stirred a little. For a while Mitsuko and Tadakatsu looked at Yuichiro's back. His deep breathing resumed, though. Without looking over at Tadakatsu, Mitsuko took a deep breath to indicate her fatigue. Then she moved her legs, putting her right knee down on the ground and bringing her left knee up. Her pleated skirt smoothly slid down, revealing most of her white thighs, but Mitsuko just looked around, pretending not to notice.
She could tell Tadakatsu had tensed up. Ha. Maybe you can see my panties? They're hot pink silk. Mitsuko stayed in this position. Then she slowly looked over at Tadakatsu. Tadakatsu nervously looked up. Of course...until then his eyes had been glued to her thighs. But Mitsuko still acted as if she were clueless and said, "Hey, Tadakatsu."
"What?"
Tadakatsu seemed to be doing his best to maintain his intimidating stance, but now there was a slight tremble in his voice.
"I am so scared."
She thought Tadakatsu would say something nasty again, but he didn't respond and only stared at her.
"Aren't you scared?"
Tadakatsu's brow moved a little, but then he said, "Of course, I am. That's why I'm being so careful with you."
Mitsuko looked sadly away from Tadakatsu. "So you still won't trust me."
"Don't hold it against me," Tadakatsu said, but his tone of voice wasn't even half as hostile as it had been.
"I know I'm repeating myself, but I just don't want to die."
Mitsuko quickly looked back at Tadakatsu. She said a little emphatically, "I'm in the same boat too. I don't want to die. But if you don't trust me, then we'll never be able to cooperate and find a way to save ourselves."
"Uh, well..." Tadakatsu nodded as if relenting. "Well...I know that but..." Mitsuko smiled warmly. She looked into her opponent's eyes and her well-formed, red lips smiled. It was different from the one she wore during her somewhat idyllic conversation with Yuichiro. This one was Mitsuko Souma's special fallen angel's smile. Tadakatsu's eyes were glazed, seduced.
"Hey, Tadakatsu," she continued as she returned to her terrified-girl face. This constant switch between expressions, the virgin and the whore, day and night. Wow. Sounds like a movie title.
"Wh-what?"
"I know I keep on saying this, but I'm just so scared."
"U-uh huh."
"So..." She looked at him directly again.
"So?"
Any trace of antagonism and suspicion was now gone from Tadakatsu's voice and face. Mitsuko tilted her head slightly and asked, "Can we talk a little?"
"...talk?" He knit his brows. "Aren't we doing that right now?..." Mitsuko hissed, "Don't be stupid. Do I have to spell it out?" Her eyes glued on Tadakatsu, she pointed her chin at Yuichiro. "Not here, okay? I want to talk to you, but not with Yuichiro here." His mouth slightly open, Tadakatsu gazed over at Yuichiro...and then looked back at Mitsuko.
"Okay?" Mitsuko said. She got up, looked around, and decided the thicket behind Tadakatsu would be best. She walked over to Tadakatsu, tilted her head slightly, and then proceeded forward. She wasn't sure whether he would take the bait...but then after a while she could tell he was nibbling. Mitsuko stopped approximately twenty meters away from where Yuichiro slept. Just like the previous area, it was a small opening surrounded by bushes.
When she turned around, Tadakatsu appeared, wading through the thicket. His eyes were glazed. But maybe it was subconscious. He still kept a tight grip on his gun.
Mitsuko immediately pulled down the side zipper of her skirt. Her pleated skirt fell to the ground, exposing her thighs in the dull morning light. She could tell he was holding his breath. Then she removed her scarf and undressed. Unlike the other girls she'd never be so square as to wear an undershirt, so she only had her underwear on now. Oh right, she had to take off her shoes. After she took them off, she stared at Tadakatsu with her fallen angel's smile.
"M-Mitsuko..." Tadakatsu barely managed to utter.
Mitsuko decided to make sure. "I'm so scared, Tadakatsu. So..."
Tadakatsu awkwardly approached Mitsuko.
Mitsuko looked down at his right hand, pretending to suddenly notice the gun, and said, "Put that thing somewhere else."
Tadakatsu lifted his hand, as if he suddenly became aware of its existence, and gazed at it. Then he put it down, away from them.
He approached her again.
Mitsuko gave a nice smile, spread out her arms, and wrapped her hands around his neck. His body trembled but the moment Mitsuko offered her lips, he immediately began sucking on them. Mitsuko received him by breathing heavily.
After a while their lips separated.
Mitsuko looked up at Tadakatsu's eyes and said, "This is your first time, huh?"
"So what?" Tadakatsu said, his voice trembling.
They fell down on the grass, Mitsuko underneath.
Tadakatsu immediately went for her breasts.
You idiot, you're supposed to make out for a while before you do that, Mitsuko thought. Instead she moaned, "Ahh..." Tadakatsu's rough hands slipped off her bra and clutched at her well-endowed breasts, now exposed. Then his face went down there.
"Ahh...ahh..."
She continued pretending to be turned on (in exaggerated porn-video style), but meanwhile her right hand was reaching down to her panties...
Her fingertips touched a hard, thin object.
Gang girls probably didn't use such cheap, clunky weapons anymore. But it'd been Mitsuko's weapon of choice for a long time now. The most useful weapon right now for her was in fact something she could hide in her panties.
Tadakatsu was preoccupied with kissing Mitsuko's breasts. His left hand reached between her legs. Mitsuko then let out a moan...but Tadakatsu's eyes were concentrating on her breasts. His scalp was exposed.
Mitsuko slowly moved her right hand near his neck.
Sorry, Tadakatsu. But at least you get to go out with a nice memory, so you can forgive me, right? Too bad we won't go all the way, though.
Mitsuko's right ring finger gently touched Tadakatsu's neck. The object was between her index and middle finger.
Kaw kaw, a bird cried, unfortunately, to her right.
Tadakatsu raised his head reflexively and glanced over in that direction. It was only the sound of a bird crying. What really made Tadakatsu's eyes open wide was of course...
...the razor blade in Mitsuko's hand right in front of his face.
Damn it!
How bad can my timing be, the thought sort of crossed her mind, but Mitsuko didn't care as she automatically swung the blade.
He groaned and pulled away from Mitsuko. The blade skimmed his neck, but the cut was way too shallow to be fatal. My oh my, good reflexes. That's right, you're a baseball jock. Tadakatsu stood up, his eyes open wide, staring down at Mitsuko, her body half raised. He appeared to be on the verge of saying something but seemed at a loss for words.
She could care less about Tadakatsu's state. She leaped up and made a dash for the revolver immediately to her right.
But Tadakatsu's body flew in front of her in a head-first slide. He scooped the gun from the ground, rolled over, and got up on his knees. Ever since elementary school Tadakatsu played the shortstop position formerly occupied by Shuya Nanahara (even though she and Shuya went to different schools Shuya's reputation as a star player in Little League was so widespread even Mitsuko had heard of him), so the Shiroiwa Junior High School baseball team is in good hands, huh? Well, at least you didn't take off your pants. You would have looked pretty pathetic naked.
That was besides the point, though. Once Mitsuko realized Tadakatsu would get the gun before she did, she changed course. She heard gunshots behind her, but they missed as she ran into the thicket. She could hear Tadakatsu chasing her. He would catch up. That was for sure. She got out of the thicket. There was Yuichiro Takiguchi. He looked like he'd heard the gunfire, got up, and then realizing Mitsuko and Tadakatsu were gone, was looking around, but the moment his eyes found her, they opened wide. (Of course. She was half naked. What a bonus! Mitsuko Souma's One Night Show. Oh wait, but it's morning.)
"Yuichiro!" Mitsuko raised her voice and ran towards Yuichiro. She didn't forget to crumple up her face.
"Wh-what happened, Mitsuko?"
By the time Tadakatsu Hatagami made his way through the bushes, Mitsuko was behind Yuichiro's back. Because Yuichiro was only four or five centimeters taller than her, she couldn't really hide behind him, but oh well.
"Yuichiro!" Tadakatsu stopped and held his gun, groaning. "Get out of my way!"
"H-hold on." His face still drowsy, Yuichiro spoke quickly perhaps because he didn't fully grasp the situation. Mitsuko grabbed his shoulders from behind and pressed her half naked body against his back. Yuichiro said, "What is wrong with you?"
"Mitsuko tried to kill me! I told you, man!"
Still hiding behind Yuichiro, Mitsuko said in a feeble voice, "Th-that's not true. Tadakatsu tried to force me to...he threatened me with that gun. Please, help me, Yuichiro!"
Tadakatsu's face contorted in dismay. "I-it's not true, Yuichiro! Th-that's right. Look!" Tadakatsu pointed at his neck with the fingers of his empty left hand. The narrow cut had a slight blood stain. "She went at me with a razor blade!"
Yuichiro turned around and looked at Mitsuko out of the corner of his eye. Mitsuko shook her head (as cutely as possible, as if terrified, now she was playing the virgin).
"I was so desperate...I had to use my nails on him. Then...Tadakatsu got mad...and tried to shoot me..."
She had already gotten rid of the razor blade in the shrubs. Even if she were forced to take off all her clothes (she was nearly naked anyway now) for a body search, they'd find no evidence. Now Tadakatsu's face flushed red with anger.
"Move, Yuichiro!" he shouted. "I'm shooting her!"
"Hold on," Yuichiro said, trying his best to sound calm, "I...that's right...I can't tell who's telling the truth."
"What!?" Tadakatsu raised his voice, but Yuichiro wasn't intimidated. He reached out his right hand to Tadakatsu.
"Give me your gun. Then we'll see who's telling the truth."
Tadakatsu's face contorted as if he were on the verge of crying out of misery. And wearing this face he screamed at Yuichiro, "We can't afford to take our time here! You're going to get killed too if we don't get rid of her now!"
Mitsuko cried out, "That's awful. I would never do that. Help me, Yuichiro." She squeezed his shoulders tightly.
Yuichiro patiently extended his hand. "Give it to me, Tadakatsu if you're telling the truth." Tadakatsu grimaced again.
But eventually, after taking a long, deep breath, letting his shoulders down, he exhaled and lowered his gun. He put his finger on the trigger guard, flipped the gun grip forward, and offered it to Yuichiro as if he had no choice.
Of course she still wore her weepy face... but there was a faint glimmer in her eyes. The key moment would be when the gun was in Yuichiro's hands. It should be easy to take away from him. The question was how.
Yuichiro nodded and came forward.
But then...
It was a move that was almost identical to the one Hiroki Sugimura had made with the Colt Government against her. Like a magic trick, the gun flipped over in his hand. Simultaneously, Tadakatsu got down on his right knee and leaned sideways. The gun was pointed directly at Mitsuko, its line of fire passing right by Yuichiro's left shoulder. Now that she wasn't clinging to Yuichiro's back Mitsuko was completely exposed.
Yuichiro followed the gun's target and quickly looked back at Mitsuko.
Mitsuko's eyes opened wide.
I'm dead now—
Without hesitating, Tadakatsu pulled the trigger.
Gunfire. Two shots.
Yuichiro's body fell down slowly as if in slow motion right in front of her. Beyond it was the frightened face of Tadakatsu.
By then Mitsuko had picked up the sickle Yuichiro had beside him when he went to sleep. She threw it. It spun through the air. Its banana-shaped blade lodged into Tadakatsu's right shoulder. He groaned and dropped his gun.
Mitsuko didn't waste a single moment. She picked up the bat and dashed forward. She leapt over Yuichiro, who was lying face down, ran towards Tadakatsu, and with this forward momentum took a full swing at his head as he staggered, clutching his right shoulder.
Hey there. Here's something familiar, a bat. Hope you like it.
Thud. The end of the bat landed in the center of his face. She'd crushed in his nose cartilage and cheekbones, tearing out several of his teeth.
Tadakatsu fainted. Mitsuko swung at his forehead. KRAK! His forehead caved in. His eyes bulged out and his hands balled up into fists. One more swing, this time she aimed at the bridge of his nose. Mitsuko Souma's Special Training for One Thousand Catches. Come on, come on, this next one's going into center field.
Blood burst out of Tadakatsu's nostrils with this blow.
Mitsuko put the bat down. Tadakatsu's entire face was immersed in blood. He was dead by now. Thick streams of blood came dripping out of his ears and his deformed nose.
Mitsuko tossed the bat and picked up the pistol lying to her left.
Then she walked over to Yuichiro who was lying down on his face.
The blood stain spread all over the grass underneath.
He had shielded Mitsuko. That one instant.
Mitsuko slowly knelt down by Yuichiro. She could tell he was still breathing as she bent over. After some consideration, Mitsuko moved over to block Yuichiro's view of Tadakatsu's corpse. Then she grabbed his shoulder to turn him over.
Yuichiro moaned, "Urgh," and opened his eyes in a daze. His school coat had two holes, one in the left chest and the other in his side. Blood came pouring out, absorbed by the black fabric. Mitsuko held Yuichiro up.
His eyes wandered around for a while. Then he looked at Mitsuko. His short breaths came intermittently, matching his heartbeat. "M-Mitsuko..." he said, "wh-what about Tadakatsu?" Mitsuko shook her head. "He panicked after he shot you and just ran away." Tadakatsu had tried to kill Mitsuko so this explanation didn't make much sense. But...maybe he couldn't think much anymore. Yuichiro seemed to nod slightly.
"R-really..." His eyes seemed out of focus. He might only have a partial image of Mitsuko now. "Y-you didn't get hurt, I hope?"
"I'm fine." She nodded. And then said, "You saved me." Yuichiro seemed to form a slight grin. "I-I'm so sorry. I-I don't think I can protect you anymore. I-I can't m-m-move..."
Foams of blood came bursting out the sides of his mouth. His lungs must have been punctured.
"I know." She leaned over and gently hugged his body.
Mitsuko's long black hair fell onto his chest, its ends stained by the blood pouring out of his wounds. Before she pressed her lips against his, Yuichiro's eyes moved slightly but then they shut. This kiss was different from the whore's kiss she gave to Tadakatsu moments ago. It was soft, warm, and kind even though it might have been mixed with the taste of blood.
Their lips parted. Yuichiro opened his eyes again in a semi-daze.
"I-I'm sorry..." he said, "it looks like..."
Mitsuko smiled. "I know."
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! With these dull gunshots Yuichiro's eyes opened wide.
Staring up at Mitsuko's face, and probably having no idea what had just happened, Yuichiro Takiguchi was now dead.
Mitsuko slowly removed the smoking revolver from Yuichiro's stomach and held Yuichiro's body again. She looked into his now vacant eyes.
"You were pretty cool. You even made me a little happy. I won't forget you." She closed her eyes. Almost remorsefully, she once again gently pressed her lips against Yuichiro's. His lips were still warm.
The sunlight was finally shining on the western slope of the northern mountain. Under Mitsuko's head, blocking this light, Yuichiro's pupils dilated rapidly. |
[ 14 students remaining ]
Shuya Nanahara (Male Student No. 15) suddenly woke up. He saw the blue sky framed by brilliant green grass.
He got up. Beyond the grass surrounding him, there was the familiar sight of Shiroiwa Junior High School in the pleasant sunlight.
Several students were on the school field in their gym gear. Maybe they were playing Softball for gym class. He could hear their cheering.
He was in the garden at the edge of the courtyard. He saw the large leaves of the phoenix tree looming above him. This was where he took a nap sometimes, either during lunch or when he cut class. He stood up and checked his body.
He had no wounds at all. Flakes of grass were stuck to his coat. He brushed them off. A dream...
Shuya shook his head, still in a daze. Then he knew for certain.
It was all a dream. All of it.
He wiped his neck with his hand. It was moist with sweat. He was drenched in sweat as if he'd had a nightmare.
What...what a horrible dream! Killing game? We were selected for that "Program"!
Then he realized. The ones in the field...gym class?
He checked his watch. Afternoon classes had started. He'd overslept!
He quickly left the garden and trotted over to the school building. Today...today was...he checked his watch while running and saw it was Thursday.
The first Thursday afternoon period was literature. He felt relieved. He liked literature, and he did pretty well in that class. Plus his teacher, Kazuko Okazaki, liked him. So all he'd have to do is bow apologetically.
Literature. Favorite subject. Grades. Ms. Okazaki.
These words passing through his mind triggered a nostalgic feeling.
Shuya really did like literature. Even if the stories and essays in the textbooks were inundated with slogans in praise of the Republic or some silly "ideology," Shuya managed to discover words he liked. Words were just as important to him as music. Because rock couldn't do without lyrics. Speaking of words... the top student in literature, Noriko Nakagawa, wrote beautiful poetry. Compared to the song lyrics he struggled to come up with, her words were so much more concise and brilliant...they could be open and gentle on the one hand and harsh and strong on the other...he thought they represented the nature of girls in general. Sure, Yoshitoki Kuninobu had a crush on Noriko, but what really struck Shuya was this part of her.
Which made Shuya realize, oh, that means Yoshitoki is alive. Realizing how silly the whole ordeal was, he was about to cry from relief as he trotted over. How silly. I can't believe I could dream of Yoshitoki dying.
And how did I end up with Noriko?...Hey wait, since when did I stop calling her "Noriko-san"? How presumptuous...in that stupid dream, he thought. They were linked together in the dream...so does that mean I have some feelings for her beyond admiring her poetry? Uh oh, that means I'll end up fighting with Yoshitoki. That's trouble.
Still, this idle thought made him grin.
Shuya entered the school building, now hushed because classes were in session. He ran up the stairs. Third Year Class B was on the third floor. He skipped every other step.
He reached the third floor and turned right into the hall. The second classroom was Class B. Shuya stopped by the door for a moment, trying to come up with an excuse for Ms. Okazaki. He was feeling sick...no, he had a dizzy spell. So he had to lie down and rest. Would she believe him, given how he was always in perfect health? Yoshitoki would give an exaggerated shrug, and someone like Yutaka Seto would say something like, "I bet you were sleeping," Shinji Mimura would snicker, and Hiroki Sugimura, his arms folded, would look mildly amused. Noriko would smile at Shuya as he scratched his head. All right, that's what I'll go with. So what if it's embarrassing. Shuya put his hand on the door, made himself look as apologetic as possible, and gently slid it open. Right before he looked up from the formal posture he assumed, a stench assaulted him. He looked up. He slid the door open with all his might.
The first thing he saw was someone lying by the lectern.
Ms. Okazaki...
It wasn't Ms. Okazaki. It was their head instructor, Masao Hayashida. And...
His head was missing. There was a puddle where it was supposed to be. Only half of his eyeglass frames were lying beside him.
Shuya tore his eyes off of Mr. Hayashida's corpse and examined the rest of the class. There were desks and chairs lined up as usual.
The strange thing was that his familiar classmates were all sprawled over their desks. And...
The floor was covered with blood. An intense stench wafted up.
After standing still for a moment, he quickly reached out for Mayumi Tendo—and realized that an antenna-like silver arrow was planted in her back. Its tip was poking out of her stomach while blood dripped down and off her skirt onto the floor.
Shuya moved forward. He shook Kazushi Nüda's body. Kazushi's body tilted with a jerk, revealing its face.
Shuya felt a chill run up his spine. Kazushi's eyes were now two dark-red holes. Blood and a slimy egg-white-like substance oozed out of them. Then... there was a gimlet-like object with a thick handle stabbed into his mouth.
Shuya screamed and ran to Yoshitoki Kuninobu's seat. There were three holes in his back, each one blooming with flowers of blood. As he held him up, Yoshitoki's head slumped over onto his shoulder. His bulging eyes gazed up at the ceiling.
Yoshitoki!...
Shuya raised his voice. Then he looked around frantically.
Everyone was either slouched back in their chairs or lying on the floor. Megumi Eto's throat was slashed like sliced watermelon. A sickle was planted in Yoji Kuramoto's head. Sakura Ogawa's head was split open like an overripe fruit. Only half of Yoshimi Yahagi's head existed. An axe was planted in Tatsumi Oki's head, his face cracked down the middle, left and right out of alignment like a split peanut. Kyoichi Motobuchi's stomach looked like a sausage-factory trash bin. Tadakatsu Hatagami's face was completely crushed and covered in blood. Hirono Shimizu's face was swollen black, and her sea-slug-sized tongue dangled out from the side of her wide open mouth. The body of The Third Man, Shinji Mimura, was covered with bullets.
Basically, everyone...was dead.
Something caught Shuya's eye. Soji Kawada—that standoffish transfer student with the bad reputation—had deep stab wounds all over his chest. His eyes were half-open and looking down at the floor...they were out of focus.
Shuya took a deep breath and looked over at Noriko Nakagawa's seat. It was right behind Yoshitoki's, so he could have noticed earlier. For some reason though, it felt as if his classmates' seats were swirling around with the corpses. He finally managed to locate Noriko.
She was still sprawled on top of her desk.
Shuya ran to her and held her up.
THUD. Her head fell off. Leaving behind her body, it landed with a thud on the floor and rolled around in a pool of blood...and then looked up at Shuya. With eyes full of resentment. I thought you said you would save me, Shuya. But I ended up dying. I really loved you, too. I really did. His eyes glued to Noriko's face, Shuya held his head and opened his mouth. He felt he was going crazy. He could tell a scream was welling up inside.
Suddenly, he saw something white.
As he became physically aware that his body was in fact horizontal, his vision came into focus, and Shuya finally realized it was the ceiling. On the left side he saw a fluorescent light. Someone gently touched his chest.
He realized how heavy he was breathing. His eyes followed the hand up to the arm, the arm up to the shoulder, and finally discerned a sailor-suit figure with braided hair—female class representative Yukie Utsumi (Female Student No. 2), smiling warmly.
"Looks like you're up. What a relief," she said. |
Shuya tried getting up, but the pain all over his body immediately assaulted him, and he fell back. He realized then he was lying on a soft bed with fresh sheets.
Yukie gently touched Shuya's chest again, then lifted the puffy blanket up to his neck. "Don't exert yourself. You're injured pretty badly...You seemed to be having a bad nightmare. Do you feel okay?" Shuya wasn't able to respond coherently. Instead he surveyed the room. It was small. There was cheap fabric wallpaper on the left wall, and on the right behind Yukie was another bed, but besides that there wasn't much else. There was a door near the foot of the bed, but it was closed. The wooden frame gave it an old look. There seemed to be a window above his head letting in a dull light which illuminated the room. Given how dull the light was it seemed cloudy outside. But...where was he?
"I don't get it," Shuya said. He realized he could speak now. "I don't remember checking into a hotel with the student representative."
He was still in a half daze, but Yukie gave a sigh of relief. Then her full lips erupted into a soft chuckle.
"You would say that, wouldn't you? I'm so relieved you're all right though." Looking at Shuya, she added,
"You were out for quite some time. Let see...it's been," she looked down at her watch on her left wrist,
"about thirteen hours."
Thirteen hours? Thirteen hours. Thirteen hours ago I was—
Shuya's eyes opened wide. His memory and the present locked in. He was fully awake now. There was something he needed to find out. Right away.
"What about Noriko, Noriko Nakagawa? And Soji Kawada?"
Shuya said this and took a deep breath. Were they still alive?
Yukie gave him a funny look and then said, "I think Noriko...and Soji are still alive. We just heard the afternoon announcement but their names weren't announced."
Shuya let out a deep breath. Noriko and Soji had managed to escape. Kazuo had chased after him and ended up losing Noriko and Soji. Kazuo was—
Shuya then looked up at Yukie.
"Kazuo. It's Kazuo!" His voice was half panicking. "Where are we? Are you alone here? We have to be careful!"
Yukie gently touched Shuya's right hand, which was sticking out from under his blanket. "Calm down." Then she asked, "Did Kazuo do this to you?"
Shuya nodded. "He's the one who's been attacking us. He's totally up for this."
"Really..." Yukie nodded and continued, "We're safe here. They're six of us here, not including you. Everyone else is keeping watch, so don't worry. They're all close friends of mine." Shuya raised his brow. Six?
"Who?"
"Yuka Nakagawa," Yukie mentioned the cheery girl who had the same last name as Noriko. Then she continued, "Satomi Noda and Chisato Matsui. Haruka Tanizawa. And Yuko Sakaki." Shuya licked his lips. Yukie saw the expression on his face and asked, "What? You can't trust them?
Which one? Everyone?"
"No..." Shuya shook his head. "If they're your friends I trust them." But how did six girls, all good friends with each other, manage to get together?
Yukie smiled and squeezed his hand. "Good. I'm glad to hear that from you, Shuya." Shuya smiled too. But his smile receded almost instantly. There were other things he had to know. He'd already missed three—the midnight, 6 a.m., and noon announcements.
"Who...died?" he asked. "I-I mean, at midnight, 6 a.m., and noon, there were three announcements, right? Did anyone else...die?"
Yukie's mouth stiffened. She took some paper from the small side table right beside them. It was a map and student list. The folds and mud stains looked familiar. He realized it was the one he'd kept in his school coat pocket.
Yukie looked over the list and said, "Hirono Shimizu. And then Keita Iijima, Toshinori Oda, Yutaka Seto, Yuichiro Takiguchi, Tadakatsu Hatagami, and Shinji Mimura."
Shuya's mouth hung open. Of course the game had proceeded, but he was shocked it now left only little more than a dozen students. Plus he'd been teammates with Tadakatsu Hatagami in Little League, but what really took him by surprise was...
"Shinji's..."
The Third Man, Shinji Mimura, had died. It was hard to believe. He thought if anyone could survive it would have been Shinji.
Yukie nodded silently.
At the same time Shuya was struck by how he wasn't all that shaken up. He'd gotten used to it. That must have been it. Still, he remembered Shinji's special grin. Then he recalled that serious expression Shinji wore as he sent him a signal, warning him to calm down when they were back in the school building.
So we're never going to see the awesome play of The Third Man, Shiroiwa Junior High's star shooting guard, again, he thought, and felt a pang of sorrow.
"When was Shinji's name announced?"
"In the morning," Yukie answered. "Keita Iijima and Yutaka Seto were also in the morning. They might have been together. They were such good friends."
"I see..."
Shinji had still been alive at midnight. And as Yukie said, he might have been with Yutaka Seto and Keita Iijima.
Yukie added, "There was an incredible explosion last night. And a lot of gunfire. That's where it might have come from."
"Explosion?"
Shuya recalled the hand grenade Kazuo threw at them. "That was...Kazuo actually used a hand grenade. Maybe that's what you heard."
Yukie raised her brow. "So...that's what that was. That was a little past eleven, right? No, the one I'm talking about actually happened after we brought you here. It was past midnight. It was much worse than the one we heard around eleven. The one who kept watch said the entire center of the island just lit up." Shuya pursed his lips, but then he realized he still hadn't managed to find out exactly where they were. Before he could ask though, Yukie handed him the map and student list. "This is yours. I marked off the map too."
As he took it, Shuya realized, yes, there were more forbidden zones. He spread the map out.
"The place where we talked about rock."
That place, sector C=3, near the western shore, was crossed out with a pencil along with several other sectors. The small writing, "23rd, 11 a.m." meant that it was forbidden as of this morning at eleven, while Shuya had been asleep.
Shuya pursed his lips. Noriko and Soji weren't there anymore—his thoughts were finally getting clearer—if they haven't died between noon and now. Of course they were alive...but then he recalled how he'd seen Soji and Noriko dead along with Yoshitoki and Shinji in his dream. He felt a chill run down his spine.
But in any case they should be alive. All he could do was believe they were all right. But how in the world would he find them?
Shuya put the map down on his chest. He couldn't afford to waste any time deliberating, under these circumstances. The first thing was information.
And since he wasn't alone there might be a way.
He looked up at Yukie. "Where are we anyway? How did I end up in this bed?" Yukie looked up at the window and said, "This is a lighthouse."
"Lighthouse?"
"That's right. On the northeast end of the island. It's marked on the map. We've been staying here ever since the game started."
Shuya looked at his map again. Just as Yukie said, the lighthouse was located in sector C=10, jutting out from the northeast side of the island. The area was practically devoid of forbidden zones.
"So Shuya, about last night. The front of this lighthouse is a cliff, and that's where you fell. The person keeping watch found you...and took you in. You were injured pretty badly. Covered with blood. I thought you were going to die."
Shuya finally realized his torso was naked and that his throbbing left shoulder was bandaged. (Given how it felt, he deduced the bullet shattered his shoulder blade and was now lodged in there.) The right side of his neck—he felt a burning sensation right below his collar where there was another bandage (but this bullet wound must have been a minor scrape). And then on top of his left elbow. (It felt heavy. The bullet had most likely exited, but perhaps because the bone or tendon was torn off, it felt paralyzed.) Also his left side. (The bullet had pierced it, but it seemed to have missed his vital organs.) Shuya awkwardly moved his unscathed right arm and lifted his blanket, confirming he was indeed covered with bandages. He returned the blanket and asked, "So you treated me."
"Yes," Yukie nodded. "We found an emergency first-aid kit in the lighthouse. We stitched your wounds a little. Not a great job, since we didn't know what we were doing and we could only use the string and needle from a sewing set. It looks like the bullet in your shoulder...is lodged in there. We couldn't do much. I thought what you really needed was a blood transfusion. You were bleeding so badly."
"Thanks a lot."
"Oh no," Yukie smiled kindly. "I can't believe I got to touch a guy's body! I even got to take off your clothes."
Shuya chuckled. While she was both very smart and considerate, she could also say bold stuff like that. That's right, she'd been like that ever since he got to know her on a rainy day in the elementary school gym, negotiating the space allocated for Little League practice and girls' volleyball. And that's right, at the time he'd said to Yoshitoki, "Then there's Utsumi, who's on the volleyball team. She's pretty cool. That's my type. You know, real outgoing."
Of course right now he wasn't supposed to be indulging in idle emotions. But when Yukie said, "Oh, yeah, here," and offered him a cup of water, Shuya couldn't resist whistling. He was in fact really thirsty. The cup was already there, on the side table beyond his field of vision. He thought, how impressive, Representative. You'll be a wonderful wife some day, no, a wonderful woman. No, you might in fact be a wonderful woman now. I've actually thought that for a while. He took the cup, raised his head, and drank. His neck wound hurt as he swallowed and grimaced. But he drank it all.
"I might be asking for too much," he said, returning the cup, "but I think I should drink a lot more. And also...do you have any kind of painkiller? Anything. It'll help me."
Yukie nodded. "Sure. I'll go get some."
Shuya wiped his lips and then said, "It's amazing your friends accepted me. I mean, I could be an enemy."
Yukie shook her head. "We couldn't just let someone die. Besides..." She stared into Shuya's eyes and smiled playfully. "It was you, Shuya. I'm leading this group, so I forced everyone to agree." Did that mean that...she also thought there was something special about them ever since that time at the elementary school gym?
Shuya probed further. "Which means...that some of them were reluctant. I knew it."
"Well, come on. Given the circumstances." Yukie looked down. "Don't take it the wrong way. Everyone's very agitated."
"Yeah." Shuya nodded. "I know."
"But I convinced them." She looked up and smiled again. "So you should be thankful." Shuya was nodding when he noticed Yukie, who'd just been smiling, was now for some reason suddenly on the verge of tears.
She stared at him and said, "I was worried sick. I thought you might die, Shuya." Shuya was taken by surprise and looked at her.
Yukie continued, "I just wouldn't know what to do if you died." Her voice was now sobbing.
"...do you understand what I'm saying? Do you see why I had to save you, no matter what?" Shuya stared at Yukie's tearful eyes and slowly nodded. Then he thought, geez, I can't believe how popular I am.
Of course...this might have been a psychological result of their confinement. Under these circumstances, they were probably going to die soon (no, according to the rules, they were definitely going to die. He'd never heard of someone else besides the winner surviving the hellish Program), and now that the survivors were becoming fewer and fewer, maybe a boy that you liked "a little" ever since having an exchange in the corner of an elementary school gym might turn into somebody you'd "die for." No, that probably wasn't the case. She couldn't have opposed her friends unless she really cared for him. Besides, how else could she have trusted him?
"I understand. Thanks," he said.
Yukie wiped her tears with the lower palm of her right hand. Then she said, "Tell me. You asked about Noriko and Soji. You said, 'we.' Does that mean you were with them?" Shuya nodded.
Yukie knit her brows. "I get Noriko...but don't tell me you were really with Soji." Shuya knew what she was getting at. "Soji's not a bad guy," he said. "He saved me. Noriko and me survived thanks to him. I'm sure Soji's protecting Noriko right now...That's right. There's something more urgent," he continued enthusiastically. "I forgot. We can be saved, Yukie."
"Saved?"
Shuya nodded emphatically. "Soji's going to save us. He knows a way out of here." Yukie opened her eyes wide. "Really? Really? What is it?"
Shuya stopped suddenly. Soji had told him, I can't tell you till the end. Come to think of it...Shuya had nothing to support it. He trusted Soji, but he wasn't so sure his explanation would persuade Yukie, who hadn't been with Soji. As Soji himself constantly reminded him, she might suspect Soji was using Shuya and the others.
Shuya decided though to explain everything from the beginning.
He told her how he'd been attacked by Yoshio Akamatsu from the very beginning, how he'd been with Noriko ever since then, how he'd fought Tatsumi Oki, and how, while Kyoichi Motobuchi was shooting at him, Soji had saved him and how the three were together ever since. He told her about the escape plan, how Soji was a survivot of the Program last year, how Noriko had a fever, and how they went over to the clinic. That's right, and then about Hiroki Sugimura. How Hiroki told them that Mitsuko Souma was dangerous. And then how they were attacked by Kazuo Kiriyama while they were on the move.
"So Tatsumi..." After he was done she brought up Tatsumi Old first for some reason, "...that was an accident?"
"That's right. Just as I described it," he replied and knit his brows, looking at her. "What about it?" Yukie shook her head. She said, "It's nothing," and changed the subject, "I'm sorry for being so blunt, but I can't just all of a sudden trust Soji. I mean, that there's a way out of here." Shuya still didn't understand why Yukie had asked him about Tatsumi, but he figured it couldn't be all that important so he let it pass and accepted Yukie's skepticism.
"I don't blame you. But I think we can trust Soji. It's hard to explain, but he's good," he impatiently waved his uninjured right hand by his face. "You'd understand if you were with him." Yukie pressed her right fingers against her lips and said, "All right. It sounds like we should at least hear him out. I mean it's not like we have any other option."
Shuya looked at her. "What were you planning on doing?"
Yukie shrugged. "I thought it was hopeless. We were just discussing whether we were better off trying to escape or staying here a little longer. But we haven't made any decisions." Shuya then realized he'd forgotten to ask something else he'd forgotten. "How did you guys get together?
All six of you?"
"Oh," Yukie nodded. "I went back to the school, and I called on everyone." Shuya was surprised. "When?"
"That would have to be right after you and Noriko ran away. Actually, I saw Kazushi Nüda run...I really wanted to get back in time to contact you, but anyway, that's how I saw...those two dead right in front of the school entrance."
Shuya raised his brow. "Yoshio was only unconscious, right?"
Yukie shook her head. "I wasn't able to get a close look...but he looked dead at that point. There was an arrow...stuck in his neck."
"Then Kazushi—"
Yukie nodded. "I think so."
Shuya then asked, "Weren't you scared there'd be others like Yoshio?"
"Of course the thought occurred to me...but I just couldn't come up with any other option other than forming a group. So I went to the woods in front. I figured if I hid there I wouldn't be seen. And if I was, then that was just too bad."
Shuya was deeply moved. He had to look after Noriko, who was injured, but still, he'd passed on the others and ran away. Hiroki Sugimura said he'd waited for Takako Chigusa, but he was a guy, and he also practiced martial arts.
"Wow. I'm amazed, Representative."
Yukie smiled.
"You call Noriko by her name, but with me it's 'Representative,' huh?" Shuya didn't know what to say. "Oh well—"
"Don't worry, it's all right."
A smile flashed across her face. Then she continued a little sadly, "Then Yuka Nakagawa came out...and I called her."
"Were you able to convince her right away? Don't get me wrong—I think you have a good reputation."
"Oh, well." Yukie nodded. "I didn't come back alone. I was really shaken up at first, but I just had to come back, and on the way back, I totally lucked out, I found Haruka. You know how Haruka and I are best friends.
Shuya nodded. Haruka Tanizawa and Yukie were both on the volleyball team.
"I talked to Haruka. When I told her we should go back she resisted at first, but we had weapons. I had a pistol in my pack. When Yuka heard the two of us call she managed to trust us." After some consideration, Shuya mentioned that "rule": "But...you can't necessarily trust someone who's paired up in this game."
Yukie nodded. "Yes, that turned out to be true."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we decided not to have boys...sorry...we discussed it and decided boys could mean trouble. So we let them go, and then there was Fumiyo—" Yukie stopped. Fumiyo Fujiyoshi (Female Student No. 18) had died before their departure. "After her came Chisato. So there were five of us. We also called on Kaori Minami but..."
Shuya filled in the rest, "She ran away."
"Yes, she did."
Shuya realized he hadn't told her that he'd seen her die. He thought of telling her—but decided not to. Now that Kaori's killer Hirono Shimizu was also dead, it didn't seem relevant and besides, it wasn't a pleasant memory. Also, as awful as it sounded, he couldn't afford to waste any more time talking about the dead.
"So Yoshimi reacted the same way as Kaori?" Shuya uttered the name of the last female student seat number, Yoshimi Yahagi, along with Kaori's and suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. Names of the dead. Both of them. Both... of...them. Jesus. The smiling face of the man in the black suit made a sudden appearance in Shuya's mind. It'd been a while. Hey there, Shuya. So you're still alive? You're a tough one.
"Well..." Yukie looked away from Shuya and pursed her lips. She squinted. "That was different."
"How so?"
Yukie took a deep breath. "I said we should call on her. But some of the girls protested. You know Yoshimi was friends with Mitsuko. They couldn't trust her."
Shuya fell silent.
Yukie said looking away. "So she's dead. We let her die."
Shuya said, "No, you're wrong."
Yukie looked back at Shuya.
"It was beyond your control. It's no one's fault."
He knew it didn't sound very convincing, but that's all he could say .
Yukie grinned wryly and sighed. "You're kind. You've always been so nice." They nearly fell silent, but then Shuya had to say something, "You should have called on Shinji." Yukie's group could have at least called on Shinji Mimura, who was at the tail end of the student list. "He could have been trusted."
Yukie sighed again. "I thought so too...but Shinji didn't have a very good reputation...among the girls. You know, he was kind of a playboy. And his intelligence was kind of intimidating. You know how he intervened when Noriko was injured? One of the girls said that might have been calculated." It was the same explanation Soji gave when he mentioned he'd seen Shinji.
"Before we could decide, Shinji was gone." Yukie shrugged. "In any case, we'd decided against boys. So we didn't call on Kazuhiko either."
That's right. Kazuhiko Yamamoto, who went out with Sakura Ogawa, who despite his good looks was kind and unpretentious, and therefore must have been popular with the girls. Yukie's group decided against contacting him too, though. And given this policy, it was only to be expected there'd be some friction over taking in Shuya here.
Shuya realized Yukie only accounted for five of them. She hadn't mentioned Yuko Sakaki (Female Student No. 9).
"What about Yuko? You haven't mentioned her."
Yukie nodded and looked back at Shuya. "That was luck too. We came here yesterday morning...Nice fortress huh? Last night, I think it was around 8 p.m., Yuko just stumbled by here. She was totally terrified."
Yukie stopped as if she had something else to say. Shuya was about to ask her what was wrong, but Yukie continued, "...in any case, everyone knows Yuko. So it wasn't a problem." That summed up her account. Shuya thought of asking more about Yuko Sakaki but decided not to. If she'd been alone until last night then she might have encountered something horrible. Did she survive someone's attack, or did she see students killings each other, or did she come across a corpse torn up from fighting?...
Shuya nodded slightly several times. "I get it now."
"There's one thing I don't get," Yukie said. "It's not a big deal but...Hiroki was saying he needed to see Kayoko Kotohiki, right? And that was why he didn't join your group." Shuya was worried about him ever since he summarized his situation to Yukie. Hiroki was still alive and so was Kayoko Kotohiki. Did he manage to find her?
"He had to see her. I wonder why."
Shuya shook his head. "We didn't ask. He was in a hurry. We were wondering too—" As he spoke Shuya couldn't help but wonder, did Hiroki manage to find Kayoko Kotohiki? If he did then—
Soji's voice suddenly returned: "This sound is your ticket out of here. If you're up for it, you can come aboard our train."
Shuya opened his eyes wide and exclaimed, "The bird call."
"What?"
Shuya looked over at Yukie. "I know a way we can join Noriko and Soji."
"Really?"
Shuya nodded. Then he struggled to move his body. He could explain later. "I have to contact him now. I have to get going."
"Hold on," Yukie stopped him. "You need to rest."
"I can't. The more I lie around—"
"I said hold on. You might want to listen to the girl who's in love with you." She managed to say this as she blushed a little with a playful smile. "We took you in here because even if you woke up you wouldn't be able to move. Your sudden burst of energy might terrify some of the girls." Shuya's eyes opened wide. But then again it made sense. That was probably why the other girls let Yukie stay with him alone here.
Yukie continued, "In any case, just stay put for a while. I'll tell them everything you told me. I'll insist you and Soji can be trusted and convince them. As for contacting him and Noriko, I can't let you do that alone. That's just too dangerous. I'll discuss that with them too. So you just stay here." Then she asked him, "Can you eat?"
"Yeah."
In fact he was famished. He was worried about Noriko and Soji, but he thought he should eat first. It would help his immune system fight against his gunshot wounds.
"If you have any food to spare I'd really appreciate it. I do feel pretty weak." Yukie smiled. "We're preparing lunch right now. I'll bring you some. I think it's something like stew. Is that all right?"
"Stew?"
"Yeah, this place is loaded with food even though it's all just preserved canned food and retort food. But we found water and solid fuel, so we were able to cook it."
"Awesome. That's great."
Yukie's hand left the edge of the bed. She walked over to the door and said, "I'm really sorry but I'm going to have to lock the door."
"Huh?"
"I'm sorry. There's someone who's terrified. So please, just wait," Yukie said. She smiled kindly as she opened the door and went out. Her two braids of hair swung like some mysterious animal's tail, and he caught a glimpse of a gun stuck in the back of her skirt.
There was a clacking sound from beyond the door. It might have been bolted shut. Was that how they locked him up?
Shuya managed to raise his upper body with his right elbow and looked up at the window above his head. The window was sealed with wooden planks and light leaked in through the gaps. This was done to keep intruders out—but right now it also served as an ideal place to lock him up. The fingers of his near paralyzed left arm reflexively formed guitar chords under the blanket. The chords from that hit tune sung by the rock star the middle-aged man, the one who gave him his guitar, worshipped, "Jailhouse Rock."
