The Remnant

by Laura Liddell Nolen

  He looked at me, and I felt as though my soul had slipped away from the room to wander across the shards of Earth, haunting the home that had failed us all.

  But my brother went right on talking.

  “And that’s when I finally understood: nothing was okay. Nothing would ever be okay again.”

  He sucked in a breath, making a little gasp, and I stood as quietly as possible to sit on the bed next to West, who was nearly grown, and pull him into an embrace. West tolerated the hug for a moment before pulling away.

  “And here’s another thing I never saw coming: grief. That’s the name for it, but it’s nothing like I thought it would be. I feel like it should be called something else.” He broke off again, suppressing another sob in spite of the tears on his face.

  “It followed you around,” I whispered.

  He nodded. “I got used to it.”

  “It kept you company, because it reminded you of her,” I said. “It made you think of her, even when you didn’t want to.”

  “Even when I didn’t expect to,” said West.

  “Especially then,” Dad said.

  We looked at him. It was almost as though we’d forgotten he was there.

  “It’s weird. It becomes comforting, after a while,” Dad continued, “when you realize she’s not coming back, that that feeling is all you have.”

  “That’s what you took away from me,” said West. “That’s what I lost when I took the pills. I lost her.” He looked at Dad, a mix of anger and confusion on his face. “I didn’t feel sad anymore, or scared, or anything. I couldn’t feel anything but panic, and even then, it wasn’t real; it was like someone was playing a joke on me.

  “But the joke never ended. I never got better, and everything wasn’t real, but I didn’t care. I just stopped being able to care.”

  Dad was staring at him. “I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t even ask! You just sneaked around, and you—”

  West cut himself off, making a sound like he’d forced himself to stop breathing, and stood. His anger made him tall. The flimsy bedframe gave a rude creak when relieved of his weight, punctuating the silence as he left the room.

  Twenty-nine

  Dad watched him go with a face like a much older man. The only indication that he’d even understood the conversation was the slightest change in his voice, like its strength had dropped a tenth of a power. “Hand me the toolkit, Charlotte. I have something to show you.”

  I knew where it was without him telling me. There was only one place Dad had ever kept a toolkit: under his bed. I slid it over to him wordlessly, and he selected a screwdriver, which he applied to the vent filter on the wall near the door panel.

  “That’s a terrible hiding place,” I said.

  “It’s nothing anyone’ll come looking for,” said Dad, extracting a black box from the ventilation shaft.

  I recognized it as a standard-issue personal box. Everyone who boarded the Ark through the legal channels had received one. You were expected to put your worldly possessions in it, and it’d be waiting for you when you got to your assigned quarters. I hadn’t had one, for obvious reasons, but it reminded me of the little shoebox I’d kept in prison, which had been stolen from me the day the meteor struck: here, fit your life into a confined rectangle.

  This one must have been my mother’s. My grief leaned in close, whispering that she had given her life for my place on this ship. As if I ever thought about anything else.

  “I think she knew,” said Dad. “She knew it’d be hard for us to stay together, when she was gone. She put her wedding ring in here. Part of me wishes she’d kept it, to comfort herself, in the end.” He looked up, suddenly, as though he regretted speaking so openly about her. “But she wanted us to have it.”

  “It’s weird to think that she knew,” I said.

  I took the box from my father’s outstretched hands and lifted the lid again. My mother’s last will and testament was not a document, but a metal box. My inheritance was our shared memories of her, and the box was full of them.

  Photographs. A cheap necklace, which I recognized as one my father had given her for their first Valentine’s Day together, when they were both in high school, was now tangled in her wedding garter. A silky, silver-plated baby hairbrush, which had lain on the dresser in my nursery. Handmade Mother’s Day cards. West’s footprints, smudged onto a certificate she’d received from the hospital on the occasion of his birth. A “book” I’d written when I was six, about Robin Hood getting in a fight with a wolf, who turned out to be Maid Marian in disguise.

