by Ilsa J. Bick
“Would you have gone back if nothing had happened?”
“I’ll never know, will I? I’d like to think that I would have. But then I found”—he swallowed back the lump—“found my people anyway. Found Alex and Ellie. For a little while, I got back what I’d lost. So, to hell with the rest, Chris. How this happened, who did it … all I care about, all that matters, is that Alex and Ellie helped me find myself again.”
Chris was silent a long moment. “It was the whistle, Tom,” he said, quietly.
“What?” For just a second, he’d been back in the Waucamaw: striding in with an armload of wood as Alex looked up with a smile that found its way into his chest. “What are you talking about?”
“Alex,” Chris said, shaking out the dregs before carefully twisting the cup back onto the thermos. “She ran because of the whistle.”
He remembered the high, impossible note that pierced his heart. “How do you know?”
Screwing on that cup seemed to take all Chris’s concentration. “Ellie told me. She gave the whistle to a boy we brought back from Oren. I think her idea was that if Alex and you were in Rule, Alex would put it together that Ellie was somewhere up there, and you guys would go get her. So if Alex had a whistle at the mine, she must’ve found hers on that boy. Too much of a coincidence otherwise, isn’t it? Alex left to go after Ellie. I got here too late, and the rest was just”—Chris tightened the cap—“lousy timing. Or good timing for Jess, I guess. If I’d gotten back sooner, I might’ve saved Alex. Knowing Jess, though, probably not. One way or the other, Jess was bound and determined that Alex should go, and then me, too.”
He didn’t know how he was supposed to feel. “Why are you telling me this?”
Chris’s violent red eyes met his. “It’s the end of the world, Tom. Rule is done. I don’t know if we have a tomorrow. So there’s one thing you need to get clear in your head. You found your people, and you never lost them. Alex left because she wasn’t sure she could count on me to help her. Knowing how I was back then, she’d have been right. But I don’t think she would’ve felt the same way about you, Tom,” Chris said. “Not then—or ever.”
Dawn was an hour away, more or less, as Chris walked the now empty hospice halls. All the terminal patients with whom he’d spent time were long dead. Illuminated only by moonlight, the halls were sultry with shadows. He slowed as he approached the only occupied room left. Through the open door came a light floral perfume, but the rest was silence. Hesitating a moment, he quietly rounded the corner and saw first the woman on the bed and then, belatedly, a figure huddled in a large bedside chair.
“Oh. I’m sorry,” he said, already beginning to back out. “I didn’t know—”
“No, no.” Between the soft upholstery and a blanket, his grandfather looked gnomish. His bald scalp gleamed in a splash of silver-green moonlight that cut his face into deep black wedges and taut skin over stark ridges of bone. “You’re not disturbing me. Leaving soon?”
“Yes. Sarah and Jayden are still settling the kids, but … soon,” Chris said.
“What about you?”
“I’m staying a while longer with Tom. We’ll leave together.” Although Chris had a very bad premonition he couldn’t put into words or quite shake: leaving wouldn’t be quite so simple.
“Well, come in,” Yeager said, beckoning. “You don’t need my permission.”
Chris crossed to stand over the bed. The silence was eerie. Jess lay on her back, hands curled over her stomach because the small muscles had atrophied with disuse. Someone had brushed her hair, which spilled over the pillow and her shoulders. Kincaid, probably. In the moonlight, the whites showed through her lashes in thumbnail slivers. Chris kept expecting her to say something, or those lids to snap open, and to see himself captured in those black-mirror eyes. The prolonged bout of REM sleep that had seized Jess for weeks had ended abruptly only a half hour ago, Kincaid said. Chris had felt only a mild shock when the doctor showed him the book from which he’d gleaned the drug’s formula: Ghost-Walkers: The Ethnobotanical Encyclopedia of Medicinal and Psychoactive Mushrooms. In another half hour—and probably less, because Kincaid hadn’t stinted on the dose this time—Jess would be past dreams.
“Would you like to sit?” Yeager indicated a chair with a bony hand that jutted from an arm as thin as a chopstick. His clothing puddled. “We haven’t talked.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to point out that he’d been in cardiac arrest part of the time and busy the rest, but he let that fizzle. The last time he’d seen this old man, his grandfather had smacked him around. Taking a seat also made him uneasy, as if he’d be conceding something, maybe getting himself under this old man’s thumb. “What for? I don’t have anything to say. I don’t forgive you, if that’s what you want. You and the Council let terrible things happen. I don’t even care about whose idea it was first, because if it was Peter’s, you should’ve said no. If it was yours, then you took advantage of Peter and that’s even worse. You had every chance to stop this, but you didn’t. You didn’t even save Kincaid, a friend. You let Aidan take his eye, for God’s sake. What could you say that will make any of that better, or even justify it?”
“Nothing,” Yeager said, his tone void of emotion but not indifferent or cold. “But I thought you might have questions.”
“Like I said—”
“Then I have one. How is my brother?”
“Last time I saw him, he was pretty sick from smoke inhalation.” Which was totally my fault.
