Stranger

by Sherwood Smith

  Jennie tried to picture Ross and Indra walking out of the infirmary, healthy and strong. She couldn’t do it. She tried to bring back good memories, but all she could see was Ross falling, lying so still in the mud with blood around his mouth, and all she could feel was her failed struggle to lift Indra, his impossibly heavy weight, and the deathly chill of his hands.

  She stamped her foot, hoping the jolt would drive away the memories, and walked faster when she saw the students milling around the schoolyard.

  Yuki leaned against a fence, Kogatana on his shoulder. The bruising from Mia’s crossbow was still visible around his collarbone and upper arm, but it had faded from black to purple.

  He seemed pleased to see her. “Hi, Jennie. Mom sent me to invite you to dinner tonight. It’s Shabbat, so the food will be extra-good.”

  The adults had decided that Yuki was done with school. Like Paco, he wasn’t getting a formal graduation. The excuse was that there was too much rebuilding going on, but Jennie knew that Paco had refused to have a ceremony. Yuki had too. She wondered if it was to draw attention away from Paco’s choice.

  “Thanks,” Jennie said. “Tell her I’ll be there.”

  “I asked Paco, too, but he said no.” Yuki paused, and Jennie wondered if he too was remembering how the Rangers had carried Paco to Luc’s, over his halfhearted objections, and they’d all sung “Hijo de la Luna.” “I’m worried about him.”

  “I am too. It must be terrible to lose—” She was afraid she’d start crying if she even said Sera’s name aloud. Belatedly, Jennie remembered that Yuki had lost both his parents, years ago, and felt even worse.

  “It is.” Yuki reached up to stroke Kogatana, who was nuzzling him. “You’d think I’d know what to say to him. But I don’t.”

  The image of Voske’s face seared Jennie’s mind, nose and chin and cheekbones sharp in the flickering firelight. She forced it away, and it faded, leaving her heart hammering as if she’d been running.

  “Do you feel like the battle changed you?” she asked impulsively.

  Yuki hesitated, then down came his chin in his characteristic clipped nod. “You know Paco and I were defending the front gate. He could barely stand. We were both out of arrows. I was sure I was going to die, and I’d never get the chance to leave Las Anclas. But I wasn’t afraid or angry. Then I remembered being on the raft with Miyazawa-san and Fumi-san and Yoshida-sensei. I’d always thought they sacrificed themselves for me because I was their prince. And I’d wondered if they would have regretted that if they’d known I’d never be a prince again.”

  Jennie recalled the solemn, haughty boy whose first, broken words in English had been to demand that he be addressed as “Prince Yuki.” How glamorous she and the other girls had thought him, and how disappointed they’d been when he’d finally told everyone that he was no longer a prince. But she’d never known the names of the people whose bodies had been found with him.

  He went on, “Here’s what I realized after the battle. Maybe they didn’t give me their water because I was their prince.”

  Jennie glanced out at the schoolyard. Rico was tearing after Will Preston, yelling, “You didn’t tag me! You’re still it!”

  Guilt choked her. She forced the words out. “You were a kid. They would have protected you no matter who you were.”

  Yuki shook his head. “That wasn’t what I meant. At the end of the battle, when I was nearly out of ammo, I was willing to die for the sake of the people I loved. So maybe they were too.”

  Jennie had never before heard Yuki talk so openly. The battle really had changed him. But not as it had changed her. He hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Jennie had to say something, before he could ask her if she, too, had been changed. “Do you still want to leave Las Anclas?”

  He studied the ground. “Yes.” Then he pushed away and walked off. She suspected that he regretted having shared that much.

  In the schoolyard, students stood in a knot, arguing.

  Rico exclaimed, “Ross’s power is so cool!”

  “It is not cool,” Felicité retorted.

  Brisa put her hands on her hips. “Ross saved the whole town. Where I was standing, we were losing. Then those chimes started ringing, and Voske called the retreat. That’s because of Ross.”