  I hadn’t known she’d kept that.

  I sat, frozen, fighting the urge to paw madly through the entire box like a starving man at a banquet table, and my father took it from my limp hands. My throat grew tight when he pulled out a big, familiar square of foam. I’d have recognized it anywhere, even though it was wrapped in plastic. Here was something she’d intended only for herself.

  “Mom’s pillow,” I said softly.

  Part of her must have hoped she wouldn’t have to die. The thought made me ill. Of course she hadn’t wanted to die. The reality of it snaked through my limbs, binding me to the coldness of space. Just because she was resigned—just because she loved us—didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid to die. It was too horrible to think of. There was no escape for anyone, was there?

  “You know how she was about her pillow,” said Dad.

  “Believe me, I know. She wouldn’t sleep with anything else,” I answered, a near-hint of crazed laughter in my voice. “That thing must be twenty years old. Why is there plastic on it?”

  “No reason. Just how I keep it,” said Dad. He looked down at the pillow again. “Oh, Charlotte. That’s not true. I keep the plastic on because when we first got here, it still smelled like her. And I thought if I could make it stay, the scent of her, I would still be able to—” he broke off to stare at the wall. A flash of frustration, or anger, lit his features briefly, then he looked at me. “But it doesn’t anymore. We’re in space. The air is recycled a thousand times a day. And it doesn’t smell like anything, least of all your mother.”

  I watched in absolute shock as the plastic floated to the floor. It was the first wasteful thing I’d seen my father do in my life. He pressed his face into the pillow.

  I was unable to guess what was happening until a great, silent sob wracked his body.

  My father was crying.

  “Dad.”

  His own words were cracked and muffled by the foam. I leaned closer, unable to understand anything after that, until a single word became clear: “Cecilia.”

  I threw my arms around him. He held onto the pillow, but his other arm found me. The embrace shook the coldness from the room, from the ship.

  Thirty

  “Hey, Turners! Mr. Turner!” A loud knock made us jump, and the bed let out another screech as we stood.

  “That’ll be Mars,” I said. “Hang on.”

  Dad got to the door first, and Mars came running in, her red hair lighting up the yellow room, West trailing closely behind. “It’s Amiel,” she said, breathless. “She’s gone. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back—”

  “She’ll never make it out there,” said Dad. “I’ll get the infrared.”

  “She must have gone to find Maxx,” said Mars.

  “Who’s Maxx?” Dad frowned.

  “I have to find her,” I said suddenly, surprising even myself.

  “Charlotte, that’s—”

  “Dangerous. Yes.” I pushed into the hall. “That’s exactly why she needs me.”

  “Us,” West called after me. “She needs us.”

  “Now hang on just a minute,” said Dad. His voice was suddenly so strong, so full of authority, that we stopped and looked at him expectantly. “Who has a gun?” he said.

  “Me,” I said at the same time Mars said, “I do.”

  “Mars, just think about this,” said West, holding out a protective arm toward her. “You shoul
d stay here. I’m sure we’ll be back in no time.”

  “Like heck I will,” she spat, her anger flaring. “I will not sit around hiding while there’s a fight going on. That little girl needs us.”

  I slid my opinion of Marcela Ramirez up another notch. “Might be good to have a doctor.”

  Dad looked from one of us to the other, then spoke to West. “Son, go get a gun from the room. You should be armed.”

  We spared a few tense minutes in the mess room to gather our wits about us, cobbling together makeshift lightning rods with ripped bedsheets, spare wire, and canteen knives.

  “So, the plan,” I prompted. “We need one.”

  “Uh, we have a plan,” said Mars. “You’re getting married. I’m rescuing Amiel.” She nodded toward West and my dad. “And they’re coming with me.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “No, no, no,” she said, exasperated. “Surely you can see how bad an idea that is. Point one, you’ve been struck by lightning. And drugged.”

  I shrugged. “I’m fine.”

