A Time to Speak

by Nadine Brandes

  I steady the bike while she climbs onto the handlebars, one pale hand on each handle. As she’s climbing, she accidentally rings the small thumb bell. It chirps like a dying bird. Her shoulder pack hits my face “Go.”

  “Wait.” I choke on my pounding pulse. “God, please . . . please get us to the Wall safely. Be with Elm—keep him alive. Do what You need to do with us, but . . . please save him.”

  I needed a verbal prayer. Mental prayer just didn’t feel strong enough in this moment. A dash of peace rests upon me. God hears. He knows. He wants me to save lives.

  Right now . . . I’m the only one who can.

  “Okay, now go.”

  I push forward with my feet, already unstable. The front wheel settles into the worn path and gains speed as the downhill increases. I squint against the wind, half-blind to our path. When it’s too fast to balance with my feet, I keep my legs spread out mid-jumping jack style.

  The bike whooshes down the hill. A tree zips by. Wind hisses in my ear like a warning. My rear end bumps with every jolt and my stump slides against the handles. A scream builds in my throat. I hold my breath.

  This was stupid.

  Ahead, through the misty night, is a sharp right curve. My hand tightens on the grip and I press my left forearm into the metal. The bike emits rusty shrieks with each wheel rotation. We reach the curve and I jerk the handles. The tire spins too far and the bike bucks us off, headfirst, onto the stiff ground.

  I tumble through a bush. Some part of Willow knocks me in the shoulder, a heel or elbow maybe. When I stop rolling, I’m on my back, my left arm trapped beneath me. Prickly sticks dig into my skin. Hot pain washes up and down my muscles, but I push myself into a sitting position.

  Willow crashes through the bushes to my right. A rash mars her smooth cheek. She reaches toward me with her small fingers. “Parvin?”

  “I’m fine.” I lean over my knees and pray my body calms. “That was dumb.”

  “Still faster than walking.”

  I can’t bring myself to laugh. She might not be joking. When it comes to Elm, her logic takes on a desperate tone.

  I manage to get to my feet. My shoulder announces the start of a large bruise. We find the bike on its side beside the trail. It’s still intact, creak and all. I pat the stiff frame as if to congratulate it on its durability.

  For the next hour, we take turns pushing it along the path. I’m not sure why we bring it with us, maybe for the next downhill. I don’t try to ride it again. Hopefully we’ll reach another town by morning, where we can find a reliable means of transportation. I have a bag of specie after all. Someone’s bound to offer a favor for a price.

  We reach the base of the Wall within a few hours and start the two hundred mile trek north toward Opening Three. Beneath its looming, thousand-foot night shadow, I feel safer—closer to the West. My heart trips at the thought of reaching the Opening.

  The longer we travel, the more I consider returning to the West. I could finish building the safe haven for Radicals sent through—the welcome shack filled with survival information. Have the supplies from Ivanhoe arrived at the Wall yet? I could build the bridge over the chasm to the plateau, help Radicals, and escape the rejection I’ve met from my own family in Unity Village.

  “Parvin.” Willow stops and looks back at me. “What is the light behind us?”

  I turn. A tiny bulb of light bobs through the darkness a couple miles away. It’s moving faster than someone walking with a lantern. My concern escalates. The light grows larger.

  Someone is hunting us.

  “We need to hide.” I grab Willow’s hand. “Leave the bike.”

  “They’ll see it!”

  “We can’t conceal it, just run.”

  We stumble through the brush, between trees, over rocks and hidden holes. My pack slaps against my back. Willow pants behind me, but I don’t slow. Something, anything, needs to hide us. The Wall is smooth stone with no cracks or coves, the bushes too low and thin to hide behind.

  Willow’s hand yanks out of mine. I skid to a stop and squint behind me. “Willow?”

  A flash of her white foot catches my eye, disappearing up a maple tree. “Careful.”

  “I know how to climb without having to atone,” she calls back.

  That’s not what I meant. I don’t want her to fall, but she scales the branches like a tree frog. “Hurry, Parvin!”

