Concealed in the Shadows

by Gabrielle Arrowsmith

  I can’t reenter the room wherein lies Cy’s scalded, lifeless body.

  I’ve only ever been in the presence of a corpse once before—my mother’s—but I was quickly taken away after I discovered her.

  I never saw my father’s body after we believed him to be deceased. We were told his TabFile indicated that he wanted his body donated to science. My grandma explained to me that even after he had died, my dad was so kind to give his body to doctors so that they could study it to better understand how to prevent such tragedies from happening.

  When the elderly die, they are allowed one witness to be with them in their exiting room. My grandma reserved this sacred spot for my mother. I wonder what wisdom she tried so desperately to pass to her possessed daughter in those fleeting moments. Like everyone else, the elderly have two choices when their date arrives—they can donate their body to science or they can be cremated. Funerals don’t involve caskets containing the body of the deceased like the tradition Sheridan evidently still holds.

  It’s torturous to be able to see their immaculate body after they’ve suffered some terrible death. You feel compelled to offer everything you possess, perhaps an exchange of your life, for God to awaken your dear one from their peaceful slumber. You wait for a warm smile to spread from their flatly tied lips as they blink their eyes open, but it doesn’t happen. It never could. They’re deceptively dead.

  It’s the same with Cy. I can’t accept that his soul is gone. In spirit, he’s probably sitting upright on one of the table-like desks swinging his feet and biting that nail while he sifts through all of the possible ways to cheer us up. I can imagine it, imagine him, but if I walk into that room, I won’t see his peaceful spirit. I’ll see a sheet hiding the terror his body endured. I’ll see the pain and sorrow of a promising life cut short. I’d rather turn my back on reality and imagine something else, anything else.

  I wander emptily outside of the college into the brisk night air. I decide the van is a good place to be alone. I can curl up on the open floor and drift away.

  I need two hands to pull open the heavy sliding door. Inside, the moonlight reflects off the pale, unfinished wood of the caskets. This won’t do. Cy is dead here too.

  I walk aimlessly down the street for a while. Galvesten and Della are replacing the worst parts of Alix’s arm with graphs of her own skin. My father is probably searching for the fortitude to wrap two of his seeksmen, not much more than children themselves, into whatever covering he can find stored in the college. I don’t know him well yet, but somehow I know he’ll find the strength to lift their fallen bodies out to the pinewood caskets in the van.

  For no particular reason, I decide to meander into a house in Lame Deer. I plod onto the porch of the one I choose and turn the doorknob. The door opens, and I step inside. Knowing that no one will find me here comforts me. They won’t know where I have gone. I suppose that Crewe has taken refuge in a similar way.

  I don’t want to think about Crewe. It is ten times harder to think about the pain that Crewe is experiencing in the loss of his only remaining family.

  I’m suddenly driven to rummage for something, some symbol among the belongings remaining in this desolate home, to which I can attach a memory of Cy Davids. I want to always know that Cy is accounted for in the ghost town where he fought to make it alive for his brother, for my father, for me.

  I immediately notice the ornate decorations on the wall, including family photographs. I study a photograph, noting the joy and unity of the family who used to live here. With the 2015 population bill, the United States government broke the promise that never again would Native Americans be forced to leave their homes and their lands. It’s clear that this family resisted the decree and held onto hope as long as they could. I wonder what their home is like now and if they are well.

  I change my mind about searching for a token. There is nothing here that will be right for Cy. No symbol or gesture can preserve him for me. A quiet tear rolls down my cheek, and I don’t wipe it away. I know more will come now that I’m all alone. I sit in the middle of the dark hallway, bury my head into my knees, and sob for my loss. Quickly, my heart shifts into aching for Crewe.

  He’s out there somewhere. Right now, he’s begging for a miracle from the depths of his soul. He’s cursing and destroying his surroundings because he simply can’t accept that he will never see his brother again. He’ll never tease him and make him laugh again. This man with an unmatchable brightness, who has been by Crewe’s side his whole life, has been stolen from the world far too soon. I know that for Crewe, the weight of his brother’s death falls heavily on his shoulders. He feels as though he failed him, and won’t listen to anyone who tries to comfort him with the contrary.

  Crewe is like the boy from my dream who feigned courage while he took the hand of his little brother and led him toward tragedy. Only in my dream no one survived, so no one was left wishing they could switch places with the deceased.

  Right now, Crewe wishes he were dead instead of Cy. I know this because he and I are the same. If I lose my sister, I could not persevere any longer in this life. How many fragments can a heart be broken into before it turns to a dust that can never be mended?

  My heart breaks for the loss of my friend and the suffering of his shattered brother, but mostly it writhes in guilt because it was my sister that Cy was trying to save. I fear for Evvie’s life now more than ever, but am completely powerless to save it. I am reduced to a sea of tears because what else can I do but mourn?

  It must be nearly an hour that I weep alone for all that I have lost and the future that I will have to endure. I thought my life was rough before. I had to escape from it often into my haven. Now, I know nothing of my sister and people are dying around me in order to find and save her. Not just people, friends, her only hope.

  I weep for the person I was not long ago. I was a stony, determined, capable woman that had risen from my life’s trials. Now they’ve broken me and left me lost and empty.

  The strangest thought creeps into my head. I wish Merideth were here. Cy is gone and no longer fighting my battles out of genuine valiance and feelings for me that I couldn’t have reciprocated. Now that he has departed, I need someone who has a reason to fight like I do. I need someone who loves Evvie directly and will go to the ends of the earth to return her to safety. I need someone to be here with me now to convince me not to give up because I’m nearing that end. I don’t know if I can take the hands of the giving, faithful soldiers—only to lead them to their deaths.