  “Where I was standing, we were doing fine.” Henry thumped his chest. “I was with Mr. Preston. We could have taken out Voske’s best team. I was all ready to kill Voske myself when Mia got in the way with that flamethrower. Though that blast was pretty great.”

  Felicité’s hands were gripped together, the nails white. “It was awful. You didn’t see it, Brisa.”

  “What was it like?” Carlos asked.

  Jennie wondered if Felicité was haunted by her own memories. They hadn’t spoken once since Felicité had said, “It’s your fault.” Now her words were as brittle as falling ice. “I was right there beside Daddy when a man staggered up the ridge, screaming, and fell down at my feet with crystal growing through him.”

  A girl’s voice rose in a shout. “You don’t know what I had to do in the field hospital! Don’t tell me all the horrible stuff you saw outside!”

  Jennie turned, almost not recognizing Becky Callahan’s face, scarlet with rage. Jennie hadn’t even known she was capable of yelling.

  Felicité’s voice, too, rose angrily. “That’s what your hero’s precious Change power did. Ross is a monster!”

  So that’s what her real voice sounds like, thought Jennie. But what does she have to be angry about? Everyone close to her is fine.

  Sujata shoved past Henry and confronted Felicité, face-to-face, almost nose to nose. “How dare you call Changed people monsters! Monsters like my father died to protect this town.”

  Felicité stood there, her hands rigid by her sides, and Jennie stepped between them. “Take your seats. Now.”

  Sujata’s hand was already raised to slap Felicité. Jennie caught her eye and shook her head. Slowly Sujata lowered her hand.

  Felicité flinched as if the slap had landed. “Jennie. I should not have said that.” And when Jennie didn’t speak, there was the sugar again. “Ross did save the town.”

  But Jennie was waiting for the apology for that monster crack.

  Felicité’s throat worked, then she turned, shoulders straight, ribbons fluttering on her hat, and stalked into the schoolhouse, followed by Henry and the others. Brisa put her arm around Becky’s shoulders.

  Sujata murmured, “I don’t know what’s got into Felicité. Maybe Daddy has been raving about monsters, but she better not say anything like that again, mayor’s daughter or no.”

  “I don’t think she will,” Jennie said, though she wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  “Nobody is like themselves. Oh, yes—Indra asked after you. Dr. Lee says you can go see him this afternoon.”

  “Thanks, Sujata.” Jennie stepped into the schoolroom, studying all the faces. Some angry, others curious, some off in their own worlds. A few of the smaller kids surreptitiously kicked one another under the desks. Henry grinned as he took the seat by Felicité, who sat with her head bowed, so all Jennie could see was an enormous feathered hat and a beautifully worked lace scarf.

  She drew in a deep breath, her eyes stinging when she took in the empty desks. Some belonged to people who’d been hurt. But two were empty because the fifteen-year-olds who’d once sat there were dead. Estela and Ken had ignored orders and run into the thick of the battle, meaning to help. Another empty desk was covered with curlicues and flowers, scratched on by sharp black claws. Laura Hernandez had followed her orders, and held the line till the end.

  “I have an announcement,” Jennie began, and she didn’t have to ask for quiet. “There will be no school until further notice. No!” The cheering that had begun stopped abruptly. “It doesn’t mean you’re free. Some will help with the harvest, others wil
l be sentries, and you older ones will be on patrol until the wounded heal. Everyone will be training, because sooner or later, Voske will be back.”

  She wanted to end on a less grim note, but couldn’t. “The memorial is at sundown. You’re dismissed.”

  When everyone was gone, Jennie glanced up at the rafters, where she had hidden Ross’s book. She wondered how important that book really was.

  There was one person who’d know: the bounty hunter. If he was still around, the sheriff would know where.

  Jennie walked to the sheriff’s office, then stopped on the threshold when she discovered the bounty hunter leaning against the wall, eating a saucer of apple crumble. He seemed even taller and more formidable in the light of day.

  A headline popped into her mind, making her smile for what felt like the first time in months: “Mysterious Bounty Hunter Eats Breakfast with Heroic Sheriff!”

