The Outcast Ones (22 page)

“There’s just one problem.” I act all serious.

“What’s that?” The anger sparks up in his eyes already. He wants nothing to get in the way of his dreams.

“I can’t bake!”

He guffaws and pokes me in the side so that I start giggling too, and laugh into his chest as he holds me.

“Then you’re going to learn. Together, we can do anything.”

- -

I
hardly shut my eyes all night. Thoughts race through my head as if they’re competing to be the fastest. I try to tell myself it’s not a bad thing to go back to the safety zone. That’s where I come from. I know how everything works there. There’s nothing I could ever do wrong, as long as I do exactly what I’m told.

That right there, that’s the problem. The rebels want me to do the opposite to what the Legion commanders expect of me. I have to decide. I can’t fight on both sides, even though somehow I belong to both.

But maybe I don’t need to think about it at all. Maybe the Legion won’t let me go back—maybe they’ll shoot me as soon as they see me. Or they might take me back and erase my memories. My time with the rebels would be like a big black hole.

I’m sure the Legion is able to do that sort of thing, but they must make mistakes sometimes, because Zoe never forgot the rebels. She’s my only ray of light. To know that she’ll be there, that we can share our secret, lets me breathe again. It’s hard to remember her face, but I hope I’ll see Finn in her.

I get a fright as someone clears her throat at the room’s entrance. Florence’s shadow falls on the pink curtain. When she pokes her head inside, my heart wrenches. Dark shadows ring her bloodshot eyes. Her nose is rubbed raw from all the blowing into handkerchiefs. Even her shiny hair has become dull. She’s tied it back loosely, emphasising her thin shoulders. Her dress is black and fitted, and she looks enviably good in spite of her grief.

She pushes a strand of hair out of her face. “Sleep well?”

I shake my head and put as much sympathy in my gaze as I can. I want to say something to make her feel better, to take away some of the pain, to make it easier to bear.

She shrugs. “Silly question, I know.  Carefully she sinks down to sit beside me, and leans her head on my shoulder. Being so close to anyone is still just as strange to me. “Troubles never come alone. First we lose Jep, and now you. How am I to bear it?”

“I’m not dead,” I answer, and immediately fear I’ve said exactly the wrong thing.

She lifts her head and blinks at me. Then she runs her hand over my hair, down my cheek. “No, you’re not. Of course not. We’ll meet again. For sure!”

Her voice tells me how awful she really feels. Florence was always the happiest of people, always optimistic. To hear her talk like this makes me tremble again. It sounds like even she doesn’t believe it any more.

“Actually, we wanted to have a big party tonight. Your farewell party. But now...” She breathes deeply. “...now that Jep has died, we wanted to cancel it. But I think that would be wrong. It’s not your fault.”

I seize her cold hand. “No, it’s okay. You don’t need to throw a party if you don’t feel like it. I don’t need it.”

“We’d all regret it if we didn’t. Jep would kick us all in the backside if he knew. He’d be the first to throw a party. If he could see how I’m bawling, he’d laugh at me. He’d call me Rudolph...” She points to her red nose, but I don’t understand what she means.

She goes on. “The boys will take care of the meat and all that, so all we have to do is make you prettier than you already are.” Now she’s even smiling at me, to her great credit. Florence stands up from the mattress and offers me her hand, which I’m glad to take.

“One last bath will do you good. Believe me, you’ll miss it in the safety zone. Those steam showers are torture in comparison.”

After I came to the caves, the first time I looked in a mirror shocked me so badly that I’ve avoided them ever since. My lips were cracked and bloody, my eyes were speckled as the Legion’s light blue began to be replaced by a dark brown that reminded me of dirt. Then there was my pale skin and starved body. I wasn’t a pretty sight at all.

Now, almost three months have passed, and still I’m afraid to look at myself again. Florence is insisting that I wear a dress on my last night. She wanted to convince me from the first day onwards, but I guess she gave up because she saw how uncomfortable I was without my familiar suit from the safety zone.

My favourite thing about this dress is its straps that cross over in the back. I’m sure Florence would look charming in this, but I can’t imagine it for myself.

“Trust me, Cleo, you’ll like what you see.” She pushes me towards the mirror. “And as for Finn...” She giggles, but I’m not listening any more.

