The Mountain Cage (42 page)

Andrew wanted to ask Thérèse why she had run away.

“Maybe you ought to go back,” she went on.

“We’ll stick with you,” Silas said. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“If I minded, I wouldn’t be walking with you, now would I?” The girl slowed, peering down the cracked and potholed asphalt. “We shouldn’t stay on this road.” She turned her head, surveying the area. A bridge was ahead. She pointed. “Maybe we should follow the river.”

“Fine with me,” Silas said. They left the road, scampering down the hill to the bank. The river flowed west; they climbed over rocks and strolled along the grassy bank.

“How long have you been traveling?” Silas asked.

“Long enough,” Thérèse replied. “Since spring. A couple of months.”

Silas whistled. The girl stumbled, waving her arms in an attempt to regain her balance. Pebbles rolled down the bank. Andrew reached for her, grabbing her arm. She jerked away violently, almost falling.

The slap stung his cheek. He stepped back. “Don’t touch me,” Thérèse shouted. “Keep away from me.” Her arm was up, as if she was about to hit him again.

“I was trying to help.” He crouched, holding out a hand. Thérèse was breathing heavily; her cheeks were flushed. Silas moved away from her and came closer to Andrew. The girl lowered her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last. “Don’t touch me. Don’t get too close to me. I can’t stand it. All right?”

Andrew nodded. She turned and marched ahead, not looking back. Silas raised his eyebrows, then followed her. Andrew trailed behind. The look in Thérèse’s brown eyes had chilled him; he had not seen the heat of anger or the wide eyes of fear, only a cold look of malice and hatred. He stuffed his hands in his pockets as he walked and kept back, afraid to get too close to Thérèse.

By noon they had left the river and found a dirt road that wound through wooded hills. Thérèse had remained silent, but she had also managed to smile at a couple of Silas’s remarks. Andrew began to whistle a tune, then turned it into the
1812 Overture
. Silas added sound effects, shouting “Boom” at the appropriate moments. Thérèse laughed, but her mouth twisted, as if she found the whole thing silly as well.

Then she stopped, and pointed. Below them, the road dipped. A woman was walking along the road, her back to them, a kobold behind her. Apparently she had not heard them. She was moving toward a clearing; a small house, surrounded by a trimmed lawn, stood back from the road. A maple tree was in front of the house; near it, several flat stones formed a circle on the ground.

Andrew went as close to Thérèse as he dared. “What now?” he said softly.

She frowned. “We can catch up with her.”

“But she’ll—”

“Come on.” She moved ahead quickly, and both boys followed. The woman stopped walking and lifted a slender white cylinder to her lips, lighting it; she was smoking a cigarette. Then she turned and saw them.

Her dark eyes were wide. She dropped the cigarette quickly, as if ashamed that they had seen it, grinding it out with her foot. The kobold drew near her protectively. Its white hair was short, and its eyebrows bushy; it scowled.

Thérèse, approaching, lifted a hand. “Hello.”

“Hello?” the woman answered. Her greeting seemed tentative. She plucked nervously at her long black hair.

The girl moved closer, glancing at the kobold. It drew itself up, adjusting its red cape. Andrew and Silas kept behind Thérèse. Andrew was not afraid of the woman, only of the android, which might move quickly if it thought its mistress was being threatened. He kept his hands at his sides, palms open, in sight of the small creature.

“What do you want?” the woman asked.

Thérèse said, “We need food, and a place to rest. Please help us. We won’t bother you, or anything.” The girl’s voice was higher, gender than the tone Andrew had heard on the road. The woman gazed at Thérèse’s outstretched hands, and her eyelids fluttered; Andrew was sure she had noticed the weapon at the girl’s waist.

The woman straightened. She lifted her head and stuck out her chin, as if ready for a confrontation, but her hands trembled. “What are you doing out here?” Her voice was high and weak.

“We’re running away,” Thérèse said. “We’re experiments.” Andrew tried not to look surprised; Silas was keeping a straight face. “These biologists were testing us. I know they didn’t think they were doing anything mean, but you know how they are. This one man said he’d help us if we got away. So we’re on our way to his place.”

The woman frowned. “I never heard of such a thing.”

“They do a lot they don’t talk about. They can do anything they want, because everybody depends on them. Please don’t give us away.” Thérèse blinked her eyes, as if about to cry.

The woman pressed her hands together. “You poor things. You’d better follow me.”

She led them toward her house. Andrew noticed that she was keeping near her kobold.

The woman’s name was Josepha. The inside of her home smelled musty, as if she had been away and only recently returned. She had questioned them, and Thérèse had mumbled vaguely, avoiding answering.

Now the woman sat under her maple tree with a pad, sketching, while the children sat near the house, finishing the food she had given them. Josepha, although seemingly sympathetic, still kept her kobold at her side. The android faced them, hands at its waist.

“Was that true?” Andrew asked Thérèse.

“Was what true?”

“That story about the biologists.”

“Of course not.” With Josepha in the distance, the girl’s voice was once again low and clipped. “It could be true. They made those things, didn’t they?” She gestured at the kobold; it lifted its head.

“That isn’t the same as experiments with people.”

“What would you know about it?” Thérèse replied. “They made them, they made us, they used the same genetic material. They just make different modifications. What’s the difference?”

“There’s a lot of difference,” Andrew protested, thinking of the dead kobold in the woods near his home. “They’re limited, they can’t do much without direction.”

“I had to tell her something,” Thérèse murmured. “It doesn’t matter whether she believes it or not.”

“Why not?”

“Because she won’t do anything. First of all, we’re kids, so she feels protective. Second, she’s afraid. She won’t do anything that might put her in danger, and that’s why she won’t alert anyone. The older people get, the fewer risks they take. Why do you think she’s hiding away here? She’s afraid. She’ll do what we want. By the time she gets around to checking, and finding out we lied, we’ll be long gone. It takes them ages to make up their minds to do something anyway.”

