Wasteland w-1

by Susan Kim

  Her sister had pulled off the scarf that covered her face.

  Esther was shocked by Sarah’s appearance. The dim light threw long shadows across her features, making her look gaunt and ancient. Her cheeks were sunken and her normally rosy skin seemed gray. Only her eyes glittered in the dark, too brightly, like obsidian.

  “Sarah? Are… are you all right?” Esther said.

  Sarah’s head dropped forward and she again sagged against the wall. Quickly, her younger sister was by her side, kneeling next to her. Esther reached out to touch Sarah’s arm and recoiled at the heat coming off of it.

  Her sister was burning up with fever.

  “You’re sick,” she said stupidly. She tried to touch Sarah’s forehead, but her sister pulled away.

  “No,” Sarah said. “I’ll be all right. I just need to rest.”

  “Come on,” said Esther. She was on her feet. “Let me get you home.”

  “I can’t walk,” whispered Sarah.

  Esther reached down to pull her sister up by the hands, but she was unable to stand. Esther then grasped her under the arms and tried to hoist her to her feet; but as Sarah’s arms were raised yet again, the sleeves of her robes fell back, revealing the bare skin.

  That was when Esther noticed the lesion.

  It was round and small, no bigger than a child’s thumbnail, purple and pink and glistening halfway between Sarah’s elbow and shoulder.

  Esther recoiled, her hand to her mouth.

  Both of them knew what that lesion represented, and the fever and the weakness, too. Soon Sarah would be found out and driven out of Prin.

  Esther refused to think of it. All she knew was that right now, she had to get her sister home and into bed.

  Without speaking, she reached to lift the older girl. But Sarah pulled away.

  “Don’t,” she whispered. “I don’t want you getting sick, too.”

  Esther hesitated. Then with a start, she thought of something that hadn’t occurred to her before.

  She’d given her water to the dying girl on the highway, had even touched her hands. That was days ago. And yet she was still alive and well.

  That decided it. Ignoring Sarah’s protests, she half guided and half carried her outside, propping her on her bicycle seat. Then with her sister’s arms wrapped weakly around her from behind, Esther gripped the handlebars and pedaled standing up. She had not gone half a mile before she was drenched with sweat—not only from exertion, but from the heat radiating off her sister’s thin body, pressed against her back.

  Once they were home and she had helped Sarah up the stairs and into bed, Esther went into the kitchen. She had never prepared so much as a cup of powdered milk before, and now she glanced in despair at the meaningless utensils and bags of grain and flour stacked on their shelves, the unopened bottles of water. She was relieved to find a plastic container that still had the remains of rice porridge in it, leftovers from the night before. Scraping it onto a clean plate, she carried that and a glass of water into her sister’s room.

  Sarah was sitting up in bed. In the soft glow of her bedside candle, she looked almost normal and for a moment, Esther felt an irrational burst of hope. She sat by her side, placing the glass into her hands.

  “Here,” she said, with false brightness. “You’ll feel better.”

  But Sarah did not drink. Instead, she took the glass and played with it, turning it around and around in her hands as she stared down at the bedcovers. Then she looked at Esther.

  “I let you down,” she said. “I think I let down all of Prin.” There was a tremor in her voice. Then she bit her lip and looked away.

  “Don’t talk,” said Esther. It panicked her to hear her sister talk this way. She held the plate of porridge in her lap and now, she lifted a spoonful of the meal to Sarah’s lips, to keep her from saying anything more. “Just eat something. You need to eat.”

  But Sarah was shaking her head.

  “You were always so willful,” she said. “You never trusted anyone, even when you were little. You hated this town. I thought you needed looking out for, no matter how much you despised me for it. Turns out I was the idiot all along.”

  Her eyes were shining, and Esther was horrified to see that that her older sister—always so proud, controlled, seemingly perfect—was on the verge of tears.

  So many feelings came rushing at Esther, it was impossible to make sense of them.

  “I never despised you,” she stammered. “You’re my sister. You’re the smartest person I know. The smartest person in the whole town.”

