A Time to Die

by Nadine Brandes

  “Hello, Parvin,” she says in her soft calm voice. Her white hair curves elegantly over a red and blue plaid scarf wrapped around her neck. “I am returning this.”

  She holds up my Bible. With a gasp, I snatch it and hold it to my chest. “I’ve missed it.”

  She looks at me with a faint smile. I step back to return appropriate distance between us. My heart pounds. Is this my answer to prayer?

  “Did you read it?” Ash’s facial expression doesn’t change, but she shakes her head. My throat tightens. “But . . . you had it for months.”

  My voice alerts Cedar. He looks around until his eyes alight on my face. Ash rests her free hand on my arm. “We can’t read, Parvin. None of us can. We have no use for it.”

  I look at the Bible. God, why didn’t You let me know? All these months I could have been reading, learning, and growing. Instead, my precious Bible sat untouched among illiterate people.

  “The Jude-man talked of God when he first came,” Ash says. “And you must think He is very important if you left us your precious book. We are still interested. We have heard of God before. Sometimes, when I am with the trees, I feel a power larger than myself. The Earth is so intricate, we’ve often wondered how it came to be.”

  “We?” I’m unable to keep the disheartened note from my voice.

  “Black and me.”

  “Oh.” I glance back at Alder’s hut. Could I ask Ash for help instead? Maybe she and Black will understand more than Alder.

  She steps forward. “Will you read it to us?”

  “The Bible?”

  She holds my gaze. Hers is neither eager nor expectant. I look at the leatherbound book. It’s not very worn. I’ve never even read through the entire thing.

  “You don’t have to read it all, just read what you deem important. At least until the Jude-man is well.”

  What I deem important. Who am I to pick and choose? God, I don’t know enough about Your Word to do this. Yet, as I think this, I know I must read. My time is short. Before me stands an opportunity to be a shalom-maker.

  “I’ll read to you.” I have nothing to fear. The words are written for me, I don’t need to know answers. I just need to read out loud. Like in Ivanhoe. “And I’ll teach you how to read, so you can keep going where I leave off.”

  Over the next two weeks, I meet in Black and Ash’s hut. There’s something different about reading the Bible aloud. It tastes like a new flavor on my tongue. Something comes alive. I can’t stop myself from doing voices for certain Bible figures or adopting a dramatic tone at intense moments. Some stories are known to my listeners. Others are new.

  At the end of each reading, I teach Black and Ash a few letters from the alphabet. If they seem willing when I need to leave, I hope to leave my Bible with them again. Maybe they’ll learn enough to read it on their own.

  Black stares into the coals almost the entire time I read. He never asks questions, never stops me, and never looks at me, though when I finished reading the creation story, he nodded as if internal questions just met answers.

  Ash’s questions come in soft inquiries, like, “Why did God create an evil tree?”

  My answers draw from my logic, but emerge with God’s blessings. I’ve never been asked questions about the Bible before, but somehow my thoughts enter fresh clarity. “The tree itself wasn’t bad, it served a purpose. The tree was a symbol of obedience and free choice God gave to Adam and Eve.”

  We read through Exodus before I skip to the New Testament. Ash and Black listen to the story of Jesus and don’t stop me. I grow tense. Does any of this make sense?

  “Jesus spent his life showing people shalom.” I lower the Bible because the light has grown too dim to read any further. “He lived to show us the way things should be and He died to empower us to do the same. He atoned for all of us.”

  “Like what Jude did for Willow,” Ash says.

  I take a deep breath. “Yes.” I avoid Black’s emotionless gaze. “I, too, am trying to bring shalom to the world. I die in three weeks.” I force my voice to remain strong. “I can’t allow people to continue dying when they are sent to this side of the Wall. Will you help me save lives?”

  Ash nods, but stops when she sees Black shaking his head.

  “What can we do?” He looks at me. “Alder said he won’t help. Will we go against our village leader?”

