Fox Forever (12 page)

I know I’m walking on shaky ground but I ask anyway. “Overboard?”

She’s careful with her reply. “Because of his position, he has certain … expectations for how his daughter should conduct herself in public—and private too for that matter. But I suppose I’m better off than most.”

Than most what? Non-pacts? But I don’t say it. I hear the strain in her voice. This sharing is pushing her limits.

I change the subject with more than enough new information to chew on. Like how the Network didn’t know she was adopted. “How did you ever find a rope ladder long enough to reach down nine stories?”

“Hap made it. From twine no less. He’s quite resourceful.” I remember his grip around my neck. Resourceful isn’t quite how I would describe him. Shrewd maybe. Is this part of the way he pays for Raine’s silence about his Netlog activity?

* * *

We enter the cemetery. She seems to know where she’s going. She heads for the center, gracefully hopping over graves and markers and tiptoeing between others. She should be a dancer, not scaling walls at two in the morning. My dislike for the Secretary grows. She stops at a large memorial and presses her palms against it, her fingers sliding into the recessed letters. She stands there stone still for the longest time. “Tell me, Locke, what did you think of the gathering at the Somerset Club?” she finally says.

I’m surprised she would bring it up, considering it didn’t go well between us, but I try to put a positive spin on it. “I didn’t think it was as boring as you did.”

She turns to face me. “It wasn’t completely dull. I was especially curious about that dance you did with Vina.”

“I would have shown you but … someone cut me off.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Which I regret.”

Is she asking me to dance with her now? “It’s really pretty simple. I can show you.”

“I suppose that would be all right.”

It seems wrong to dance on someone’s grave, so I suggest we step over to a small clearing between graves. She stands in front of me waiting for instructions. “First of all, you keep your arms loose and relaxed, not stiff and straight. And you place them, well, really anywhere that feels comfortable. There aren’t rules.”

“It’s odd for a dance not to have rules.”

“Maybe, but that’s what keeps it interesting.”

I reach out, wishing that maybe there were rules so placing my hands would be less awkward. I place one hand on each side of her waist. “Now you put your hands where they feel comfortable.”

She lifts her hands, holding them up in the air, uncertain where to put them. Finally she brings them down so they’re resting on each of my arms. “There. That feels comfortable. Is this right?”

“There’s no right or wrong.”

“Now what?”

“Relax. Pretend there’s music. Soft music. And sway to it. Like this.”

She steps on my foot and grimaces. She may be graceful most of the time, but not when there isn’t a game plan to follow. “Our feet are so close,” she complains. “How can you dance so close to another person with no rules?”

“You’re trying too hard.” I slide my hands around her back and pull her closer. Her hands are forced to slide farther up my arms, until they’re resting on my shoulders. “Now, don’t lift your feet so high. Just let them glide along the ground. Like mine.”

She looks to the side trying to see our feet like she’s memorizing each step. “Relax,” I repeat. “Just go with it.”

We fall into step and I feel her arms grow softer, the angles disappearing, molding to me like she’s finally getting the hang of moving without a plan. Not her specialty, but she’s a quick learner.

She looks up at me. “I’m not sure what to think of a dance without rules.”

I look at her, caught off guard at how close her face is. I can’t study it, can’t examine planes and lines and what expressions she may be hiding. I can’t see anything but her chin, her nose, her mouth, her eyes. I can’t see anything but Raine. I swallow. I quickly swing her away from me and throw her back in a dip. “And you have to watch out.” I bring her back to her feet. “Because you never know what might happen in a dance without rules.”

She laughs. “Like you said, that’s what keeps it interesting.” I let go of her and step back, bumping into a gravestone. “Thanks for the lesson,” she says. “I guess Vina has nothing up on me now. She can be rather annoying that way.”

“Right.”

We talk for another minute or so, but none of her words really sink in until she says good-bye and leaves.

Good-bye. Was it only a petty competition with Vina that made her want to dance? She’s right. Vina has nothing up on her. I watch her walk away and decide that this will be my last time visiting her in the middle of the night. I’ve probably learned enough. And I think I’m “in” as far as I should be.

