E (8 page)

Apollon crosses his arms and smiles at me.

I frown, ignoring him, and pass the knife back to Jonas.  He
hands me the second one.

As soon as I take it, I'm sure.  I look down at the gleaming
steel of the curved blade, the soft brown leather wrapped around the
hilt.  "This one," I say.

"Don't choose it because it's pretty," Apollon
says. 

"I didn't," I answer.  I look at the knife-dealer,
who has been watching us the whole time.

"It's a good choice," he says.  He has these weird,
keenly blue eyes that make me think of a wolf. 

"How much?" I ask, figuring we will be here for a year
bargaining on this knife, and then I'll need to choose one that I can actually
afford.

He shrugs.  Again, something in his body language seems not
quite human.  I'm fascinated by it, really, but I try to look bored. 
He glances from the knife in my hand to my face.  "A special knife
like that should have a special owner," he says, winking.  OK, maybe
a coyote.  "I'll give it to you for four silver.  Hardly making
a profit at all on that.  Especially if you consider the time I put
in."

I glance at Apollon and Jonas.  They look dumbfounded. 
I consider the knife in my hand.

"We'll take it," Apollon says firmly, jumping on the
moment.  He's already holding out the coins to the dealer.

The man takes them, but looks at me as he pockets them. 
"Make sure you oil it regularly," he says, and glances at the
sky.  "Especially in this weather."

I nod, eyeing him.  "Thanks," I say.

Apollon, Jonas, and Oscar are already starting to walk away, but I
pause.

"You made this?" I ask, looking from the knife to him.

He nods.

"Nice work," I say. 

He looks pleased, but says nothing.

I'm thinking about catching up with my friends, but my eyes fall
on the makeshift table.  He sells belt sheaths as well, and I need
one.  I point to something suitable.  "How much?"

"Four silver," he says, the same price as my
knife.  This is his normal price, I can tell, because they're definitely
not of equal value. 

I toss him a five, pick up the sheath, give him a nod and head
off.

My friends have stopped a short distance away to wait for me.

"I thought I should have somewhere to put it," I
explain, showing them the sheath.

"I thought we should get the hell out of there before he
changes his mind about the price," Apollon grins.

"Guess being a girl's not all bad," I say, giving him a
look.  He narrows his eyes at me as we turn and walk toward home. 

A high-pitched, blood-curdling shriek from somewhere far away
makes me reconsider my position.

***

The day breezes away.  For the first time, I feel myself
start to relax.  At the end, there's food, and shelter, and
laughter.  It's more than I can ask for.  It's more than I ever
hoped.

Come bedtime, Oscar scoots over and makes a spot between him and
Miranda.  "Right here, Eden," he says sweetly. 
"There's room for you."

I only hesitate a little before I smile and laugh.  My feet
move toward the bed.

In the end, we all pile in, and miraculously but snugly,
fit.  Neveah sleeps against the wall, then Oscar, then me, tucked between
him and Miranda, who sleeps with her back to me.  Jonas is next to her
with one arm draped over her, and Apollon on the outside.  As I lie there,
very still, aware that my every movement will disturb someone near me, I think
how ridiculous we all are.  We're like a pile of puppies, or something in
a children's song, though I can't think exactly which one.  I close my
eyes and try to relax, but I feel as stiff as a corpse.  In the darkness,
the feeling of closeness is stifling.  I have an urge to flee, to be where
I can move freely.  It takes me a long time to sleep, but eventually the
softness of the mattress wins out against everything else.  My last
conscious thought before I drift off is that this all seems too good to be
real.

Again, I'm in the box.  I can't see, or breathe, or
move.  I'm suffocating.  Dying.  Has everything been a
dream?  The thought brings the ultimate wash of terror, sweeping me away
as though I'm nothing.  I scream and flail, and I can't get out.

A hand presses firmly on my shoulder.  A voice,
murmuring.  My mind is spinning cartwheels, trying to make sense of
things.  I can't tell up from down or side from side.

"It's OK.  You're OK," the voice says,
quietly.  "It's just a dream."