  “I don’t ask you to welcome others into your village. I ask your help to keep people from dying. Building materials are arriving from Ivanhoe at the nearest train stop in three weeks. By that point, I will already be on the other side of the Wall.” I don’t want to say I’ll already be dead. “Help me build a bridge, a rope ladder, something. Jude and I aren’t here long enough to do it ourselves.”

  I bow my head and let my forehead fall into my palm. I still have hope, but I feel like a clogged sink. I can’t seem to say what boils inside me. This is my purpose, but I can’t do it alone.

  God, I need help!

  A hand tips my chin up. I lift my eyes and meet Black’s gaze. Instinctively, I jerk back. His hand lowers to hold mine. “We will do what we can. It will not be much.”

  Cedar cries and our evening reading is broken as Ash moves to feed him. I stand. How much do they risk by helping me?

  When I exit the hut, I see Willow and Elm skipping into the darkness. It’s not the first time I’ve suspected them of sitting outside while I read. Did they hear my plea for help?

  I return to my patch of moss. The weather has grown colder and a sack of coal rests on my small lump. I grin and look around. Willow peeks from behind a hut. When our eyes meet, she ducks back into the shadows with a giggle.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  Several minutes later, I curl beside my small fire, dwelling on the past two weeks. My time continues to tick, but death no longer frightens me. I’m leaving something behind—something God inspired. Tomorrow I will visit Jude to see if he’s well enough to continue.

  If I must, I will leave without him.

  40

  000.019.23.13.50

  Death swept through the healing hut and came out empty-handed, but not before it replaced Jude with the body of a wraith. His autumn-tanned skin is bloodless and stitches spike like rose thorns from his purple-bruised upper arm stump.

  His hollow face pushes out a strained grin when my eyes reach his. “Do I look that bad?”

  I rub my left arm, stiffening against the flow of phantom pain crushing my nonexistent fingers. “How are you?”

  “Cheered.”

  I perch on the edge of a cold metal healer chair. “Cheered?”

  He gestures to his shoulder. “It’s out.”

  A shovel of guilt digs a hole deep inside me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find the chip.”

  Jude shakes his head and sits up. The blanket slips from his bare chest and I remember how I was naked when I recovered in the healing hut. Heat tingles against my cheeks. I stare at his face, trying to focus.

  “I never should have asked that of you. I’m sorry, Parvin. I’m certain it was a pirate chip in my arm, inserted to download and electronically transfer my memory.”

  I sit back with a frown, curious but not surprised to hear another High-City term. They mix electronics and flesh together like a daily dessert recipe. “But that chip was in you over four months. Wouldn’t we have noticed your memory problems earlier?”

  “Ah”—he wags a finger at me—“I installed protection before crossing the Wall. That’s why I could fight for memories that seemed to be seeping out.”

  I’m struck again by how little I know about Jude. Tune chips. Clock inventions. Moving tattoos. Protection against pirate chips. Rich boy. People in Unity Village can’t even afford paper. “What sort of protection?”

  He shrugs then sucks a breath through his teeth. “Electronic implant. It guards agains
t mental theft. You’d be surprised how often theft happens, especially for people who use Testimony Logs.”

  This conversation is cycling down a different road than I anticipated. “You’re speaking High-City language, Jude-man. I’m still trying to understand a pirate chip.” Do I want to understand or redirect? My heart pounds like a resilient itch for action. I need to get to the Wall. I need to get to Reid. I have less than three weeks.

  Jude touches my face and I snap back to reality. “What’s in your head, Parvin?”

  Okay, redirect. “I’m leaving. Ash and Black are helping me save the Radicals sent through the Wall. I don’t have much time left. When they’re ready, I’m going.” I take a shuddering queasy breath. “I’m here to say Good-bye.”

  His fingers still brush my skin. Warm. Friendly. “Good-bye? You don’t want my help?”

  I lean back, severing our physical connection. “Can you help?”