  “Morning,” he said.

  Sheriff Crow beckoned her in. She wore her hair in two braids, the way she had before her Change, leaving her entire face bare. “This is Jennie Riley.”

  “So,” Jennie said. “You’re”—On our side? Spying? Still here?—“staying in town?”

  He put down his fork. “Tom Preston invited me to join the Rangers.”

  Jennie tried not to show the flinch that she felt right down to her bones. But Sera’s empty shoes had to be filled. She straightened, and looked him in the eye. “Can I ask you why Voske attacked us? Was he after Ross’s book?”

  “I think the book was more of a bonus,” Sheriff Crow replied. “He’s after the town. He’s tried before, you know.”

  The bounty hunter gave a nod.

  “But how did he know to attack on the night of the dance?” Jennie asked. “Or was that an accident?”

  The man shook his head. “There are no accidents with Voske.” He flicked a glance at the walls, and Jennie scanned the room uneasily.

  “Jennie, that’s not for the newspaper, or the schoolyard,” said Sheriff Crow. Jennie nodded. Her throat hurt. Then the sheriff faced the bounty hunter. “I was meaning to talk to you about names.

  “My name isn’t really Elizabeth Crow. Crow isn’t a last name at all. It’s the name of my tribe. Way, way back when—sometime after the world changed—my people saw everything being forgotten. The one thing they were set on remembering was that we are Crow. So we used it as our name, because that is the one thing you can never forget.”

  Jennie was surprised that the sheriff would tell this story—a story she had never heard—to a man who had so recently been an enemy.

  Sheriff Crow went on. “Funny thing is, a couple years ago, a trader visited Las Anclas. He told me that way out east there’s a whole town of us. They don’t call themselves Crow. They have a word in their own language. My own language—a language I don’t know. But they are my people. I thought about changing my name, and taking one of theirs. But then I thought, This is what my people are here. In Las Anclas, I’m Elizabeth Crow. So what I’m asking you is, what do you want to be called in Las Anclas?”

  The bounty hunter hesitated, then said, “Furio Vilas.” He paused again, before adding, “It’s my real name.”

  Jennie wanted to ask more, but the way the two were looking at each other made her feel like a third wheel. She backed out and went home.

  She spent the day writing articles. There was something comforting about pinning down all those memories with ink on flat paper, just the facts.

  Midafternoon, she put on her best church skirt and blouse and went to the infirmary. She walked past the sleeping figures and curtained-off beds in the men’s ward until she found Indra gazing at the ceiling. He smiled when she sat down beside his bed.

  “I’m sorry about your father.”

  His smile went out like a snuffed candle. “The doctor said he couldn’t have felt anything when the wall blew up under him. I guess that’s something to hold on to.”

  Sera had died quickly too, but Jennie couldn’t take that as comfort.

  “Jennie?” Indra interrupted her thoughts. “I wanted to thank you for saving my life.”

  “I didn’t.” Grief seized Jennie by the heart, strong as pain. Stronger.

  “You did,” Indra insisted, half-sitting in his effort to infuse his breathy voice with force. “Dr. Lee said you got me here just in time.”

  She didn’t want to argue, but she couldn’t help saying, “I couldn’t lift you.”

  “I know. It didn’t matter. You got me out anyway.”

  “You remember?”

  “I remember it all,” Indra murmured, sinking back again.

  “I do too.”

  “There were so many of them.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’ll be back, you know.” When Jennie nodded, he added, “I’m so glad you’re one of us. We need you.”

  Jennie barely stopped herself from saying, I got Sera killed. She knew she hadn’t, or at least hadn’t been any more responsible for Sera’s death than any of the other Rangers, but it felt true.

  “We need you.” She patted his hand. His hot skin felt less real under her fingers than her memory of how cold he’d been. Unnerved, she put her hands in her lap. “I hope you get better soon.”

  “Jennie—”

  “Did you know the bounty hunter is joining the Rangers?”

  Indra’s eyes widened. “Nobody told me that.”