  “I can’t.” The bobbing light is closer now, and a high whine enters the night silence. An electric car. An Enforcer car. “I’ll hide somewhere else.”

  I sprint away from the tree and Willow. At least if the headlight illuminates me, it won’t see her. Why can’t she seem to remember that I have only one hand? I can’t climb. I’ll never be able to climb anything again.

  In a last minute effort, I crouch behind a larger bush at the base of a tree, pushing myself beneath the branches. I face outward to see if anyone approaches.

  The whine grows louder like an approaching hornet. I squeeze my eyes tight, as if my tension will make me unseen. The car sounds practically on top of me when it finally stops. At least it didn’t run me over.

  Someone gets out, leaving the car running. Will this person kill me or just capture me?

  “You get Blackwater. I’ll get the albino.”

  Kaphtor’s voice.

  What will he do to us when we’re out here alone in the dark? Beat us? Separate us? Threaten my family?

  Footsteps slow, mere yards away. My heart thrums and I’m gripped by acute awareness of what it means to be a Radical. I don’t have a Clock. I might die in the next five minutes. I don’t know when my time is. I’ll never know.

  But Jude was right: I placed more faith in my Numbers than God. The Numbers don’t matter.

  Branches snap beneath a boot. My eyes fly open. How do the Enforcers know I’m here? It’s almost as if they . . .

  I gasp.

  My tracker. I’m a registered Radical. So is Willow. They’ll find us no matter where we hide.

  The Enforcer nearby either heard me or has a tracking device in front of him, because the boots stop by my bush, inches from my face. If I had my dagger right now . . .

  “Miss Parvin?”

  My body propels me out of the bush before my mind can scream a protest. “Hawke?”

  I practically collide with him as I stand. I can’t decipher whether I’m happy to see him or terrified. Apprehensive seems the most accurate description. The beetle car is thirty yards away.

  “Are you going to take us back?”

  “You broke your word.” His words are harsh, but sweat lines his forehead. His eyes are wide, like he’s not sure what to do. “Good thing your sister-in-law respects the law.”

  “I never gave my word.” What do I do? He’s acting like a normal Enforcer. Curse that Testimony Log! “And . . . Tawny told you we were gone?” Maybe if we keep talking long enough, I’ll think of some way to get out of this.

  “Good thing, too, otherwise I wouldn’t have reached you in time. Then we would have sent an army of Enforcers after you if you made it to the Wall. You don’t want to deal with that.”

  I back against the tree trunk. A loud thunk comes from somewhere to my right, followed by the flop of something heavy—something human—on the ground.

  Hawke doesn’t turn, but his shoulders tense. “Now, are you going to come quietly or not, Miss Blackwater?”

  “Um . . .”

  Behind him, Willow appears, parting a black curtain of night. Running. Glaring at Hawke’s back. She raises her arm behind her head, a stone in her hand. My brain sprints through sludge, trying to transfer a panicked thought into speech.

  She executes a single skip, coiling her body for a throw.

  I stretch out my hand. “Gently!”

  Mid-throw, her startled gaze snaps to mine, and the stone flies
through the air. It strikes the back of Hawke’s head. His eyes glaze like when Jude died.

  “Hawke.”

  He crumples to the ground. I try to catch him on his descent, but he’s far too heavy for my single working arm. I manage to slip my hand between his head and the ground before it hits. The ring Reid gave me pinches my skin from the impact.

  “Parvin!” Willow’s face is tight and her purple eyes are narrowed. She clenches her tiny fists and looks down at Hawke. Her anger evaporates into arched eyebrows and an open mouth. “Oh, it’s the Hawke.” Her eyes slide to meet mine. “Sorry I almost killed him.”

  I look back at Hawke’s unconscious form. His chest rises and falls with strength and his eyes are now closed. In this resting state, there are similarities between him and Jude. I feel the same urge to smooth back his hair and brush a single finger down his cheek.

  But Solomon Hawke isn’t Jude.

  “Tawny betrayed us.” Hawke and Kaphtor came after us, but it still worked out in our favor, almost as if Hawke planned it. I clench my hand into a fist. “He’ll be okay. Let’s go.”