  My attention is drawn outside to a chorus of people yelling my name frantically. I needed to be alone, but I was stupid not to have stayed close or to have told someone where I was headed. I can sense their anger, fear, and sorrow as they call my name, believing they’ve just been dealt further loss. They think I’ve been abducted like Evvie was. I wish it was true. Then I could be with her.

  Shame trails me out the front door where I call to the three that are searching for me. They’ve been looking long enough to fear that I might be gone and that it was important for them to stay together.

  The captain is livid, relieved, and sorrowful all at the same time. I absorb a heated lecture from him. I get in a faint, remorseful word every now and again, but I can never make my selfishness right. When he’s finished yelling, my father searches my bloodshot eyes for permission to hold me. He hugs me tightly. I wait for him to tell me that it’s going to be okay, but he doesn’t. He wouldn’t lie to me—he doesn’t know whether it will be.

  “This isn’t over, Sydney. We’re going to go back in the morning and regroup, but we’re not giving up on her, and we’re not allowing them Cy and Decklin’s lives without vengeance.”

  I don’t argue this. Crewe is missing on his own accord and Della is of no use behind a weapon. That leaves only the captain, Galvesten, and I, a feeble force for putting forth a fight at the barrier. Trying to attack now would be suicide.

  “Dad!” I blurt when I realize
the decision Crewe beat me to hours ago. I was wrong when I pictured him on a Lame Deer mountainside, swearing and lashing out at whatever his broken heart felt like destroying. He hasn’t been mourning for the last few hours—he’s been burning with rage. “Crewe is headed for the county. I know it!”

  “What?” Galvesten asks.

  “He would have taken a bike,” my father reasons. He knows Crewe well, and agrees that he may have had an impulse to avenge his brother’s death, no matter what the consequence to himself, us, or Sheridan, but he doesn’t believe he went through with it. “Crewe knew you guys were coming with the van and that we’d have a way back,” my father argues. “If he had it in his head to attack, he would have rode.”

  “No,” I argue. “That’s what he wants us to think. He didn’t take a bike so we’d assume he’s stayed close and just needs to be alone. That’s not what he’s up to. We have to find him and stop him!”

  “She could be right, Captain,” Galvesten frets.

  “I know,” my father decides. He regrets that he hadn’t thought of this possibility earlier.

  “He could have made it fifteen miles by now,” Galvesten points out.

  “But we know which direction,” I say, “and we have the bikes and the van so we can spread out and cover more ground.”

  “Stop,” the captain orders when the rest of us start moving. “He’s either already there or…” My father doesn’t finish the sentence but we all know the thought—or he was detected and has already joined his brother in death.

  “How could he be there already?” Galvesten focuses on the former, not wanting the latter to be true.

  “Crewe’s smart. He wouldn’t give them a day’s worth of walking to pick him up. Abandoned vehicles surround us. If he were going to go, he’d have hotwired himself one long ago. He knows how to find the supplies he’d need; he’s been doing it for years.”

  “So what do we do, Captain?” Della asks sheepishly. I am wondering this myself. I speculated that Crewe’s solo undertaking could be a possibility when I realized it would be suicide for anyone to go back in tonight. In that moment, I understood that could be exactly what Crewe might look for in wake of his brother’s death. That and any havoc he could inflict on anyone he suspects was involved in the fire that happened within the barrier earlier.

  “We spend time now looking for him around here, just to be sure. We want to make it back home before dawn, so we give him until about 4:30 to turn up. If we haven’t found him, we leave him behind.”

  “Dad,” I plead, but I don’t know what else to add to that. I can’t argue Crewe’s case at all because my father is absolutely right. We need to head back while it’s dark, and sooner rather than later. For a moment, I consider asking if I can go after him alone. The bikes can’t be that hard to learn to drive, and the route has to be simple—there isn’t a lot of infrastructure in these parts. But then I decide that I can’t try to save Crewe’s life if it will mean one less person would survive to regroup and battle for Evvie’s return. I choose her.

  “He made his choice, Sydney. I love Crewe like a son, but I can’t allow any more bloodshed in vain. Let’s go look for him and hope Sydney’s wrong. Della, you stay and monitor Alix.”

  “Just me?” Della asks with concern.

  “Sydney, I’m going to have you stay here too, but Della, you’re going to have to handle yourself. Can you handle posting her with a loaded weapon?” he asks me. I nod. Cy was a good teacher. I can arm Della. “Okay. You take one too and stay close to the college. If he’s near and just having a hard time, he may come to you. He may also be stubborn, so look around some.”

  “Galv, let’s check in with Della about every hour,” my father continues. “Della, if it’s been an hour and a half at any point and you haven’t seen us, yell for Sydney.” Della nods. “Don’t come looking for us,” my father tells me. “Call Merick, get in the van, and drive.” He tosses me the cell phone. “Why don’t you call Merick and brief him after you get Della set.”

  “Okay,” I nod. “Dad,” I say as he turns away. “I… I love you.” My father takes hold of my shoulder, leans down, and kisses me on the forehead.

  “I love you too,” he says. He and Galvesten jog back toward the bikes at the entrance to the college. They’re already gone by the time Della and I reach the store of weaponry in the foul-smelling van. As I imagined, while I grieved their loss in solitude, my father found the strength to come to terms with the death of his men and alone bore the burden to put them to eternal rest.