Shuya took a deep breath and lay down on his bed. The slight movement was enough to send sharp pain through the wound in his side. |
[ 14 students remaining ]
The Okishima Island lighthouse was old but durable. It faced north with a tower seventeen meters high, and the living quarters, a single-story brick building, had been built as an annex to the tower on its south side. The dining-kitchen-living room was immediately south of the tower, and further south was the storage room and bathroom. Further down were two bedrooms, one large, the other small, along with another storage room right near the front entrance. The hall running on the west side of the building connected these rooms. (Shuya was resting in the small bedroom by the entrance.) In the corner of the kitchen-living room, which was at least as large as a classroom, was a small table that looked out of place. Yuko Sakaki (Female Student No. 9) was sitting on one of the stools around the table, slumped over the white tabletop as if she were dozing off. Unlike the other five girls, she had wandered around the island for hours on end, so a single night here had hardly alleviated her fatigue. No wonder. She had a reason for not sleeping at all last night.
Yukie Utsumi's team used this room as their living quarters and slept here too. Someone had to keep watch at the top of the tower, but otherwise Yukie decided that everyone should stick together. Right behind Yuko, Haruka Tanizawa (Female Student No. 12) and Chisato Matsui (Female Student No. 19) were busily preparing the preserved food in front of the stove, where solid fuel was lit up in place of the shut-off gas. At 172 centimeters tall, Haruka was an attacker on the volleyball team. She and Yukie, who was a setter, formed a great duo. She had short hair, so next to the long-haired, petit Chisato they almost looked like a couple. The meal was a retort stew mixed with canned vegetables. Above them were planks of wood they found in the storage room and hastily hammered into the frosted glass window, which let in the dull light of the cloudy sky. The planks were there to keep intruders out. As soon as they had arrived Yukie and the girls immediately sealed off every entrance and exit from the inside of the building. (The front entrance was designated as their primary entrance-exit, which was where they took Yuko in, but now it was barricaded with desks and lockers.) Yuko had a clear view of the other side of the room where there was a writing desk with a fax machine and computer. To the left of it, Satomi Noda (Female Student No. 17) was sitting on a sofa placed against the wall, while the table that had been in front of it was now used to barricade the front entrance. Along with Yukie, Satomi was a model student, and although she always seemed a little frigid, now she looked pretty exhausted as she raised her wire-rimmed glasses and drowsily rubbed her eyes. To the left of the sofa, the kitchen's side door connected to the hall that led to the front entrance. On Yuko's right, the far door on the other side led to the bottom of the tower, and the first several steel stairs leading up to the lantern room were visible. Yuka Nakagawa (Female Student No. 16) was up there, supposedly keeping watch. Yuko hadn't kept watch yet, but Yukie had told her that since the lighthouse faced the ocean, and since there was only one narrow path from the harbor behind the building, the rest of the area surrounded by mountains, it wasn't very difficult to keep watch. Yukie was now in the room right by the entrance where they'd kept Shuya Nanahara.
Shuya Nanahara.
Yuko felt the tremor of fear returning. Along with it the image that was burnt into her memory. The cracked head. The bloody axe removed from it. And the boy who held this axe. It was a chilling memory. And this boy—Shuya Nanahara—was now in the lighthouse, the same building she was in. That was—
No, it's all right. It's all right.
Trying to keep herself from trembling, she stared at the white tabletop and reminded herself, that's right, he's dying, he can't possibly wake up after so many injuries and so much bleeding. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she looked up.
As Haruka Tanizawa sat down next to her, she stared at Yuko and asked, "Did you get any sleep?" She was taking a break from cooking. Chisato Matsui seemed to be checking the cooking instructions, examining the package of preserved food. (Chisato had in fact been quietly weeping this morning. Haruka Tanizawa had whispered to her it was because of the 6 a.m. announcement of Shinji Mimura's death. Until then Yuko hardly knew Chisato had a crush on Shinji Mimura. Her eyes were still red.) Yuko forced a smile and answered, "Yeah, a little." It was all right. As long as she was with these other five friends she was all right. She was safe here. Even if that safety would expire when their time ran out. Still—
Haruka brought up the matter. "What you said about yesterday."
"Oh..." Yuko smiled. "It's all right now."
That's right. It was fine now. She didn't even want to think about it. Just the memory sent chills down her spine. But...in any case...
Shuya Nanahara wasn't going to wake up again. Then it was all right. Just fine. Haruka smiled ambivalently. "Well then, okay."
That's right...When Shuya Nanahara was discovered unconscious in front of the lighthouse yesterday, Yuko had vehemently opposed taking him in. She had explained (she was shouting rather than explaining) what she'd seen, Tatsumi Oki's split-open skull, how Shuya Nanahara had removed the axe, how dangerous he was, and how he would try to kill them if they let him live. Yuko and Yukie were on the verge of fighting, but then Haruka and the others insisted they couldn't just let someone die, so they brought Shuya in. Yuko looked on, face ashen, keeping her distance, while the others carried the blood-drenched Shuya. It was as if they were welcoming a strange, scary monster that haunted you in your childhood dreams into your house. No, that's exactly what it was like. But...as time passed Yuko convinced herself Shuya was dying. After all, he couldn't possibly survive those wounds. Knowing he would die of course was unappealing, but in any case she managed to hold herself back. The one condition she insisted on, though, was that his room be locked. Haruka continued. It was the same question they had asked several times yesterday. "You say you saw Shuya kill Tatsumi, but it might have been in self-defense, right?" That was true. She'd been hiding in the bushes when she heard the thudding sound. By the time she looked, the only part she really witnessed was Shuya removing the axe from Tatsumi Oki's head. Then she immediately ran away.
In other words, as Haruka said (which was based on Yuko's own description), Yuko had only seen the aftermath. It was possible he had done it in self-defense. However...
...no matter how many times Haruka and Yukie said this to her, Yuko just couldn't see it that way. No, she simply rejected the idea.
What do you mean, "possible"? I saw that cracked skull. I saw Shuya Nanahara holding that axe. The bloody axe. The dripping blood.
Her thoughts revolved around this scene now. Yuko couldn't be rational about Shuya Nanahara anymore. It was like a natural disaster, like a flood or tornado. The moment Yuko began thinking about Shuya, that scene and her fear would just wash it all away. The only thing left was an axiom that was nearly visceral—that Shuya Nanahara was dangerous.
Yuko had her reasons. She abhorred violence. She couldn't stand it. Hearing a friend talk about a splatter film in Class B (was it Yuka Nakagawa? "Of course, it was funny, but, it wasn't a big deal, it should have more gory, ha ha ha") she felt sick enough to be taken to the school nurse. It was probably related to her memory of her father. Even though he wasn't a stepfather—he was her real father—he drank heavily and abused her mother, her older brother, and Yuko herself. She was too young back then...so Yuko didn't understand why. She was never able to ask her mother why he was like that. She didn't even want to remember it. Well, maybe there were no reasons at all. She didn't know. In any case, when her father was stabbed to death by a yakuza over some gambling dispute—Yuko was still in first grade—she felt more relieved than bereaved. Ever since then she, her mother, and brother led a peaceful life. They could invite friends over. They finally felt safe with the disappearance of their father.
But she still sometimes had dreams about him. Her bleeding mother being beaten with a golf club (even though they were poor, this was the one expensive item in their home). Her brother being beaten with an ashtray, nearly losing his sight. And...herself, suffering cigarette burns, paralyzed with fear (her mother who tried to intervene would then be beaten again).
Maybe all of that was related, maybe not. In any case, Yuko was absolutely convinced Shuya Nanahara was dangerous.
"Right?" She heard Haruka say that emphatically, but her words didn't register. A chill ran through her body, accompanied by a vision. Everyone including herself, the six of them lying on the floor, their skulls cracked open, and Shuya Nanahara grinning with an axe in his hand...
No, no. It's going to be over. Shuya Nanahara won't be around for long.
"Yes." She looked up and nodded. In fact, she had no idea what Haruka was talking about. But in any case as long as Shuya couldn't recover there was no reason to throw the team off balance. Haruka seemed to be seeking some indication she was convinced.
"Y-yes. It was just me. I was so tired too."
This seemed to put Haruka at ease. She said, "Shuya's a good guy. They're aren't too many around like him."
Yuko looked at Haruka as if she were a mummy exhibited in a museum. She had thought so too, until recently. Shuya seemed strange, but all in all there was something very likable about him. In fact, she'd even thought he was kind of cool.
But any memory of this feeling had completely fallen by the wayside now. Maybe it was more accurate to say the cracked-skull scene had smothered out all her other memories.
What? What are you saying, Haruka? That he's good? What are you talking about?
Haruka looked into Yuko's eyes dubiously, but added, "So even if he gets up, don't provoke him, okay?" Yuko was horrified. There was no way he was going to wake up. If...if that ever happened...
But a portion of her rational faculties were still intact enough for her to nod and say, "I'm fine. No problem."
"Good. I feel much better."
Haruka nodded back, turned towards Chisato without getting up, and said, "Smells good." Along with the steam, the smell of the stew came drifting from the stove pot. Chisato turned her head around and said in her quiet, thin voice, "Yes, it looks pretty good. It might be better than yesterday's soup."
She had been crying over Shinji Mimura for a long time, but she seemed all right for the time being. Even Yuko could see that.
Right then, the door to the hall opened up. It was Yukie Utsumi. As usual she maintained her perfect posture and walked forward confidently. After Yuko's arrival, Yukie still did a good job leading the group, but she seemed a little tired. Ever since they took in Shuya she looked even more distressed. (It was in fact because she was on the one hand happy to see Shuya, but on the other worried his wounds might prove to be fatal, but this was beyond the scope of Yuko's perception.) Yuko felt like it'd been a while since she last saw Yukie so energetic, but now her face was beaming. Yuko felt as if a caterpillar was crawling up her spine. She had a bad feeling about this. Yukie stopped, put her hands on her waists, and looked around at everyone. Then she comically cupped her hands against her mouth in the shape of a megaphone.
Then she said, "Shuya Nanahara has arisen."
Haruka and Chisato cried out with joy while Satomi got up from her sofa, but next to her...
...Yuko turned pale. |
"Really? Can he speak?" Haruka asked.
"Uh huh. He says he's hungry too." Yukie nodded and then looked over at Yuko and said, "It's all right. I locked the door to his room so you wouldn't have to worry."
She wasn't being sarcastic. It sounded more like she was doing what she should do as the leader. But that wasn't the point, Yuko thought. No, actually she had considered it over and over last night. While she was certain he would never recover, what if he did? Then how would she deal with it?
And...then the odor drifted by.
What timing. They were about to eat. Besides...it wouldn't be that odd for a guy in critical condition to die suddenly, would it?
Yuko forced a smile (indeed, it was impeccable) and shook her head. "I'm not worried," she continued,
"I'm sorry. I was all screwed up yesterday. I won't hold anything against Shuya anymore." This seemed to relieve Yukie. She took a deep breath.
"Well then, I guess I didn't need to lock the door." She smiled at Yuko and added, "What happened with Tatsumi Oki was an accident. That's what Shuya said."
Hearing Tatsumi's name, Yuko had a flashback of that scene which sent another chill down her spine, but she managed to keep her smile and nodded. An accident. Well, I suppose it was quite an accident for Tatsumi Oki.
Yukie then said to Haruka, "Hey, Haruka, can you go get Yuka? There's something I need to discuss." Haruka asked back, "Shouldn't she be keeping watch?"
"It's all right," Yukie nodded. "The building is sealed, so we're fine. It'll be brief." Haruka nodded and entered the room leading up to the lantern room. You could hear footsteps clang up the steel stairs.
While Satomi and Chisato asked in succession, "How is he?" and "Can he eat the same stuff we're eating?" Yuko quietly stood up from her chair and walked over to the sink. There was a stack of several deep dishes right beside the steaming stew pot. Chisato and Haruka had taken them out of the dish cabinet.
Yuko dug her hand into her skirt pocket and touched the object inside. The weapon she found in her day pack was a telescoping spring baton, but what she now held was this item labeled "special bonus," the item she had thought was useless. Even after she was welcomed here she didn't think there was much point in mentioning it. But when Shuya Nanahara showed up she came up with this idea, so she kept it a secret.
In the past...her father's violence, his terrorization of the rest of her family, ended unexpectedly. That was how her family finally attained peace.
Now there was another threat. She had to put a stop to it. Once she did...she would be safe again. She wouldn't have to be terrified anymore.
She felt no hesitation. Oddly enough, she was calm.
She removed the cork lid of the tiny bottle inside her pocket with one hand. |
"Hey," Yuko called over to Yukie. Yukie, who was speaking to Satomi and Chisato, looked over at her. Yuko continued, "Maybe we should bring Shuya his meal first?"
Yukie beamed a smile at her. "That's a good idea. Let's do that." Yuko then added very casually, "The stew looks ready, so how about I start serving it up?" She held the dish. The dish.
"Sure—oh that's right," Yukie said as if she suddenly remembered. "You know, there's a medicine kit in the desk drawer over there. I think it has some painkillers. I should bring Shuya some painkillers with his meal."
"...sure." Yuko then let go of the dish. It clicked against the sink. "Okay. Hold on." The writing desk, equipped with a computer and phone, was across from the sink, in the corner of the room. Yuko made her way around the table to get there.
Clanging footsteps descended the steel stairs. Haruka and Yuka Nakagawa entered the room. Yuka Nakagawa had a short-barreled gun resembling an expanded automatic gun with an extended stock slung over her shoulder. (It was an Uzi 9mm submachine gun. It was Satomi Noda's supplied weapon, but because it seemed like the most powerful weapon they had, whoever keeping watch held onto it.)
"I heard Shuya's up!" Yuka said in her usual cheerful voice, placing the Uzi on the table. A little chubby and, thanks to her tennis team practice in the outdoor courts, tan, Yuka somehow managed to stay cheerful even in these dire circumstances.
"Yes." Yukie nodded happily.
"Well, you must be relieved, Representative," Yuka teased her. Yukie blushed a little. "What are you saying?"
"Oh, come on. You're beaming."
Yukie frowned and then shook her head. Suddenly realizing something, Yuka looked over at Chisato and fell silent. Chisato had lost Shinji Mimura, the boy she loved, and now she stared down at the floor. Yuko hardly paid attention to this exchange as she took the wooden medical kit she found in the desk drawer. She placed it on the desk and opened it up. It was stuffed with various kinds of medical supplies, gauze, poultices. The only things missing were the bandages, since they were almost entirely used up to treat Shuya Nanahara.
Painkillers... which one were the painkillers? Of course, it didn't matter. It didn't matter because...
"Wow, it smells great," she heard Yuka say, trying to change the mood. But she hardly paid noticed to that either.
Painkillers... ah, here we go. Right here. For headaches, menstrual cramps, toothaches...oh...come to think of it, my stomach's been aching. I'll take some later. After things settle down a little. That's right, once things calm down.
"So what is it?" Satomi asked Yukie in her slightly husky voice.
"That's right. What is it?" Haruka asked.
"Oh, right. Let's see, where do I begin?" Yukie said.
It was only when Yuka said, "Let's have a taste then," that Yuko suddenly looked up. She turned around...and saw Yuka lift the dish and put it against her mouth. She should have used the ladle if she wanted a taste. Instead she had to put her mouth against that dish, the one she'd sprinkled with the half-transparent powder.
Yuko turned pale. She was about to raise her voice...but it happened too fast. Yuka dropped the dish and the stew splashed against the floor with a crashing sound. Everyone looked over at her.
Yuka held onto her throat and coughed out the stew she had just swallowed. Then she coughed more violently onto the white table. Now the substance was bright red. The red splattered out in a circle against the white table and resembled the national flag of the Republic of Greater East Asia. And then she crashed onto the floor covered with stew.
"Yuka!"
Everyone—besides Yuko, who was speechless—cried out and ran to Yuka. Yuka balled up on her side and coughed up blood again. Her tan face became more and more pale. Red foam spilled out the side of her mouth.
"Yuka! Yuka! What happened!?"
Yukie shook her body, but the dark-red foam only continued to spill out the side of her mouth. Her eyes were open as wide as possible, as if on the verge of popping out, but now even the whites of her eyes were turning red. For some reason—inflammation or broken capillaries—dark-red and black spots began appearing all over her blue face, transforming it into the mask of some grotesque monster. But besides this, there was something else that was indisputable. It was obvious. Yuka had stopped breathing.
Everyone fell silent. Yukie's trembling hand touched Yuka's throat. She said, "She's dead..." Behind Yukie, who crouched down beside Yuka and Haruka, Yuko stood still, her face completely pale. She was shaking. (Of course it was very possible the other four were also in the same state.) Oh, how could this... this is all a mistake... how could... you only had a mouthful... how could it be this strong... I didn't...this is a mistake... I killed her... by mistake... it was a mistake... I didn't mean to...I wanted to get rid of—
"It couldn't have been from food poisoning...could it?" Yukie continued, her voice trembling. Chisato responded, "I... just tasted it. Nothing happened... this... could this be..." Haruka followed up, "...poison?"
That sparked it off. Everyone (to be more accurate, it was everyone besides Yuko, but the other four didn't realize this) looked at each other.
There was a thump. Satomi Noda had grabbed the Uzi and was now aiming it at the others. The other four, including Yuko, reflexively moved to the side or backed away from Yuka's corpse. Satomi screamed. Her eyes behind her glasses were wide open with fear. "Who!? Who did it!? Who poisoned this stew! Who's the one trying to kill us!?"
"Stop it!" Yukie yelled.
Yuko saw her hand reach for the gun (Browning High Power 9mm. This was Yukie's supplied weapon and because she was the team leader she held onto it) tucked in the back of her skirt. Yukie was about to move forward but stopped and stepped back. "Put your gun down. That can't be."
"Oh yes it can," Satomi shook her head. Satomi who always seemed so calm had completely lost control.
"The last announcement said there were only fourteen of us left. It's getting down to the wire. So our enemy's finally rearing its ugly head." Then she looked over at Haruka and said, "You were the one cooking."
Haruka shook her head violently. "I wasn't the only one. Chisato also..."
"That's horrible," Chisato said. "I would never do such a horrible thing! Besides..." She seemed to hesitate, but then she said, "Satomi and Yuko also had plenty of chances to poison the food."
"...that's right," Haruka turned back to Satomi, then hissed at her, "Aren't you getting a little too upset?"
"Haruka!" Yukie stopped her, but it was too late. Satomi was now completely upset.
"What was that?"
"That's right," Haruka continued, "First of all, you've hardly slept. I know. When I got up in the middle of the night, you were up. Doesn't that mean you don't trust us? That's proof, right there!"
"Please, stop it, Haruka!" Yukie pleaded. She was nearly shrieking now. "Satomi! Put down the gun!"
"Oh, please." Satomi pointed the Uzi at Yukie now. "Stop pretending you're the leader. So this is the act you put on after your plan to poison everyone goes awry? Is that it?"
"Satomi..." Yukie said desperately.
Yuko raised her hand up to her mouth and stepped back in a daze. Her body was numb from the sudden turn of events. But...she had to say it, she had to explain the truth...or else this...something terrible was going to happen.
Suddenly, Chisato moved...to the side table against the wall on the right side of the sink. There was the remaining gun—a Czechoslovakian CZ75. (It was in fact Yuka's weapon.)
The rattling sound echoed through the room. Chisato was shot in the back three times as she crashed against the side table, slid down, clutched onto its edge, and fell face forward onto the floor. There was no need to check... She was dead.
"Satomi! What are you doing!?" Yukie's eyes opened wide as she screamed. Her voice was breaking.
"Oh, please." Satomi held her smoking Uzi and glared at Yukie. "She went for the gun. Because she was guilty."
"So did you though!" Haruka screamed. "Yukie! Shoot Satomi!" With a clicking sound, Satomi pointed the Uzi at Haruka. Her face darkened. She seemed ready to shoot Haruka at any moment.
Yukie looked anguished. At that moment she had her hand on the Browning in the back of her skirt. After hesitating, she must have...intended to shoot Satomi's arm or some other part of her body. Satomi then quickly shifted the Uzi and fired...at Yukie.
Yukie was blown back with the rattling sound. Blood burst out of the holes in her chest and she fell backwards.
Haruka stood still for only a moment and then made a dash for the Browning Yukie had dropped. Satomi's Uzi followed her body and burst out, blowing off Haruka's side along with the fabric of her uniform. Her body slid against the floor.
The table was in between them now. Satomi pointed the Uzi at Yuko. She said, "What about you?...You're different, right?"
Yuko could only tremble. As she trembled, her eyes were fixed on Satomi's face. There was a pop. There was a hole on the left side of Satomi's forehead. She opened her mouth...and looked down at her left hand. Blood burst out of the hole in her forehead, splashing against the inside of her glasses. Then it continued to drip downward.
Yuko's neck moved stiffly like some gadget as she followed Satomi's eyes and found Haruka, her torso raised in pain from her fallen position, somehow still holding the Browning. Satomi's Uzi burst out. It wasn't clear whether she pulled the trigger intentionally or whether it was from her nerves twitching. Rows of bullets tore along the floor and pierced Haruka's body which got tossed over and back. A bloody mist burst upward, nearly tearing off Haruka's neck above her metal collar. Satomi's body fell forward slowly and landed with a thud over Yuka Nakagawa's corpse. She remained absolutely still.
Completely alone in the room, Yuko just kept on trembling. Her body was stiff as a rock. With the look of a child wandering into a freakish museum exhibition, she gazed at the floor covered with the corpses of five of her classmates. |
[ 9 students remaining ]
When he heard the shattering sound, Shuya just thought, oh, one of those clumsy girls must have dropped a dish, but when the sound was followed by an argument, he got up from his bed. He felt a sharp pain run through the left side of his stomach and his shoulder blade. Shuya groaned, but using his right arm he managed to get out of the bed and stepped onto the floor with his bare feet. He was only wearing his school uniform pants. The heated argument continued. He thought he heard Yukie shouting.
Shuya walked over to the door and put his hand on the doorknob. The knob turned and as he pushed...the door seemed blocked. Through the one-centimeter gap he could see a wooden plank diagonally set against the door. As Yukie had warned him, they had constructed a makeshift bolt lock. Shuya grabbed the doorknob and shook it vigorously several times, but the door wouldn't budge. He poked his fingers through the gap, but the plank, set against the door, refused to move. On the verge of giving up, he took a deep breath when he heard the all-too-familiar rattling sound through the gap. There were several screams.
Shuya turned pale. Were they being attacked...but if that was...in any case, something was wrong!
Shuya managed to keep his injured body from tottering over. He raised his right foot and kicked the door with the heel of his bare foot, using the front kick technique he'd learned from Hiroki. But the door easily spurned his kick, throwing him off balance. He fell back onto the floor and felt a searing pain go up his side. He also realized he needed to pee, but that would have to wait.
BRRATTA. More rattling. And then more BRRATTA.
Shuya turned back to the bed, stood up, and lifted the edge of the bed that was made of steel pipes with his right hand. The bed landed on its side with a thud and the blanket and sheets slid off. Shuya dragged the bed, pressed one end against the door, and went around to the other end. He then shoved it against the door with all his might. The door made a cracking sound. One more shove. Bang. Gunfire. This time, one shot.
The bed pummeled into the wooden door. The door bent in half with a crack and opened into the hall. Shuya yanked the bed from the front of the door with his right hand and let it fall against the floor. The typewriter-like rattling gunfire was now clearly audible through the open door. Shuya came out into the hall. The shades were drawn on the windows that had been nailed shut with wooden planks so the unlit hall was dim. The entrance was on his left. There were three doors down the hall on his right. The far door was slightly ajar, and light leaked into the hall, forming what looked like a cold puddle of light.
Shuya picked up one of the longer pieces of broken planks in front of the door, approximately one meter long. He dragged his aching body down the hall. It was completely quiet now. What the hell happened?
Did someone attack, or...
Shuya cautiously approached the door. He peeked through the gap and saw the room with kitchen equipment where Yukie Utsumi and Haruka Tanizawa were sprawled out by the center table. Beyond them was Yuka Nakagawa (what's up with that face!). Chisato Matsui was against the wall on the right. Someone was lying face down in the shadow of the table. That someone had to be Satomi Noda, because the relatively thin body standing still with her back towards him and silky, straight, shoulder-length hair belonged to—unless Shuya was mistaken—Yuko Sakaki.
There were several guns scattered around the collapsed bodies of Yukie's group. He was assaulted by the stench of blood splattered across the floor.
Shuya froze in shock. That overwhelming numbness was identical to the way he felt when he saw Mayumi Tendo's body right in front of the school.
What happened? How could this have happened? Yukie who had just said to him, "You might want to listen to the girl who's in love with you," was lying over there. Four others had fallen too. Were they dead? Did they die?
Yuko, her back facing Shuya, didn't have a gun. She was just standing still like a Venusian suddenly dropped onto Pluto.
Shuya was in a daze as he slowly clutched the doorknob, opened the door, and stepped into the room. Yuko turn around. She gazed at Shuya with bloodshot eyes, but then went for the gun lying on the floor between Yukie and Haruka.
Shuya also came out of his daze. He tossed the plank he'd been holding with his uninjured arm the way he'd pitch a perfect fastball in Little League. (He wasn't sure anymore whether such a game existed on earth. It seemed to take place on a distant planet in the remote Andromeda Galaxy where the inhabitants played this game using three arms out of five, although the use of one's tail was permitted in the final inning.)
His body suddenly ached all over, and he grimaced. The plank hit the floor right in front of Yuko and bounced up. Yuko stopped as she shielded her face with her hand and fell back onto the bloody floor. Shuya dashed for the gun. He knew that in this chaos Yuko holding a gun would only make matters worse.
Yuko shrieked and retreated. She got up, turned around, and ran to the other side of the room. She passed by the table and disappeared through an open door further down. There was a metallic clang. Were they...stairs?
Shuya gazed over there for a moment after she disappeared. But then he dashed over to Yukie and knelt down beside her.
He could tell her chest was ridden with holes. The blood was oozing out under her body already, and her eyes were shut peacefully as if she were sleeping. Her mouth was barely open—
She wasn't breathing anymore.
"Ahh," Shuya cried. He reached out his uninjured right hand to her peaceful face. He felt tears welling up for the first time ever since the game began. Was it because they'd just talked minutes ago? Or was it because of what she'd said:
"I just wouldn't know what to do if you died...Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you?" Her tearful but relieved face. Her melancholic face. And now her oddly peaceful face right beside him. He looked around. There was no need to check. Yuka Nakagawa's face had changed color. A bloody foam dripped from her mouth. Satomi Noda lay face down, a puddle of blood under her head. Chisato Matsui's back was covered with bullet holes, and Haruka Tanizawa...her neck was nearly torn off. How could...how could this be...
Shuya looked back at Yukie. His nearly paralyzed left arm supported his right arm so he could hold her up. It might have been a meaningless gesture. But Shuya had to do it.
As he held her body, he heard the blood dripping onto the floor from the holes in her chest. Her head hung back and her braided hair touched his arm.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Shuya burst into tears as they fell onto her uniform.
"Ungh," Shuya bit his lip and gently let her down onto the floor. He picked up the Browning Yuko had attempted to grab. He walked to the door at the far end of the room where Yuko had gone. His body felt incredibly heavy. It wasn't just because he was injured. He wiped his eyes with his bare right arm, which was also holding the Browning.
He entered. It was a cylindrical space made of bare concrete. The tower. This was the lighthouse. There was a thick steel column in the center and a spiral steel staircase winding around it. There were no windows, only a sliver of light from above.
"Yuko!" Shuya yelled. He began climbing the stairs as he yelled, "What happened, Yuko!?" Yuko wasn't there at the top of the stairs. But...he heard the sound of her scream "AIEEE" echo through the cylindrical space of the tower. Shuya knit his brows...and began quickly climbing the stairs. The wound in his side began to ache. He thought he might be bleeding because his bandages now felt damp. |
I'm all tangled up. I think about it all morning instead of texting Iris back. I zone out in more than one class, trying to figure out if I'm mad at her or not. I think about Paula's reaction to what happened, and it feels like an open door to doing the wrong thing. Why would Iris snitch on you?
Every time I replay last night's conversation in my head, though, I stop thinking about Iris altogether. I think about Paula every time I come back around to the talk we had—her forgetting her brother, her finding out that he was dead. Every time I think about her, I send her a check-in text. She doesn't respond. She's not in school and she's not posting on social media. Between classes, I ask Maryam if she's heard from Paula, and she says no.
"I haven't heard from her or Roya since yesterday," she says, tucking her hair behind her ears. "But I'm sure they're okay. We would have heard if they weren't."
I chew on my lip. "I don't know if Paula's okay. Can I tell you what's going on with her? I promise it isn't gossip."
Maryam purses her lips for a second. She doesn't listen to gossip. It's something that's important to her—a principle she stands by, no matter how hard it can be to navigate high school without tuning in to rumors. Ultimately, though, she trusts me enough to nod.
I tell her about Paula's lost memories of Drew. Her eyes go wide.
"That's messed up," she says softly. I nod, biting my lower lip. She pokes my chin with a manicured finger. "Stop it." I stop biting my lip, then immediately start again. Maryam rolls her eyes and pulls a dark red tube out of her purse. She holds my chin while she applies the contents to my lips with an expert hand. "If you don't leave it alone now, you'll have lip stain on your teeth all day," she mutters.
"Are we sure Paula's even in school?" I ask, trying not to let my lips touch while the stain sets. She shakes her head.
"I'm not sure who's here right now," she says. "That cop from the cafeteria has been pulling people out of my classes all day."
"What? Shit." I didn't notice it happening. I was too busy trying to figure out what my stupid feelings are, when I should have been paying attention to the goddamn police investigation. "Shit. Is Roya here today? You guys have bio together, right?" I ask.
"She's not here," she says, laying a gentle, magic-warm hand on my arm. "We usually have bio, but she's out sick or something. Don't worry about her."
"I'm not worried about her," I say, too fast. Mercifully, she ignores me. She keeps her hand on my arm, though, sending a wave of calm through me.
"Have you talked to Marcelina?"
My stomach twists with guilt. "Not for a few days," I say, and Maryam frowns at me.
"Are you guys fighting?"
"No," I answer truthfully. "I guess I've just been really distracted, and I haven't seen her since lunch the other day."
"When Iris went with the cop?"
"Yeah. That cop. I don't know, Maryam." The bell rings, but we both ignore it. All around us, people are hurrying, scooping up backpacks and shoving past each other to get into classrooms, but Maryam is frowning at me, so I don't budge. It's her "I don't know how to say a thing but I want to say it but what if you get mad at me for saying it" frown. It's a frown I've been seeing from her a lot lately.
"What's up?" I ask gently.
"You should talk to Marcelina," she says, her eyes sliding away from mine. "I think she needs you right now."
"Why?" I ask, but Maryam shakes her head.
"She's having a hard time," she says. "But it's not my news to share."
We hug each other tighter than usual and then head off to class. While the teacher hands out the day's worksheets, I sneak my phone under my desk and text Iris.
Meet you after school? Soccer field?
Her response is so immediate that I wonder if maybe she had her own phone under her desk—if she was about to text me again.
Yes yes yes.
I also text Marcelina, asking if she wants to hang out soon, telling her that I miss her face. She doesn't reply, because Marcelina never has her phone out during class. I still wait, though. I wait, and I fidget, and I try not to bite my lip.
At the end of the class, I turn in a blank worksheet. I don't even put my name on it. Roya's not here. Paula's not here. Something's going on with Marcelina. It feels like things are falling apart.
I just don't know why. |
I slip out of fourth period five minutes early by telling the teacher I need to use the restroom. She waves me off without a hall pass. I wait outside of Marcelina's class and catch her as she's walking out the door.
"Hey, are you okay?" I wince even as I'm saying it, but then again, Marcelina's never been one for subtlety.
"No. Definitely not," she replies. See what I mean?
"What's up?" We walk toward the senior lockers and I grab her textbooks so she can use both hands to open her sticky combination lock. She bangs on it twice with her fist before it pops open.
"I'm all fucked up, Alexis." Her voice is calm, but one of her eyes is twitching. She's hardly wearing any eyeliner at all, and she's only got four earrings in each ear. She looks like half of a Marcelina. "Like, really fucked up."
"What is it?" I hand her books over and she shoves them ungently into her locker. She braces herself against the shelves.
"I wasn't sure until this morning, but now I've definitely got it figured out." She looks up at me and I notice the heavy layer of concealer under her eyes. The thick makeup has settled into creases, making her look older than she is. "I can't forget anything."
"What?" I feel like I've misheard or misunderstood, like I missed a stair. "What does that mean?"
"It means," she says slowly, "I can't forget anything. I remember everything that's happened to me in the last..." She counts on her fingers. "Five days."
"I don't get it," I say. I move out of the way of her locker-neighbor. Marcelina slams her own locker door shut and spins the lock, and we start toward the cafeteria. She's walking fast, not looking at anyone we pass. Her eyes stay on the linoleum like she's watching for landmines.
"Normally you forget like... half the things that happen in a day, right?" she says, her voice low and urgent. I shrug. I guess I know what she means, although I never really thought of it that way before. "Well, I can remember it all. In like... really intense detail. Everything. Even my dreams, Lex. Not just the highlights, like when you describe a dream to someone and you jump between the good parts. I can remember every moment of every dream I've had in the past week. Every feeling. Every person who appeared in the fucked-up situations my brain invents while I'm asleep." She shakes her head hard. "All of it. I can remember all of it."
"Your—wow," I say. I think back over my own past five nights with a growing sense of unease. I haven't had a single dream. Not even the kind that I don't really remember but that leaves a lingering cloud of emotion for me to wake up to—not even that. "That sounds intense."
"Iris thinks it's the spell," she mutters. "She said that 'every action we take has a reaction, like ripples in a pond,' and that she can 'feel the ripples running back along the threads of the spell every time we sever one.'" She says it all in a perfect imitation of Iris's voice. The pitch and cadence are unmistakable: it's Iris's voice coming out of Marcelina's mouth.
It's eerie.
"Whoa," I whisper. "That was... interesting."
"I know," she says in her normal voice. "I guess when you can remember every single inflection of how someone talks, it gets easier to do impressions."
I loop an arm around her shoulder. "I'll talk to Iris, okay?" I tell her. I try to imagine what Maryam or Roya would say to make her feel better. Not to make her feel like things are solved, but to make her feel better about the fact that everything is messed up. "We'll figure it out."
"She's already trying," Marcelina answers, but her voice is a little softer. Her face is a little calmer. She bumps her hip into mine and almost smiles. "You don't have to fix it, you know. We're already working together. All of us."
Oh, I think. They've been talking about it. Without me. I try to push aside the pang of hurt. Of course they talk without me sometimes, that's what people do. They talk to each other without me sometimes. That's normal. It doesn't mean that they're excluding me. Be normal about this, I scold myself.
"I know," I lie, then redirect. "Are you okay?"
"No. I'm freaked out and I didn't sleep last night because I didn't want to remember my dreams all day. But... we'll figure it out," she says, echoing me in an exact imitation of my voice.
"Okay, but you can't do that voice thing. I can only handle so much weirdness in a day," I say, and she lets out a small laugh.
"That's the least-weird part of this whole thing," she says. "You're just gonna have to deal with it." |
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—" I hear Iris long before I see her. It's after school and I'm sitting in the grass at the edge of the soccer field, watching the endless practices. Girls' JV, Girls' Varsity, and Junior Leaguers all practice on various parts of our high school's gigantic field. I can never tell which team is which—unless my brother's one of the people kicking the ball. He's not at practice today, because of something to do with a chemistry project he's trying to finish at the last minute. As a result, I'm watching the various soccer practices with a kind of removed disinterest. It feels a little like watching waves crashing at the beach: there's movement and noise and things I don't quite understand, but I can spot patterns and pretend I get it.
Iris skids onto the grass next to me, still apologizing, and there it is again—that uncertainty. I know what the right way to respond is, and I also know how I could respond. I could give her the cold shoulder, make her explain. I could yell at her that sorry isn't good enough. I could do it, and then I wouldn't have to face my mistake. I could blame her.
But then I look up and see her stricken face, and my conscience kicks me hard in the gut. She doesn't deserve that shit from me.
"Hey, it's okay," I say, and I wrap my arms around her. "I'm not mad."
"Really?" She pulls back and wipes at her eyes, smearing mascara stripes across her freckled cheeks, and my conscience kicks me again for even considering lashing out at her.
"Yeah, really," I say, smiling. She smiles back, her relief palpable. "I get it. You were worried. It's okay. I didn't even get in that much trouble."
"I just... I didn't know where you were," she says, "and with the police around and everything. I was scared that maybe they were talking to you, or maybe..." She looks around and closes her mouth abruptly.
"I get it," I say. She's doing that thing where she's been going over what she should say all day, and my saying that I don't need to hear an explanation doesn't change the fact that she needs to explain. She doesn't need to do it for me, but for herself.
"Can we go somewhere else?" she asks. I raise my eyebrows, and she stands up, brushing grass off her butt. "I want to talk about stuff, but I don't want to talk about it here." Her voice is soft—she's not being the bossy Iris I know and love. She's being hesitant. She's still worried that she did something to make me angry with her, so she's being something less than what she usually is. I hate it. I hate that she thinks she can't be everything she always is, just because she thinks I might be mad.
And then I follow her eyeline, because even if she's being gentle with me, it's not like her to avoid eye contact. She's usually aggressive as hell about eye contact. I turn to look where she's looking, and I see what she's seeing, and then I want to leave too. Because it's the cop—the one with the short gray hair and the long nose. She's standing at the edge of the soccer field, maybe halfway across the grass from us. The sun glints off her handcuffs. She's got her arms folded, and I can't tell if she's watching the players or if she's watching us.
Either way, she's too close for us to talk about what we need to talk about. She's way too close.
We walk together, looking over our shoulders the whole time, and wind up behind the school in one of those spots that seems built for skulking. There are no windows looking out into this little alley between the classrooms and the chain-link fence that marks the boundary of the campus. Cigarette butts litter the ground, and there's a used condom just on the other side of the fence. I look away from the condom, but it lingers in my mind, bumping up against memories that I'd rather not relive.
"What's up?" I ask Iris. She lets her backpack thud to the ground.
"Okay," she says, and then she takes a deep breath and says it again. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay, so, something's going on."
I lean against the fence, bouncing against the chain link. "I know," I say. Iris gives me a confused look. "I mean, I know about one thing that's going on. Maybe it's not the same thing you mean? But I know about Paula and Marcelina."
"And Roya," Iris adds, and now it's my turn to be confused. She looks uncertain. "Did she not tell you?"
"Um, no?" There's my asshole-voice again. I don't know where this is coming from, this anger. I could let it trip me up, but instead, I cross my arms and just try not to feel embarrassed at my ignorance. I try not to wonder why Roya didn't talk to me about whatever's going on. I try not to wonder why she talked to Iris instead.
"Well, anyway, I figured it out this morning," Iris continues, blatantly ignoring the uncomfortable moment. She's not going to tell me what's happening with Roya, then. I usually really admire how Iris and Maryam both refuse to gossip, but right now, it's the most annoying thing about either of them. I just want to know what's going on.
"I went over some of my notes and I realized that there's a correlation between some of the—well, okay, let me back up. See, after I cast the spell on the, um." Her voice drops to a whisper. "The body? I felt like I was being pulled in a bunch of different directions. It's gotten a little better every day, and at first I thought that I was just getting used to it. You know, like. Getting stronger or something." She looks uncomfortable. "I guess I wanted to believe that I was growing, somehow. Getting more powerful. But then I started talking to everyone and I realized that every time I was feeling better, someone else was feeling worse." She clenches her fist as she talks, but her voice stays low. "And then last night, I got a text from Paula right after you guys got rid of the leg, and I realized that I wasn't just getting used to feeling bad. I really was feeling better. Because you got rid of one of the parts."
I shake my head at her. Poor Iris—she's so ambitious. The idea that she thought she was getting better when she really wasn't is kind of heartbreaking. "That doesn't make any sense," I whisper.
"It does, though," she says. "See, my magic is what's holding all the pieces of Josh separate. And it's a lot, you know? That spell was a lot. I'd never done anything like that before. It's... it's all of us, all bound together, stretching one spell to its breaking point to try to make someone disappear." She rolls her wrist across her hip, pushing a rubber band from her wrist onto her fingers. She stretches it out tight. "Like this but a million times more complicated."
"Okay, that makes sense," I lie.
"Shut up, no it doesn't, but just. Listen." She holds the rubber band up and stretches it as far as she can. "Here's what I think is happening. When you get rid of one of the body parts, my part of the spell is over, and the magic kind of... breaks. I can feel it. It pulls really tight, and then it snaps. And then the recoil hits us." She flicks her thumb, and the rubber band snaps against her palm. Her pale skin reddens immediately. "This is a really powerful spell, and it's connected to all of us, and it's super volatile. When one of us gets rid of a body part, I think we sever our connection to it. The magic breaks, and snaps back on us. I think we're all losing things because the spell is doing something to each of us every time we break part of it."
I shake my head. "That's never happened before," I say.
"We've never done anything like this before," she answers. "We've never... we've never killed anyone before." She can't look into my eyes, and I know what she isn't saying.
It's not that we killed someone. It's that I killed someone.
I used someone. I lied to him. I pretended that I was ready for something I wasn't, and I pretended to be someone I'm not. I took the part of me that knew I was only going to hurt myself by making myself do something I didn't want to, and I pushed it so far down that it turned into this. It turned into Josh being dead.
I used him, and I lied to him, and I killed him, and now all of my friends are dealing with the consequences. An awful thought occurs to me: What if my friends weren't helping deal with the consequences? What if all the losses weren't distributed across our group? If I had tried to use magic to get rid of the body all by myself... would that magic snap right back and kill me, too?
And is it worth it to risk that recoil if it means saving my friends?
I decide to think about that later. I can't put that on Iris. It's a decision I'll have to make on my own. But there is one thing I should tell her about, no matter what I decide. "There's something else that's been going on," I say, and she waits while I figure out how to explain it. "I think I've been... hurting people?"
"What do you mean?"
I tell her about the girl with the nosebleed in the cafeteria, and my bruise at the reservoir, and the blood that oozed from Gina's eye. I tell her about a half dozen other moments I've noticed—moments when I'm not sure if someone is just having an accident near me, or if I'm causing them injury somehow. "I'm not doing any of it on purpose. It's just kind of happening," I explain.
"Okay," she says. She tugs on one ginger curl. "Well, that makes sense, with all the tension."
"You think it's stress-induced?" I ask doubtfully.
"No, no, not like that. The magical tension. Maybe because you did the original, uh... thing?" I'm grateful that she doesn't say "murder." Iris doesn't usually mince words, but she's being gentle with me. She's being careful. "All of the magic that's being used to hold the body in pieces is pulling on me, right? Well, it's got to be pulling on you, too. And that recoil is probably hitting you really hard."