  Again, Sarah shook her head. “Book smart, maybe,” she said. “But I was stupid enough not to notice what was going on, right under my eyes.” She gave a low laugh, but there was no warmth in the sound. “And now here you are, in the same place. We’re two idiots, you and I.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her sister said nothing, her lips pressed together as she gazed at the wall. “We’re two idiots,” she repeated under her breath, as if to herself.

  Esther suddenly understood.

  Levi. The way her sister always stuck up for him, even when others in town turned against him. Her dinner alone with him at the Source, and her strange behavior afterward. The fact that she had stayed single, despite the offers.

  Sarah spent her entire life waiting for the boy she had always described as just a friend from childhood, nothing more. And Esther was too young and self-involved to notice.

  Now she felt a wave of sympathy overwhelm her, as well as a crushing sense of sorrow.

  “Caleb’s not like that,” Esther said. “I don’t know what happened between you and Levi. But Caleb is a good person.”

  She hesitated to tell her sister the truth about Levi, then made up her mind. “Levi is trying to do something with the town,” she said. “What it is, I’m not sure. But he told Caleb if he interfered anymore, he’d kill his baby.” As she spoke, she could feel her sister’s eyes on her, wanting her words to be true.

  Sarah took a moment to digest her sister’s words. Then she was reaching beneath her, fumbling under her blanket and quilt, and Esther instantly set down the food, concerned. Sarah pulled something out from beneath the futon mattress.

  “This was what Levi wanted all along,” she said, “so it must be important somehow. It’s yours, now.”

  She handed it over and Esther took it. It was a faded gray book that was speckled with mildew, with pages that were warped and rippled. Esther was ashamed to discover she could not even sound out the words on the cover.

  But now was not the time to ask her sister.

  Sarah’s eyes were fluttering shut, and Esther knew enough to let her sleep. She removed the glass of water from her hand and set it on the bedside table, next to the uneaten porridge.

  She blew out the candle and was about to exit, taking care to leave the door ajar. But she was called back by a sound.

  Her sister had pulled herself up to a sitting position. The effort cost her; when Sarah spoke, Esther was forced to bend her ear close to her lips to make out the words.

  “People say that criminals and outcasts sometimes go to the fenced-in fields off the road leading to town,” Sarah whispered. “You could try there for Caleb. But it’s dangerous. If you go, be careful.”

  Esther squeezed her sister’s shoulder in thanks.

  FOURTEEN

  ALONE IN THE NIGHT, CALEB PACED IN HIS CELL.

  But it was not really a cell. He only felt he was a prisoner. He was in a wooden stall, one of dozens in a broken-down, one-story building several miles from the heart of Prin. The stall had a cement floor still covered with decayed straw. There was an oversize wooden door, the top half of which was made up of iron bars; it swung on heavy hinges onto a dusty passageway. Metal rods also formed a bin that was bolted against a wall, with wisps of ancient hay still clinging to it. A strange contraption made of strips of rotted leather and rusted rings hung from a hook on the wall.

  Caleb gazed at a desolate
view outside through a crack between two planks. The moon was full. By its light, he could just glimpse the large, circular track he crossed to get here three days ago. The dirt surface was rutted, cracked, and barren, baked to a hard pottery by the endless sun. It was one of three such fenced-in tracks, all surrounded by the remains of large structures open to the elements, with risers on different levels. These, too, had been mostly destroyed by weather, looters, and time, with few of the seats still intact.

  If there was anything here that was once of value, it had long since been stolen. There was nothing, not even decent protection from the sun and rain. That was why few came, only a scattering of transients and outcasts, the violent and the mad, seeking shelter near town yet away from those who had Shunned them.

  Caleb did not blame the citizens of Prin for what had happened. He understood the depth of their fear. He also knew what desperate and unrealistic hopes they held out for him from the start, what miracles they thought he could deliver.

  When he recalled Levi, Caleb was filled with churning emotions, a strange mixture of both despair and rage. He had lost a sibling at the exact moment he had found him. Until Caleb was able to get his son back, his only family, really, was Esther.