  “Point two, and I cannot overstate this, you are vital to the survival of the entire human race, so stop being so selfish. At least until your wedding. Then you’re welcome to go—”

  “This is absurd!” I appealed to my family. “Obviously I’m not just going to sit—”

  “She does have a point,” West said.

  “Three points actually; I’m not done yet,” said Mars. “Someone needs to hang back here. Guard the door for reentry. Keep the path clear. That’s you.”

  “She’s right, Charlotte,” said my dad. “We can’t risk it. You’ll stay here.”

  I scowled at Mars, beaten.

  She smiled back at me. “There are no small jobs, Charlotte. Only small—”

  “Shut up.”

  “Right, then. See you soon,” said Dad. His voice held a touch of concern, which was mirrored in the face of my brother.

  I looked at them both, suddenly worried. “Be careful.”

  “We will,” he said. “We’ll be right back.”

  And then they were gone.

  I paced the room, then sat. Then I stood, opened the door and closed it again before finally yielding to the slowness of time. It did me no good to try to keep calm, so I gave myself permission to fret as usefully as possible. I took my role as door-guard in earnest, allowing myself to check the passageway as often as I liked. When I noticed a storm cloud gathering, I set up an auxiliary lightning rod nearby before ducking back into Nowhere. Time slipped past in spurts, but only when I was occupied, and none too fast even then.

  I thought myself prepared until I heard the lightning crash several aisles away, too far to chase. I ran into the cargo hold, gun drawn, and stuck near the relative umbrella of my lightning rod. Someone was screaming. Amiel, judging by the pitch. My hands curled into fists so tight my wrist began to ache.

  I stopped breathing and started running. I saw Mars first, her bright hair a beacon. A lifeless figure was draped across her arms.

  “Move! Go!” she shouted.

  Behind her was West, moving slowly, gripping hands with Amiel. I couldn’t tell which of them was assisting the other.

  My father flanked West, matching his pace with an intensity I’d rarely ever seen from him. It was as though he could not stand to be more than a foot from his son.

  Time extended into the pathway, giving the impression that they were running through glue.

  Mars made it past me and through the door. I did not recognize the unconscious child in her arms. It had to be Maxx.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no,” I muttered, taking in his small face, but my voice was drowned in a sudden silence. The air became electric, and I tasted poison.

  I felt myself begin to scream.

  The door to Nowhere yawned open before us.

  My father stood in the aisle, waving us in, refusing to enter before us, and my lungs filled with kerosene. The cloud over his head formed into two perfect circles, and despair took root in my heart. Two. Two clouds. One lightning rod.

  Not Dad. Not Dad.

  I shoved Amiel ahead, practically throwing her toward the doorway, and she dashed forward like a terrified gazelle, still tethered to West. They were in.

  My father reached for me, wrapped his arms around me, and threw himself in, taking me with him. I tripped forward, landing painfully on my knees. We were in.

  I looked at my hands, senselessly taking note of the tiniest lines of blood that crossed my palms. We made it.

  Amiel released West and reached back to close the door.

  She was barely inside the frame when a nauseating crack split the air.

  Lightning stretched out its long, lethal fingers and wrapped itself around her little chest.

  “Marcela! We need a doctor!” my dad was shouting. His voice cracked. It sounded like someone else. “Marcela!”

  I traced the line of metal all the way down the grounding wire of my single stupid lightning rod, and looked back at Amiel, who’d fallen barely an inch past the door. She lay face down, with one skinny arm twisted underneath her stomach and the other stretched overhead.

  A surge of anger lit up in my chest. She had made it through the door. I’d pushed her through myself. I slammed the door shut in her stead, unsteady on my feet.

  I shook my head. We had this wrong. Why were her shoulders contorted? Only a little, not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough that you could see individual sinews across her back. She really was too skinny.

  “Amiel,” I said. “Get Mars. Get the psychaline.”

  But Mars was already here, looking at us, an expression of horror on her face, a syringe in her hand.

  “Give it to her!” I screamed. “Give it to her!”