She pulls on the rubber band around her wrist again, harder this time than before. I flinch as it snaps against her skin. The place it strikes her turns red, but then she pulls the whole thing off and shows me the red mark it left on the opposite side of her wrist, where it dug into the skin as she pulled on it. She continues with her explanation, running a finger across the red welt the rubber band has left. "The tension and the recoil are both going to be hard on you, and something in that has to be making you do stuff by accident. I mean. That's all just a theory, but you've definitely got a lot of"—she gestures vaguely—"a lot of residual magic pulling on you. It looks like you're getting yanked in a bunch of directions all at once. Have you been hurting anyone on purpose, or is it like, when you're stressed and not paying attention?"
I remember how I tripped before hurting Gina. I remember giving myself the bruise while I was thinking about Roya, and watching the cop when that poor freshman got the nosebleed. "Stressed and not paying attention," I answer. "Definitely that one."
"Well, there you go," she says authoritatively. "The parts of the spell that are tangled up around you are tense as hell. It's snapping when you get stressed out, and it's hurting people around you by accident." I would be skeptical—after all, we don't really know how any of this works—but then, it's Iris. She's bossy and overbearing sometimes, but she's brilliant and she understands magic better than I do. And I trust her, and she sounds certain.
"I don't want you to feel like you have to have all the answers," I say, hesitant. "But we should try to figure out how to fix this."
Thankfully, she nods. "I don't think we can prevent everyone from losing things as they get rid of pieces. But we can keep your problem from escalating. For that, it just stands to reason that we have to get rid of all the pieces as fast as we can. There'll be consequences for the rest of us, but there were always going to be consequences for us. At least this way you won't, you know. Slip up." She nods, and I nod back, and with that, we agree to stick with the crappy answer for now.
"So what do we do?" I ask softly.
With a grim smile, Iris unzips her backpack and pulls out two gallon-sized ziplock bags. Each one contains one of Josh Harper's hands.
"What do we do?" she repeats. She drops the ziplock bags to the ground and then looks back up at me. "We make sure." |
When Pop and Dad met, Pop was trying to make it as a musician. He was the lead singer for a prog-rock band called WYLDFYR2. I guess they were supposed to be called WYLDFYR3, but the guy who printed their T-shirts messed up and they stuck with it. I've never known him to be anything but bald, but before I was born, he had long wavy hair down to his butt and these big hair-sprayed bangs. He wore eyeliner and stuck his tongue out a lot in photos. Dad met Pop after a show and told him that when you say "WYLDFYR2" out loud, it sounds like "wildfart" and Pop couldn't stop laughing and I guess the rest was history. Even though there are tons of pictures, I still have a pretty hard time imagining Dad at a show or Pop onstage.
Even harder to imagine? Pop drove a van. Technically, he lived in the van, although he also talks a lot about crashing on people's couches and doesn't like it when I say, "Pop lived in a van." The van had this amazing airbrushed mural on the side—it was a wizard standing on top of a mountain, doing battle with a dragon, and a half-naked Viking-god was riding the dragon. It was awesome. In the pictures I've seen of the mural, the wizard has his arms over his head and lightning is shooting out of his staff and one of his hands is holding a big fireball.
That's kind of how Iris looks now. She looks like the wizard, except instead of fire and lightning, she's got a thousand threads of magic. Honestly, I think she'd beat the wizard. I love it when she does this. Her magic is always really showy, so she doesn't do it all that often. She's the only one of us who can see her own magic, and I think it embarrasses her to use it in front of people. It doesn't really bother the rest of us to use ours, because we can't see how flashy it is, so it feels small and subtle and private more often than not. But Iris gets flustered. She sees something huge inside herself, and instead of embracing it, she looks away.
But when she does embrace it—man, it's awesome. Literally awesome. Not awesome like "cool" or "big" or "loud," but awesome as in, it puts me into a state of awe. Wonder. She circles her hands over her head and as she does it, blazing threads of white gather around her spread fingers like cotton candy. They cling to her arms too, sliding up around her shoulders like a bright mantle. Her eyes are bright white, and she watches her hands with her lower lip between her teeth as a fat spool of crackling white builds between them. When she's got exactly enough for whatever she has in mind, she lowers her arms in front of her like she's about to throw the spool of white power at the ground. But she doesn't throw it; she holds it there, like a ball of lightning between her fists. The magic is still, static. The air feels heavy. She twists her fingers just so, and the threads shift into some subtly different configuration. She nods, satisfied.
I wonder what it would be like if I could see my magic. Would I be able to do the amazing things Iris can? She has so much control, so much strategy, whereas I just kind of feel things out as I go. She can fine-tune so many little details, all because she can watch what the threads are doing before she uses them. But she's also obsessed, because she can see everything she makes.
Still, I can't help admiring both her obsession and her control. If I could see my own power, what could I achieve? What would I become?
Iris interrupts my train of thought by swinging both of her arms in a shallow arc, stretching her magic wide. Then she aims her power at the hands that are spread out on the ground in front of her, and she lets go.
Her magic falls onto the hands in a deluge of electric white. A wintry smell fills the air, like snow and ice and lightning. As I watch, the pink flesh of Josh Harper's fingers turns pale, then gray, then black. Goose bumps rise on my arms as cracks spiderweb across Josh's palms. Frost spreads across the ground between us. Iris doesn't stop until the hands are unrecognizable.
"Whoa," she says, staring down at the fruits of her labor. A sheen of sweat has broken out across her forehead.
"Are you okay?" I ask, and she nods. "Do you feel... different?"
"Not yet," she says. "But I'm not really done yet, am I?" She wipes her forehead and gestures to her backpack, which is closer to me than it is to her. I grab it and reach inside.
Textbooks. Notebooks. Her journal. Graphing calculator. A loose pen.
A hammer.
I haul it out. There's tape across the handle. Iris's last name is written on it in blue marker. "Is this yours?" I ask.
"It's my dad's," she answers. She holds out her hand, and I give her the hammer. She stares at it for a moment. "Well," she says to the hammer. "Here goes."
She crouches in front of the hands, lifts the hammer, and lets it drop. The super-frozen flesh of one hand shatters into a million pieces. She smashes the other hand, one finger at a time, and then she falls backward onto her butt with an oof.
"How do you feel?" I ask, and she takes stock before answering.
"Normal?" She shrugs. "I don't know. Better than I did a few minutes ago, to be honest."
I gingerly step over the pile of Josh-shards and sit next to her. We stare at the shattered flesh on the ground for a few minutes before I break the silence. "I'm sorry to have gotten you mixed up in all this," I say.
She shrugs again. "You're my best friend. I mean, you all are. I know every one of you would do the same thing for me." She looks up at me. "Hey, what about you? Have you noticed anything different? Missing?"
I nudge a half fingernail with the edge of my shoe. "Kind of," I say hesitantly. "I wasn't sure if it was anything. I mean, I'm still not. It might just be a coincidence. But..." I hesitate, and she nudges me, and I just say it. "I haven't had any dreams."
"Since when?"
"Since I buried his head in the woods. So... three days ago?"
"And you're sure that you're not just forgetting them?" She grimaces as she says it, knowing the answer already.
"I'm positive," I confirm. "It almost doesn't even feel like I'm sleeping. I just close my eyes and then when I open them again, hours have gone by."
"Roya can't cry," she whispers. I look up in surprise. "And you can't dream, and Marcelina can't forget."
I'm about to ask her about Roya—what does that mean? She can't cry? But my breath catches in my throat. I'm looking at Iris, but she looks... different.
"Iris." My voice breaks on her name. "Your freckles."
"What?" She frowns at me. "What about them?"
I swallow hard. I don't want to tell her. But she's going to see for herself soon enough. "They're gone."
Her face goes pale, and it's so much more drastic than usual because there's nothing, nothing at all, covering her cheeks. She grabs at her backpack and roots around inside it until she finds a compact. She opens it up and looks at her face in the palm-sized mirror.
She drops the mirror and uses her fist to muffle her own scream. "No," she says, "no, no, no, they can't—no, they can't be gone?!"
I'll admit it: my first thought is that she should calm down. I get that her freckles are important to her, that she's spent a long time learning how to love them. I get that they're basically her defining feature, and that her face looks completely different now and that's scary. I get it. But I can't help thinking that it's kind of a mercy, that she's only losing freckles when everyone else has lost things that are so much bigger. I immediately regret the thought: if my entire face changed, I would be freaked out too. But whether the thought is right or wrong, I still think that she's lost something smaller than everyone else.
But then she lifts a hand to her face. She's still looking in the mirror. Her hand starts to glow, and power sparks between her fingers wildly. She looks between the mirror and her hand, shakes her fingers. The magic grows until it's almost too bright to look at.
"What are you doing?" I ask her.
"I'm trying to fix it," she snaps. "But I must have drained myself freezing the hands. I can't get my... you know. I can't get it to go."
I squint at the bright nimbus of her hand. It's blinding. When I look away, spots dance in my vision. "Iris, what are you talking about? You're holding the freaking sun over there. Can't you—oh."
For the first time in our friendship, I figure something out before Iris does.
She can't see it.
She can't see it, and she's spent so long relying on seeing it that she doesn't know how to just feel it.
"Iris, stop pushing," I say softly. "You've got a lot of magic around you right now, and you're going to hurt yourself if you don't stop."
"No," she says, her voice cracking. "No, I'm—there isn't any—I'm not. I can't." She won't look at me. She's surrounded by a bright halo of magic, and she's pushing more out around herself every second, and not a single freckle has reappeared.
I reach over and gently, carefully, gingerly wrap my hands around hers. I close her fingers into fists and force myself to look into her starbright eyes. "You have to stop," I whisper.
Her magic fades, and she stares at me with wide, desperate eyes. I can't believe I thought, even for that brief moment, that she hadn't lost all that much. Even if she could still see her magic—even then, she would have lost something that tells her who she is, that helps her anchor herself.
Iris leans forward and her head drops onto my shoulder. I'm still holding both of her fists as she lets out the first sob. She shudders against me. She weeps on me with a desperate kind of loss I don't know how to contain; the only thing I can do is be there for her to lean against, so that's what I do. I hold her as she chokes on her own tears, and I watch over her shoulder as the pieces of Josh start to melt away. |
Roya slides into the seat next to me on Friday at lunch as if everything isn't broken. Her eyes are on the door to the cafeteria, where the gray-haired police officer is standing, watching the room. She makes a disgusted noise in the officer's direction, then grabs my burrito with one hand and a few of Iris's fries with the other. "I'm starving," she says through a mouthful of rice and beans.
"Me too," I say, and take the burrito back. She makes puppy-dog eyes at me, and I hiss at her like a pissed-off cat. "Eat your own lunch first, you vulture."
"Come on," she whines, half-serious. "I'm starving. I'm a starving athlete. I need your carbs."
"Get your own carbs," I say, holding my lunch out of her reach.
"She's desperate. Coach has been brutal lately," Iris says, dousing her fries in ketchup and getting some on Roya's reaching fingers. Her voice is flat in a way that sounds like more than just exhaustion. I search her face, which is heavy with foundation. She won't look at me.
"It's your last meet tomorrow, right?" Maryam asks, and they both nod. Iris looks a little sad about it, but Roya looks thrilled. She's an amazing swimmer, but she kind of hates being on the team. I think she'd like it if she were a little more passionate about it or if the coach were a little less passionate about it—but as it stands, she's ready to be out of the water. Still, it's her last meet, and we shouldn't miss it. "I'll be there," Maryam says. "Alexis, want me to give you a ride?"
"Sure," I say, even though I had been planning to walk. I know how to drive, but I don't have a car and I'm not allowed to drive the family car since an incident involving a closed garage door that I thought was open. I'm at the mercy of my friends to get me from A to B. It sucks, but also, it's nice to ride around with them. It's nice to have time together like that.
"Me too, me too, me too," Paula sings as she tosses her salad onto the table. Maryam rolls her eyes and throws up her hands.
"Fine," she says. "I'll drive both of you. But, Paula, you gotta be at Alexis's house when I get there. I'm not playing bus driver, okay?"
"Sure thing, Mom," Paula says sweetly, sliding into the last empty chair at the table and giving Maryam a squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. She's giving off greaser vibes today with her slicked-back hair, white tee, and boyfriend jeans; the moment her butt lands in a chair, Maryam leans forward and starts touching up her brows, muttering about how they need to be darker and fuller to complete the look. Paula sits patiently, but she peeks at me out of the corner of one eye and gives me a wink.
"I wish I could go," Marcelina mutters.
"It's okay," Roya says, wiping her ketchup-fingers on a napkin with a grimace. "We'll come by the Crispy Chicken after to give you the play-by-play." Marcelina smiles at her, even though missing the meet isn't exactly what's bothering her about having to work a Saturday-morning shift at the Crispy Chicken while the rest of us are cheering by the pool.
"I'll hook you guys up with curly fries," Marcelina promises. Her eyes slide from Roya to Iris, and they linger. Roya and I follow her gaze. Paula's eyes strain even as she tries to hold still for Maryam's brow touch-ups.
Usually, we let Iris be. When something's wrong, we let her decide when and if she wants to talk about it. We don't push her the same way we push each other, because she's got so many different levels of thinking and feeling and analyzing going on below the surface, and she has to sort them all out before she can talk about things. Most of the time, we let her come to us.
But this is bigger than the usual stuff she goes through. And we've all been exchanging glances and hoping that someone else would bring it up first. Marcelina is watching Iris eat french fries, and we're all watching Marcelina watch Iris, and nobody says anything for a long beat. Marcelina purses her lips and I can see her deciding that enough's enough.
She clears her throat. "So. Iris." She trails off awkwardly, then gestures to Iris's face. The foundation there is matte, thick, and heavy. She's not wearing any other makeup. She's just... hiding.
"We gotta talk about it," Roya says bluntly.
Iris picks up five french fries and shoves them all into her mouth, then makes a helpless series of gestures that translate to alas-I-can't-talk-my-mouth-is-full. It's a blatant Roya move to get out of answering, one that doesn't fit right on Iris. Roya can get away with using gross humor to deflect us, because it's kind of her thing. On Iris, it seems like a grotesque masquerade. Roya's brow furrows. She chews on her lower lip for a moment, then catches Maryam's glare and switches to chewing on a fingernail.
"We gotta talk about it," Paula echoes. Her voice is muted because Maryam still has a grip on her chin, but everyone hears her loud and clear. I try very hard to be invisible.
"I think so too," Marcelina says softly. "I think we have to talk about it because if we don't, I don't know what will happen, but I'm pretty sure I'll explode."
The bite of burrito in my mouth turns to cement. I swallow hard and pass the rest of my lunch to Roya. I know Marcelina didn't mean "explode" like how Josh exploded, but still. My appetite is gone.
And they're right. We have to talk about this.
Maryam releases Paula and raps her knuckles on the table. "Out with it, all of you. Enough of this. We don't keep secrets from each other."
"Fine," Iris says, her voice taut. "Fine. We'll talk about it."
She steeples her fingers on the table, not looking directly at anyone. She goes into tutor mode, neatly sidestepping the question of what's going on with her face. She explains the whiplash effect that she told me about the day before—the way that the magic is moving, taking things. Finally, when she can't talk around it anymore, she holds a hand out to Roya.
"Roya, take it off," she says. She grits her teeth as Roya grabs her hand. A glow suffuses their clasped hands, and then the thick foundation on Iris's face is thinning, thinner, vanished.
The other girls gasp. She doesn't look that different from how she looked with the foundation—maybe a little less orangey—but still. I don't think any of them really realized what she looked like without her freckles. I know I didn't, not until I saw it for myself.
She's blank. She's still gorgeous, but she looks empty—not just in that her skin is an unbroken expanse of cream. There's something missing in her eyes, too. She looks miserable, like she knows that the thing she loves most about herself is so far out of reach that there's simply no hope of retrieving it.
"Oh no," Roya whispers. "Oh god, Iris, I'm so sorry."
My fault.
The tears fall, but Iris holds her chin high, and when she speaks, her voice is steady. "It's fine," she says. "It's not fine, that was a lie, but... it'll be okay."
Paula looks at Maryam. "Can you... ?"
Maryam shakes her head. "I tried. I can't put them back. I can make them show up, but they fade right away."
Iris squeezes Roya's hand, then lets it go. "I, um. I should tell you guys about the rest of it too."
And then she looks at me. She's not saying anything, but her lips are white and her eyes are wide and her nostrils are flaring and I can see it, I can see the cost of saying it out loud. I can see the toll it will take on her. I raise my eyebrows and hesitate because maybe I'm misunderstanding—but then she nods at me.
"Please," she whispers.
I look around the table. "She can't see her magic anymore," I say. My voice is shaking. I make myself meet all of their eyes, make myself see their horror at Iris's loss.
"I'm going to have to relearn it all," Iris says. Her hands are knotted together in front of her, the knuckles stark white. "I'm going to have to figure out how to do it all without looking. I can't do anything right now, hardly. Last night I figured out how to warm up my hands, but I burned myself a little." She shows us a red patch on her palm.
Paula takes a deep, shuddering breath. "I lost my memories of Andrew," she says. She doesn't say that she'll be fine, and I'm oddly grateful that she's not trying to pretend it's okay. Roya and Marcelina look surprised. Maryam doesn't.
"I can't forget anything anymore," Marcelina whispers. "My head is so full. I'm learning how to deal with it, but... it's so much, you know?"
My fault, all my fault.
"I can't cry," Roya says. She says it casually as she's finishing my burrito, but she won't make eye contact with anyone. "I went back to the reservoir like we talked about, and I dove down and got the bag with the arm, and I got rid of it for real. With my magic. And then afterward, I was fighting with my mom because I got home after curfew, and I felt like crying, and I wanted to cry, and I couldn't. So I went online and found one of those videos that always makes me cry? And I couldn't. I felt all the feelings, but I couldn't cry." Her voice breaks and I wonder if she wants to cry now. "This sounds stupid. It sounds like it's not a big deal, but it feels like a big deal."
"I mean, if anything sounds like not a big deal, it's fucking freckles," Iris says, and everyone laughs, but Marcelina and Maryam both shake their heads at the same time.
"It's a big deal," Maryam says. "It's all a big deal. You all lost things." She looks at me. "What about you, Alexis?"
I shake my head. "It's not important."
"It's important," Roya says, and when I look at her, she's staring at me with eyes that would be crying.
"I think, um. I think I can't dream." I say it to everyone, but I'm looking at Roya. She closes her eyes for a second, and when she opens them again, they're still dry, and she looks stricken by it. "I go to sleep and it's like I close my eyes for a few seconds and then open them again and it's morning. And I can't tell if I'm tired or not? I don't know," I finish awkwardly. "I—I don't know."
We sit under the weight of all the things we've lost. We look at our hands and we look at our food and we look at the scratched surface of the table. We look at those little things, because it's too much to look at each other and see the magnitude of what's happening to us.
"This is so fucked up," Paula whispers. "This is really bad."
My fault, my fault, my fault.
"So what do we do?" Marcelina asks.
I straighten my back like Iris does before she says hard things. I clench my jaw like Roya does when she's being brave. I summon the certainty that Marcelina brings to every word she says. I imagine that I have even a tenth of Paula's courage and confidence. I will myself to speak with Maryam's quiet authority. If I can be anything like my friends, I can do this.
I can do this.
"Here's what you do," I say. "You give it all back to me. I know that I can't fix what you've all already lost, but I swear to god I wouldn't have let any of you help me if I'd known this would happen, and I can stop it from happening more, so. Give it all back to me, and I'll get rid of all the... pieces. On my own." I look each of them in the eye, making sure that they're listening. "I'll deal with whatever happens as a result. It's my mess, and I really appreciate you guys trying to help me clean it up, but it's hurting you. And I'm not going to let it hurt you any more than it already has."
They look at each other, then back at me. Maryam's got her hands folded in front of her on the table, neutral but still present, ready to be here for us. Her fingernails are silver today, and so is her eyeliner, and I know she must have been up late perfecting her technique to make them match so perfectly. It's comforting to see something beautiful that she did with her magic, just because she loves it.
That's what I think, instead of thinking about the thing I just committed to doing. I think of Maryam's fingernails. I can't be scared as long as I'm thinking of her fingernails.
Paula clears her throat. "No."
" 'No' what?" I ask, still watching the light play over the shining silver of Maryam's nails. There are little sparkles in the polish that I didn't notice before.
"No, I'm not giving you my piece," Paula says. Behind her, someone drops their lunch tray. People laugh and do the whole sarcastic-clapping thing, but none of us look. "It's mine. I took it and I don't have to give it back just because you say so."
"Me either," Roya says sharply. I look up to find her glaring at me.
"Same," Marcelina says. She pops a french fry into her mouth and levels a challenging stare at me.
"Yeah," Iris says. "I mean... I already did mine, but I wouldn't give them back if I still had them."
"You guys, come on." I try to make my voice sound like Pop's voice does when he's being lawyer-y, but it doesn't quite work. "This is hurting you. It's hurting you all so much, and it's not going to hurt you anymore. It's time for me to handle my mistake on my own."
"Fuck that," Paula spits. "We aren't going to let you kill yourself to protect us."
"I don't think—"
"Yeah, and screw you for thinking we would," Roya says, and she sounds just as mad as Paula.
"You idiot," Marcelina says. She gets up and stands behind my chair, wrapping her arms around me. She feels soft and strong and furious. "You big stupid jerk, why the hell would you even say something like that?"
I awkwardly squeeze her elbows, then extricate myself. "I don't think it'll be that bad," I say, and they look at each other like I'm being willfully ignorant.
"It would probably be that bad," Maryam says. "I mean, look at the combined effects so far. Imagine if just one person lost what you've all lost. Their old memories, their dreams, their tears, their ability to forget new things, and the person who they've come to understand themselves to be." She looks at Iris on this last note, and Iris's eyes turn glassy. "And that's only half of the changes," Maryam continues. "Whatever else happens... all of it together would turn you into a completely new person, wouldn't it?"
"It's like a Ship of Theseus," Iris whispers.
"A what?" Roya asks.
"Yeah," Marcelina says, nodding fast, excited. "Yeah, it's totally like that."
"What is that?" Paula asks.
"It's this thing," Iris says, looking at Marcelina for confirmation that it is indeed a thing, "where you have a ship, right? And you replace the sails, but it's still the same ship. And then you replace some of the planks, but it's still the same ship. And then you replace all the oars, but it's still the same ship. And then you replace some of the other planks..."
"But it's still the same ship?" Paula interjects dryly.
"Is it?" Marcelina asks, grinning. Paula's brow furrows. "It's like a thought experiment. When does the ship stop being the original ship and turn into a whole new ship? Is it when there's just one old plank left? Or two? Or three? Or is it the second you replace the sails?"
"I think I get it," Roya says. "So... we're all still us, even though we lost things. But maybe if Alexis took this all on herself like a big stupid idiot, she'd lose too many things, and then she wouldn't be herself anymore."
"Okay," I say, half-annoyed. "I get it, you think I'm wrong."
"We think you had the worst idea in the history of ideas," Marcelina corrects me. "We think you're the most wrong that anyone has ever been."
"But we still love you," Roya adds. "And we still want you to be you. Not whatever might be left of you after you try to take this whole thing on by yourself." She bumps her shoulder against mine, and I feel heat climbing my neck.
"This sucks and it's really hard, but we're in it together," Iris says, and her voice carries a firm finality that settles over the group like a thick fog. "Right?"
"Right," we all say, sort of together. I feel like I'm going to cry, so I reach out my hands and let a tiny spark of my magic go out to each of the girls in turn. It's not much, but it should give them a little bit of energy, a little bit of joy, a little bit of warmth. They each smile at me as they feel it.
"Besides," Iris says, "we're going to bring him back, right? Once we've gotten rid of all the pieces and the heart is beating again, we can bring Josh back, and then maybe we'll all get the things we lost back too."
"Oh shit, yeah," Paula breathes. "That might work, huh?"
"I don't know, guys," Maryam says, her brow furrowing. "It's not like bringing him back is going to undo what you did. It's just going to—you know what?" She interrupts herself, shaking her head. "Never mind. It could work. It could totally work."
"It could totally work," Marcelina whispers.
"It could totally work," Roya echoes. "And then we can all go back to normal. Now, do you think I have time to get another burrito from the burrito-lady before the bell rings?" As if to answer her, the lunch bell drones, and the cafeteria is filled with the sound of scraping chairs and sneaker-squeaks and voices shouting about where to meet after school. "Damn it," she mutters.
We all say goodbye, and a moment like this should feel fraught and tense, but it doesn't. It feels comfortable. It feels like things are going to be okay. Like they're really, actually going to be okay.
Although, I have to admit, I don't think I'll ever go back to feeling normal again.
Roya gives me a hug before she goes, and I can smell her hair and her body wash, vanilla and mint. My fingertips tingle. I squeeze her close, and she doesn't let go of me either, and for the space of a caught breath I wonder if maybe she wants to hang on as badly as I do. I wonder if maybe—
But then she pulls away, and she says "See you tomorrow," and then she's stepping past me, and her hair is brushing my shoulder, and something in my chest aches.
"See you," I call. I don't turn to see her go, because even though things feel okay—even though I know I'm not alone—I don't know if she's going to look back at me. I'm so scared that she won't look back. |
When I get out of my last class of the day, Paula is waiting for me. She's leaning against a locker with sunglasses on and a lollipop stick between her teeth, and she looks so much like Danny Zuko that I stop dead in my tracks and start laughing. She grins, which makes it even worse, and then she looks over her sunglasses and winks at me, and there are tears streaming down my cheeks by the time I manage to catch my breath.
"Are you grounded?" she asks once I've regained my composure.
"No, why?"
"Because I want to finish what we started the other day," she says. "Vis-à-vis the thing in my trunk."
"I can probably go. Let me text my dads," I answer, even as I'm trailing her out of the school and to her car. We stand outside the car with the doors open, letting the oven-hot interior air out for a couple of minutes. By the time it's cool enough to get inside without melting, I've already gotten a reply. Have fun, thanks for checking in, love you! from Pop, and Be home by ten from Dad. I send them a string of kissy-face emojis and we get into the car. Paula blasts the air-conditioning, and I buckle up and brace myself for another traumatizing ride.
"How'd today feel?" I ask, and she shrugs.
"Good," she says. "Comfortable."
"Think you'll do this one again?"
She shakes her head, hesitates, then nods. "Probably. I mean, I look handsome as hell." She waggles her eyebrows. "Don't pretend you didn't notice."
"How could I miss it?" I laugh, and she gives me another wolfish grin.
We talk about college, and about New York, and about whether she'll stick with female pronouns when she leaves our little town. We talk about State, and about the apartment I'm going to share with Roya and Maryam, and about how hard it is to believe that there are only three weeks left until summer.
"I meant what I said last time we talked about this. I'm going to miss you a lot, you know," she says, no grin this time. I put my hand on her shoulder and she clears her throat. "All of you guys."
"We're going to miss you too. But we'll come visit you in New York, and you'll show us Times Square and all the best restaurants and clubs and stuff."
"Yeah," she says with a small smile. "Yeah, that'll be great."
We spend the rest of the drive talking about how scary all of this is—how awful it is to be losing pieces of ourselves as we get rid of the pieces of Josh. It feels like we all just started really understanding who we are, and now that's all changing, and it's awful.
Talking about it doesn't make it better. But it's good to tell someone I'm scared. It makes it easier, knowing that I'm not alone.
We get to Barclay Rock and lapse into a heavy silence. Paula pops the trunk and hands me Josh's arm. We walk into the trees and find the tree trunk we sat on last time. Paula casts a net of magic out into the tree line, and then she spreads out a little blanket on the ground, and we sit on it and pick at the crunchy grass and wait.
"Do you think I can touch her this time?" Paula asks.
"I don't think that's a great idea," I answer. "She's a coyote."
"You touched her," Paula mutters. I glare at her and she holds her palms up. "Okay, okay, I was just asking."
When the coyote finally shows up, she pauses and smells the air for a full minute before approaching us. She looks a little less ragged than she did last time we saw her. A little less bony.
She sits near the edge of our picnic blanket and cocks her head. Her muzzle is brown, muddy-looking, and I wonder if it's dirt or dried blood I'm looking at. I hold out a hand and she growls, a low rumble in her throat, but she lowers her head and shoves it against my palm.
More meat for you and your pups, I tell her.
Why what smell who meat smell good meat why
I point to the arm, and she smells the full length of it before grabbing the wrist in her teeth and using it like a handle to tug the arm.
Wait, I tell her. Come back?
She looks up at me with golden eyes and drops the arm. She steps toward me and waits, her body tense.
I grab Paula's hand. Her fingers shift under mine, trying to lace into the spaces between my knuckles, but I turn her hand over so her palm faces down. Out of the corner of my eye I see her look at me, but I don't take my gaze away from the coyote.
Slowly.
Slowly.
Easy now.
Careful.
I lift Paula's hand to the top of the coyote's head.
As her fingertips land on fur, I let my thumb brush against the coyote's head. Still, stay still, it's okay, she's good, I say, as quietly as I know how to talk in this language that isn't talking. The coyote is unmoving, but rigid. Her ears twitch. Thank you thank you thank you, I say, and the coyote licks her chops, and I pull Paula's hand away. Her fingers twine between mine, and I can feel her trembling.
The coyote is gone before we can say anything else. She takes the arm with her. Paula lets out a long, slow exhalation. She's still got my hand in hers, and she's staring at the tree line with a look on her face that I've never seen before. She looks scared, and excited, and full.
"It's amazing, right?" I say.
"Yeah," Paula answers. "It's totally amazing. I tried to talk to her the way that you do, but I couldn't figure it out. It's—her fur was softer than I thought it would be?"
"Yeah, she's been shedding her undercoat a lot lately, and probably hanging out with her pups a lot, so she hasn't been out roaming around. But I didn't know she'd feel like that either," I admit. "I didn't know she'd be so small."
"I can't believe I just pet a coyote," Paula says, and then she doubles over laughing, the kind of breathless laughter that comes after you do something incredibly stupid.
"You did it, kiddo," I say, laughing with her. She sits up and looks at me, and the laughter on her face changes. The I-can't-believe-we-did-that grin softens. It turns into something that's still a smile, but different. It's between the two of us. It's a smile that's only for me.
I realize that she's still got my hand. Her thumb is tracing an arc from the back of my wrist to the inside of my palm. Her gaze flicks from my mouth to my eyes, and she bites her lip hard enough that if I were Maryam, I'd yell at her.
Part of me knows what's coming. And part of me wants it. We've been flirting for years, even during times when I've had a girlfriend and she's had a boyfriend, or the other way around. Part of me knows that it would be so easy, so nice. Part of me wants to make Paula happy. Part of me thinks I could be happy too. Maybe I could.
She leans forward and lifts her free hand to my cheek. Her fingers slide back across my cheekbone, along my neck, her thumb brushing my earlobe.
And then she's kissing me.
Her hand is in my hair, and her mouth is on mine, and our eyes are closed and I can taste the tip of her tongue, soft and a little sweet. She's kissing me, Paula is kissing me, and I'm kissing her back, and she shifts her weight a little and drops my hand and grips my waist and it's good, it's so good but—
It's wrong.
I pull back and keep my eyes closed. "I'm sorry," I whisper. It's the worst thing I could say, but it's also the only thing I could say.
"I'm not," Paula whispers. I open my eyes and she's a few inches from my face, smiling like she can't help but smile. She leans forward to kiss me again and I let her because I'm a bad person, because it feels good and because I like it a lot when she kisses me. I let her kiss my mouth, and I let her trail kisses along my jaw to my throat, and I press my lips to her collarbone. Because I'm weak. Because it's easy to give in when someone makes you feel good. And oh god, she feels good, and her hands and her mouth feel good, and her thigh is sliding between mine and her hair is in my hands—
But then my back is against the blanket Paula brought, and I have to stop because it's wrong. What I'm doing is wrong.
"I can't do this," I whisper against Paula's hair.
"Yes you can," she whispers against the bent-back cup of my bra.
"No, I mean—I can't do this," I say again. "I'm sorry. This is—"
She looks up at me, her thumb pausing just below the undone-button of my jeans, her hair tousled in a way that makes my breath catch in my throat. "Please," she says. "I know I'm not the one you want, but—I need this right now."
I take a deep slow breath, and my conscience battles with the feeling of her breath against me. I could do it. I could make this decision with Paula, a choice we both know is a bad one. Not bad because of what it is, but bad because of who it is. Her eyes search mine, and in that frozen moment, I can feel the tug of the wrong decision, pulling at me like a tide.
I could do it. I could sleep with Paula, and it would be great, and I wouldn't even start to feel guilty until the next time I saw the person I really wanted.
I could do it.
But I won't. She deserves better than that from me.
I scoot out from under her. She sighs and sits up, leaning her back against the tree stump and scrubbing her hands across her face.
"I'm sorry," I start to say, but she holds up a hand.
"Don't," she says. "I know."
"No, I—it's not you," I say, and I feel like a cliché, like an idiot. "Honestly. You're amazing, and I would totally—I would be so into this. I really would. But it wouldn't be right. I made this mistake with Josh." I bite my lip too hard, flinch, keep talking. The words come fast. "I think that using him like that, and lying to him about being okay with it, I think that's what made my magic go all crazy. I think that's why he died. And I wouldn't feel right about using you the way I was using him. I don't know if you would get hurt the same way, I mean. I don't know if you would get hurt physically? But it was wrong, the way I used him. Even if you would survive it, I couldn't do that to you."
"Yeah," Paula says. "I get it. I'm great, but I'm not her. This isn't news."
The words take a second to sink in. "Wait, what?"
"I'm not Roya," Paula says. She runs her hands through her hair and grimaces at the pomade that comes away on her palms. She wipes them on the dry grass at the edge of the blanket. "It's okay. I shouldn't have put you in that position."
I half smile. "It was a pretty decent position to be in," I say, and she lets out a grim laugh. "Wait, so—how do you know about me and... ? I mean, not that there is a me and Roya, but how did you know that I—"
"That you're fucking crazy about her?" Paula asks. "Are you looking for a reason other than 'It's the most obvious thing in the goddamn world'?"
"Yes... ?" I fidget with the blanket. "But we don't have to talk about it. Paula, I'm really sorry if I gave you the idea that—"
"You didn't," she says sharply. "I just... Things are really fucked up right now and I needed an outlet, okay? It didn't mean anything." I flinch, stung, and she revises quickly. "I don't mean it that way. I just mean—look, I'm not heartbroken that you said no, okay?"
I can't tell if I believe her or not. It would be so egotistical to think that she was desperately in love with me or whatever, but also, I don't want to go the easy route and take her at her word. I want to trust her, but I don't want to do the wrong thing if she doesn't really mean what she said. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. I hate this.
"Really," she adds, scooting closer to me and draping an arm around my shoulder. "I just thought you looked really hot and I was getting a little bit of a vibe and the coyote thing was awesome and I thought maybe we'd have fun. But I don't want to do anything that will leave you feeling guilty or messed up. And our friendship is more important than how great of a kisser I am." She plants a very wet kiss on my cheek, and I wipe it off on my sleeve, laughing.
"Are we okay?" I ask.
"I think so," she says. "Are you sure you don't want to make out just a little, now that we both know where we stand?"
I look over at her with no idea how to say yes I want that a lot but I can't because it would be wrong but I want to do that a LOT—and I see the wolf grin waiting for me. She cackles at the look on my face, and I shove her over. "You're an asshole," I laugh.
"You're fucking smitten." She cackles. "Holy crap, Alexis, you've got it really bad. I knew you liked Roya, but yikes." She wipes her eyes and props herself up on her elbow. "If I'd known you were this crazy about her, I would never have tried anything," she says more seriously. "I promise."
"I know." I stand up and hold out my hand. "Thanks for understanding."
"Of course," she says, taking my hand and pulling herself up. "And hey—Roya's going to be a lucky gal once you two finally make out. You're a damn good kisser, Alexis."
I blush so hard that she starts laughing again. She cracks jokes until we're a few blocks from my house. At the driveway, she puts the car in park and rubs the back of her neck awkwardly.
"Would, um... would you mind not telling the gang about what happened tonight?" she asks softly. "It was awesome and I'm not embarrassed or anything, but I don't want them to think I'm pining after you or anything."
"Of course not," I answer. "And... no weirdness. Between us, I mean. At least, not on my side of things."
Paula cups my chin in one hand and presses a gentle kiss against the tip of my nose. "I know," she says. "I might be sad for a minute or two, but... no weirdness."
"Hey, Paula?" I ask.
"Yeah?"
"What do you think you lost this time?"
She looks blank for a second before she remembers. She forgot. I did too—we both got so caught up that we almost forgot about what we've been losing of ourselves. "I don't know," she says. "I'll find out, though."
"I hope... I hope it's not too bad," I say softly.
"It'll be fine," she says, giving me a tiny smile. "Whatever I lose, there's no way it'll be as bad as what I lost last time. And besides, it's only temporary. We'll bring Josh back, and I'll remember my brother again, and you'll dream again, and we'll all be fine. It'll be over before we know it, yeah?"
I nod. Dreaming again. I don't think I realized how much I missed being able to dream, but I find myself tearing up at the idea of getting my dreams back. "Yeah."
"Yeah." She ruffles my hair. "Now get out of my car."
"Love you," I call out over the squealing of her tires, and she throws a hand out the window. Her pinky, index finger, and thumb are outstretched in the sign-language symbol for I love you, and my heart swells with our friendship, and what could have happened, and the reasons why it didn't happen.
It's totally obvious, she said. I can't help but wonder if it's that obvious to Roya, too.
I head inside and slip into my room without getting intercepted by anyone. I tug the backpack out from under my bed—the one with the heart in it. I unzip it slowly. Part of me doesn't want to check on how it's doing. But I haven't looked at it since before Iris got rid of Josh's hands, and I hadn't realized that Roya had taken extra measures with the leg she dropped in the reservoir, and now Paula and I have taken care of the other leg—if getting rid of pieces of Josh is bringing the heart back, I figure it'll be obvious by now.
As soon as I unzip the bag, I know I'm right. The heart inside isn't quite flesh, but it's softer than it was last time I touched it. It's cool to the touch, like Maryam's hands first thing in the morning.
I cup it in my palms. It's still heavy, but lighter than it was the last time I held it. It beats and the sudden spasm is startling, nothing like the soft, occasional throbs of the morning we all tried to bring Josh back. The way the heart moves now—once every thirty seconds or so—is so violent and visceral that I almost drop it. The whole thing jumps in my grip. It feels wrong to put something so clearly alive back into the backpack, but I do it anyway. Between heartbeats, I lower the heart carefully into the bag. I zip the backpack shut and push it under my bed.
It's working. We're getting rid of pieces of Josh, and his heart is coming back. If we do this right, everything will go back to being the way it was.
If we do everything just right, the whole plan will work.
I lie back on my bed and try not to listen for the sound of the dead boy's heart beating underneath me. |
On saturday, a barefaced Maryam pulls up to my house in her brother's spotless car. It's already sticky outside, the kind of warm early-morning air that portends either a thunderstorm or a hellaciously hot afternoon. I'm in a tank top and shorts, and I'm still plucking at the fabric where it sticks to my back and thighs. "Paula texted me a couple of hours ago," she says as I slide into the front seat, the bare skin of my legs squeaking on the leather. "She's not feeling well."
"Hope she's all right," I mumble, avoiding eye contact. "You doing okay? You're naked." I gesture to her face.
"Fine. Just indecisive today." Maryam grabs one of two metal thermoses out of the cupholders between us and hands it to me. I take a sip—it's iced tea, I think, but it's cool and squashy and weirdly sweet, and I can't tell if I love it or hate it. I hold it up and give Maryam a what-the-hell-is-this face.
"Cucumber strawberry mint iced tea, I think?" She shrugs. "I don't know, my dad's been on a Pinterest binge lately. He told me to have you try the tea so I could report back. He thinks I'm being 'unfairly critical of his efforts.' " She drums her fingers on the steering wheel, fidgets with her earrings.
"What happened?" I ask.
"Last night he made miniature quiches in a muffin tin and I told him my opinion."
"How'd they turn out?"
She gives me a look. "Wet."
I offer a sympathetic grimace. Maryam's dad has been on a journey into the world of creative cooking for a few years now. Sometimes he succeeds. Other times he has what he calls "learning experiences." Lately he's been doing a lot of "learning." I sip the tea again. "It's... good, I think? It's different. It's good."
"I'll tell him you said so," she says grimly. She turns into the school parking lot, which is already crowded with minivans and SUVs. She pulls into a space, cracks the windows, and turns the car off. She flips down the mirror on the driver's side, pursing her lips at her reflection. "I can't decide what to do. I was almost late coming to get you because I kept putting different colors of liner on and then deciding they were wrong."
"Want help?" I ask, and she tugs at her earring again, considering her reflection.
"Mmmmm... yes," she says, and I nod. We both unbuckle our seat belts and turn to face each other. I settle my tea in the cupholder and hold out both hands. Maryam rests her fingertips on mine and lets out a long, slow breath. She closes her eyes. "I feel lost," she starts, and then she's off. It's something we've done for years, since our shared drama class where the teacher made us do all these bonding, trust-fall types of exercises. I think the teacher secretly wanted to be a guidance counselor. None of us came out of the class wanting to be thespians, but it was a good class. It taught us how to listen to each other.
I can't give Maryam advice on how she should do her makeup—that would be like Nico trying to give soccer tips to Mia Hamm—but I can listen while she figures things out for herself. She talks about the different colors she tried, and how they all felt too juvenile, too trendy, too pop-star. She talks about how everything looks the same after a while. She talks about how worried she is for all of us, that this thing we're trying to do will break us or change us into people we don't want to be. She talks about trying to find a new line so her brows will feel interesting, and feeling stuck in the same looks she's been exploring for years. Maryam isn't telling me what she wants her face to look like—she's telling me how she feels now, and how she wants to feel when her makeup is on.
After a few minutes, she lets out another big breath and she opens her eyes. I sit quietly, keeping my face as neutral as possible. She looks at me for a long time, then nods. "Okay," she says. "I think I know what I'm gonna do." She smiles at me, and as she does, magic washes across her face like the glow from a flashlight. This is Maryam's magic: subtle and suffusive and luminous. Her lips go dark, plummy, and a gradient of grays spread over her eyelids. Her brows fill in, sculpted and long, higher and thinner than usual. By the time she's finished, she looks like an older version of herself—regal. Imperious. She doesn't check her work in the rearview mirror; instead, she looks at me. "What do you think?"
"Brilliant."
She smiles, a tucked-in kind of smile that gives her deep dimples. "I know." |
The swim meet is already in full gear by the time we walk into the pool complex. It's open-air, but surrounded by high concrete walls so that people can't get drunk and sneak in and make out in the pool at night. The pool is enormous and blue-bottomed, with long strings of white buoys separating the water into lanes. The crowd is a sea of swim caps and sun hats, goggles and sunglasses. A long line snakes away from the tiny concession stand, where a student volunteer is selling Costco snacks and off-brand sodas to the families of the competitors.