Slipping

She doesn’t show and she doesn’t show, and just when I think she’s not coming at all, I see a glimmer of white at the rooftop edge. She’s wearing a nightgown, which means she doesn’t plan on coming down, but then she lowers the rope ladder anyway and begins her descent, her nightgown flapping in the breeze against her bare legs.

It’s both a frightening and strangely beautiful thing to watch, an eerie marriage of freedom, desperation, and insane risk. I hate that she’s coming down, and yet that’s what I was waiting for. Why am I here? I spent all day telling myself I wasn’t going to come tonight, but then I did. Maybe I really am developing a sleeping problem.

I maintain my position on the tree root until she’s walking across the lawn, and then I stand, wondering if it was her father who prevented her from coming earlier.

“I can’t stay long,” she says.

“You didn’t have to come because of me. I already told you I just like hanging out in the Commons at night.”

She looks at me, her chest rising in a long, slow breath. “Really? Is that all it is?”

The Commons is big. There’s a million places I could perch myself besides right across the street from her building. She’s not stupid. But I can’t really answer why I’m here. Only more information? It’s not just that.

“It’s not safe to climb down the side of a building in a nightgown,” I tell her.

“It’s not safe to climb down at all. That won’t keep me from doing it if it pleases me.” She walks past me and sits on the root, her legs jutting out in front of her like she’s ready to trip me.

I watch the hard Raine return. The closed one who pushes people away. But it affects me differently now than it did the first time I saw her. She’s afraid. She covers her soft underside with prickly armor.

I make a deliberate show of stepping around her outstretched legs and I sit down beside her. “So tell me what pleases you, Raine. When I’m not here how do you spend your nights? Where do you go? What do you do?”

She slides her feet up on the root, hugs her shins, and looks at me. Her eyes grow warmer, like the question has unleashed a part of her that she lives for. Her pupils widen in the deep brown pools and I watch the play behind them, almost like a feral animal … like a fox who enjoys the cleverness of her game, and I realize she’s probably the most complex, contradictory person I’ve ever met. Her eyes narrow. “If my father’s anything, he’s a man of order and routine. That’s both his strength and his weakness. I know I have four and a half hours of guaranteed freedom each night. He doesn’t sleep much but when he does, he sleeps as deeply as a corpse. The only time I’ve ever had a close call was once when he became ill and woke during the night. Hap covered for me.”

At least I know with certainty where Hap’s loyalties lie.

She stares unfocused into the shadows of the trees surrounding us, a glimmer in her eyes. “I use that time to breathe. To do the things he would never allow. The first time I went out, I was looking for my mother.”

“I thought your mother was dead.”

“She is. This was after she died. I was looking for my birth mother. Not because I wanted to talk to her or know her. I just wanted to see the kind of woman who would abandon a baby. She threw me in a trash bin.”

I wince, unable to fathom Raine being thrown away like trash.

“Maybe that’s why Father didn’t want me to know my origins in the first place. He’s the one who found me crying in a heap of garbage. He fished me out and took me home as a temporary measure, but as soon as my mother laid eyes on me, she wouldn’t let me go. Of course they made it all legal, but I wasn’t exactly a planned acquisition.”

“Did you find your birth mother?”

“I may have seen her. I don’t know. I went to the parts of town Father would never let me enter—the places where Non-pacts live—and I looked at women there, wondering if one of them was the woman who threw me away, wondering what kind of animal she was. Wondering why she did it. Not many Non-pacts are out in the middle of the night, but a few times in the late hours I found gatherings hidden away in other parts of the city, and I watched them from dark alcoves, looking for a woman who looked like me.”

“How do you know your birth mother was a Non-pact?”

She shrugs. “The location where I was found. The clothes they found me in. Besides, Father said they’re the only ones who would throw a baby away. He reminds me every day of the life he saved me from. He had me scanned regularly for years, looking for any lasting damage. He still has me scanned occasionally.”

I can’t imagine anyone throwing her away, especially not a Non-pact. I saw how the children were well cared for at Xavier’s dinner, and the way he tenderly looked after his own children. I know that sort of thing happens—I’ve heard news reports like that before—but no one in his neighborhood would do such a thing. Why would Raine’s father tell her this, even if it’s true? It seems too cruel. Maybe some lies are for the best.