  “Yes!” He sits straighter and I tug his blanket higher with the pretense of making sure he’s warm. “Parvin, you were right about the orphans. I can’t desert them. I want to help you. I want to stay with you!”

  A calm steals through me at the grasp of his hand. We’re united. We’re on the same page, sharing the same goal, and unified through the desperation of shortened Numbers.

  “What about you zeroing out?”

  He stares at the end of the bed a long time. “I don’t think that’s important.”

  My heart pounds. “Then tell me when your Numbers end.” Do I want to know? Can I bear it?

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? Why won’t you tell me?” Why can’t I handle not knowing?

  When Jude speaks next, his voice is low and relaxed. “I . . . I don’t remember. The pirate chip got that nugget of info.”

  My hand jumps to my throat. “It did? You can’t remember at all?”

  He shakes his head. “But my Clock doesn’t control me, Parvin. The Numbers hold no power unless you let them.”

  “But . . . if the pirate chip took that, it could have taken anything.”

  “I know.”

  I take a deep breath through my nose. My voice comes in a whisper. “What if I lose everyone, Jude?” Jude’s Numbers are coming to an end and I don’t know them. Skelley Chase is threatening to kill Reid. Can I stop any of this?

  “So what if you do? Our life is nothing, Parvin. It’s short. You’re going to lose people. Me. Maybe Reid. Maybe others. Either way, the separation’s going to come, whether it’s you dying first or us.”

  Choked emotions still my heart. “I’m not strong enough to handle it all.”

  “It’s not your strength that matters.”

  “I know, I know. It’s God’s strength, or something like that, right?”

  He uses his left arm to adjust his bandaged right over the covers. “Well, when you say it like that, I can see why you doubt.”

  “Why would He want me to lose everyone I love?”

  His lips turn up in a sad smile. “The problem is, you still see it as loss. You won’t be losing me. You won’t be losing Reid, if he’s the spiritual guy you say he is. We’ll just be separated for a time. God has longer plans for your life than he does ours.”

  This spiritual teaching has gone on long enough. “You keep talking as if both you and Reid are going to die. Like there’s no hope!”

  “You shouldn’t be placing hope in our lives, Parvin. That’s my point. I don’t know the answers or the future, but your confidence and hope need to be in God.”

  “Can we stop talking about this please?”

  “Okay, so what do you want to talk about?”

  Good question. Anything other than the death of the men I love. “Tell me more about your mental protection.”

  Leaning back on his pillows, Jude speaks with a new surety. “I had it installed after the betrayal of the Council. It worked against the assassin’s pirate chip so well I didn’t even suspect he hit me with one. I think the trouble started with my concussion.”

  “Your tune chip broke. Maybe your protection broke at the same time!”

  “I think it got damaged. That’s why I was able to fight for my memories, but the assassin still gathered some information. I won’t ever remember what it is.”

  “You mentioned some sort of Log,” I prompt, now hungry for High-City information. Jude rubs a thumb over the back of my hand. A shiver breaks its way into my body and jolts me.

  “A Testimony Log,” he says. “People record their entire lives through video contact lenses so they can sift through it at their leisure and not worry about remembering. The problem is, every Testimony Log must be contained within a Testimony Bank. You can access your memories only by visiting the bank. It’s much easier to break into someone’s memory when it’s recorded in a bank than when it’s recorded in their head.”

  This new onslaught of information makes me wish for a bank of my own so I can sift through the details he’s feeding me. “That’s amazing.”

  Jude’s eyes darken. “When I went missing, the government sifted through my brother’s Testimony Log like kids in a sandbox, looking for clues of my whereabouts. That’s how they discovered I crossed the Wall.” As if realizing he had turned the conversation into a serious corner, he brightens. “So when do we leave?”

  “Whenever you’re better and when Black and Ash are ready.”

  Jude taps his right arm. “I’m better.”

  I smile. “Tally ho.”

  Four days later, Ash and Black approach me, but it’s hardly the help I prayed for.

