UnStrung

by Neal Shusterman

  Lev has no idea how to answer—and then he realizes he can fake his way out of this. “Neither,” he says. “In games of chance nobody wins but the house.”

  A beat of silence, and Una throws her head back and laughs. “Definitely an owl,” she says.

  Tocho locks his eyes on Wil. “I will hear you play tomorrow,” he says. “You will smooth the path of dying for me. You shame me by refusing. You shame yourself.”

  “I will play for your healing only, Grandfather,” Wil says. “After you have a new heart.”

  The old man stares stonily at his grandson, his earlier good humor gone. He turns toward the window, shutting them out. The visit is over.

  •

  “While your people focused on the business and science of unwinding, the tribal nations’ scientists worked on perfecting animal-to-human transplant technology,” Wil tells Lev on the way back to Wil’s cliff-side home. Una left Wil with a halfhearted kiss on the cheek and returned to the luthier workshop. Wil waited until she was gone before he retrieved his guitar. “We overcame organ rejection and other problems caused by interspecies transplant. The only thing we can’t use is animal brain tissue. Animals don’t think the way we do, and it just doesn’t take.”

  “How come you didn’t share with our scientists?” Lev asks.

  Wil looks at him as if it’s a stupid question. Maybe it is.

  “We did. They weren’t interested,” Wil tells him. “In fact, your people condemned it as unethical, immoral, and just plain sick.”

  Lev has to admit that a part of him—the part that was indoctrinated into a world where tithing and unwinding were accepted—agrees. Funny how morality, which always seems so black and white, can be influenced so completely by what you were raised to believe.

  “Anyway,” Wil continues, “our legal powerhouse crafted an intricate set of laws, based on traditional belief systems, for using this technology. When ChanceFolk come of age, they take a vision quest and discover their spirit-guide, which can be anything from a bird to an insect to a larger animal. Of course, after the Council transplant laws came down, it was amazing how many kids, coached by their parents, came up with pig guides.”

  Lev doesn’t quite get it until Wil explains that, aside from primates, pigs are biologically closest to humans. “Mountain lion is a worse case,” Wil says. “Endangered, vastly different biology than humans, and on top of it carnivores weren’t created to last as long as plant eaters so the hearts give out quickly.”

  “So what’s your spirit-guide?” Lev asks.

  Wil laughs. “I’m even more screwed if ever I need an organ. It was a crow that spoke to me.” And then he becomes silent for a moment. Pensive. The way he gets when he plays. “They call my music a gift but treat it like an obligation. I am shameful if I don’t use it the way they see fit.” He spits, leaving a dark spot on a boulder as they pass. “I would never accept a human part, little brother . . . but there are many things your world has to offer that I would take.”

  “Like a cheering crowd?”

  Wil considers it. “Like . . . being appreciated.”

  4 • Wil

  Wil knows he’s opened up too much to Lev. An AWOL is supposed to open up to them, to find solace in their acceptance, not the other way around. He vows to shutter his heart a little more securely.

  The next day, Wil’s spooning out breakfast porridge for Lev and himself when his father calls. Ma takes the call in the study, expecting bad news, but then comes out to put it on speaker because it turns out to be the kind of news everyone should hear.

  “We bagged a mountain lion a half hour out in today’s hunt,” Wil hears his father say. “Pivane is already harvesting his heart.”

  Intense relief reverberates through the house. Even Lev, who met Grandfather only once, seems overjoyed.

  “Wil, go now and tell your grandfather,” Ma says. “And be quick about it. For once, good news will travel faster than bad.”

  Wil grabs his guitar and asks Lev to come along. He even takes Lev in the elevator rather than making him struggle down the ropes.

  •

  “You’re a stubborn man, Grandfather, but you finally got your lion heart!” he says, swinging his guitar around, ready to play some healing tunes even before the transplant.

  “Stubbornness is a family trait,” the old man says flatly. Wil notices that his grandfather is looking at Lev, not because he’s giving Lev his attention but because he’s avoiding eye contact with Wil. It makes Wil uneasy.