  At the thought of her, the touch of her lips, her stubbornness, her spirit, Caleb felt his heart contract painfully. If something were to happen to her as well, that would be unbearable.

  When he first arrived at the shelter, Caleb was racked by frustration, desperate to search for her yet unable to do so. Instead, he attempted to question the others who shared the building, lost souls who were fleeing their own pursuers or demons.

  “Have you seen her anywhere?” he asked one boy, describing Esther as best he could.

  The boy was scrawny and squirrely, someone who seemed to harbor unsavory secrets. He lay in a bed of dirty straw, not bothering to get up.

  “For sure I seen her,” he said. His voice was hoarse as if he didn’t talk much and what few teeth he had were black with rot.

  “Is that right?” Caleb said. “Where?”

  The boy sighed. His rancid breath traveled across the stall and Caleb winced. “What are you gonna give me if I tell?”

  Whatever he said, it was certain to be a lie. Caleb felt his face turn to stone. “How about I let you live?” he whispered.

  The boy just shrugged, giggling. “I ain’t seen her, anyhow.” Then he turned away and feigned sleep.

  That night, Caleb tried to search for Esther himself. By the light of a new moon, he made it as far as the outskirts of Prin, checking alleys, abandoned buildings, and other places an outcast might favor. But he saw no one, and the effort cost him; his wound reopened, began to bleed. He barely made it back to his stall, falling onto his makeshift bed before losing consciousness.

  In the dark, he saw scenes that were more like visions than dreams.

  Levi, holding a bow and arrow, walked alone down the streets, his eyes obscured by his mirrored sunglasses. A barren field, with a girl in red trying in vain to hide in the branches of a tree. A sky that grew dark overhead with the threat of poisoned rain.

  Caleb awoke with a start.

  It was still dark. With difficulty, he got to his knees, then his feet. He gazed through the crack yet again and was on guard. In the distance, he saw a flicker of movement.

  Someone was approaching.

  The intruder was covered in a white robe, its face concealed. Caleb flattened himself against the wall, steeling himself for an encounter. If anyone attempted to overpower him in order to steal his meager supplies, Caleb would lose; he didn’t have the strength to fight back. Still, he could bluff and attempt to intimidate whoever it was by staring him down first.

  The person entered the building and left his sight.

  Caleb moved to the door and looked out through its bars. Whoever it was headed down the hall, pulling its hood.

  Esther.

  Caleb stepped out from his cell. She froze for a second. Then the tension in her face and body melted as she ran to him. Their embrace was awkward at first, because of the bulky shoulder bag Esther wore; she shoved it aside so she could go into his arms. The two headed back through his barred door, into the cool darkness.

  There the moonlight streamed in through the cracks in the walls and a jagged hole in the ceiling, casting long shadows. Esther could not remove her despised robes quickly enough. Caleb tugged the door closed behind them. It barely swung shut. Should anyone else pass, it was all the privacy they were going to have.

  He glanced at her and cocked an eyebrow in a silent question. Esther realized that in the moonlight, he could see that her dirty face was streaked with tears.

  “It’s my sister…” she started to say, then fell silent.

  She rubbed her sleeve across her eyes.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “You can tell me.”

  So Esther did. As she spoke, she felt that something long dammed up was breaking loose, sweeping away everything in its path. She talked not only of her sister’s sickness; she talked about Sarah herself, about their long and painful relationship, full of recrimination on one side and resentment on the other. And she talked about the pain of beginning to understand who her sister was at the moment she was about to lose her.

  When she finished speaking, Esther felt spent, drained of all emotion. Yet she also felt at peace, and forgiven somehow. She realized with a start that Caleb, too, had just lost a sibling. She knew that each was all the other had.

  It was as if they were sharing the same thought.

  “I love you,” Caleb said.

  Esther started. It was the first time she had heard the words from another human being. They changed things, these words, just as her first kiss had. There would be no returning to a world before the words were said.

  “I love you, too,” she replied.