Maryam and I climb all the way to the top of the bleachers, where we won't get splashed by swimmers or deafened by overzealous swim-moms shouting encouragement to their kids. We look for Roya in the crowd—it's hard to tell the swimmers apart when they're all wearing caps and goggles, but she always stands out. To me, at least.
"There," I say, pointing, and Maryam stands up to wave. She flings both arms over her head and flails them around, trying to get Roya's attention. I cup my hands around my mouth and shout "GOOOOOOOO ROYAAAAAAAAA," and half of the people in the complex turn around to stare at us. It's worth the dirty look I get from the swim-dad in front of me, just to see the way Roya's head tips back as she laughs at us. We cheer until she does a strongwoman pose for our benefit, her arms flexed in different directions to show off her biceps and triceps, which are rippling from the grueling hours of extra practice she's been through in the past few weeks.
The coach points at Maryam and me and gives us an over-the-sunglasses death glare. We shut up before our hollering gets Roya in trouble. Her smile doesn't fade even as the coach leans in and says something to her—probably telling her to keep her head in the game and not let her weirdo friends distract her. She's only got one event at this meet, and I'm sure the coach wants her to make it count.
Maryam slides on a pair of huge sunglasses and leans her back against the railing behind us. Her brows arch over the top of the enormous dark glasses. She looks like a movie star. I tell her so and she flashes that deep-dimpled smile again. "Thanks for listening to me in the car," she says. "It helped a lot. You're a really good listener."
It's hard to tell because of the sunglasses, but I feel like she's staring at me. She's talking like there are layers of significance to her words, but I can't begin to untangle what they might be, so I pretend not to notice. "Anytime."
A whistle sounds and a group dives into the water. We watch them, even though neither of us can really tell what's happening under the white froth of the water, and we can't tell who any of the swimmers are, and we don't really even know what they're trying to accomplish other than go fast and don't drown.
"You know I'm always happy to return the favor, right?" Maryam asks as the swim-dad in front of us stands up, blocking our view. He's shouting something about shoulders. Does he think that his kid can hear him in the water?
"Yeah," I say, but I don't look at her because I don't know. I mean, I know she would listen if I asked. She would listen to me talk about whatever I need to talk about. I know she would probably give me good, kind advice.
But I don't know if she'd be happy to do it. Maybe it would just be annoying to listen to me complain. I don't know if it would burden her—or any of my friends—to hear about my insecurities, my worries. Aren't I already asking enough of them all? They're hiding a body for me. I can't help but feel like I should deal with my emotions about it on my own. And if that's hard, well... don't I deserve to be alone with it? With what I've done? With what I feel?
But that's a lot to say to someone, and if I told Maryam I was feeling that way, she'd probably try to comfort me, and that would just make it worse. So I say "yeah" one more time and stare at the chipped hearts on my fingernails.
Maryam looks at me and opens her mouth like she's about to say something, but she's interrupted by another loud whistle and swim-dad's defeated groan. The bleachers shake and rattle with the footsteps of people going down to the pool to comfort or berate swimmers.
"Excuse me."
I look around Maryam and realize that the rattle of our row of bleachers wasn't an overinvolved parent. It was Gina Tarlucci, walking along our row. She has a long lens on her camera—she's probably here to take pictures for the yearbook. Her dress is green with white flowers, and her hair is in some kind of 1940s-ish style that would make Paula's jaw drop if she saw it. Maryam tucks her legs to one side to allow Gina to pass, but instead, our row rattles again as Gina steps down to the bench in front of us. She plops down onto the spot where swim-dad was sitting until a moment before. She looks pissed.
"Are you in on this whole thing too?" she asks Maryam.
Maryam looks at me, inscrutable behind her movie-star sunglasses. I shake my head. "No, Gina, she doesn't have anything to do with any of your crazy conspiracy theories. Please leave us alone."
Gina drums her nails against the metal, and the sound echoes across our section of the bleachers. "Well, does she know what you are?" she hisses.
"I don't care what she is," Maryam says smoothly, looping her arm through mine. There's a note of warning simmering in her voice. "She's my friend."
"Oh, are you sure about that?" Gina's eyes narrow and she looks at me with such hate that my heart jumps. "Because you might like to know that she's a—"
"Enough," Maryam growls, her fingers tight on my arm. She whips off her sunglasses with her free hand, then leans forward and looks into Gina's face. Maryam's eyes spark with furious fire. "That is enough. I will not tolerate whatever hateful garbage you think you have to say. Alexis asked you to leave us alone, because she is a good and kind person. I am not asking you to leave us alone." Her voice is low and dangerous, and the colors on her face are sharpening with every word. The shadows under her cheekbones seem to grow a little deeper. Her eyes flash, not with anger, but with the light of growing magic. "I. Am. Telling you."
A breeze ripples between us, and Gina bolts upright. She's gone before Maryam's got her sunglasses all the way back on. She shoves someone aside to tear away down the bleachers. The wind continues behind her, pushing at her back, whipping her hair into her face.
I notice that the people she passes don't seem touched by even the slightest of breezes.
I look at Maryam. She's back in movie-star mode, her face exactly as still and unreadable as it was before Gina showed up.
"Did you do that, just now?" I ask Maryam. She gives a single nod, pursing her lips. "You can do wind?"
"I try not to," she mutters. "But sometimes when I get angry..."
"Remind me not to mess with you," I intone.
She looks at me over the top of her sunglasses in an uncanny impersonation of Roya's swim coach. "If you don't know that by now, I can't help you," she says sternly.
I laugh and give her arm a squeeze. "You're amazing. That was amazing. I can't believe she thought you didn't know—or that she didn't think you were also—that was amazing."
"You can tell me, you know," she says.
"What?" I can't see enough of her face behind the sunglasses to know if she's even looking at me.
"Whatever it is that Gina was going to say."
"What do you mean?"
"You're entitled to your privacy," she says softly. "But I'm here to listen, and I'll still love you no matter what. You don't have to be worried that I'll, I don't know. Disapprove. Or whatever."
The bleachers are digging into my thighs and I shift, but I can't get comfortable. "I'm pretty sure she was talking about magic."
Maryam purses her lips. "What else, though?"
"I mean... you know everything about me. Pretty much everything."
She's still not really looking at me. "I don't," she says. "I know the stuff you tell me, but there's stuff you hide, too. And that's okay. I'm not hurt or anything." I don't know if I believe her. She says that she's not hurt with a breeziness that rings false. "I just want you to know that you're not the only one who can listen."
"I know you can listen," I tell her. "I just feel bad. I keep making you guys listen to my problems and clean up my messes and it's not fair to you, you know? I'm starting to think maybe I should just turn myself in."
There's another shrill whistle-blast. Swim-dad stomps back up the bleachers. He sits in front of us with his arms crossed, shaking his head. I wonder if his kid even likes swimming. He adjusts his cap, blocking my view of the pool. But then his elbows drop, and I look down to the water, and there she is.
There's Roya.
She's standing behind one of the starting blocks, shaking her hands out by her sides. She squeezes her fists tight, then shakes out her fingers three times, then rotates her wrists, then starts over from fists. She's nervous. It's her only event at her last meet and she's nervous.
I want more than anything to send the thinnest thread of magic her way, just something to say that I'm here and it'll be fine and she's going to do great. Just a little warm touch, the kind we all send each other all day long, checking in, making sure everyone knows that they're not forgotten and not alone. But she'd be furious—she made us all promise a long time ago that we'd never, never help her at meets. Even though I wouldn't even know how to use magic to help her swim, just the act of making her less nervous would probably count. She doesn't want any interference, and that means no magic at all, not even her own. She doesn't love swimming, but still—she wants to be amazing in her own right.
Not that she needs help.
She climbs onto her starting block and bends to grip the edge. My chest aches at the sight of her. I know that this event is the 100-meter butterfly, because that's all she's been talking about for a month. That's pretty much all I know about it, and that largely describes the end of my knowledge about the sport as a whole. I'm not a great swimmer. I can mostly just keep myself alive in the water and make my way across the reservoir. Roya, though—she might not use her power for help, but she doesn't need it. What she does in the water is its own kind of magic.
When the whistle blows, she shoots off the starting block like a finger of lightning jumping from one cloud to another. Her entire upper body arcs up out of the water, her arms meeting over her head and then driving powerfully backward. She moves through the water like a torpedo. When she kicks off the wall of the pool and turns around before anyone else has finished even half of a lap, I let out a whoop that makes swim-dad jump and turn to look at me. I ignore him, standing up to cheer.
She wins. Of course she wins—she's Roya. She's incredible.
Maryam and I yell ourselves hoarse, but we don't go down to congratulate Roya. Not now. She hates being talked to right after she swims. I did it once at the beginning of sophomore year, her first year on the team: I ran right up to her to congratulate her, offer a high five, and ask how it felt to kick so much ass. She was glassy-eyed and panting, her cap clenched in one hand, her hair in a tight braid that hung over one shoulder. I can still picture how the tip of her braid was dripping—I was surprised because I always thought the swim caps were there to keep your hair dry. She had goggle-lines around her eyes, and I remember being startled by the impulse to reach up and smooth them.
"You were amazing." I remember how I said it breathlessly, even though I hadn't been out of breath a second before. She looked at me like she didn't recognize me. She'd apologize later—explain about the adrenaline, the oncoming energy-crash, needing time to shake off the intense focus of an event. It was a perfectly sensible boundary for her to set, but at the time, I was stung. It was the first time I'd felt such a strong urge to be seen by someone, and at the time, she didn't seem to want to look at me.
"So," Maryam says as I sit back down.
"She killed it," I breathe.
"Yeah," she says. There's a heavy silence between us.
"Do you know when Iris is up?" I venture.
"Not sure," Maryam says. "I haven't spotted her yet." Her hands are shoved into the big pocket on the front of her hoodie, so I can't see if they're in fists or not, but her voice makes me think they probably are. I lean my shoulder against hers and try to decide if I should ask her what's up or if I should just give her space.
Before I can make up my mind, she huffs out a little breath and shoves me off her. I look over, startled. She's taking off her sunglasses. Her eyes are narrowed and she's looking at me like I'm an impossible derivation on a calc worksheet. "This week has been really hard on everyone," she says.
My stomach immediately clenches with guilt. "Yeah, I know," I say, "and I'm really—"
"No," she says, slicing her hand through the air. It's another of her mom's gestures, one that means you'd better shut up before you get yourself in even worse trouble than you already are. "Don't apologize. I've had enough."
"What do you—"
"I've had enough of you sitting there and feeling bad because all your friends love you," she snaps. "Just now, when you were cheering for Roya? It was the only time this whole week I've seen you look something other than guilty for your friendships."
"But—"
"No!" She slices her hand through the air again, and I feel like I've been caught sneaking in past curfew with a hickey on my neck and a bottle in my pocket. "We all love you, okay? Your friends all love you, and it doesn't matter if you think you deserve it or not because we love you anyway. You think it isn't fair to let us love you and help you? I'll tell you right now: the way you've been mooning around feeling bad about our friendship isn't fair. It puts the onus on all of us to make you feel okay about the fact that we're helping you and it isn't fair. And it would be incredibly stupid and insensitive of you to turn yourself in. Doing that? After everything those girls have sacrificed to keep you safe? Just because you don't think you deserve their friendship?" She shakes her head at me. "Honestly."
She huffs out a short, sharp breath. A couple of people near us have turned to stare. She got pretty loud by the end there. My eyes burn and my vision blurs and I feel my chin buckle in that little-kid way I hate. Maryam is still glaring at me. She's quiet for long enough that I think I'm allowed to talk. "I'm really—"
"And another thing," she interrupts. "It's really messed up that we all have to go around pretending that we don't know you're in love with Roya, and it's really extra messed up that you don't think you can tell me about it!"
With that, she shoves her sunglasses back on, crosses her arms, and turns back to the meet. Tears spill down my cheeks, but they're nowhere near as hot as the shame that roils in my gut. I look over at Maryam, then down at Roya, standing by the pool with a towel draped over her shoulders. "Did Paula tell you?" I whisper.
"What?" Maryam snaps.
"Paula—did she tell you about how I'm... how I... Roya." I can't look at Maryam, so I keep watching the way Roya's long wet braid is dripping over her collarbone.
"No. You talked to her about it, but you wouldn't talk to me about it? Who else? Gina Tarlucci?" She sounds like a pot of water that's on the edge of boiling over.
"No—never Gina, I don't—no. But Paula talked to me about it," I mutter. "The same way you did, pretty much. Although she was a little less mad at me."
Maryam sighs, a big exhausted kind of sigh. She takes her sunglasses off again, tucking them into her pocket this time. "Look," she says, then goes quiet for a while. She seems so tired. Two whistles blow before she continues her sentence, but I don't dare interrupt. "It's just that there's only a few weeks until the end of school, and then summer is going to go by really, really fast, and then we're all moving in together at school, right?"
"If you still want to." I hate how petty and insecure I sound.
"So, are you really going to bring all of this with us? The pining and the meaningful glances and the frankly unbearable chemistry between you two? Because I don't want to have to clean up after the elephant."
"The what?"
"The elephant that's in the room any time you two sit next to each other," she snaps. I laugh before I can stop myself. She tries to look stern, but she laughs too, then wraps an arm around me and squeezes my shoulders. "You gotta do something about it," she says. "You can't keep torturing all of us like this."
"I will," I say, leaning into her. "I'll do something about it. I promise."
Maryam spots Iris and we cheer for her in the 200-meter freestyle. She and one other swimmer finish at what looks to me like the exact same time, and there's some seriously poor sportsmanship on display from the other team as the coaches argue. Iris pinches the bridge of her nose to wait it out. In the end, they call it a tie. Maryam and I both boo, earning another dirty look from swim-dad.
I stifle a giggle, then nudge Maryam with my elbow. "So. Do you really think we have chemistry?"
Maryam rolls her eyes. "Are you seriously asking me that?"
"Yeah." I bite my lip, then stop before Maryam can catch me at it. "She's been kind of distant lately."
"Like, since prom?" She's tapping her fingernails, idly changing them from green to pink to blue.
"Yeah."
Maryam raises her eyebrows. Her mouth drops open into an O. She turns to me and lowers her voice to a barely audible whisper. "I wonder if... Do you think that could have anything to do with you trying to sleep with a boy you don't even like and then her having to lie to her chief of police mom about the fact that she knows exactly what happened to him? While also losing pieces of herself for reasons she doesn't understand and can't predict?" She manages to maintain a straight face for long enough that I'm not sure she's making fun of me until she starts chewing on her bottom lip and says, "I don't know, maybe you're right and she's acting strange because she hates you."
"Okay, I get it." I laugh. "I'll talk to her." The final whistle blows, marking the end of the last event, and the bleachers start to empty almost instantly.
"You'd better," she says. "Or else I'll yell at you again."
"I don't think I can survive another dose of Maryam Realness," I say to her back as she starts off down the bleachers. I stay where I am for a minute longer, pretending to collect my bag.
Really, I'm just standing there, watching as Maryam makes her way to where Iris and Roya are waiting.
She passes the gray-haired cop on her way down. The cop is talking to someone who's impossible not to recognize, even from a distance. She's talking to Gina Tarlucci.
As I look, Gina says something, and they both look up at the bleachers. They look right up at me.
I force myself to look away. I dig my phone out of my pocket and pretend to be taking a picture of Roya and Iris, down by the pool. They're both wrapped in towels, their goggles hanging around their necks. Iris still has her cap on. She looks so pale without her freckles that it takes me a moment to realize it's her—but then she looks up at me, standing there in the bleachers, and she sends a single gossamer thread of magic up to me. I feel it brush against my ear, cool as a drop of water, and I lift my hand to wave at her. I take the picture and put my phone away.
When I look over, Gina is gone, but the gray-haired cop is staring at me. She's looking from me to Iris and back. She starts lifting a hand to wave me over, and I pretend I don't see. I busy myself grabbing my bag and extricating myself from the bleachers, and then I take the long way down to tell my friends how proud I am of them.
Before we all leave, I look back at where the cop was standing. She's still there, watching me. Watching us.
She doesn't say anything. She doesn't unfold her arms from across her chest.
She just watches.
And I have no idea what it is that she sees. |
We take Roya and Iris out for lunch at the Crispy Chicken. True to their word, they fill Marcelina in on the meet, with stroke-by-stroke recaps of each of their events. They devour two Crispy Chandwiches each and share a huge carton of Crispy Fries. Roya actually growls at me when I reach for one. Marcelina takes her lunch break with us, her paper hat sitting in the middle of the chipped Formica table. Maryam asks her how she got her matte black lipstick not to crack even after a full morning of running the drive-thru window, and they do a deep-dive into a sponge technique that sounds to me like some kind of advanced alien technology.
"So what'd you think?" Roya asks, sorting through the Crispy Fries to find the perfectly balanced soggy/crispy fry of legend.
"Of what?"
"Of my 'fly," she says, a smile curling the corners of her lips up like burning paper. "Did I kick ass?"
"You destroyed it," I say, finishing the last of my strawberry shake. "You absolutely demolished it. The water looked scared by the time you were finished."
She cackles and throws a fry at me. "Hell yeah it did," she says, then turns to Iris. "Can you believe that was it? That was the last meet we're gonna do." She sounds giddy.
"I'm never gonna be this hungry again," Iris says around a mouthful of Chandwich. "Or this tired. Or this chlorine-y."
"Okay, kids, I gotta go finish the shift," Marcelina says. She pats each of us on the head like we're her wayward ducklings, then pins her paper hat back over her shining black topknot. "Are my seams straight?" She turns around, flashing us the back of her red uniform pants, which are embroidered with a large rooster tail.
"You look like a supermodel, mama." Iris toasts Marcelina with her shake, and Marcelina gives her feathers a wiggle. Before she leaves, she turns and points at me.
"By the way, my house, tomorrow afternoon? I gotta do the thing."
I spin my empty shake cup between my hands. "Sure," I say, heat climbing my neck. I'm trying hard not to look like I feel bad about the thing I feel bad about. "I'll be there."
She gives my head one more pat, then goes back to work. I look at Maryam to see if I did a good job of not being guilty and terrible, but she's already busy experimenting with Iris's new contouring possibilities. I watch her fingers trace the lines of Iris's face, leaving behind different shades of pink and brown. "I don't know," she says. "You've got such fine bone structure already. I think adding anything at all might be overkill, to be honest."
"Well, feel free to keep trying," Iris says. "I've never used that stuff before, so I'm a whole new canvas for you to play with. You win at long last. Go nuts."
"I've gotta do the thing too, soon," Roya says to me. "Monday? After school?"
"Yeah," I say, still spinning my empty shake cup, watching Iris and Maryam so I don't have to look at Roya and think about the elephant that Maryam was talking about. "Sure."
"Great," Roya says, and I can see her watching me out of the corner of my eye. "Perfect." |
Maryam drops me off at home after lunch and I walk inside feeling slightly sun-dazzled. It takes my entire body a minute to adjust to the transition from the bright, hot afternoon to the cool darkness of the house. I feel instantly sleepy and hyperaware of the sweat drying on my arms and back. I head to my bedroom, torn between taking a nap or taking a shower.
Thoughts of either leave my head the second I open the door.
"What the hell are you doing?!" I shout. Nico scrambles out from under my bed, one hand clutching a file folder, the other holding a bag.
The bag with the heart in it.
"Why are you in my room?!" I demand as I storm in, reaching for the bag in his hand. A corner of the duct tape on the front is peeling back, and I can see the corner of the letter J peeking out.
He jerks it out of my reach. "Chill, okay, I was just—"
"Don't tell me to chill! What are you doing in here? Why were you under my bed?" My fingers are burning and my palms are prickling and I clench my hands into fists to stop myself from doing something I'll regret. Something I can't control. I can't keep the quaver out of my voice, though.
"I'm trying to tell you, I was—"
"You have no right to be—"
"Oh my god just let me explain, you don't have to be such a—"
"Don't you dare call me—" |
We both turn to see Pop standing in the door, hands braced on the frame. His entire face is red, all the way up to the top of his scalp, and his eyebrows are a long, low furrow of what-the-hell. He's wearing his worn-out college sweater and a pair of cargo shorts, which is his sitting-in-the-office-all-day-reviewing-depositions outfit. If he could hear us all the way back in his office, with the door closed and his white noise machine going—we were shouting at each other at top volume. I'm out of breath. Shit. Shit. This is really bad.
Pop looks between me and Nico and the file folder in Nico's hand and the bag in Nico's other hand, which I'm still reaching for.
"Um," we both say, and Pop crosses his arms.
"Nico was in my room," I say.
"Alexis was being a total—" Nico starts, then catches the look on Pop's face and stops midsentence. He doesn't finish what he was about to say.
"Why were you in her room, Nico?" Pop asks, his voice strained with the extreme patience of a parent mediating between his kids. Nico's ears flush and he mumbles something unintelligible. "I beg your pardon?"
"I was looking for something," Nico says, just loudly enough to hear this time.
"What were you looking for?" I demand. "And why didn't you just ask me for it?"
"Because I knew you'd say no," Nico says, not looking at me. He brandishes the file folder in his hand. "I was looking for your final essay from when you had Nichols for English in your sophomore year."
Pop's brows were already low, but they drop even farther at hearing that. Nico looks like he wants to crawl under my bed and hide. "Why would you want her final essay?" Pop asks. I can't imagine that he actually doesn't know—maybe he's just trying to give Nico an opportunity to defend himself.
"He was going to copy from it," I answer. Nico's still holding the bag with the heart in it, and I'm trying to figure out how I can make sure he doesn't get so distracted by being in trouble that he takes it with him. I reach for it again, but as I do, he turns to me with a look of shock and betrayal.
"I wasn't," he says, but it's for Pop's benefit. "I just know how you save all that old crap, and I wanted to see what approach you took—"
"Oh please," I start to say. Pop cuts me off.
"Nico," he says in a level voice that's trying very hard not to be lawyerish, "isn't that essay due tomorrow?"
Nico looks miserable. "Yes. That's why I wanted help."
"I see. Let's go talk about this somewhere else." Pop gestures to Nico, who turns to trudge out of the room. They walk toward Nico's bedroom to talk about how much trouble Nico's in, and I hear Pop saying, "We both know that copying and 'getting help' aren't the same thing, young man," as he half closes the door to my bedroom behind him. As the door swings shut, I catch a last glimpse of the bag still dangling from Nico's hand.
"No no no no no no no," I moan, falling onto my bed and pulling a pillow over my head. Nico has Josh's heart. He's holding it. He's going to forget that he took that bag out of my bedroom, and then he's going to notice it and remember that he's pissed at me, and then he's going to decide to snoop. He'll open it and see what's inside, and how am I going to explain why there's a heart that isn't bleeding in there?
What am I supposed to say?
Sorry to leave you out of the loop, Nico, but your big sister is actually some kind of magical freak who accidentally killed a guy she barely knew because she was about to sleep with him for all the wrong reasons. Oh, and she keeps hurting people when she gets freaked out and she's pretty sure she would have hurt you if Pop hadn't interrupted that fight. Please don't tell anyone?
And then I realize that if I can't get the heart back from him, I'll probably hurt people even more. That's what Iris said: the tension of the spell is what's making me accidentally hurt people, including myself. What if I can't get the heart back from Nico and then I lose control and kill someone else?
What if I hurt him? Or Dad, or Pop? I know I should feel just as bad about hurting anyone, because hurting anyone at all is awful, but... what if it's one of them? I'm already a murderer. What if I can't stop killing people?
What if I'm a monster?
I scream into the pillow.
I've never screamed into a pillow before. It always kind of seemed like a cliché. But now that I'm doing it... it's pretty satisfying. I scream into it again, so hard that my throat burns, and then again, and I'm just gearing up for another scream when I hear the door to my bedroom open.
"Did you impale an eyeball on something?" Pop asks, pulling the pillow off my face. "You know this thing doesn't actually muffle you that much, right?"
"Oh, um. Sorry," I mumble. "I didn't realize. Hey, that was fast." I scramble up to a sitting position and sit with my back against the wall, my legs stretched across the mattress. "Is Nico off the hook?"
"Far from it," Pop says with a wry shake of his head. "But Dad took over so I could come talk to you. Once we heard the wailing, we figured we should probably divide our efforts. And I thought you might want this back." He lifts his arm, and I realize for the first time that he's got my bag.
"Thanks." I grab the bag and drop it on the pillows next to me, trying to get that exposed J facedown. I want to shove the whole thing back under the bed, but that would look suspicious. Or maybe not doing it looks suspicious? I don't know what to do with my hands.
"So, we need to talk." Pop leans against the wall next to the doorframe with his hands in his pockets. He ducks his head, giving himself a little double chin. He's staring at the bag. I resist the urge to push it behind the pillows. "You're not in any trouble," he says quickly, probably seeing the blood drain from my face. "But Dad and I are worried about you."
"What? Why?" My palms tingle with a bloom of sweat. Worried is way worse than mad. "What's going on?"
"You're not yourself lately. Skipping classes was one thing, but shouting at your brother? What's that about?" He shakes his head. "You know we're not—"
"—not a shouting family, I know." I can't keep the annoyance out of my voice. Maybe I'm not trying very hard. Pop's eyebrows unify at the interruption, but he doesn't stop me. "You didn't see what he was doing, though, Pop. He was under my bed."
"It's not just about yelling, bug," he says gently. "You've been giving everyone a whole lot of bad attitude lately. Not just Nico. Me and Dad, too. What's that about?"
Oh, great. So this is a you're-a-huge-jerk-and-nobody-likes-you talk. I clench my jaw. "I don't know what you mean."
"I'm not trying to beat up on you here."
"Could have fooled me," I mutter.
"I just want to know what's going on with you. This behavior isn't like you at all—"
"Well, maybe you just think that because you don't know me." I let my hands drop to my sides, and one of them lands on the bag with the heart in it. "You think I'm not being myself because you have no idea who I am!" Pop takes a deep calming breath of his own, and for some reason, it infuriates me. The words pour out before I can stop them, my volume creeping up with every word. "You think I'm still some little kid that you can control, but I'm not, and I haven't been for a long time! And I'm dealing with all of this shit on my own and you have no idea what it's like, okay?! You have no idea."
My cheeks and palms are both burning. When I touch my face, my fingers come away wet. I tuck my hands under my thighs just in case they're glowing. They feel like they are, and for the hundredth time, I wish that I could see my own magic. I dig my fingernails into my palms hard.
I'm losing control.
Shit.
"I'm sorry I yelled," I whisper.
"Oh, sweetie," he says, and then he's sitting next to me with his arm around my shoulder. He's soft, and his ratty old sweater feels the same way it did when I was little. "I can't understand what's going on if you don't tell me. But I want to understand. I really do."
I want to lean on him and cry like a kid. I want to. But it just doesn't feel right. I shake my head, sitting up stiffly, and he takes his arm off my shoulder. I wonder if I hurt his feelings by not wanting the hug. I wonder if I'm just destined to hurt everyone around me. I clench my fists even harder, and try to focus on the pain so I don't lose control and ruin everything.
"It's just that I can't be who you want me to be, okay? That's not who I am anymore," I tell him.
"Okay," Pop says.
"I'm—wait, what?"
"I said okay," he repeats. "I believe you. But I want to know who you are. Your dad does too. Hell, I bet Nico even wants to know who you are, even if he doesn't really know how to show it." He shifts away so he can look at me, and maybe also to give me a little space. "Look, kiddo. Sorry, not 'kiddo,' I should stop calling you that." My chest hurts. I don't want him to stop calling me that. "Alexis. Whatever it is that you feel like you can't tell us... I can't force you to trust me, but I'm here to listen, okay? And no matter what's going on, I'll love you. I promise."
I look at my kneecaps, my nightstand, the pattern on my bedspread. Anywhere but at him. I take a few more deep breaths. I'm going to do something stupid. "Are you sure?" I whisper.
He hesitates. "Have I ever told you about what it was like when I came out to my mom?"
I shake my head. Grandma died when I was too little to remember her, and Pop barely ever talks about her.
"I wasn't that much younger than you are now," he says. "I felt a lot of the things you're feeling—like I wasn't the person who she thought I was. Like I was lying to her, but also like it was her fault that I couldn't tell her the truth."
I open my mouth to say that I don't think it's his fault I can't tell him, but then I close it. Because he's right. I do think it's his fault. I don't know why, but it's true—some part of me blames my dads for the fact that I've kept my magic a secret.
"When I told her," he continues, "she didn't say all the right things. In fact, she said a lot of things that really hurt. The very first thing she said was, 'I still love you, no matter what.' " He shakes his head. "That kind of hurt the worst, you know? It felt like she was saying she loved me in spite of something. It felt like she was saying it was hard to love me, now that she knew who I really was." He clears his throat. "She grew a lot over the years. By the time I met your dad, she'd figured out how to say things a little better. We adopted you. She got to be a grandmother for a couple of years before she passed. It was really amazing to see the way our family changed—but I never forgot how 'I love you anyway' felt."
"Wow," I whisper. I can't imagine how much that must have hurt.
"Yeah," he says. "But then, you remember when you were really little and she passed? I had to go away for a couple of weeks to clear out her house?"
"Kind of?" I remember my dad's friend Patricia coming over to hang out with me a lot, and I remember eating macaroni and cheese for breakfast a couple of days in a row because we ran out of cereal and Dad kept forgetting to go to the store.
"I found her old journals while I was there." His voice is far away now, like he's completely lost in the memory. "I kept going back and forth on whether I should read them, but one night I cracked open a bottle of whiskey and went for it. I read all of them in one sitting. And I realized I had it completely backward that whole time."
"What do you mean?"
"She wrote pages and pages about how she could tell she was getting things wrong, and how she wanted to say the right things but didn't know how to. She kept writing about how she hoped I knew she loved me, even when she messed up." He smiles. "She wasn't saying 'I love you in spite of who you are.' She was saying 'I might screw this up a lot, but the biggest thing is that I love you. The most important thing in my heart is that I love you.' Does that make sense?"
"I think so," I say, although I'm not really sure if it does.
"The point is, whatever it is you think you can't tell me about, bug? I might not know how to say the right thing about it, and I might have questions. I might not understand right away. But I love you, and that doesn't change. That's the biggest, most important part of this."
"Are you sure?" I ask again.
"I'm sure," he says back.
My heart is pounding so hard that I can see the front of my shirt fluttering just a little. My breathing is too loud. I'm going to throw up. I'm going to black out. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't—
"This is who I am."
I take my hands out from under my thighs and hold them out in front of me, palms up.
Magic.
I can't see the threads of my magic, but I can feel them. I can feel the power spiraling out of me. It feels like I'm exhaling a held breath. And there's at least one thing that Pop and I can both see.
Blood.
There are crescent-moon divots in each of my palms, dents from my fingernails. They open up slow, like sleepy eyes. Blood curls up out of the wounds. A tiny stream of red from each little crescent-wound, coiling together to form slender vines. Four delicate orchids bud and bloom along the lengths of them, each thumbnail-sized flower unfolding in perfect stop-motion synchrony with the others.
It lasts for only a few seconds. Then, realizing what I've done, I gasp and clench my fists. My fingertips sting the places where my palms are wounded. I squeeze my eyes shut against the pain. When I open them again, I peek at my hands to see how bad the cuts are.
They're gone.
My skin is smooth, completely intact. There's blood threaded into the creases of my palms, though, and four impossibly small, impossibly perfect dark-red orchids rest in each of my cupped hands. The petals, each the size of the white crescent at the tip of my smallest fingernail, curve across each other like the panels of a spread fan. I gently stroke one with my thumb. It feels like warm glass.
I made this. I made it with a tiny bit of blood, and then I healed myself. It didn't feel like it does when Roya heals me, though—it felt like something different. It felt like the blood was trying to come to me for a purpose, for a reason, and once that was finished, the healing happened by itself.
I look up at Pop.
He isn't doing so good. His lips are white and his eyes are wide and I'm not sure if he's going to pass out or not. Beads of sweat stand out on his scalp. He opens his mouth once like he's going to talk, and his jaw trembles and then snaps shut again. I've never seen his nostrils flared so wide. He glances up at me, then back down at my hand, and I wonder if he's about to say that he loves me anyway.
After a long silence, he opens his mouth again. "This... um. This is who you are?" he asks tentatively, reaching out to touch one of the orchids and hesitating with his fingertip an inch away from it.
"Well. I didn't know I could do that," I whisper. "But yeah. I guess this is who I am." He doesn't touch the orchid. He curls his finger back away from it. When I look up, he's got an expression on his face that I can't read. He's still wide-eyed and pale, and I can't tell if he's scared or angry or sad or... what. "Pop?"
"Yeah, bug?"
"Say something."
He starts nodding as if he's agreeing with something I didn't say. "We've got to show your dad," he says. My eyes fill with tears again. It's not a bad answer, but it's not a good one either. He looks up at me, and I see that his eyes are shining too. "We've got to show him," he says, "because, damn, kiddo. This is the most amazing, beautiful thing I've ever seen."
I blink back the tears hard. "Really?"
"Can I hug you? Is that okay? I'm sorry I called you 'kiddo' again, I just." He doesn't finish the sentence, and he doesn't blink back his tears. They start streaming down his cheeks one at a time, sliding along his jaw and dropping off his chin with loud plops.
"Yeah," I say, "that's okay." And Pop wraps his arms around me, and I finally let myself lean into him. The neck of his sweater is damp with tears. It's been a long time since I've let either of my dads hug me for longer than a few seconds, and it doesn't feel the same as it used to. When I was little, it felt like the only safe place in the whole world. Now it's nice, but also kind of awkward, like trying to fit into clothes that are just a little too small.
I'm so glad he didn't say that he loves me anyway. And as he hugs me and cries, something occurs to me that should have occurred to me a long time ago. That should have occurred to me while he was telling me the story about his mom.
The thing he was probably expecting me to tell him.
"Pop?"
"Yeah?" His voice is strained.
I clear my throat. "You, um. You know I'm not straight, right? I know we've never really talked about it, and I kind of assumed that you guys knew, but. In case I have to tell you. I don't totally know what the right word is for what I am, but... I'm definitely not straight."
He laughs in that way that you do when you're crying and overwhelmed and so, so, so thankful that there's something, anything, to laugh about. "Yeah, bug." He kisses me on top of the head. "I know."
"Is it okay that I don't want to talk about it?"
"Sure," he says. "But if you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or any kind of partner-person, I'd like to know."
I hold back a smile. "I don't. Yet."
"Are you going to soon?"
"I don't know." I laugh, sitting up. "I don't even know if I should ask her out or not."
"Well, when you're ready to, know that you have my blessing," he says. "Roya's always welcome in our family."
"Wait, what did you—"
"Yeah," he says. He wipes his face on the hem of his sweater, then slaps his knees with both palms. "Now, come on. We've got to go find your dad and blow his mind." |
"I can't believe you told them." Marcelina cups her hands around the pile of kindling she's crafted. "After all those years of arguing about whether or not any of us should tell any of our parents, I can't believe you're the one who broke first." Her fingernails are dark with dirt, and the smell of turned earth lingers in the air around us. The kindling forms a perfect pyramid, rising out of the hole we've dug in a far corner of her family's sprawling yard. I'm half lying down in the grass, damp with sweat from the digging.
I'm digging so much these days.
"Me either," I say. "It feels like a dream." I flinch as the words leave my mouth—I shouldn't use the word "dream" so lightly anymore. Just like the word "explode." They both have a new flavor now. A bitterness.
Smoke spirals up from the kindling. Marcelina doesn't move her hands, but her forehead creases with focus. "Bad dream or good dream?"
"I'm not sure. I mean, they took it better than I could have hoped. But at the same time..."
"Yeah," she says, nodding. I don't say anything for a few minutes, letting her concentrate on heating the kindling enough to get a fire started.
It's true—Pop and Dad both took the whole "I'm magic" thing shockingly well. They had a lot of questions, and what Pop said was right: sometimes, the questions kind of hurt to hear and none of them were easy to answer. Questions like "Did you do anything illegal to get this power?" and "Does it hurt you to do the things you're doing?" and "Have you ever used this power to hurt anyone?" That last one was really tough to answer, because before prom night, the answer would have been "no."
I didn't tell them about Josh. I told them about other stuff, like cheating on a test once (disappointed Dad-glares) and fucking with Nico by getting birds to chase him (poorly smothered laughter). I told them about how there are things I can do and things I can't do, and I don't know what all of those things are yet.
And, after a lot of thinking and a lot of hesitation, I told them that I'm not the only one. I didn't tell them who else is magic—I couldn't betray the girls like that. I told them that there are a ton of people in town who can do what I can do, and I told them that I bet there are also a ton of people out there in the world who can do it too. I told them that I don't think there's something about this town that made me the way I am, but that really, I don't know. None of us do. We don't know if it's genetic, or environmental, or just a fluke. We don't know if we're evolution or radiation or... or anything. We could be anything.
I didn't tell them who's magic, but I told them that I'm not alone. I told them that I found people like me, and that we support each other, and that I'd trust those people with my life. I told them about recognizing something different in each other, something special. Something magic.
I think they knew who I meant, but they told me not to tell them any names. They said that I shouldn't ever share someone else's secrets without their permission. They said that they were proud of me for honoring other people's identities.
My dads listened to me in a way that I don't think they've ever listened to me before—it didn't feel like they were waiting to give me advice or instructions, and it didn't feel like they were humoring me. It felt like they respected me. They took in everything I was telling them, and they asked questions as if I were teaching them things they'd never even imagined before. Which I guess I was.
Really, it couldn't possibly have gone better. Except that they talked to me like an equal, which means that they didn't really talk to me like they were talking to their daughter. They talked to me like they were getting to know me, which means that they didn't act like they'd known me my whole life.
I felt like a stranger. A stranger they respected, but still—a stranger.
"Okay," Marcelina says. She sits back on her heels, and when I look into the shallow pit we dug, there's a little fire going. It's small, but it's crackling and growing every second. It climbs quickly up the twigs and paper curls, and before long, it's leaping at the larger sticks she's stacked onto the outside of the pyramid of kindling.
"Wow, nice!" I sit beside Marcelina and admire her handiwork. As usual, she wastes no time preening—she starts carefully placing wood, building a pyre that looks like a little house for fire to live in. She directs careful loops of magic to the fire, twisting threads around the kindling like she's twirling a lasso.
"Paula taught me this," she says without being prompted. "I have no idea how it works, but it always makes the fire hotter." Sure enough, it's not long before the fire is so powerful that we both have to back away from it. Sweat soaks Marcelina's black tank top, and she lifts the hem to wipe at her streaming face.
"Where did you get all this wood?" I ask. Marcelina's house doesn't have a fireplace, and I've never seen a woodpile around her place.
"I did it this week," she says, and she sounds breathless but proud. "I asked a few trees to drop any branches they didn't need, and then I directed the water out of the wood and into the roots to dry it out."
"You can do that?" I ask, impressed.
"I guess so," she says. "This was my first time trying it and it seems like it worked okay. Remind me to tell Iris so she can add it to her research?"
"Yeah," I say. "There's a lot she should probably add, at this point."
We sit and watch the fire grow. Marcelina is really good at tending to it—holdover Girl Scout skills, I guess, plus whatever experiments Paula has been sharing. She blows on glowing embers to make them blossom into flames, and she nurtures those tiny petals of fire until they engulf whole logs. The woodsmoke smell mingles with the turned earth and summer air. The grass is soft and thick and the woods are quiet and everything feels as perfect as it possibly can. I breathe it in, try to hang on to the feeling of peace and contentment. I try to capture the moment in my mind, so that later, when I remember how much I've ruined everything, I can come back to it. One peaceful minute.
When she's satisfied with the size of the fire—or at least satisfied enough to trust me alone with it—Marcelina pushes herself upright and walks to the house. I stay behind to watch the fire. When she opens the door, Handsome and Fritz come barreling out to see me. They race across the grass, ears flapping, going fast for no reason other than that running is fun. Fritz gets to me first, skidding to a stop and slamming into my legs with nearly enough force to knock me over. I brace myself on his back, fingers buried in his fur, and wait for Handsome to knock into us both. When he does, I'm overwhelmed by the two of them. Good outside good hot??? Good friend yes smells good smells.
I sit on the ground and let them wash over me, all wagging tails and musty farm-dog smell. They tell me about the thing they found to roll in, and the mole that's burrowing underneath us right now that they can never seem to dig to, and the pig ears that Uncle Trev brought home for them. By the time Marcelina comes back, carrying the backpack with Josh's liver in it, I'm lying on the ground with a dog on either side of me, their noses next to my ears.
She laughs when she sees me. "You look like you just had a spa weekend."
"These guys always know what to say," I respond without lifting my head. Handsome boofs in my ear. "Also, Handsome needs the water warmer when you give him a bath tonight. It makes his hips hurt more when it's cold."
"I'm not giving him a bath—"
"Yeah, sorry, but you are. He's been rolling on a dead toad," I say. Marcelina glares at Handsome. "So has Fritz, but I think Handsome got to it first. He got the squishiest bits on him."
"You guys are gross," she says, patting Handsome on the rump. He wags his tail at her. "That's not a compliment," she mutters, and Fritz lifts his nose to see if he can get a pat too.
"I think the fire is ready," I say, pushing myself up onto my elbows. "I didn't touch it."
"Okay." She eyes the fire in the pit, which is high and bright and loud. She throws a few more pieces of wood into it, and there's a series of loud pops. The smell of burning pinesap fills the air, tinny and acrid. "Do you want to do this, or should I?"
"I think you," I say cautiously. "I think it'll be worse if I do it. Worse for you, I mean."
"Okay," she says. "Okay. Okay." She blows out a long stream of air. "Okay." She opens the backpack and pulls out the liver. It's shiny and taut, darker than I would have expected. Almost purple. She holds it in both hands and looks from it to me. "I'm scared," she whispers. "Like, really scared. I'm freaked out, Alexis." Her brown eyes are wide, and I can see her trying to be brave.
"I'm here," I say. It's the only thing I can say. It's the only comfort I can offer, and I know it isn't enough. "It'll be okay."
Marcelina looks back down at the liver. "What if I lose something really big?" she asks it. "What if I don't lose anything and someone else loses something instead? What if it's not okay?"
"Then we'll all be not-okay with you," I tell her. Her mouth twitches into the briefest of smiles.
"It's not fair when you use my own lines back at me," she says. Then she takes in a gulp of air like she's about to jump into a swimming pool, and she throws the liver onto the fire.
Nothing crazy happens. The fire doesn't change color, and a chill wind doesn't rustle through the trees. The liver sizzles and smokes, and a smell that's uncomfortably reminiscent of barbecue fills the air. Handsome and Fritz both lift their noses to take in the aroma.
"Okay," Marcelina says again. She takes her hair down and runs her fingers through it nervously.
"How do you feel?" I ask.
"I don't know," she says. "Fine, I think. Maybe it's not done yet."