The tide of reality swoops in.  I'm sitting up in bed. 
I remember.  It's Jonas' hand on my shoulder, his fingers pressing in just
enough to bring me to the present.  Miranda is quietly cussing as she
settles in on his other side.  Light glints off of Oscar's wide, dark eyes
on the other side of me.  I must have frightened him.  I want to
apologize, to sooth him, but my brain is swimming, heavy.  I'm so
tired.  My head slumps.  Jonas pushes me back and I sink into the
bed.  I'm asleep before I hit the mattress.

I sleep like the dead for the rest of the night.  When I
wake, with light filtering through my eyelids, I feel the removal of an arm
from around me.  When I sit up, I see Jonas scooting to the end of the
bed, his back to me.  No one says anything about my nightmares.  We
simply start another day.

I'm around back in a small space that’s wedged between our shack
and the Outpost's concrete wall.  The sky is a slab of grey stone. 
The ground is slick with mud.  Sitting against the shack's wall, I wrap my
arms around myself and close my eyes against the restless feeling.

I want to run, but I don't know why.  Not to flee, but to
get... somewhere.  Here is wrong.  Doing nothing is wrong.  I'm
overwhelmed by the need to fulfill some unnamed task.  My fingers press
into my arms, as though I could hold myself back.  I make myself
breathe.  I count backward.  I've gone through the cycle from
ninety-nine to zero three and a quarter times when I hear the front door creak
and footsteps heading in my direction.  Small, light footsteps.

"Eden?" Oscar says as he comes around the end of the
junk wall.  He knows I'm here.  There's no use in pretending.

"Hey Oscar," I say, shifting.

He squints into the shadows, then smiles and joins me. 
Without reservations, he sits in the mud beside me.  "Why are you out
here?"

I shrug.  "Just thinking."

"About what?" he asks.  He's a kid.  He hasn't
learned when not to ask things yet.

"I just feel weird," I say.  "Like... like
bored or something."

He turns eyes me, but says nothing.  We sit there. 
After a long while he says, "You're playing cards tonight?"

"Yeah.”

"Are you worried?"

"Nope."

He nods.  "Apollon and Jonas will keep you safe,"
he says.  "I will, too."

I look at him and he's grinning.  This big, goofy, toothy
grin.  I start laughing despite myself.  "No offense," I
say, "but you're like... seven... or something."  I choose the
number on the upper side of my estimated range, because I don't really want to
offend him.

"Eight," he corrects, but he doesn't sound
offended.  Just factual.

"Eight?" I ask.  "No way. 
Eight?"  Most eight-year-olds could eat him for dinner.

"Yeah, I know," he says, and at first I think he's
deflated, but then he just seems thoughtful.  He pauses, then adds,
"Sometimes people underestimate you when you're small.  It's a
good
thing."

"You think?"

"That's what Apollon says."

I snort.  "Apollon knows a
lot
about being
little."

Again, he's laughing.  "He knows what it's like not to
be."  He shrugs.  "Maybe he was little, too, when he was a
kid."

Somehow I doubt that.  Apollon was probably born with bulging
biceps and feet the size of Sentries.  Instead of pointing this out, I
say, "If you're small you have less weight to carry around, so you can be
quicker. 
That's
a good thing."

"Yeah," he says.  "Apollon says that,
too."

And that pretty much exhausts my wisdom on being small.  I
change the subject.  "So, how long have you been living with these
guys?"

Now Oscar hesitates.  It makes me wonder if I need to learn
when not to ask things, too.  His eyes scrunch up and I can see him
mentally counting, his little mouth working quietly.  He looks at me and
says, "A year and seven months.  About."

I want to ask more, but I can't quite seem to do it. 
Instead, all I say is, "Yeah?"

But that's all it takes.  Surprising me with his willingness
to share, Oscar launches into his story, as if he's known me forever. 
Maybe he just needs to tell it to someone, or maybe he's really this trusting.

"... and we weren't doing so good.  You know.  It
was really cold out and mom was sick for a while.  She just kept getting
sicker."

I feel my stomach curling slowly in on itself, not liking where
this is going.  "And your dad?" I ask.