  We pass the unconscious form of Kaphtor. “I only knocked out his mind. He’s still breathing.” Willow peers into the Enforcer car. “He was nice when he cut my arm for the chip.”

  “He was?” I can’t imagine Kaphtor being nice.

  I peek over her head into the car. A small bench seat lines the back of the squat car, wide enough for two people—one convict and one Enforcer. I close my eyes at the memory.

  Willow climbs in the back, leaving the single front seat for me. I plop in the driver’s seat, which is so far from the steering wheel that I have to hunch forward to reach it. A board of electric lights blinks—some with numbers and others with acronyms. On the ground are two pedals. I press my foot on the one on the right. We lurch forward so fast, the door slams shut.

  I lift my foot to catch my breath against the startling movement, but it takes me only a moment to press it again. Hard. The car moves forward with a high whine that eventually disappears into an electronic hum. I’m taken back to the moment when Enforcers drove me to my hearing—the last time I rode in a car.

  “We’re moving!” Willow shrieks.

  “Yes, we are.” I clench the wheel and stare hard into the darkness. “And we have to be fast. Hawke said an army of Enforcers may be at the Wall.”

  There’s no going back now. We’ve injured two Enforcers, stolen an Enforcer car, and we’re fleeing our promise to remain captives.

  I feel no remorse. Not even nervousness. I feel . . . empowered. This car used to deliver Radicals to their condemning hearings—it used to promote death and injustice. Now it is my tool.

  We’re going to save a life.

  4

  I wake from a pothole jolt and crush the wheel beneath my fingers. “Willow?”

  “Hm?” Her soft sleep voice drifts from behind me.

  “I fell asleep. I think we need to stop.”

  That wakes her up. “No stopping! I will drive. You sleep now.”

  “You’re too small to drive.” I widen my eyes against the drowsy pull of slumber.

  “I’m not small for anything!” She’s so fierce. “I will drive.”

  Only now do I realize how dangerous driving a car can be. We’re going so fast. I blink and it seems to take a full minute before the blink ends. A tree pops into our path and I swerve. “Okay, you drive.”

  The idea of sleep sounds so glorious that it’s not too difficult to entrust my life to Willow’s hands. After all, if not for her, I would have died many times in the West.

  We coast to a stop and she crawls forward. I point to the pedal on the right. “That one makes us go. There’s a really light trail I’ve been following. It keeps us from the thick brush and trees.”

  She plops into the seat and it almost swallows her. I shove my shoulder pack toward her and she sits on it, leaning forward and pressing the pedal with the very tips of her toes. The car lurches onward and I tumble backward onto the bench seat.

  Willow giggles. We go faster. She lets out a triumphant, “Ha!”

  I smile and curl into a ball on the cramped seat. My right arm aches from doing all the steering. After a few more jolts and potholes, my awareness seeps into lethargic bliss. The rumble of uneven ground beneath us and whine of the car escort me into a dream like a lullaby.

  Jude is beside me, but I can’t seem to see his face. We sit side by side in a yellow locomotive—the Ivanhoe Independent. Most of our surroundings are a blur of fuzzy white. There is no sound, not even the sound of train tracks beneath us. He is on my left, his shock of dark brown hair covering his tanned forehead.

  I have the strangest sensation that God brought us here—bringing Jude down and me up to a mysterious middle ground—to give me a chance to speak with him after his death. It’s a dream, yet it’s not. So many questions swirl in my mind.

  “Were you surprised?” Somehow I know he understands my thoughts behind the question—was he surprised to wake up in heaven and realize life was over?

  “Things were in order. Peace was in the process of being found.”

  I stare at him and everything in me tightens—my heart, my face. Tears creep from my very bones. I hurt for him and his shortened life. I hurt for his family—for Solomon Hawke to have lost him. I cry for things not being as they should.

  “Why are you crying?” Jude looks at me for the first time. My gaze meets his raspberry-chocolate eyes. His voice is soft and confused.

  In a dreamy sense, I realize he doesn’t understand. He does not comfort me because he does not process sadness. Nothing in him hurts. He is free from it all.