“I’m sorry for that. We haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I admire him for setting up a place for children who wanted a different life from their parents. He always did want to help.”
“He helped me when I was hurt. It’s a long story.” Coming back from the dead wasn’t a subject he wanted to broach with this old man.
“How much did he tell you?”
“Pretty much everything. Some stuff, I figured out on my own.”
“Ah. Do you have questions?”
Oh, about a million. Although he’d resolved that it didn’t matter, that it was water under the bridge, he couldn’t help being curious. “Yes. How did you decide? Between me and Simon, I mean.”
“Mmm.” Yeager knit his skeletal hands together. If he’d had a sickle, he could’ve passed as the Grim Reaper. “To be honest, I chose the infant on the right.”
“What do you mean?”
“I could only take one. Your mother was holding you both at the time, and she cradled you on the left.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” The mention of his mother stung. He heard the sharpness, his simmering anger, and decided, Screw it. “What difference did the side make?”
“Oh …” Yeager drew a slow hand over his bald scalp, the gesture of a man who’d once had hair to smooth. “Because Christ sits on God’s right hand, I suppose. If you want something scriptural. But it’s mystical, really. Goes back to the Jews. For them, the body’s two sides mirror the divided nature of our soul. There is the power to give and hold back. The right hand is stronger; you give with your right, whether it’s justice or kindness. With your left, you hold back. The left hand is discipline and restraint. The left hand keeps its secrets.”
And lives in the shadows. His grandfather had just described him and his life to a T. “So you went for strength.”
“I chose the sword.” Yeager paused. “But in my arrogance I forgot that it takes just as much strength to refrain, be slow to anger and rash action. It’s easy to trick yourself into thinking that in the righteousness of your anger, cruelty is justified. But you are strong, Chris, much stronger than I’ve given you credit for.”
“I’m not strong,” Chris said. Yet of all the things he remembered about Rule, a place where he thought he might finally find a home, the mornings after a fight were the most vivid: kneeling next to Peter in church, as everyone—including Alex, especially Alex—looked on, and feeling his grandfather’s hands on his head in blessing. It was hokey a
nd stupid and incredibly sexist, and yet he had felt pride: This is what it’s like not to be afraid. This is what it feels like to belong. He was like Tom, wasn’t he? Looking for my people … Except Alex was gone, and if his dreams held true, Peter was worse than dead. A strange lump forced its way into his throat. He should go. No way he’d break down now. He didn’t forgive Yeager, he couldn’t. Chris could let go of the hammer for Peter but never for this old man. “Sometimes I wait too long and then it’s too late.”
“But you never broke, Chris. You’re following your path and still finding your way. Take it from an old man: sometimes, you get a second chance.”
Not with Alex. What he said next surprised him. “What do I do about Simon? If he’s alive … we’re enemies. Did he even know about me?”
Yeager shook his head. “What you do depends on what you find.”
“He eats people.” He’s my brother; we’re identical twins. He’s me and I’m him.
“If that is all he is, then you have your answer, don’t you?”
“How can he be more than that?”
“I love him, Chris.” Too dark to see his grandfather’s expression, Chris heard the catch in his voice. “That makes him more.”
That Yeager could not say the same about him hurt more than Chris would’ve imagined. Well, what did he expect? He’d shown up in town a virtual stranger, only a copy, a faded Xerox.
“Try not to be bitter for too long,” Yeager said. “Life is hard enough.”
“Whose fault is that? I was a kid. I saw you, what, five times before the world blew up? It was Peter who really cared, who went out of his way—” He swallowed back the rest. “How else am I supposed to feel?”
“You’re entitled to your anger.”
“I don’t need your permission.”
“But you’re not stupid, Chris. Of all people, you should know what anger does to the soul. You have only to remember your father.”
Chris stared. “You’re going to lecture me about anger and my dad? You knew what he was like. It’s why you agreed to take Simon in the first place. You were rich. You could have fixed things, done something to get me out of there. But you left me alone with him. So don’t give me any bullshit about what anger does. I don’t forgive you. That’s what you’re really asking for, so you can die and believe everything’s all right. What you did and let happen—to me, to Peter, Alex—those are your mistakes, your sins to bear. Know what? Take it up with God, if you see him.”
“It is the time of the Lord’s vengeance, and he will pay her what she deserves. Jeremiah was referring to Babylon, not Rule, but I take your point. You asked about Simon. There really is only one choice you’ll need to make: life or death.”
Someone will die. Chris looked back at Jess. Someone must.
“I need to go,” he said. “Kids are moving out soon.”
“All right.” Yeager peered up at him. “Why did you come? You’ve made it abundantly clear it wasn’t to see me.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Jess, I guess.” Now it was his turn to pause. “Why did you think it was okay? She was married. So were you. You’re a reverend.”
“Oh …” His grandfather brushed an errant strand of hair from Jess’s forehead. “The heart wants what it wants, and only I was married. I was selfish, and she was vulnerable: beautiful, a widow.… At least, we thought so. Her husband had been declared legally dead.”
“A mistake, or did he really disappear?”