He shrugs.  Shrugs can mean anything, but this one clearly
says "What dad?"  He picks up a clump of mud and starts
squishing it through his clenched fingers.  "I think it was me,"
he says after a long pause.  "I think she was worried about me. 
That's why she did it."

I swallow.  "Did what?"

"Stole a blanket.  I guess someone had washed it and set
it out to dry.  So she just took it."  Silence falls over us
again.

He's really squishing the mud now, his thin fingers opening and
contracting again and again.  I manage to find my voice, even though I'm
pretty sure I know the ending.  "What happened?"

His eyes flick to the mark on my forehead. 

I put my arm around his back.  He leans in and rests his head
against my shoulder, closing his eyes.  I wonder, is this what it's like
to be a mother?  To try to comfort, when you wish you could be comforted
yourself?  But there
is
something comforting in it-- in sharing
someone else's pain.  We sit for a long time and I find myself wondering
if my mother ever held me like this.  Surely she did, but even the idea of
her is an absolute stranger to me.  At least Oscar can remember. 
"What was she like-- your mom?"

He lets out a shaky sigh.  "I don't know," he
says.  "I guess I remember things like the way she smelled.  She
had this old apron she wore and she was always wiping everything off on it,
even though the apron was dirty.  And when I was little, we would make
boats out of things, and float them in the puddles.  But mostly she just
worked as hard as she could to keep us alive.  Her hands looked really
old.  Older than the rest of her."

Again, we sit in silence for a while.  Then I ask, "How
did you end up here?"

"Mom knew Apollon and Jonas," he says.  He
straightens so he can turn his head to look at me, but he's still tucked mostly
under my arm.  "Sometimes she'd sell them things.  When they
found out what happened, Apollon decided they would look after me." 
After a moment he adds, "Jonas didn't really want to, but Apollon made
him."

"Really?"  I ask.  "But Jonas loves
you.  And what about Neveah and Miranda?"

"Jonas loves me
now
," Oscar says.  "But
he didn't want to be here, in the Outpost.  Him and Apollon came here from
Outpost One, and they were going to keep traveling.  But Jonas thought I
was too little to do that, so taking me on meant staying here.  And he
didn't want that."

"They came here from Outpost One?" I ask.  I never
expected this. "Which Outpost are we in?"

"This is Three," he replies as though he's not really
thinking about it.  "Neveah joined up with us not much later,"
he says.  "We knew her already, and I guess Apollon and Jonas thought
they needed someone to look after me.  A girl, I mean."  He
shrugs. 

"And Miranda?"

Oscar sits up straight and glances at the house.  "Jonas
rescued her," he says carefully.

"Rescued her?" I ask.  I know this is a touchy
subject, but Miranda's not here, and I want to know.

Again, he looks at the house, but when he looks back at me, his
eyes narrow conspiratorially.  He leans a little closer, his voice
hushed.  "Donegan hates her," he says, "because of her
mom."

I match his whisper.  "Her mom?"

"He was in love with her.  Well, that's what they
say.  But then she ended up with Miranda's dad.  He had a little shop
downtown.  He was a mech."

I nod.  This explains Miranda's creations.

"Things were OK for them, I guess.  But Donegan hated
her.  He always tried to make things hard for them.  Something
happened-- Idunno.  And Miranda's dad died.  I guess Donegan thought
her mom would go to him, but she didn't, and he just got madder.  He kept
at her, said he knew she loved him and all that.  But she'd quit drugs,
see, and she didn't want to be around that stuff."  Again, he glances
at the wall behind us.  "So she took up with some supplies-runner and
left."

I blink.  "Without Miranda?"

He nods gravely.  "Just left her," he says. 
"And with her gone, Miranda was the only one left for Donegan to be mean
to.  He sent his goons after her and they had her cornered in an
alleyway.  Jonas kind of stumbled into it, but you know Jonas."

I don't, really.

"He chased them off and saved her," Oscar
finishes.  "And she's been with us ever since."