She sits in the grass, leaning back on her hands and watching the fire. I sit next to her. Handsome and Fritz attempt to drape themselves across our laps, and there's a brief moment of chaos as we simultaneously try to push the two wriggling dogs off us. "You're too big," I tell them both, but they just wag their tails and pretend not to understand.
"So, you also told your dads that you're..." She waves her hands vaguely. "Whatever? What did you tell them? Bisexual?"
"Um, kind of. I told them that I'm still figuring out where I land, and I guess bisexual is the closest thing to true?"
She nods. "You've never really said it out loud before. It's okay if things change later, you know?"
"Yeah, that's what they said. And they both also said that they already knew and they thought I knew they knew? So it wasn't really a big deal, I guess."
"It's still a big deal, even if it wasn't a big deal," she says, scratching under Fritz's collar.
"Pop said something weird," I say as casually as I can. "I think he was just trying to be supportive or whatever, but he said that he thinks I should ask Roya out." I catch Marcelina rolling her eyes. "What?"
"What?"
"Why are you rolling your eyes at that?"
She does it again. I use a little spark of magic to tell Fritz to lick her in retaliation, and she tries to shove him away, but he nails her right in the ear. She makes an euuuaaaghh noise. "Gross, Fritz, you have toad-breath."
"Good boy, Fritz," I say, rubbing the hard-to-reach spot under his ear.
Not to be outdone, Handsome tries to shove his nose into her other ear. "Call off your goons, Alexis!" she cries, shoving at the big shaggy dog.
I grab Handsome by the collar and he settles for shoving his nose into my ear, which isn't my favorite sensation, but which isn't nearly so bad as getting licked. "You don't have toad-breath," I whisper, even though he kind of does.
"Look, I just think that it's sort of obvious that you should ask Roya out, isn't it?" Marcelina grabs a long, forked stick and pushes the black lump of liver deeper into the fire. "We all thought you were going to ask her to prom, but—"
"She wanted to go with Tall Matt," I say bitterly.
"Um, no," she says. "She wanted to go with you, but then you never asked her and Tall Matt did. They were there as friends."
"She was just saying that because she's afraid of commitment," I snap. Marcelina gives me an oh hell no, how did you just try to talk to me? look and I grimace. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snipe."
"Damn right you didn't," she mutters. "And you need to give Roya more credit than that. She wouldn't lie about not being into Tall Matt. She likes him as a friend. Did you even see them dancing at prom, or were you too busy getting groped by Josh? Who, I am delighted to remind you, you don't even like?"
"Didn't," I murmur. Her face softens.
"What were you doing with him, Lex?" She combs her fingers through Fritz's fur. His eyes close in contentment and he does some tiny tail-wags that tap against my thigh. "I know everyone's been asking you and you're super grumpy about it, but... it just doesn't make any sense."
"Why not?" I purse my lips, trying not to get snappy with her again. "I've dated guys too. What, just because I'm"—vague hand waving—"whatever kind of queer I am, I can't still hook up with dudes?"
"You're full of shit," Marcelina says mildly, still dragging her fingers through the long, coarse fur on Fritz's head. "You know that's not what I mean. And don't try to play it like you've ever slept with a guy before. We both know that would have been your first time." She shakes her head. "And it would have been with Josh Harper."
She's right. I am full of shit. I'm so full of shit that, even though I know the answer, I say, "Well what do you mean, then? Because it sounds an awful lot like you're trying to tell me who I'm allowed to sleep with."
Marcelina gives me another oh you're really going to try this crap glare. "What do I mean? What I mean is, it doesn't make any sense because you're clearly crazy about Roya. And you didn't know the difference between Josh Harper and Short Matt until you were dancing with Josh at prom. What I mean is, it seems an "awful lot" like you were going to sleep with a guy you've barely exchanged two words with for no discernible reason. What I mean is, you're usually pretty smart and you almost did something so monumentally stupid that it made me wonder if you'd fallen and hit your head when I wasn't looking."
"I was going to sleep with him because Roya went to prom with Tall Matt!" I say it too loud, just on the threshold of shouting. Handsome startles and looks up at me with concern. I should probably reassure him, but I can't right now. I'm tired of feeling so many damn feelings all the time, and I'm tired of trying to calm myself down when I'm angry, and I'm tired of telling dogs that it's not them I'm upset with. "I was going to sleep with him because Roya went to prom with Tall Matt and she went to Homecoming with Kevin Ng and she made out with Karen Carter over the summer and I'm tired of waiting for her!"
I dig my fingers into the grass and yell. I yell with my voice, letting my exhaustion and frustration rip through my throat; and I yell with my magic, pushing all the wasted patience and lingering hurt into the ground, probably shocking the hell out of that poor mole. Handsome and Fritz jump up and run in panicked circles, trying to figure out why they can hear me yelling in two voices at the same time.
After a minute, warmth floods my face. I open my eyes and there's Marcelina's eyes, a few inches from mine. Her hands are cupping my cheeks, and she's whispering something in a low, steady stream that I can't hear but that I can feel lapping at me in steady waves. The warmth spreads into my throat and chest, and I feel like I've been dipped in honey. "Are you done?" she says softly, and I nod, taking a hiccuping breath. "Good."
She takes her hands away and sits back in her place in the grass. Handsome and Fritz slink over with their noses low and their tails tucked under their bellies. "Sorry I scared you, fellas," I say, stroking their heads and silently telling them that it wasn't their fault I yelled.
"I'm going to say something," Marcelina says. "And you aren't allowed to yell."
"I'm sorry I—"
"Shut up," she says mildly. "I didn't say 'You shouldn't have yelled.' I don't want your apology. I just want you to listen for a minute." I nod. She crosses her legs and rests her elbows on her knees, steepling her fingers. "First: I cannot believe you were going to do something so stupid as to sleep with Josh Damn Harper in order to make Roya jealous." I start to object, but she holds up her hand. "Nope," she says. "I'm talking right now, you're listening. Don't try to tell me that you weren't hoping you'd sleep with Josh and make Roya feel as jealous as you were feeling about Tall Matt, because that's a lie. And you can lie to yourself all you want, but you do not lie to me."
I bite my lip and wait for her to continue, even though I have a sinking feeling that it's only going to get worse from here.
"I cannot believe that you would do something so monumentally, staggeringly foolish as to put Josh Harper's penis inside you in order to hurt Roya's feelings," she says, ramping up fast. "I can't believe that you, of all the people in the whole world, would decide to fuck a boy over something as petty and messy as Roya going to prom with Tall Matt and making out with Karen Carter, who makes out with everybody and you know it!"
She hasn't moved an inch, but her eyes are blazing. I feel about an inch tall. When she puts it that way... I can't really believe that I was going to do that either. I knew I was making the wrong choice the second Josh's dick exploded, but I've been trying really hard not to think about it too much in the last week. Both because it's really awful to think about, and because I knew that if I looked too closely at what I almost did, I would be just as disappointed in myself as Marcelina is now.
"That was the first thing I needed to tell you," she says. Her eyes are glassy now—she's still glaring at me fiercely, but there's sadness there too. "The second thing I need to tell you is that the liver is done. It's gone."
I peer into the fire, but I can't tell one lump of black char from another. "How can you tell?" I ask.
"Because," Marcelina says in a whisper, "I lost the color green."
"What?" I look back at her. Her mouth lifts into a very small, very sad smile.
"That's what I lost," she says. She sounds terribly calm. "I can't see it." She runs her hand across the grass.
"What does it look like?" I whisper. She shakes her head.
"Gray." She swallows the word.
"Oh, Marcelina—"
"It's fine." She says it through clenched teeth. "Lots of people can't see green. I'll get used to it." Next to her, Fritz whines and rubs at his muzzle with a paw.
"God, I'm so sorry," I say, reaching out a hand to rest on hers. "But hey, there are only a few pieces left to go, and then we'll bring him back, right? And then you'll get to see green again, just like normal." She jerks her hand away.
"Sorry," she says. "I don't want to be touched right now. I just—I need a few minutes." She gets up and walks back into the house, carrying the empty backpack with her. I wait outside with Handsome and Fritz, watching the fire die and thinking about what she said. What she said about getting used to it, and what she said about me being an idiot. The dogs doze in the sun. After a while, I hear footsteps in the grass behind me. I look up, ready to do whatever Marcelina needs—but it's not her. It's Uncle Trev.
"Mind if I join you?" he asks, waiting a few steps away until I nod. He never sits with me unless I say yes.
"What's up?" I ask, watching the embers in the little pit we dug.
"I smelled smoke and wanted to see what was going on." He picks up Marcelina's forked stick and pushes a glowing log around. "It's awful hot for a fire."
"We had some stuff to burn," I tell him. It's out of my mouth before it occurs to me that I should have an answer ready in case he asks what needed burning, but he just nods.
"So, Marcelina's in the house crying her eyes out," he says mildly. "What's going on?"
"Um." I flip Handsome's floppy ear back and forth. "Nothing I can really share."
"Hmph." Uncle Trev chews on this for a minute, then shakes his head. "Look, I'm not going to get into her business. I just need to know that she's okay. She's crying like she just found out her best friend died. But I know that's not the case, because you're out here, and you're alive."
"I'm her best friend?" I blurt. I regret asking immediately.
"Far as I can tell," he says. "Are you still her best friend? You guys didn't just have a big blow-up or anything, right?"
"No, we're good," I say. "I mean, she gave me some real talk today, but nothing bad. She's just, um. She's going through a hard time right now."
"She's not hurting herself or anything, though, right?" He says it fast, so fast that I almost don't catch it. He pokes the crumbling log in the fire a couple more times, not looking at me. His face is set.
"No," I say softly. "She's not hurting herself."
"Can you promise me that you'd tell me if she was?" He looks at me and there's the feeling again, the one I had with my dads last night. Uncle Trev isn't talking to me like a kid right now. He's not asking me if I'm lying to him. He's trusting me to take care of someone he cares about.
"I promise," I say, and I lift my hand to hold out a pinky finger. But then I think twice, and I hold out my whole hand.
We shake on it.
He stands up, brushing grass off his butt. "I'm going to go back in and check on her," he says.
"She actually said that she wants space," I tell him. "She needs to be alone for a little while."
"Okay," he says. "I won't bother her or get into her space or anything. But I gotta make sure she's okay, you know? I'll leave her alone, but I can't leave her alone." He musses the back of his hair, frowning. "I'm the only adult around right now and I gotta make sure she's safe. Do you want to come with?"
I shake my head. "It'll make her feel ganged-up-on. When she asks for space, she really needs it, you know?"
"I know," he says, nodding. "I'll just poke my head in to make sure she's in one piece and then I'll leave her be. I promise."
He walks back toward the house with his hands deep in his pockets. He's a good guy. He's trying to do the right thing. I wish I could convince him not to check on Marcelina, but at the same time, I'm really happy that he's going to check on her. Because maybe she needs checking on. Maybe she needs someone making sure she's in one piece. I think I'd notice if she was feeling bad enough to need checking on, but then, there are lots of things I don't notice.
I'm glad Trev is here for her, is all. I'm glad that Marcelina isn't going to be alone-alone. I look around me at the green grass and feel a pang of something like emptiness, and even though I know I'm not alone-alone, I feel lonely. I pull out my phone and text Roya.
Hey.
She texts back so quickly that I wonder if we hit send at the same time. Wyd?
Getting slobbered on by Handsome and Fritz.
She responds with her favorite picture of Fritz, from his birthday party a year and a half ago. We'd filled a cupcake wrapper with peanut butter, and his snout was covered in it. Roya caught a photo of him in the exact moment that he was trying to lick his own eyebrow. It's a picture with a lot of tongue. She captions it Tell him I said he's a good boy.
So I do. I poke at the embers in the fire pit with a stick, and I tell Fritz he's a good boy, and I wait for Marcelina to come outside into the gray world. |
When I wake up on Monday morning, there's a text from Roya waiting for me. My heart stutters, then rights itself when I see that it's just a message on the group text. I squint blearily at the screen. When I see what she's written, my stomach drops.
Senior wing girls' room 1st period 911
It's the "911" that does it. That's a summons that means exactly what it implies: Emergency. Come right away. No questions, no arguments: I need you.
There's a long line of thumbs-up emojis from everyone else on the chat. It's the only acceptable response. I send one too, then put my phone down and stay in bed, listening to the sounds of the house and trying hard not to worry. Water is running in the bathroom—Nico's morning shower, which will last for about thirty minutes or until Dad pounds on the door to tell him to leave some hot water for the rest of us. Dad and Pop are murmuring to each other in the kitchen. I strain to hear what they're saying, a habit from when I was little and would try to overhear them talking about me. I wonder if they're talking about me now. About what they know, and what might need to be done about me.
I wonder if I was wrong to show them.
My alarm goes off again. I turn it off and stay under the covers. It feels like maybe if I lie still enough, everything will freeze around me and I won't have to face the day. I won't have to find out what the 911 is about, what today's disaster is going to be. I won't have to watch that gray-haired cop pulling people out of classrooms. I won't have to eat, won't have to have conversations, won't have to breathe.
But then I hear Dad's footsteps down the hall, his knuckles on the door to the bathroom. A few seconds later, they're tapping on the wall outside of my room.
"Hey, bug, time to wake up," he says to the door.
"I'm awake," I say, and the spell is broken. I can't stay in bed, and I know it. I become aware of the bad taste in my mouth and the way the covers are a little too warm.
Something bad is happening. I can feel it. I wonder if someone else lost something big, if something else is broken beyond repair, if something else is going horribly, horribly wrong.
The day is waiting. The 911 is waiting. The gray-haired cop is waiting. The worry is waiting.
And I have to face it all. |
Maryam and I are the last ones to arrive at the restroom during first period. It's not that we have trouble getting hall passes—it's just that it's nearly impossible to make Mr. Wyatt look up from the earnest "Are you interested in dating a high-strung calculus teacher with a penchant for lavender ties?" profile he's in the middle of composing. He doesn't seem to notice that we're standing next to him until there's a knock on the door of the classroom. It's a freshman from the administrative office with a note for Mr. Wyatt—a summons for Angela Trinh.
Here is what I know about Angela: Her twin brother is on the lacrosse team. She does badly on quizzes but never seems stressed about her grades. She wants to be a singer. That's about it. Sometimes I wonder how it's possible, in a town as small as mine, that I don't know more about all of my classmates—but then, I've never really needed to learn more about them. I've always had my friends, and they've always been all I need. And by the time I started to really feel bad for not making more of an effort to get to know everyone, it was already senior year, and it felt like a waste.
Angela leaves slowly. Her eyes fill with tears as she picks up her bag. She could have been called to the principal's office for anything, but everyone in the classroom is thinking the same thing as she hesitates with her hand on the doorknob: she is going to be questioned about Josh.
Josh, who has been missing for over a week now. Josh, who still hasn't been found.
We trail Angela and the office messenger down the hall, walking a little slower with every step until we're far enough behind them to duck out of sight. We scoot behind some lockers and wait until we can't hear their footfalls. Until we can't hear Angela sniffling anymore. Maryam's face is calm, but she twists the hem of her shirt between her fingers.
"You okay?" I whisper.
"Yeah," she says. "Just worried about Roya. And everything."
"You don't have to come to this. It's probably about the thing, and the less you know, the less involved you are."
Maryam looks at me like I've slapped her hard across the cheek. "Of course I'm coming. It's a 911, Alexis. I'm not ignoring that."
"Okay, okay," I say. "Sorry."
She shakes her head. "I'm still here, you know," she murmurs. "Just because I couldn't—"
"I know," I interrupt desperately. "I know, I'm sorry, I know. I didn't mean it that way."
She lifts her chin. "Stop apologizing," she says. "Let's go."
When we walk into the restroom, Roya steps past me and locks the door. I raise my eyebrows as Marcelina checks all the stalls for occupants. "What's the big emergency?" I ask.
Roya leans against the sink with her arms crossed. She's wearing a flannel over ripped-up shorts today, and I have to work hard not to stare at the lines of muscle in her thighs. She's not looking at Paula, and I can't figure out if she's just not looking at Paula or if she's specifically not looking at Paula. There's a major vibe. I try to catch Paula's eye, but she's busy adjusting something in the back of her high-waisted skirt. Paula is all business today: chignon, pressed blouse, a pen on a necklace. I try to parse what message today's fashion is sending, because there's always a message with Paula. But my head is swimming, and I just can't. I can't decode my friends today.
"We have a problem," Roya says. Her voice is low, strained. She takes out her phone and pulls up a photoset. "Look."
She passes the phone around, and I watch as one by one, my friends see whatever it is that made Roya lock that door. Marcelina makes a noise low in her throat. Iris sways on her feet. I peer over Maryam's shoulder when the phone gets to her. Wordlessly, she hands it to me, and I am the last to see.
At first, I'm not sure what I'm looking at. They're pictures of photos. Photos of dry grass, little yellow plastic triangles, grid markers and rulers. A plastic bag with... something in it. Something that my brain can't resolve into a thing. It looks like a ham covered in jelly, or maybe the broken end of a baseball bat with paint on it. Or... no, none of that is right. I squint, and then, finally, the red pulp in the picture resolves itself into a recognizable shape.
It's an arm.
It's a half-eaten arm.
I drop the phone. It clatters across the tile and comes to a rest against the base of the already-full trash can. Roya stoops to pick it up and checks it for cracks before tucking it back into her pocket. "So," she says.
"What the fuck, what the fuck? What the fuck?" My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking. Maryam wraps an arm around me and takes a few deep breaths, trying to make me match her rhythm so I'll calm down. Another trick Iris has taught us over the years. I struggle to breathe with her. My throat feels too narrow to admit all that air.
"They found it last night," Roya says. I look up at her and realize that she has the wide-eyed stare of someone who hasn't slept. Her hair is in a tangled bun, and the outline of yesterday's headband is still creased across the top of her head. I was so busy staring at her legs that I didn't even notice how exhausted she is.
I feel like an asshole. What kind of friend am I, to miss that kind of thing?
"I overheard my mom talking to my dad about it after she got home," Roya continues. Now that I've noticed how tired she is, I can hear the fatigue in her voice, too. "They got a call from someone who thought they'd found a body, but it turned out that it was just the arm. I guess it was chewed up by something. They matched a birthmark to a picture of Josh. I don't know about, you know. DNA or whatever. But there's going to be a search party. They're canceling classes tomorrow. You'll hear about it in fourth period."
The rest of the girls immediately start talking over one another, talking about the search party. About where it will be and what the searchers might find, and whether we should go. While they argue, I try to remember a birthmark. I didn't notice it. I was going to sleep with that boy, and I didn't even know about his birthmark. I fed his arm to a coyote, and not once did I look closely enough at it to see the damned birthmark. I swear, every time I think I couldn't possibly have screwed this up worse, I discover some new way that I'm a disaster.
"It's my fault," Paula whispers. "I'm sorry."
"It doesn't matter whose fault it is," Roya snaps, making Paula flinch. "We just need to fix it. What are we going to do?"
Someone tries to pull open the door to the restroom, then pounds on the metal when they realize that it's locked. Maryam shoots out a hand and, faster than gasping, the light of her soft, suffuse magic etches mascara trails down Marcelina's cheeks. Paula and Roya wrap their arms around Marcelina, and Roya hisses "Cry!" as Iris unlocks the door.
"I just—can't—believe—he—said—" Marcelina is choking and sobbing, and the twin streams of mascara on her cheeks cover for the fact that her eyes are dry.
"Do you mind?" Roya snaps at the sophomore standing in the doorway.
"Oh god, I'm sorry," the girl says. "Is she okay?" Marcelina wails, and the girl holds up both hands like she can ward off the tears. "Never mind," she says. "I'll leave you guys alone. Um, I hope things get better soon?"
"And—then—he—said—" Marcelina puts a high wobble into her voice, and the girl closes the door fast. As soon as Iris has slid the lock home, Roya and Paula straighten. Roya pats Marcelina's cheeks with her fingers, and the mascara trails vanish.
"You're amazing," Maryam says.
Marcelina grins. "I know."
Roya snaps her fingers. "Hey, you're both amazing. But we gotta figure out this arm thing, like, now." She's being Iris-levels of bossy, but nobody so much as glares at her, because if Roya being abrupt is ever warranted, now's the time.
"Can you get rid of it? Like, just grab the bag and throw it away?" Paula asks, then shakes her head hard. "Never mind, that's stupid."
"Yeah, that's a terrible idea," Roya says. "If it goes missing, they'll know for sure that someone is trying to cover something up. I don't think that they are saying he was—" She stops short and looks at me with an apologetic grimace. "I don't think they're calling it murder yet. I'm pretty sure they're trying to figure out what happened before they make an announcement. But they definitely know that it's Josh's arm." Her mouth flattens into a grim line.
"We'll have to wait and see," Marcelina says. "Maybe it'll be okay."
"Maybe it'll be okay," I repeat. My lips feel numb.
"That search party," Iris whispers. "We have to go. We have to."
Marcelina whips around to stare at her with stark incredulity. "We can't do that, are you crazy? It'll look so suspicious."
Roya shakes her head. "No. They're canceling classes so that everyone can join. Everyone will be there. We have to go."
"We can't go," Paula says, her face white. "Are you kidding?"
Maryam clears her throat. "You have to go." She looks around at everyone. "I mean, I'll be there too, but you guys really have to go."
It's Iris and Roya and Maryam versus Paula and Marcelina. Normally, Iris and Roya on the same side of an issue means that the whole group goes with whatever they say. They're individually strong-willed enough that the two of them together feels indomitable. But this time, everyone looks at me. They're waiting for me.
This is my mess. I have to choose.
I nod. "Yeah," I whisper. "We gotta be there." I don't say that the reason we have to be there isn't because of suspicion, isn't because of who might be watching, isn't to try to prevent more bits of Josh from turning up. It's just because I can't imagine sitting at home, alone, waiting for more bad news.
If this is going to go wrong, it might as well go wrong right away.
Roya bites her thumbnail and looks at me. "It's settled. We'll go."
"Shit," Marcelina hisses. "Okay. I'll be there." She turns to Maryam to coordinate a carpool, and the conversation shifts to logistics.
Roya is still watching me. She lets her voice drop to a lower, more intimate tone. What she says next is just for me. "Don't do anything stupid, okay?"
"Like what?" I ask. She rolls her eyes.
"Like turning yourself in. Anything could happen from here. We have to stick together."
I close my eyes for a count of four. "I won't turn myself in," I say. Even though that's exactly what I was thinking of doing. When I open my eyes, Roya is looking at me like she can see right through to the knot in my stomach.
The rest of the girls start filing out of the bathroom past us, but Roya still hasn't moved. "Today, right?"
"Today?" I ask, trying not to stare at the curve of her collarbone.
"Yeah," she says. "Today. Me and you. Arm-in-arm?" She smiles at me, a small pleased-with-her-own-cleverness smile. "Yes, no... ?"
I had almost forgotten. "Yeah, today," I say, my heart pounding. Roya steps closer to me and her eyes flick to my mouth.
"It's a date," she says softly. Then she steps past me, and my heart is pounding, and she's gone. |
All day I'm waiting for someone to bring up the arm. Waiting to hear a whisper in the halls, or to see a cop in the cafeteria. But other than an announcement in fourth period about the search party, no one is talking about it. Lunch is awkward and stilted, and we spend half of it in silence, staring at each other's untouched food. I pass by Josh's decorated locker and see that someone has ripped off the duct-taped teddy bear, leaving behind a swath of adhesive gunk. A sticky note that says "we miss u john" has been stuck to the middle of the gray stripe where the duct tape used to be. I rip it down and crumple it in my fist and drop it into my locker. When I clear my locker out for the summer, I'm sure I'll find it there, but right now I don't care. I just don't want to look at it.
When I get out of sixth period, I have a message from Roya waiting for me. Parking lot fourth row in. Gotta boogie.
I get into her car without letting the heat out properly. I start sweating immediately. Drastically, aggressively sweating. Torrential sweating. Roya's got the windows down and she starts the AC blasting the second the car is turned on, but it's still dire. She looks at me with an expression that says I'm melting, and I would laugh if I could breathe through the heat.
"Drive," I finally manage to croak. She nods and peels out of the parking lot at Paula-speed. Her hair whips back from her face in the breeze, and the shimmer of sweat along the curve of her throat makes me lose the ability to breathe for about a minute. I stare out the window until I can get all of my thoughts into a line. "Where are we going?" I ask as she turns onto the highway.
"I want to show you something," she says. "Trust me?"
"Of course," I answer. She turns up the radio. At first I think that she's trying to show me something about the music, but then I realize that she just doesn't want me asking any more questions. So we sing along with the songs we know, and I stick an arm out the window and let the air rushing past the car lift my hand, and Roya drives.
She drives for an hour before I try to ask again. "Roya? Where are we—"
"Please," she says, her eyes still on the road. "We're almost there."
She parks by a stretch of road that looks exactly like the twenty miles that came before it and, I suspect, exactly like the twenty miles that come after it. Birch trees line either side of the asphalt, a long stretch of white that keeps going as far as I can see.
"Marcelina would love this," I say, resting my hand against the patchy white bark of the nearest tree. I don't feel anything but the scratch of wood under my palm, but I know that Marcelina would be immersed in the stories of the forest.
"Yeah," Roya says, but she sounds distracted and I'm not sure if she actually heard me. She's got a duffel slung over her shoulder, and she's staring into the trees in a far-off way I'm not used to. "Let's go?"
"Sure," I say, and I follow her into the trees. They're spaced far enough apart that it almost feels like a set piece in a movie, a fake forest, but then I turn to look behind me and realize that I can't see the road anymore. Without Roya, I know I'd never find my way back. That's the mark of a real forest: you can get lost before you realize that you should be trying to stay found.
I follow her through the trees, only occasionally having to step around the sparse undergrowth. Her hair is up in a high bun. The back of her shirt is dark with sweat. I watch the way her calves move with each step, the way the backs of her knees turn pink in the heat. We don't speak. She's not looking back at me. Whatever our destination is, she's entirely focused on it. Whatever our destination is, I'll follow her there.
The clearing comes upon us suddenly. Or maybe it seems that way to me. I'm not sure how long we've been walking, and I have no idea where the road is, but without warning, the trees fall away. I nearly run into Roya's back. She's standing with her arms by her sides, her eyes closed, her chin tipped back. She's breathing slowly, and every time she exhales: magic.
It's nothing I've ever seen her do before. Roya is frenetic energy, hunger, anger. But in this place, she's still and calm. Every time she exhales, a bare hush of a breeze stirs the leaves that are littered across the grass of the meadow. A loose tendril of hair plays across her forehead in the breeze, and a whisper of light suffuses her skin.
It's not that she's more beautiful than usual. She's always beautiful. But she's still, and I get to look at her without reservation, without worrying that she'll think it's weird of me to stare. I didn't realize how thirsty I was, but now I'm offered the opportunity to drink her in. And I take it.
When she opens her eyes, I don't look away. She looks right at me, and I'm certain that she sees the longing on my face. I don't try to hide it. For the first time ever, I don't try to hide it. My hands are shaking. My heart is shaking.
She smiles.
She bites her lip.
"Sorry," she says. "I just... I like to take a minute when I first get here. To be present."
"No worries," I say, my voice rough. "Take all the time you need."
"I'm good," she says. And then she holds out her hand.
I look at it. She's wearing the gold bangle with the dark green stones. The lines of her palm are dark. The skin of her wrist trembles with the force of the pulse beneath the surface. She twitches her fingers, and I realize she's waiting for me. I reach out my hand and put it in hers.
Her fingers curl around mine, and she leads me toward the center of the clearing.
"I like to come here sometimes," she says. Her thumb is tracing the curve of my knuckle. I can't breathe. "When things get tough. It's where I first did magic, did you know that?"
"I thought the first time you did magic was at a family thing? The barbecue with the dropped cake... ?" I hear myself say the words as though from a distance.
"I always say that, but this is really the first place." I realize that she isn't looking at me. She stops in the middle of the clearing, and she doesn't look at me, and she traces the line of my thumb. "I got separated from my parents on a camping trip, and I wound up here. I could hear them looking for me, but I stayed quiet. I remember being scared that if they found me, they'd get mad and send me away."
"Oh." It's all I can think to say. Roya sinks to the grass and sits, still holding my hand. I sit across from her. Our knees are less than one inch apart, but there's no way for me to scoot forward without it being obvious that I just want her to touch me. I just want her to touch me.
"Yeah," she says. She's still not looking at me. "Anyway. I fell and skinned my knee on the way here, and it was bleeding like crazy, but by the time they found me, it was totally healed. No blood, no scar. Nothing. I remember trying to tell my mom about it, and she was sure that I had just gotten scared and imagined it, but I know it happened. That was the first time I did magic."
"How did you get lost?" I ask. My knees feel warm and I look down and realize that somehow, she has come closer. We are touching. Our knees are touching, and our hands are touching, and she's grabbing my other hand too. Holding it. And she finally looks at me. My breath catches when our eyes meet.
"I walked off," she says. "I was looking for my mom."
"Where was she?"
"No, you don't understand," she says, shaking her head and looking at me intently. "I was looking for my birth mom. I dreamed that she was in the woods, and I wandered off to find her. It was the middle of the night."
"How old were you?" I ask. The first time Roya did magic in front of me, we were eight and she still needed two nightlights. I can't imagine her in the woods by herself, in the dark. No moonlight would be enough to keep the shadows from looking like monsters.
"Four," she whispers. "I was so scared of the dark, but I wanted to find her. I wanted to find my birth mom. And I stayed here because I thought she was going to come get me." She squeezes both of my hands, and I squeeze hers back. She's looking back and forth between my eyes like there's something there, some answer to a question she hasn't asked yet. "I come here sometimes to think about stuff, or to be alone. I've never brought anyone here before."
I don't know what to say. I don't know why she's showing me. All I can say is "Thank you." I run the pad of my thumb across the palm of her hand, and she bites her lip. I'm stuck between absolute certainty that I'm imagining something between us and absolute certainty that I'm not imagining it at all.
"It's a magic place," she says. She lifts one of my hands to her mouth and presses her lips to my thumb, still staring directly into my eyes. My breath is loud in my ears. "Of course I wanted to show you," she whispers to the curve of my palm.
"Roya," I start to say, but I don't know what should come after.
Or, I do know what should come after, but I don't know how to say it. I've been biting back the words for so long now that I don't know how to push them past my lips.
But it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter, because she's kissing me.
How can I explain what it's like?
It's like soft grass under your back on a hot day.
It's like the first ripe strawberry from the garden.
It's like watching someone fall asleep with their head on your shoulder, and knowing that you could brush the hair away from their eyes without waking them.
It's like coming home. |
When Roya stops kissing me, she rests her forehead against mine and laughs.
"What?" I breathe.
"Look," she says, her mouth so close to mine that I can taste the letter L tumbling from her lips.
I look. I don't want to, because it means moving my head away from hers, but I look. "Oh," I say, and then "oh" again, because the first time wasn't quite enough.
The clearing is carpeted in flowers. All except for the place where we're sitting. Tiny purple flowers and huge, spreading yellow ones, and a fine tracery of white clover blossoms. The air is fragrant, and Roya is laughing and running a hand over the tops of the flowers closest to her. She flings herself backward and lands hard, but she keeps laughing as she sprawls her arms out on the flowers. Petals fly up around her like a snowdrift.
"That looked like it hurt," I say.
"It did," she says. "Try it."
I fling myself down next to her, and she's right, it hurts. And I'm glad I did it. I watch as flower petals spiral up in the air over our heads, and I listen to Roya laughing, and I can feel myself bleeding magic too. A swarm of butterflies circles overhead and settles in the branches of the birch trees, their yellow wings fluttering like autumn leaves.
"I've been wanting to do that for a long time," Roya says.
"Would you like to do it again?" I ask, then laugh at how slick I sound. I'm still laughing as her mouth finds mine, and then I'm not laughing anymore because she's not what I thought she would be. She's more. Her lips are soft, and her hands are both tangled in my hair, and she's straddling my hips and making a soft noise that means I'm more than she thought I would be too.
When we stop for air, her hair is loose around her shoulders, falling into my face. It's not dusk yet, but the light outside has taken on a long-shadow quality that means it will start getting dark before too long.
"Wow," I breathe.
"Yeah," she says. She touches her nose to the soft skin behind my ear and I pull up two fistfuls of flowers. "We should go soon."
"Yeah," I say. I don't sit up. She stays with me for the space of three slow breaths; then she stands up and extends a hand to me.
"Come on." She's smiling. Her lips are a little swollen. The word "bee-stung" springs into my mind, unbidden. "We have to take care of Josh before we go."
In the place where we were sitting before, there's a circle of grass. Roya digs her fingers into the soft soil and pulls up sod. She sinks her hands into the earth and turns it up as easily as she might pull fistfuls of cotton out of a torn-open teddy bear. I watch her, and she catches me watching her, and she grins at me. "Magic," she says, and I realize that she's not just pushing her hands into the dirt; she's pushing threads of magic, too, and the earth is moving for her.
"I wish I'd thought of that before I did all that damn digging," I mutter. She laughs at me.
"Can you grab the bag?"
"Sure." I pick up the duffel, which is half-hidden in a sudden profusion of bluebells. She takes it from me, and our fingers brush, and a flock of birds erupts from a nearby tree.
She doesn't say anything. She just unzips the duffel and overturns it, letting the arm inside fall into the hole. She shakes the bag, and a few bits of trash fall out—gum wrappers, pencil lead, eraser crumbs. She starts pushing soil back into the hole, over the arm. "What should we do with the bag?" she asks.
"I guess... leave it in the woods? Or maybe drop it in a dumpster somewhere?" I realize that we should all probably dispose of the bags as quickly as we can.
"I'll toss it on the highway," she says.
"That's littering."
She gives me a long look. "You're worried about littering? Really?" I shrug and she shakes her head. "Don't worry. I'll take care of it. Come here."
I sit beside her as she pats the last of the earth down over Josh's arm. She fishes in one pocket of her shorts with two fingers and withdraws something small and smooth. She drops it into my hand.
"An acorn?" I ask, turning it over between my thumb and forefinger.
"Yeah," she says. "To keep animals from getting at the arm." She plucks the acorn from my grasp and shoves it down into the soil.
"We can't make it grow, though," I say slowly. "That's a Marcelina thing."
"Alexis. We can do whatever we want," she says. She leans over and brushes her lips against my earlobe. "We're magic."
She grabs my hand and presses it down under hers, into the soil. She kisses me, and something new happens between us. Magic that feels like nothing I've ever done before. Something hot and vibrant. Something urgent and immediate. I feel the soil shift under my fingers, and then under my feet, and then we're both toppling backward. Roya pulls me up by my wrist, yanking me away from—
A tree.
An oak tree.
A small one, twisting up out of the ground. Five narrow, trembling branches reaching up like fingers. Leaves bud and unfurl as we watch, our hands clenched together tight. Gray bark hardens and cracks and splits and grows again. A gash opens in one side of the trunk; it oozes sap and then heals over within a few seconds.
"Holy shit," Roya says.
"Holy shit," I repeat, because there's nothing else that either of us can say. With a rustle and a shake of acorn-heavy branches, the oak stops growing. It's easily fifteen feet tall, with a huge, full canopy. It's beautiful.
It's ours.
"We did that," Roya breathes.
"Are you scared?" I ask.
"Of what?"
"Of what might happen next. Of what you might lose."
She shakes her head. "It'll happen how it happens, and you'll be with me for it, so why would I be scared?"
I don't say anything at all. I just grab her by the shoulders, push her back against the trunk of our new tree, and kiss her.
We make a pile of our clothes in the grass as the sun goes down.
Roya presses me down into the flowers as the crickets start to sing.
I gasp her name as the first few stars appear in the dusky sky.
I kiss her, and I kiss her, and I kiss her. And she kisses me back. |
The drive home from Roya's meadow is soft-focus: she drives with one hand and gives me the other hand, and I kiss her palm, and we don't say a word to each other. The windows are down and the crickets are singing so loudly that we can hear them even over the sound of the road passing underneath us.
By daylight the next morning, though, I wonder if maybe we should have talked. Maybe I should have asked her if what happened in the meadow meant the same thing to her as it did to me. Even though all I want is to see her and the way she laughs and the way she smiles and the way she messes with her hair when she's thinking hard about something and the way she gasps when I kiss the hollow of her hip—even then, I don't want to see her because I'm afraid she won't meet my eyes. What if she's embarrassed around me? What if she says that it was just a joke, or a fling, or—worst of all—a mistake?
I check my phone for messages from her while I try to figure out what a girl is supposed to wear to a search party. The announcement said to wear comfortable shoes and included dire warnings about ticks and dehydration. I decide on jeans and a tank top: it's hot as hell, but I'm pretty sure that I heard once that long pants are good to wear when there are ticks around. I dig under my bed for my hiking boots, pushing aside the backpack with Josh's name on it.
My hand freezes.
I do a mental tally.
The head. The arms. The legs. The spine. The liver. The hands. The feet.
All those parts are gone. I had gotten so used to the feeling of knowing that we had more pieces to get rid of—so used to the guilt and uncertainty and pressure—that I hadn't realized we were done.
I tug the bag out from under my bed, and there's no heft to it at all, no weight. Before I even finish unzipping it, I know what I'll find. But I still have to see for myself.
I pull at the zipper tabs, and the loose piece of duct tape covering Josh's name falls to my bed. My palm covers the J in Josh as I pull the backpack open and look inside.
I was right. I try to exhale, but I can't seem to remember how. I was right. There's nothing in there. I was right, and I have no idea what will happen next.
The backpack is empty.
The heart is gone. |
The search party is up on the overlook where Paula kissed me. I catch a ride with Maryam, who passes me a mason jar of something she calls an iced marshmallow latte. It tastes like powdered sugar and toasted breadcrumbs. I tell her to give her dad a C-minus from me. She laughs, and then she tells me about all of his recent culinary adventures. His attempt at homemade cocoa puffs. His basil obsession. I realize, halfway to the overlook, that she's talking nonstop. It's not like her—she's big into listening and leaving room for conversation. I think she's doing it so I don't have to talk, and I'm unspeakably grateful.
When she pulls into one of the last open parking spaces at the overlook, I unbuckle my seat belt and turn to her. She waits for me with big, serious eyes. Her makeup is light, glowy, natural. She's here to work today, and she's here for me.
I finally get it. I trust her. I trust her with my secrets, and I trust her with my friendship, and I trust her with my gratitude. I don't need to apologize for being thankful for her. I don't owe her an apology—just gratitude.
"Hey, before we go out there. I just wanted to say thanks. I know that none of this is yours to deal with, and it means a lot that you've been here for me."
She rests her fingertip on my chin and stares into my eyes, just like she did on prom night. "Always," she says. "I'm always here for you. No matter what."
I nod. "I know," I answer. "Thank you." |
There are a ton of people at the tree line, getting instructions. The cop from school is there. I try to move away from her, but she waves me over. My heart pounds as I approach her. She's watching me with those hawk-eyes. I try to keep my face still and calm, try to focus on the way that my breath moves through my lungs the way Iris always says. I try not to be scared.
And then I get to the cop, and her eyes pass right over me as she waves over the next girl. My breathing settles a little. Maybe things will be okay.
The cop assigns each of us to sections of a grid, telling us to stay arm's-length apart and keep our eyes on the ground. "Watch out for wildlife and tripping hazards," she says. "Don't touch anything you find. Just stop where you are and put your hand in the air, and someone will come find you." Her eyes settle on me again. "Just wait for someone to find you."
Or maybe things won't be okay.
A hundred feet away, Roya's mother is talking to another group of people, probably telling them the same thing. Roya is in that group, but it's like she feels me watching her. She turns and her eyes meet mine and she says something to her mother, who waves her off. She walks over to our group just as we're lining up and stands next to me. She's in her old beat-up uniform from when she was on the intramural basketball team in sophomore year. I guess she isn't worried about ticks. The shirt is a little too small and the shorts are a little tighter than they were then. I remember yesterday, when I was too busy checking Roya out to notice how tired and worried she was, and I reprimand myself. I look at the ground. Don't be a jerk, Alexis.
"Did you get assigned this part of the grid?" I ask.
"No," she says, and starts taking measured steps forward but not even pretending to look at the ground. "I just wanted to be over here. By you."
I sneak a glance at her. "Cool." I try to say it normally, but it comes out a whisper.
"How come you didn't come over and say hello?" she asks, stepping over a tree root.
"I don't know." I look at a tree fifty feet ahead of us. Am I supposed to go around it? Of course I'm supposed to go around it, that's a stupid thing to think, it's not like I could go through it. "I didn't think I was, um. I didn't know if you wanted me to."
"Why wouldn't I want you to?" Roya asks. Her voice verges on impatient. I sneak a glance at her, but I can't read her face at a sidelong angle like this, not while I'm trying to pretend I'm not looking.
I don't say anything. I let myself get absorbed in picking my way around a four-inch-tall thistle. How do I answer a question like "Why wouldn't I want you to?" The real answer is, "Because you secretly think you made a huge mistake yesterday," or "Because you don't like me the way you thought you did," or "Because I'm a bad lay." Or "Because I might have ruined our friendship by having sex with you and you don't know how to tell me that you don't want anything to do with me anymore." But all of those answers will sound like I'm looking for her to comfort me, or like I'm needy, or like I expect yesterday to have meant something more than what it probably did. So I don't say anything. Roya waits for me to answer her, but she's not very good at waiting. She does a big I'm-being-patient sigh and then immediately loses her patience.
"Hey, about last night... ?" She says it slowly and my heart sinks. "If you didn't, um. If you didn't want to have that mean anything, or if you didn't want it to be a thing..."
"No," I whisper before I can think better of it, even though I probably should say that it's fine and it's whatever and I don't care. "It meant something. It meant a lot." I focus on the terrain, looking for spiders or lizards or prickly plants that will snag my jeans. I try to feel the way the dry patches of grass crunch under my sneakers. I wish my heart would slow down. I wish she would stop looking at me.
"Well. It meant a lot to me, too." She reaches over and grabs my hand—we're supposed to stay arm's-length apart, I think, and even as I think it, she draws me a little closer to her. And then closer, and then she's walking right next to me like we're on a date instead of pretending to look for a dead boy in the woods. It meant a lot to me, too. What does that mean? It's the kind of thing you say to make someone feel better. It feels like a pat on the head. I shouldn't have said anything. Did I say something? I can't remember.
It's so hot outside, and so bright, and the air is so close and so thick. And Roya is so close.
She's right next to me. Mint smell and warmth. Something cool bumps my wrist, and I look down to see what it is—she's wearing the bangle again. She's been wearing it a lot lately. She stops walking, and I realize we've come to the tree that I noticed before, the one that will need to be gone around. But Roya doesn't let go of my hand. I can't make myself look at her face. My heart is pounding and the tree is in the way and she won't let go of my hand but she also hasn't said—
A finger under my chin, gentle pressure. She turns my head until I'm looking at her face. "What's going on?"
My eyes burn. "I'm really scared that you'll change your mind."
