Those Who Lived: Fallen World Stories (15 page)

The kids did look a little more animated than before, in the sunlight, but Owen and Mya tended to take their animation in less-than-constructive directions. Mason was just chiding Owen for kicking down one of the little kids’ lopsided sandcastles while Owen glowered at him. Mya and Cody stood together watching, Mya snickering and Cody wearing his usual dark expression.

“I guess,” I said. “But he doesn’t look any happier hanging out with them. The way they talk to everyone, they might be making him feel
worse
.”

I guessed for all I knew Cody might have been a bully himself in his life before. But I hadn’t seen him do much besides tag along with the other two and watch their exploits looking sullen, as though he didn’t exactly enjoy being there but he was afraid there wasn’t anywhere else to go. Afraid he didn’t deserve kindness?

Meredith ran up to us with Paulette and the little girl who’d lost her sandcastle in tow. “Can we go swimming?” she asked, waving toward the lake, which stretched away from the curve of the beach as far as I could see. Lake Ontario looked as vast as the ocean from here, but, at the same time, disorientingly different—the waves only big enough to sputter, not crash, as they rolled in, no salt in the vaguely fishy breeze drifting off them.

It was hot for May, the sun intense overhead, but Kaelyn hesitated. “My parents told us not to go in the water,” she said. “It’s not that clean near the city—the runoff from the sewage system... But, you know, that hasn’t been operating for a while. It should be better now. Even before, some people still swam here.”

Dorrie must have overheard, because she joined us, saying, “I don’t think we should risk it, even so. Sorry, kids. It’ll be hard to keep you all together in the water too. We’re better up here.”

“Awww,” Meredith groaned, but when none of us budged she plopped down on the edge of the boardwalk near the others. She and Paulette started sketching figures with a stick in the sand, Meredith chattering about the intricacies of the outfit she was designing while Paulette mostly just nodded.

Kaelyn and I ambled on, staying on the boardwalk as it veered toward a peninsula dotted with trees.

“It’s not just Cody,” I said, still turning over the problem. “All the kids, you can tell they’re struggling—even Owen and Mya, that’s probably part of the reason they act like the way they do—but how do you help a five year old cope with the idea that he’s never going to see his parents again?”

“How did you move past the things you’d been through?” Kaelyn said.

I considered. “By talking about them, but that’s where I’m getting stuck with Cody. And... I guess by actually moving, when I let myself start dancing again. It was a way to channel the feelings into something else, something better.”

“Maybe that would help them too. Not real dancing, but acting out their grief. Giving them something to literally throw themselves into.”

“Yeah,” I said. I could try it. I couldn’t see making any
less
progress than I’d made so far, which was basically none. In fact, I might have been moving backwards.

As that thought crossed my mind, Kaelyn glanced toward the lake, suddenly pensive, and I remembered a time I had literally moved backwards. A moment I’d relieved dozens of times in the last two months: when we’d been standing in that snowy driveway, checking out the abandoned pick-up truck, and the infected guy had come running at us.

I’d stepped back, like everyone else. Everyone except Gav, who’d rushed forward to protect the cold box and the vaccine inside it.

It should have been me. I should have gotten in there, stopped the guy—after all, I’d been protected and Gav hadn’t. But I hadn’t known that for sure, the vaccine had been untested, and my body had reacted on instinct, away from the threat.

If I’d been more brave—more dedicated, more selfless—maybe Gav would still be alive.

That regret niggled deeper than any other, because it wasn’t just regret. Because I knew there was a part of me that would have hesitated to wish it different.

The boardwalk ended, and we wandered onto a path that wound around and through the peninsula’s sparse forest. With the breeze rustling the trees and the buildings hidden from view, it felt as though we’d left the city far behind. We paused by a rocky bit of shore. Kaelyn took my hand. And I found myself saying, “How do you think things would be, if Gav hadn’t...”

Seeing the shadow of pain crossing her face, I couldn’t finish the question. It was complete enough anyway.

“Why are you thinking about that?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry. Forget it.”

