A Time to Speak

by Nadine Brandes

  “How is de breathin’?”

  I take four deep breaths. “Fine.”

  Wilbur puffs out his chest. “De mask is like de suit—can’t be crushed. Both are programmed to give ye enough room for breathin’ whenever ye get buried.”

  “How comforting.”

  Solomon lifts his side. “Can we get this off her now?”

  I sit up. “Oh let me. We wouldn’t want anyone pulling a muscle.” Wilbur hops out of the way and I flick the crate off with my thumb and forefinger. It topples end over end across the room into a glass-paneled mannequin stand. “Oops, sorry.”

  But Wilbur’s jumping up and down like a kid on Christmas day. He turns to Solomon. “Will ye be wantin’ a Brawn suit, too?”

  Solomon retrieves the crate. “I’m a man, of course I want to destroy things with my bare hands.”

  “We’ll need to blueprint ye.” Meaning he’ll scan and print out a perfect replica mannequin of Solomon. I hope they display his next to mine.

  The blueprinting takes about a minute, then Wilbur shoos us out. “De outfit will be complete tomorrow. Sorry I have only de one Armor.”

  “It’s okay. Thank you, Wilbur. I’ll bring up the others who need to be blueprinted.” I lead the way back to the Marble staircase and we head to the mansion.

  When we walk into the entry, people swarm us.

  “You’re going to destroy the Wall?” someone says as Solomon and I push through to the staircase.

  “Are you mad? You’ll ruin this place!”

  “You fought the king of Ivanhoe?”

  “Why would you leave us?”

  “That Wall’s been there fifty years! It’s a national monument!”

  Someone spread the news, and I’m willing to bet it was Gabbie or Cap. I turn at the base of the stairs to face them. “I’m destroying it because we need to save those who have been left behind. The Council is going to close all passage soon and we still have people on the other side.”

  I walk upstairs to my room. Solomon follows until we’re alone in the hallway. “Thanks for praying for me in the Arena.”

  “Welks. Looks like God gave us our answer.”

  I smile. “Tally ho.” I don’t want to leave him alone in the hallway, but I need to send Mother and Frenchie to Wilbur for blueprinting. Before I can feel too guilty, though, he continues on to his own room.

  I walk into mine. Mother lies on her bunk, staring at the underside of mine. “Are you feeling okay, Mother?”

  “There’s lunch downstairs.”

  I close the door behind me. “I don’t want lunch. I want to know if you’re feeling okay.”

  She turns her face toward the wall and, for a moment, I spot a glimmer of light off her cheek. My gut squeezes. Is she . . . crying?

  What do I do? The longer I stand here, the more uncertain and awkward I grow. I should do something. I should leave her alone, she clearly wants her privacy. Instead, I force my feet forward and I sit on the edge of her bed. “Mother, what’s wrong?”

  She squeezes her eyes tight. “I want to go with you to the Wall . . . but I can’t go if you’re just going to get captured and killed.”

  So this is about me. My head bows low. “I have to return, Mother. I need to destroy the Wall so people can be safe over here.” I place my hand on her shoulder, gently like a landing butterfly. What’s the real problem here? “Reid’s death wasn’t your fault.”

  She shakes her head. “Yes, it was . . . you don’t know.”

  The fingers of dread pinch my throat closed. I pop my neck, forcing my voice to work. “What don’t I know?”

  She turns her face as far away from me as possible. This must have to do with her secret about Skelley. She said she couldn’t tell me, but maybe now . . . “What happened between you and Skelley Chase?”

  She angles her face even farther away from me.

  “Mother . . . please tell me.” I grow queasy. I don’t want to know, but I must know.

  Her breath comes in a shudder. “He told me to choose.”

  I choke. “Choose what?”

  She covers her face with a trembling hand. “Choose which one of you to kill.”

  35

  Mother chose to let Reid die.

  My lungs strain against the tar in my chest. Skelley made her pick one of us?

