Requiem (25 page)

Lena

T
he planning goes late into the night. The sandy-haired man, whose name is Colin, remains sequestered in one of the trailers with Beast and Pippa, Raven and Tack, Max, Cap, my mother, and a few others he has handpicked from his group. He assigns a guard to watch the door; the meeting is invite-only. I know that something big is in the works—as big as, if not bigger than, the Incidents that blew part of a wall out of the Crypts and exploded a police station. From hints that Max has let slip, I've gathered that this new rebellion is not simply confined to Portland. As in the earlier Incidents, in cities all across the country, sympathizers and Invalids are gathering and channeling their anger and their energy into displays of resistance.

At one point Max and Raven emerge from the trailer to pee in the woods—their faces drawn and serious—but when I beg Raven to let me join the meeting, she cuts me down immediately.

“Go to bed, Lena,” she says. “Everything's under control.”

It must be almost midnight; Julian has been asleep for hours. I can't imagine lying down right now. I feel like my blood is full of thousands of ants—my arms and legs are crawling, itching to move, to
do
something. I walk in circles, trying to shake the feeling, and fuming—annoyed with Julian, furious with Raven, thinking of all the things I'd like to say to her.

I was the one who got Julian out of the underground. I was the one who risked my life to sneak into New York City and save him. I was the one who got into Waterbury; I was the one who found out Lu was a fraud. And now Raven tells me to go to bed, like I'm an unruly five-year-old.

I take aim at a tin cup that has been lying, half-buried in ash, at the edge of a burned-out campfire, and watch as it rockets twenty feet and pings off the side of a trailer. A man calls out, “Take it easy!” But I don't care if I've woken him up. I don't care if I wake the whole damn camp up.

“Can't sleep?”

I spin around, startled. Coral is sitting a little ways behind me, knees hugged to her chest, next to the dying remains of another fire. Every so often she prods it halfheartedly with a stick.

“Hey,” I say cautiously. Since Alex left, she has gone almost completely mute. “I didn't see you.”

Her eyes go to mine. She smiles weakly. “I can't sleep either.”

Even though I'm still antsy, it feels weird to be hovering above her, so I lower myself onto one of the smoke-blackened logs that ring the campfire. “Are you worried about tomorrow?”

“Not really.” She gives the fire another prod, watches as it flares momentarily. “It doesn't matter for me, does it?”

“What do you mean?” I look at her closely for the first time in a week; I've been unconsciously avoiding her. There is something tragic and hollow about her now: Her cream-pale skin looks like a husk—empty, sucked dry.

She shrugs and keeps her eyes on the embers. “I mean that I have no one left.”

I swallow. I've been meaning to speak to her about Alex, to apologize in some way, but the words never quite come. Even now they grow and stick in my throat. “Listen, Coral.” I take a deep breath.
Say it. Just say it.
“I'm really sorry that Alex left. I know—I know it must have been hard for you.”

There it is: the spoken admission that he was hers to lose. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel weirdly deflated, as though they've been swollen, balloonlike, in my chest this whole time.

For the first time since I sat down, she looks at me. I can't read the expression on her face. “That's okay,” she says at last, returning her gaze to the fire. “He was still in love with you, anyway.”

It's as though she's reached out and punched me in the stomach. All of a sudden, I can't breathe. “What—what are you talking about?”

Her mouth crooks up into a smile. “He was. It was obvious. That's okay. He liked me and I liked him.” She shakes her head. “I didn't mean Alex, anyway, when I said I had no one left. I meant Nan, and the rest of the group. My people.” She throws down the stick and hugs her knees tighter to her chest. “Weird how it's just hitting me now, huh?”

Even though I'm still stunned by what she has just said, I manage to keep control of myself. I reach out and touch her elbow. “Hey,” I say. “You have us. We're your people now.”

“Thanks.” Her eyes flick to mine again. She forces a smile. She tilts her head and stares at me critically for a minute. “I can see why he loved you.”

“Coral, you're wrong—” I start to say.

But just then there's a footfall behind us, and my mother says, “I thought you went to sleep hours ago.”

Coral stands up, dusting off the back of her jeans—a nervous gesture, since we are all covered in dirt, caked grime that has found its way from our eyelashes to our fingernails. “I was just going,” she says. “Good night, Lena. And . . . thanks.”