"Wow," I say.  "That explains why Miranda
hardly ever goes outside."  But really I'm thinking about
Jonas.  I'm thinking about how, when I woke up yesterday morning, and
everyone else was still asleep, his arm was still thrown over me.  How, in
that moment, I felt safe for the first time I can remember.  I wanted to
stay there forever.  I had someone to protect me.  It didn't matter
that Jonas doesn't seem to care the rest of the time, when we're awake. 
That arm was enough.  And it's been enough to stand between me and
nightmares, pushing them away when they come, for the past three nights since
I've been here.

Oscar is nodding. 

"So why does Jonas want to keep traveling?" I find
myself asking.

Oscar looks like he's about to answer when we hear a noise around
front.  He climbs to his feet.  "I don't know," he says,
but I can tell his answer is lacking due to distraction.  "He just
wants to go somewhere."  He heads off around the junk wall.

I sigh, climb to my feet, wiping off mud, and follow him.

***

We walk shoulder to shoulder down the street in broad daylight--
Jonas, Apollon, and me.  I keep quiet, noticing now how their eyes scan
the streets, always watching what's going on.  Always ready for anything.
 I do the same, taking in all the details I can.  There are people I
recognize from my days on the streets.  Others I don't.  One of them,
a pretty girl with caramel colored curls, is flouncing down the street unescorted
toward us.  Seriously?

I detect the change in Apollon's stride even though I'm not
looking at him, which makes me immediately want to.  It's a subtle change,
but enough.  His gaze is steadily on the girl.  As we near her, he
makes eye contact and shoots her that cocky grin.  He nods and says,
"Hey gorgeous."  He winks.  I try to contain myself.

The girl, however, blushes and giggles before looking away as she
passes, her chin in the air.

Apollon glances back over his shoulder as we keep moving.

After a while, trying to keep the amusement from my voice, I say,
"Who was that?"

"That," says Apollon, "was Elaina Sumter."

"Sumter as in the cannibalistic butcher Sumter?" I ask.

"His daughter," Jonas informs me.

I nod.  "I see."

We walk on.

After a time, Apollon says, "What?"

"What what?" I ask.

"What what do you think?" he retorts.

I laugh, but say, "Do you really think it's a good idea to be
hitting on a cannibalistic butcher's daughter?"  In the back of my
mind I'm wondering how it is she gets to wander around by herself, and I figure
somebody's probably paying Matthew for that privilege.  Either that or
Sumter's scarier than I realize.  Cannibalistic butcher.  Hmm.

Apollon just shrugs as though he doesn't really care if he ends up
as a plate of sausages.  "It's my personal mission in life to
deflower as many virgins as possible before I die."

I glance at him. 

He glances at me, just from the corner of his eye. 
"Interested?"

I'm turning red again, but of all the things I
could
say in
reply to that, I find myself saying, "What makes you think I'm a
virgin?"

Again, he shrugs.  "Well," he says, "do you
remember
having sex?"

"No," I say flatly. 

He grins.  "Close enough for me."

"You'll find Apollon's standards of virginity to be quite
flexible," Jonas adds dryly.

"Convenient," I say.

We keep walking.  All the while, Apollon throws me sly grins
even though I narrow my eyes at him more than once.  We're just
approaching the market place, when I hear them.  The flower
peddlers.  The muscles in my shoulders tighten.

Apollon beams at me, leaning down to say something, but I don't
catch it.  One of them is right in front of us.  An older woman,
crying "Roses and lilies, roses and lilies."  I slam on the
brakes as she accosts us, stuffing a bouquet of lilies in my face.

"Flowers for your lady?" she asks, looking up at
Apollon.

"She's not..." I hear Jonas mumbling, but I'm too busy
feeling all the blood drain from my face to catch the rest. 

I can't breathe, until suddenly, almost miraculously, I spit out,
"Lilies are the flower of death!  Go find a corpse!"  I
smack the woman's wrist and the flowers flutter away out of my face, a few
petals spilling onto the ground.

The flower peddler doesn't like this, of course.  She clucks
and raises a clatter like a chicken about to be eaten.

Apollon soothes her by buying two lilies.  I watch
incredulously, my mouth hanging open.  My fingernails dig into my
palms.