  “Four ropes, three mounting devices, ten slats of dead-standing wood, and a rope ladder.” Ash gestures to Black.

  He sets the items on the ground and then addresses Jude and me. “We’ve never been to the Wall. This is all we can give. You must decide what you will do with it.”

  “Thank you.” Jude kneels beside the pile.

  I try not to gape. A pile of stuff and a wish for good luck? I thought they were coming with me.

  Understanding of what lies ahead settles in my chest. It will be Jude and me. Maybe, at some point, just me. But Jude’s little sermon from the healing hut stands out in my mind. This is another opportunity to offer up my weakness.

  My confidence and hope are in You.

  Ash holds out my Bible. “Thank you for reading to us.”

  I look at the cover, now bent and softened from use. As much as I want to take it with me, I don’t have long to use it. “Keep it.”

  She gives a single nod, and they walk away.

  I hope they read more of it.

  “That was kind of them.” Jude wraps up the coils of rope with his good hand so they fit in our packs.

  “Yes, it was, though I’d hoped they would gather the supplies from the Ivanhoe Independent when it arrives.”

  “You find help and yet you’re still ungrateful.”

  At the cool tone behind us, I turn to meet Alder’s stare. “We are a community, Parvin. We don’t desert each other. Black came straight to me when he and Ash offered to help you. I gave them my blessing and offered those slats of wood.” He gestures to the pile Jude attempts to pick up with his one hand.

  “I’m not asking anyone to desert you.” I loop a coil of rope around my shoulder.

  He lifts both eyebrows. “It doesn’t have to come in words. Your actions—your infiltration into our community—stir things up.”

  I close my eyes against the words of retaliation fighting my tight lips for release. “We are leaving now. Thank you for hosting and caring for us.”

  Alder turns and walks away. Silence dominates the cold woods.

  The next morning we’re packed and loaded with gear, including a small pouch of white pain pills for Jude. My left wrist tingles in a sharp reminder of loss as I hug Willow good-bye. She’s not tearful or sombe
r. She just bounces on her toes, her ivory hair swinging side to side. “Elm and I will get the Ivanhoe supplies.”

  Jude taps her nose. “We can always count on you, can’t we?”

  “Yup.”

  “Thanks, Willow,” I say.

  “Welks.”

  I look around at the bare autumn dogwood trees and swallow a bewildering pang of sorrow. This village of albino strangers carries an odd welcome in its canopy of branches. I want to stay with hot broth and burning coals, watching winter arrive and depart until the white dogwood petals sprinkle the moss with summer.

  The people are strange. Alder is harsh, confusing, and somewhat vindictive. But everyone is unified. How? How can they ask questions, force each other to atone, and follow personal dreams yet remain unified? What do they have that my village doesn’t? Yet . . . an emptiness resides behind their pale blue and purple eyes.

  I press my finger into the button on my sentra as we leave. If I get a chance, I’ll give it to Reid or Mother so they can understand that I did, at one point, desire something more for Unity Village—for someone other than myself.

  Jude and I enter the portion of forest burned most permanently in my memory. The glades of fallen logs and moss are now half brown, half green, showering dying leaves upon us with every strong gust of wind. We cross the river on the same log I used during my early travel. Jude’s stamina withers after a few hours and I request rest often, for his sake.

  My pack is heavy, laden with the ropes, mounts, and food from Willow and Ash. No cooked cattails this time, it’s the wrong season. I’m disappointed. I want to try them cooked, if only to rid my memory of the raw ones we ate in the Dregs.

  Three days later, we veer into a new stretch of forest. It looks the same, but our direction has changed.

  “We need to stay above the cliff bottom,” Jude says, “Neither of us can climb the cliff you’ve described with one hand and packs full of supplies. We’ll have to circle around the canyon and walk parallel to the Wall until we reach the Opening.”

  I follow him with blind trust. He knows how to lead us there. “Do you think we’ll get there with enough time?”