As if either of us could. She nudged a pebble with the toe of her sneaker, and I waited, braced for what she might say. I’d started to think maybe she wasn’t going to say anything after all when she dragged in a breath.

“The thing is, it’s impossible to know, isn’t it? There are so many other things that could have happened differently if he’d still been with us, the rest of the way to Atlanta. And those things would have changed him, and us. It’s not like I haven’t wondered about it. But when I try to picture it, even just heading down to the States with him, it’s... blurry.”

“Yeah,” I said, and something inside me closed up around a little jab of hurt, even though I couldn’t imagine what good answer she could have given me.

“Leo.” She tugged my hand so I turned to face her. “The one thing I do know,” she said, “is if you’d come back to the island, and I hadn’t been with him, and you hadn’t been with Tessa, there wouldn’t have been anything to think about. I’d have wanted things to be like this with you. You’re not...
replacing
him. The two of us being together, it has nothing to do with him. Okay? You can’t think anything else.”

“Okay,” I said, but the jab of hurt hadn’t completely gone away. I believed her, and yet—it was impossible to know what would have happened then, too, wasn’t it? The only way it had ever happened was that she had turned to me after losing him.

It was different with me and Tessa. I couldn’t have avoided seeing that after I got back to the island, the way she closed herself off when she realized her parents hadn’t made it instead of turning to me, but it wasn’t as if we’d done much soul-bearing before. She was so straightforward I’d been more comfortable with her within a few months after her family moved to the island than I was with most of the kids I’d grown up with, and I’d cared about her, a lot—I
would
have been there for her, before or after, if she’d wanted it—but in that straightforwardness she’d always been clear that she didn’t expect, or even want, promises about eternal devotion she wouldn’t have believed we could follow through on anyway. Before I’d left for New York she’d told me that if I hit it off with someone at the academy, she’d understand, she didn’t want us to force a long distance thing, so I’d said the same went for her. I’d accepted that was just how it was with us.

Kaelyn and Gav... I’d seen him look at her as if there was no one else in the entire world, to him. I’d seen how desperate she was when he got sick, how shattered when he died. It was nice to think I’d helped her put the pieces back together, but he had still been there first. He’d been a guy with a mission as big as hers, the way he’d kept the town together and organized, looking after everyone who needed it. How could he not cast a shadow?

Now, by the edge of the vast lake with the breeze tickling past us, Kaelyn teased her fingers into my hair and drew my mouth to hers, and I stopped thinking about all of that. When we were kissing, I didn’t care how many shadows lingered around us. I pulled her closer for another kiss, citrus soap smell on her skin and apricot syrup taste in her mouth, and another, until I could almost believe we’d never have to stop.

Mason helped me herd all the kids except the toddlers over to the dance studio. Even at the day’s brightest, the light from the front window filled only half the room. Cody, Owen, and Mya drifted toward the darker end, Cody listening as the other two muttered to each other. The rest of the kids fanned out, gaping at the space.

“First let’s warm up,” I said. I modeled some easy moves—touching toes, jumping jacks—and they copied me at varying paces. Then I went to turn on the boom box I’d found in a used CD shop other scavengers had left mostly untouched, along with some batteries and a few recent pop albums I thought the kids might recognize.

“I don’t know how to dance,” Paulette said, twisting her hands together.

“That’s okay,” I said. “We’re not letting anyone else watch—we’re just going to have fun with it. All you have to do is move with the music.”

At first I had them just bounce with the beat. Then I led them from a step-touch into a simple grapevine. The little kids started tangling their feet and giggling, and even Meredith looked bored. Owen was ignoring me now, showing off some imaginary karate moves to Cody and Mya.

I’d had my first lessons more than ten years ago—and I’d
wanted
to dance, after seeing some performers at a festival in Halifax with my parents. But I didn’t have to get the kids perfectly involved. All I needed was to find some way to get them putting a little of their emotions into the movement.