I’m too busy with the person in the mirror. Is that really me? Hair—still short, but definitely not bald any more. It must be five centimetres long, in brown strands around the face. Warm brown eyes, full and healthy lips. No cracks. The girl in the mirror has even gained some colour. She must still be the palest of the rebels, but she doesn’t look sickly any more.

I run my hands across my face and my short hair. I always wanted to know what I look like. I thought if I could see myself, I’d know who I am. Do I know now? I stop and listen to my own rapid heartbeat. I memorise the image in the mirror, in the hope that I won’t forget it. I only want to be that girl.

That girl has friends and a sister called Iris. That girl has a family worth fighting for. That girl loves Finn. I’m Cleo, and no one can take that from me now.

Together with Florence I leave the clothes-room to join the others. The aroma of roasted meat is already reaching my nose, but in the communal room I find Gustav and Marie waiting for me. He stands up as I enter. Marie holds his hand; he’s shaking and can hardly stand. “Cleo, do you have a moment? I’d like to talk with you.” He’s trying to sound as strong and formal as he always did, as the leader.

I don’t know if Finn and Pep told the others about his lying. I don’t even know if they said anything about the electric fence. But that’s not my business any more, so I nod and join the old couple at the table. Florence leaves us to it.

Although Marie can’t see me, she still manages to look right in my eyes. My heart grows a little lighter in her presence, the same as always. “How are you doing, child?” It doesn’t sound like the kind of question that people ask just to be polite. She’s really interested.

If I were to tell her that I’m so scared I can’t sleep, and it’s breaking my heart to have to leave Iris and Finn and everyone, would she ask me to stay? But I’ve made my own decision to go. I’ll be brave. “I’m scared it won’t go as we’ve planned.” Just a different way to say I’m scared the Legion will kill me.

Marie nods. “You’re really very brave. I know you’ll make it. All of us believe in you.”

Marie is Gustav’s wife. She must have known about the electric fence. If I look at it like that, she’s been lying to everyone all these years as well. But I can’t be angry at her. She really seems to want me to succeed.

“Why now? You both knew about the wall all along, and you didn’t care. Why do you want to be free now?”

“You’re still asking that question? That Legion has changed so much from what it used to be. There used to be a sort of democracy. We were allowed to make our own decisions. There was no brainwashing and no oppression. Those people, if we can even call them that any more, have hurt my family—they killed Jep, and Finn’s parents Maggie and Ned before that. They were like children to me. They took Emily’s father Rick from her. We don’t belong to them any more—we haven’t for a long time.”

Gustav nods and his eyes plead with me. “At some point we just didn’t know how to tell the others. Right after Maggie, Ned and Rick died, we would have looked like traitors, although we had nothing to do with it. We didn’t know they had planned to attack us.”

“Why did they attack you?”

“It was a long time before I found out myself. It was because of Finn. He had discovered the electric fence.”

It hits me hard. Finn’s parents were killed and his sister kidnapped, just because he saw something they thought he shouldn’t be allowed to see. He must have felt so guilty.

Slowly I begin to understand Gustav. He loves his family and I can’t judge him for a decision he made long before my birth. Aside from that...if they had offered me the chance to leave the safety zone and live under the open sky, but limited by electric fences, I would have thought it was heaven on earth—and many would agree. Electric fences wouldn’t have mattered to us. Better invisible walls than steel walls.

“I’m sorry, Cleo, we should have been honest with you. It wouldn’t be fair to send you back to the Legion without knowing everything.” Gustav’s blue eyes, very like the Legion’s blue, seek to meet my gaze.

I see his sagging eyelids and the shadows under his eyes. “It’s okay.”

“We’re really proud of you.” He lays a hand on mine.

Marie grasps my other hand. “There’s someone in the safety zone who will introduce himself as soon as he sees you there. He’s one of our people. You must be honest with him, so he can tell us you’re doing all right.”

“What’s his designation?”

“We can’t tell you. We don’t know how far the Legion has gotten with their brain research. They might find out his number without you wanting them to. We can’t risk betraying him.”

“But then how will I know him?”

