Guardians

by Susan Kim

  The only problem was that it took more and more drink to get to this peaceful place. At first, Eli had brought back several bottles; too soon, they were gone, and so he returned to stock up. Now he was nearing the end of his stash.

  Recently, Eli had grown to hate being with people. Although only he and Gideon knew what he had done, he could still feel the eyes of others watching him, hear their whispers behind his back. He sensed he was being judged, not just for what he had done to Aras, but for what he was doing to mask his pain.

  Yet the idea of being without the drink made him panic. And so, with difficulty, Eli now got to his feet. He only just remembered to bring his keys.

  Weaving, he stumbled out of his room.

  He only hoped he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew.

  After Esther was gone, Gideon finally unclenched his fists. Without knowing what he was doing, he had broken the skin on his palms with his nails. Yet he hadn’t noticed.

  For days, all he could think of was Esther’s behavior during the ceremony. He had done so much to make the union happen: planning, scheming, not to mention the risk he had incurred to himself by getting rid of Aras. The thought that it would all come to nothing—and so publicly!—was almost more than he could bear.

  Gideon didn’t believe for a moment that his heart was broken. Instead, he realized he had lost not only the alliance he so desperately wanted, but also face . . . and that meant losing power. And that was far worse.

  For days, Gideon had weighed how best to pay Esther back. He had spread word to his people that by rejecting him, Esther had disrespected them as well. She had already felt the sting of their displeasure. The treatment had worked better than he could have dreamed. Even now, he had pretended to be magnanimous and forgiving, and, like a fool, she had believed him.

  Yet her proposal had taken him completely aback. Had she not known what she was offering? People were desperate to have what was in the mall, and there was no limit to what they’d be willing to do to get it. Now he alone would determine what price they paid, without any interference. He would have a region—a kingdom—to himself.

  Gideon wondered if in fact Esther was being genuine, whether she could possibly be that guileless. Did she really believe his act . . . or was she playing him for a fool? He knew he had to be careful to assess her next moves, in case she was engaged in a long and devious game—one he was determined to win.

  Then he looked down and gasped. Lost in his thoughts, he had squeezed his hands shut again. Blood was starting to ooze from his palms.

  EIGHT

  WITH THE DISTRICT DIVIDED IN TWO, ESTHER FELT A NEW FREEDOM.

  She could now go about openly with Sarah on her back. She no longer had to live in constant fear that the Insurgents or workers from outside would overhear her baby’s cries from the stairwell. And with the easing of her anxiety, she found more time to play with Kai.

  Gideon had waited for a full day to respond. Then he had had one of his guards come and tell her that he agreed to her plan, with certain conditions. Her people were to be gone from their dwellings by the end of the day.

  Skar and the others had packed their meager belongings and moved up to the top floor. Silas helped Joseph carry his books up and they set about transforming one of the rooms at the end into his new library. The rest spent most of their time up on the roof, working in the garden or tending the water purification system.

  With Aras gone, Esther found she was grateful for the company, especially after the sun went down. She and her friends prepared and took all their meals together in the conference room. After dinner, she would put the children to bed, and then they all would sit around talking and laughing by the dimming light of the firebowl until late.

  It was the happiest any of them had been for a long time.

  Thanks to the immense expanse of glass that spanned the entire roof, Esther and the others were no longer terrified of the faraway rumble of thunder and flashes of lightning that sometimes appeared above their heads when they were working. In fact, Esther began to take pleasure in staring up at the poisonous drops hitting the panes and watching them trickle down toward the center drain.

  It was true that she and the others were now more confined than ever. While they weren’t actually prohibited from visiting the lower floors, they no longer felt welcome. Esther’s people didn’t even have to bring down the day’s produce every day. Without asking, Gideon would send several workers each morning to pick up the loaded baskets and to return the empty ones by sundown. Before leaving, they would hand Joseph a bag of glass fragments, the day’s payment for their work. He would then take pains to distribute them evenly among the five of them.