  “He said that, at the end of your Clock, one of you would die. I needed to choose who would die and who would survive—you or Reid. Otherwise he’d expose me for training you up as believers in Christ and he’d kill you both anyway.”

  I’m alive.

  She picked me.

  I break with her. “Why did you choose me?”

  “B-Because you were finally doing something with your life.” She sobs into her hand. “You d-deserved a chance. I didn’t know Reid was getting married or that you would return to us craving death. I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know . . .”

  If she’d known, would she have chosen Reid instead? “It’s not your fault.”

  She nods her head, but doesn’t speak.

  “It’s not. Reid said in his journal that he knew it was his Clock. He was ready to die. He even told Tawny before they married. She accepted it and married him anyway.”

  Her hand slides away from her face and she meets my eyes for a single blink.

  “It’s true. Ask Tawny when we get back to the other side. Besides, only God can control the Clocks. Only He can add to or take away our Numbers. Skelley has no power.”

  She looks at me, the red around her eyes highlighting her silent guilt. “You should go get some lunch.”

  If words could punch people in the stomach, she’d be a professional boxer. I’ve been dismissed. My voice comes out defeated. “All right.”

  Gabbie and I film my speech that afternoon. We go behind the mansion, where Solomon and Kaphtor dug a grave for Dusten’s body. He lies beside the hole, preserved by the odd black charring that covers his skin.

  I kneel down and illuminate his Clock. The Numbers still tick down, his name is still there, and the word overridden glows the brightest.

  Gabbie holds up the NAB. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  I look into the small hole that’s doing the filming. Solomon stands behind Gabbie—partly to monitor what she’s doing with the NAB, and partly to make it easier for me to speak.

  My breath fogs in front of my face and I shiver. “People of the USE, I am Parvin Blackwater and I have secrets about the Council that you need to know . . .”

  I talk for a good half hour. I tell them how the Council forced the Low-City people to pay for their new Clocks and how those without money were sent to Antarctica. I tell how some of us were sold as slaves. I tell how the Council stole Jude’s information and tried to use me as their voice. I reveal that they kidnapped Willow and threatened to torture her. Lastly, I tell how Dusten died. I kneel beside his body and show his Clock to them all.

  “This new Clock from the Council is different. I don’t know how, but Jude created new Clocks that can somehow be overridden. I don’t know what the trigger is, but we’re not bound to them anymore. Don’t accept these Clocks from the Council. Don’t let them control you.”

  Once I finish and Gabbie shoots me a thumbs-up, we bury Dusten . . . on the free side of the Wall.

  The living room to which I retreat with my meal is filled with Unity people. Laelynn and the little girl from our boxcar sit by the fire playing a game with a ball and metal stars that they pick up between bounces. It reminds me of Willow playing with the cards she won in Ivanhoe.

  I sit on a couch with a dish of beef chili and cornbread—a simple Unity Village dish, only we don’t use beef. The Daily Hemisphere is open in my lap and the headline bores into me.

  New Clock-Matching Comes to High Cities.

  They’re doing it already. Gabbie and
I need to get our video out as soon as possible.

  “What does eet mean?” Frenchie looks to me for the answer. “Dusten’s Clock?”

  She sits beside Kaphtor, even though he was the Enforcer who dragged her out of the coffee shop to sentence her as a Radical. For the first time, he’s not wearing black. He’s in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Normal clothing looks weird on him, especially with the tattooed backward E on his temple.

  Kaphtor straightens his shirt and readjusts on the couch. “Did the Council make a mistake with the new Clocks or did the problem arise with Dusten’s original Clock?” Everyone else in the room, even Laelynn and her friend, pause in their movements.

  If only Jude were alive, he’d have the answer for us. “Jude changed something. That’s all I know. We are all Radicals now and will be forever. Gabbie and I plan to release this truth to the world through a video.”

  “To take away everyone’s confidence?” Cap asks from next to the fire.

  “Their confidence is based in a lie, so . . . yes.”

  He folds his arms. “That’s not very kind.”

  “Neither is leaving the world trapped in deception.”