Silas finished his roll and leaned back. “Why take the chance?” he asked.

“I just finished telling you, it isn’t a chance. She doesn’t want to be threatened. I could wing her with this laser before that kobold stopped me; all it’s got is a tranquilizer gun. They’d rather have their life than anything, those people. They beg for mercy, they do anything to avoid death.”

Andrew felt sick. Thérèse’s words were coarse and disgusting.

“Anyway, she’s one of the scared ones,” Thérèse continued. “I saw that right away. I’ve been running longer than you have. I need real food and a good night’s sleep. Don’t worry; I’ve done this before, and no one’s caught me yet.” Her voice was calmer.

“Why’d you run away, Thérèse?” Andrew asked.

She was staring past him, curling her lip. She was very quiet; he could not even hear her breathe. “I had my reasons,” she said at last. She pressed her lips together and said no more.

They slept in Josepha’s living room. That was where the woman had her holo screen and computer. The girl shook them awake at dawn. She had slept on a mat spread out on the carpet, leaving the large sofa to the boys. Andrew picked up his knapsack and hoisted it to his back while Silas yawned and stretched.

“We’d better get going,” Thérèse whispered. She propped Josepha’s drawing pad against the back of the sofa. She had written a message on it:

Dear Josepha,

Thank you for the food, and especially for the bath. We really are grateful. We’re going to head west now to find our friend. Maybe he’ll call and thank you himself when we’re settled. We’ll be thinking of you.

Terry, Simon, and Drew

Andrew had thought they’d been clever with their aliases; now, seeing them written out, they seemed a poor disguise. The words had been scrawled in a large, childish hand. Thérèse had transformed herself for Josepha, becoming a victimized and gentle child; she had played the role so well that even he had almost believed it. He and Silas had been merely the supporting players in the performance.

Thérèse signaled to them. They crept from the house, passing the kobold at the front door. The android looked up. “May I help you?” it asked.

The girl stopped. She seemed sad as she looked at the kobold. She raised one hand slowly and patted the kobold on the head. It smiled. “Is she good to you?” Thérèse asked. “Are you treated well?”

“May I help you? I can guide you to the road.”

The girl drew back. “No; we’re all right. Good bye.”

“Good-bye. It was nice to see you.” It waved with one small hand.

The three headed across the lawn to the road. “Are we really going west?” Andrew asked.

“Of course not,” the girl answered. “We’re going north. Fewer people.” She paused. “Maybe you two ought to go back. Josepha could get you home.” She said the words stiffly, as if she did not mean them.

Silas said, “We’ll stick with you.”

She seemed relieved. They hiked along the road silently. The morning air was damp and cool; Andrew shivered. He wondered if his parents were looking for him now, if they had found out about the cats. Then he realized that they would probably search south first, because Silas had always talked about how things were better there.

Silas had fallen under Thérèse’s spell. His friend followed her contentedly, as if happy to have found a leader. The ease of his surrender had surprised Andrew. He had thought of Silas as decisive; now he wondered if his friend had ever decided much of anything. His past actions now seemed to be only a surrender to his feelings.

He glanced at the girl as they walked. What would she do if they were found? She seemed desperate. He thought of how she had pulled away and slapped him, of how she had talked about death. She knew about him and Silas, but they knew nothing about her. Would she have hurt Josepha if the woman had tried to summon others? The girl had sounded as if she would, yet she had treated Josepha’s android with kindness.

They left the road and began to climb a hill. It was dark under the trees; leaves rustled as they climbed. Thérèse’s pockets bulged with cheese and dried fruit which she had taken from Josepha; she swayed as she moved. Andrew ached, though not as much as the day before.

Silas moved closer to him. “I keep thinking about my father,” he said between breaths. “He must be worried. I think about it now, and it seems awful. I keep wondering why I didn’t think of it before. I mean, I thought about it, but in a way I didn’t.”

“Does it bother you?” Andrew asked. Thérèse had moved farther ahead of them, setting her feet down heavily and awkwardly as if trying to flatten the earth. Her knees were thrust out; the upper part of her body was bent forward.

“I don’t know,” Silas said. “As long as I don’t have to see it, it’s like it isn’t there. It’s hard to explain. If I went home, I’d see how upset he is, and then I’d feel rotten, but here I don’t see it. I know the sooner I go back, the better it’ll be for him, but I’m afraid to go back, because then I’ll have to see him getting mad and upset, and I don’t want to.”

“We have to go back sooner or later,” Andrew murmured.

“I know.” Silas sighed. “I didn’t think of that, either. All I thought about was getting away and wandering around.” He glanced up at Thérèse. Then he looked at Andrew for a moment. His eyes pleaded silently.

Andrew thought: He wants me to decide. Thérèse stopped and turned around, folding her arms across her chest as she waited for them to reach her. For a moment, she looked older. Her eyes were aged and knowing; her face was set in a bitter smile. The wind stirred the tree limbs above, and shadows dappled her face, forming a mask over her eyes.

In the evening, it began to rain. They found shelter under an outcropping of rock. The rain applauded them as it hit the ground.

Andrew and Silas relieved themselves, pointing their penises at the rain beyond, then sat down. The ground was hard and stony, but dry. They ate their cheese and fruit in silence, then curled up to sleep.

Andrew dozed fitfully. His legs were cramped; if he stretched them, his feet would be in the rain. He stirred, trying to get comfortable. Something pressed against him in the dark.

“It’s me,” Thérèse whispered. He stiffened, afraid. Silas was asleep; he could hear his slight snort as he inhaled. “Just don’t grab at me, that’s all. All right?”