The Reader (12 page)

S
efia and Archer had reached the cloud forests of the Kambali Mountains, the last range before the land sloped sharply toward the north coast of Oxscini. In the alpine jungles, lakes and little rivers drew herds of deer and the big cats that hunted them, making for plentiful game. Three summers ago, she had come here with Nin to trade with the hunter-trapper families who lived in the cabins peppered throughout the mountains. Having been a loner all her life, Sefia hadn't known what to do with the other children, so while they were playing Ship of Fools and gambling for copper kispes, she stole their most valuable trinkets.

A branch snapped in the woods—something large, from the sound of it—and Sefia and Archer dashed off the path, hunkering down among the leaves.

From down the trail, voices drifted toward them.

“That's the problem with the wasting disease. The whole
forest was littered with carcasses that year, just rotting away. We couldn't do anything with them. Their meat and hides were useless.”

“What did you do?”

Two people appeared around the bend. The boy was a teenager, a little younger than Archer but not by much, with roasted-chestnut eyes and small-boned hands. The man was tall and thin, with a round face and laugh lines at his eyes. He carried the carcass of a deer over his shoulders, its legs stretched awkwardly, head lolling, and under his arm was a hunting rifle. He and the boy wore matching short-billed caps. “Your granddad used to say, ‘We'll do better tomorrow.'”

“And did you do better?”

The man chuckled. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Times were hard. Then he'd say the same thing. ‘We'll do better tomorrow.' For some reason, I always believed him.”

They passed Sefia and Archer, concealed in the undergrowth, and continued north along the trail, their voices growing fainter and fainter in the jungle.

“Why? If you knew it wasn't true?” said the boy.

“It's not really a matter of doing better, is it?” answered the father. “It's a matter of doing the best you can and believing you can keep improving.”

Their voices faded as they took the bend in the path and vanished among the brittle vines and green ferns. They must have been heading home.

While she waited for the father and son to gain a little distance on them, Sefia pecked at the ground with her fingertips,
plucking up twigs and brown leaves. Something about the boy unsettled her—maybe his small hands or the way he tilted his head when he was listening to his father's stories—and she glanced at Archer again, but he was watching her fingers hop and dance in the mulch, and he didn't seem at all disturbed by seeing the boy and his father, so she didn't say anything.

• • •

A
s the afternoon stretched toward dusk, Sefia and Archer reached the top of a ridge overlooking a small round lake. The water was green with plant life, and the trees hung over its glassy surface. From the crooked stone ridge, they could see for miles.

They sat on some rocks, dangling their legs over the edge, and shared a few sips from the canteen while the sun sank closer to the mountaintops and the clouds turned from white to pink. An orange light flickered to life at the northern end of the lake. Hatchet's camp. Sefia narrowed her eyes.

In the east, a few miles down the ridge, a trail of smoke drifted out of the canopy. Archer pointed at it and tilted his head, touching his temple with the fingers of his other hand.

“Probably that father and son we saw earlier,” she said.

Archer nodded. The light caught in his eyes, turning them warm and golden. A faint smile passed over his face.

As the shadows lengthened across the water, Sefia sighed and stood, hefting the pack onto her shoulders again. “Come on. We need to find a place to camp.”

Archer tapped her on the arm.

“What is it?”

Squinting, she caught a flicker of movement in and out of the trees—figures stalking along the lake's shore. Burrowing into her pack, she grabbed Nin's old spyglass. “Get down.”

They dropped to their bellies on the ground.

Sefia propped herself up on her elbows and peered out over the lake again, putting the glass to her eye. Six people were heading east through the jungle. Her breathing quickened. She recognized that heavy walk. Five carried rifles, but the last held a long pair of tongs with tips that formed a large black circle at the end.

“Hatchet's men,” she muttered, passing the spyglass to Archer. “Where are they going? Are they hunting?”

Without warning Archer dropped the spyglass and scrambled backward. His hands dug into the dirt, pulling at roots and handfuls of earth.

“What's wrong?”

He backed into a tree. The whites of his eyes flared in the low light.

Sefia scanned the valley again. “What did you see?”

Archer brought up his shaking hands and put his fingers to the base of his throat, where his scar began, and spread them around his neck like claws.

The tongs.

Big enough to encircle a boy's throat. Hot enough to burn him.

“The boy,” Sefia muttered. She sprang to her feet and searched the valley. The cabin was two miles from Hatchet's camp at the lake, but three from the ridge. They would have to run.

Sefia snatched up the spyglass, pulled on her pack, and returned to Archer's side. He hadn't moved.

“Get up,” she said. “We're going to warn them.”

Still he could not stand. He was pressed so hard against the tree that the rough bark tore his shirt, the skin beneath.

Sefia knelt at his side and laid her hand on his shoulder. It was the first time she'd tried to touch him since she'd cleaned his wounds two weeks before, and his shirt was damp with sweat, his skin hot under her palm. She held up her other hand. Deliberately, making sure he saw, she crossed her middle and index fingers.

A sign.

Their
sign.

“You won't ever have to do that again,” she said, locking eyes with him.

Archer watched her, wide-eyed.

She was
with
him.

“I promise.”

He shuddered once more and then was calm. His mouth closed. He pushed himself to his feet.

Then they were running. The sky had turned to fire, smoky and orange. In the darkness, the trees loomed close and menacing. Bats flitted through the canopy, and the night birds screamed.

They ran. Skidding down the slick slope and leaping sharp switchbacks that twisted among the trees. The ridge disappeared in darkness behind them as the terrain flattened out.