  Frenchie sets her dinner plate on the coffee table in front of her. “You all s’ink ze USE is ze entire world. Do you know anything of uzzer countries?”

  The spotlight swings from me to her.

  She rolls her eyes. “To ’ave a Clock een France means you are very rich. Eet’s not required by ze government. Eet’s a luxury. My maman et papa saved up zeir whole lives and deedn’t ’ave children until zey could purchase ze ovachips.”

  I cringe. Who would want those electronic gnats inside their body? That’s the only plus side of these new Clocks—they can Clock you without having to put an electronic device in your body.

  “Zat’s ’ow I was born wis a Clock.” Her accent grows stronger the more passionate she gets. “Zey wanted to send me to ze USE for a better future. I got ’ere and what did I find? Eet eez illegal to live without a Clock. Zat is why you have so few visitors to your country. You are alone in zis.”

  She fiddles with the hem of her sweater. “I was in ze USE only two months when my apartment burned to ze ground, destroying my Clock. I could not go ’ome. I was trapped, a Radical, until Madame found me and made me ’er servant.”

  Her eyes shrink to narrow slits, but Madame isn’t in the room. “If Parvin eez right, zat ze new Clocks are incorrect, zen maybe ze Council will let me go ’ome. Back to France. Back to my maman et papa who ’ave not ’eard from me for two years.”

  She wipes her nose with the edge of her sweater. Kaphtor stares at her. “That can’t be right. I visited France for three days last year to celebrate my ten-year Enforcerhood. Everyone had Clocks.”

  “Staged settlements,” I tell him. “The USE sets them up. That’s why I never traveled as a Last-Year wish. Nothing is authentic.”

  “How do you know?”

  I lean back. “I read a lot.”

  He looks at Frenchie again, as if trying to figure out whom to believe.

  “Kaphtor, why are you here?” I can’t help but ask. Last year was his ten-year Enforcerhood celebration? How old is he? He doesn’t look much older than Solomon.

  Kaphtor raises his eyebrows. “There’s only so much human abuse one can watch.”

  Cap unfolds his arms and wrinkles his nose. “Says the most heartless Enforcer of the bunch.” His tone hints that he’s joking. Does he realize it’s not funny?

  Kaphtor shrugs as if to dismiss the comment. “I was raised in a High-City Enforcer family. There’s no room for emotion. When the new Enforcer regulations sent me to Unity Village, I saw life in a way the High Cities never meant us to see it. Suffering. Hard work. Hope and hopelessness. Once we started putting people in boxcars, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t go back to my family, so I joined my new one.”

  “Who . . . us?” Cap peers at him.

  With what we’re up against, there’s no point in holding grudges or allowing hurt to stick. Kaphtor saved us. Frenchie takes his hand. “You can be intimidating, but zat eez gone now. I am your family.”

  Cap pushes himself off the couch and limps out of the living room. I hear him mutter something about family, but that’s all. Kaphtor looks at me. “Hawke showed me family first.” His eyes drop to the floor. “Even after I helped strip him of his Enforcerhood.”

  In his defeated posture I see Mother telling me she’s the cause of Reid’s death. I see Jude feeling responsible for the torture of his orphans. I see myself, failing over and over again to save Radicals from the Wall. “We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t. But Solomon forgives you. It’s evident in his care for you. Let it go.”

  “Did I hear my name?” Solomon steps into the living room, bringing a cheer that doesn’t fit the current conversation.

  Kaphtor grasps the escape. “I hear you’re going to the Wall dressed in a space suit.”

  Solomon laughs. “Tell you what, if you still think it’s a space suit after I arm-wrestle you while wearing it, then you’re allowed to rib me.”

  “I want one.”

  Solomon plops next to me on the couch. “Uh-uh, then I’ll never win the arm-wrestle.”

  Kaphtor turns an intense gaze on me. “I want one.”

  He wants to destroy that Wall with me. Maybe to compensate for all the Radicals he sent through to their deaths. “Okay.”