  There seemed to be more new people every day, eager to work for Gideon or bring in goods they had Gleaned, all in exchange for a handful of glass. As a result, the District seemed to be flourishing below, or at least Esther imagined it to be.

  The peace acted as a balm for all of them. Without the turmoil of the District to distract them, Esther hoped that she and the people she loved would continue to thrive for a long, long time. She even felt some of her hurt and sadness about Aras begin to fade.

  Esther now knelt on the hot tarred roof, collecting food for lunch. As she pulled slender yellow squash from their vines, she took care not to dislodge their roots from their water containers. She put the last vegetables in her bucket and felt the sun beating down on her head through the overhead glass; it was a pleasant, drowsy feeling.

  She was getting to her feet and easing her back when she noticed something odd.

  Squinting, Esther crossed to one of the large tubs across the aisle. Thin wire cages propped up the sprawling green vines with tiny yellow blossoms that grew in profusion, two rows of containers that ran as far as the length of the building. Each vine supported heavy, rounded tomatoes, at varying stages of ripeness. The ones that caught Esther’s attention were pale green, meaning they still had several days to redden.

  One tomato dangling low from its wire support seemed to have a small dark spot near the stem. As Esther reached out and pulled the fruit close in order to examine it, she realized it wasn’t a blemish but a blackened hole. At the same moment, the tomato exploded in her hand with a dull splat. With a cry of disgust, she saw that it had rotted to the core, as foul-smelling pulp dripped between her fingers.

  Wiping her hand on her jeans, Esther examined a second tomato from the same plant, and another. Then she moved to the next container and the one beyond that. Each fruit she examined had the same small hole at the top . . . and each one was ruined. It was only then that she noticed a tiny worm that clung to the tattered leaf of a plant. It had a dark brown head and a soft, fat body that gave no resistance when she killed it.

  With a sinking heart, Esther began to sort through all of the plants, picking off every rotted tomato she could find. There were dozens. Whenever she saw a worm, she pinched it off as well, her stomach clenching in disgust. She wondered how the pests had made their way into their greenhouse in the first place and whether they had already managed to spread.

  Soon, Esther had filled eight oversize plastic bags with rotted fruit and killed dozens of the wriggling grubs. The amount of ruined food was shocking; it was a sizeable part of a day’s yield that would have fed dozens.

  Yet that was not the worst part. Although she was relieved that the larvae had not spread to the other plants, Esther reeled in sudden understanding of how fragile the entire system was. She and the others had taken the bountiful crops for granted and assumed that with hard work, they would always be there. Yet she now realized that a single catastrophe was the only thing that stood between everyone in the District and hunger.

  Esther got to her feet. Glancing down, she noticed that her jeans were covered with green smears where she had wiped her hands, and she shuddered.

  “No! No no no no no!”

  Esther could hear Kai’s wails echoing from the stairwell. Moments later, Joseph emerged, attempting to carry the litt
le boy, who was red-faced and struggling. She knew that her son’s petulance was probably from hunger; it was lunchtime.

  “I think he wants something sweet.” Joseph’s long face was also flushed and he was perspiring. “He doesn’t seem to want his mashed yams.”

  Esther didn’t blame the child. Although she and the others had grown used to the boiled and roasted vegetables and fruits that now made up most of their diet, Kai still loved salted flatbread, hard candies, and, best of all, soda whenever she could find it. She tried not to indulge him too much, but it was hard not to when he refused to eat anything else.

  Putting aside her worries for the moment, Esther took Kai by the hand and went down to her room to see if there was anything there. She found a small glass jar of honey called Golden Blossom, but it was empty. Unscrewing the top, she stuck a finger inside anyway, trying to scrape up even a taste of the sweet stuff. Then she handed the lid to the boy to suck on, but after a moment, he flung it away and burst into fresh tears.