Before I can respond, she spins around and heads off toward the southern end of the clearing, where most of our group is clustered.

“She seems like a sweet girl,” my mother says, easing herself down onto the log Coral has vacated. “Too sweet for the Wilds.”

“She's been here almost her whole life.” I can't keep the edge from my voice. “And she's a great fighter.”

My mother stares at me. “Is something wrong?”

“What's
wrong
is that I don't like being kept in the dark. I want to know what the plan is tomorrow.” My heart is going hard. I know I'm not being fair to my mother—it isn't her fault I wasn't allowed in to plan—but I feel like I could scream. Coral's words have shaken something loose inside me, and I can feel it rattling around in my chest, knifing against my lungs.
He was still in love with you.

No. It's impossible; she got it all wrong. He never loved me. He told me so.

My mother's face turns serious. “Lena, you have to promise me that you'll stay here, at the camp, tomorrow. You have to promise me you won't fight.”

Now it's my turn to stare.
“What?”

She rakes a hand through her hair, making it look as though it has been styled with an electric current. “Nobody knows exactly what we can expect inside that wall. The security forces are estimates, and we're not sure how much support our friends in Portland have drummed up. I was urging a delay, but I was overruled.” She shakes her head. “It's dangerous, Lena. I don't want you to be a part of it.”

The rattling piece in my chest—the anger and sadness over losing Alex, and also, more than that, even, over this life that we string together from scraps and tatters and half-spoken words and promises that are not fulfilled—explodes suddenly.

“You still don't get it, do you?” I am practically shaking. “I'm not a child anymore. I grew up. I grew up without you. And you can't tell me what to do.”

I half expect her to snap back at me, but she just sighs and stares at the smoldering orange glow still embedded in the ash, like a buried sunset. Then she says abruptly, “Do you remember the Story of Solomon?”

Her words are so unexpected that for a moment, I can't speak. I can only nod.

“Tell me,” she says. “Tell me what you remember.”

Alex's note, still tucked into the pouch around my neck, seems to be smoldering too, burning against my chest. “Two mothers are fighting over a child,” I say cautiously. “They decide to cut the baby in half. The king decrees it.”

My mother shakes her head. “No. That's the revised version; that's the story in
The
Book of Shhh
. In the real story, the mothers don't cut the baby in half.”

I go very still, almost afraid to breathe. I feel as though I'm teetering on a precipice, on the verge of understanding, and I'm not yet sure if I want to go over.

My mother goes on, “In the real story, King Solomon decides that the baby should be cut in half. But it's only a test. One mother agrees; the other woman says that she'll give up claim to the baby altogether. She doesn't want the child injured.” My mother turns her eyes to me. Even in the dark, I can see their sparkle, the clarity that has never gone away. “That's how the king identifies the real mother. She's willing to sacrifice her claim, sacrifice her happiness, to keep the baby safe.”

I close my eyes and see embers burning behind my lids: blood-red dawn, smoke and fire, Alex behind the ash. All of a sudden, I know. I understand the meaning of his note.

“I'm not trying to control you, Lena,” my mother says, her voice low. “I just want you to be safe. That's what I've always wanted.”

I open my eyes. The memory of Alex standing behind the fence as a black swarm enfolded him, recedes. “It's too late.” My voice sounds hollow, and not like my own. “I've seen things . . . I've lost things you can't understand.”

It's the closest I've come to speaking about Alex. Thankfully, she doesn't pry. She just nods.

“I'm tired.” I push myself to my feet. My body, too, feels unfamiliar, as though I'm a puppet that has begun to come apart at the seams. Alex sacrificed himself once so that I could live and be happy. Now he has done it again.

I've been so stupid. And he is gone; there is no way for me to reach him and tell him I know and understand.

There is no way for me to tell him that I am still in love with him, too.

“I'm going to get some sleep,” I tell her, avoiding her eyes.

“I think that's a good idea,” she says.

I've already started to move away from her when she calls out to me. I turn around. The fire has now burned out completely, and her face is swallowed in darkness.

“We make for the wall at dawn,” she says.

Hana

I
can't sleep.