"Okay." That's all she says. She's looking at me, and she's so close. I wait for her to say something else—to tell me I'm being stupid, or that I shouldn't worry, or to ask what I think she'll change her mind about. But she doesn't. She waits.
So I keep going. "I don't want to start something if it doesn't mean the same thing to both of us. I—I know that you probably don't feel the same about me as I do about you and I just really don't want to make a mistake. And our friendship is more important to me than anything, so if you don't want to—"
She cocks her head. "Why do you think I don't feel the same?"
"Because you aren't in love with me," I say. I immediately regret it. "I mean, I don't mean like, I didn't—"
She kisses me. It's a light kiss, a stop-talking kiss, a featherlight brush of her lips against mine. It works. I stop talking. I stop breathing. I stop thinking. I stop worrying. There's just her lips, right there, a thought away from mine. Her breath and mine, together.
"I don't know if I'm in love," Roya says. She pulls me closer, so close that her hair is brushing my shoulders. The big oak tree leans over us and I can't help but wonder if I'm meant to always be closest to Roya in leaf-filtered light. I can't help but wonder how much Marcelina already knows about us, because of what the trees have told her. "I don't know what that means. But I want to find out. And I want to find out with you."
"Since when?"
"Since always, dummy," she says, bumping my nose with hers. "Since forever. I don't know."
"But—"
"Look," she says, cutting me off. "I've been into you for a really long time. And I know that we've missed each other a lot. I know that we've both done the whole there's no way she likes me back thing for like a hundred years. But I'm done with that, okay? We hid body parts together. If we can figure that out, we can figure this out too. I want to figure it out." She brushes her nose across mine. "I want to figure it out with you."
She kisses me again, a longer kiss, a believe me kiss. And I try. I try to believe her.
"I should tell you something," I whisper against her lips. I don't want to tell her, but I know I have to. It would be dishonest not to, and if there's anything I don't want to do to Roya, it's lie. "I was going to sleep with Josh because I wanted to make you jealous. I know it's stupid. It's the stupidest thing I've ever done. Well. Almost-done." She doesn't laugh. "But. I don't know. I thought that maybe if I slept with him, you'd get mad, and we'd have a big fight, and you'd yell at me for sleeping with some guy I barely know, and then I could say, 'Well, it's none of your business anyway, it's not like you're my girlfriend!' " She does laugh at that, barely, just a breath, and I'm flooded with relief. "And then you would say, 'Well, why not?!' and we'd kiss and all of this would happen."
"That's ridiculous," she says. And then she laughs again, another small, breathy laugh. A little incredulous. "And it's probably exactly what would have happened."
"I know." I shake my head, and because our foreheads are still pressed together, it makes her shake her head too. "I'm sorry. It was stupid and manipulative and it was the only way that I could think of to make you see me the way I see you."
"How do you see me?" she murmurs.
"Glowing," I murmur back, kissing her with each word. "Brilliant. Loud. Fast. Wild. Kind, when you think no one is looking." She laughs and her teeth bump my lip. "Magic."
"Then I see you exactly how you see me," she says. "Except add anxious and silly and kind, even when you think people are looking." She considers me for a moment, then adds, "And maybe a little scary."
I step back. "Scary?"
"A little," she says. "You did something to Josh that we didn't know was possible. I know it wasn't on purpose, but. You know. He's dead. That's a little scary."
It hurts to hear, but I shouldn't expect anything less from Roya. She's honest, but not particularly gentle. She's not trying to make me feel bad. She's just telling me the truth. And it's true—I'm a little scary now. I've never been scary before, but I am. Just a little. I open my mouth to say something, I don't even know what. Something that will make it okay that I'm scary. But she stops me from saying anything. She stops me in the best way possible.
For a minute—just a minute—my whole world is a curtain of Roya's hair, and the smell of her vanilla-mint lip balm on my mouth, and the feeling of her fingers on the back of my neck. She kisses me the way she kissed me in the meadow: with everything she is, and everything I am, and something extra that's outside both of us. She kisses me so hard that the breath leaves my lungs and my toes curl inside my hiking boots.
She kisses me like there's no plan.
When she pulls away, there are sunflowers brushing against our hips. They've pushed up out of the soil in a circle around us, ringing us in bright yellow.
"I mean it," she says. "No matter what happens, remember that I mean it. Okay? I want this."
"I know." I don't know if I know, but I want to know, and maybe for now that can be enough. |
I see movement out of the corner of my eye a scant few seconds before I hear Paula crowing. "All riiiiiight!" When I look over, she's got both fists in the air, and her face is split into a wide grin. "Finally!"
"Break it up already," Iris calls from behind her. Next to them, Maryam and Marcelina cackle. Roya laughs into my mouth and gives me a tiny last kiss before she pulls away.
Not a last kiss, I remind myself. Just... the last for now.
"What are you doing here?" I ask when they get closer. "I thought you were with another group."
"We swapped with Angela and Gina and the Matts," Maryam says. "We figured it would be better if we were all together."
I bite my lip. "Actually, yeah. It's really nice to all be together for this." Roya squeezes my hand. "And since we're all together... there's something I should tell you guys."
We start walking, our paces slow and even. We're arm's-length apart, except for me and Roya. The two of us keep our fingers linked. Her palm is soft against mine. It's the only thing I want to pay attention to, the only thing I want to talk about: me and Roya, Roya and me, look, we're a We, are you all seeing this? But there's something else that needs to be said, and I need to say it while we're all alone together.
I squeeze Roya's hand the way she just squeezed mine, because that's something we get to do now.
And then I tell them all that Josh's heart has disappeared.
Paula's eyes are on the uneven ground in front of her. "Could someone have taken it? Nico, maybe?"
"Why would they?" I ask. "The bag was in the same place I left it. No, I think... I think it just disappeared. When, uh. When Roya and I got rid of her last piece."
"What do we do now?" Marcelina whispers, and no one answers. We follow a trail of stirred soil deep into the woods, far from the ongoing searches. We pass through a thick section of twisting black oaks that look like something out of a scary story. I duck under a low-hanging branch and get trailing moss in my hair. I've never seen trailing moss before, except in documentaries about bayous and horror movies about haunted houses in the Deep South. Paula ducks between two of the trees and disappears into shadow. I'm pulling moss out of my hair and looking at Paula's retreating form, about to follow her, when a shadow detaches itself from the trunk of an oak just a few feet away from her.
"Paula," I hiss.
"What?" she whispers back. I point to the shadow, and Paula freezes.
It's the coyote.
Her ears are low, almost flat. She's staring at me, her yellow eyes wide with alarm. I try to send her calm and comfort and certainty that we won't do harm, that we've just stumbled across her path by accident. I try not to distract myself with prayers that she's not going to panic and hurt Paula or me.
Because she might hurt us. She's an animal, a creature. She's not a dog and she's not a person and she has teeth that are made to tear into soft flesh like mine. And if she's scared of us, she'll do what she thinks she has to do in order to survive.
But then, impossibly, she takes a step toward me. It's slow, hesitant—her paw hovers a few inches above the ground before she lets it fall. Her eyes are locked on mine. Paula is looking at me too, and I shake my head, hoping that she'll understand what I mean: don't do anything.
The coyote doesn't bite me. She approaches, impossibly slow, and pushes the top of her head into my palm.
Strange smell meat found yours come follow come now meat strange new come
Before I can answer—before I can really even begin to understand—the coyote turns and starts to walk slowly between the trees. She slinks with her tail low, glancing behind her.
It's not that I don't have a choice, but—what else am I going to do? Of course I follow her. As I pass Paula, I have just enough time to whisper, "Follow me. Not too close."
Paula's face is frozen with something between fear and disbelief, but there's no time to explain. By the time I turn back to the coyote, the dappled shade of the trees has almost swallowed her up.
I follow ten feet back, my fingers still warm from where Roya was holding my hand before. I'm just close enough to see Paula's movement. She turns to look at me occasionally, the line of her back taut. I can just hear Paula, Maryam, Marcelina, and Iris following, another twenty feet between us. They don't talk. Good. Human voices might be too much right now, might make the coyote panic. All of this is too much right now, I think, and I have to bite back a hysterical laugh.
We go just far enough from the trail that I know we didn't stumble across the coyote by accident. It feels impossible, but—she came to find us. To find me.
She finally stops in front of a fallen tree, one that's overgrown with weeds and fungus. She looks behind me to the girls, her ears flat, her tail low.
She doesn't run, but she's close to it.
I put my hand out and manage to brush her head with my fingertips. Friend friend friend friend packmate ally friend—I'm saying everything I know how to say to calm her, but there are too many people here and they're all too close to her. She's got her lip lifted at me, showing a few teeth that don't look as sharp as I know they'd feel. There's blood caked on her muzzle.
She jerks her head from under my hand, and I flinch, but she isn't snapping at me. Instead, she lowers her nose to the overgrown weeds in front of the fallen tree.
It's hard to make out shapes in the uneven light that falls through the trees. I recognize the leg first.
"Oh my god." I say it out loud without thinking, lifting my hands to my mouth, and the sound of my voice is the last straw for the coyote. She takes off into the trees, loping lower than she would if she wasn't already trying to hide from us. She's fast—not as fast as she'd be out in the open, but still faster than my best sprint. She moves through the woods like a stiff breeze, and then she's gone.
My friends are still too far away to see what I'm seeing. I'm alone.
It's just me and the body.
It's just me and Josh. |
He's here.
Josh is right here, in the woods in front of me, naked, sprawled out in the weeds. I fall to my knees and reach for him, press my hands to his chest, to his face. He's—oh god, he's warm.
"I think he's still alive!" I shout it at the top of my lungs, and I don't hear my friends come running because of the static in my ears, a high steady rush of panic. I don't hear them come running, but then they're there, and Roya is next to me again, pressing her fingers to the skin under Josh's jaw, and then to his wrist, and then to the inside of his thigh.
"No." She shakes her head. "There's no pulse, but—"
"But he's warm," Iris says, and she's across from us, touching Josh too. Everyone is touching him. Iris's hands start to flicker with uncontrolled light—she still hasn't figured out how to manage her magic without looking at it. "He's warm, maybe we can—"
"Don't," Maryam warns. "Don't try to heal him—remember what happened last time? And besides, you can't—"
"But we have to—" Marcelina starts, and before she can finish, Roya and Iris have locked eyes and shifted positions. Iris cups Josh's head, pushing his jaw forward and gripping the base of his skull. Roya laces her fingers together and presses the heels of her hands into Josh's sternum, presses hard and rhythmic, again and again, counting under her breath.
His arm flops around with each compression, and I look for the birthmark that I didn't notice when I was on top of him in his bedroom after prom. But then I realize I'm looking at the wrong arm.
The other one's missing, torn off at the shoulder. I remember the blood on the coyote's muzzle. Did she know she was helping us, or was she just taking her percentage?
I'm frozen. I'm useless. I'm not doing anything. They're trying to bring him back, doing CPR like—like they've practiced a hundred times, like they learned just in case, and I'm just sitting here thinking about a missing arm. I'm not doing anything. I have to do something.
After a minute, they switch places. Iris mutters, "Do we do breaths? I can't remember, they changed it," and Roya says, "Don't worry about it, just take over," and then Iris is doing compressions. As she presses down, something in Josh's chest makes a crackling noise.
"Hey," Roya says, looking me in the eyes. "Call my mom."
"But—" I hesitate, but she keeps her eyes locked on mine as she holds Josh by the head, and I nod. "Right. Right, yeah." I take my phone out of my pocket and make the call.
As soon as Roya's mom picks up, I start talking. "We found him, we found Josh, we're doing CPR, he's here—"
"Where?" she interrupts.
"Where?" I repeat, realizing I have no fucking clue where we are. "Um, we're—it's a little off the path, it's—"
"Are you with people? Do they know where the trail is?" Her voice is calm, direct, and I want to lean into it. She knows what to do. Someone knows what to do.
"Yeah, hang on, let me—" I look to Marcelina, who's standing frozen, gripping Paula's arm. "Do you know where the trail is from here?" She nods. "Yeah, okay, Marcelina knows where it is."
"Give her the phone," Roya's mom says, and I do. Marcelina doesn't take her eyes off Josh as they talk. I watch her because I don't know what else to do. I don't know what to do.
She hangs up and gives me back the phone. "She told me to go find the trail, and then call her and tell her, uh." She pauses, staring at Josh, until I snap my fingers at her. "Right. I'm supposed to call and tell her what marker we're at, and she'll come meet us."
"I'll go with you," Maryam says softly, and Paula doesn't say anything, but together they all disappear into the trees, back the way we came.
"Fuck," Iris whispers. "I don't think this is working."
"One more round," Roya says.
"Can I help?" I ask, and Iris nods.
She grabs me and pulls me to where she's kneeling, behind Josh's head, and she shows me how to hold his head in place. His hair is so soft, the way it was when I buried his head in Marcelina's woods near that broken tree. "Just like that," she says. "Hold him still just like that. You're keeping his airway clear so he can breathe if—if that's something that can happen again."
His body jolts every time Roya shoves the heels of her hands into his chest. I stare into his face, a face I kissed. This boy who would be alive if it wasn't for me. I try to hold his head steady enough. If I just hold his head the right way, maybe he'll breathe.
Please let this work, I think. Please let us save him. Please please please—
There's crashing in the trees, and voices, and then everyone is everywhere. I hold Josh's head as Roya and Iris stand up, as hands grip my shoulders to try to pull me away. If I hold his head, he might breathe, and they don't understand, and they're trying to pull me away. I open my mouth to yell at them—but then there's a hand on my shoulder, and Paula's sending a sharp spark of magic into me, enough to jolt me away from Josh. She puts her hands under my armpits and hauls me up and away from him.
"Let them help," she whispers in my ear, pulling me away from the body. "We've done what we can do."
I look up. Everyone is here—Paula and Roya and Marcelina and Maryam and Iris, and Roya's mom, and the gray-haired cop from the school, and a half dozen others, all crowding around and doing things to help. They're all helping, and I'm just... here. Useless.
I can't fix it.
Paula leads me to where our friends stand, half-huddled in a circle, leaning on each other. They look exhausted. Roya is flushed and sweating, and her eyes have taken on the same don't-talk-to-me distance that they get after a swim meet. Iris is staring at the palms of her hands. Behind me, I can hear people loading Josh onto a stretcher. The sound of sirens is a rising howl in the distance.
"We did what we could," Maryam whispers, wrapping her arms tight around Marcelina. Paula squeezes my shoulder. "You did everything you could."
She's right. I did everything I could.
It just wasn't enough. |
Roya's mom puts our names into a report, then tells us that we can go home. She says she'll call us later, take our statements when our parents can be nearby for them. We leave together, even though she dismisses us separately.
We're quiet for the entire walk back to the parking lot. No one really knows what to say. We bump into each other. I tangle my fingers loosely with Roya's for a few paces, then drop them. It doesn't feel right. Nothing feels right.
When we get back to the cars, we stand together awkwardly, not wanting to say goodbye but not wanting to stay here either. After a little bit of uncomfortable shuffling, Maryam looks up at me, visibly reluctant to say whatever's on her mind.
"The arm," she says.
"Yeah?" I ask.
Paula clears her throat. "Did you... Where did it go? The arm that was cut off?"
It takes me a moment to catch up to what she's asking. "I didn't—no, I didn't rip his arm off," I say, trying to make it sound like a joke. Like something ridiculous.
Everyone looks at me.
"Do you really think I'd do that?" I ask.
"No," Marcelina says quickly. "Of course not. Not on purpose. It's just... maybe you did it by accident."
Roya takes my hand again. "It's okay," she murmurs.
I shake my head. "No, it wasn't me. I didn't do that. He was like that when I found him." It sounds like I'm lying, and I catch Iris looking out of the corner of her eye at Paula. I don't know how to make them believe me, so instead of saying anything else, I hold out my pinky finger.
After a second, Marcelina links her pinky with mine. "Okay," she says.
"Right," Maryam agrees. She adds her pinky to ours. One by one, so do the rest of them. It's awkward—Roya has to bend her elbow at an angle that makes me cringe—but we all shake on it.
"No secrets," I say.
"No secrets," they repeat.
That awkward silence returns. Roya slips her arm around my waist and I lean into her. She's warm.
She's alive.
All of us are alive.
Iris clears her throat. "Can one of you drive me home? I, uh. I hurt myself while I was doing compressions on Josh." She holds up her hands. There are crescent-moon cuts there, fingernail wounds. The blood that's run across her palms and down her fingers is dry, but the wounds look deep and painful. "I held my hands wrong, I wasn't—I wasn't thinking. They tell you not to make fists, but..." She trails off helplessly. "I must have made fists."
A pull flickers deep in my belly.
I couldn't help with Josh. But I can help with this.
I take a deep breath, deep enough that white spots flare in my vision, and then I reach out and grab Iris's fingers. Everyone gathers in close to look at her hands, to see what I'm doing. I grip them hard, look her in the eye, and whisper, "Hold still."
And I give in to the pull.
No surprises this time. It's just like it was in my bedroom when I showed Pop my magic—tiny spirals of blood rise out of the crescents in Iris's palms, curling into themselves and freezing into vines. Snugly furled buds form at the tips of impossibly delicate stalks of blood, and they stay that way, curled up tight as a promise. By the time the vines drop into Iris's hands, her skin is healed.
"What the fuck?" Paula gapes, her eyes moving between the vines and my face. "What did you—what the fuck? You can—what?!"
"Yeah." I feel awkward, trapped. Everyone is pressed together around me, and they're all looking at me, curious and excited. I don't know how to say I guess I can do blood magic. "I, um. Yeah. I can do that now."
"Is it healing magic?" Iris asks, her eyes lighting up. "Like Roya?"
"No, I think it's... I think this is its own thing. Its own kind of magic. The first time it happened was, uh. Prom night."
I hear Gina before I see her. "I fucking knew it. I knew you were magic." I turn and there she is, right behind me, tall enough to have seen between my shoulder and Paula's. Everyone was so busy staring at Iris's palms, at the little flowers there, that we didn't see her.
How long has she been there?
Gina's eyes flick to Iris, and then to me. I realize, suddenly and without understanding why it took me so long, that I'm done fighting. It's too much, and I'm too tired, and Gina—Gina doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve to be so scared. She shouldn't have to carry something this big just so I'll feel safe.
She's looking at me, and I'm looking at her, and I give her a nod. Go on, I think. Do what you have to do. Tell whoever you have to tell.
But she doesn't say anything. She looks back at Paula, her brows drawing together, and she shakes her head. Then she looks at Iris and shakes her head again. And then she makes a low humming noise, and her eyes start to fill with panic, and I understand what's happened.
Iris. The consequence.
Her, uh, mouth will seal over. That's what Iris had said.
But I can help with this. I know I can.
It feels like kissing Roya did: I can't tell you how I knew where her mouth would be even when my eyes were closed. I don't know how I knew that biting her lower lip would make her sigh like the fluttering of new spring leaves. I will never understand how I knew the shape of her hip under my palm before I ever touched her. But I did.
It's like that. It's the pull in my belly that's been there since the moment I saw the dried blood on Iris's hands. The pull that, if I'm honest with myself, has been there since the moment Iris cast that spell in Josh Harper's bedroom. The pull that I gave in to when I showed Pop my magic, and turned my blood into something beautiful and dark.
I don't know how I know how to give in to that pull. I don't know how I know that it's the right thing to do. But I do it anyway.
I flip Iris's hand over and squeeze it hard in mine, feel the beautiful little flowers of her blood turn back to liquid between our palms. Then I clap my palm over Gina's mouth, leaving a bloody handprint behind, and I reach for my magic, and I—
twist
—and her mouth falls open.
She gasps like she's coming up for air. She staggers and puts a hand on my shoulder, and as she does, I feel something shift in my bones.
I can do this.
"I hope you don't tell anyone what we can do," I tell Gina. "I hope you just... come talk to us about it. But if you do decide to tell someone about us, nothing bad will happen to you. It's up to you what you do."
Gina shakes her head, touches her lips. "I knew it," she whispers. "I knew it." She walks away fast, looking over her shoulder more than once on her way to her car. She's looking at me.
I can't tell what she's feeling. She looks curious, and excited, and afraid.
No matter what happens, I can't undo that fear. I can't ever make her forget the feeling of not being able to open her mouth. I can't make her believe that I won't hurt her, any more than I can bring Josh back to life.
But I can try to do things the right way. Even if it doesn't work out, Maryam is right—it's worth the attempt.
I take Roya's hand and we head to her car, which is parked in the shade of a big twisting oak. She leans against the back bumper and pulls me in close.
"You okay?" she whispers against my temple, her lips brushing my hairline.
"I'm trying to be," I answer, and it feels like the truth.
I'm trying. And I'm going to keep trying. |
I'm the last one to show up at Marcelina's house. I know because they text me:
We're all here, where are you?
We're going to make s'mores, where are you?
Alexis get here already, before Roya explodes.
I'm late because I'm walking. I could have asked for a ride, but I'd rather walk. Tonight is the last night before the evenings will start to get really hot—I can smell the way the air is singed at the edges, and I know that tomorrow night, summer will be here. Not just because we graduated today, but because the heat is going to get thick and slow and heavy.
Right. I almost forgot. We graduated today.
It was fine. It lasted too long and none of the speeches were nearly as touching as they were supposed to be. Josh's parents talked about wishing they could have seen him walk across the stage, and there was a big pile of flowers on an empty chair that was supposed to represent him but really just looked small and cheap. Roya held my hand during the moment of silence. Everyone else bowed their heads, but I couldn't stop looking at the pile of drugstore carnations on that chair. It wasn't enough. I couldn't cry for a boy I didn't know and didn't miss, but I ached for the goodbye he should have gotten and didn't. For the life he should have had.
For the thing inside me that took it away from him.
And then it was over. I got a piece of paper that represented my diploma but that wasn't really my diploma because they mail those to your house. I shook my principal's hand. I stumbled as I stepped off the stage, but nobody started bleeding because of it. I threw my hat in the air and hugged my friends and cried because even though it was all a bit stale and a bit overdone, it was ours.
That's why we're having the sleepover at Marcelina's house—we're celebrating. The school year is over. Tomorrow afternoon, Paula is going to get into her car and drive for hours and hours until she's in New York City, where she'll learn how to be who she wants to be. Tonight is the last night that we get to be students, the last night we get to be kids. We all know that there are people who will still think of us as kids for the rest of our lives, but really, this is the last of it. So we're having the last slumber party that we'll all be able to have together. We're going to stay up late and talk and eat and watch movies and probably wind up telling early-morning secrets because we're too tired to not share them.
And that will be the end of it.
So I'm walking. I'm running my fingers over leaves as I pass, smelling the rosemary from Marcelina's neighbor's hedge stirring into the warm air. My feet hurt from standing forever at graduation, but that's okay. I'm walking through my neighborhood for the last time as the person I am now, and when I leave Marcelina's house to go home tomorrow morning, I'll be walking past this same hedge as someone else. As the person I'm supposed to start becoming.
I don't know if that person I'll become will have anything in common with the person I was a month ago. I don't know if I'm a whole new ship, now that all my sails and all my planks have been replaced. But I know that I'll keep sailing either way.
It's not fair that Josh died. It's not right, and I would give anything to bring him back. But I can't bring him back, and I owe it to him to be better than the version of me that killed him. So there are some things I definitely know about the person I'm going to become. I know I won't lie to myself as often as I used to, now that I understand how those lies I tell myself hurt other people whether I mean them to or not. I know I'll try to let my friends love me as much as I love them, no matter how hard that is.
I know I won't pretend to be any less powerful than I really am. Because now I know for sure: the worst part of me isn't the strongest part of me.
And the strongest part of me is so, so much stronger than I ever realized. |
I can hear them as I walk across the grass to Marcelina's front door. I can hear Paula loudly telling some story or other, and I can hear Maryam interrupting her to add parts. I can't hear Roya, but I know she's sitting there hugging a pillow and grinning at both of them and waiting for the moment that she can drop some joke that will make the entire thing brighter for everyone. I can't hear Iris, but I know that she's sipping on something—probably Uncle Trev's super-sour lemonade, maybe with some of Roya's mom's stolen vodka mixed in—and enjoying being quiet for a minute or two. She does that more now, after whatever broke inside her at the edge of the woods that day we tried to bring Josh back.
We all do things a little differently now. None of us have gotten back the things we lost. I suppose it's only fair—Josh didn't get back what he lost either.
I pause with my hand on the doorknob and breathe in the not-quite-summer air and try to figure out how I can hang on to this moment, the moment before, the music-swelling importance of it.
But then the doorknob turns under my hand and the door falls open and Gina says, "Finally!" |
Oh yeah. Gina's here.
She didn't tell anyone about us. But she did ask us questions. She wanted to know how, and for how long, and who could do what. And then, once we'd been honest with her about everything we could do, she showed us what she could do. She opened up her hands and held two little flames steady in her palms, and she cried and we cried because we'd found each other. Because she didn't have to be alone anymore, and because we had a new member of our weird little magic family.
And then Iris cried even more, because Gina pulled out a notebook of her own research and asked if we knew anything about how this all worked.
She's been helping Iris study us, trying to understand the roots and rules of our magic. They've gotten really close, and they balance each other. She's helped Iris to accept that sometimes, it's okay to not have all the answers. Sometimes, not having the answers means hurting people, and that part is terrible. But a lot of the time, not having the answers means letting things be what they are.
Because whatever this thing is, it's beautiful. And whatever it is, it's ours. |
The sleepover is everything we all hoped it would be. It's perfect. We throw things at each other and make a mess and at midnight Roya says she wants some cookies, so we make cookies out of whatever we can find in the kitchen. Gina and Paula draw closer and closer to each other over the course of the night, until finally, they disappear into the backyard, arms around each other. When the door shuts behind them, Maryam and I share a smile, and nobody says anything because it's insane that it's taken three whole weeks for Gina and Paula to hook up.
Around four, I'm snuggled up with Handsome and Fritz. Handsome is breathing deep and heavy, and Fritz's paws are twitching with some kind of dog-dream. I lay a hand on his wide flat head and try to figure out what he's dreaming about, but all I can get is a sense of wind making his ears flap. Listening in on his dream isn't as good as having my own, but I sink into it all the same, trying to remember what it's like.
Maryam has fallen asleep on the couch with a bowl of popcorn in her lap. She's been planning nonstop, putting together mood boards for the apartment she and Roya and I will share, mapping the neighborhood we'll be living in. She's really excited about the mosque a few blocks away from our school—she keeps talking about finally finding an imam, someone she can talk to about faith and magic, so she can decide which rules she wants to keep living by and what she believes in. Iris's head rests on her shoulder. Paula and Gina are in Marcelina's room, and none of us have checked on them, but I'm pretty sure that they're asleep together. Marcelina is softly stroking the leaves of a deep purple basil plant she grew.
Roya is watching me.
I ease my way out from under Handsome and Fritz and head for the front door. The dogs, exhausted by the amount of attention they've gotten, don't stir. Roya follows me—I can hear her soft footfalls on the thick, ancient carpet of Marcelina's hallway. I don't look back. Not because I'm scared that she won't be there, but because I know that she will be.
"What's up?" she whispers as we step outside. Her hands finds my hips and she presses her lips to my temple as she finishes the p in "up."
"I have to do something," I whisper back.
"Do you want company?" She draws lines on my shoulders with her fingertips, and the way the moonlight reflects off her cheekbones is transcendent, and I want to say yes. Yes, Roya, yes, I always want company, your company, you, yes, you, us, yes.
But.
"I have to do this alone," I murmur into her hair. "I'm sorry. But I'll be back soon and then maybe we can watch the sunrise?"
"Perfect." She gives me a squeeze and pulls away and then changes her mind and kisses me. She kisses me like it's the first day of summer. She kisses me like a patch of blue sky breaking through a gray morning. She kisses me like she's saying yes.
I could kiss her forever.
I would kiss her forever.
But I have to do this alone.
"I love you," I whisper, and she whispers it back, and then she kisses me again and then she's gone. The door closes with the softest of clicks and I'm alone outside.
Alone doesn't feel the same now as it used to feel. Before prom—before Josh—alone felt scary. It felt like maybe if I wasn't careful, alone would be permanent. But as I walk across Marcelina's lawn and into the trees, alone feels temporary. It feels like a gift that the morning is sharing with me: a moment with myself and the waking-up forest and the taste of heat already on the air.
I walk without direction. I know that when the time comes to find my way back, I'll be able to. I can ask a bird or a colony of beetles the way home. And more than that, I can feel it. I can feel the pull of the sleeping magic girls in that house. I can feel Roya waiting to kiss me and fall asleep together. I can feel the path I'm cutting through the forest, the broken leaves and bothered mice.
It doesn't take long for me to reach the lightning-struck tree. I step around the place where I buried Josh's head—the earth is still a little rounded there, and I give it a wide berth. I walk around the tree in a circle, looking up at the branches. The long black scar is still there. I wonder if it'll ever fade. And a lot of the leaves are still brown. But at the very tips of some of the branches, in the graying light of the predawn sky, I can just make out a few buds of bright green. New leaves.
I lay a palm on the trunk and press until the bark hurts the tender parts of my skin. I close my eyes and I try. I know that I'm not Marcelina, and I can't tell this tree anything or hear anything back from it, but I try to tell it that I'm happy it's doing better. I hope it knows. I hope it understands.
This is what I needed to see. I needed to see the place where I dug a hole for a boy's head. I needed to see the tree that his bones fed.
I'm startled by a noise—a whistle of wind, a heavy wingbeat. I look up to see a hawk dropping from the branches of the lightning-struck tree. Her wings don't flutter, she's not a fluttering kind of bird, but she's not diving for prey, either. She lands on a gnarled tree root and cocks her head at me.
She looks so different from the hawks that fell out of the sky the day we failed to bring Josh back to life with our magic. She's just like them, the same species, probably the same size. But with all that life in her—she looks bigger.
"Hey," I whisper. She doesn't respond, because hawks don't talk, but she watches me with one yellow eye. I can't make out her markings, but I can see that eye, and I can see that she's staring right at me. I sink to the ground slowly—not slowly enough, as she still ruffles her wings at me, but slow as I can go. As I sit, the hawk hops down off the tree branch. It's light enough out that I can just barely make out the spots on her wings. She steps toward me, walking with broad, bold steps. She's not afraid of me.
I'm afraid of her. More afraid than I thought I would be. Her beak is huge and hooked and dangerous, and her talons sink into the soft soil as she approaches me. She's a predator. She's made to destroy soft things.
She's perfect.
My heart is beating hard and fast, and some part of my brain is screaming at me to run run run from this thing that is born to be danger.
But then, some part of me is born to danger too.
I lift my wrist until it's parallel to the ground. She looks. Hesitates. Takes another step forward.
And then, with a flutter and a terrifying lurch, she's on my arm.
She's heavier than I expected her to be. She smells like meat and feathers and something that I can't put my finger on but that makes the run run run part of my brain scream. Her talons dig into my skin. I feel blood running down the length of my arm, curling into tight spirals in the air around me. I don't look away from the hawk, but there's something feathery about the red rising next to my shoulders.
She studies my face, the one pupil I can see contracting. She shakes her feathers once, squeezes my arm in a heart-clenching grip of her talons.
And then she's gone, and my arm is burning, and it's over. I'm alone. I stand up, my legs trembling with fear and relief and fatigue.
I turn back the way I came and head for the house. Roya's waiting for me, and I've got a sunrise to watch with her. I wind my way between the trees, feeling unbearably light, the flesh of my arm knitting itself back together. I trail spirals of crystallized blood that will melt away as the dew evaporates at dawn.
I breathe in the first day of summer.
I breathe out magic. |
Choking Season: 2714–2719 Imperial. Proximate cause: volcanic eruption. Location: the Antarctics near Deveteris. The eruption of Mount Akok blanketed a five-hundred-mile radius with fine ash clouds that solidified in lungs and mucous membranes. Five years without sunlight, although the northern hemisphere was not affected as much (only two years). |
Acid Season: 2322–2329 Imperial. Proximate cause: plus-ten-level shake. Location: unknown; far ocean. A sudden plate shift birthed a chain of volcanoes in the path of a major jet stream. This jet stream became acidified, flowing toward the western coast and eventually around most of the Stillness. Most coastal comms perished in the initial tsunami; the rest failed or were forced to relocate when their fleets and port facilities corroded and the fishing dried up. Atmospheric occlusion by clouds lasted seven years; coastal pH levels remained untenable for many years more. |
Boiling Season: 1842–1845 Imperial. Proximate cause: hot spot eruption beneath a great lake. Location: Somidlats, Lake Tekkaris quartent. The eruption launched millions of gallons of steam and particulates into the air, which triggered acidic rain and atmospheric occlusion over the southern half of the continent for three years. The northern half suffered no negative impacts, however, so archeomests dispute whether this qualifies as a "true" Season. |
Breathless Season: 1689–1798 Imperial. Proximate cause: mining accident. Location: Nomidlats, Sathd quartent. An entirely human-caused Season triggered when miners at the edge of the northeastern Nomidlats coalfields set off underground fires. A relatively mild Season featuring occasional sunlight and no ashfall or acidification except in the region; few comms declared Seasonal Law. Approximately fourteen million people in the city of Heldine died in the initial natural-gas eruption and rapidly spreading fire sinkhole before Imperial Orogenes successfully quelled and sealed the edges of the fires to prevent further spread. The remaining mass could only be isolated, where it continued to burn for one hundred and twenty years. The smoke of this, spread via prevailing winds, caused respiratory problems and occasional mass suffocations in the region for several decades. A secondary effect of the loss of the Nomidlats coalfields was a catastrophic rise in heating fuel costs and the wider adaption of geothermal and hydroelectric heating, leading to the establishment of the Geneer Licensure. |
The Season of Teeth: 1553–1566 Imperial. Proximate cause: oceanic shake triggering a supervolcanic explosion. Location: Arctic Cracks. An aftershock of the oceanic shake breached a previously unknown hot spot near the north pole. This triggered a supervolcanic explosion; witnesses report hearing the sound of the explosion as far as the Antarctics. Ash went upper-atmospheric and spread around the globe rapidly, although the Arctics were most heavily affected. The harm of this Season was exacerbated by poor preparation on the part of many comms, because some nine hundred years had passed since the last Season; popular belief at the time was that the Seasons were merely legend. Reports of cannibalism spread from the north all the way to the Equatorials. At the end of this Season, the Fulcrum was founded in Yumenes, with satellite facilities in the Arctics and Antarctics. |
Fungus Season: 602 Imperial. Proximate cause: volcanic eruption. Location: western Equatorials. A series of eruptions during monsoon season increased humidity and obscured sunlight over approximately 20 percent of the continent for six months. While this was a mild Season as such things go, its timing created perfect conditions for a fungal bloom that spread across the Equatorials into the northern and southern midlats, wiping out then-staple-crop miroq (now extinct). The resulting famine lasted four years (two for the fungus blight to run its course, two more for agriculture and food distribution systems to recover). Nearly all affected comms were able to subsist on their own stores, thus proving the efficacy of Imperial reforms and Season planning, and the Empire was generous in sharing stored seed with those regions that had been miroq-dependent. In its aftermath, many comms of the middle latitudes and coastal regions voluntarily joined the Empire, doubling its range and beginning its Golden Age. |
Madness Season: 3 Before Imperial–7 Imperial. Proximate cause: volcanic eruption. Location: Kiash Traps. The eruption of multiple vents of an ancient supervolcano (the same one responsible for the Twin Season of approximately 10,000 years previous) launched large deposits of the dark-colored mineral augite into the air. The resulting ten years of darkness was not only devastating in the usual Seasonal way, but resulted in a higher than usual incidence of mental illness. The Sanzed Equatorial Affiliation (commonly called the Sanze Empire) was born in this Season as Warlord Verishe of Yumenes conquered multiple ailing comms using psychological warfare techniques. (See The Art of Madness, various authors, Sixth University Press.) Verishe named herself Emperor on the day the first sunlight returned. |
Wandering Season: Approximately 800 Before Imperial. Proximate cause: magnetic pole shift. Location: unverifiable. This Season resulted in the extinction of several important trade crops of the time, and twenty years of famine resulting from pollinators confused by the movement of true north. |
Season of Changed Wind: Approximately 1900 Before Imperial. Proximate cause: unknown. Location: unverifiable. For reasons unknown, the direction of the prevailing winds shifted for many years before returning to normal. Consensus agrees that this was a Season, despite the lack of atmospheric occlusion, because only a substantial (and likely far-oceanic) seismic event could have triggered it. |
Heavy Metal Season: Approximately 4200 Before Imperial. Proximate cause: volcanic eruption. Location: Somidlats near eastern Coastals. A volcanic eruption (believed to be Mount Yrga) caused atmospheric occlusion for ten years, exacerbated by widespread mercury contamination throughout the eastern half of the Stillness. |
Season of Yellow Seas: Approximately 9200 Before Imperial. Proximate cause: unknown. Location: Eastern and Western Coastals, and coastal regions as far south as the Antarctics. This Season is only known through written accounts found in Equatorial ruins. For unknown reasons, a widespread bacterial bloom toxified nearly all sea life and caused coastal famines for several decades. |
Twin Season: Approximately 9800 Before Imperial. Proximate cause: volcanic eruption. Location: Somidlats. Per songs and oral histories dating from the time, the eruption of one volcanic vent caused a three-year occlusion. As this began to clear, it was followed by a second eruption of a different vent, which extended the occlusion by thirty more years. |
"Hey," says Elsa, "you're not really here at all, are you?"
Michiru blinks and draws herself back to the present. "Hm?"
"Hah! I knew it."
Elsa is laughing now, and Michiru smiles mildly at her. "I was daydreaming."
"Mm-hmm," says Elsa. "No kidding."
She leans in against Michiru's shoulder and they sit together quietly again. It's early summer, and the air is warm and damp. Behind them, at a distance, is the sound of running feet and muffled shouting—everyone is on their way home from school. But here they're screened away by trees and bushes, wild spring growth that makes it hard to even see the path they came down. It's one of the safest places to be together near the school.
Michiru breaths in the smell of earth and leaves and the morning's rain.
Beside her, Elsa, never good at sitting still, has begun to fidget, feet tapping against the ground, fingers pulling at clothing that isn't out of place.
"Oh come on," she says. "Are we just going to sit here all day while you drift off wherever it is you go again?"
"Sorry," Michiru murmurs, manages a small smile. "I'm sure you have practice. You should go."
Elsa exhales loudly. "Tell me when you feel like talking then."
She leans over to kiss Michiru, who, still half spaced out, responds a little too slowly. Then she hops to her feet, bag already swinging into place over her shoulder, and runs, tearing along the edge of the embankment they've been sitting on, following the curve of it away and out of sight. She runs beautifully.
Michiru lowers her head to her drawn-up knees, closes her eyes, and sighs. She would love to explain everything to Elsa, but it seems beyond implausible: hey, you know I mentioned that I've been having nightmares? Well, yesterday I found out that they're real. I'm sorry if I seem a little distant, but it looks as though I have to save the world, so...
No.
The whole thing, she tries to tell herself, is just too ridiculous. She would love to be able to disbelieve all of it.
But her attention is pulled back to her bag and the wand tucked carefully into a pocket deep inside it.
She imagines that in other families there might be some kind of awkwardness associated with this new secret. But dinner-table silence is an entirely expected part of everyday life for hers.
"We got our test results for biology," she says mildly half way through the meal.
"I hope you did well," her mother murmurs.
"Yes," she says. "I'll show you the paper."
Her father nods.
And they lapse back into silence, familial duty done.
Really, no acting skills seem to be needed. It actually makes her bitter, just for a moment, about a situation she'd thought she was entirely resigned to. What would happen if she told them all about her day, the real one? In the same light tone, of course.
That's nice, dear.
Pass the sauce.
"I need to train," she says when they're done and the atmosphere of the house is becoming too much for her already worn down state. "I think I'll go to the pool for an hour, if you don't mind."
Of course they don't.
Outside she breathes in cool, damp air as steadily as she can and tries to stop thinking in circles. It feels better to be out of the big, echoing house that is meant to be her home, better to be going somewhere, doing something. But it doesn't feel the way it should.
She wonders if anything will now, and gets her answer in the form of an urgent pull on her consciousness directing her towards a threat.
Stepping off the well-lit pavement and into the shadow of an old, thick-stemmed tree is almost reflex; so is reaching out after the source of danger. All day she's been wondering if she'll actually react if destiny or whatever it is calls on her again. Well, now she knows.
She takes a moment to steady herself, to push all the things she's feeling deep down until she has time to deal with them. Transforms, and fights.
Elsa has always been focused on sport but now she throws herself into it harder than ever. Or perhaps it's just that her priorities are shifting in other ways which makes it seem like that to Michiru.
For her own part Michiru has never surrounded herself with people but now she can feel herself slipping away from the ones she has, going through a mental process of disconnection which she can't seem to stop. She watches Elsa train, standing on the sidelines, and feels as though she's actually somewhere above the scene, watching herself; she is not in her own body. She is not herself.
They haven't kissed since what she has come to think of as the day after, though they go places together still, chat a little. Maybe they're done with the other thing now. Maybe that's for the best. She doesn't know, can't find the energy to think about it with any kind of clear mind.
She does find herself wishing for someone to draw in closer, but Elsa probably can't be it; Elsa has her own future, and Michiru isn't going to mess it up for her. Besides, a part of what she suspects she's really wishing for is someone to talk to who would understand, and although something tugs at her with the hint that that person or those people might exist, she can't reach them yet. She can't see their faces or their forms.
She has no-one who she can tell about the first time she transformed, and how it didn't feel like putting on a costume so much as like tearing out of something, breaking apart her smaller, more human self. How she feels as though being human is now some kind of act of tentative and incompetent reconstruction, and that she's amazed every day when none of her teachers or classmates or family members notice the difference except maybe as a little distraction. But then not many of them were watching closely to begin with.
Sometimes the monsters she fights become people again.
Sometimes they don't.
The first don't should be a shattering moment, but she experiences it from a long way away, as another person, almost like a dream. It happens in the middle of the day. She's on her way to a class. She carries on after the fight, and sits through all her lessons.
Reality only crashes in much later, and she sits on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor and cries for hours, is sick, cries more.
She still gets up the next morning, puts on makeup—a little more than usual, because she's sure her face is a mess—and leaves the house, smiles at the right moments, and acts like a person.
It takes a while longer before she can eat again.
Fighting does get easier with time—at least in the moment when she's doing it. One of the few benefits is that it's a mental space in which she gets to shut off everything else and focus on just the thing itself; the only other spaces which can do something similar for her are artistic ones.
Otherwise she lives in a kind of overload, her mind filling with threads of future and past until the present begins to get lost.