  “What’s wrong, Grandfather? I thought you’d be happy.”

  “I would be, if the heart were mine.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Grandfather twitches a finger at the crowd around the other patient’s bed. Wil barely noticed them when he came in, so intent was he on giving Grandfather the news—but apparently the news had already reached him. The woman in the other bed is in her late twenties or early thirties. The family around her seems very happy in spite of her dire condition.

  “The heart is to be hers,” Grandfather says. “I’ve already decided.”

  Wil stands up so quickly that the chair crashes backward. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m a poor risk, Chowilawu. Too old for it to make sense when there’s someone younger with a better chance of survival. Her spirit-guide is the lion too.”

  “It was found by your family,” Wil fiercely announces, loud enough for the woman to hear. Good. He wants them to know. “It was found by your family, which means it is meant to be yours and no one else’s.”

  His grandfather’s gaze drifts again to Lev, and that makes Wil angry. “Don’t look at him. He’s not one of us.”

  “An outsider is objective. His will be the clearest opinion.”

  Lev takes a step backward, clearly not wanting to be a part of this any more than Wil wants him to be.

  “It’s your heart” is all Lev says.

  Wil is about to relax, relieved to have Lev on his side, until Grandfather says, “You see? The boy agrees with me.”

  “What?” both Wil and Lev say in unison.

  “It’s my heart,” Grandfather explains. “Which means I have full legal right to decide what happens to it. And I chose to gift it to the young woman over there. I will hear no further discussion.”

  Fury and grief nearly overwhelm Wil. He storms out of the cardiology lodge—but there is no escaping this. Word of Grandfather’s decision reaches the rest of the family quickly. Within the hour, while Wil still stews and storms outside, ignoring Lev’s attempts to calm him, his family begins to arrive: his parents, then Uncle Pivane and his family. He sees Grandfather’s closest friends arrive. He sees Una. They’ve all been called to give the old man their good-byes. They’ve come for the final vigil.

  “Do it for him,” Ma says gently as she enters the cardiology lodge. “Please, Wil, do it.”

  He waits outside until everyone has gone in, even Lev. Then he takes the long walk down the hallway toward the round room at the end. The blue-lipped woman is wheeled past him, followed by her family. She is already prepped for surgery.

  Inside the room his family sits on chairs and on the floor. Lev has held a chair for Wil. His grandfather’s weary eyes are fixed on him as he takes his spot. He begins to play. At first he plays healing songs, but the tempo is too fast. He’s playing them too desperately. No one stops him. Then, in time, the songs evolve into traveling threnodies: tunes meant to ease one’s passage from this world to the next.

  Over the next few hours Wil melts so completely into the music that his family ignores his presence. He hardly listens as they all say their good-byes, or as his grandfather speaks about the spirit’s journey from its failing temple to other realms. He ignores Lev, who appears more out of place than ever with the family. Una crouches next to Lev near the window, listening to Wil play, but he won’t look at her. Wil catches a glimpse of his dad’s face, etched with sorrow. His father still wears his hunting gear, as does Uncle Pivane, although his uncle
is stained with the animal’s blood. There is the smell of a bonfire coming from outside the lodge, the giving of thanks, the exuberant singing of the young woman’s family.

  As the day wears on toward twilight, Tocho almost seems to dissolve before them, giving in to the call from beyond. Then, very near the end, he reaches out to stop Wil from playing, motioning him closer.

  He has one last request for Wil, and he whispers it with long spaces between the words. Wil agrees, because he hasn’t the strength to argue about tomorrow, because his grandfather has only today.

  The promise made, Wil loses himself in the music again, faintly aware of his ma in her hospital whites solemnly taking his grandfather’s vitals and shaking her head. Wil plays as his grandfather’s breathing slows. Wil plays as his uncle Pivane quietly weeps. Wil plays, the music of his guitar covering everything, until it carries his grandfather’s soul to a place Wil cannot see. And when Wil finally lifts his fingers from his instrument, there is nothing but overwhelming silence.