Tomorrow I will no longer be myself. I will walk down the white carpet, and stand under the white canopy, and pronounce vows of loyalty and purpose. Afterward, white petals will rain down on me, scattered by the priests, by the guests, by my parents.

I will be reborn: blank, clean, featureless, like the world after a blizzard.

I stay up all night and watch dawn break slowly over the horizon, touching the world with white.

Lena

I
'm in a crowd, watching two children fight over a baby. They are playing tug-of-war, pulling it violently back and forth, and the baby is blue, and I know they are shaking it to death. I'm trying to push through the crowd, but more and more people are surging around me, blocking my path, making it impossible to move. And then, just as I feared, the baby falls: It hits the pavement and shatters into a thousand pieces, like a china doll.

Then all the people are gone. I am alone on a road, and in front of me, a girl with long, tangled hair is bent over the shattered doll, piecing it back together painstakingly, humming to herself. The day is bright and perfectly still. Each of my footsteps rings out like a gunshot, but she doesn't look up until I am standing directly in front of her.

Then she does, and she is Grace.

“See?” she says, extending the doll toward me. “I fixed it.”

And I see that the doll's face is my own, and webbed with thousands of tiny fissures and cracks.

Grace cradles the doll in her arms. “Wake up, wake up,” she croons.

“Wake up.”

I open my eyes: My mother is standing above me. I sit up, my body stiff, working feeling into my fingers and toes, flexing and unflexing. The air is hung with mist, and the sky is just beginning to lighten. The ground is covered with frost, which has seeped through my blanket while I was sleeping, and the wind has a bitter, morning edge. The camp is busy: Around me, people are stirring, standing, moving like shadows through the half darkness. Fires are sparking to life, and every so often, I hear a burst of conversation, a shouted command.

My mother reaches out a hand and helps me to my feet. Incredibly, she looks rested and alert. I stomp the stiffness out of my legs.

“Coffee will get your blood moving,” she says.

It doesn't surprise me that Raven, Tack, Pippa, and Beast are already up. They are standing with Colin and a dozen others near one of the larger fire pits, their breath clouding the air as they speak in low tones. There is a stockpot of coffee on the fire: bitter and full of grains, but hot. I start to feel better and more awake after I've had only a few sips. But I can't bring myself to eat anything.

Raven raises her eyebrows when she sees me. My mother gestures to her, a motion of resignation, and Raven turns back to Colin.

“All right,” he's saying. “Like we talked about last night, we move in three groups into the city. First group goes in an hour, does the scouting, and makes contact with our friends. The main force doesn't budge until the blast at twelve hundred hours. The third group will follow immediately afterward and head straight to the target. . . .”

“Hey.” Julian comes up behind me. His eyes still have a puffy, just-awake look, and his hair is hopelessly tangled. “I missed you last night.”

Last night, I couldn't bring myself to lie down next to Julian. Instead I found a free blanket and made my bed out in the open, next to a hundred other women. For a long time, I stared up at the stars, remembering the first time I came to the Wilds with Alex—how he led me into one of the trailers, and unrolled the tarp that served as its ceiling so we could see the sky.

So much between us went unsaid; that is the danger, and beauty, of life without the cure. There is always wilderness and tangle, and the path is never clear.

Julian begins to reach for me, and I take a step backward.

“I was having trouble sleeping,” I say. “I didn't want to wake you.”

Julian frowns. I can't bring myself to make eye contact with him. Over the past week, I've accepted that I will never love Julian as much as I loved Alex. But now that idea is overwhelming, like a wall between us. I will never love Julian like I love Alex.

“What's wrong with you?” Julian is watching me warily.

“Nothing,” I say, and then repeat, “Nothing.”

“Did something—” Julian starts to say when Raven whirls around and glares at him.

“Hey, Jewels,” she barks out, which she has taken to calling Julian when she's annoyed. “This isn't gossip hour, okay? Shut it or clear out.”

Julian falls quiet. I turn my eyes to Colin, and Julian doesn't try to touch me or move closer. The sky is now streaked with long filaments of orange and red, like the tendrils of a massive jellyfish, floating in a milk-white ocean. The mist rises; the earth begins to shake itself awake. Portland, too, will be stirring.

Colin tells us the plan.