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I gave it to Maxx.”

  Now Amiel was lying on her back, and my father was attempting chest compressions. Mars threw the syringe aside and knelt at Amiel’s head. Maxx lay just behind her on the floor.

  West spoke. “Dad, where’s your medikit?”

  “Doesn’t matter. There’s no more psychaline. I only had two,” Mars said weakly, moving her fingers from Amiel’s neck. “Maxx’s in bad shape anyway. But Amiel…”

  I looked down at her again, as if in a dream. Mars touched my father’s shoulder, and he stopped pressing on Amiel’s chest. He slumped down.

  “Amiel,” I said, dumbstruck. “Hey. Amiel.”

  West put his arms around me, pulling me toward him tightly, but I reached for Amiel, so that I could hold her hand. I realized in pieces that her hand did not hold mine in return.

  I stayed that way for a long time, until my muddled mind crystallized into one thought: This was Adam’s work.

  A hot iron burned through my neck and chest, burnishing the steel of my ribs.

  I stood up, releasing Amiel. West reached for Mars, whose hand was resting on Maxx’s upper arm.

  “Dad, we have to stop Adam.” I thought of Isaiah and suppressed a chill. Surely we weren’t too late. “Gather everyone who will fight. I’ll come back as soon as I can, but march on the Remnant without me, if I’m not here in an hour.”

  “Char. Charlotte. Don’t leave. Don’t marry the Commander’s son.”

  “What?”

  “I’m serious. I have connections on the other Arks. I can get us to an Arkhopper. I’ve already evacuated half my people. We belong together, as a family.”

  “Dad, what are you talking about?”

  “You. Me. West and Marcela. Even Maxx. We can make it out of here. You know it’s not like this on the other Arks. They may have their problems, but they’re not all trying to kill each other. We can start over, have a new life.”

  West and Mars just stared at us, as though we were behind a wall of glass. “I can’t do that,” I said.

  “This isn’t your fight, Char.”

  I made my neck like stone so that I could not look down at Amiel again. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t see anything else.

  �
�It is, Dad. It really is.”

  I jerked away from his outstretched fingers and forced a path through the mess hall and toward Nowhere’s stairwell to the rest of the sector, leaving a trail of shredded aluminum foil in my wake. Let the k-band light up. Let it signal every Ark in the sky. I had no secrets left to keep.

  I had to get to Central Command. I had to get to Eren.

  One way or another, this war would end at dawn.

  I checked the clock on my way out. 23:00 Universal Time.

  Six hours to go.

  Thirty-one

  I hit the stairwell and began to climb. Gravity lessened with every step I took, but I remained barely short of breath.

  It didn’t stop me from screeching frantically into the k-band. If it really was a transmitter, it was my best shot at locating Eren without being killed or captured by his father. “Is this thing on? An, can you hear me? Please, if you can hear me, patch me through to Central Command.”

  There was a pause, and I kept going. The stairs pulled forward under my feet, rubbery in the lessening gravity. “Shan? Anyone?”

  Finally, I could no longer breathe, and I had to stop climbing. “An,” I gasped. “Please.”

  A soft voice answered. “Welcome back, Ambassador Turner. I have Eren Everest on the line. You may proceed.”

  “Eren? You there? It’s me.” There was no response, so I kept talking. “There’s a fight going on in the cargo hold, and we’re being attacked by lightning. People are dying,” my voice broke off, failing me. “I think Isaiah’s been captured, and I’m really scared. I need you, Eren. I’m pretty sure I can’t fix any of this without you. Maybe I thought I could, but I was wrong.” I sniffed. “Marry me, Eren. An’s about to kill us all, anyway.”

  There was silence on the other end for a long time. Too long. I felt myself begin to cry, but silently, like it was my first night in juvy, and I just realized that no one was coming to get me. No one would bring me home.

  But the band crackled to life.

  “Meet me in the commissary, fast as you can.”

  “Eren? You’ll marry me?”