To play the violin imposes order and allows her to separate memory from prophecy and reality. Occasionally it even pulls forward a new kind of clarity, a sudden insight into which thread she should follow to find a new piece of herself; to paint is to crystallise those pieces and hold them in a form she can trust not to disappear. To fight allows her to push everything but the most pressing version of reality out of her mind.
Her art changes, and not for the worse. But she begins to feel older, and isn't sure she likes it. No choice, though; there isn't much time left for being a child.
Besides, sometimes she kills people. She doesn't have the right any more.
"I don't know what you do with your time these days," Elsa says, breaking into one of the awkward, tense moments that have grown into their relationship, weaving their way into the fabric, "but if you want to catch a race at the weekend...?"
"Are you running?" Michiru asks, relieved at the chance to move back into more comfortable territory.
"Nah, I was thinking we could just go and watch. You know, get you out of the house, talking to people who aren't your little fangirls. And boys. It's a bike race. What d'you think?"
Michiru has never had any particular interest in or feelings about motor sports, but she nods. "That would be nice."
Elsa has these bursts of investment still, out of pity or friendship or something more obscure, Michiru isn't sure. She invites Michiru to events, to the cinema, out to a café. Michiru tends to go along with it. She feels that she's playing at being a normal girl whatever she does with Elsa, but sometimes it's nice to play.
It's at the bike race of all places, standing there by the finish line with Elsa, pressed up against the barriers, that she finds someone entirely unexpected.
"Oh," she says, as the winner of the race takes off their helmet, runs a hand through their short, blonde hair, laughs at something one of the attendants says. She searches after something else to add, and doesn't find anything in her vocabulary that seems appropriate. "Oh my..."
Beside her, Elsa whistles. "Nice."
The girl, tough and androgynous and unbelievably attractive, is swinging herself off her bike. She straightens up, looking elated.
Michiru feels suddenly clear-headed, anchored to her own body and her own humanity again. She's a teenage girl with a brand new crush.
"Who is that?" she asks, fascinated. But Elsa shakes her head.
"Never seen her before," she says.
But they do see her again. It turns out Tenoh Haruka is big news.
In fact, Haruka seems to be everywhere. She turns up in magazine features. She turns up in classroom gossip. She turns up at all kinds of different sporting events.
There's a rumour that she's started running, and Elsa gets a glint in her eye which means she's eyeing up the competition and finding it of interest.
Michiru wonders if Elsa can see how she feels about Haruka. She wonders what Elsa thinks if she can.
She keeps magazine clippings in her desk draw at home, deep down under old school assignments and boxes of pens, and worries that someone will have a burst of interest in her life and cross enough boundaries in the process to find them—and then feels ridiculous. They're only magazine articles. She could just as easily be using them for a project, or for reference material.
No-one can actually read her mind. Especially not her parents. If they could she'd have even bigger problems than her sexuality being discovered.
But they're almost entirely disinterested in her life as long as appearances are maintained. She doesn't even have to be a good girl, really; she just has to look like one from a distance.
Things begin to shift and settle in her mind. The flood of information gets less overwhelming, more organised. A lot of the unnecessary input has been cut away, and her second past is becoming more and more a natural part of her, though she knows she can't see all of it yet. It's not just there, laid out; it's like other memories that can lie forgotten for years. And there's so much of it.
She still dreams about the end of the world.
She also dreams about another warrior who fights alongside her. She can feel them coming closer, though she can't see them properly yet.
And she daydreams about Haruka. Sometimes she imagines that the other warrior has Haruka's face, and then she catches herself, feels horrified. Better to daydream about sitting in Haruka's car as a normal girl than to pull Haruka into her world, even if it's only a game.
Michiru wakes up abruptly in early morning half-darkness, shocked out of a dream without being able to grasp what the dream was about. She's too aware of her heartbeat. It feels intrusive, a little unnatural, and it takes several deep breaths to reassure herself that her body is still working right. It's only the strangeness that comes from waking up too fast.
She can feel her pulse intensely in different parts of her body. A thudding in her ears. An excited, urgent beat between her legs.
Ah.
She reaches carefully down and inches her hand inside her underwear, fingers sliding through rough, curled hair until they reach her clitoris and slide lower, deeper. She presses a finger into herself, shifts against it, slides in another; grinds the heel of her hand against herself as she moves. Groans faintly, stifles the noise.
The house is so quiet that it's almost impossible to convince herself no-one will hear. But no-one will. She's snuck out of the house in the middle of the night to fight, she's had Elsa home and gone to bed with her—once her mother even slept through their old cat knocking over a glass-topped table.
It's just the silence at this time of night, where everything seems to be held in such perfect stillness that a small movement could destroy everything.
She touches herself slowly, tries not to make even the smallest sound. But it's infuriating, not enough.
A deep breath, a reminder for herself that the house is large, that her bedroom is tucked away at the end of a wing. Her hand moves faster, searches for the spots that will make her whole body react in sudden pleasure.
It's been a long time since she masturbated, and then she was really just trying to understand her body. Then there was Elsa for a while, and it wasn't as important. Then she was busy.
Now she's thinking of someone else entirely. It's not her own fingers curling and shifting there inside her body, not Elsa's with their quick, impatient movements—it's this other girl's, the one in her mind, who is partly Haruka and partly someone she knew a thousand years ago (but she wasn't going to think of that, was she?). She imagines that they pull up the shirt of her pyjamas, lean in close to her breasts, warm breath ghosting over them for a moment before being followed by a warmer mouth, teeth pressing down on a nipple just a little, not too much, not too far—a little thrill that makes the flesh around her fingers—Haruka's fingers—Uranus's fingers—tighten for a moment.
She comes almost too fast, lies there breathing hard with one hand still between her legs, fingers resting lightly against her clit, and one hand cupped over a breast. She opens her eyes to the empty room, stares up at the ceiling, letting the aftershocks of orgasm drift away.
Who was she thinking about? Uranus. A sailor senshi who looks like Haruka.
Oh, great.
"Guess," Elsa says suddenly, "who else is in my next race."
Michiru looks up sharply from her book. "Tenoh Haruka."
"Got it. The one and only. Think I can take her?"
"Hmm," Michiru murmurs. "I suppose we'll see."
She goes back to her book, and Elsa goes back to her own work. But it's hard to concentrate.
"On Thursday?" she asks after a moment.
"Yeah, that's the one."
"You'll have to introduce me," Michiru says, and laughs. She's only half joking. She has to meet Haruka in person now—to make sure. "She'd make a wonderful model."
"Oh, right, that's what it is," Elsa says, and Michiru feels suddenly and sharply guilty.
But Elsa takes Michiru with her to the track. Michiru tries not to feel apprehensive. She doesn't really want to go—she wants to meet Haruka without ulterior motives and spend time with her like a normal person, and failing that, she'd rather admire her from a distance. But that won't work now.
Still, she could be wrong. Although she doesn't think so.
Even with suspicions fully formed in her mind it's still hard to stand face to face with Haruka, speak with her directly. She knows immediately that she was right, an overwhelming feeling of familiarity and connection that she wants to embrace and push away, both at once. That kind of conflict is becoming very familiar to her, especially when it comes to Haruka.
She holds her sketchbook in front of her like a barrier, and smiles with determination. This is not the meeting that she wished for, but it's the meeting that they were meant to have.
When Haruka laughs her off and turns away she has no idea what to feel.
Eventually she settles, tentatively, on relief.
But then Haruka turns up at a performance. Michiru is aware of her from the second she appears, and it's all she can do to hold herself distant and serene throughout her recital. But she is practised. And she certainly doesn't stare.
That would be beyond impolite.
She wonders, though, what Haruka is thinking.
Haruka recognises the scene in the painting. It's clear in her reaction, her face, the way it holds her.
But she doesn't want to admit it yet. Michiru can't really blame her for that response; after all, it's very much like her own was. Denial is a healthy enough reaction, and so is anger. But it frustrates her. In some way it isn't what she hoped for.
The question is, what did she hope for?
By the next day Michiru has decided that it's fine if Haruka isn't willing to accept who she is yet or even ever. She will do this by herself. It's just as well to limit the number of people caught by the whole thing.
It's an uneasy week later and she knows neither of them will be let off so easily. Really she knew it already from the start.
She can't feel particularly surprised by the uncomfortable, tugging sensation that indicates a monster, or by its location; she certainly can't be surprised by arriving at the scene to see Haruka staring up at a wand which very much resembles her own, hanging bright and promising in the air.
But the scene is such a perfect mirror of another that she's seen, even if she's viewing it from a different perspective, that it brings back everything that she's lost in one big rush. For a moment she thinks she'll be sick when she realises what Haruka's about to do.
"Don't take it," she says, her voice as close to level as she can manage. Haruka's hand freezes mid-movement.
She can't look at Haruka as she goes through her own transformation.
She's lying in Haruka's arms, hazy as to how she got there. Everything is playing itself out like a film, and she's right back at the feeling of being an observer again; this is not something she's in full control of, and it's frightening.
It isn't as though she was going to tell Haruka so much, but more and more things come spilling out, the deep and private ones that she was so sure were secrets she would always keep. Blood is running from her arm and back. The pain is making her babble, she supposes. She's quite possibly in some kind of shock. Something seems to have shut off.
Maybe her sense of discretion.
Haruka's hands are warm. They move her gently, but the pain becomes sharper again anyway as she's lifted from Haruka's knees down to the floor. Haruka kneels over her.
Then she stands, and crosses the room, and closes her hand around the wand in one fast, decisive motion, looking back at Michiru as though daring her to comment.
Sailor Uranus comes back across the room towards her.
Michiru realises that she's crying, and wonders how long she's been doing it, and which bit she's crying over.
They sit together in the emergency room, and stumble their way through a story about a feral dog.
Haruka takes her home to a silent, empty house. It feels even less lived in than Michiru's; she doesn't dare ask.
The silence stretches, deep and awkward. They know each other intimately well, and also hardly at all. Their history is both thousands of years and three slightly bizarre conversations and one fight long. Michiru has watched Haruka for months, has built up picture after picture of the person she's dealing with, but now she doesn't know how to speak to her.
"So," Haruka says. "Uh..."
"Yes," says Michiru. "Here we are. I suppose."
"Whoever the hell we are," Haruka says, and cracks a smile that she probably doesn't really mean. She's clearly still shaken. Michiru knows too well how it feels.
"But I'm glad..." Michiru says, and hesitates. There doesn't seem to be a way to end that sentence which won't bring up a world of embarrassment for them both again.
"Hey, easy," Haruka says. "I just couldn't stand seeing you look that sad."
"Hm," Michiru murmurs. She's tired, and she hurts all over. She certainly doesn't have the energy to challenge Haruka's claim.
For a moment Haruka looks as though she's going to say something else. Then she sighs. "You're a mess. I can give you a ride home if you like."
What Michiru would like is to fall asleep exactly where she is, but she smiles politely. "Thank you."
With Sailor Uranus materialised and real, Neptune's past gains new clarity. Things which were just an overwhelming feeling before become specific memories.
Michiru sits at her desk, and stares out of the window into twilight-dark silhouettes of trees, and remembers dying.
She waits outside Haruka's house, listening to the doorbell echoing through the hall. Actually, she still wonders about the house, and its dusty, stale air—however much she thinks about it, it doesn't seem like it can possibly be Haruka's home. She doesn't remember anything that seemed personal.
But after a few minutes, Haruka opens the door.
"Good afternoon," Michiru says, and steps inside. "How are you feeling?"
Haruka shuts the door ever so slightly too hard behind her. "Guess."
She leads the way through to the kitchen, which looks, if possible, even less used than everything else.
"Tea?" she asks. It's offered from a thermos.
Michiru raises an eyebrow slightly.
"It's my father's house," Haruka explains. "I don't live here. But he's overseas. I'm just here for a couple of nights because it's closer to the track." She pauses. Leaning against the kitchen work surface, she's silhouetted by the light creeping through the kitchen window, her face in shadow. "I don't touch more than I have to when I'm here."
"Ah," Michiru says.
Today Haruka is wearing men's trousers and a loose, light cotton shirt. They're good quality and it suits her wonderfully, although the sizing is perhaps a touch off. She looks tired.
"It settles down," Michiru says, although she doesn't feel very settled today. "After a while it starts to feel almost normal. Although I'm afraid one doesn't get the chance to wait for that to happen in peace."
"I realised," Haruka says drily. "I've been dreaming about nothing but you and the end of the world all year. Relaxation doesn't seem to be a feature."
Michiru sighs. "No. Not really."
She wonders how Haruka will fight, and feels a knot of tension in her chest which is only partly apprehension.
It's almost another week before she gets to see.
In senshi form, in battle, there is no awkwardness. Uranus and Neptune know each other well, and when there's no time to second-guess and no space to try and be Haruka and Michiru they rarely miscommunicate.
Neptune matches Uranus' pace. It's easy, even with one arm awkward and stiff, skin stretching in strange and uncomfortable ways over half-healed wounds.
The comedown is harder, with its attempted renegotiation of roles. There is Neptune and Michiru and sometimes it's hard to know which is which, or what belongs to which set of experiences.
It is, for example, not entirely comfortable to think that she might only be attracted to Haruka because of the bond between Neptune and Uranus. So much for having something normal.
Michiru still thinks about Haruka, though. She'd thought her attraction might fade out, transform into some kind of respect, maybe, when she was faced with Haruka as a reality rather than a fantasy, a regular feature of her life. She doesn't know how she feels about being proved wrong.
She decides that she doesn't have time to wonder much. The supernatural pull of their duty is getting stronger and stronger. She's distracted in class and distracted at breakfast and distracted when she walks through town—and she has more and more dreams that aren't a product of her own subconscious. She wakes up often in the middle of the night reaching after a clue which doesn't quite come to her. She can feel their enemy almost all the time, and the sense of something wrong is focusing more and more often on the same part of town, the same set of buildings.
Compared to this, worrying about who she's attracted to really isn't worth the time. She repeats this to herself, over and over again.
The monsters that they fight are turning up more frequently too. They're also getting more humanoid.
The first that they can't save since Haruka joined her has something like a face.
It's Haruka who finishes it. There is no reverse transformation. The creature wavers between looking human and looking monstrous, and the expression on its face is full of shock.
Then it vanishes into dust.
Haruka stares in horror. She's gone pale, and her hands, stretched out in front of her from the release of her attack, shake slightly. She doesn't even look at Michiru; it seems as though she has to force herself to look away from the little pile of remains.
She turns with stiff, awkward movements, and begins to walk away, and then to run.
Michiru finds her down by the harbour, sitting on the edge of the quay, staring out to sea.
"The first time it happened to me, I was sick," she says quietly.
"Right," Haruka says. She doesn't register surprise at Michiru's presence, just shifts her gaze down to her hands.
They've talked about the fact that this happens sometimes. But that doesn't help. Half an hour ago there was a human; now they don't exist any more.
The sun is getting down close to the horizon now.
"This is how it is, I guess," Haruka says. Her hand clenches, slams down onto the rough concrete. "Damn it."
Michiru places a comforting hand on Haruka's knee, and Haruka reaches for it, wraps both her own hands around it, and holds it, just a little too tight. One of her gloves is torn, and the skin underneath is scraped and oozing blood.
Michiru leans in against her.
"Damn it," Haruka says again, more quietly, her voice cracking. "I thought I'd decided it was fine."
"It's never fine," Michiru says. "But it can't be helped."
She coaxes Haruka to her feet, and leads her away through the quiet, half-sleeping town, their senshi uniforms fading away to leave them alone with themselves.
It's late, and the warm night air feels too close—even out in the open Michiru feels half-stifled. Haruka is the quietest she's ever been, and the smallest, too; she seems to have drawn in on herself, and left without her attitude she's more obviously a teenager.
"Come on," Michiru says mildly. "Let's go home."
It's the first time Haruka has been in her home. The wide, sweeping drive doesn't get much of a reaction from her, though; she's too tired, too wrapped up in her own mind.
Michiru takes them in through the side door, further from her parents' rooms, and they creep up the dark staircase towards her own bedroom. Michiru steps lightly, avoids the boards that creak—as much out of habit as any need.
"In here," she murmurs. "Wait, I'll just fetch some things from the bathroom."
Disinfectant, cotton wool. She doesn't think Haruka hurt her hand badly, but it's an excuse to have taken her here. At least it's a more reasonable sounding explanation than the sudden fear that Haruka might just vanish if left alone.
This sort of fear isn't really like her.
Back in her bedroom, Haruka is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, head bowed.
"I should go home," she mutters.
"Not yet," Michiru says. "And you don't have to at all, you know. I can fetch a futon... here, sit on the bed."
She cleans up Haruka's hand carefully, though Haruka still winces at the sharp alcohol sting of the disinfectant. The smell of it fills the space between them.
"Michiru?" Haruka mumbles. Michiru looks up, finds Haruka's eyes fixed on her. She comes to a standstill, suddenly awkward under the scrutiny.
"What is it?" she asks quietly.
Haruka doesn't answer, but she doesn't look away either. She's tense, her mouth drawn out into a hard, worried line. It's half-dark in the room, too dark to see her eyes properly. They're just shadows.
"What?" Michiru repeats.
"What are we doing?" Haruka asks slowly.
"Saving the world," Michiru says, as brisk and confident as possible. But Haruka is silent, draws back again. It was the wrong thing to say, maybe not even an answer to the question Haruka asked.
What, Michiru wonders, was the real question?
She swallows, unusually nervous, and turns her attention back to Haruka's hand, covering up the broken skin quickly with a bandage that won't be needed by tomorrow. They heal fast—not like people.
She doesn't even have scars from the day when Haruka became Uranus.
Haruka stands up, draws a deep breath. "I meant," she starts, and then glances away, back again. Shakes her head, dismisses whatever she was going to say. "I should go."
"Wait," Michiru says. "You meant... what?"
"I'm not even sure," Haruka admits, but her good hand comes up to rest against Michiru's cheek, fingertips brushing through her hair. She's trying to gather herself, Michiru realises, to be smooth and confident and in charge again—but her hand shakes slightly. Michiru sighs, lets Haruka come a step closer. Draws her in, even.
If Haruka is going to try and kiss her, she realises, she's going to let her. Even if it would probably be for all the wrong reasons, for both of them. But it would be so easy. Much easier than thinking about the fight, and much easier than thinking through all of her feelings.
But Haruka takes a deep breath, manages a crooked smile.
"It's the staircase to the left, yeah?"
And instead of kissing her, instead of telling her to stay, Michiru just nods.
It's days before they see each other again. Michiru is about to try and see if she can force some kind of connection, twist information about Haruka's position out of thin air, anything to stop herself from pacing and worrying, when Haruka finally rings her.
"OK," she says. "I'm back. Sorry about that." And she laughs as though it really wasn't a big deal at all. As if she was just running a little late.
Michiru thinks that she could kill her if she wasn't so relieved. "You turned off your communicator," she says. She manages at least a little irritation. Most importantly, she doesn't think she sounds scared.
"Yeah," Haruka says, a little bit less breezy. "Hey, we'll talk about it later, OK? I'll meet you in an hour."
Haruka is so relentlessly upbeat after her period of absence that Michiru wonders if there isn't something else going on behind the flirting and jokes. But she doesn't quite dare bring it up. It may well not be her business at all.
A kind of routine is restored. Between fighting and planning they're spending more and more time together, in restaurants and in cafés and, rarely, at one of their houses. She gets to see other sides of Haruka. The one who flirts shamelessly with all her fans in public, especially the girls—and aren't most of them girls? The one who can sound so awake and alert on the phone at 7am that Michiru wants to hate her, at least a little.
The one who is insecure.
Haruka isn't, strictly speaking, rich. She isn't rich in the way that Michiru is, anyway. Michiru has inheritance and a huge family house and cash that she can get access to without too many questions, if she really needs to. Haruka lives in a small suburban house with her mother, and has a half-estranged father who is almost always overseas. He's rich, but whatever spills over seems to be carefully negotiated for.
Haruka, Michiru has worked out, is extremely good at coming up with elaborate explanations, just plausible enough, to play on her father's sense of guilt about his abandoned family. She doesn't seem to care very much about her father. Possibly she thinks he deserves ever bit if bad conscience she can wring out of him.
She doesn't talk about it much, but sometimes something comes out, suddenly.
"The bike," she says, with a sharp smile, "isn't his. It's mine. He didn't buy it and he can't touch it. So fuck him. Wanna go for a ride?"
She's just put the phone down. She doesn't say what they talked about, but it was a fight, low and tense.
She also doesn't say if she bought the bike herself, or how. Possibly she has some kind of sponsorship; she's an impressive enough racing driver, as far as Michiru can tell.
Possibly there are other answers, entirely shocking to a well-raised girl—which Michiru is, fortunately, only pretending to be.
She does hope, though, that Haruka doesn't get herself into trouble. With her family or with anyone else.
They only take each other home when there's no chance of running into family members, although they never came to any kind of agreement that it was going to be that way. It's true that neither of them are particularly close to their families, but Michiru isn't quite sure that's the whole explanation.
It feels as though the secret between them is in danger of getting deeper. Sometimes Haruka looks at her in that way which makes Michiru wonder if she's about to be kissed, and she wishes that Haruka would just do it or stop acting as though she wants to.
On the other hand, she doesn't want Haruka to kiss her out of any kind of sense of obligation, or sympathy—or out of some kind of desperation, because they're the only ones who can fully understand the other's situation. It would hardly be much of a compliment; the last girl in the world.
She wants Haruka to want her, as a person. Even if Haruka just thinks she's hot, she'd rather that be because of Kaiou Michiru than because of some kind of destiny. She's accepted, grudgingly, its control over some parts of her life, but she'd rather keep it out of her bed. Not that she's sure how one would tell the difference.
So much for focusing on more important things, anyway.
There's a light knock on her door.
"Michiru," her mother calls, and then adds, a touch belatedly, "dear?"
She snaps herself back into some version of reality that her family might recognise, and stands up carefully, smoothing down her clothes. She isn't sure how long she's been sitting there, staring out the window and seeing something else entirely. It's definitely darker now than when she started.
"Yes?" she says.
Her mother opens the door slightly and peers in. "Don't you have the light on?" She sighs. "Well, there seems to be a young man here to see you."
"Haruka, really." Michiru says lightly, several confused conversations with household staff later. "Is this a deliberate attempt to cause a scandal?"
Haruka is standing just outside the gates, leaning against her car, hands in pockets. She's dressed in a tuxedo, with a green carnation as a buttonhole. The whole thing is quite perfectly ridiculous, although it does, admittedly, suit her.
"Not at all," Haruka says. "The opposite. I was considering inviting you to move in with me, but then I thought that perhaps it would be rude to ask before the first date. Some things should be done properly." She stands up straight, and offers one hand with a rather exaggerated bow. "Would you care you join me for dinner?"
"I suspect you're teasing me now," Michiru says, but takes Haruka's hand. "By all means play games. Although I do think it's in slightly bad taste to say these kinds of things when one doesn't mean them."
She doesn't say and by the way, aren't you only sixteen?, because she hasn't felt like a sixteen year old very often lately and has no reason to believe that it's any different for Haruka. Anyway, she hasn't raised a fuss about the flimsy "foreign license" excuse for Haruka getting to drive a car at all, so it's probably a little late to start worrying about eccentric behaviour.
Besides, it's the first time she's sat in Haruka's car while she's been in a state to appreciate it.
Haruka, laughing delightedly, revs the car's engine. "Who says I don't mean them?"
Serious or not, Haruka certainly means to put on a good show.
"Isn't this overdoing it rather?" Michiru asks as they take their seats in the restaurant. It's one of the better ones in town. It's probably not possible to get a table on short notice, which makes this a more elaborate performance than she'd first supposed.
"Nah, not at all," Haruka says. Her face becomes more serious. "Look, I know where you think we should be looking, and I agree. Don't you think it's time we did something about it?"
"Ah, work," Michiru says with a small smile. "So what did you have in mind? We file for transfer to Mugen Academy, I tell my parents that I'm leaving home to move in with someone they've never met and we have marvellous sex every night and fight evil by day? Or were you not actually hitting on me with the suit and the car and the fancy restaurant?"
She has the satisfaction of seeing Haruka flush slightly. It makes her look her age, if only briefly; another of those rare moments that Michiru finds somehow reassuring. Then she smooths herself over again.
"Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me," Haruka says, and gives Michiru an appreciative look. "If that's what you want."
It sounds wonderful. It also sounds dangerous.
"Haruka," she warns. Haruka glances away, nods.
"Sorry. I'm not trying to..."
They're interrupted by the waiter. Michiru orders with a certain level of distraction, and can't remember, thirty seconds later, what on earth it was she asked for.
They sit in silence for a moment.
"Actually, I had some prize money from that last race and I felt like doing something extravagant with it," Haruka says.
Michiru doesn't point out that this really doesn't rule out the whole thing being one giant pass at her.
A moment later Haruka adds, "and about work. I've found an apartment very close to the academy," she reaches into her bag, rifling through the paperwork inside it. "Here."
Michiru takes the papers she's offered, flicks through them. It's a brand new complex, expensive, state of the art. The property listing states that it's a two bedroom unit. From the window they can probably see the academy.
There's a pool in the basement.
She takes a deep breath. She has questions to ask, but she can already tell that they're only going to be about the practical details. They're going to do this.
"Fine," she says. "But I do have one thing to request."
"What?"
"I don't know if I can deal with this sort of flirting if we're going to be together all the time. If we're going to live together. Could you... please?"
Haruka watches her carefully. "Do you really think I'm messing with you?"
"I don't know," Michiru murmurs. "But there's too much happening right now for me to be able to... that is, even if you aren't..."
She meets Haruka's eyes for a moment and then glances away.
"I'm not," Haruka says softly. Is she a little uncertain? "But I'll lay off."
"Thank you," Michiru says, with feelings which are still more mixed than she'd hoped.
"I certainly find you very attractive," she adds, and smiles a little as Haruka blinks at her. "I imagine that were we two normal girls I would have tried to sleep with you by now. But..."
The end of the world hangs there unmentioned between them.
"You have of course missed the official application period," the woman says. She's immaculately dressed, all sharp clean lines, pale-light blue suit, white blonde hair.
"We're quite aware," Michiru says apologeticly. They're walking down a long corridor, brightly lit, perfectly clean. Everything here, Michiru feels, is a little too clean.
"But of course," the woman says with a smile, "we're always ready to make exceptions for very bright students. I myself entered the academy half way through a term. And both of you have impressive records."
She turns sharply and gestures towards a door. "This is the music department. I understand you have a particular interest..."
Michiru and Haruka exchange glances, and Haruka gives her a small nod.
This building really could be it.
"I'd be delighted to see the facilities," Michiru says.
"You're switching schools?" Elsa asks. She looks astonished. "You've hardly spoken to me in months, and now you're suddenly leaving? When?"
"Next week, actually," Michiru says. Now, standing here with Elsa, she can feel guilt catching up with her in a way it hadn't when she spoke with her parents. "They had an opening, and it seemed best to take it immediately... you know it's not easy to get in."
"No," Elsa says. "I guess not."
"I'm sorry," Michiru says, "about, well..."
"You know," Elsa breaks in, "don't. I'm OK. But if you start bringing shit up again I'm probably going to get upset."
"Allright," Michiru says.
"Have a good life or whatever," Elsa says. "Look, I've got to get going, I have a thing."
She puts a hand on Michiru's shoulder quickly, awkwardly, and she's off, running back into the routine of her daily life and taking the rest of Michiru's normality with her.
It's done now, Michiru feels. Basically all of it. She's not sure why now; Elsa faded out of her life almost entirely after Haruka came in, horrible as it is to admit. But now it's real, and final.
The feeling of being cut loose from the last of her moorings doesn't fade until she comes to the end of the road, rounds the corner, sees Haruka standing there, lounging easily against a concrete wall.
"OK?" she asks. "Time to go?"
"Yes," Michiru says. "It seems that way."
They move in together, into the large, expensive Tokyo apartment—their own, mostly from Michiru's reserves, an easily justifiable expense given how far she lives from the academy.
"I think," Michiru says, standing among their collective boxes and unassembled furniture, "we need some rules."
Her voice echoes slightly in the empty rooms. They haven't taken much with them. This is not a home so much as a base.
"OK," Haruka says.
"For example," Michiru says, "getting this done is more important than either of us."
Haruka looks at her for a long time. "If you're in danger you don't want me to risk my neck for you."
"Exactly. And the same goes if you're in danger."
"That's a lot to ask," Haruka says. "Michiru..."
"It is," Michiru says, more firm than she feels. "But I'm asking it anyway."
"Oh man," Haruka says, and laughs, though without a trace of humour. "You play rough."
"Well?"
"OK. You're right, of course."
"Thank you," Michiru says.
Haruka stands by the window, staring out into the grey city. She's quiet and thoughtful, subdued. Michiru wants to take everything back, and knows that the impulse to make things easier for Haruka, to protect her, is exactly why the rule is needed. She can't protect Haruka, and she doesn't need to, and it isn't her job to. Haruka protects herself. There will be times when going back on a rescue mission could cost everything. Better to draw the line in advance.
Term starts in just a few days.
Michiru lies in her own bare room and thinks about the fact that Haruka is lying on the other side of a thin partition wall. Between that and the new, unfamiliar place, still smelling of paint and varnish, it's hard to relax.
She wonders if she's being too strict in trying to push all of her focus towards work.
She wonders if it would really matter if they had sex. It would probably be fun. As something casual and enjoyable it couldn't be that much of a problem.
But when she tries to convince herself that she'd be able to treat it as just that she finds herself hesitating.
She closes her eyes on the world and wishes that she could settle on one way of looking at this, that making a decision meant one was actually done with an issue. But of course it doesn't work like that.
It takes her a long time to sleep.
A hundred small habits that neither of them have ever thought about before become apparent after living together for even a short time. Past life memories of being a warrior at the edge of the galaxy haven't really prepared Michiru for dealing with the vague everyday tension over who is meant to be doing the washing up and where exactly the right place to store plastic bags is.
Michiru, coming home with groceries, catches herself noticing with mild irritation just what a messy pile Haruka always leaves her shoes in, and has to laugh at herself.
"I was about to get angry with you for not being a neat shoe-remover," she tells Haruka, still laughing slightly. "I'm afraid I seem to have become middle-aged."
"I thought one was meant to get to have a bunch of sex before the domestic argument stage," Haruka says, and then frowns. "Sorry, I shouldn't have."
Michiru shrugs.
"I think we need a rota, by the way," she says, and dismisses the vivid new mental image she's just been granted of the two of them stretched out on their sofa, naked, tangled together. Perhaps if she's just matter of fact enough, middle aged enough, she can escape her own wants.
Michiru dresses slowly, adjusts her new uniform, inspects herself in the mirror. It isn't a bad uniform, all things considered; she likes it rather more than the old one.
Opening the door, she comes face to face with Haruka leaving her own room.
"Very nice," Michiru says. "The skirt wouldn't have suited you nearly as well."
"It suits you, though," Haruka says. "Are you ready to go and be a model student?"
"Always," Michiru says.
They share a smile that's only a little uneasy.
The building seems more convincingly like a school now than the last time they were inside it, with a steady stream of students making their way through the doors, though only slightly. Really it seems most like some kind of corporate head office, all glass and steel, and Michiru knows that the moment she stops blocking it out she'll be able to feel the sense of wrongness setting off alarms in her head.
There's something deeply strange about the fabric of this place. Not the bones and walls of the building but something far deeper. The main question in her mind is whether it's chance or design.
She smiles and laughs with Haruka, following the flow of students their age up crowded escalators. Starting school again might in other circumstances seem like a step back towards normal life, but not this school, not now.
They go to work.
It really is so conveniently easy to get lost in a new school.
"No, arts," Michiru explains. "I think I have a theory of music class at..." she fumbles through her bag.
"Well," the janitor says, "there's no classrooms here. I think you'll find the music department is on the third floor, miss. Just go down there and to the right, then take the lift."
Satisfied, he turns away and carries on with his work. Michiru slips along the corridor and then pauses, bending over as if tying her shoe laces, until he's gone. Then she eases open the door marked staff only and slips inside.
There isn't time to check thoroughly now, but it's good to begin to get a sense of where they can go for information. This is obviously a monitoring centre for security feeds, though why the door wasn't locked she really can't imagine. Someone is considerate, or just doesn't care.
She takes a quick mental inventory, and slips out again.
It's time to get to class now. She has a model student to be, or to impersonate, or whatever it is she's doing.
"How was school?" Haruka asks with a grin.
"It certainly is something," Michiru says. "It might be a remarkable place to study if one wasn't constantly wondering if it was evil."
"Yeah, I know. It's also pretty creepy, though." Haruka shrugs off her school jacket, hangs it over a kitchen chair. "Have you ever seen such a clean school? Do you think they throw people out for dropping food?"
"It is all a little mechanical somehow," Michiru agrees. A model school full of model students. Whichever way one wants to spin that.
Haruka, digging through a drawer in her own room, laughs. She's changing, and the door is open. Michiru turns away towards the window, lets her get on with it.
"And they don't seem to have very good security. I suppose they may not be as worried about the usual problems as about other things." Michiru sighs. "Or we may just be jumping to conclusions."
"We'll see." Haruka steps out of her room, buttoning up a fresh shirt. "I think I'm going to take a ride. Come along?"
To sit on Haruka's bike, pressed close to the curve of Haruka's back, is as close to feeling like flying as Michiru has come. It feels far closer than sitting in the cabin of an airplane, breathing recycled air and watching the world fall away as though it were just a film. If she closes her eyes now the world might really fall away, and there would just be wind, and the rumble of the engine under them, and Haruka.
Perhaps this is what Haruka likes about it.
They come to a halt by the sea, pull their helmets off, breathe in the warm wind that carries the sea with it. The high buildings of the city lie behind them, casting their late evening lights out onto the water; in the small harbour waves they don't become a reflection but something more abstract, surreal. Michiru would like, she thinks suddenly, to paint it.
She pulls her hair back from her face, feels the wind tugging it through her fingers, and realises that just here, just in this moment, she feels almost free.
"I always figured," Haruka says, pulling her out of her thoughts, "that if I just drove fast enough, if I kept going far enough, I could get away."
She laughs.
"Stupid, right?"
"Oh, I don't know," Michiru says with a smile. "I suppose that depends on what you wanted to get away from."
"As if I even knew," Haruka says.
She turns, and looks up at the city skyline. Further along the coast, almost by the water, the black star of Mugen academy hangs, a hole ringed in by light.
"Do you still want to run?" Michiru murmurs.
"Hm," Haruka says. She looks away, doesn't meet Michiru's questioning gaze. Her eyes are somewhere on the horizon, and Michiru is suddenly afraid of something she can't even put words on.
But then Haruka exhales, drops her eyes to stare over the harbour wall, down into the sea at their feet.
"Not alone, anyway," she says, so low that Michiru almost misses it.
The dream slams into her mind with such force that it feels like it knocks her awake. She's on her feet before she knows what's happened, but it's too late to escape from the message; the dream-images still hang there in her mind, fully formed. They don't fade, or unravel, or sink back down into the depths. They demand her full attention.
She knows now where their mission is going to take them.
Making her way quietly out into the living room, she finds Haruka already there, looking tired.
"Did you see?" she asks.
"Yeah."
"People will die."
Haruka's mouth twists. "People are already dying."
"People who are still... people."
"I know that," Haruka says, a little too loud. "Fuck! I know that."
They sit together, side by side, as close as they can get. There is nothing to say that they don't both already know. There are no conversations to have that they haven't already played out. Can we, is it really right, are you OK, you know what this makes us.
"I thought it had gotten too quiet lately," Haruka says.
They are weapons, and they already knew it. They are the ones who do what it takes.
Slowly, it gets lighter outside.
Eventually they sleep, still pressed together.
In public they have their roles. Haruka and Michiru are very close, a little eccentric; their relationship is ambiguous. They flirt with each other. They flirt with everyone else.
Uranus and Neptune are hard and efficient. Their teamwork only gets better. They don't hesitate to take the necessary actions. Their world hardly contains anyone other than the two of them.
In private the edges haven't been smoothed over yet.
Haruka doesn't sleep well just now. Michiru wakes up sometimes and hears her opening and closing cupboards in the kitchen, hears her footsteps in the hall.
Eventually she gets up too, opening her bedroom door just as Haruka steps out of the kitchen.
"Hey," she says softly. "Would you like to come in for a bit?"
Haruka hesitates, and then she dips her head slightly, expression grateful. "Yeah."
They sit on Michiru's bed, not quite touching.
"It's fine," Haruka says, "until I have time to think. How do you do it? You just vanish. I never know where you go..."
Into the sea, into the past. Michiru sighs, watches Haruka's hands fidgeting. She seems to attract people who can't sit still.
"I don't do any better than you do," she says. "I just hide it. You said it. I hide myself."
It's safest, and it's a habit of her upbringing. It isn't necessarily any better than Haruka's urge to run, though.
Haruka is watching her with an unreadable expression. What is she thinking?
Michiru gives her a small smile. "I come back, though," she says, and wonders if it's true.
But it seems to have been the right thing to say. Haruka's shoulders relax slightly, and Michiru realises just how tense they've been all along.
Maybe she can come back.
"Hey," Haruka says, almost under her breath, "you'd better."
The air between them seems to get thinner—she feels something close to lightheadedness. They're sitting very close, Michiru realises. She could just move a little, so...
"Hey, what... Michiru..." Haruka says, breathlessly. "Are you sure?"
Michiru has no idea if she's sure. It depends, she thinks hazily, what the question was really about. And she doesn't dare ask.
But she knows she wants to kiss Haruka, right now, before it's day time again and everything is polished and decided and all of the edges are hidden again and all she can do is feel an irrational ache when it's other girls that Haruka smiles at even as she makes a joke out of it.
So she nods.
"Yes."
Haruka leans forward, hardly any distance at all, just a little dip of her head. Their mouths meet.
The pit of Michiru's stomach fills with a radiating heat, sending out sparks through her body. She reaches out for Haruka, pulls her closer as they kiss, slides her hands over the muscles of Haruka's back, feels the response. They're body to body, sliding awkwardly down into a horizontal heap on the bed. Michiru finds herself on her back.
Haruka, looking down at her, seems momentarily stunned. Then she laughs, face flushed, shifts over Michiru, gives her a moment to breathe.
"What about you?" Michiru murmurs. She doesn't know what to expect, doesn't know what this is to Haruka. She knows what she should want it to be and isn't sure that the reality of what she wants matches.
"Mm?" Haruka says, bending down to press her lips to Michiru's shoulder where her shirt has slipped.
"What do you--mm--want?"
"I want this," Haruka says. "I want," and Michiru, suddenly afraid to hear too much (or was it too little), to let Haruka say anything that she'd feel awkward about the next day, kisses away the rest of the words. Haruka doesn't object, gasps as Michiru's hands catch in her hair, leans in to press the length of her body against Michiru's again.
"Oh," Michiru says, slides her knee up between Haruka's thighs, her leg pressing against the point where they meet. Haruka lets out a low, urgent noise, shifts her hips closer, and Michiru slides her hands up the back of Haruka's legs, over loose pyjama fabric, feeling the warmth beneath it, settling over her backside, pressing, rubbing. Haruka kisses her again, fiercely, with more urgency than grace. Her hands are on Michiru's sides, slipping under her shirt, curling against skin, dipping down to her hips, teasing along the edge of her underwear. Their breasts are pressed together, and the movements of Haruka's body against hers are enough in themselves to make Michiru flush with pleasure.
They roll sideways, sprawl across the bed, face to face, still close. Their legs seem to have gotten tangled.
Michiru gives Haruka a long, questioning look, slides a hand down between them, hooks a thumb over the waistband of her pants.
Haruka, who might just be blushing, nods, a small, quick movement. If Haruka's fans could see her like this... well, for all she knows, perhaps some of them can. But she doesn't think about that any more. Haruka has moved closer again, is easing a hand under Michiru's pyjamas, unsteady fingers working downward, across sensitive skin, brushing lightly and uncertainly against her clit. Michiru groans, slides Haruka's shirt up, pausing to gasp and brace herself against a flare of pleasure as Haruka does something good, one finger flicking against hypersensitive skin. Then she lifts further, pulls away the white cotton that's been covering Haruka's breasts, bends her head to them. They're gorgeous—Michiru can't resist running her tongue over a nipple, closing her mouth around it.
"Oh, fu..." Haruka gasps.
"Good?"
"Good."
Haruka's hands move a little erratically—she's making small, half-gasped noises, though she's the one with her fingers pressed into Michiru's body. Michiru reaches down, places her hand carefully over Haruka's, guides it. Here, and here—like this.
She's going to come, she can feel it building, spreading through her, tensing her, curling her toes into the sheets and arching her back. "Here," she breathes, leaning back against the bed, and places Haruka's hand just right, shows her how hard, how fast—releases her, and lets Haruka take her gasping and shaking over the edge.
Haruka, lifting herself up on one elbow to bend over her, is breathing hard. Her hand is still resting between Michiru's legs, motionless, and she's watching, lips parted.
Michiru reaches for her, but Haruka shakes her head—nervous?
"Too much?" Michiru murmurs.
"I can just... uhn..." Haruka kisses Michiru, takes her hands, draws them up towards her chest. Michiru runs her fingers over Haruka's breasts, cups them, draws her nails lightly over them. Haruka is touching herself, Michiru realises. She realises that she'd like to watch, too, but that might be for another time. If there's going to be another time.
She leans in to Haruka, presses lips to her mouth, to her throat, kisses her between her breasts, stretches a hand up to comb through Haruka's short, messy hair, to trail fingers down the back of her neck.
Haruka says something Michiru doesn't hear, throws her head back, and it's her turn to come, body jerking against Michiru's, breathing in loud gasps. Michiru holds her, smooths her hair, kisses her forehead.
"Feeling allright?" she murmurs, when Haruka relaxes against the messy sheets.
"Mnn," Haruka says.
They lie together, still tangled, and just breathe. But they can't do that forever.
Michiru rolls over, stares at the ceiling, feels threads of worry beginning to work themselves through her thoughts again. She stopped caring for a while there but now she realises all over again that she doesn't know the rules or even what game they're playing.
She wonders what time it is.
She really needs to shower.
Michiru sleeps badly, but still isn't sure when Haruka left the room. By the time it's morning, though, she's alone in her bed, and she can hear Haruka moving in the kitchen again.
By the time she actually gets up there's tea and juice waiting for her on the kitchen table, and Haruka is nowhere to be seen.
She sits and stares out the window, lets the tea help her back into the world.
Before she's drunk half of it, Haruka is back, kicking the door shut behind her and shrugging off her bike jacket.
"Good morning," Michiru murmurs, and Haruka flashes her a grin that makes her forget to worry for a moment.
Nothing feels terribly wrong here, she thinks, tentatively. Although that might just be because it's day again, so they know who they're meant to be.
They make their way through the day.
They don't do anything differently, although sometimes a word will sound different, feel different—a gesture that's always been there will stick out, highlighted by the night before.