“Okay,” I said, pausing the song. “That was just us getting used to the music. Now I want you to find your own moves. Whatever you want—it doesn’t have to be ‘real’ dancing. You can just move in ways that show things you’re feeling, maybe things you’d have trouble talking about. Like, if you’re angry, you could do this.” I punched my hands out at the air. “Or, if you’re sad, you could move like this.” I curled my back so my arms dangled, and let my body sway. “Or if you’re excited, you could do this!” I whirled around. “You see? Anything you want—there’s nothing you can do that’s wrong. Try things out, and if you don’t like how they feel, try something else.”

“This is stupid,” Mya said. “Who wants to dance about
feelings
? Oh, this is my sad dance.” She pulled an exaggerated pout and wiggled her arms like a monkey, and Owen cracked up.

Maybe I hadn’t done the best job of explaining. But Meredith lifted her chin with that steely look and said, “
I
think it’s cool, if you actually try,” and the others looked at the boom box expectantly.

Mya started to sneer at Meredith, so I cut off any further complaint by saying, “If you don’t want to move around, you can sit and listen to the music. That’s fine too. It’s been a while since we’ve had any.”

I pressed play and returned to my spot in front of them. Meredith stepped in a slow circle, waving her arms like swooping wings. The little kids started bobbing with the rhythm again.

I should use myself as a model. What was I feeling? Nervous, hopeful. Letting go of any thought of technique, I twisted at my waist and reached, one way, and then the other.

“Can I go down on the floor?” Paulette asked.

“Whatever you want,” I said.

She lay down and curled up, then stretched her limbs wide. A couple of the other kids sprawled on the floor nearby, squirming and rolling, though their expressions were solemn. I couldn’t tell if this was helping them at all, but at least they were doing more than staring at the walls in their apartment.

“Watch this!” one of the younger kids said and did a handstand, kicking her legs in the air. I dashed over to spot her before she toppled over.

“Leo,” Meredith said, “does this look good?” She raised her arms over her head in an approximation of a fifth position pose and spun on her feet.

“Don’t worry about looking good,” I said. “It’s whether it feels good to you that matters.”

A little boy tugged at my shirt, wanting to show me a stomping move he punctuated with a fierce grunt, and Paulette asked about doing leaps, and I had to catch the handstand girl before she fell off the barre after she clambered onto it. A whole five minutes might have passed without me looking around at the entire group when Meredith said, “Hey, where’d Mya and them go?”

My head jerked up. The shadowy end of the studio was empty, but there was another door there that led to the changing rooms. I walked over, expecting a prank—the three of them jumping out to startle me, probably—and found the dim rooms with their benches and clothing hooks empty. Beyond them, a short hall led to a door out the back of the building. I peered out across the small parking lot and the street, but there was no sign of the trio.

The music was still playing when I hurried back into the main room, but the other kids were all just standing, waiting. “They ran off,” Paulette said flatly. “
That’s
stupid.”

I turned off the boom box. “I think I’d better bring you back to the condo building,” I said. My heart was beating hard. I’d barely had them for half an hour, and I’d managed to lose them—some help I’d been.

“I’ll look for them with you,” Meredith offered, and I shook my head.

“I’ll get a couple of the grown-ups. You’re safer inside, Mere.”

Mason was talking to Nell, Liz, and a few of the other adults in the condo building’s lobby. When I told him about the missing kids, he grimaced.

“They would have,” he muttered. “Those three... I shouldn’t have left you to try to keep an eye on all of them by yourself. Come on.”

Liz joined us, and we returned to the dance studio, checking to confirm the three weren’t just hiding. Then we set off from the back entrance, splitting up across the street to peer through store windows, down alleys, over fences.

“They’ll come back when they get hungry,” Liz said when we regrouped at an intersection. “It’s almost lunch time.” But none of us seriously suggested giving up the search. Maybe we would have given them a chance to come back on their own in the world before, but now...

A high-pitched shout carried on the breeze, and I thought,
Mya
. Spinning, I jogged down the street in the direction I thought the shout had come from. A laugh followed it, and then a little shriek that could have been excitement—or pain. I ran faster.

On the far corner, movement flashed amid the skeleton of a partly-constructed house. The winter weather had darkened the new wood, and the protective plastic sheets drifted in ripped swaths like flaking skin.