  My sorrow leaves with a long breath. I don’t need to cry or hurt for his situation because he is in complete shalom.

  I wake with tears on my face.

  The car creeps along, slowing, until it stops. I sit up, still reeling from seeing Jude. A strange calm envelops me as I think of him.

  Thank You. I am undeserving of such relief. I have hardly trusted God since Reid died. I’m sorry. Thank you. My prayer words come in short, sleepy bursts.

  My tranquility feels nothing short of miraculous, and I still can’t seem to get rid of the feeling that was more than just a dream.

  “Is this it?” Willow asks.

  I glance out the window on the left. Beside us is Opening Three, shrouded in darkness and moonlight. The door is black arched metal, set deep in the stone. To the right of it sits the rickety guardhouse with a wooden door and a four-paned window.

  Reid died here. I half expect to see his body spread-eagled on the ground in front of the Opening.

  My throat convulses and all tranquility scatters. “You drove right up?” Our car light illuminates the guardhouse. All I can think of are Hawke’s words: Enforcer army . . . Enforcer army . . . Enforcer army . . .

  As if catching on to the implications behind my question, Willow launches out of the car, something thin and shiny clamped tight in her little fist. A knife? Where did she get a knife? She heads for the guardhouse.

  “Willow,” I hiss, scrambling after her. I take my pack with me, Reid’s expired Clock safely beneath the buckled flap. “Willow!”

  She glances back at me then swerves to the side of the guardhouse and crouches beneath the window in the night shadows. I reach her just as candlelight grows from inside, spreading into the darkness from the single window. The front door opens and a man steps out. His silhouette is mere feet from me, illuminated by the candlelight.

  He’s very different from the Wallkeeper who sent me through the Wall six months ago. Though I only see his back from an angle, I can tell he is young and tall with a long face. His hair is neck-length, pushed behind his ears and his brown winter uniform looks freshly ironed. So fresh that I frown. He couldn’t have been sleeping in it, otherwise it would be wrinkled. Why is
n’t he in pajamas? It’s early morning. He couldn’t have been expecting us already . . . could he?

  Willow and I don’t breathe as he stands on the threshold, holding a gun. His face turns toward the Enforcer car. I wish I could see his expression. I lower my head and squeeze deeper into the shadow of the house. By not looking at him, maybe I’ll be invisible.

  His footsteps crunch toward the car.

  I open my eyes. The darkness is different than moments before. It’s no longer fully black, but tinged with blue. Morning blue.

  Sunrise is coming.

  “Hello?” The wallkeeper glances back at the guardhouse. At us. But the shadows must be strong, because he turns again toward the car.

  “How do we open the Wall?” Willow looks up at me.

  I slide my hand under the flap and into my pack. My fingers find the cold worn wood of my—of Reid’s—Clock. It will open the door for only fifteen seconds. That’s all we need to run inside, grab Elm, and escape back to the West.

  My thoughts skid to a stop.

  Am I going back to the West? Or am I staying here? After what I’ve done to get us here, I ought to cross the Wall again. Otherwise, I’ll probably be killed or at least imprisoned on this side.

  But what about Solomon Hawke? He still doesn’t know how Jude died. And Skelley Chase? Someone needs to convict him for Reid’s murder. And the Council? They probably already have Jude’s Clock-matching invention information. They’ll know how to Clock-match anyone. Jude said they would have far more power than they ought. They would have to be stopped, but can I do that?

  Willow grabs my arm and yanks me out of my jumbled thoughts. “How do we open it?”

  I dart a glance back at the Wallkeeper, then give Willow a slight nod. Maintaining a crouch, we slip around the back of the house. A small passage rests between the wood house and Wall. We tiptoe until I see the square hole for Reid’s Clock.

  Two crisscrossed metal bars are bolted into the stone, blocking the hole. I set down the Clock and pull against one of them. It’s icy and doesn’t budge. The Enforcers and the Council did intend Elm to die inside the Wall. They never meant to save him or allow him to live, otherwise why block the Clock hole?