Along the trail, the moon rose round and pale through the leaves. The trees shone silver where the light struck and the ground was as blue as water.

Still they ran. Their legs burned. Their feet throbbed. They ran faster. Arms pumping, feet pulling at the ground. Their lungs ached.

At an intersection, they took the eastern trail. Hoping it was the right one. Knowing they wouldn't get a second chance if they were wrong. Shadows raked their arms and faces. They were running so fast they seemed about to explode. Even the air in their chests was full of fire.

They burst into a clearing with a cabin at the center, surrounded by drying racks and clotheslines that made strange cobwebbed formations in the yard, where the glow from the windows touched the tips of the tools and the stretched hides. A rack of antlers adorned the apex of the roof, and smoke rose from the chimney like a signal tower. Sefia and Archer stumbled to the door, doubled over, breath squeezing in and out of their beaten lungs.

Sefia knocked. The hollow sound of her knuckles on wood echoed in the clearing, but the cabin was silent. She knocked again.

There was a scraping sound inside, like the dragging of a chair across the floor, followed by a scuffling. The curtains twitched in the window.

“Who's there?” a woman demanded, her voice harsh and suspicious.

“Open the door.” The words rushed out of Sefia like water. “You're all in danger.”

The latch clicked and the door creaked open. A woman in high-waisted trousers and suspenders stood in the doorway. She
held a rifle, her finger resting next to the trigger. She had small, delicate hands, like the boy's.

Behind her, a woodstove crackled merrily, and through the doorway Sefia could see the corner of a dining table stacked with plates, cups, and a steaming pot of stew, but there was no one else in sight.

“What sort of danger?” the woman asked. The tip of her rifle rose a few inches.

Sefia brushed her hair out of her face impatiently. Her hand came away wet with sweat. “Impressors!” she snapped.

The woman staggered back as the door was thrust open. The round-faced man they'd seen earlier that day stood there, framed by the doorway. He squinted at them, deepening the wrinkles around his eyes.

“Impressors?” His voice was deep and full of questions.

“Just a story,” the woman said.

“No.” Sefia pointed at Archer's throat. “Real.”

The boy crept up behind his parents. “Look at his neck, Mom.”

Archer feathered the edge of his scar with his fingertips.

“Come into the light, boy,” said the woman.

Sefia held her breath as Archer took a step forward. He raised his chin so the firelight reached his scars. Instinctively, the woman hefted her rifle. The man cursed.

The boy paled. Sefia could read the thought on his face as plainly as if it'd been written there:
That could be me.
She glared at him. He was so small. Nervous. Soft. He wouldn't survive a day if their places were switched, if she got a nice comfortable
cottage and two loving parents, and he had to fend for himself in the wilderness. For a second she hated him.

Archer stared at the boy and extended his hands, palms up. The boy's eyelid twitched.

“He wants to help you,” Sefia said.

“Help him what?” the woman asked. She still hadn't lowered her weapon.

“The people who did this to him are coming
here
. Right now. They're going to kill you and take your son unless you leave.”

The man pulled a rifle from behind the door. “This cabin's been in my family for generations,” he said.

“Six impressors are coming for you,” Sefia snapped. “You won't have any family left if you stay.”

“And if we leave, who's to say we won't be robbed?” The woman looked her up and down: the pack on her back, her dirty sweaty face, her wild black hair.

For a moment, Sefia was speechless. She felt like she'd been slapped. Archer kept making that gesture, with more and more urgency. But no one moved.

Then the boy patted his father's elbow. “Pop . . .”

The man ignored him. “Even if they do come, we're not scared of a little bloodshed.”

Sefia found her voice again. “It won't be a
little
bloodshed. It'll be yours, and hers, and his.” She pointed at each one of them in turn, her finger landing at last on the teenage boy, who gaped at her. “Is that what you want?”

She glanced over her shoulder into the silver woods. How much time had they lost, standing here arguing?

Slowly—much too slowly—the woman lowered her rifle. “How far behind you?”

Relief spread through Sefia like ink in water. “They'll be here any second.”

The man and woman stared at each other. Sefia could almost see their conversation passing between them like arrows.

How far would they get if they ran?

What should they take?

Did they trust the girl?

The boy stared at Archer, taking in the size of his arms, the set of his feet, the scar at his neck. Archer fingered the hilt of his hunting knife and cocked an ear toward the jungle.

The moon rose higher. Sefia fidgeted with the straps of her pack. Hatchet's men were coming. They would arrive soon.

Finally, the man and woman began opening wardrobes and pulling on coats. The whole family was a flurry of movement, grabbing jackets, guns, cartridges.

“We have a hunting blind in the mountains. Hard to find.” The woman stuffed a revolver in the band of her pants. “What are you two doing?” There was no invitation in her voice.

Sefia hadn't expected them to take her and Archer along. She wouldn't have gone even if they had invited her. But venom crept into her words anyway. “Saving your family. Then running too.”

The woman looked at them pityingly, but didn't say anything more.

The man was the last one out of the cabin. He locked the door behind him and pressed a leather-wrapped package into
Sefia's hands. “My knives,” he said quietly, with a glance at Archer. “Good balance. Good for throwing.”

They nodded.

The man tugged at the short bill of his cap so only the lower half of his face was visible, like a crescent moon, and he turned away.

As she followed him around the side of the cabin, she deeply missed her own father. He would have taken two stray kids with him to safety. She shook her head, thinking of their house, its secret rooms, its isolated location on the top of the hill, the way they never had company.
My father would have taken us, wouldn't he . . . ?