“Oh, you will, believe me. Soon you’ll recognise all the rebels in the Legion. They’re different. The commanders don’t notice it, but you will see it.”

It’s hard for me to believe them, because for me, all people everywhere are basically the same, whether here or there, the same as always. I share that view with the Legion. But being the same doesn’t mean that everyone has to look the same or even think the same. To me, people are only the same in their hearts. That’s what makes us human: the ability to love.

When I leave the room with Marie and Gustav and go outside to the others, dusk is already falling. This day has gone by so fast, much faster than I like. I didn’t spend any of my last few hours with Iris or Finn. Although I regret that, I know I’d do the same thing again. I can hardly look them in the eye without starting to cry. I don’t want them to remember me like that.

Finn approaches and pauses in front of me for a moment, smiling. His eyes slide from my face and down the blue dress. Embarrassed, I look to the ground. “Just this once,” I protest quietly.

“That’s a shame, it’s beautiful for just once,” he whispers back. I lift my head and look at him. There’s a white flower in his hands, with curved petals that remind me of a flying bird. He places it behind my ear. My skin glows as his fingers stroke my face.

He offers his hand and pulls me to a place around the fire, beside Iris. She looks lost in thought, her fingers running through Dumbo’s fur as he curls on her lap. She smiles when she sees us. “You’re so beautiful, like a princess!”

“Thank you.”

“But if you keep that dress on when we go back to the safety zone, they’ll hardly know you.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t wear this. It would be a waste of the nice dress.”

“No, it’s sad for us. Isn’t there a souvenir we could take with us—something small?” There’s a tremor in her voice and she’s near tears.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t. The Legion would find it, whatever it is. They would take it away.”

“And what about Dumbo?” A big tear spills from her eye, rolls down her cheek, and falls on the fox’s red fur. He looks up, surprised, and whines when he senses the mood Iris is in.

“He has to stay here. No animals are allowed in the safety zone.”

“But he’ll miss me...” Iris is sobbing now, and buries her face in his fur. “What if I forget him?”

“You won’t. Not ever.”

“It would be so nice if I could take something with me, to remind me of him forever.”

I understand her completely. I feel just the same way.

Finn bends down to her. “You don’t need anything to remember. Just your head is enough.” He grins and taps her forehead with his finger. “All your lovely memories are saved in there and no one can take them away. When you miss Dumbo, all you need to do is close your eyes and you’ll see him. All the things you’ve done with him, you can watch them again and again like a movie. He’ll always be with you, no matter how many miles are between you.”

I gulp down the lump in my throat. His words are so beautiful, yet they make me sad too. I know he’s not talking about Dumbo, but about his parents. He’s lost them forever and memories are all that he’s got left. Compared with that, it’s easier if you never had parents at all.

Tonight the meat tastes especially good, and the wine is sweeter than I remember. A gentle wind rouses the bonfire’s flames while its crackling mingles with the roar in the pines. Even Pep came to spend the evening with me. Although he doesn’t say a word to me or anyone else, I value his gift. He sits apart from the others. Normally he and Jep would have made music to cheer the party. But Pep is in no state to even look at his guitar, never mind play it.

Instead, Gustav has brought out an old device he calls a gramophone. It has a big horn and a sort of box with a crank handle. If you turn it, music comes out. It’s loud and it crackles almost as much as the fire, but it’s full of the magic of times gone by. It’s like a miracle to see the machine and hear its wonderful sound.

Suddenly Finn stands and offers me his hand. “May I have this dance, noble lady?”

Before I can say no or anything else, Iris hoots loudly. “Say yes! Say yes!”

Shyly I take his hand and let him draw me some distance away from the fire. He lays one hand on my hip, and grasps my fingers in the other.

“I’ve never danced!” I don’t even know how to move.

“Shall I tell you a secret? Me neither!” he whispers, making me giggle. Clumsy, we rock from one foot to the other. The music softens the background and I can only think about his hand on my back. It’s so warm, and a warm tingle spreads from the place where it rests. Finn raises his hand and I spin under it. All this—it’s like a dream, too lovely to be true. I rest my head on his shoulder, wanting to stay in this moment forever. I hope it’s really true, what he said, so that I can see all this when I close my eyes back in the safety zone.