  5 • Lev

  In the very center of the rez, miles from its many villages, sprawl the ChanceFolk burial grounds. Many families have adopted the Western use of caskets, more traditional ones bury their dead wrapped in a blanket, and some still invoke the most ancient ritual of all. Although levels of tradition in Wil’s family are very mixed, his grandfather was as old-school as they come. His funeral is of the ancient kind.

  Tocho is placed on a high platform made of cottonwood and heaped with boughs of juniper. Reed baskets, decorated with lion teeth, are filled with food for the afterlife and hung from poles. A fire is lit, and smoke leaps into the wind. Lev watches carefully, storing the memory.

  “Our ancestors believed that the breath of the dead moves to the Lower World,” Una explains to him.

  Lev is shocked. “Lower World?”

  “Not hell,” Una says, understanding what he’s thinking. “It’s the place where spirits dwell. Down or up—neither of those directions has much meaning in the afterlife.”

  Lev can’t help but notice Wil standing apart from everyone else, as if he’s suddenly the outsider. “Why isn’t Wil taking part in the ceremony?” Lev asks Una.

  “Wil followed our traditions because he loved his grandfather. Now he must decide for himself whether to follow the traditions or not. And so must you.”

  Lev first thinks she’s joking. “Me?”

  “When your residence petition is approved, you will be an adopted son of the tribe. In addition to protecting you from your unwind order, the adoption will make this your official home. Like everyone else here, you’ll eventually choose on which side of the rez wall your spirit belongs.”

  Lev tries his best to wrap his mind around this. He hasn’t thought that far ahead: finding a safe place he can truly call home.

  “Wil’s grandfather gave you a gift, Lev,” Una tells him.

  Lev can’t begin to imagine what it might be. Anticipation stirs in him.

  “He gave the same gift to Wil, but Wil doesn’t know it yet. You see, on his deathbed Tocho asked Wil to take you on a vision quest.”

  Suddenly the wind changes, and their eyes tear from the smoke.

  •

  There is a communal quest in ten days’ time, and Lev is added to the group of boys and girls, to honor Tocho’s dying wish. Wil joins them as well, also to honor his grandfather’s final request.

  The vision quest starts with a sweat lodge. It’s total chaos trying to keep almost a dozen ten- and eleven-year-olds occupied while sitting around hot rocks being steamed nearly to death. They drink gallons of salted cactus tea and leave the sweltering heat of the lodge only to pee, which isn’t often, since they sweat out almost everything they drink.

  Lev, who always felt the youngest of any group he was in, is now the oldest. As if he didn’t already feel out of place.

  After the sweat lodge, they hike into the mountains. No food on a quest either: just thick, noxious drinks that taste like weeds.

  “The sweating and fasting prepare the body for the vision quest,” Wil tells him. Pivane is in charge of the quest, with Wil as a reluctant sidekick. “Of course, my uncle and I get real food,” he adds, almost taunting. Lev knows Wil is here only because he promised his grandfather.

  On the first night, one kid has a vision that he tells the others at breakfast the next day. A pig spirit led him to a courthouse and told him he’d be a judge.

  “He’s lying,” announces Kele, the skinny, hyper kid who often seems to speak for the others. “How much you wanna bet his parents told him to say that?”

  Wil begins to call the boy out on it, but Pivane raises his hand and lets it go.

  “If the boy has a true vision,” Lev overhears Pivane tell Wil, “he will choose it over the lie.”

  On the next day, there is an archery competition. Luckily for Lev, he took a liking to archery a few years back and placed silver in a citywide competition. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help him here. He takes last place.

  On the third day, Lev falls and tweaks his wrist again. He has forgotten what clean feels like, and he’s covered with mosquito bites. He’s miserable and uncomfortable, and his head is pounding.

  So why then does he find this to be the happiest week of his life?

  Every night they build a fire, and Wil plays his guitar. It is the highlight of the day. So are the stories that Pivane tells: traditional folktales. Some are funny and some are strange. Lev likes to watch the kids around him lean close to the storyteller, their eyes wide with wonder.