It's just after school that they feel a new kind of threat stirring, making Uranus and Neptune restless, and they know that it's started. They follow the pull of it, map out the shape of their dream.
At a temple, a girl is pinned to a wall; her friends are trapped too, just a bunch of schoolgirls anyway, no-one can help her.
It's hard to watch, but that's what they do. Michiru sits behind Haruka, hand resting on her shoulder as a reassurance as much for herself as for her partner. They're well hidden.
They stay that way until the end, move only as much as they have to.
It is impossible to react in a way that seems appropriate to holding someone's heart in your hand, judging it, so they try not to react at all. Uranus examines it, face focused and emotionless, and when she shakes her head, Neptune doesn't let her expression shift an inch either. No irritation, no relief.
Michiru is reminded of her earlier impulse to dismiss the whole thing as petty—and she's reminded of where that impulse came from. She probably wasn't wrong. Time is still a valid concern; so is distraction.
Everything they have to do has come closer again, is pressing in on them, giving them less and less space.
All the same, when Haruka comes to her room and stands in the doorway, waiting for a signal to take a step forward or back, she smiles, reaches out to her.
They are the closest of partners. Partners help each other out. With their insomnia, their frustration, their fear. They do everything they can.
Perhaps it really is that simple. Or perhaps, for now, there are still things they don't quite dare face head on, to name out loud—not when they mean it.
She does know which it is, but for another night, she's willing to pretend.
By the time there's another attack, more senshi have caught up with events. Yes, Michiru realises, she did know them; but they've always been at a distance, never this close before. She's watched them from far away, from the edge of everything—but not too closely, even then, because her job was to look outward, not in.
They're a different kind of being, a different kind of warrior, and she is instantly unconvinced of Sailor Moon's ability to let anyone die, however necessary it might be.
Michiru doesn't think she dislikes them, as such; she just isn't sure their worlds can be easily connected, or that they should be.
Neptune and Uranus will be better off doing this their own way. Sailor Moon doesn't change that.
They do their job, and go their way.
There still isn't room for anyone else.
It's all going faster and fast, Michiru feels. Time is twisting and compressing and tugging them forward. There's really no way to control it.
They lie together, close in the darkness of Michiru's room. It's fast becoming their room—only never out loud.
Haruka's arms hold her a little too tight.
"I wonder how long we have," Haruka says—half a question, but not a real one. There's really no need to ask until what.
Michiru shakes her head, shifts closer, smooths a hand over Haruka's hip. "I don't know."
But they know—can tell by the way their dreams change and clarify themselves.
It's just that it isn't long enough. |
[ In Which Isla Contemplates Rodger ]
Isla never got her chance to thank Lady Maccon.
Fortunately, when the articles of indenture arrived by aetherogram, Madame Lefoux said an X would do for a signature. Thus everything became legally binding seamlessly. The vampires couldn't complain; they had written the law to make it easy in the first place.
It heralded a glorious new life for Isla, that of laboratory assistant and, Madame Lefoux insisted on adding, chief finder of the elusive x.
Isla took to the equations with renewed vigor and learned the names of all Madame Lefoux's tools, and those of the engines and engine parts. She took over shoveling coal and keeping the burners at exactly the correct temperature.
Lady Maccon sent along a half-dozen durable working dresses (from London!) and Madame Lefoux found Isla a spare leather apron. Isla need never again dress as a parlourmaid. (Unless Madame Lefoux really did have a thing for little black dresses?) She kept one service outfit, just in case, and passed the rest on to her family, whose circumstances were also improved by her new position. Lady Maccon was more than generous with Isla's salary, and with the inventor providing meals, she needed very little. Madame Lefoux even tentatively offered to order Isla some trousers, but Isla felt that would be taking things too far.
Already she must avoid all contact with Henry and the other members of staff. Most of them felt she had betrayed them. The rest felt she was reaching above her station. Trousers might tip everyone into madness. Trousers were a powerful weapon of chaos, if Madame Lefoux was anything to go by.
Isla took tea and luncheon via tray in the shed alongside her inventor, but for the evening meal, she still must join the servants, butler presiding. The butler clearly believed she was getting above herself. Thus, he overlooked any pettiness at table with regards to food dropped on Isla's new dress, or not passing the butter, or what have you.
But that was only one of two blights on Isla's otherwise idyllic new life as laboratory assistant (and chief finder of the elusive x). The other blight was Madame Lefoux herself.
Isla tried several more times to encourage the inventor's physical interest, but her tentative touches and expressions of affection were rebuffed. She garnered the occasional dimpled smile and sometimes (perhaps it was wishful thinking) a quick, hungry green-eyed glance, but nothing more. She was at a loss how to convince Madame Lefoux that her affection was genuine without it being misconstrued as gratitude. Not that she wasn't grateful. She loved the assistant job. She always found the x no matter how elusive. She was far better at it than she ever had been as a parlourmaid. (And frankly, she'd been a good parlourmaid, which made her an excellent laboratory assistant. And the x? The x is mine!)
How to tell the inventor that it wasn't gratitude leaving Isla aching and restless each night? (Nor was it coal shoveling – not that kind of ache.) It wasn't gratitude turning her cold and lonely in her cot, although it was more generous a bed than she'd ever had before. Madame Lefoux had provided soft quilts and a down mattress. Isla could hardly believe it. Down!
Isla spent her nights wishing beyond anything that she might leave that feathered luxury and lie next to her new mistress instead. They would not even have to do anything. Not unless Madame Lefoux wanted to. It would be magic simply to curl up with her.
Isla lacked the vocabulary to say anything. Her few stuttering tries were dismissed out of hand. The inventor was remarkably stubborn. She was determined to believe Isla incapable of genuine interest. And Isla was at a loss as to why. Who on earth wouldn't be interested in Genevieve Lefoux?
Curses.
How could Madame Lefoux still think that Isla preferred men? Or was it something else? Perhaps she genuinely believed Isla too innocent. And whose fault is that? I have tried. No one seems to want to make me less so.
The inventor had responded to their kiss so it couldn't be dislike. Could it? Maybe she hadn't really responded. Maybe she'd simply been kind, trying not to react in horror or disgust to Isla's bumbling advances. Maybe I'm not the kind of girl she desires.
There was the conversation in the hallway with Lady Maccon to consider. Madame Lefoux, who seemed so fearless, was frightened of something. Lady Maccon said so. So, maybe it wasn't Isla at all but despair holding the inventor in check.
Perhaps I should just strip bare and climb under her counterpane.
"Dear Genevieve," she imagined herself saying (she was far more direct and confident in her fantasies). Genevieve was what Lady Maccon called Madame Lefoux, and it was such a perfect name. Isla called her Genevieve a lot – in her head.
"Dear Genevieve," she would say, "I love that you are full of finer feelings and insist upon protecting me from myself, but if you do not rodger me this instant, I may perish away for the lack."
Although, did two ladies together call it rodgering? Or was there a proper, more feminine word? Gertruding, perhaps?
You see! Not only do I need her physically, I need her to teach me how to even talk about such things. Let alone do them. For surely Genevieve was experienced in such matters.
I certainly hope so. One of us should know what she is about.
Overly optimistic, that. For while Isla lay awake and aching, hungry for something she couldn't name, the inventor continued blithely on about her inventing as if nothing had altered. And while Madame Lefoux did indeed insist that Isla get an education, that education didn't extend beyond the realm of laboratory sciences, mathematics, reading, and writing.
More's the bloody pity, thought Isla, frustrated beyond measure. They were together all the time now.
It was wonderful.
And it was utter torture.
Isla liked the learning. In the space of only a few months, she'd mastered the basics of reading and writing. She couldn't spell worth crackling, but she didn't need that for equations.
And the equations were glorious! Nothing was more fun than solving for x. It was like the most perfect of quests. Isla felt herself to be a white knight, and the x her dragon to find and slay.
Although, to be honest, Isla did believe there was something more fun, something involving Genevieve and Genevieve's dimples and Genevieve's other bits, but for now she must settle for slaying the x. |
Summer wended into fall, and Isla managed to keep to the potting shed and gardens except for the evening meal. Skoot made his way to her at least half the time. The white of his fur took on a grey dusting of soot and he was prone to sneezing, but he seemed to very much enjoy the laboratory's range of sounds, smells, and activity. Madame Lefoux didn't object to his presence. Once or twice, Isla even caught her chatting to the little dog in French.
"He is a Papillon, so he must understand his native tongue, no?" the inventor explained at Isla's grin.
"Naturally."
Genevieve looked away quickly at that, as if hurt by Isla's enthusiasm.
The lunch tray began to include a bit of chopped liver in a little saucer.
Lacking any other options, Isla continued to eat supper with the household. She wasn't staff anymore. As an indenture, she ranked higher, not quite a drone but no longer a servant. But the drones never invited her to join them, and she didn't know how to ask. It was all rather awkward.
She felt it too petty a matter to mention to Genevieve. The inventor had other concerns.
Madame Lefoux was required to present herself to the hive for the sunset repast (their breakfast, her supper) and report on her latest endeavors. Isla was mildly afraid that if she said anything about her awkward mealtimes, she'd be forced to join the vampires at table. The inventor had odd ideas about equality and believed Isla's standing almost on par with her own. Isla would suffer the butler's disregard, Henry's hostility, and the staff's animosity if it meant no vampires. Perhaps they would forget about her. Perhaps everyone would forget about her.
They did not. |
"I'll be leaving tomorrow, Miss Hale."
Isla blinked up from her current set of calculations. Her breath caught and her stomach clenched, but she tried not to let it show. "Oh. Will you, Madame? Not for too long, I hope?"
"Ah, sweet choupinette. Only a week or so. I am off to meet my son in London. He needs new clothes again. Boys will keep growing. He's coming over on the trans-Channel dirigible so we can visit Bond Street. I thought I'd present that paper the Royal Society has been prodding me about. You know, the one on the counterstate aetheric conductor? I would ask you along, but those catchment reductions must be monitored. I do not trust anyone else while I am away."
Isla smiled. Wasn't it just like Genevieve to even consider inviting her? She'd never been to London; it seemed a terrifying place. "And who would keep an eye on Skoot? Regardless, I wouldn't want to impose on your time with your son. I know you miss him." Plus, she was honored the inventor trusted her with the laboratory while she was away.
Madame Lefoux moved close to her then.
Isla's breathing stuttered. Usually Genevieve was fastidious in her avoidance of all contact between them.
Elegant callused hands touched her cheek, trembling and tentative. "Please stay safe while I'm gone? Be careful."
Isla tried not to breathe, afraid she might startle the inventor as one would a wild creature. "I will," she whispered.
And the hand was gone, as was Genevieve. Withdrawing again. Withdrawing like always! Isla suppressed a growl of frustration.
And Isla was left alone in the hive house.
She was as careful as promised, but some patterns had been set into place that put her at risk. Henry, for example, was back to bringing out the trays for meals. Also, Cook expressed her displeasure at Isla's new status by limiting those meals to stewed tea, weak and without milk, and a chunk of stale bread. Similarly, her luncheon devolved to servant's stew or porridge – not that Isla was inclined to complain, but it was a statement.
It began the very first day. Henry slapped down the tray with no concern for Isla's calculations, spilling all over the most recent set. Isla had more care to her papers than Madame Lefoux, and he'd ruined in one fell swoop all of yesterday's work.
He leaned over, his mouth fetid as old fish, pressing against her in the guise of looking over her work. As if he understood any of it.
"Thank you, Henry," she said, "You may go."
"So high and mighty now you've slept your way upstairs." He made a rude gesture with his tongue, leaning even closer.
Isla could feel his hot breath on her neck.
"Lots of work, is it, sweetheart? Lots of nighttime duties, keeping her satisfied?"
I wish, thought Isla.
Then Henry licked her neck, one long swoop of clammy tongue.
Isla crashed her chair back into him as she stood up, shoving herself away from the desk.
"Careful," said Henry, "Wouldn't want to spill anything further. Mess up more of these important scribbles of yours."
Isla poured the hot tea over his head.
Henry screamed. Two of the under-gardeners and Skoot came to see what was going on.
Skoot went into yapping, bouncing hysterics.
"She's loony," Henry accused, pointing a finger. "Just dumped scalding tea all over me!" By which statement he neatly prevented himself from staying any longer.
The under-gardeners made no comment, leaving Isla alone and shaking. Except for Skoot, of course. The act of calming him down helped Isla. His little pink tongue on her cheek licked away the salt there.
She went into the house for luncheon and made it known to the cook that she'd prefer only one meal a day brought out, and please would she send someone other than Henry?
The cook was smug, thinking her introduction of weak tea responsible for a now-diminished workload. But she wouldn't concede that anyone other than Henry should play delivery boy. "None of my staff can be spared. It's his duty. Stop trying to meddle."
Later that day, Isla noticed the inductive coupler was missing. She thought she'd placed it right there, next to the desk, but a search everywhere yielded no coupler.
"Where has it gone to?" she asked the wicker chicken.
The wicker chicken only loomed at her, menacing. It wasn't like Skoot to steal something. He wasn't that kind of dog.
Isla had instituted, hesitantly, some level of organization to the potting shed. Madame Lefoux didn't object once she discovered that this meant her tools could be found more easily (surprise, surprise) and Isla could respond more quickly to her requests. Isla, now that she knew her letters, rather wished to alphabetize everything, but that was going too far.
And she wasn't allowed to move the wicker chicken.
"He has sentimental value," explained Madame Lefoux.
When Skoot was elsewhere, the chicken was company of a kind, Isla supposed.
But the missing coupler worried her. It was made of pure copper, an expensive bit of kit, which made her suspicious.
The next day, when Henry brought her luncheon, he thrust her up against an engine pillion hard enough to bruise. Isla screamed this time. Skoot bit Henry's ankle, and when the gardeners came to check on the fuss, Henry let her go.
A sheaf of Madame Lefoux's notes went missing.
The coupler might have been an aberration. It could be sold for scrap at a nice rate, so one might forgive its disappearance as opportunistic avarice. But notes were a different thing. Notes meant industrial espionage. Isla knew that Genevieve had intellectual enemies. She was a brilliant inventor, and the hive would hold her patents. Many others wanted to profit from them instead – wanted it very badly indeed.
Isla began leaving the laboratory at noon, locking it behind her, and waiting for her tray outside. This also put her in full view of the gardeners, who were reasonable chaps and beginning to suspect the nature of her and Henry's relationship. They wouldn't interfere, not really; the business of inside staff was to left to inside staff. Just as downstairs didn't involve themselves with upstairs. But Henry couldn't steal anything this way.
This technique worked for a few meals. Henry shoved the tray at her with nothing more than a curse, turned, and walked off. Isla ate outside, and returned the tray to the kitchen herself.
Then, on the fifth day, she became distracted with a particularly delectable equation. She missed the arc of the sun and Henry had his excuse once more.
She took the hit to confirm her suspicions. The hit being her neck licked again and one crude grope in the vicinity of her left breast. She tossed her head back into his teeth. Which cut her head, but bloodied his lip – which was most satisfying.
He swore at her.
"I'll scream again," she warned.
"Eventually, they'll realize it happens every time I visit, and stop coming. Then where will your protectors be?"
He left then. Isla was relatively certain she saw a roll of papers tucked under his vest.
Lacking any other option, Isla took her concerns to the butler.
"He's stealing notes from the lab," she insisted, getting straight to the point.
"That's a serious accusation, young lady."
Isla was militant. "Also a rather valuable tool. Copper, about so big, slightly squiggly."
"And what do you expect me to do about it?" The butler looked down his nose at her.
"Have his room searched, of course."
The butler twisted his mouth. "How do I know you aren't casting doubt on poor Henry because you can't handle the tasks Drone Lefoux left you to complete? You lose a tool, blame Henry. Not smart enough to finish your work, blame Henry. He makes for an excellent scapegoat for your incompetence. Don't think I haven't noticed there's bad blood between you."
"But he did it! All you have to do is search and find out. Unless he's already disposed of the evidence. If he's an industrial spy and you don't catch him, there'll be hell to pay from Madame Lefoux when she returns."
The butler only sniffed. "I think not. Henry is such a nice boy. Everyone likes him. I feel it more likely you're using him than that he's engaged in espionage. He came to us with excellent references and he's been with us much longer than you."
And that was that, so far as the butler was concerned.
Except that he must have mentioned something to Henry, because the first footman went out of his way to corner Isla after supper.
He was very angry this time. No pretense at touching or even insults. It was the work of moments for him to slap her so hard across the face her cheek went numb.
Skoot was with his vampire masters, so she didn't even have her tiny fluffy knight.
Isla tried to defend herself, but he slapped her again even harder, this time catching her eye with his fingernail.
Then one of the chambermaids walked in and Isla fled to Genevieve's room. |
Isla was at a loss.
The problem of Henry and his abuse was one thing; she'd only a few more days to survive that, and then he would have to resort to more subtle meanness. Genevieve could be absent-minded when she was absorbed in her work, but she was an excellent guardian in her way. She was always aware of Isla and watching out for her. Isla caught her staring often, or casting little glances up at her while they worked. Henry would find it hard to touch her without the inventor noticing once said inventor returned.
But the stolen notes were a serious problem. Genevieve was very protective of her work, and Isla was nothing if not loyal. In her own small way, she'd contributed to those notes on new gadgets, and papers on burgeoning aetherographic theory, and schematics for unusual devices. The very idea that they might be given to a competitor or sold on the open market to some lesser inventor was horrifying.
Where Isla might not have had the courage to protest on behalf of her own safety, she felt compelled to take action when Genevieve's livelihood and reputation were at risk.
With no other option, she decided she must go over the butler's head and tell the hive of Henry's nefarious deeds. After all, this was their concern, their patents, and their responsibility to protect Genevieve's interests.
It being just after dark, and the shift changing from day to night, Isla knew the vampires would be at breakfast. Countess Nadasdy always took hers in her room. Isla couldn't think of anything else to do but go straight to the queen with her suspicions. The queen clearly saw some value in her, if only as a meal. Perhaps she would listen.
Despite the bad blood between her and Countess Nadasdy, or lack of blood as the case may be, the male vampires seemed a worse option. Dr. Caedes was too sinister, always licking his lips when she passed him in the hallway. The Duke was too arrogant; he would dismiss her out of hand simply on the basis of her age, sex, and station. And Henry was a favorite with Lord Ambrose. That really only left her with the countess.
Isla dressed in her Sunday best, still her nicest gown. Plus, it had a very high collar. She let her hair down, an extra barrier about her neck, and taking a deep breath, approached the queen's quarters.
Countess Nadasdy was already breakfasting when Isla let herself in. The vampire queen was sitting up in bed, wearing a beautiful burgundy velvet dressing gown, with a pink damask tablecloth draped over her lap. On top of the cloth, one of the male drones was draped and arranged artfully. He was naked.
Isla instantly turned to leave.
"Stay." Countess Nadasdy had seen her.
Of course she had. All the hive queen's senses were supernatural and advanced; it was impossible to sneak into the room of a vampire.
"I'm almost finished here." She bent her head back down and resumed a noisy sucking, after rotating the drone to a better angle, as if he were a pig on a spit.
Isla tried not to look at the blood oozing from the first bite. She also tried not to look any further down the drone's body, as most of what he had was now facing her.
Isla was a country-lass so she understood the mechanics of sex, most particularly the breeding of livestock. But she'd never had occasion to see a grown man without clothing before. Her younger brothers, of course, but this was different.
It's not a'tall nice-looking, she decided. And, in this instance, appeared recently well used. She wondered if the queen demanded other things from her drones before she ate.
Finally, the slurping stopped. Countess Nadasdy had finished her repast.
She patted her drone absently on his head and later, as he crawled off the big bed, patted him on his bottom. Then she ignored him entirely.
"Come here, child."
Isla came, stopping next to the bed but well out of grabbing distance.
"What has happened to your eye?" The queen's hair was a cascade of honey-brown curls about her face. They were awfully fluffy for a woman who was basically dead.
Isla's face still smarted from Henry's attentions; she suspected the eye would be black and blue by morning. It must be an angry red at the moment.
"Henry, ma'am, the first footman."
The queen's eyes narrowed. "Well, you should inform your patron. It's her responsibility to protect you. You're her indenture, after all." It had never occurred to Isla that an indenture incurred obligations of care on Lady Maccon's side. How on earth would she get a message to Lady Maccon? And over such a minor thing? The muhjah was such an important woman. No, Isla refused to disturb her with her own trivial well-being. Still, it was nice to know she'd an alternative where she might report the spying, if the queen didn't cooperate.
"It's actually Henry I wished to discuss with you, ma'am."
The queen went stiff. "As I just said, it is not for me to interfere anymore. Remember, girl, you rejected me."
Isla lowered her eyes, "I very much regret the incident." (Not a lie.) She jerked her chin up. "Although the results seem positive. I believe I'm a good fit for the work, and I'm very much enjoying my new position."
"Oh, indeed? All the positions?"
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
"I'd be delighted to show you, pretty child. Feeding always makes me hungry for other, more carnal things."
A moan from the side of the room caused both human and vampire to remember that the male drone was still present. "And Beaumont here would love to join us. Wouldn't you, darling? Yes, I can see that you would."
Beaumont was still naked, so his interest was evident. Just like with livestock.
Isla looked hurriedly away. "About Henry."
"Who is this Henry?"
"The first footman on the day shift, ma'am."
"Yes, well, I'm sure he looks the part, what else is there to consider?"
"I believe he's been stealing notes from the laboratory."
"Don't be ridiculous, girl. Why would the daytime first footman want your notes?"
"Not my notes, ma'am, Madame Lefoux's."
"Pah! I'm certain he was properly vetted. And it's Drone Lefoux"
"But they've gone missing and he's the only one with access to the potting shed, apart from me."
"You've likely misplaced them, then. Humans are so absent-minded. Or that tricky little inventor has. She will show you where they are when she returns."
"But I saw..."
"Enough!" In one of those movements that the human eye could barely follow, the vampire was on her feet. She had Isla grasped tight, hard cold hands wrapped about her upper arms, holding her stiff and straight. Then Isla found herself lifted up, so that her feet dangled in the air.
Countess Nadasdy might look smallish and roundish, and more akin to a barmaid than anything else, but she was unbelievably strong.
Then Isla found herself flying through the air. The queen had tossed her, casually as a discarded muffin, onto the bed. She landed and bounced, scrabbling to get off as quickly as she could.
"No!" she said, loudly and firmly as the queen moved to follow her. And then, for good measure, "I do not want you."
Countess Nadasdy cocked her head, bird-like. "Who are you to reject me? Human insect. If I cannot bleed you, I shall bed you instead." The queen was on her and over her then, those cool hard hands wrapped about Isla's hips, holding her down. If the vampire squeezed any more, she would surely shatter bone.
Somehow, Isla remembered what had been said earlier. She remembered the fear in the vampires' eyes when they looked on the muhjah at that fateful supper party.
"I shall go to my patron." Isla said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. "I shall tell Lady Maccon that you've abused me. I'm certain she is not the kind of woman to overlook such a thing. I may be a mere insect, but I'm her insect now. I'm not obligated to feed any of your hungers, ma'am, not even this one."
At that, the countess was off her and Isla was up and running to the door.
"Do not visit me again in my chamber, girl," the queen called after her. "I will consider it evidence that you've changed your mind."
Isla fled to Genevieve's room, closing the door firmly behind her. It too didn't have a lock, but the vampires respected Genevieve's territory. They had very strict protocols about such things. Isla was pretty certain that, outside of a killing rage, none of them would come into Genevieve's room uninvited.
Hopefully, the countess was not in a killing rage.
Instinctively, Isla dove not for her own bed, but for Genevieve's. She huddled there, under the heavy blankets, fully dressed, shaking as if in a bitter cold.
The pillow smelled of vanilla. |
[ In Which We Learn the Source of Vanilla ]
A hand stroking her face woke Isla.
The smell of vanilla was all around and she curled into the touch, responding to the calluses on those fingers, familiar friends, although she was not yet fully awake.
An amused voice said, "So, this is what you get up to when I am away? Staking a claim to the bigger bed, hum?"
Isla sat up at once. Memory swept over her in a rush.
Genevieve Lefoux was sitting on the counterpane next to her, dressed for travel. A large hatbox and worn old carpetbag rested against the closed door behind her. She was smiling, but with Isla upright, the dimples vanished.
"Why are you fully dressed?"
Gentle fingers coaxed Isla's chin to move, tilting her head into a beam of bright morning light.
The inventor's tone went icy. "Why is your eye black and your face bruised? What has happened, Isla?"
Isla, rather ridiculously, could only be thrilled by the use of her given name. Genevieve had never spoken it before with such intent. It was almost beautiful when colored with a French accent. An accent that was noticeably stronger at the moment.
"You're home early." Thank heavens.
"Isla." The tone was very firm.
"It's a long story."
Genevieve's unbelievably gentle hand returned to sweep tangled hair out of Isla's face.
I must look a fright. I never braided it to sleep. It's surely a bird's nest.
"I will not be angry. Well, not with you. Unless you slapped yourself in the face?"
Isla bit her lip.
The inventor's hand didn't stop petting, capable fingers smoothing through Isla's hair. "I find it best to begin at the beginning, choupinette."
So, Isla relayed the bare truth of what had happened. Henry and his hitting her, "Although that's not of real concern," she insisted. "What you must know is that he stole your notes. I haven't concrete proof, but two sets went missing. Each after one of Henry's visits. And I think he also lifted the inductive coupler."
"Hang the inductive coupler! I will see that little fils de pute drawn and quartered. I will guillotine his cock, I will..."
"I think he must be a spy," confessed Isla, shaky. Hoping beyond hope that Genevieve, at least, would believe her.
"Of course he is a bloody spy! I only let him stay to keep an eye on him. And because he is so very bad at it. Stupid of me. I had no idea he would take it out on you. Merde. Why did you not tell me?" She paused, clearly putting a few mysteries to rest in her head. "That limp! He has been picking on you for a while. No?"
Much to Isla's regret, the inventor stopped her caresses at that point.
Isla ached with the lack. "Men don't like to be told no. But that isn't important. Didn't you hear, he took your notes? He could do real damage to your reputation."
"Blast my reputation!"
Isla couldn't fail but be impressed by the dexterity with which Genevieve switched between swearing in French and English.
"How else has he hurt you, choupinette?"
Isla couldn't hide the wince as she tried to get out of the bed. Her hips ached from the vampire queen's grip, as did her upper arms.
"No, don't move. You're better in my bed."
Isla blinked at her, delighted.
"Oh, curses, you know what I mean."
Isla felt she ought to confess all; Genevieve was bound to find out about her other injuries once she tried to move. "I went to the queen with my concerns."
Genevieve said something in French that was likely very rude indeed; it was too fast for Isla to follow.
"I didn't know you would be back so soon, or I would've waited for you. I could think of no other way to stop Henry. The butler didn't believe me."
The inventor let out a tiny sigh and seemed to be trying to force herself to relax. "What happened?"
Isla looked at her hands. Unable to speak. So embarrassed and humiliated and ashamed and hurt. But she must say something. Her hips were bad, bone bruised by the queen's grip. She wouldn't be able to work today.
Genevieve's hand covered her clasped ones. Comfort again. She really wasn't angry with her.
"She also didn't believe me."
"And?"
"She tried to..." Isla couldn't say it out loud.
The hand left hers and came up to the collar of her best dress. A dress now likely ruined for having been slept in. Besides which, Isla couldn't stand the memory of what had happened while she wore it. Or what had almost happened.
"May I? Please?"
Isla was powerless against the begging in Genevieve's voice. "I should love to be out of this dress," she admitted.
The inventor released the top few buttons and with shaking fingers explored Isla's neck under the heavy fall of her hair. She let out a long sigh.
Isla forced herself to go on. "Not that. She didn't try that." She waved a hand down at her aching hips. "She wanted... you know."
"Oh, you poor thing." Genevieve instantly stopped touching her. "How could she? And you innocent of all that. Disgusting! Isla, I am so very sorry."
Isla tried to lighten the mood. "She didn't get very far. I threatened her with your friend, Lady Maccon."
Genevieve let out a bark of surprised laughter.
"She let me go. Nothing really happened. I'm a little frightened, and rather bruised, but not sullied in any way." She didn't want to lose all vestige of respect in Genevieve's eyes.
"But to torture you with something so alien to your nature."
Isla wanted to protest that was not the problem at all, it was simply that she was not interested in the countess that way. Surely, the inventor wouldn't toss her on the bed and hold her down? Then again, Isla likely outweighed Genevieve; if anyone was going to be tossed...
"So, what would make you feel better? Tea? Toast? A bath?" The inventor turned practical.
"A bath sounds heavenly, but you don't have to fuss."
"Of course I have to fuss, choupinette. And I will contact Alexia immediately."
Genevieve went and yanked on the bell rope.
The new daytime parlourmaid appeared.
"Have a bath sent up immediately."
The maid bobbed a curtsy and vanished.
"Why contact Lady Maccon?" Isla wondered, trying to figure out how to move without aches.
"Why, to arrange your relocation, of course. You cannot possibly wish to stay. Alexia runs an excellent household. I am sure she can find something for a girl of your skills. Biffy, at the very least, could put you to work in the hat shop – with your head for mathematics you would be running the place inside a week."
"But I don't want to move to London and work in a hat shop!" I want to stay here, with you. "No one will trouble me now that you're home. Henry can't..."
"Henry will be sacked, and possibly castrated if I have my way. But even I cannot entirely control the countess. If she has serious designs on you, I am not confident in my ability to protect you."
"Don't those cravat-pin darts of yours work on vampires?"
Genevieve laughed. "Well, yes, and you should begin wearing one immediately. But to be truly safe, I must remove you from the hive entirely."
"I don't want to leave. I knew the dangers when I first came to work here." At one time I embraced the dangers, because I wanted any attention in that arena. Although I didn't know the queen's perversions were also violent. The drones always seemed so happy to be summoned to her chambers. Perhaps she is only violent with me because I have defied her.
A knock on the door heralded two footmen with the bathtub.
"Which one of you is Henry?" Genevieve demanded, standing up from the bed and marching over to the tall young men.
The chambermaids came in with pitchers of hot water and began to fill the tub. Suddenly, there were a great many people in the room.
Henry stepped forward and bowed, looking cocky and not scared at all. Although Isla had never before heard such a cold tone in her dear inventor's voice.
Madame Lefoux stepped in towards him, reached down to the crotch of his britches, grabbed, squeezed, and then twisted. Henry howled in surprised misery.
The second footman took a step forward.
Genevieve looked at him. "Don't you dare interfere."
He stepped back again quickly.
"Like to prey on women, do you? Like to bruise in places that won't be noticed? Like to lord your miniscule bit of power over those weaker than yourself?" Madame Lefoux's teeth were clenched and she squeezed all the tighter. Henry was clawing at her wrists in a desperate attempt to get her to let go.
She did so and Henry crumpled.
The inventor crouched over him. Some sort of avenging pixie dressed as a dandy. "I am not a violent woman, as a rule. It is uncivilized. However, in your case, I make an exception." She then crashed the palm of her hand into Henry's eye.
"Stop, please," said Isla. One might have thought she would enjoy revenge. Seeing her nemesis brought low. But she didn't wish to see Genevieve do it. Didn't like seeing her idol descend to Henry's level.
"Quite right, my dear." The inventor stood, looming over the cowering footman. "You are dismissed. I shall inform the hive that they must search anew for a matched set of footmen. You may tell whomever you are really working for that those notes you stole are intentionally flawed. I knew, you see, all along. You will get nowhere with them. Now get up, and get out."
Henry got.
"You" – Madame Lefoux pointed at the second footman – "tell the butler that Henry has been discharged for spying on my experiments and stealing my research. He should be escorted off the grounds and given neither reference nor character." |
The bath full, Henry gone, and the other servants fled, Isla hauled herself slowly out of bed.
She couldn't raise her arms and with hips aching, she had to shuffle instead of walk. She didn't know quite how to manage it, but she would bathe!
"I had best step out. Should I call one of the maids to help you?" Genevieve's voice had lost its authority and was oddly hesitant.
Isla was horrified by the idea of one of her former colleagues being obliged to tend to her bruises. "I know it's a terrible imposition, but would you mind? I feel safer with you."
The inventor let out a shaky breath. "Of course."
Then Genevieve began to unbutton Isla's gown.
In Isla's fantasies, such a thing had often occurred but never under such circumstances. Genevieve was as solicitous as any nurse, stripping her out of the dress with infinite care.
"Give it away, please?" Isla would have liked to burn it, but she couldn't accept such waste.
Madame Lefoux tossed it aside. She took a breath as though fortifying herself for some unpleasant task.
Am I repulsive now? "I think I can manage," said Isla at that, "if you'd rather not."
"Hush, choupinette, do not be silly."
Genevieve unlaced her stays, and came back around to kneel, and pop open the busk of Isla's corset, leaving her standing in nothing but thin chemise and stockings.
Thank heavens, I had the wherewithal to remove my boots before I got into bed last night.
Genevieve rolled down the stockings and Isla stepped free. The inventor was looking strangely ill – a sheen of perspiration on her brow, teeth sunk into her lower lip.
Then she led Isla to the tub. There she eased the chemise over Isla's head and turn away, busying herself with laying it on the vanity. Isla took that to mean she should climb into the tub.
It was a laborious process, her hips screamed at her, and it took much longer than she liked.
The inventor must have turned back too soon, because she heard a sharp hiss of indrawn breath. No doubt the queen's finger marks were clearly visible, a set of dark bruises on Isla's white hips. And on her arms as well.
She sank into the water.
Behind her, Genevieve let out a sigh of relief. Then she began bustling about.
"Now, what else can I get you? I've found one of your work dresses and a clean chemise. I think with those bruises, you should forgo the corset. I do not know why you bother, really, you have a splendid figure without the darned thing. Oh, I am sorry, I am nattering. I forgot myself. No insult intended, Miss Hale."
Isla's thoughts bounded between the fact that Genevieve admired her figure and the fact that she was now once again Miss Hale.
"That's all right. You're right. No stays. My stockings are in the basket next to my cot, and there should be clean drawers there as well."
The inventor continued to fuss.
Isla relaxed into the warm water. Soaking away both Henry's touch and that of Countess Nadasdy.
Genevieve eventually worked up the courage to approach and hand Isla a bar of vanilla-scented soap (which explained a great deal). Isla scrubbed what she could with her limited range of motion. The soap was milk soft and finer than anything she'd ever used. From Paris, perhaps?
Genevieve left the chamber for a quarter of an hour, returning with a tray loaded with tea, fresh bread, two apples, and a wedge of hard cheese.
Isla realized that she was starving and the water was beginning to cool. Her hair felt sticky. She didn't want to ask, but she couldn't see to it herself, and she so rarely got the luxury of a full bath.
"I wonder if I could trouble you to wash my hair?"
The inventor shook her head in an unsettled way but said, "Of course," and came reluctantly over.
Isla suppressed an odd desire to cry as she bowed her head under Genevieve's ministrations. The inventor rubbed the soap-bar through Isla's thick dark hair and then worked it to a lather with her fingertips. It was a wonderful feeling. She really had the gentlest hands.
Although Isla did wince at one point, when a wayward lock escaped and slapped against the side of her damaged face.
"Oh, Isla. Why on earth didn't you tell me about the footman earlier?"
"Men have picked on me all my life. You don't go around looking like me and rejecting them without punishment."
"Always rejecting them, then?"
"I don't want them!" Isla couldn't keep the frustration out of her voice. It was the frustration causing her to cry more than anything else. That Genevieve could be so kind and yet still so far away.
"Poor little choupinette," said the object of her frustration. "You have been through too much. Let me get these suds out and put you to bed."
Isla closed her eyes under a pitcher of clean water and then allowed herself to be pulled to standing and helped out of the tub, the inventor supporting a great deal of her weight – she was stronger than she looked.
Briskly, as if she were a small child, Genevieve wrapped her in a thick, fuzzy towel and rubbed her dry. There were no more comments on her injuries, and she seemed neither repulsed nor attracted by Isla's bruised body.
It was too much, so Isla let the tears trickle down her face.
A large silk handkerchief was pressed to her nose. "Blow."
Isla blew.
"Now, back to bed you go. No, my bed, it is easier."
Isla didn't protest.
Genevieve tucked her in, tender hands spreading her hair out over the pillow to dry. Then she handed her a cup of tea, at which juncture Isla stopped crying.
Genevieve settled softly on the edge of the bed and fed her bread and cheese. Isla ate most of it, then fell into a deep, vanilla-scented sleep. |
Henry was long gone by the time she woke. The butler had been reprimanded for not listening to Isla. There was a militant expression in Genevieve's green eyes that suggested, once the sun set, the vampire queen was next to be scolded.
Isla wasn't sure who would come out on top with those two.
There was a small, warm weight next to her hip, and at her movement, two bright black eyes and a set of ridiculously fluffy ears perked up. Someone had let Skoot in. She put a hand down to caress those silly ears and he wriggled in pleasure.
The inventor hadn't gone to the potting shed, much to Isla's surprise, but was sitting at a little escritoire near a window, wearing a set of spectacles and sorting through a stack of correspondence.
Isla lay, petting Skoot, and watched her for a while. She allowed herself to admire the elegant curve of the other woman's neck as she bent to read. There it was again – peeking out the back, exposed by her short hair – some kind of scar?
"Is that a birthmark?" Isla's voice was husky with too much sleep. As the inventor had now seen all of Isla, it seemed a less intrusive question.
Genevieve looked up and smiled – dimples flashed. She rose and came to Isla's side.
"You are awake. How do you feel?"
"Much improved, thank you. Less sore because of the bath, and in better spirits. I'm sorry I was so sentimental earlier. I didn't mean to cry."
"Perfectly understandable, do not even think upon it. You look better too."
"What time is it?"
"Gone three."
"I'm glad I woke then. Sleep any more and I should never rest tonight."
"Are you hungry?"
"In a bit. Would you sit next to me a moment first?" Isla was not above using her invalid status to garner more contact and attention.
Genevieve removed Skoot, mock-reprimanding him in French, and folded herself into his spot next to Isla. Much to Isla's delight, the inventor took hold of her hand in a reassuring clasp. There was nothing sexual about it, yet it felt nice.
"What is the mark on your neck?" Isla asked again. "At first I thought you'd been bitten, but it's too dark, almost black, and not shaped right."
The inventor actually blushed. "It is a tattoo of an octopus. I belong to a sort of club and it has become rather a totem animal of mine."
"Not the wicker chicken?"
"No, that is someone else's totem. It was an octopus that landed me here."
"It was?" Isla was all ears.
"I built a massive octomaton and went rather wild with it. Knocked down the old hive house in London. And a few other houses, too. The countess had kidnapped my boy, you see? I had no other choice. Well, I maybe did have other choices, but I didn't think so at the time."
Isla could understand. If Genevieve was so fiercely protective of a mere assistant, she must be awesome in defense of someone she truly loved.
"What happened?"
"Alexia. That is, Lady Maccon. She worked a deal whereby Quesnel would be kept by the hive. It has to do with the legal standing of his blood mother – he is not my child by birth, you see, but by adoption – anyway... Where was I? Oh, yes. Quesnel would stay with the hive here until he reached his majority at eighteen. I would be indentured for ten years, in order to stay with him, and as punishment for the octopus terrorizing London incident. Then, of course, Quesnel had his own opinion on the matter and convinced us both – the countess and I – that he would be best going away to university early." She paused then. "He was right. He's thriving at L'École des Arts et Métiers." Pride suffused her voice.
"But it left you here alone, without him."
"Not so bad." The dimples were back. "I have you now."
I'm not your daughter, Isla wanted to say. But instead, she basked in the glow of those dimples. She does like me, Isla decided. It's just she's holding herself back. And it has to do with some other part of her past. She took solace in the fact that this had been a breakthrough of sorts, learning what had caused Genevieve's indenture. Isla would be patient and learn more. Learn enough to chip away at the inventor's reticence. |
[ In Which There are More Dimples ]
The queen made no further moves in Isla's direction. Unfortunately, neither did Genevieve.
For a full two months, Isla resumed the established daily pattern – potting shed, sums, dimples, tea, lab, dimples, luncheon, equations, more dimples, supper, and if she was lucky, one last set of dimples before bed. The intimacy of that bath was never discussed, although the inventor seemed to have elected to throw herself into a caring parental role as a result.
What Genevieve failed to realize was that Isla was just as stubborn as she, only quieter about it. All I have is my beauty. Surely it won't fail me the one time I really wish to apply it?
Isla was determined to try her hand at seduction. Remembering the way the village girls pursued their flirts, she set out to wage a similar war. Of course, she knew full well she was nowhere near good enough for the inventor, but surely they could at least share a bed? Isla wouldn't ask for anything more. (Although what more was there between two women? Certainly not marriage. Not in England, anyway.)
In the laboratory, Isla concocted reasons to touch her inventor. A hand to her arm, a press against her side when they were both crouched to examine something. Some device would spark and Isla would gasp, reaching for Genevieve's hand.
The inventor would blush, or nudge back, then seem to remember herself and pull away. She clearly wanted more, but she didn't respond in a manner that encouraged Isla to press further.
Once, leaning over Isla to consult on a sum, Genevieve forgot her reserve. A hand, cool and rough-skinned, caressed the back of Isla's neck, fingers dipping into her hair. Isla leaned into the touch, turning her head to inhale vanilla, pressing her cheek into the other woman's bare wrist (her sleeves were rolled up as usual). Isla dared to brush her lips on the delicate white skin there.
Genevieve let out a little whimper. The needy murmur was so quiet, yet it cut through the clattering of machinery to sting Isla's ears. Her inventor sounded both frustrated and very sad.
Isla stopped the kiss and pulled back. Crushed. I don't want to hurt her. Lord, that's the opposite of what I want. How do I beat this? How do I fight for what I want when the object of my desire is holding everything away from me despite herself? Isla wished she had someone, anyone she could ask for help. Any words she might say or actions she might take that would encourage Genevieve to open to her. If only a little. But she didn't know what she was battling against. This is the emotional equivalent of a fistfight with an octopus.
Still Isla persisted, trying to prove that her interest was genuine. She found herself in a heightened state of awareness most days, attuned to the inventor's smell, the way her hips moved under her trousers, the tendons in her hands, the sound of her voice. She ached to press tiny kisses to the corners of her mouth. She wished to know how the rest of Genevieve's skin tasted. She wanted whimpers, just not sad ones.
Isla was also painfully aware of her own experience with Henry. She refused to impose herself as he had done. She took pains to be more tempting than predatory. Making a great effort with her appearance, fixing her hair high and soft to show her neck. Pinching color into her cheeks.
She caught Genevieve looking a great deal. Looking but never again touching, or even talking much beyond pleasantries and instructions. Those green eyes stayed hungry, and they stayed sad.
And while Isla lay restless and aching in her own cot, she swore she could hear, in the other room, Genevieve tossing and turning just as much. |
Subsets and Splits