“I’m sorry, Raine.”

She shakes her head. “Nothing to be sorry for. Ancient history. A mere curiosity,” she says, like she doesn’t care. “After those excursions, I went to other places Father wouldn’t allow, like the cathedral on Washington Street.”

“Holy Cross?”

“You’ve been there?”

Every Sunday at 11:30
A.M.
At least until I was twelve. I was an altar boy when I was just ten years old. I can still see my parents and grandparents beaming as I walked in the processional with my hands folded in front of me in prayer. When I was getting ready in front of my sister, I pretended I hated the cassock and crisp white tunic I had to wear, but I remember secretly thinking that maybe God would see me wearing those fancy holy clothes and mistake me for a priest. That, I was sure, would give me a direct line to God, because my regular connection to him seemed pretty shaky. Even though my house, my neighborhood, and my family are gone now, it’s comforting to know the church we went to has survived the ages. Still, I answer cautiously, not knowing what kind of shape it’s in now or if it’s even used as a church anymore—especially since the library is now a food warehouse.

“I only drove by. I don’t remember much about it.”

“That’s a shame. It’s beautiful. Spires of open emptiness, jeweled shadows, musical echos, and best of all, I listen to whispers from the stained-glass saints surrounding me. I always sit in the center pews all alone and pretend …
I pretend I’m somewhere in heaven.
”

I hear the desperate hush of her last few words, as if she’s embarrassed. I swallow at the sudden stab in my throat. I should leave, but I can’t.
Somewhere in heaven
. She has to run away in the middle of the night to get a small piece of heaven? To a lonely dark church? She’s telling me more than I have a right to know. I don’t need this kind of information. Or maybe I’m just afraid I might start sharing information with her about myself, the
real
me. It feels like it would be so easy to do, so natural to share with her, but I banish any thoughts of truth. I have to keep up the charade of who I am. The Favor is more important than anything I might be feeling at the moment.

I look up and see her studying my face like she was watching the battle going on inside of me, like she saw me hiding away the truth.

There’s a loud rustle in the bushes and she stands. “I need to go,” she says.

“It’s only squirrels, or rats.”

“It’s not that. I just need to go.”

“All right.” I stand too. “See you tomorrow night at the meeting.”

“Right. You know where it is. My place.” Her voice is flat, all the warmth of just a few minutes ago, gone, like she’s already bracing herself for tomorrow night when she’ll have to resume being the cool, guarded Raine. “Good night,” she adds, and begins to turn away.

“Raine—”

“Just leave it, Locke!” she snaps. “I have to go!”

“Hey.” I put my hands up like I’m backing off. “Did I suddenly drop a notch on the trust meter?”

Instead of taking it as a remark to lighten the mood, I see her face darken even more. A furrow deepens between her brows and she bites her lip. She turns her back to me so I can’t see her. The air is punched out of me and I race back through my words wondering what I said that sent her into a tailspin. Or was it the look on my face as she studied it? Does she know I’m hiding something? Or maybe she went one step too far in opening up with me—a slippery place for someone who always walks a very private tightrope.

I take a step closer to her, staring at her back. “I didn’t mean to—”

She vigorously shakes her head, her hair rippling across her back. “You scare me, Locke! From the moment I first saw you, you scared me.”

I’m unable to speak.
I frighten her.
That was the last thing I expected or wanted. I reach out and lightly touch her shoulder. “Raine…”

She turns to face me and her words run out in a breathless avalanche. “I’ve never done this before.
Ever
. I want you to know. I’ve never shared my nights with
anyone
, or told them about the cathedral, or my mother, or being found in the garbage. I’m not any good at this. Worse than not good. I’m a failure at people. But that first night, I saw you long before you saw me and you fascinated me. You looked like you were in the park waiting for someone, someone who never came, you looked so alone and lonely, and for a moment, I thought maybe I should be that someone who comes so you wouldn’t feel all alone. And I thought about that all the next day. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, and that scared me even more. And now everything that I was afraid would happen is happening. And that’s why I told you that first night never to come here again.” She shrugs a slightly hysterical shrug, her eyes glistening, and she adds, “I don’t know Italian either. Only ‘capiche.’”