  “I would like one, too,” Frenchie says. “And get your muzzer one. She needs to destroy something.”

  It’s dangerous but . . . they want to bring change—shalom. Can I deny them the chance? No way. “Let’s go get you blueprinted.”

  “I’ll need at least a week to print de suits for ye,” Wilbur says.

  After my talk with Frenchie and the others, Madame demanded a suit. Frenchie screamed at her for a good hour. Gabbie asked for a suit, too. “A good reporter is always at the scene.” She didn’t seem fazed by the fact that she’d possibly get in trouble with the Council or even crushed by tumbling stone. “Perhaps I’ll meet Skelley Chase in person and I can tell him about the Council’s deception.”

  I’m going to talk to her about this weird Skelley obsession before placing my trust in her too much.

  The person who surprised me the most was Cap. I eyed his bum leg when he asked to join us. When asked why he wanted to come, he muttered something about getting back to his goats. Well, if that’s his family . . . okay then.

  So here I am, demanding more Brawn suits. Seven days. What might happen to Willow in seven days? And how many High-City people have been Clock-matched already?

  The Ivanhoe Independent will leave the station the day after Christmas. I take the NAB into my room and send Father a long message, explaining everything that’s happened since we arrived in Ivanhoe.

  More and more people want to come with me to the Wall. Perhaps it will be unsafe for you to be there when we destroy it. You and Tawny could cross over a few days later.

  Only an hour after I send my long message, Father replies.

  Sweetheart,

  This thing is bigger than you. I’ve contacted as many people on the list you sent me as possible. They’re rallying. They want to cross over the Wall to escape the Clock-matching. They’re bringing even more people with them.

  I’ve shared no details, but I’m having people meet me in Nether Town tomorrow. Then I’ll lead them to the Wall on New Year’s Eve.

  People are rallying? If so, we can’t wait any longer. That video needs to be released now. I track down Gabbie in one of the living rooms, where she’s listening to Elm and Mrs. Newton argue.

  “Christmas is a barbaric holiday.” Elm lifts his chin. “Cutting trees to lock in your house? You should all atone with your lives!”

  “I’ll get a fake tree,” Mrs. Newton soothes. “Now go get Mrs. Blackwater and M
adame to come help me in the kitchen.”

  As Elm stomps past me, I plop beside Gabbie. “Can we send our video in a private message to a single person without it being shut down or seen by the Council?”

  “Of course,” she bubbles.

  It takes all my willpower not to roll my eyes. “So why don’t we release it that way? I could send it to my Father and he could start showing people, sending it to those he trusts. And then it can’t be shut down.”

  Her mouth breaks into a grin and she gasps. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Yeah, why didn’t she? She’s the professional. “We’ll send it to Father as soon as possible. It will include the day and time we’ll be at the Wall to destroy it. That way, people who want to cross to this side for safety can come.”

  “Well, let’s finish up our filming then.”

  By Christmas day, the Radicals have found a routine in the Newton Mansion. Several have started looking for jobs or places to live. Harman plans to open a produce stand in the Marble. Some people talk about returning to the USE after we’ve destroyed the Wall—mostly those who have been separated from their families.

  That morning, I send the video to Father with instructions on how to share it with others. Gabbie’s finished it, putting my voice over the other videos she’s gathered since I presented my NAB.

  It’s powerful.

  Father: Meet us at Opening Three on New Year’s Eve at noon.

  That’s when and where we’ll destroy the Wall.

  Carolers sing at the door of the mansion in celebration of Christmas, and we have a giant supper where we all eat together for the first time—or as together as we can be with three hundred people spread all over the building. Mother makes her fig-and-walnut butter to eat on holiday toast. The last time I ate this, I thought I was dying. What a mixture of memories.

  I sit next to Elm as we eat. Over fifty packed bags rest against the wall near the door, ready for our departure tomorrow. Twenty of those are filled with Ivanhoe’s best explosives.

  Fifty people want to help me tear down the Wall. Only ten of us have Brawn suits because Wilbur couldn’t create the rest before we had to leave.