  On the fourth day, everyone is antsy. Lev isn’t sure if it’s the effects of not eating or a storm brewing in the mountains to the north. The kids are simmering at breakfast in the muggy stillness. When Ahote spills his weed drink on Lansa, the two boys fight with such fury it takes the combined might of Lev, Wil, and Pivane to separate them.

  It doesn’t help that Lev feels like he’s being watched. He stares into the forest every time a bird erupts from a tree or a twig cracks. He knows it’s probably nothing, but all the uneasiness from his time as an AWOL still has him paranoid. His twitchiness spreads to the younger kids, till Pivane finally sends him off for a break.

  At first it’s a relief to be alone in the small pup tent, but soon the deerskin walls press down on him and the smell of dirty socks drives him outside. He can hear the others washing the breakfast mugs in the clearing. Chin low, he sits cross-legged, ChanceFolk style, in the small thicket of tents, wishing the storm would finally break and get it over with.

  “Lev?”

  Looking up, he sees Kele fidgeting in front of him. Kele sits down, but he won’t look directly at Lev at first. When he finally does, Kele says, “I had my vision last night.”

  Lev doesn’t know what to say. He wonders why Kele came to him rather than Pivane or Wil.

  “So you saw your spirit-guide?” Kele seems stuck on what to say next, so Lev prompts him. “It wasn’t a pig, was it?”

  “No . . .” Kele draws the word out. “It was a sparrow, like my name.”

  Lev is struck by this. Seems right that the spirit-guide would mean something special to a kid, unless of course it’s to be a source of organ replacements.

  “So what happened?”

  “Something bad.” The boy whispers so quietly that Lev has to lean forward to hear him.

  “What was bad?” All the fears that have been haunting him this morning return.

  “I don’t know.” Kele looks at him, nervously crushing leaves to powder. “But I saw you leaving. You won’t, will you?”

  Lev feels as if an arrow has hit him in the chest, and he can’t breathe. He tries to remember what Wil told him. The hunger and the sweating can cause hallucinations and strange dreams. Or maybe someone suggested to Kele that mahpees always leave, and so he dreamed it.

  “I’m not leaving,” he says, and he’s reassuring himself just as much as Kele.

  “In the vision you were running,” Kele tells him. “People wanted to hurt you . . . and
you wanted to hurt them back.”

  6 • Wil

  Earlier that morning, Wil told Pivane he was going off to gather firewood, but in reality he just needed to get away. Find a place to think. Now he sits on a cliff-side boulder that gives him a fine view of the forest and a clearer perspective on his life. He can see the camp from here, or at least part of it, and although he does intend to come back with firewood, he doesn’t intend to do it for a while.

  Wil can no longer deny the resentment building inside of him; it’s been building since long before his grandfather’s funeral. Wil, play us a song for healing. Wil, play us a song for calming. Wil, play us a song for celebration, for soothing, for patience, for wisdom. The tribe has used him like a music machine. No more. He doesn’t have an on/off switch. Maybe it’s time he played music for a different reason, one of his choosing.

  And so when this vision quest is over, and he has fulfilled his promise to his grandfather, even if Lev stays, Wil will not. He resolves that it is time for him to leave the rez and blaze a fresh future for himself, and for Una, too . . . if she decides she loves him more than she loves the rez.

  7 • Lev

  Lev tries not to shudder at the prospect of Kele’s vision. Lev has dreamed of himself running too. And he’s dreamed of revenge. Not against anyone in particular, but everyone at once. The world at large. It’s a feeling as dark as the storm clouds on the horizon, and it won’t be easy to dispel.

  “We’re in the rez, surrounded by walls and laws that protect us,” he tells Kele with more confidence than he feels. “There’s no one to run from here,” he adds, more to himself than to Kele.

  Then, barely a moment after the words are out of his mouth, something cracks in the woods again—and this time he hears screaming. High-pitched shrieks of surprise. Maybe even terror.