  There was a pause. Then Esther looked around, seeking something. She shrugged. She gripped the bottom of her red sweatshirt and tore a long strip of fabric from its hem. Then she looked at Caleb.

  He smiled and nodded once. Even as Esther took the ragged piece of cloth and tied it around her right wrist, he was reaching over to take the other end. He knotted it around his right wrist, as well.

  “I promise to be true to you and always be your friend,” he said.

  “And I promise to comfort and support you in all things,” said Esther.

  It was the partnering ceremony. It went beyond law and ritual, custom and decree. It was perhaps the only thing in their shattered world that was holy.

  Their palms grew moist, the cord around their wrists tight and hot. The moonlight poured down on them. Held in place, otherwise unmoving, they kissed again, this time more deeply.

  Esther found she was trembling. Then Caleb reached down and stripped the cord off both of their wrists, and tossed it aside. Together, the two lowered themselves to the ancient straw that littered the floor. Soon his shirt landed on top of the cord, and so did the rest of their clothes.

  The two explored each other, gently at first, with hands and lips and tongues. Esther found the arrow wound high on Caleb’s shoulder and kissed it.

  But their urgency grew, the straw sticking to them. When Caleb entered her, Esther felt pain, shocking and sharp, and she cried out; but it dissolved into a swirl of other, greater sensations and emotions. Soon, they were moving together, awkwardly, then expertly, bright with sweat.

  At last, the two lay still, naked and curled, their bodies gleaming white in the darkness, nearly indistinguishable from each other.

  Esther found Caleb’s hand in the dark and he intertwined his fingers with hers.

  “This is forever,” she said.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Forever.”

  At dawn, Caleb awoke.

  Esther was huddled against him, breathing through her open mouth. He disentangled himself from her and stood. The day was already getting hot; he reached down and draped his shirt over her small, sleeping form.

  He was drinking
from one of the plastic jugs of water she had brought when he noticed a book lying in her messenger bag. Esther had mentioned it last night, when she spoke of her sister. He picked it up and squinted to read the title.

  Across the room, Esther stirred. Caleb realized he had been reading out loud, sounding out the syllables one by one. She sat up when she saw what he was doing.

  “That’s Sarah’s book,” said Esther, her voice fuzzy with sleep. “The one she found for Levi.”

  Hearing his brother’s name, Caleb recalled the stacks of paper on Levi’s desk and his easy ability with written words; he felt a pang at his own ignorance. Yet as he sat next to Esther and leafed with her through the book, he was puzzled to see that it featured more than mere text. The pages were filled with rows of numbers, dense and tiny like black ants, next to strange, abstract images: squiggling lines and shaded areas.

  “Why’d he want this?” he asked, bewildered.

  Esther shrugged. She had pulled on Caleb’s shirt and now knelt behind him, draping her arms around his bare shoulders, touching and exploring his hairless chest, the chest of her partner. He kissed and teasingly bit her hand, which she yanked away, pretending he hurt her. Then he returned to the book.

  “Why would Levi want this?” he repeated.

  She leaned over his shoulder to look. “Well, it must have something to do with Prin,” she said. “Right?”

  “I guess.” Caleb flipped to other pages now. Up until now he had only seen crudely drawn diagrams, like the ones on Levi’s wall. “You think these are maps?”

  Esther shrugged. “If they are… they might be of Prin.” She pointed. “Look, that could be the old lake. And those could be the mountains.”

  “So he wants to find something here?”

  Caleb recalled Levi’s words when they first met, the thing he hinted at as they stood watching the townspeople toiling beneath them at the Excavation.

  They’re digging for something. Something important. Even precious.

  Esther was furrowing her brow. “I always wondered about the jobs,” she said. “Not the Harvesting. That makes sense, I guess, on account he needs gas for the Source. But that doesn’t explain the other jobs. They say the Gleaning is to find stuff that’s worth trading. But everyone knows that all the buildings and houses around here were emptied years ago. So maybe that’s not what it’s really for. Maybe it’s so that people end up looking for something else. But what?”