  Scooping him into her arms, Esther ran down the hall and explored the supply room where they kept their emergency stores. Under her supervision, the tall metal shelves had been stocked with provisions that rose nearly to the ceiling: not only boxes and bags of salt, coffee, and dried beans, but also packets of dried food, jars of preserves they had canned themselves, and extra bottles of water and vinegar. But a quick search revealed nothing sweet: no honey, no sugar, no soda.

  For a moment, Esther despaired. Then she had an idea.

  Going back to her room, the girl went over to her meager belongings, piled on a chair in the corner. She sorted through them and found what she was looking for: a large sock tied in a crude knot. She undid it and poured some of its contents into her hand.

  Glass pebbles glittered in the sunlight. They were her share of the payment they each received every morning for the farm’s produce. Until now, she had never thought about them or bothered to count what she had. As far as she knew, none of her friends had, either. But it dawned on her that she might be able to use some of it now to procure some honey or candy for her boy.

  She hesitated. Not knowing how much she would need, Esther ended up stuffing a handful into her jeans pocket before taking Kai back to Joseph. Begging him to watch the child for another few minutes, she took off once more for the stairwell.

  Esther wasn’t prepared for what greeted her when she emerged on the ground floor. She and the others had not been downstairs for several weeks, and during that time, Gideon had transformed the mall.

  The noise alone was astonishing. Dozens of emaciated Outsiders, some wearing new articles of clothing, jewelry, and sunglasses that looked at odds with the filthy and bedraggled robes they still wore as protection against the sun, pushed past her, shouting and arguing. Everywhere was the sound and glinting flash of glass fragments changing hands, as well as the feeling of impatience and frenzied energy.

  Outsiders were already standing in a long, restless line, clutching Gleaned objects they had brought to trade: not only packages of food and bottles of water and soda, but also clothes, tools, furniture, housewares. One carried an immense table lamp, thick with dust; another held a pair of cracked white boots with metal blades on the bottom. They all waited for the two Insurgents who sat at a long table, a glittering pile of glass shards heaped to one side. Each item was examined and assessed, and after much arguing, a few pebbles would be counted out and given as payment.

  Elsewhere in the mall, even more people were using their fragments to trade for items that were on display. Table after table was heaped with merchandise, more than the eye could take in: clothing, sunglasses, wristwatches, jewelry, shoes, vegetables and fruit from the roof garden, and extraordinary stores of packaged food. Old objects mingled with new, and pieces of junk lay next to other things that seemed pristine and untouched.

  As Esther picked her way along, strangers crashed into her, pushing and arguing with one another. Babies cried; shrill laughter rang out. Esther noticed Outsiders were sweeping the floor, dusting the fixtures, and washing the walls of the ground floor, jobs that had once been done by Gideon’s Insurgents.

  Carried along by the mob, Esther soon found herself crushed against a table display. All of the items were heaped in a disorganized pile, watched over by one of Gideon’s people. It was a boy she knew from before whose name was Rahm.

  “What you want?”

  Although his tone was friendly, Esther was so disoriented she had trouble speaking for a moment. “Do you have anything sweet?” she asked at last. “Honey, sugar?”

  Without hesitation, Rahm plunged one hand into his goods, sorting through them with rapid assurance. Then he pulled out an object. It was a flat, round can the size of his palm, with a pretty flowered border. When he shook it, it rattled.

  “Lemon drops,” he said.

  Esther took the object, marveling at it; she had never seen such a charming thing. “Thank you,” she said. She was about to turn away when Rahm rapped his knuckles on the table.

  “You got glass?”

  “Oh.” She dug down into her front pocket, pulling out some of the fragments she had remembered to bring. “How many you want?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Esther frowned. She could only count to ten, but still, she knew that eighteen seemed an unusually large number. She fumbled with the pebbles for a moment, trying to figure it out. “Here,” she said at last, pushing everything she had at him. “Take it all.”

  She turned to go, but was called back again. “Ain’t enough,” he said.