“Perhaps a bit of both? Even before Vietnam, he was involved in some very … questionable projects.” Yeager’s hand lingered on Jess’s cheek. “When did you figure it out?”
Technically, he’d known ever since Peter mentioned the name in a dream. But that wasn’t something you could say, even to a guy who believed in the two halves of the soul.
“When Tom showed us the picture. Isaac said he was a business partner and then I remembered that it’s the only mine shaft that was never finished,” Chris said. “That’s when I knew that Jess had been Finn’s wife.”
“Nooo.” Clutching her Savage in one tight fist, Ellie stamped a foot, then pushed Mina’s snout away when the dog turned a worried look. “Please don’t make me. I want to stay with you. Why can’t I?”
“Ellie, honey.” While very bright, the moon kept ducking in and out of scudding high clouds, and he was having a hard time seeing her face. Crouching, Tom ducked his head, trying to catch her eyes. Go easy; she’s grown up a lot, but she’s still only eight. “Look at me. You have to listen. It won’t be safe here.”
“But I don’t want to go with them.” She waved an arm in the general direction of the wagons parked in the hospice’s lot. From here, the wagons would head north on an old logging road that could be easily blocked once they were gone. The air was filled with the clatter of hooves on icy asphalt, the anxious whimpers and yips of the remaining dogs, and the piping exclamations and questions from the children. Most were under twelve and being hustled to one of two waiting wagons. To Tom’s left, a bald kid with more piercings than a pincushion was boosting an egg-headed boy onto a flatbed where Sarah, a slender girl with a touch of a limp, waited.
“You know Jayden,” he said.
“That’s not what I mean. I should stay. I can help,” Ellie said. “So can Mina.” At the sound of her name, the dog’s tail whisked. “We shouldn’t split up, Tom. We only just …”
“I know, honey.” He leaned forward a little to make himself heard over the axes biting trees and handsaws buzzing through trunks. Once the children were away, the trees would be felled to prevent Finn’s men from using the road. A large force would have to bushwhack miles out of its way to follow. If Finn was up to chasing anyone. Tom was betting against it. “But I have to stay. If you’re still here, I’ll worry about you, and then I won’t be able to do my job.”
“But why does it have to be you? Why can’t somebody else stay?”
“Chris is staying.” He wasn’t wild about that, but Chris wouldn’t back down: Your plan, my town, and you’ll need help. Best not to fight it, though. The first chance he got, he’d send Chris packing. “I’m the only one who can do this, Ellie. This is the way I can keep you safe.” At the growing thunder in her expression, he cupped her face in his hands. “You and Alex were the best things to ever happen to me. I thought I’d lost you, and then there you were, like this miracle. I was so happy I thought I was going to burst. I would do anything for you. I know this is hard, but please do this for me.”
“Tom.” Ellie blinked furiously. “I don’t have anything to give you to keep you safe. Chris has my good-luck charm. I don’t have anything else.”
“Oh honey.” He kissed first her right palm and then her left before pressing her small hands to his chest. “You’re right here. That’s all I need.”
“But what about Alex?”
He worked around the tightness in his throat. “She’s there, too. She’ll always be.”
“But I want her for real, Tom. Promise we’ll look for her, together?” She raised her streaming face. “Please. Cross your heart and hope to die?”
For the second time in less than five minutes, he lied. “Cross my heart and—” He saw Chris, downslope, running their way. The boy’s body language was enough.
This is it. “You have to go, honey.” Scooping Ellie into his arms, he jogged to Sarah’s wagon and boosted her in. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Tom!” Ellie grabbed Mina, who’d hopped in after, by the neck. “Tom, wait!”
“I’ll be there,” he repeated, then ran to the lead wagon, crowded with kids and dogs. Jayden was slinging a backpack to Kincaid, who was settling a teary girl and admonishing a silky golden retriever that kept trying to wash the girl’s face. “You guys got to roll,” Tom said.
“I hear that.” Kincaid leaned down and grasped Tom’s hand. “Luck. Stay safe, son.”
“Right back atcha.” Tom offered a hand to Jayden. “Be careful. Watch out for Ellie.”
> “Watch her yourself.” Jayden surprised him by pulling Tom into an embrace. “I never thanked you,” the boy said, roughly. “For, you know …”
“It’s okay.” Tom gave the boy a squeeze. “Good luck.”
“Don’t be long?” Jayden clung to Tom’s forearms. “Stick with Chris. He’s got a radio. I’ll keep mine on so you two know where to find us. Don’t get any dumb, stupid ideas, Tom.”
Had Jayden read something in his face? “Don’t worry. Now go.” Turning, he saw Chris, at Ellie’s wagon, reaching up to give the girl a hug. Chris’s big black shepherd leapt nimbly alongside Mina and a sleek Weimaraner Chris said had belonged to Alex. Seeing them all together like that, knowing Ellie would be cared for and loved, made Tom feel … a little easier.
Beyond, a large dray hitched to a third supply wagon was snorting, picking up on the sudden urgency and eager to be off. Three other boys—Aidan, Sam, and Greg—were already on their horses. Aidan and Sam, who smelled like bad news, moved to take point, while Greg waited to bring up the rear.