  “Yuki told me yesterday that his staff work is an art form.” Jennie kept talking, keeping the flow of words unbroken. Nothing about old hurts, no old questions to open up feelings like wounds.

  He fell asleep while she was talking. She’d seen that sleeping face sharing her pillow so many times, but he seemed so vulnerable this time. She leaned down, then pulled away before she could kiss him on the mouth. She couldn’t do that anymore. Instead, she brushed her lips across his forehead and tiptoed out.

  Mia was in the front hall, in a pair of her father’s baggy black pants and a baggier white shirt. They began walking toward the town hall.

  “I didn’t see Ross in the men’s ward,” Jennie said.

  “His bed’s curtained off,” Mia replied. “Last time he landed in the infirmary because of his power, he got better after he got some rest. Dad’s hoping that’ll work again, so he doesn’t want anyone disturbing Ross.”

  So you’ve known about his power for a while. Jennie didn’t resent that. What hurt was that neither of them had told her.

  As if she had spoken aloud, Mia said, “I only found out by accident. I would have told you, but it wasn’t my secret. He would have told you eventually. He trusted you enough to give you his book! But he didn’t even know what was happening to him at first.”

  “Okay.” It did make Jennie feel better.

  “Dad says he thinks Ross will make a complete recovery.” Mia sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

  Maybe Mia, too, felt as strange as Jennie, but hadn’t mentioned it for fear that she was the only one. “Hey, Mia, is there anything from the battle that you can’t stop thinking about?”

  “Most of it was horrible. I had nightmares for three nights straight. The worst part was when I thought Ross was dead, and there was nothing I could do to fix it.” Mia’s somber expression transformed into a joyful smile. “But then he started breathing again, and I realized that I had fixed it. It was the best thing I did in my life. Every time I think about it, it makes me happy.”

  “You should be happy,” Jennie agreed. She tried to call back the relief she herself had felt, but it slid out of her mind, as if she were trying to clench a fistful of water.

  At the town hall, they squeezed onto a bench near the front row. The mayor, the council, and the town’s religious leaders were on the dais. Even Rabbi Litvak had come down from his home on the mountain. His forehead was already creased with stress: the intensity
of people’s emotions must be pressing in.

  When all of Las Anclas was there—the benches were filled, and many others stood along the walls—the memorial began. Jennie had been dreading this for days. As the rabbi led the prayers for the dead, she gripped her hands in her lap. She could hear the harsh breathing of people fighting emotion; a few benches away, someone gave a muffled sob. When the rabbi had finished, the Catholic members of town began the Rosary. Jennie tried to listen to the words, but instead she found herself picturing Sera falling. Ross falling.

  When the prayers from the various religions were over, Mayor Wolfe began to read the names of the dead.

  She paused after each as someone came up to offer words of eulogy. Ravi Vardam. Estela Lopez. Alice Callahan, Henry and Becky’s grandmother. Ken Wells. Laura Hernandez. There were more sobs, which made it harder to hold back her own. Jennie shut her eyes and clenched her teeth. If she slipped even a little, she would never stop crying.

  “Serafina Diaz,” the mayor said, startling Jennie. She hadn’t even known that Sera was short for anything.

  Mr. Preston rose from the council bench. “Everyone here knows where Sera and I came from, though we never talked about it. The past was the past, we figured. We wanted to be judged on what we did here, as citizens of Las Anclas.”

  His gaze swept the room. “But I think Sera wouldn’t mind if I told you what she said when we first saw this town. She was just seventeen years old. She took one look at the walls, and she said, ‘There’s no heads on pikes. How do they keep order?’”

  There were a few mild chuckles. Henry Callahan let out a whoop, fiercely shushed by his mother.

  “We saw how Las Anclas kept order—by rule of law, not rule of force. Sera decided that she wanted her child to grow up in a place where everyone was equal under the same law. And so she worked hard to help keep that law.”

  All eyes turned toward Paco, sitting between Jennie’s ma and pa. Jennie was close enough to touch him, but his head was lowered so she couldn’t see his face, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. She quickly looked away.