  Esther was astonished. “What do you mean?”

  “Ain’t enough.” Rahm pushed the pieces one by one, counting to himself in a labored way under his breath. “It eighteen. This only fourteen.”

  “You mean you want more?”

  Rahm seemed exasperated, as if he had been asked this kind of question many times before. “Four more.” He held up his fingers to demonstrate.

  But Esther refused to be intimidated. “I thought a tomato was one glass piece.”

  Rahm shrugged. “That ain’t a tomato.”

  “I know. But eighteen is a lot. How come?”

  “It what Gideon told me to charge.”

  “Just for this?” A thought dawned on Esther and she picked up another object at random: a soft green scarf. “Well, how many for this?”

  “That—” Rahm’s eyes flickered; he appeared to be searching his memory. “That thirty-one.”

  Esther indicated a cap with a brim that read ST. LOUIS CARDINALS. “This?”

  “Nineteen.”

  Next, it was a box of salt. “And this?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Eleven . . . for salt? But why?”

  Rahm shrugged. “It make people work hard. That what Gideon say. This way, anyone can get anything.” He hesitated, then added, “That is, if they not lazy.”

  A flare of indignation spread through Esther’s chest as she picked up the small tin one last time. “So I can’t have this.”

  “Not ’less you got four more.”

  Outraged, she slammed the object back on the table. “Where’s Gideon? He should know what you’re doing. You’re asking too much.”

  Rahm shrugged. “He the one told me.”

  Esther felt the heat rise in her face. “I don’t believe you. Where is he? I need to talk to him.”

  Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw another boy step close. To her disbelief, it was an Insurgent guard, his hand on a club at his belt. Rahm had clearly summoned him somehow, in case he was needed.

  Shaken, Esther backed away as several strangers crowded to take her place. Struggling to make her way past the crowd, she didn’t look up until she heard someone calling her. It was Silas, who stood a level above her, his face quizzical.

  “Wait there!” he called over the commotion. Moments later, she could see him working his way through the crowd with ease before joining her. Without needing to ask, Esther knew why he was downstairs and despite h
erself, almost smiled: The boy was a born thief and couldn’t stay away from so much temptation. “What you doing here?”

  Esther shook her head; the entire experience had put her in a dark mood. “I need something for Kai. . . . He won’t eat.”

  “You get anything?”

  “No.” Esther still couldn’t quite believe it. “They wanted eighteen pieces for candy. Something anyone could get outside for free.” A thought came to her. “And that’s where I’m going to find it.”

  She was already moving through the crowd as Silas tried to catch up. “You can’t,” he called after her, but she ignored him. Finally, he caught up with her at the front door and grabbed her elbow. “It’s all picked clean out there. Ain’t nowhere left to look.”

  Esther threw up her hands. “I’ve got no choice. I’ve got to feed Kai.”

  “But you don’t know where to go.”

  Esther thought about it: He was right. Silas was in charge of Harvesting gasoline, gathering fuel from abandoned vehicles and buildings to power the generator; this had been one of their daily chores back in Prin. Silas had bicycled his way through most of Mundreel and, by now, knew his way around better than any of her friends. “Then show me,” she said.

  Silas hesitated, then gave a quick nod.

  Together, the two slipped through the front door, past a crowd of Outsiders who were desperate to get in with their newly Gleaned goods.

  The merciless sun was directly overhead, so both Esther and Silas pulled up their hoods and put on the sunglasses they always carried. Then Silas nodded down the street, and they took off at a quick trot. Esther, who could run almost as fast as Skar, had to slow her pace in order for Silas, only nine, to keep up.

  They ran side by side in silence for several minutes. To her chagrin, she saw that they were passing the house Aras had picked out for them. After they had left it behind and traveled for what Esther estimated to be three or more miles, she could see that her friend had begun glancing around, checking for landmarks. “This way,” he said at last, and they swerved down a narrow street.